Standard Typhlosion/Talonflame (2017 Rotation)

[Fishman6007]

My 10 yr old son loves to play this deck at the local tournament in our town. Usually only 6-10 people play there every Sunday. I think it will still do well for him when Guardians is released too.

 

[Kietharr]

A single Talonflame BREAK can be a good idea since there are times when you get a Talonflame start that you can actually set up reliable OHKOs faster with that than with Typhlosion, usually against 1 prize decks.

There's little reason to not include 4 Burning Energy as well, since Massive Eruption counts ALL energy cards for its damage, and sometimes you will benefit from having a burning energy both for Talonflame and Typhlosion sometimes when you want to use his second attack to avoid milling yourself. It can't be retrieved with energy recycler but you're never not going to have enough basic energy in discard if things are going reasonably well.

As for the people who recommend shaymin or any other draw support, no. You don't want raw draw power with this deck because most of your draws will be dead fire energies that you actually want in your deck for damage. Talonflame is ideal because it's 0 retreat cost and lets you strategically search for the rare candy+typhlosion you need to get a Cyndaquil online while leaving all of your fire energies in your deck where they belong. I've got over 200 games with Typhlosion variants and my WR increased by about 5 percentage points with Talonflame compared to Typhlosion only.

As for other basics, again, no. You want to start Talonflame and Cyndaquil ideally, a solo-talonflame start is tolerable. Solo-cyndaquil is usually a loss unless you get lucky on draws. Once you start including things like Mew, Mew-EX, Entei, ect your chance of getting that good start starts decreasing quickly and you absolutely need a good start for this deck to function. It's an inconsistent deck by nature and adding secondary attackers tends to increase rather than decrease inconsistency.

 

[Asmer]

A single Talonflame BREAK can be a good idea since there are times when you get a Talonflame start that you can actually set up reliable OHKOs faster with that than with Typhlosion, usually against 1 prize decks.

There's little reason to not include 4 Burning Energy as well, since Massive Eruption counts ALL energy cards for its damage, and sometimes you will benefit from having a burning energy both for Talonflame and Typhlosion sometimes when you want to use his second attack to avoid milling yourself. It can't be retrieved with energy recycler but you're never not going to have enough basic energy in discard if things are going reasonably well.

As for the people who recommend shaymin or any other draw support, no. You don't want raw draw power with this deck because most of your draws will be dead fire energies that you actually want in your deck for damage. Talonflame is ideal because it's 0 retreat cost and lets you strategically search for the rare candy+typhlosion you need to get a Cyndaquil online while leaving all of your fire energies in your deck where they belong. I've got over 200 games with Typhlosion variants and my WR increased by about 5 percentage points with Talonflame compared to Typhlosion only.

As for other basics, again, no. You want to start Talonflame and Cyndaquil ideally, a solo-talonflame start is tolerable. Solo-cyndaquil is usually a loss unless you get lucky on draws. Once you start including things like Mew, Mew-EX, Entei, ect your chance of getting that good start starts decreasing quickly and you absolutely need a good start for this deck to function. It's an inconsistent deck by nature and adding secondary attackers tends to increase rather than decrease inconsistency.

To be frank, a lot of this information is incredibly misleading.

First, Talonflame BREAK is a terrible idea in a deck that already commits to a situational win condition. Unless you're playing Expanded, in which case you have access to Blacksmith, there is very little reason to commit any extra energy attachments. It takes up a turn, it messes with RNG numbers (even with Talonflame BREAK discarding Energy) and there's very little reason to commit space to a 1-of (and committing any more space to the card is a worse idea in regards to, once again, using turns for energy attachments, messing with numbers both for deck count and basic energy balancing, etc.).

Second, not having a hard draw option in this game is a bad decision, even in this deck. While I do agree that you really don't want to draw in to extra Fire Energy, we will run across situations where hard draw is necessary. Personally, I feel Shaymin EX is better than Sycamore/Juniper in those situations, simply because you can Ultra Ball Shaymin EX and playing a Supporter to purely draw cards is not good in this specific strategy, but not having a 1-of is not as convincing as having that 1-of. At the very least, Shaymin EX brings enough versatility to warrant a spot when it comes to extending in the early parts of the game and, worst case, you can easily hold on to it for the later stages, when searching for things like Energy Recycler becomes a bit more crucial. Also, keep in mind that Talonflame isn't going to always be a win-all. Even with its consistency, early Delinquent, N, those weird individuals who tech Red Card/Judge, etc. will still play in to situations that slow your progress. Those are all situations where Shaymin EX definitely comes in handy, especially over something like Talonflame BREAK or Juniper (since we really do want to focus our Supporter line on disruption/versatility).

Granted, I will agree that as a general, you want your starter to be Cyndaquil or Talonflame. I still hold firm that Shaymin EX is better than most options we have, however.

That brings me to the last bit I want to talk about. I personally think this deck would function better in Expanded than it would in Standard. @swan and I have been pondering this for a while and testing it out and, quite frankly, I'm becoming more and more convinced. Battle Compressor makes a huge difference in that format. So does Computer Search. It gives us access to Maxie's Hidden Ball Trick and relatively good Pokemon to use it with (Archeops and, to a lesser extent, Marowak). Heck, you can worry less about energy count because of the mere versatility of Battle Compressor itself, which is really nice. Does that mean I think the deck wouldn't work out well in Standard? No. I think it deserves another look while its still in the format, but I'm more or less starting to become convinced that it might have a better chance in a format where combo-oriented things that can OHKO can be set up easier.

Regardless, sorry if I sound like a jerk. That's not the intent whatsoever, but I must say that I do disagree with those two points.

-Asmer

 

[Kietharr]

Of course this deck functions better in expanded, almost every deck runs better in expanded. But from a comparative perspective I think you'll have better luck with it in standard. Typhlosion takes an autoloss verses turn 1 item lock which is much more common in expanded as well with trevenant/toad/compressor vileplume all being scarier than standard vileplume Of course these might not be issues if you're playing locals in paper depending on your local meta. But at least online, I think the reasons to not run it in expanded are more compelling than the increased consistency that battle compressor gives you.

I still disagree with hard draw being all that desirable in this deck, when you get bad starts you just lose, Shaymin-EX will very seldom solve that. You will probably lose more games to getting a Shaymin only start than you'll win from the extra 3-4 cards you can count on drawing with it early game. If you ultra ball for a Shaymin it means you either don't have a Cyndaquil on the board or don't have a rare candy for it in your hand, because if you had those pieces you'd just ultra ball for Typhlosion and get moving.

Generally this means that you're looking for Shaymin to pull you two pieces of your setup which I think is reaching. It's true that pulling cards out of your deck does bring you closer to getting those pieces on the following turns, but I question whether you even get to play those turns. Cyndaquil starts get donked quickly (and losing more than 1 Cyndaquil early usually prevents you from winning anyways) and Talonflame in most circumstances will get you the cards you need without Shaymin.

There are actually two consistency cards I really like the idea of in this deck coming in guardians, Tapu Lele-GX and Mallow. Tapu Lele assists in the search game by getting you Skyla (which can then chain into rare candies or energy recyclers), can play draw or shuffle power by finding you Sycamore or N, and can also help with damage by finding Mallow which will be a great card for getting consistent 3 energy eruptions which is one of the biggest things that stops this deck from being more than a meme.

and finally, on Talonflame BREAK, it's there for the odd scenario when you have a hand with some burning energies and they're playing a deck that you can keep down with it, and as a way to recycle your starter Talonflame into an offensive threat. You usually already have a fire energy on it from the beginning of the game so it comes online for one additional attachment and deals enough damage to polish most things off after getting an unfortunate 1 energy massive eruption when you don't have another Typhlosion immediately available.

 

[swan]

Of course this deck functions better in expanded, almost every deck runs better in expanded. But from a comparative perspective I think you'll have better luck with it in standard.

I personally don't believe this statement. Maxie's marowak is enough to do the job against item lock. Both Treve and plume are not highly consistent at first turn locking us in their respective decks (treve needs wally and plume isn't as consistent as it could be in decidueye lists for obvious reasons); if we are more consistent at maxie -> marowak, then item lock doesn't factor. Also Decidueye/plume is around in standard where we have NO legitimate solution (wobb + floats takes a lot of space for only 1 MU).

I do find it a little wierd that typhlosion is well-known in standard but rare in expanded; it's probably because more budget players tend to pickup typhlosion hence shaymin-EX's draws vs. the no. of dead energy is a relatively untested and foggy factor; and as expanded is generally harder for budget players to get into, it has had a lot of players trying it out with the extra cards e.g. battle compressor.

I still disagree with hard draw being all that desirable in this deck, when you get bad starts you just lose, Shaymin-EX will very seldom solve that. You will probably lose more games to getting a Shaymin only start than you'll win from the extra 3-4 cards you can count on drawing with it early game. If you ultra ball for a Shaymin it means you either don't have a Cyndaquil on the board or don't have a rare candy for it in your hand, because if you had those pieces you'd just ultra ball for Typhlosion and get moving.

This logic feels a little flawed: The last point why not get a shaymin so you can draw into a supporter to save your dead hand and you'll probably draw your typhlosion (4 of them + ultra balls in deck so it's likely). Shaymin-EX is generally a great failsafe, and with 8-9 basics in deck with 1 shaymin your chances of a shaymin ONLY start are below 10%. You stated previously that a lone cyndaquil start is often a loss, so if adding shaymin loses 8% of talonflame starts, it's worth it because it gives you a valid possibility to win with a cyndaquil start. Bare in mind that talonflame start is still above 50%.

Also, I'd like to rule against burning energy due to it's desynergy with recycling cards. Also I have distaste for the break as it's a win-more vs. brick-more; go-hard-or-go-home sort of card.
Lele + mallow, cool I had forgetten mallow existed already but it's a neat idea that should work. (comparable to fisherman in volcanion)

 

[Asmer]

Honestly, I forgot about Mallow as well. It actually might be something to consider in this deck, which is something I normally wouldn't say, considering I think Mallow is a pretty average card in general (and I wonder if Skyla is simply better for this deck...). Still, for a deck that relies on combos to win, it could be fine.

I like the idea of Lele. While I'm not a fan of using turns for Energy attachments on non-Typhlosion/Starting Talonflame, at least the damage that Tapu Lele GX can produce is good.

Everything else has basically been covered by what I would normally say.

-Asmer

 

[Fishman6007]

I have read the above comments and recommendations. I think both points are valid. However we usually win the most matches when we use 3 TalonFlame, 4 Cyndaquil, 2 Quilava, and 4 Typhlosion in our deck. Win percentage goes up more when you start with the TalonFlame and don't get "N" ed by your opponent. However, I will try the deck with 4 burning energies and 22 basic fire energies and see how it goes.

thanks

 

[swan]

I would strongly advise against the burning energy as, although they have only 1 drawback, the benefit is almost completely negligible.

swan