Just getting back in

Zaruk

Aspiring Trainer
Member
I'm just getting back into the game again after a rather long time of being out. When I left, the Delcatty/Infernape/Blaziken(Fire starter) deck was pretty popular, and was actually a deck I ran personally. Are there any decks that are built similarly out right now? Or any decks that folks would suggest for someone just getting back into the game?

I'll be primarily playing via Red Shark due to lack of funds(fiances' horses take all my money -_- ), so don't worry about the whole rarity and collecting thing.
 

dmaster

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Reshiram with Typhlosion Prime or Emboar (Inferno Fandango) are the most popular Fire Decks being played at the moment. Reshiplosion, as it's coined, is quite easy to get cards for since Resiram and Typhlosion come in Tins and the deck is definitely one of the more simpler, or auto-pilot decks I've seen in quite a long time. It's worth it to look around the Deck Garage Forum for ideas on builds and trying it out yourself to see if you like it.

dmaster out.
 

Celebi23

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Yeah, Typhlosion Prime HGSS/ Ninetales HGSS (or COL) / Reshiram BW is almost exactly like the deck you mentioned. You use Ninetales (Delcatty) to discard energy then Typhlosion (Blazeiken) gets them back, puts them on Reshiram (Infernape LV.X) and that attacks. The power creep is obvious - Infernape was a Stage 2 LV.X and Reshiram is a basic with more HP... It's not the most competitive deck out there by any means and I don't expect it to make a very strong showing at BRs compared to other decks but it's like the one you mentioned. It probably won't take more than 10-15 BRs.

It's really too bad how much they recycle ideas.
 

Dork Void

#OCCUPYALLTHINGS
Member
It certainly is one of the most competitive deck out there. It won Worlds in Seniors for one, that's pretty impressive. Its an excellent deck that isn't hindered a whole lot by Catcher (although some people are running Sage's Training and Professor Juniper over Ninetales to prevent that from being pulled up).
 

Celebi23

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^Keep in mind the deck's success was mostly because Yanmega was so popular. Yanmega's weaker now, Magneboar and googlebox will see play, so the deck will not be as successful. It is a good deck. It's not the best deck at all. It was over half the seeds going into top cut for Masters and it didn't even make top 2. If it sees as much play as it did at worlds, it will get a few more wins than I predicted, but if it falls back down to the level of play it saw at Nationals (which I'm assuming it will) it won't take a lot of BRs.
 

dmaster

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It did make Top 4...

Two slots to be exact. -_- Top 2 does not diminish the fact that it was the most played deck at Worlds and for very good reason.

It's a very good deck and I suggest it for beginners like I said in my first post.

dmaster out.
 

Celebi23

Aspiring Trainer
Advanced Member
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Great deck for beginners - no question.

Also I meant top 2; that's what happens when you only get 8 hours of sleep over 3 days :/ I'll edit that.
 

scizorlicious

Now with one fewer 's'
Member
Celebi23 said:
It's not the most competitive deck out there by any means and I don't expect it to make a very strong showing at BRs compared to other decks but it's like the one you mentioned. It probably won't take more than 10-15 BRs.

It's an extremely competitive deck. I'm sorry if 2 top 4 finishes at Worlds isn't good enough for you, but I feel like that makes it a competitive deck. Oh, and the losses those two decks had in T4? Yeah, those were both bad matchups for TyRam. Just saying.

Celebi23 said:
Keep in mind the deck's success was mostly because Yanmega was so popular.

Yanmega really wasn't that popular at Worlds... and TyRam still did absolutely fine.

Celebi23 said:
It was over half the seeds going into top cut for Masters and it didn't even make top 2.

And it was over half the seeds going into top cut because it's a great deck. People knew that, so they played it. This point really isn't helping the case that TyRam isn't one of the best decks out there.

Oh, and remember MegaZone? And KYJ? I guess those aren't "the most competitive decks out there" either - they didn't even make T4.
 

Dork Void

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Member
Both top 2 decks in masters were basically rogues since nobody played Magneboar and nobody knew about googlebox. Since Magneboar is obliterated by Cacther its extremely unviable, maybe the only reason googlebox did so well was because, as google said, no one made their decks to combat his. A 1-1 Zoroark gives Reshiphlosion the advantage on googlebox and tada now Reshiphlosion can beat the "top 2" decks easily. Anyway, I'd say 2 out of the top 4 in masters as well as winning seniors proves the deck is one of if not the best out there.
 

Blue_Horizon

Aspiring Trainer
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Dark Void said:
Both top 2 decks in masters were basically rogues since nobody played Magneboar and nobody knew about googlebox. Since Magneboar is obliterated by Cacther its extremely unviable, maybe the only reason googlebox did so well was because, as google said, no one made their decks to combat his. A 1-1 Zoroark gives Reshiphlosion the advantage on googlebox and tada now Reshiphlosion can beat the "top 2" decks easily. Anyway, I'd say 2 out of the top 4 in masters as well as winning seniors proves the deck is one of if not the best out there.

I don't see a 1-1 Zoroark helping even slightly for reshiphlosion against googlebox. What's it going to do? 120 bolt strike to zekrom? 70 to Donphan, while it one-shots it back? Even against SEL, the best it can do is snipe a benced reuniclus, and obviously the other player will be wary in bringing up SEL if they see a benched zorua.
Also, a 2-2 line is needed for you to consistantly draw it, and that's quite a lot of space in a deck, which quite frankly, needs to invest those slots in other cards which are essential to its strategy, such as draw supporters or ninetales.
 

Celebi23

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Scizorliscious said:
It's an extremely competitive deck. I'm sorry if 2 top 4 finishes at Worlds isn't good enough for you, but I feel like that makes it a competitive deck. Oh, and the losses those two decks had in T4? Yeah, those were both bad matchups for TyRam. Just saying.
Well I think like 60% of the decks at worlds were TyRam and then like 25-30% were Yanmega. So when you're looking at 90% of the field being mirror and favorable, of course it's going to get far. Good placement in tournaments is NOT what makes a deck good and it never has been.

Yanmega really wasn't that popular at Worlds... and TyRam still did absolutely fine.
Were you at worlds? Between open gaming, side events, etc I'm pretty sure I clocked over 50 games in those few days. Only 3 of those 50 weren't Yanmega or Reshiram.

[/quote]
And it was over half the seeds going into top cut because it's a great deck. People knew that, so they played it. This point really isn't helping the case that TyRam isn't one of the best decks out there.
No it was over half the seeds going into top cut because it was over half the decks in worlds. If only 10 people played the deck, it wouldn't have had those numbers.

Oh, and remember MegaZone? And KYJ? I guess those aren't "the most competitive decks out there" either - they didn't even make T4.
No, they aren't.
 

Dork Void

#OCCUPYALLTHINGS
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Celebi, you are basically saying the only competitve decks in the enitre metagame are googlebox and Magneboar. And since Magneboar is obliterated by catcher, you are pretty much saying googlebox is the only competitve deck in the metagame. That's pretty biased. As to what Zoroark does against googlebox, it copies SEL's torrent blade to KO opposing Reuniclus, oppening up the opportunity for the Reshiphlosion player to take a bunch of prizes since googlebox can't move damage for a couple of turns. And if you don't bring in SEL, how is googlebox going to take prizes? For Zekrom to KO a reshiram it needs around 100 damage on it, counting 1 turn of afterburner damage on Reshiram. I'm pretty sure Reshiphlosion can hit 30 damage, netting the revenge KO. Also, Donphan 2HKOs Reshiram, 3HKOs without afterburner damage. Using only a 1-1 Blissey prime line and no Max Potion, googlebox will be hard pressed to be removing 240-320 damage every time it tries to take a prize. If you think Reshiphlosion doesn't have room for Zoroark you are mistaken-reshiphlosion is known as the most consistent deck in the metagame because it has a ton of room for draw trainers and supporters. I'm sure a 1-1 or 2-2 Zoroark and maybe a DCE or two won't hurt the deck very much in exchange for giving it a huge advantage against googlebox.
 

Celebi23

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1) I never said that googlebox and Magneboar are the only 2 good decks in the metagame. I might think that, but I've never said it. I said that I don't care about the results of worlds as much as I care about my own personal testing results. I don't care what decks made top 2, top 4 or top 8.

2) Magneboar is not harmed by Catcher as much as you might think. It's a very hard deck to play, so matchups can seem deceivingly bad if you're not playing it right or your list is bad. For example, are you dropping RDL before the turn you attack with it? Are you running 4 Twins in your list? How bulky is the Emboar line you're using? How about the Magnezone line? How many Switch are you running?

3) As long as you aren't KOing my Donphan, the damage you do isn't relevant - I have way too many ways to remove damage - just leaving it on the bench, Blissey, Seeker, Bellossom tech, KOing a benched Zekrom. Also, it won't take me too long to get 3 energy on Donphan at which point the damage is basically guaranteed to not overwhelm me. The entire deck is based around dealing with a lot of damage on the field.

4) It's hard to get out Zoroark without Pokemon Communication. Furthermore, who's to say I won't just Torrent Blade your Zorua? I can play around the assumption you run a Zoroark tech, you know.

5) Reshiphlosion doesn't have a lot of space in its decklist at all. I'm hard-pressed to find room for 5 draw supporters. It also isn't the most consistent deck in the meta.
 

Zaruk

Aspiring Trainer
Member
Much as I enjoy the debate, I think things might be getting a tad heated. Any chance that folks could list some more good 'beginner' decks?
 

Celebi23

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Typhlosion/Reshiram or Emboar/Reshiram literally is the only deck good for a beginner that also has a chance of winning a tournament. That just shows you how amazing this format is :)
 

scizorlicious

Now with one fewer 's'
Member
Celebi23 said:
It was over half the seeds going into top cut for Masters and it didn't even make top 2.
Celebi23 said:
I don't care what decks made top 2
...
Celebi23 said:
No it was over half the seeds going into top cut because it was over half the decks in worlds. If only 10 people played the deck, it wouldn't have had those numbers.
And people played it at Worlds because they knew it was a good deck. You can't use the logic "People played it, so that's why it did well." People played it BECAUSE it's a good deck. If that many people had played Ducklett Swarm, it wouldn't have gone anywhere near Top Cut. And you'd be wondering why people at Worlds played Ducklett swarm. Because it's obviously not a good deck.
 

Celebi23

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Of course people play a good deck. Do they always play the best deck? NO. The reason TyRam was so popular is because the projected most popular deck was Yanmega. So what did people do? Did they play the best deck? No. They played the deck with the best Yanmega matchup. Then the top 2 decks were the ones that either predicted TyRam being so popular or just got lucky; did they play the best deck either? Not necessarily. They played the deck with the best TyRam matchup.

You have to look at HOW the decks got to top cut, which people played what, etc. You can't just blindly look at data and make assumptions about it, then go and play in a tournament just based on blind results of any past tournament, let alone for one with a now outdated base of sets that were legal. Furthermore, though, you shouldn't even be basing what decks you think are good of anything other than testing results. If everybody played the decks that perform best at worlds, every single deck would be TyRam going into the first week of Battle Roads and therefore, TyRam would have to win and the meta would never change or shift.

Remember Nationals? The most popular two decks were Yanmega/Magnezone and Yanmega/Kingdra. Guess what the two decks with the most top cut seeds were there. That's right - they were Yanmega/Magnezone and Yanmega/Kingdra. Then nobody played Yanmega/Kingdra for worlds. That's why it didn't get any top cut seeds. Does that make it a bad deck? No. If the most popular deck at Nats was Reshiram/Typhlosion, it would have gotten the most top cut seeds. How can you justify Reshiram/Typhlosion not getting those numbers at Nationals? There wasn't any format change; there was hardly a meta shift. The single one and only reason was that it wasn't played as much.

Not every format can be LuxChomp where the best deck does win the most top cut seeds in every tournament. People who started playing during the SP formats can have that misconception. This format is a triangle. The fast decks beat the slower decks. The slower decks beat the lock decks. The lock decks beat the fast decks. Whatever deck gets the most play will get the most top cuts. Whoever plays a deck with a good matchup against that deck gets the win. You've really got to make good meta calls if you want to win.

------

As for the first two quotes you have up there, you took them completely out of context and even so your point is null. Completely out of context, the first quote says nothing about what decks made top 2 so the second quote doesn't cancel it and more, it hardly relates to it. In context, the first quote was responding to an argument about TyRam's worlds results in which I used those same results to point out that it didn't actually make it all the way despite having the most numbers going into the tournament. The second quote was about me justifying I didn't believe TyRam to be the BDIF not because of worlds results but because I care more about my personal testing results than tournament results. It has no relation to the first quote. In or out of context, the two quotes don't even do anything to help your argument.
 

scizorlicious

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Okay, first of all, the first quote is you making one of your points that TyRam isn't a great deck because it didn't make the top two. And then you said you didn't care what decks made top two.

And what you just said contradicts yourself as well:

Celebi23 said:
...it didn't actually make it all the way despite having the most numbers going into the tournament.
Celebi23 said:
I care more about my personal testing results than tournament results.
So let me get this straight. You're using tournament results, which you don't think matter in relation to personal testing, as a basis of your argument? You can't say "TyRam did badly in Worlds for the number of players it got" and then say "Worlds didn't matter" when someone else brings up Worlds. That's ridiculous.

Lots of stuff has good matchups against Yanmega. ZPS does. Magne____ does. Heck, DD has a great one against MegaZone. Why weren't those played? Because TyRam was seen as a better deck, so people played it.

Oh, I do remember Nationals. I remember the few TyRam I heard about doing just fine - it wasn't that popular, but one went 9-0 in Swiss and lost due to a misplay in Top Cut. TyRam was still a presence there despite the relatively low numbers playing it (since this was Nats, some people don't necessarily play a deck they feel could win it all, like at Worlds, and some of the better players drop to secure the invite).

I totally agree with your second-to-last paragraph there. It's a triangle. I just feel like the deck that can emerge as one of the best would have to be the one that has the best matchups against both other points of the triangle, and TyRam seems to be right there.
 

Celebi23

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No see, I said that TyRam didn't make top 2 in the first series of quotes. Then in the second quote, I said that I don't care what decks made top 2. Nowhere in that second quote did I say I don't care what decks make top 4, top 8, top 16, etc. If it wasn't taken so out-of-context the argument would actually work to an extent because I did say that in the original post :p

And you've managed to take another quote completely out-of-context. The second one is fine, but the first one was in direct response to you saying TyRam had the best worlds finishes of any deck. If you say that, then I can't just ignore it and say well my testing says otherwise, because that's not even arguing your point. Speaking of arguing points, you only argued one of my points in your last post and the rest was simply trying to make my post look invalid by breaking it up so much it was out of context.

The basis of YOUR entire argument was results of tournaments. So if I start arguing the results of my testing, I'm probably not going to get anywhere and won't even be arguing your points. So if you're arguing based on tournament results, I have to also.

The reason Zekrom wasn't played is because it has a horrible Donphan matchup and you never want to go into a tournament with an auto-loss; much less one of the most challenging tournaments of the year. Magnezone was played. A lot. DD is way too simple and straightforward of a deck - the best players in the world want room to outplay, not just blindly spam Earthquake and Outrage and pray to hit some Reversals.

TyRam didn't make it past top 8 in Nationals, that's not anywhere near Yanmega numbers. Furthermore, you only heard about the ones that did good. It was certainly a presence. However, the deck was also on total backburner going into the tournament - people were testing against DonChamp, Magneboar and Yanmega. When you're not prepared for a deck, you do worse against it. That's one of the reasons google's deck and Magneboar got so far in worlds, despite so few people playing those decks. This is proven by the list that went 9-0. It wasn't a good list, yet the surprise factor combined with the Defenders and a good player piloting it got it to that point. Once again, the deck's finishes in the tournament were directly related to the number of people playing that deck. It got enough play to get it a few top cut seeds. It was by no means the most played deck though, so it didn't get the most top cut seeds.

Scizorliscious said:
TyRam was seen as a better deck

Scizorliscious said:
That's ridiculous.

See, that's a perfect example of taking stuff completely out of context. You never tried to say what's implied by these little fractions of your post.
 

scizorlicious

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Member
Celebi23 said:
No see, I said that TyRam didn't make top 2 in the first series of quotes. Then in the second quote, I said that I don't care what decks made top 2.

Right. You're contradicting yourself. Why does it matter when you said each? You still said both in the same argument.

Celebi23 said:
If it wasn't taken so out-of-context the argument would actually work to an extent because I did say that in the original post

Why does it matter what the context is? In the first quote, you're using the fact that TyRam didn't make top two as a reason it's not a great deck. In the second quote, you're saying you don't care about top two. That is the context right there, and you're still contradicting yourself.

Celebi23 said:
And you've managed to take another quote completely out-of-context. The second one is fine, but the first one was in direct response to you saying TyRam had the best worlds finishes of any deck. If you say that, then I can't just ignore it and say well my testing says otherwise, because that's not even arguing your point.
1) It was in-context. You said that as its own self-standing statement. The context doesn't matter because the quote still means the same thing.
2) If you don't care about Worlds, why didn't you just say that to begin with? What you're saying is you don't care about Worlds results, right? So then "...it didn't actually make it all the way despite having the most numbers going into the tournament" shouldn't even be a valid point to YOU, should it? Why are you using results that YOU don't care about to back up your argument?

Celebi23 said:
The basis of YOUR entire argument was results of tournaments. So if I start arguing the results of my testing, I'm probably not going to get anywhere and won't even be arguing your points. So if you're arguing based on tournament results, I have to also.

No. No you don't. What you have to do is say you don't believe the tournament results matter if that's what you believe. What you responded with made you contradict yourself.

Celebi23 said:
The reason Zekrom wasn't played is because it has a horrible Donphan matchup and you never want to go into a tournament with an auto-loss; much less one of the most challenging tournaments of the year. Magnezone was played. A lot. DD is way too simple and straightforward of a deck - the best players in the world want room to outplay, not just blindly spam Earthquake and Outrage and pray to hit some Reversals.
...exactly my point. TyRam is a better deck.

Celebi23 said:
See, that's a perfect example of taking stuff completely out of context. You never tried to say what's implied by these little fractions of your post.

What's your point? In your quotes, you're blatantly contradicting yourself. I'm taking valid points out of your posts. But in those quotes you posted, you're not analyzing my argument at all. Sure, I said those things, but there's no perspective and no reason to post them. Find one place where I've contradicted myself. See, that's the difference.
 
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