Need some opinions

[Nekusagi]

Made this deck after ending up 13th in my age group at City Tournament... opinions, please.

Viridian

Basic Pokemon (14)

2 Ekans (Rocket)
4 Larvitar (Rocket)
2 Rattata (Rocket)
1 Koffing (Rocket)
1 Koffing (Deoxys)
1 Gulpin (Hidden Legends)
1 Ditto (Geodude) (Delta Species)
1 Ditto (Bulbasaur) (Delta Species)
1 Tropius (Hidden Legends)

Stage 1 Pokemon (7)
1 Dark Arbok (Rocket)
2 Dark Pupitar (40/109) (Rocket)
1 Dark Pupitar (41/109) (Rocket)
1 Dark Raticate (Rocket)
2 Dark Weezing (Rocket)

Stage 2 Pokemon (1)
1 Dark Tyranitar (20/109) (Rocket)

Trainers (16)
1 Super Scoop Up
1 Lanette's Net Search (Emerald)
1 Holon Mentor (DS)
1 Holon Farmer (DS)
1 PokeNav (Emerald)
4 Energy Search
1 Rocket's Hideout (Rocket)
2 Rocket's Mission (Rocket)
2 Rocket's PokeBall (Rocket)
2 Pokemon Retriever (Rocket)

Energy (22)
10 Grass
12 Fighting

 

[Archaic]

There's no need to do the ratio's kind of things anymore. Here, let me link you to a deck on PokéGym (I'll c/p it here for you). It might give you an idea of some of the things that you can do.

http://www.pokegym.net/forums/showthread.php?t=28485

Hey guys! BigChuck01 is back on the gym today to COMPLETELY analyze his favorite deck of all time: Rock-Lock! Put a pot of coffee on, cause this ones going to be a long one!

I've been playing Rock-Lock for over a year now. Why stick with one deck for so long? Lots of reasons! First of all, it's a very good deck, and I'm the most competitive guy alive, so I only play good decks. Secondly, it's lots of fun to play. What other deck can KO somebody's entire board with one attack? Finally, I play this deck so well that I actually consider myself a monster favorite over every non-Medicham deck I play against. Arrogant? Maybe, but its true for the most part. Just ask any of my opponents who HAVENT jumped off a building from playing me (I can assure you that at least 3 have).

For those of you who aren't familiar with the concept of Rock-Lock, the idea is to get a Dark Ampharos and Dark Tyranitar (Sand Damage) into play, and start playing ATM Rock every turn to decimate your opponent's board. Seems simple enough, right? Not really, because this deck has been around for about a year now, and EVERYONE knows how beat a mediocre player using the lock strategy. My goal for today is not only give you a solid up to date list, but some advanced strategy in each matchup so that you can still beat top players that think they know how to shut down Rock-Lock.

Here's the list of the Rock-Lock I used to win the 2005 Kalimazoo City Championships a few weeks ago (Actually, I dropped a Copycat for a 2nd DRE since then, as they are very helpful in the Queendom and Medicham matchups), which featured over a dozen worlds qualifiers, including Jason K (Ness), Matt Moss (Mossy), AJ DeLoye (TheAnswer3), and many other top players:

Pokemon: 22

3 Larvitar (1 fire one)
2 Dark Pupitar (All explosive)
3 Dark Tyranitar (2 Sand, 1 Spintail)
2 Mareep
1 Dark Flaffy
2 Dark Amphy
2 Pidgey
1 Pidgeotto
2 Pidgeot
4 Plusle

Energy: 13

4 Lightning
4 Dark
2 Heal 2 DRE
1 Scramble

Trainers: 25

4 Celio
2 Copycat
3 TVR
1 Admin
2 Rocket's Poke Ball
3 ATM Rock
1 Briney
4 Rare Candy
3 Desert Ruins
1 Tricky Gym
1 Protective Orb
Let's take a CLOSER look at the major cards in the deck:

Dark Tyranitar (Sand Damage)

[Image removed so we don't steal PokéGym's bandwidth]

Dark Tyranitar is the primary attacker in the deck. With 120 HP and a weakness to the very weak grass type, dark Tyranitar is very hard to take down. Second strike is also a very powerful attack, netting you 50-70 damage for usually only 1-2 energy (DRE and Scramble Energy will always be used in my list as I run no Fighting Energy). Dark Tyranitar's Dual Type is also great, as he benefits from Darkness Energy, but is still also fighting type, allowing you to OHKO all of those popular fighting-weak Pokemon such as Dark Ampharos or Spin-Tail Dark Tyranitar. Dark Tyranitar is also the primary "locker" with his Poke-Body "Sand-Damage". Sand Damage places a damage counter on each of you opponents benched basic in between EACH turn, not just yours. 20 Damage per a full turn REALLY adds up, and puts your opponent in a situation where they HAVE to evolve their Pokemon. Now I know what you're thinking: "But BigChuck, evolved Pokemon are better than basic ones, so whats wrong with evolving them?" Well, NORMALLY nothing, but there's another part of the combo which makes it a BIG problem to evolve: Dark Ampharos

[Image removed so we don't steal PokéGym's bandwidth]

Dark Ampharos is another card needed for Rock-Lock to function. For starters, Dark Ampharos has 120 HP, which is a lot for a non-EX Pokemon. Dark Ampharos is also Dark and Lighting type, which is of GREAT convenience. Many important cards such as Pidgoet, Ludicolo, Zapdos EX, and Blastoise EX are weak to lightning, so Dark Ampharos allows you to take care of all of those major threats easily. One bummer though is Dark Amphy's weakness to Fighting. Fighting is one of the more popular types in Pokemon (Dark T-tar, Nidoqueen, Medicham), so it's going to have to sit on the bench and let it's body destroy the opponent in a lot of your matches.
Dark Ampharos' Poke-Body "Darkest Impulse" lets you place 2 damage counters on your opponents Pokemon when it evolves. With Dark Tyranitar active, your opponent wants to evolve their Pokemon so that they don't take Sand-Damage, but if they do, they're forced to take Darkest Impulse damage. Yes, when both of these cards are out, it SUCKS to be them. Now one thing you didn't know about me is that I'm a mind reader, and I AGAIN know what you're thinking: "But Chuck, after I finally evolve everything and take my damage, aren't I ready to fight back and win?" The answer is NO, because you're going to be taking a LOT more damage from the card Ancient Techinal Machine: Rock.

ATM Rock allows you to use the attack "Stone Generator" with takes all of your opponent's evolved Pokemon and returns the highest stage of evolution back to their hand. That's right, ALL of them. That means that all of your opponents Pokemon go back down a notch, and are forced to go back through Sand Damage and Darkest Impulse some more. With a Dark Tyranitar, Dark Ampharos, and Pidgeot in play to get ATM Rocks for you, it is usually only a matter of turns before your opponent scoops his cards and concedes the game.

With the rotation of Dunsparce, Plusle is now used to fill the void and get those basics that you need. It also has a nice attack that can be helpful against certain decks. Other than that, this list is very similar to the ones that were used all of last season, with only a few changes, like playing TVR over Stevens (TVR seems better to drop useless gyms against other Ruins decks, and also because of the smaller benches these days due to the rotation of Dunsparce), and playing Tricky Gym and Protective Orb. Tricky Gym and Protective Orb, along with Plusle, are some of you big weapons in the Nidoqueen matchup, which I will get into right now.

Matchups:

Rock-Lock vs. Nidoqueen

In my opinion, this is the most complicated match up in Pokemon. The entire game usually comes down to their Milotic timing, and your reaction to the Milotic. It's really dumb to start rocking Nidoqueens and Pidgeots back down to Nidorinas and Pidgeottos if they're just going to evolve some damage onto themselves, then Milotic it all away in a few turns, so you're going to want to just hit them with some Clutches and Second Strikes while you wait for the Milotic to hit the board and remove a not so important amount of damage. If they ever just bench a Feebas and try to evolve next turn without Rare Candying, just quick search for your tricky gym, and feint attack the Feebas with a Sand-Damage Tyranitar, KOing it, and pretty much ending the game right there (Without Milotic, Nidoqueen can't fight back against the lock). When they DO Rare Candy the Milotic, there are a few things you can now do to respond:

1. Tricky Gym the Milotic, and Rock it back down to Feebas with SD Ttar, KOing it in between turns. When you do this, you're trading a Ttar for a Milotic which is a BARGAIN in this match up. Usually they will Briney though, and wait to Milotic again, while they KO your Ttar. Sometimes they will attach a Heal Energy to the Milotic, stopping the SD KO, which is also a nice counter, but sometimes pointless as they would just be better off playing a Briney and playing the energy on something else, as they are going to have to do it eventually anyways.

2. Positive Spark the Milotic, and rock next turn with the SD Ttar, KOing the Feebas in between turns. This is probably the best option, as you are losing a not so important Plusle instead of a VERY important Ttar. They will probably respond with Heal Energy or Briney again.

3. Start Spin Tailing with an Orb. After the first one, the Briney is forced, and then you only have to play around 1 more Milotic drop. Briney your Ttar after they hit it with Nidoqueen if you can, because Ttar and its orb are going to be important later on.

If they can't Briney the Milotic, you pretty much have a won game via Rocking after that. When they do Briney the Milotic before you can KO it though, you're at the hardest part of the game. You're running low on resources, some of your big hitters are dead, and your lock isn't going to work as long as they have that stupid Milotic. Let's look at some things that have to occur for you to get in this horrible position though:

1. Feebas, Milotic, AND Briney MUST avoid getting stuck in the prizes. If any of the 3 are Prized, you're in good shape.

2. Feebas MUST be Rare Candied into Milotic, so that leaves them only 2 Rare Candy to use between their Pidgeots and Nidoqueens. Again, prizes can be BIG trouble.

So it's going to take a lot of luck on their part to not only get set up correctly and fast enough to avoid the lock, but they also have to have a lot of key cards out of the prizes. So anyways, if they DO manage to double Milotic you, you're in trouble if you don't have a lot of Pokemon and energy left (Which you shouldn't). If you DO have them left for some reason though (They got a bit fancy and didn't time their Milotics very well), Spintail twice (orb) followed by a rock, and then start rocking them to death.

So basically the match up comes down to if they can "Double Milotic" you, and how well you hold cards/respond to the Milotic threat. If you're playing against a decent or bad Nidoqueen player, then I'd say Rock-Locks advantage in this match can go as high as 80-20, but if you're playing against a professional Nidoqueen user like Jeremy or Pablo, this match up can swing between 60-40 and 30-70, depending on if the Milotic is in the deck, and how well they play it.

Rock-Lock vs. Medicham
This is every Rock-Lock player's worst nightmare. Medicham is the only deck in the format right now that isn't a significant underdog to me when I'm playing Rock-Lock (I'm a bit arrogant ). For starters, Medicham is fast, VERY fast, and Rock-Lock is a bit slow with its tri-stage 2 combo. There's also no way to lock Medicham, as the only evolution it plays is a stage 1. Rocking for 20 against Cham isn't going to cut it. Cham is also conveniently fighting type, which OHKOs your Dark Amphy, Grind Ttar, and Pidgeot with a Magnetic Storm in play. YIKES. Finally, Medicham's Poke-Body disables Pidgeot's Quick Search, leaving you hoping to get lucky and topdeck what you need. What's a Rock-Lock player to do? Do your best to outplay them, and hope to get lucky, of course! Just don't get discouraged before the game starts and not even try. If you play the deck well enough, you CAN actually get some big wins in against Cham. When I played in the Kalimazoo City Championships a week ago, there were 4 Medicham EX decks in the entire 40 person tournament, and I got paired against 3 of them in my first 5 rounds! Talk about a bad beat! Anyways, I went on to win ONE of them (I beat worlds qualifier Matt Gilepsi without any "luck" whatsoever, but lost to worlds qualifiers Jason Klaczynski and Matt Moss quite handily). This was enough to make it into the top 8, where I 2-0ed an undefeated Queendom deck played by worlds qualifier Sean Foisey, 2-1ed a ZRE deck played by a good Wisconsin player (Rulemaster), and finally 2-1ed Matt Moss's Medicham deck in the finals. I got a bit lucky game 1 as he got a slow start, I got crushed in game 2, but game 3 was very fair, and I really do feel that I just played the match the slightest bit better with some VERY smart moves to earn my title.

Your best chance to win this match up is going first with a Turn 2 Pidgeot and trying to clutch enough damage on to put them in a bad situation, or getting a turn 2 Second Striking TTar which sets them up for a KO via Ruins or Dark Energy next turn. The most obvious problem with this is that a heads on ER2 immediately kills your plans. Still though, if this happens and they whiff on the ER2s, then you're in a great position to pull the upset. Your next best chance is them simply not getting a Medicham turn 2 or 3. This allows you to set up quite easily and overpower them. Another good way to win is saving your draw for key moments, and playing energy on the important things like the Ttars and Pidgeots, not the Plusles and Amphys. Energy is probably the single most important thing when facing a Medicham deck, because almost every stage 2 Pokemon in the game is stronger that Cham heads up, but most of these Pokemon require a large amount of energy, which just gets POWed or ER2ed away. Note that an extremely strong and complex deck like Rock-Lock is an underdog to Cham, but a 30 Psychic Energy 30 Psychic Pokemon theme deck is probably a FAVORITE over Medicham. Try playing a theme deck against Rock-Lock, and watch little Jimmy BAWL his eyes out as his Pokemon quickly disaper before he even knows what's going on! An odd principle about Medicham that I've developed is that Medicham is actually a BETTER deck against good players, and a WORSE deck against bad players, as the good players play lots of trainers and low energy, while the bad players (in general) play lots of energy and lots of Pokemon.

Most of the time however, Medicham will just get a turn 2 Cham against your basic Pokemon, and Pure Power all of your Larvitars away before you can do anything about it. You might finally land a KO on one Cham, but then Cham #2 just comes up and Pow locks you. I'd say even the best Rock-Lock players are a 30-70 underdog against the worst Medicham players, but when you take ANY Rock-Lock player against the BEST Medicham players, you're looking at as bad as 85-15. Me and Moss always joke about the matchup being 98-2, but it's never really THAT bad. Here's a few more tips for this matchup in case you find yourself NEVER winning it:

-Try to avoid benching Plusles and Multiple stage 2s. Plusles are just bait to get energy POWed to them, and late game, energyless stage 2s just get POW locked.

-Conserve your energy. You're going to need all of the energy you can get to try and fight back against the ER2s and POWs.

-Use your gyms wisely. A late game ruins #3 followed by an admin for 2-3 MIGHT stick, putting you in a good situation to make a comeback.

Rock-Lock vs. Rock-Lock

This is another match that takes perfect play for you to give yourself an advantage. The BIGGEST key to this match up is getting your Dark Ampharos and Pidgeot out via Pidgeotto and Dark Flaffy. I remember when I was 5-1 at Nationals and got paired up against another Rock-Lock. I got setup and was SURE I was going to win after I evolved into Pidgeotto and Dark Flaafy turn 2, but when I Celioed for them, THEY WERE BOTH PRIZED! I went on to lose as I got Rock-Locked at the basic stage pretty fast.

The win condition in this match is completely ATM Rock based. You can't get ALL of your stage 2s out via their stage 1, so EVENTUALLY the player who Rare Candied the most things is going to get stuck at their basics, and lose the game. The biggest pointer I can give you in this match upis get your Pidgeot and Amphy via stage 1 NO MATTER WHAT. If your opening hand is a Pidgey, Celio, Rare Candy, and Pidgeot, I would definitely Celio for the Pidgeotto and candy into it before I would candy into Pidgeot. Also, if you can drop the orb on Spintail Ttar and pull off multiple Spintails, you have a huge advantage over the person rocking, and you're doing 20 to everything WITHOUT burning through your rocks right away.

Rock-Lock vs SMP, Blastoise, ZRE, Ludi, ANYTHING else

These are Rock-Locks great matchups. I know a lot of people who have trouble with ZRE, but I can assure you that if you're playing correctly, that you're a huge favorite over it. If you REALLY think that one of these might be a bad matchup, feel free to E-mail me at
[email protected]
and I'll be more than happy to breakdown the match up for you.

Well, this articles getting too long, even for me, so if you have any questions or comments, just E-mail me or IM me. My SN is BigChuck01. Take it easy.
-Chuck

 

[Nekusagi]

...huh?

I don't know anything about ratios, I just threw some of the Modified-friendly cards I had together to make a semi-decent deck.