Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Pokemon Deck Review - ISullstar - Donphan Ursaring Magnezone

1 Tyrogue (COL)
1 Cleffa (COL)
3-3 Donphan Prime (COL)
3-3 Ursaring Prime (Teddiursa=Unleashed)
1-1-1 Magnezone Prime (Triumphant)
1- Bouffalant (BLW)
2-2 Zoroark (BLW)
Pokemon total = 22
 
4 DCE
6 Fighting
2 Rainbow
Energy Total = 12
2 Judge
2 Potion
2 Plus Power
1 Twins
1 Flower Shop
2 Juniper
3 Energy retrievel
2 Revive
2 Pokemon Reversal (Catcher when released)
1 Collector
2 Junk arm
2 Switch
1 Rare candy
2 Elm
1 Fisherman
Trainer/Supporter - 26
Deck Strategy
Cleffa and tyrogue are the starters for donks and early hand refreshers.  Donphan prime is the first attacker, intentionally damaging the bench with earthquakes to activate the body on ursaring that says it does 60 more when it has damage.  The magnezone prime is for a draw engine, buffalant is for return KO's, and zoroark is the versatile tech, copying the opponents attacks for only a DCE.

Pokemon Analysis
You asked in your submission what card would help with retreat cost.  That would be dodrio, but with pokemon catcher, the chances of him staying safe on the bench are slim without a vileplume.  Your pokemon line is pretty strong, but I think you could be safe in reducing your line of donphan down to 2-2 since your strongest attacker is ursaring.  I would be careful with the babies since they're so easily KO'd and might consider swapping a tyrogue for a manaphy instead.  With pokemon catcher, your magnezone may not be safe, so I would be prepared with plenty of switch and junk arms to get it out.
 
Energy Analysis
Since magnezone and ursaring can benefit from rainbow energy, I would increase it to 3 (magnezone can always use it with a lost burn and since it adds a damage counter, it would activate ursarings body in case you can't get a donphan out first).  The 4 DCE is perfect, but if you're finding you need some extra space in the deck, I think you're safe to reduce the fighting, especially if you reduce the line of pokemon.
 
Trainer/Supporter Analysis
You only have 1 collector as you basic searcher.  You definitely need a combination of at least 3 collector and dual ball if you don't have 3 collector.  The 1 flower shop and twins for recovery are perfect, but I dont think you need the revive, fisherman or energy retrieval.  Revives are typically best for decks that run strong basic pokemon, like reshiram or zekrom.  Since most of your energy cards are special energy, you'd only be able to use them on the fighting.  You shouldn't be losing too much energy in this deck, so the energy cards you recover with flower shop should be more than enough.  If you find you're really going through those basic energy, keeping only one energy retrieval should be more than enough.  You can always reuse it with junk arm if needed.  I would increase your line of junk arm to 4 since you'll likely be using a lot of your 2 switches over again.
 
Since you only run 1 line of stage 2, you shouldn't need your rare candy.  I would add around 3 pokemon commnication to help get out the pokemon you need.  Keeping those 2 elm will help with that.  The only hand refreshers that you have are 2 judge and 2 juniper.  I would drop the juniper down to 1 because you're likely to throw out something essential if you run 2, but keep the number of judge and only use them if you have a magnezone in play to be able to recover if you judge yourself into a bad hand.  I would add 4 profesor oaks new theory to ensure that you can get out of dead hands.  To make room for these changes, I think you can safely drop the 2 potion, but keep the plus power since it's great for KOing zekroms and reshirams in one hit with zoroark (as well as many other uses).
 
Overall
I think this deck has a lot of potential, but be prepared to recover quickly.  A lot of cards in this format can knock you out in one hit, so you'll need to have something on the bench to return that KO as fast as possible. 

2 comments:

  1. Thanks so much u give the best advice. I was wondering if you thought adding lines of machamp do make it donchamp with Ursaring as back up attacker? This is lSullstar btw.

    Thanks

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  2. No problem! Sorry it took so long to get it done! I didn't have any time to do deck reviews while I was on vacation. I think I would stick to just a straight donchamp. If I were going to tech anything else in, I might add a reuniculus.

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