Hey guys! Gabking5458 here! I have yet another decklist that I would love to critiqued. I have found this deck has fantastic matchups across the board but is critically weak to Gengar-EX/Trevenant and Trevenant Break. Any feedback is greatly appreciated 
Pokemon (13):
Okay this decklist is pretty weird. First off the Pokemon, you may be asking me, "Gabking5458 why aren't you running Hawlucha? Focus sash Hawlucha is amazing!" Yes focus sash Hawlucha is amazing and I am a huge fan of it. Though after a ton of testing I've found Hawlucha to be redundant. Garchomp does the EXACT same thing as Hawlucha just..... better. Hawlucha is nice early game; but so is Lucario-EX. Lucario-EX is an amazing lead with Corkscrew Smash filling up your hand to get an army of Garchomps set up on the bench while Hawlucha isn't helping set up as much and Garchomp does the EXACT same thing. Also focus sash Hawlucha is annoying, focus sash Garchomp however? It can literally turn games completely around, by taking 4 Prizes (2 EX KOs) for 1 Prize (Garchomp). Next you may be asking, "Why 3 Lucario-EX isn't that too many?" My answer that would be no. Lucario-EX is an INCREDIBLE lead. It can punch holes in decks extremely fast and it provides reliable draw support with Corkscrew Smash. Overall I feel the Pokemon line is very strong, and almost always sets up right. Secondly, the supporters. 4 Professor Sycamore, 2 Lysandre, 2 Korrina are pretty standard. 1 Giovanni's Scheme, that's where it goes weird. Personally, I feel Giovanni's Scheme is extremely undervalued. I think it is a fantastic supporter with a lot of versatility. Why include it in this list then? Because it helps Garchomp and Lucario-EX get OHKOs. An extra 20 damage is just so important. It can help you OHKO M Mewtwo-EX, Baby Yveltal, Trevenant, though most importantly Fighting Fury Belt Yveltal-EX (Which is really hard to kill without Gio) and many others. I run 1 Professor Birch just for consistency sake to be able to not be forced to discard all my cards if I want my draw supporter. Third, onto the items, my list is once again pretty standard, probably doesn't need much explanation
Fourth, the stadiums. Once again pretty self explanatory, Fighting Stadium is there to do even more damage.
Lastly, the energies. I only run 6 fighting and 4 strong. The main reason for this is that Garchomp is fantastic at recycling energy, so not alto is needed. I decided to include a ton of decks including rogues so I can get help with all possible bad matchups and good matchups with a lower win chance
MATCHUPS:
Now onto how this deck preforms against other decks.
Good Matchups:
M Manectric-EX (All Varients) 90/10
Manectric/Bats 80/20
YGZ 75/25
Night March 70/30
Lucario-EX/Bats 70/30
M Scizor-EX 60/40
Greninja Break 60/40
Bad Matchups:
Vespiquen/Night March 40/60
Gengar-EX/Trevenant 25/75
Trevenant Break 20/80
Okay, lets start with the good matchups. M Manectric-EX is there for obvious reasons. Most M Manectric-EX decks don't run Flash Energy letting Lucario to just destroy them. The only way you lose is complete dead draw. Manectric-EX is very different. You REALLY want to go first against this matchup because of they Head Ringer all of your Lucario-EX your chances go down to 50/50. Though still relatively easy to beat you need to be careful of Head Ringers and potentially Flash Energy. That is why two enhanced hammers are run (To beat Manectric-EX/Bats, Vespiquen, and Night March). YGZ is a good matchup for 2 reasons. First reason, Lucario-EX is super good draw support early game and trades prizes with Yveltal-EX relatively easily. Second reason, Garchomp just destroys this deck. Lysandre + Garchomp + Focus Sash = Game Win because of the prize trade. Night March is a good matchup because of them running out of steam before you do. Focus sash Lucario-EX trades 2 prizes for 2 and Focus Sash Garchomp trades 1 Prize for 2 Prizes which is a great prize trade. Also they can't recycle DCE well, but this deck can recycle energy well. Fighting/Bats may seem like a strange deck to put as a good matchup. The reason Fighting/Bats is a good matchup is Garchomp. Garchomp often will get 4 Prizes for 1 and the other 2 can easily be achieved by a second gar chomp or Lucario-EX. I decided to put M Scizor-EX on this list despite it being very rogue. M Scizor-EX is still something to watch out for IMO because of its great YZG and Gengar/Trevenant matchups. This deck is slightly positive over M Scizor-EX because of once again, Garchomp. Gar chomp can punch holes very fast and with Giovanni's Scheme can even OHKO a M Scizor-EX and because of them only hitting 120 not 130 Garchomp often takes 4 prizes for 1. Greninja Break is a good matchup because of Lucario-EX punching holes in it very fast. You will often go up 4-6 in Prizes or even 3-6 in Prizes before they are set up and from there you can OHKO with Lucario-EX with Giovanni's Scheme.
Now lets go to the bad matchups, first off Vespiquen/Night March. Vespiquen on its own is fine. Night March on its own is also fine. When they are together though, it can be tricky. This is mainly because of them hitting you for weakness on all of your pokemon. Because of this you can't resort to attacking with only one Pokemon. This matchup still isn't that bad because Focus Sash is INCREDIBLY annoying to Night March/ Vespiquen because of the whole DCE loss situation. The matchup is determined by if you get a good start; not if your opponent does. They can get a great start but as long as you get a good start you should win. Now onto, the two basically auto-loss decks. Notice both of these decks have Trevenant in them, this deck hates Trevenant with a passion. Trevenant is great against this deck, because ofthe fighting resistance, item lock, and weakness. The fighting resistance makes Trevenant near impossible to OHKO with this deck. This is part of the reason I have the one of Giovanni's Scheme, it makes it possible to OHKO Trevenant. So how do you beat this matchup? LYSANDRE. You spam Lysandre against them. This lets you get muscle band and Garchomps into play relatively easily. If you can kill 2 EXs such as Shaymin or Gengar you will normally win but if they get first turn Wally you are in for a tough time, if they don't though... you can actually win.
Overall, I feel this deck is very strong and I believe I should play it for states. All recommendations are appreciated! Thanks so much!
BTW please also note if you believe this deck would be viable at test championships! Thanks!
Pokemon (13):
- 3 Gible BKP
- 2 Gabite BKP
- 3 Garchomp BKP
- 3 Lucario-EX FUF
- 2 Shaymin-EX ROS
- 4 Professor Sycamore
- 1 Giovanni's Scheme
- 1 Professor Birch's Observations
- 2 Lysandre
- 2 Korrina
- 1 Battle Compressor
- 2 Level Ball
- 3 Ultra Ball
- 2 Focus Sash
- 2 Muscle Band
- 2 Enhanced Hammer
- 1 Professor's Letter
- 1 Switch
- 3 Rare Candy
- 3 Trainers' Mail
- 4 VS Seeker
- 3 Fighting Stadium
- 6 Fighting Energy
- 4 Strong Energy
Okay this decklist is pretty weird. First off the Pokemon, you may be asking me, "Gabking5458 why aren't you running Hawlucha? Focus sash Hawlucha is amazing!" Yes focus sash Hawlucha is amazing and I am a huge fan of it. Though after a ton of testing I've found Hawlucha to be redundant. Garchomp does the EXACT same thing as Hawlucha just..... better. Hawlucha is nice early game; but so is Lucario-EX. Lucario-EX is an amazing lead with Corkscrew Smash filling up your hand to get an army of Garchomps set up on the bench while Hawlucha isn't helping set up as much and Garchomp does the EXACT same thing. Also focus sash Hawlucha is annoying, focus sash Garchomp however? It can literally turn games completely around, by taking 4 Prizes (2 EX KOs) for 1 Prize (Garchomp). Next you may be asking, "Why 3 Lucario-EX isn't that too many?" My answer that would be no. Lucario-EX is an INCREDIBLE lead. It can punch holes in decks extremely fast and it provides reliable draw support with Corkscrew Smash. Overall I feel the Pokemon line is very strong, and almost always sets up right. Secondly, the supporters. 4 Professor Sycamore, 2 Lysandre, 2 Korrina are pretty standard. 1 Giovanni's Scheme, that's where it goes weird. Personally, I feel Giovanni's Scheme is extremely undervalued. I think it is a fantastic supporter with a lot of versatility. Why include it in this list then? Because it helps Garchomp and Lucario-EX get OHKOs. An extra 20 damage is just so important. It can help you OHKO M Mewtwo-EX, Baby Yveltal, Trevenant, though most importantly Fighting Fury Belt Yveltal-EX (Which is really hard to kill without Gio) and many others. I run 1 Professor Birch just for consistency sake to be able to not be forced to discard all my cards if I want my draw supporter. Third, onto the items, my list is once again pretty standard, probably doesn't need much explanation
Fourth, the stadiums. Once again pretty self explanatory, Fighting Stadium is there to do even more damage.
Lastly, the energies. I only run 6 fighting and 4 strong. The main reason for this is that Garchomp is fantastic at recycling energy, so not alto is needed. I decided to include a ton of decks including rogues so I can get help with all possible bad matchups and good matchups with a lower win chance
MATCHUPS:
Now onto how this deck preforms against other decks.
Good Matchups:
M Manectric-EX (All Varients) 90/10
Manectric/Bats 80/20
YGZ 75/25
Night March 70/30
Lucario-EX/Bats 70/30
M Scizor-EX 60/40
Greninja Break 60/40
Bad Matchups:
Vespiquen/Night March 40/60
Gengar-EX/Trevenant 25/75
Trevenant Break 20/80
Okay, lets start with the good matchups. M Manectric-EX is there for obvious reasons. Most M Manectric-EX decks don't run Flash Energy letting Lucario to just destroy them. The only way you lose is complete dead draw. Manectric-EX is very different. You REALLY want to go first against this matchup because of they Head Ringer all of your Lucario-EX your chances go down to 50/50. Though still relatively easy to beat you need to be careful of Head Ringers and potentially Flash Energy. That is why two enhanced hammers are run (To beat Manectric-EX/Bats, Vespiquen, and Night March). YGZ is a good matchup for 2 reasons. First reason, Lucario-EX is super good draw support early game and trades prizes with Yveltal-EX relatively easily. Second reason, Garchomp just destroys this deck. Lysandre + Garchomp + Focus Sash = Game Win because of the prize trade. Night March is a good matchup because of them running out of steam before you do. Focus sash Lucario-EX trades 2 prizes for 2 and Focus Sash Garchomp trades 1 Prize for 2 Prizes which is a great prize trade. Also they can't recycle DCE well, but this deck can recycle energy well. Fighting/Bats may seem like a strange deck to put as a good matchup. The reason Fighting/Bats is a good matchup is Garchomp. Garchomp often will get 4 Prizes for 1 and the other 2 can easily be achieved by a second gar chomp or Lucario-EX. I decided to put M Scizor-EX on this list despite it being very rogue. M Scizor-EX is still something to watch out for IMO because of its great YZG and Gengar/Trevenant matchups. This deck is slightly positive over M Scizor-EX because of once again, Garchomp. Gar chomp can punch holes very fast and with Giovanni's Scheme can even OHKO a M Scizor-EX and because of them only hitting 120 not 130 Garchomp often takes 4 prizes for 1. Greninja Break is a good matchup because of Lucario-EX punching holes in it very fast. You will often go up 4-6 in Prizes or even 3-6 in Prizes before they are set up and from there you can OHKO with Lucario-EX with Giovanni's Scheme.
Now lets go to the bad matchups, first off Vespiquen/Night March. Vespiquen on its own is fine. Night March on its own is also fine. When they are together though, it can be tricky. This is mainly because of them hitting you for weakness on all of your pokemon. Because of this you can't resort to attacking with only one Pokemon. This matchup still isn't that bad because Focus Sash is INCREDIBLY annoying to Night March/ Vespiquen because of the whole DCE loss situation. The matchup is determined by if you get a good start; not if your opponent does. They can get a great start but as long as you get a good start you should win. Now onto, the two basically auto-loss decks. Notice both of these decks have Trevenant in them, this deck hates Trevenant with a passion. Trevenant is great against this deck, because ofthe fighting resistance, item lock, and weakness. The fighting resistance makes Trevenant near impossible to OHKO with this deck. This is part of the reason I have the one of Giovanni's Scheme, it makes it possible to OHKO Trevenant. So how do you beat this matchup? LYSANDRE. You spam Lysandre against them. This lets you get muscle band and Garchomps into play relatively easily. If you can kill 2 EXs such as Shaymin or Gengar you will normally win but if they get first turn Wally you are in for a tough time, if they don't though... you can actually win.
Overall, I feel this deck is very strong and I believe I should play it for states. All recommendations are appreciated! Thanks so much!
BTW please also note if you believe this deck would be viable at test championships! Thanks!
