Lucas: 6 - Dragapult & Challenge

     For those of you vlog-reading-regulars, before Nathan's trip to the Pokemon TCG Atlanta Regional Championships, he took a trip over to mine and Katie's house in Melbourne, FL for Katie's choir concert. Before this visit, I prepared three of what I anticipated to be the best/most popular decks at ATL for Nathan to practice against. 

    These decks were: Gardevoir, Tera Box, and Dragapult (aside: I'm going to stop referring to these decks as "Gardevoir EX" or "Dragapult EX". They're almost always EX-based decks). In the end, Gardevoir was the 6th most played deck and won the entire tournament. Dragapult was the most popular deck, and finished in 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, AND 6th place. Who finished 7th? Another Gardevoir. Tera Box placed poorly, but was the 5th most popular Atlanta deck. Also, Nathan's gameplan into the 4th most popular deck, Terapagos, is super similar to Tera Box, but with less traps for Nate to get caught in. Wait, who finished 8th in Atlanta? Terapagos. 

    All of this is just me patting myself on the back for the prep I set up for Nate in a brand new Pokemon TCG format (see: Nathan's post on Rotation). I just want my shot-calls recorded. This does bring us to the main point of this blog, Dragapult. When practicing against Nate, I found myself really enjoying the deck. I always meant to use this deck, having played a lot of games with Regidrago VSTAR, which mainly used its Apex Dragon attack to copy Dragapult's Phantom Dive attack. Being able to spread 6 damage counters (reminder, 1 damage counter = 10 damage) onto your opponent's bench makes this one of the strongest attacks in the game. For Nate's practice, I played a Dragapult deck with Dusknoir included, the most common build. Dusknoir putting even more damage into play allows for the Dragapult deck to be very aggressive at drawing prize cards once it starts attacking. 

My Dragapult

    The deck that I have been playing since the Atlanta regionals cuts the Dusknoir evolution line in favor of additional consistency cards and "tech cards", a fancy term for cards that are used to counter specific matchups. The key for this deck to work is the cheeky little bugger known as Budew. This deck wants the game to move as slowly as possible, and uses Budew's Itchy Pollen attack to prevent the opponent from playing any Item cards. Item cards, of course, being one of the most important and common card types in any Pokemon deck. Your opponent can still play one supporter, attach energy, etc., but not playing any items grinds almost any game to a halt.

    My Dragapult deck is specifically built with Budew in mind, taking advantage of slower supporters like Jacq and Brock's Scouting to slowly build up my board while under item lock. Remember, this is the most popular deck right now. Even if I'm using Budew, my opponent probably is too.

    This brings us to the phenomenon known as Budew Wars. This occurs when you and your opponent constantly use Budew's Itchy Pollen attack on each other while slowly evolving your bench Pokemon and struggling to keep your Budew alive. 10 damage doesn't seem like a lot at first, but Budew's puny 30 HP goes quick. My deck aims to win every single Budew War by using Bravery Charm to increase Budew's HP to 80 or using Munkidori's Adrena-Brain ability to move damage from my Budew. It's important to have multiple ways to win the Budew War, because I won't have any items to help me set up my defenses.

    This meta kinda sucks but it's also pretty fun to win games. And that's what I do.

4/19 Challenge

    I took this deck to a Challenge earlier today, seeking my 4th Challenge win of the season. Getting the win would mean that I've gotten all Championship Points possible from Challenges for this season. 

Round 1 - Tera Box

    Too bad I didn't bootcamp myself. I built Tera Box to practice the matchup against Nathan's Raging Bolt deck! Not my own Dragapult! Tera Box may have been popular heading into Atlanta, but its poor performance has made it scarce on the online ladder. I've played this matchup maybe once.

    I get off to a terrible start while two of my Dreepy are stuck in my prize cards. My opponent has at least one Noctowl in his hand, allowing him to search out any two Trainer cards from his deck to follow up a near-perfect first turn from his side. After ending my first turn, here is the game board:

    My opponent has the opportunity to KO both of my Dreepys with Wellspring Mask Ogerpon's Torrential Pump attack paired with a Boss's Orders, which I know will destroy my chances at winning this game, as my other two Dreepys are out of reach. Well, the big man has all of that and more. He destroys my board, while advancing his own. He is able to extend his bench with Area Zero Underdepths to bench two more Hoothoots, threatening more Noctowl evolutions to search out any combo pieces he may need. Here is the board going into my second turn:

    His Latias EX allows his Basic Pokemon to retreat for no cost, meaning that my only chance to trap a Pokemon in his active spot is with Noctowl. I do what I must and attempt to use Budew while moving his Noctowl to the active. Having a Noctowl in my opponent's active spot will hopefully prevent him from attacking this turn, and using Budew will limit his counterplay by restricting items. I am also able to draw into a Pokemon recovery card, Night Stretcher, and put a Dreepy back into play. If this one is KO'd, it's a wrap:

    Alas. He has Crispin. He is able to accelerate one energy to Noctowl with Crispin, which attaching the other to Fan Rotom. He retreats and KOs my Budew. In the process.. he makes a misplay. He benches an additional Fan Rotom, filling his bench. His current board has no Pokemon able to hit numbers that will matter against Dragapult's 320 HP. It ain't over (still looks bad). I am able to evolve my Dreepy into a Drakloak, giving me additional card draw with Drakloak's ability, Recon Directive. I move a Noctowl to my opponent's active spot again and retreat to Bloodmoon Ursaluna to have a tanky body in my active spot: 

    My opponent doesn't really know what to do after this. I imagine he now sees the error in his second Fan Rotom benching. He takes the next couple turns to add energies to his Teal Mask Ogerpon, preparing for a Myriad Leaf Shower attack. That attack won't do much here to win the game. He moves his Wellspring Mask Ogerpon to the active spot and uses its first attack, Sob, dealing 20 damage and preventing me from retreating. Trying to retreat lock isn't a real threat against my deck, but he's gotta do something. This goes on for a little bit as I power up and evolve my Dragapult. Let's fast forward to that:

    I can now attack for the first time all game. But where do the 6 damage counter go? I decide to put 10 damage on Teal Mask Ogerpon, setting it up for a KO in the future, while splitting up the remaining 50 damage between the two Fan Rotoms. I only need one of Latias or Teal Mask Ogerpon at 200 HP remaining, and his Fan Rotoms can't evolve, making them better targets to damage than the Hoothoots. By this point, he's built up a metric ass-load of energies on his Teal Mask Ogerpon that I haven't been keeping track of in my pictures. He uses this new attacker to KO my Fezandipiti, drawing two more prize cards. For those of you keeping track at home: he has ONE prize card remaining. I have six remaining... are we going to lose?

    OH MY GOD, HERE COMES HAWLUCHA FROM THE TOP ROPE!!! His FLYING ENTRY ability allows me to put one damage counter on two of my opponent's benched Pokemon. I put damage on both of my opponent's Fan Rotoms.

    Hmm, okay. So now we can KO the Teal Mask Ogerpon, put 1 damage counter on the Wellspring Mask Ogerpon... but we need more damage? We still can't draw all 6 prize cards this turn, right? 

BY GOD, THAT'S PROFESSOR TURO'S SCENARIO'S MUSIC

That's right, folks. I use Professor Turo's Scenario to put Hawlucha back into my hand. I put Hawlucha back onto the bench, using his Flying Entry ability a second time. More damage to the Fan Rotoms.

At this point, only Nathan has an inkling of what's happening. REGARDLESS. I use Phantom Dive to deal 200 damage to the active Teal Mask Ogerpon. Knockout & 2 prizes. I place one damage counter onto Wellspring Mask Ogerpon. Knockout & 2 more prizes, making 4 total. I put 2 damage counters on one Fan Rotom and the remaining 3 on the other. Knockout Knockout & 2 more prizes. 6 total. GG.

Rounds 2 and 3 weren't very competitive. 3-0. My fourth Challenge win of the season. Katie also opened a fancy Brock's Scouting from the packs I won. Nice looking card!