Discussion Red Card/Rotom AOR hand control?

[festizzio]

Rotom says:

Rotom - Lightning – HP70
Basic Pokemon

[L] Electro Ball: 20 damage.

[C][C] Mischievous Light: Flip 3 coins. For each heads, choose a card from your opponent’s hand without looking and have your opponent shuffle them back into his or her deck.

Weakness: Fighting (x2)
Resistance: Metal (-20)
Retreat: 1

Now, with Red Card, their hand is already down to 4. Attach Trick Coin to Rotom and you have two chances to shuffle up to 3 cards back into your opponent's deck at random, leaving them with 1-3 cards. Combine this with Xatu ROS's attack to rearrange their top 5, or look at their hand and discard a trainer, you could have a decent lock on their draws and hand. I'm thinking Silent Lab to turn Shaymins and Ultra Balls into mostly dead draws as well. Perhaps a main attacker such as Deoxys ROS once you've confirmed they won't be drawing into anything the next few turns. It helps that just about every Pokemon in the deck can be searched by Level Ball. Perhaps Enhanced Hammer if they go first and can set-up quickly.

Could this be viable? I'm always very intrigued by the idea of hand/deck control decks in Pokemon, so I would love for this to work out.

 

[bbninjas]

Rotom says:

Rotom - Lightning – HP70
Basic Pokemon

[L] Electro Ball: 20 damage.

[C][C] Mischievous Light: Flip 3 coins. For each heads, choose a card from your opponent’s hand without looking and have your opponent shuffle them back into his or her deck.

Weakness: Fighting (x2)
Resistance: Metal (-20)
Retreat: 1

Now, with Red Card, their hand is already down to 4. Attach Trick Coin to Rotom and you have two chances to shuffle up to 3 cards back into your opponent's deck at random, leaving them with 1-3 cards. Combine this with Xatu ROS's attack to rearrange their top 5, or look at their hand and discard a trainer, you could have a decent lock on their draws and hand. I'm thinking Silent Lab to turn Shaymins and Ultra Balls into mostly dead draws as well. Perhaps a main attacker such as Deoxys ROS once you've confirmed they won't be drawing into anything the next few turns. It helps that just about every Pokemon in the deck can be searched by Level Ball. Perhaps Enhanced Hammer if they go first and can set-up quickly.

Could this be viable? I'm always very intrigued by the idea of hand/deck control decks in Pokemon, so I would love for this to work out.

It is /viable/. However, I'm not sure if it is highly competitive. There is a 1 in 6 chance of not getting 3, which becomes a 1/3 chance after Trick Coin. tbh, not too great odds. The problem with the random shuffling is you easily can miss things like Sycamore or VS Seeker, or your opponent by chance top decks said cards, which effectively renders your whole turn useless. Now, with Xatu you technically stop top decks... but taking two attacks to set up is very slow. Plus, your opponent can completely mess up what you just did there by using a "search your deck card". Besides, of there is about 12 outs (4 Sycamore, 4 N, 4 Seeker) to your lock, then every 5 cards at least will probably have an out. If you can't consistently hit high numbers during the times when your opponent is top decking you're not going to achieve anything.

 

[festizzio]

It is /viable/. However, I'm not sure if it is highly competitive. There is a 1 in 6 chance of not getting 3, which becomes a 1/3 chance after Trick Coin. tbh, not too great odds. The problem with the random shuffling is you easily can miss things like Sycamore or VS Seeker, or your opponent by chance top decks said cards, which effectively renders your whole turn useless. Now, with Xatu you technically stop top decks... but taking two attacks to set up is very slow. Plus, your opponent can completely mess up what you just did there by using a "search your deck card". Besides, of there is about 12 outs (4 Sycamore, 4 N, 4 Seeker) to your lock, then every 5 cards at least will probably have an out. If you can't consistently hit high numbers during the times when your opponent is top decking you're not going to achieve anything.

I guess it's kind of banking on the opponent not being able to get that top deck after hitting their hand. I was also considering trying Wally with Xatu and Dimension Valley to actually look at their hand to discard something, along with Trick Shovel I can make sure at least their next turn will be dead, or at least a very good chance of being dead. As for the random chance, you're most likely hitting 1-2 heads per attack (using Trick Coin), so that's a 25-50% chance of hitting their draw cards. If they have 3-4 draw supporters in hand, then they are very lucky.

Like always, flips are risky, so seeing that your strategy is to play the flip game puts me on the cautious side. (although you do have trick coin) What could work is playing a ton of hammers in the deck, to make your opponent dead draw AND power lock. Another issue is the amount of attackers you must use to get this deck working. You need Rotom, Xatu, and later Deoxys. I also want to know how the deck plans to win in order to really help with this concept.

Until later,

-Emskas

I do agree about adding hammers, and maybe Crawdaunt PRC as it's also searchable with Level Ball. As for attackers, that's going to be tough. Deoxys being a basic makes him easy to search with Fan Club, and a decent starter if I go first. Using Mystery Energy, I can switch him for Xatu if I need to rearrange their deck again after 3-4 turns, and then switch and continue to attack. Level Ball will be a crucial part of this strategy, as well as Switch/Escape Rope to make sure I have Rotom active to attack as soon as possible. I also considered Toxicroak EX and maybe adding in a few Dimension Valley, but I really don't know at this point. I'm trying to figure out the lock part first, then the attacker part will come naturally.

 

[festizzio]

What could be interesting in this deck is Bats. you could continausly rotate between Xatu and Rotom, while power locking with hammers and then dealing a bit of damage with bats. All I know is, you need something that attacks from the bench, because your active spot will be filled up at most points.

-Emskas

I definitely agree with that. Oh, how I wish Mew EX was staying in format. :/ I like the idea of bats, since they don't really require any upkeep or energy. I would like to fit in some Hand Scope too, so I can see if it's even necessary to attack with Rotom, or if I need to attack with Xatu to guarantee I hit their one draw trainer. In any case, 3-4 Trick Shovel should help immensely.

 

[bbninjas]

How about focusing on benching your opponent out? I feel that with this type of lock you would get pretty close to that wincon.

 

[festizzio]

Finally! A deck where hand scope can be useful! I'm not sure about the trick shovel, but milling could be useful to get rid of pesky shuffle supporters. Also, would you want me to try and make a deck profile in this thread and then bring it over to the deck garage to see what we can do?

-Emskas

Nice! I already have a thread over there so I wasn't sure if I'm allowed to post another right now. 4 Rotom of course, 4 Red Card, 4 Trick Coin, but as for the rest I'm not too sure.

How about focusing on benching your opponent out? I feel that with this type of lock you would get pretty close to that wincon.

What do you mean by Benching them out? Could you elaborate?

EDIT: Drummed up a quick list, needs a ton of work though:

Pokemon : 14

3 Deoxys ROS
2 Natu ROS (Ancient Trait)
2 Xatu ROS
4 Rotom AOR
3 Shaymin EX

Items/Supporters/Stadiums : 38

2 Professor Sycamore
2 Pokemon Fan Club
2 Lysandre

4 Level Ball
4 Trick Coin
3 Trainers' Mail
4 Red Card
3 Enhanced Hammer
2 Ultra Ball
2 Switch
3 Hand Scope
2 VS Seeker

3 Silent Lab
2 Dimension Valley

Energy : 8

4 Mystery Energy
4 Double Colorless Energy

 

[bbninjas]

What do you mean by Benching them out? Could you elaborate?

There are three win conditions in Pokemon: Decking your opponent out, taking 6 prizes card and Knocking Out the last Pokemon (aka benching your opponent out). I'm thinking that you could aim for the last wincon.

 

[festizzio]

There are three win conditions in Pokemon: Decking your opponent out, taking 6 prizes card and Knocking Out the last Pokemon (aka benching your opponent out). I'm thinking that you could aim for the last wincon.

Gotcha, never heard it called that before. I could definitely win that way, but it's hard to try to win that way, if you know what I mean. It would just sort of happen, as a way of winning quicker. Are there ways of removing benched Pokemon from your opponent's side?

 

[bbninjas]

Gotcha, never heard it called that before. I could definitely win that way, but it's hard to try to win that way, if you know what I mean. It would just sort of happen, as a way of winning quicker. Are there ways of removing benched Pokemon from your opponent's side?

There isn't anything in the current format that I can think of off the top of my head, although I do know that if you deny your opponent from benching Pokemon as part of your deck, you could use the bats to kill any remaining in play Pokemon and bench out your opponent that way.

 

[festizzio]

There isn't anything in the current format that I can think of off the top of my head, although I do know that if you deny your opponent from benching Pokemon as part of your deck, you could use the bats to kill any remaining in play Pokemon and bench out your opponent that way.

If only Seeker was still in format. :/ I see what you mean though. I do remember seeing a card that let you look at your opponent's hand and discard or put a Pokemon in their deck, I'll try to find it.

 

[bbninjas]

If only Seeker was still in format. :/ I see what you mean though. I do remember seeing a card that let you look at your opponent's hand and discard or put a Pokemon in their deck, I'll try to find it.

It is pretty guaranteed that your opponent would have placed that Pokemon on their bench before you use the card, but wtv.

 

[festizzio]

It is pretty guaranteed that your opponent would have placed that Pokemon on their bench before you use the card, but wtv.

It's very clunky, but in my fantasy I pictured using Red Card into that move to shuffle it back before they could place it. Hand Scope to make sure they had one in the first place.

Edit: Found it, it's the Shiftry XY Black star promo, definitely wayyyy too slow and clunky for this strategy.