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Need My Water Deck Rating On Pokemon TCGO

Jonathan1990

140
Posts
9
Years
  • Age 34
  • Seen Jan 8, 2024
Just built a water deck which has won some matches.

Palkia EX with Aqua Turbo and Perl Hurricane
2x Piplup with Splatter
2x Piplup with Water Splash
2x Prinplup with Bubble Beam and Water Splash
2x Prinplup with Ice Beam
2x Empoleon with Total Command and Whirlpool
Blastoise EX with Rapid Spin and Splash Bomb
Glalie EX with Ice Breath and Instant Freeze
Pidgeot EX with Mirror Move and Feather Lance
3x Alolen Vulpix with Powder Snow and Icy Snow
Alolen Vulpix with Beacon and Icy Snow
Alolen Ninetails GX with Ice Blade, Blizzard Edge and Ice Path GX
Palkia GX with Spatial Control, Hydro Pressure and Zero Vanish GX
Volcanion with Sauna Blast (Jet Geyser Ability)
Wishiwashi GX with Water Gun, Torrential Vortex and Blue Surge GX
2x Drampa GX with Righteous Edge, Berserk and Big Wheel GX

2x Heavy Ball
Energy Retrieval
Potion
Greedy Dice
Hau
Professor Kukui
2x Lana
Brock's Grit
Wishful Baton

3x Double Colourless Energy
22x Water Energy
 
Hands

Hands

I was saying Boo-urns
1,896
Posts
7
Years
  • Age 33
  • Seen today
22 water energy is absolutely way too much in any deck.

There's not really any consistency here. Focus on Empoleon, I can give you two to make it up to a set.

Loosely you want something like

4-3-4 Empoleon line
2 Alolan Vulpix (Beacon)
3 Dunsparce (Strike and Run)
1 Shaymin (Shining Legends one)

Empoleon is your main guy, Vulpix and Dunsparce exist to help set him up (Dunsparce grabs three basics out of the deck, Vulpix lets you grab the evolutions into hand) Shaymin is a retaliation attacker (Rally back does 120 if your opponent took a knock out against you their prior turn. It hits big threats like Zygarde GX, Lycanroc GX, Lapras GX and Greninja GX for 240, which knocks out all of them in a single move).

You run 4x Counter Energy and 10x Water. Counter Energy acts as two of any kind if your opponent is winning (this is how you utilise Shaymin)

Run 4x Brooklet Hill, 3x Rare Candy, 4x Ultra Ball and 4x Aqua Patch to ensure you can set up. Choice band, crasher wake, rescue stretcher, counter catcher and enhanced hammer are all essential too, although their counts can be played around with a bit.

Cards like potion are completely irrelevant, they cannot heal enough damage to be meaningful. Greedy Dice are also dead cards as you don't have any prize manipulation. Having a slew of GX/EX cards that do not support or sync well with each other is also a bad idea, they're just easy prizes for an opponent.
 

Jonathan1990

140
Posts
9
Years
  • Age 34
  • Seen Jan 8, 2024
Hands said:
22 water energy is absolutely way too much in any deck.

There's not really any consistency here. Focus on Empoleon, I can give you two to make it up to a set.

Loosely you want something like

4-3-4 Empoleon line
2 Alolan Vulpix (Beacon)
3 Dunsparce (Strike and Run)
1 Shaymin (Shining Legends one)

Empoleon is your main guy, Vulpix and Dunsparce exist to help set him up (Dunsparce grabs three basics out of the deck, Vulpix lets you grab the evolutions into hand) Shaymin is a retaliation attacker (Rally back does 120 if your opponent took a knock out against you their prior turn. It hits big threats like Zygarde GX, Lycanroc GX, Lapras GX and Greninja GX for 240, which knocks out all of them in a single move).

You run 4x Counter Energy and 10x Water. Counter Energy acts as two of any kind if your opponent is winning (this is how you utilise Shaymin)

Run 4x Brooklet Hill, 3x Rare Candy, 4x Ultra Ball and 4x Aqua Patch to ensure you can set up. Choice band, crasher wake, rescue stretcher, counter catcher and enhanced hammer are all essential too, although their counts can be played around with a bit.

Cards like potion are completely irrelevant, they cannot heal enough damage to be meaningful. Greedy Dice are also dead cards as you don't have any prize manipulation. Having a slew of GX/EX cards that do not support or sync well with each other is also a bad idea, they're just easy prizes for an opponent.
Click to expand...

So I took your advice and edited the deck putting some of the cards you've recommended in but I'm not doing very good with this set up. The cards I used before just go to my experiences of playing the game. Tool and stadium cards like are mostly useless as about 90% of opponents always have a Field Blower card to remove them. Some of the cards mentioned I don't have such as Shaymin and I only have 1 Rare Candy. Counter energies are rubbish once you have the same prize cards as your opponent and with less water energy it can take loads of turns to get 2 more which is why I had 22. I also put loads of the GX and EX in as people seem to win all the time doing that.
 
Hands

Hands

I was saying Boo-urns
1,896
Posts
7
Years
  • Age 33
  • Seen today
Jonathan1990 said:
So I took your advice and edited the deck putting some of the cards you've recommended in but I'm not doing very good with this set up. The cards I used before just go to my experiences of playing the game. Tool and stadium cards like are mostly useless as about 90% of opponents always have a Field Blower card to remove them. Some of the cards mentioned I don't have such as Shaymin and I only have 1 Rare Candy. Counter energies are rubbish once you have the same prize cards as your opponent and with less water energy it can take loads of turns to get 2 more which is why I had 22. I also put loads of the GX and EX in as people seem to win all the time doing that.
Click to expand...

I've got a combined 8 years playing competitively over the E-Reader, EX, XY and SM formats. In that time I've won city championships, league challenges, league nights at the most competitive league in the UK and top 8'd League Cups and the now non existent State Championships. Trust me when I say that 22 energy is far too much and that just throwing in random EXs and GXs is a bad idea.

Decks need to be consistent to do well, I'm happy to give you rare candies and the stadiums you need. Counter energy is far from rubbish, if you look at any sanctioned event that matters (regionals, internationals etc) you'll see many decks running them in the top 8s. Your argument that it's useless after you equalize or take lead on prizes is moot. It still acts as a single energy, it's no different to having to attach two basic by that point.
 
Hands

Hands

I was saying Boo-urns
1,896
Posts
7
Years
  • Age 33
  • Seen today
I mean most decks (with the exception of Zoroark and Garbodor decks) run a 1-2 field blower count. Most are running just the single one. Tools and Stadiums are hugely important.
 
donavannj

donavannj

22,952
Posts
19
Years
Jonathan1990 said:
So I took your advice and edited the deck putting some of the cards you've recommended in but I'm not doing very good with this set up. The cards I used before just go to my experiences of playing the game. Tool and stadium cards like are mostly useless as about 90% of opponents always have a Field Blower card to remove them. Some of the cards mentioned I don't have such as Shaymin and I only have 1 Rare Candy. Counter energies are rubbish once you have the same prize cards as your opponent and with less water energy it can take loads of turns to get 2 more which is why I had 22. I also put loads of the GX and EX in as people seem to win all the time doing that.
Click to expand...

Can we get a list of what your decklist looked like during this so we can better assess where you're running into problems?

Tools and Stadiums are very important. It's not just having them in, it's knowing when to place them down and attach them.
 
Last edited:

Jonathan1990

140
Posts
9
Years
  • Age 34
  • Seen Jan 8, 2024
I can show you how I've edited the deck with 4 screenshots.

1. The Piplup set: http://prntscr.com/kk8icc - I only have the 2 Empoleon cards from the Imperial Command theme deck.
2. Other cards: http://prntscr.com/kk8jcn - I kept that Palkia GX in as I like it. Alolan Ninetails from Luminous Frost deck can't be hit by GX Pokemon. I already mentioned that I don't have Shaymin and wouldn't know what set it's even in.
3. Trainer cards: http://prntscr.com/kk8lw0 - Yes I only have 1 rare candy.
4. More trainers and energy cards: http://prntscr.com/kk8mh7 - I have 3 counter energies as I'm buying Crimson Invasion booster packs to try and get Guzzlord GX for a possible Dark/Psychic deck as that card always wins me.
 
Hands

Hands

I was saying Boo-urns
1,896
Posts
7
Years
  • Age 33
  • Seen today
Jonathan1990 said:
I can show you how I've edited the deck with 4 screenshots.

1. The Piplup set: http://prntscr.com/kk8icc - I only have the 2 Empoleon cards from the Imperial Command theme deck.
2. Other cards: http://prntscr.com/kk8jcn - I kept that Palkia GX in as I like it. Alolan Ninetails from Luminous Frost deck can't be hit by GX Pokemon. I already mentioned that I don't have Shaymin and wouldn't know what set it's even in.
3. Trainer cards: http://prntscr.com/kk8lw0 - Yes I only have 1 rare candy.
4. More trainers and energy cards: http://prntscr.com/kk8mh7 - I have 3 counter energies as I'm buying Crimson Invasion booster packs to try and get Guzzlord GX for a possible Dark/Psychic deck as that card always wins me.
Click to expand...

What's your PTCGO handle? I'll set up a private trade offer with whatever rare candies, empoleon and some other bits I can spare for you and you can just give me an energy or something

I've sorted two fairly robust lists you could look into below. The first one is a counter deck that makes use of your opponent taking the lead. Counter catcher lets you control their side of the field and Mimikyu covers popular threats like Necrozma GX (and Malamars, Mewtwo GX etc) alongside Buzzwole and its GX and Garbodor. Shaymin covers water threats and big guys like Lycanroc GX and Zygarde GX. Tapu Lele covers Ultra Necrozma GX and Rayquaza GX. Empoleon is your main attacker still, but your counter buddies will be able to reliably net you 2-prize knock outs whilst your opponent can only take one prize knock outs against you. Shrine of Punishment softens awkward to hit numbers on big GXs (making a one hit on things like Zoroark GX much, much more manageable) and doesn't effect you due to you not running GXs

The second list is straight Empoleon, with Ninetales as a staller. It's a bit more straight forward. You still use Shrine to soften GXs, but Brooklet is there for an early set up. Lusamine ensures you can keep the pressure with Shrines even if they're field blown away.


Counter Control list

Spoiler:


Stall and strike list

Spoiler:
 
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