#Dowsing Machine [Promo] | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

acoustic-haiku · 7 years ago

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“Bass Drop” Noivern-GX/Tapu Koko

Why play this deck? I regularly take 3-5 prizes in a single turn with this deck, and it’s entirely possible to take all 6. It’s pretty fun. If you don’t manage to take all of your prizes in a single turn, you have item lock and/or special energy lock at your disposal. Yes, Noivern-GX is a beast to set up – but its excellent synergy with Tapu Koko promo alleviates this somewhat. This deck is designed to destroy decks that fill up their bench, which tend to dominate the meta.

Deck-building philosophy

Since both Noivern and Tapu Koko have free retreat, I’ve tried to capitalize on this by minimizing the number of Pokémon I’m playing that have retreat costs. Aside from unevolved basics, the only Pokémon without free retreat are 1 Tapu Lele-GX and 1 Espeon-EX. (The single Lele is obligatory in a deck that’s reliant on Brigette; and Espeon-EX only needs one energy to attack and retreat, so it’s pretty efficient.)

Control is important in this deck. Noivern can lock items (which hurts almost every deck around) and also special energies (which hurts a subset of decks at the top of the meta, such as Zoroark and Night March decks). To further incorporate the control theme, I’m playing Red Card and Counter Catcher (as it focuses on spread damage, this deck will almost always be behind in prizes), plus a copy of Hex Maniac (another card which plays well against popular meta decks right now, particularly Zoroark variants).

Since the only draw support Pokémon is Lele, I’ve included 2 Trainers’ Mail to help with consistency.

Spread damage is essential. While you’re setting up Noiverns (which requires two energy attachments), you should be attacking with Tapu Koko; not only does this reduce the amount of damage needed to knock the opponent’s Pokémon out with Noivern’s locking attacks, but you can often score multiple knockouts with Boomburst-GX and/or bring out Espeon-EX to devolve the opponent’s Pokémon.

Speaking of Boomburst, it is very important to time it correctly. I typically do use it early in the game, but I want to knock out as many Pokémon as possible with it -- usually at least 3! The good news is that this is pretty easy to do if you open with Tapu Koko, since most unevolved basics have 70 HP or less.

This deck runs on 4 Double Dragon Energy and 4 Double Colorless Energy (+ 3 basic Dark energy). Special energies are widely hated right now (Enhanced Hammer, etc), so I run 2 Special Charge. I think both copies are necessary because Special Charge is not as efficient as, say, Super Rod. (Note that Xurkitree-GX is probably an auto-loss, especially if they run multiple copies – as while Hex Maniac may allow you to damage it, it’s unlikely to be an OHKO; alas, every deck has its bad matchups!)

Pokémon breakdown

3-3 Noivern-GX. I found that 4 copies weren’t necessary, and the deck was better served by filling that space with trainers. Note that Noibat doesn’t have free retreat, but Noivern does; so, if you need to pull Noibat out of the active position, try to evolve it.

3 Tapu Koko (SM promo). This is the Pokémon you want to start with, so you may even consider running 4. For a DCE it does 20 damage to all of your opponent’s Pokémon in play.

1-1 Weavile (Burning Shadows 86). Its first attack does 60 damage to each Pokémon with an ability. Beware that it will damage your Tapu Lele if Lele is on your bench, but it’s generally worth it if your opponent is playing abilities. In some match-ups, though, it may be useless; so scope out the situation (and ensure Weavile isn’t in your prize cards) before putting Sneasel on the bench. The good news is that Weavile (although not Sneasel) has free retreat -- its situation is similar to Noivern’s.

1 Tapu Lele-GX for consistency support.

1 Espeon-EX for late-game sweeps via mass devolution. I think 1 copy is perfect because, aside from Tapu Lele, this is probably the worst Pokémon to start the game with.

Trainers breakdown

Number of Supporters: 13.

2 Guzma, although Lysandre is another possible option here (since our Pokémon mostly have free retreat anyway).

Draw Supporter engine is 2 Colress – 3 Cynthia – 3 N. Colress usually draws the most cards, but it’s useless in the set-up phase. Cynthia is reliable. N is useful in both early game and late game, albeit for different reasons, and the disruption it can provide is indispensable to this sort of deck. (I have tried Sycamore, and while it did sometimes give a one-card advantage over Cynthia, it wasn’t worth the risk of discarding important cards.)

1 Brigette is the ideal first-turn Supporter, since it can fish out Noibat and Tapu Koko, and also Sneasel if appropriate (and allows you to search through your deck to ensure that this is the case).

1 Hex Maniac is situationally useful. Shutting down abilities can totally lock some decks. It’s a great control card, so I think it fits in here.

1 Acerola for picking up damaged Pokémon. Quite useful to use on Tapu Lele.

Number of Items: 20.

The Ace Spec here is Computer Search, which is all-around a good choice. In this deck, it is typically used to search out special energies. (If you don’t have Computer Search, I think I would actually go for Scramble Switch. Neither Dowsing Machine nor Master Ball would be as useful here.)

1 Rescue Stretcher is a staple and definitely needed in this deck. 2 Special Charge are used for special energy recursion, since this deck is reliant upon them.

4 Ultra Ball needs no explanation, nor does 4 VS Seeker, nor 2 Field Blower.

1 Counter Catcher and 1 Red Card. Counter Catcher will usually be useful, since (as with most spread decks) you’ll usually be behind in prizes right up until the end. Red Card has shown its utility in the meta lately and it fits well here; especially good if, for example, you draw a ton of cards with Colress and then Red Card your opponent down to 4 cards in hand.

2 Trainers’ Mail is a good consistency card.

2 Choice Band for extra damage.

Number of Stadiums: 3.

Devoured Field buffs Noivern’s attacks by 10. It’s not essential, but it sometimes allows Noivern to hit some magic numbers with its second attack (for example, if you have Devoured FIeld + Choice Band + you’ve hit them once with Tapu Koko, you can knock out a Pokémon with 180 HP).

Alternative options

I originally built this deck with Zoroark-GX; however, I found that it wasn’t working as well as I’d hoped. Not only does it take up a lot of space (I was running 2-2 Zoroark, 2 Exeggcute, 1 Battle Compressor, 1 Mallow) but Zoroark is fairly useless as an attacker in this deck. If it gets drawn up to the active spot, you’ll have to sacrifice either your energy attachment (if you have a DCE) or your supporter for turn (if you have a Guzma) to retreat it. Or you might be screwed, and there is a lot of Zoroark hate out there. I found that the deck works better on its own—but your mileage may vary.

Octillery might be another option; at least (unlike Zoroark) it’s only worth 1 prize.

After ditching Zoroark-GX, I tried Shaymin-EX, but I found I don’t have room on the bench for multiple Shaymins. You might consider running just 1 copy.

Decklist

Pokémon - 13

3 Noibat BUS 109

1 Sneasel UPR 73

1 Weavile BUS 86

3 Noivern-GX BUS 99

3 Tapu Koko PR-SM SM31

1 Espeon-EX BKP 52

1 Tapu Lele-GX GRI 60

Trainer Cards - 36

1 Computer Search BCR 137

1 Rescue Stretcher GRI 130

2 Trainers' Mail ROS 92

2 Choice Band GRI 121

1 Acerola BUS 112

1 Brigette BKT 134

4 Ultra Ball SUM 161

3 Cynthia UPR 119

2 Special Charge STS 105

2 Field Blower GRI 125

2 Guzma BUS 115

2 Colress PLS 118

1 Counter Catcher CIN 91

3 N FCO 105

1 Red Card GEN 71

1 Hex Maniac AOR 75

3 Devoured Field CIN 93

4 VS Seeker PHF 109

Energy - 11

4 Double Dragon Energy ROS 97

4 Double Colorless Energy SLG 69

3 Darkness Energy 7

Total Cards - 60

#decklist #deck #pokemon #tcg #pokemon tcg #pokemon tcgo #deck building #noivern #tapu koko #weavile

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