Salmancer's Deck Library

[Salmancer]

The magic of having a deck simulator with monetization of null is that you can build and play whatever with almost no opportunity cost. Why play all those good and meta decks when you can instead have your own personal flawed children? (Because the good and meta decks can brave the ranked queue and progress the game faster. But that's neither here nor there.) This thread is all about the decks I've made and like using in Pokemon TCG Live. They're gimmicky and rough around the edges, but when they work they're a blast. We’ll be looking at them card group by card group, in one sense “watching” the deck take shape, and noting the nuances on how to play these at their best. Come on in, admission is free of charge.

Oh yeah, some formatting notes.

• This is a "Overall turn count" house. As in, the first player's first turn is "Turn 1", the second player's first turn is "Turn 2", the first player's second turn is "Turn 3", and so on. Describing an opening scenario turn by turn is easier this way, and also it's how Okatu on Pojo did it.

 

[Salmancer]

Deck 1: Prize Soul

Spoiler: Deck List

Pokémon: 5

3 Brambleghast TEF 21
1 Bramblin PAL 23 PH
3 Bramblin PAL 23
3 Forretress ex PAF 2
3 Pineco PAF 1

Trainer: 17

4 Ultra Ball PAF 91
2 Youngster SVI 198 PH
2 Buddy-Buddy Poffin TEF 144
2 Counter Catcher PAR 160
2 Lost Vacuum LOR 162
1 Worker SIT 167
1 Youngster SVI 198
4 Iono PAL 185
1 Enhanced Hammer TWM 148 PH
2 Technical Machine: Evolution PAR 178
2 Technical Machine: Crisis Punch PAF 90
1 Counter Catcher PAR 160 PH
1 Lost Vacuum LOR 217
1 Hand Trimmer TEF 150
2 Roxanne ASR 150
1 Prime Catcher TEF 157
3 Arven SVI 166

Energy: 3

2 Mist Energy TEF 161
11 Basic {G} Energy SVE 1
2 Reversal Energy PAL 192

Total Cards: 60

Flipping coins is fun. I don’t know why all these competitive decks are shunning flipping coins when watching a whole bunch of them go off and winning because of the law of averages is the bestest feeling ever. To prove it, I have a classic. Introducing Prize Soul, centered on Brambleghast’s Powerful Needles. It’s a speedy disruptive deck. It aims to pop off immediately, trash the opponent’s hand, then flip 5, 6, 7, 8, etc coins a turn to win while the opponent struggles to catch up to an accursed tumbleweed to two. While linear, there’s a few places to min-max this thing and nail-biting coin flip sequences where it all comes down to a final coin.

Brambleghast

The hero of our deck, it’s Brambleghast. It has two unique qualities. First, it’s the only Pokémon that only gives up one Prize card when Knocked Out that can match Pokémon who do give up two Prize cards beat for beat in HP. With Resilient Soul, it gains 50 HP for every Prize card the opponent takes, scaling high into the late game. At five out of six Prize cards taken, it exceeds them, clocking in at the maximum of 350 HP. Even at 300, Brambleghast has more than enough HP to take a hit and fire back. With what, you may ask? Powerful Needles, the uncontested best scaling “flip coins equal to Energy for damage * heads” attack. Look at it: 80 damage per heads! With a rate like that, it doesn’t a lot to put even the strongest Pokémon within OHKO range. Though reaching the point where probability is in Brambleghast’s favor is gonna take some doing. Who to pair it with…

Forretress ex

Bingo. Forretress throws itself into the discard pile for a free Knock Out, granting two prizes, while accelerating five Energy at once. Use Exploding Energy twice and every Basic Energy in the deck can be attached to two 300 HP Brambleghasts. Worse yet, KO one and the second one gets 350 HP. This deck has to be fast, so past the first attacking turn (which should be spent on TM Evolution), explode whenever you have a Brambleghast ready. Note that you should distribute Energy so that one Brambleghast has six or seven and the other has three or so. If one of these gets trapped active, it’s usually best to explode. It's best to explode even if there is no Energy in the deck to attach, just for the HP boost.

Forretress ex isn’t here just to explode though. Turns out a combined 650 HP isn’t enough to survive six full turns of KOing single prize Pokémon. Forretress takes the main stage in those matchups. It’s grim, but the -30 effect from Guard Press can sometimes hold back two hit KOs and win games. It can also attack one prize support Pokémon in the early game, which usually shouldn't be used but can if it would lock the opponent out of a key card like Pidgeot ex. In the latter case, remember that Exploding Energy doesn't have a Rule Box clause!

11 Basic Grass Energy, 2 Reversal Energy, 2 Mist Energy

That’s a lot of Energy for a competitive* deck! We’ve got to carry all of this for Exploding Energy to accelerate, and it mostly has to be Basic because Special Energy is too spicy for Forretress. Even still, there’s a few key copies. 15 Energy isn’t explosive enough when Powerful Needles has to fell behemoths with over 320 HP, and honesty with some of these flips even 280 can feel daunting. Reversal bridges the gap, being three Energy in one attachment. It’s almost like having 64 cards in the deck! (Just, don’t try to attach it to Forretress. As I’ve learned the hard way, there’s a Rule Box clause.) Mist Energy is here for more tech reasons. 350 HP means nothing in the face of Roaring Moon ex’s insta-KO attack, and Dragapult ex likes to dine on benched Bramblin with the 60 bench damage. Mist Energy can’t be searched for, but at the very least it puts the win rate against those decks at something higher than 0%. Attach both to Bramblin/Ghast when you get the chance since you can’t search for them. Mist Energy should be attached to counter incoming effects.

I haven’t been seeing much Roaring Moon or Dragapult on the queue lately, so maybe you can cut Mist Energy. Even then, I’d swing for more Basic Grass than Reversal, so Forretress empties the deck better.

Buddy Buddy Poffin, Ultra Ball, and Technical Machine Evolution

Brambleghast and Forrtress is a potent combo, but it’s kind of specific. After all, the only way this works is to ensure there are no non Brambleghasts lying around to allow the opponent to use Boss’s Orders and sneak past the 350 HP one. Which means the deck can’t play any Pokémon outside of two Brambleghast and two Forretress ex. Which means we don’t get to run any Pokémon that draw cards. We’re at the mercy of the shuffler. At the very least, this is a pretty efficient package of Pokémon searching. Buddy Buddy Poffin is 2 Pokémon for one card, Ultra Ball can grab one evolution, and Technical Machine Evolution ideally comes down on the second or third turn of the game to round up the Evos for the rest of the Bench. Some notes:

• When going first, prioritize Pineco to be Active. Most decks can’t dish out a turn 2 Knock Out, and Forretress ex has the bulk to use TM Evo on turn 3, hold through turn 4, and finally explode on turn 5. Retreating Bramblin to do this is worth it.
• When going second, prioritize Bramblin to be Active and potentially use TM Evo. I’m not gonna sugarcoat it, it’s going to be a Knocked Out Bramblin before long. However, note the prize map. Losing a Bramblin means double Fortress still leads to a 350 HP Brambleghast. Losing a Pineco while there are already two Bramblin means playing a third Pineco to replace the lost one puts seven prizes worth of Pokémon into play. Which means you can’t detonate the evolution without leaving an excess Bramblin/Brambleghast. With a 50 HP pre-evo and q three retreat cost evolution, that extra Bramblin is a juicy gusting target. It’s better to cut your losses and throw Bramblin away. Once Forretress has evolved, it can hold the Active Spot for a turn while all the ducks get in the row. It can use TM Evolution too, if you haven’t yet.
• With Buddy Buddy Poffin, prioritize Pineco 2 over Bramblin 2. Forretress can hold the Active Spot, Brambleghast can’t until at least a Forretress goes boom, and much prefers if both Forretress have done so. Similarly, if you have to Ultra Ball for Basics you should be looking for Pineco first. With TM Evo, prioritize Forretress. There are fewer of them in the deck, and Bramblin is usually safe on the bench anyway.
• Ideally, you’ll only need to Ultra Ball once or twice. But choose your discards wisely, There’s no recovery in the deck and you’re going to want all the Energy on a Brambleghast. Similarly, discarding Brambleghast early tends to bite later on when you can’t draw Brambleghast 2. Look at the opponent’s board and carefully choose which trainer cards you won’t need. However, remember how we only want to play 2 of each Pokémon. Any Pokemon drawn in excess of that are useless, feel free to discard them. (Remember, Buddy Buddy Poffin is “direct to bench”, not to hand!) Also, this deck is only running “shuffle and draw” effects because of the aforementioned lack of recovery and restrictions on discarding. This means using the excess Ultra Balls to bin anything that can’t be used is a good call. Buddy Buddy Poffin can “fail to find”, as a way to trash it for free.

Arven & The Item Brigade

Whew, that’s intensive. How does a deck with no draw assemble a Turn 2 or 3 TM Evolution? Same way everyone else does, three copies of Arven. Great for the T1 Buddy Buddy Poffin, the T2 TM Evo, and any number of other specific items that make sure our deck goes fast.

Counter Catcher and Prime Catcher make sure we’re hitting the best targets every turn, with double Exploding Energy almost ensuring Counter Catcher is live for the whole game. Remember, Brambleghast’s HP will peter out over too many turns; it’s gotta be taking out Pokémon ex on as many turns as possible. Prime Catcher working where Counter Catcher doesn't often cinches the final turn of the game. Even though Prime Catcher is our only switching card, deploying Prime early to save on paying Brambleghast’s hefty Retreat Cost is recommended. (Funny thing is that the switch is often a detriment outside of correcting an opposing Boss’s Orders.)

Lost Vacuum and Enhanced Hammer slow the opponent down, Keep their funny engine pieces off the board. This deck is doing 3-1 because I don’t see that much Special Energy in the Casual queue and Arven keeps it handy whenever I need it, but I imagine the choice of how many of each to use depends on the meta.

Iono and Roxanne, also a Youngster I guess

These two are what make the deck actually work. Sure, a 300 HP Pokémon belting out 160, 240, or 320 damage a turn can be dealt with. But when you have two or three cards in hand, scrounging up the resources to stop the boulder gets a lot harder. Ideally, you want to explode Forretress before using either of these, meaning the opponent doesn’t get to keep the Prize cards. It’s also noteworthy that pulling all the Energy from your deck makes the odds of reaching an Ultra Ball a little bit better when Forretress is out of stalling time. Roxanne is tricky because the extra cards on your end make it critical to reach the game winning Catcher but the restriction means it’ll only work after a double Forretress boom or a Bramb KO with a boom. It’s the kind of card you discard first out of necessity, then kick yourself for not having later. (Still, discarding it first is usually the play.) I again stress that you should not wait for either of these cards before going boom. The extra turn head start is almost always required to reach the finish line before running out of health.

Youngster fills out the remaining slots because running 4 Roxanne is a good way to lose the game when double Forretress boom doesn’t happen. Again, note that everything here is “shuffle and draw”. We can’t afford to lose Pokémon or Energy, so no Professor’s Research for us.

Technical Machine: Crisis Punch

One problem that comes up is that probability is a cruel mistress. Brambleghast 1 needs 7 or 8 energy to be attached just to usually succeed in the OHKO department, which means Brambleghast 2 is working off of scraps. (And again, you can’t count on Reversal Energy to bail you out, both because it can’t be searched for and because the final attack may happen with equal prizes.) Running more energy is out of the question, any more Reversals and the Basic Energy count gets low enough to question why we’re exploding two Forretress instead of one. How do we get more mileage out of the same amount of Energy? Say hello to gimmick two this already gimmicky deck: Crisis Punch. It turns three energy from possibly 240 damage to definitely 280 damage, flattening nearly anything that isn’t a Stage 2 Pokémon ex on the spot. The very deliberate prize map means the final Brambleghast will almost always be able to use this, and Arven keeps it close at hand for when it’s needed. He can even grab a Catcher at the same time, to dodge around a Pokémon bulky enough to take a Crisis Punch. This Technical Machine is the other reason we’re not using “discard and draw”; accidentally losing Crisis Punch when we need it for the final attack is just heartbreaking. There are two in the deck, and think long and hard before discarding either because the chance to draw it off Roxanne is also beneficial. Any game where Crisis Punch would be required three times is probably a lost cause from the jump, that’s why there’s only two.

Worker and Hand Trimmer?

The also rans, and I guess first cuts if you want to make the deck better. They’re also the first ones on the Ultra Ball discard list. Worker squeezes in disruption into the draw package, though it is rather narrow since it only hits Stadiums. Since it can’t be searched for, it’s never gotten me out of a jam, but it’s probably saved a Lost Vacuum for a Tool here or there. I sometimes think of it as a “Stadium”, since this deck doesn’t have any.

Hand Trimmer? Probably the worst card in the whole deck, and honestly really bad in general. It’s here because the concept of this card is funny. That and I think this is the only deck where it’s even remotely viable: There are cases where you have to explode (twice!) without shuffling the opponent’s hand away, and giving the opponent 2-4 extra cards is usually pretty bad. Even if those cards aren’t good, the extra flexibility for paying discard costs like from Ultra Ball and Earthen Vessel will allow them to keep more good cards in hand to use against Brambleghast. Cutting them back down to the best five cards out of a 7-10 card hand at least keeps the opponent’s set up from advancing too far.

Other Notes:

• Assuming full set up, it's safe to assume Brambleghast can take 2 hits each. (The extra 50HP doesn't help that much.) That means that if this deck goes on the offensive first, there are four attacks available.
• Yes, you do lose to any deck than can cancel out Resilient Soul, up to and including tech copies of Cancelling Cologne. That’s unlife for you, all too easy to take away. It’s really embarrassing when it happens mid turn and KOs a damaged Brambleghast for free.
• You also lose to quad Cornerstone Mask Ogerpon ex. At least with all the Catchers and it’s weak attack you can win against decks that just happen to have the card.
• Pikachu ex (the Tera one) is an autoloss, just because it can take an infinite supply of damage and live, followed by delivering an OHKO to Brambleghast 1. There's no surmounting that unless the opponent has three other ex Pokémon lying around.
• You don’t lose to Quad Iron Thorns though, surprise surprise. Volt Cyclone is an embarrassment of an attack on an ex, and Forretress ex’s damage reduction combined with Lost Vacuum for their Capsules means the electric dino can’t keep up. Don’t evolve Bramblin once their trick is apparent though, Brambleghast is a good Gust target with no way to efficiently get energy on it to attack or retreat.
• If a deck has Radiant Charizard, it’s a “on sight” target. Always use a Catcher on it. This deck is built around each Brambleghast taking two hits apiece, Radiant Charizard melts them in one hit no matter how much HP is stored up. That means you can’t race it, the ‘zard has to be felled before it strikes a full health Brambleghast and ruins the prize map. If it comes down to “maybe win the game off these flips” or Radiant Charizard, do choose the former. It’s more tense and you don’t have infinite catchers to throw against it.
• Briar is terrifying, and there's little to do against it. I guess if you see it coming you can buy a turn by retreating the injured Brambleghast 1, since decks can't use Boss's Orders and Briar on the same turn. Assuming every deck with a Tera attacker has Briar is too cautious for this deck, since Brambleghast 2 usually doesn't have enough energy to attack for OHKOs.
• Stage 2 ex are nearly insurmountable. Abandon security when it comes to powering up Brambleghast 2 and focus on delivering OHKOs with the first one. You’ll probably still lose, but better to get a KO than not on Live.
• Cancelling Cologne feels like a smart card to have around to counteract protective Abilities, but what to cut and how much of a difference would having just one copy make?
• There's a case for going down to one Crisis Punch to get Blunder Policy Lucky Helmet in to keep the cards flowing. I like the security of having at least 2 copies of any card I want to have in every game, but maybe I should test the change out. Brambleghast 1 usually attacks gets hit twice so it would be + 6 4 cards drawn. Then again, it does feel a little "win more" whereas Crisis Punch can turn losses into wins.
• Gravity Mountain to drag some Stage 2 Pokémon ex into 4 heads range? Again, we don't have Stadium search so just a one of seems pointless. Maybe...

*Deck is 100% not competitive.

Spoiler: Bonus: Older revisions!

Spoiler: Original (Most HP in the game, look out!)

Pokémon: 10

4 Brambleghast TEF 21
2 Bibarel BRS 121
1 Bramblin PAL 23 PH
3 Bramblin PAL 23
2 Forretress ex PAF 2
3 Pineco PAF 1
2 Kricketune ASR 10
1 Kricketot ASR 9
2 Bidoof CRZ 111
1 Kricketot CRZ 10

Trainer: 10

3 Ultra Ball PAF 91
4 Buddy-Buddy Poffin TEF 144
1 Counter Catcher PAR 160
4 Iono PAL 185
2 Technical Machine: Turbo Energize PAR 179
1 Prime Catcher TEF 157
1 Capturing Aroma SIT 153
4 Professor's Research SVI 189
3 Artazon PAL 171
2 Arven SVI 166

Energy: 2

12 Basic {G} Energy SVE 1
2 Reversal Energy PAL 192

Total Cards: 60

Spoiler: Version 2.0

The prize map system was in, but the Supporters were all over the place with a Pokégear as the only way to find the right one of a situational bunch. Also I deviated from the Arven based engine that defines the final deck.

Pokémon: 5
4 Brambleghast TEF 21
1 Bramblin PAL 23 PH
3 Bramblin PAL 23
3 Forretress ex PAF 2
4 Pineco PAF 1

Trainer: 15

1 Giovanni's Charisma MEW 197
3 Ultra Ball PAF 91
1 Eri TEF 146
3 Buddy-Buddy Poffin TEF 144
2 Counter Catcher PAR 160
2 Lost Vacuum LOR 162
4 Iono PAL 185
1 Pokégear 3.0 SSH 174
1 Counter Catcher PAR 160 PH
2 Roxanne ASR 150
1 Prime Catcher TEF 157
1 Crushing Hammer SSH 159
1 Capturing Aroma SIT 153
4 Professor's Research SVI 189
2 Collapsed Stadium BRS 137

Energy: 3

2 Mist Energy TEF 161
12 Basic {G} Energy SVE 1
2 Reversal Energy PAL 192

Total Cards: 60