Standard Wicke's Nuzzle wanting better consistency

[jamashawalker]

DECK LIST

Pokémon (16)
4 Pikachu
4 Raichu-GX
4 Emolga
3 Pachirisu
1 Tapu Koko Prism Star

Trainer Cards (30)
4 Wicke
3 Sophacles
3 Guzma
1 Volkner
1 Judge

3 Nest Ball
2 Ultra Ball
4 Pokemon Communication
4 Electro Power
1 Rescue Stretcher
2 Exp Share

2 Aether Pardise

Energy Cards (14)
14 Lightning Energy


DESCRIPTION

Some of us know this deck and how it functions. Set up your bench with Emolga's nuzzling gathering, use Pachirisu to give energy to all of your nuzzlers on the bench, then evolve your pikachu to Raichu and use Raichu's Powerful Spark to do big damage. Here are some differences I decided to go with vs other players I watched online.

Wicke > Cynthia. For this deck on turn 2 you should have 6 or more cards in hand. So by that time you get better value out of Wicke for being able to draw more and cause some annoying hand disruption to your opponent. From testing the other night at my league I became a believer that Wicke > Cynthia is a much better choice for this deck specifically.

As you can tell there are no Lillies nor Erika's in this deck. Honestly throughout the game your hand should be extra thicc from all of the straight draws and Nuzzling gathering you'll be doing. So you'll never get a chance to use them unless you have a great turn 1 hand. Which is not guaranteed nor consistent.

Lack of Choice bands. At first I had choice bands in this deck but I teched them out because I found that I always had an electropower or two in hand from all the thinning in this deck. It still is option to put back in but hitting 170(Lele's ftw) or 240(Pikarom For 3) wasn't a difficult feat.


No Thunder Mountain. Aside from Turn 1 Pachirisu, again not guaranteed nor consistent, is it really necessary in this deck? I'm not attacking with anything significant that can benefit from Thunder Mountain. So I decided to just not add it at all. If someone can make space/convince me of adding it in I'm certainly open to options.

High Count of Communication vs Ball searchers. Unless it's late game, all your nuzzlers are in the discard, rescue stretcher used up, Raichu/Koko Prism is sitting somewhere in those last 8 cards in your deck, there is rarely a time I needed to use Ultra Ball. From testing I only used it once because it was my only option at that moment, majority of the other times Communication was simply the better option and helped thin out the deck. Wanting to tech that out but aside from Communication it's the most consistent way to search out Raichu.

Exp Share. We need to keep the energies on the field as best as possible and spreading them around so that our opponent isn't just going after one pokemon with the most energy on it. 2 Exp share's on the emolgas helps this ALOT because you're keeping the damage and your opponent can't guzma to slow you down. I believe that'll be the problem with Wishful baton. If you attach too many to one pokemon, you're opponent will know who to target to reduce your overall damage.

No Dedenne. Aside from a possible cheeky(pun intended) turn 1 KO on a benched evolving basic I never used this card aside from discard fodder. I kept it in for a few games, but I teched it out after realizing it hurts your gameplay more to have it in because you're not getting that Pachirisu set up. Which is the overall goal.

Tapu Koko GX. I want to tech this in somewhere but I do not own the card and before I do buy it I want to know if it'll be a good fit into this deck because it does have a great tech against decks that want alot of energy on the field. Rayquaza, PikaRom. And just a way to get off a quick 130 attack without any weakness. So yeah if someone can assist me in that department that would be great!!



Conclusion

From playtesting the other night this deck was alot of fun and I can see being an actual competitive deck. It needs alot of work for it to be right and I believe it can hold up in today's format. I am very open to suggestions, changes, and discussion towards this deck. Thank you for taking the time to read, review and improve this deck

 

[Lord Goomy]

EXP Share < Wishful Baton, in my opinion.
(Random underline?) You could do -1 Sophocles for Koko GX, but it’s the GX attack you want to be using, not 130. (Or both, that’s fine too.)
Looks good, otherwise.

 

[AntiYouJD]

I'd add some energy recursion cards in case you unexpectedly lose too many energy cards early in the game, but other than that the deck seems alright.
As for choosing Wicke over Cynthia, I get the logic, but as the game progresses and you'll be using more cards, Wicke will become worse than Cynthia. Also, if you're gonna put so much focus on Wicke, (and I never expected to write something like this) why don't you use Hau over Sophocles? It leaves you with more cards (+3 instead of +2), you can use him even on an empty hand, and you don't have any cards you'd want to discard anyway. I'd still go with Cynthia over Hau or Sophocles because she's just more reliable.
Moreover, if you expect to be using Wicke for card draw, Judge will be more detrimental to yourself than your opponent (not to mention an opponent's Marshadow). A second Volkner might be a better inclusion.

 

[rewster1]

I doubt you are going to be losing too many nuzzlers, just the pikas under the raichus that your opponent will have to deal with. Ergo I would agree with the original poster that wicke is (in this one weird case that isn't zoro or swampy) superior. If you can bench 3 or more emolgas, you have a constant plus three to hand every turn and wicke always shuffles your opponent's hand which is good much more often than bad, especially when they've played down their hand. On the other hand I agree that hau actually makes more sense than soph, in alternation with wicke ideally, to boost hand size for the next big pull. I don't see what the angry toddler does for you, most of the cards are instantly playable (or thinned by nuzzly generator) so better off just playing them rather than discarding. The other option is... wicke>cynthia yet cynthia>sophocles, so just play 4 each wicke and cynthia.