Discussion Latios EX Donk

DarkMatterGaming

DarkMatterGaming

Aspiring Trainer
Member
So I've been thinking: with some decks requiring to start with low HP Pokemon (Donphan, Metal on a bad hand, Night March), would it be viable to create a deck around Latios EX to force that first turn donk?

My rough idea right now is this:
  • Latios EX
  • Fight Song Altaria (Swablu, evolve with Wally)
  • LaserBank
  • Muscle Band
Base 40 + 20 from Muscle Band + 20 from Fight Song + 30 from LaserBank = 110 HP on the first turn, which takes a good chunk out of a lot of Pokemon, EX or not.

What helps my thinking is the fact that Latios EX's Attack only costs 1 [P], and you can primarily use an Item draw engine to help accelerate to what you need.

That being said, there are probably huge issues that I don't see with this and I'm curious to know what they are.

EDIT: Okay, it's occurred to me that "donk" is the wrong term. My apologies.
 
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I find three main issues. How on earth are you going to get a Latios-EX start, Wally to Altaria, Laser, Band and Virbank all in the same turn?? And then achieve that consistently? This is more viable with Shaymin [and the upcoming Hoopa-EX], of course, but even then, that's pushing it. Secondly, what are you going to do with the majority of the metagame that often wants to start with a 180HP Pokemon? Thirdly, what is your gameplan against decks such as Lando/Bats, which would likely start with a non-EX but follow up with a difficult-to-take-down EX?
 
I'll be honest, the testing that I've done has definitely justified your points.

1. Mainly Bicycle, Acro Bike and Roller Skates. While I would love to somehow get them on the first turn through testing on TCGOne I realized this is... damn near impossible. I can get bits and pieces - Latios, a Swablu, LaserBank - but it take at least a turn to really get it going.

2. Honestly? Hope and pray. In all seriousness, I'm looking into a secondary attacker or thinking of putting in Double Dragon energy so Latios can attack more consistently.

3. Stack damage as fast as possible. If I can press an early advantage, I feel like this deck performs well but not... great yet.

I'm not willing on giving up on this yet; I will find a way to make this work! ...Eventually!
 
Be very, very careful with how you make your way through your deck. LTC is now banned, meaning you can't just cancer through your deck.

But other than that, good luck! I'm sure you can do something well :)
 
I'll give this another go tomorrow! Going to look try to cut out the flab and try to hone in on one core aspect. Altaria, MB and Virbank is asking for a lot, so I'll have to decide to cut one part out... In all likelihood, that's probably the Altarias.
 
This deck is dead. It needs LTC. I ran simply 4 Latios and 3 Shaymin and I was able to get a T1 90 fairly consistently. The best part is that you don't always need 90 damage since most evolvable basics have < 60 HP which means all you need is either Laserbank or Muscle Band to donk, not both.

Forcing your one supporter a turn to be Wally wouldn't be terrible if you could just Shaymin until you got the cards you need. I mean, I guess you can still do that, but you'll be putting yourself on a clock if you can't get the T1 donk.
 
I'll have to give that a try then. Cutting the Altarias is probably the most logical idea in this since they only exist to buff Latios, meaning that I can put in more consistency cards and put in the Lysandres that I totally forgot to put in in the first place. Oops.
 
Have you considered playing Target Whistle? Let's just say you're playing against LandoBats, hypothetically. You knock out their Zubat turn 1 and then they send up this big Landorus. Next turn you could just target whistle and Lysandre for another knock out.
 
GhostMaster365 said:
Have you considered playing Target Whistle? Let's just say you're playing against LandoBats, hypothetically. You knock out their Zubat turn 1 and then they send up this big Landorus. Next turn you could just target whistle and Lysandre for another knock out.
Click to expand...
And then you will face a Landorus that will maul through your team next turn. Threats are nearly always the KO priority, otherwise you have to consistently Lysandre and/or Target Whistle 6 Zubat to KO without Landorus taking 6 prizes first, which is very difficult.
 
GhostMaster365 said:
Have you considered playing Target Whistle? Let's just say you're playing against LandoBats, hypothetically. You knock out their Zubat turn 1 and then they send up this big Landorus. Next turn you could just target whistle and Lysandre for another knock out.
Click to expand...

This is also a very specific hypothetical. Target Whistle + KO for a single prize is very rarely the right play in a situation. Ive found Target Whistle to be really underwhelming in testing as its usefulness is so conditional.

If you draw it late game and
your opponent has a Shaymin in the discard and
they dont have one on the bench and
you have a lysan. and
you can kill the shaymin and
you wouldnt have been able to KO anything else that turn

then yes it would have been useful in that situation :p

never happens
 
If Pokemon-EX weren't a thing, I think Target Whistle would be more viable. It's certainly an interesting card; I tried it in my Mega Gallade deck with very limited success. Unfortunately, the situation required to put it to good use is so rare that it's just not worth adding.
 
Jaaaaay said:
This is also a very specific hypothetical. Target Whistle + KO for a single prize is very rarely the right play in a situation. Ive found Target Whistle to be really underwhelming in testing as its usefulness is so conditional.

If you draw it late game and
your opponent has a Shaymin in the discard and
they dont have one on the bench and
you have a lysan. and
you can kill the shaymin and
you wouldnt have been able to KO anything else that turn

then yes it would have been useful in that situation :p

never happens
Click to expand...
I found it somewhat useful in bats, or if you play super-bad-decks-for-fun, I've used it quite successfully with a Dustox deck. But then, that's a super bad card for a super bad deck >.>
 
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