Thoughts on Upcoming NorCal Regionals + Flytrap STOMP

I'm looking forward to the first Fall Regionals of the new season (even if I'm a tad bit sour faced about 20 dollars entry fee). Arizona already has one-uped the event by also providing Visa Gift cards as part of the prize pool which is so much more universally better than...tons and tons of cards. There's not much the folks in NorCal can do now as far as editing and upping their prizes, and some of their events and door prizes are shaping up to be pretty good, so I'll still give them a whirl. I'm still on the ropes about my deck (testing a weird variant that I'm close to perfecting as much as possible) and I'll post my updated list as the tournament draws near.

Traditionally, I never seem to do well in big tournaments and I blame this sometimes on my horrible luck but I guess it's also due to my inexperience in tournament settings. On top of people being more thirsty for their invites, I'll have to contend with my stage-fright-but-not-really-stage-fright.Oh well, it is what it is.

In the process of developing a new deck, I started looking through all our current sets and stumbled upon something that could actually have a huge impact if played right or with the right build. It's a gimmicky idea at best, and I'm not certain it can hold well against blazing hot starts, but I'd be a bit sad if I couldn't get the concept to work.



Flytrap STOMP

Terra-SMASH! D:<

x3 Carnivine DEX
x3 Terrakion DXE
x2 Virizion EX
x2 Tropius PLB


x4 Professor Juniper
x4 N
x4 Bicycle

x4 Ultra Ball
x3 Pokemon Catcher
x1 Escape Rope
x2 Enhanced Hammer

x8 Grass Energy
x6 Fighting Energy

[14 Free Spots]

Gimmeh a huuuuugggg~

Carnivine provides a interesting disruption option-throwing Pokemon back into the hand that you don't like then N'ing them, or psedo-Catchering while Poisoning the new active. It can get relivtively easy power-ups between Virizion EX and Terrakion EX.


Tropius is here to get you out of bad N's and give you some draw power. Tropius of course, can be cut for other cards to help consistency.

I think Terrakion EX finally got a way to attack faster/hit harder and have more favorable match-ups with the resurgence of Darkrai + Companions (be it Straight Darkrai, Darkrai/Hydriegon, Darkrai/Garbodor) It has a harder hitting energy acceleration in the form of it's second attack, even though it's from the hand. 2 HKO's on everything in the format still isn't bad. It does have problems with VirGen, but this can be tech'd up to combat the deck.

Possible Tech Partners-

Victini EX-Low HP but  assists in thinning out your deck. Could be played in conjunction with Prisms (since everything in here is Basic Pokemon) or Blends. You could always run Basic Fires though if you really fear the Enhanced Hammers plus Derail, and it gives Victini an option to use it's second attack if the situation arises. Against VirGen, it's second attack is an instant KO on all their main attackers.

Moltres EX-two Energy and, on a coin flip, you can discard energy. Seems a bit underwhelming, especially since it gets blocked by Silver Mirror, but you can always Luring Poison the target you want.

Entei EX-Two Energy and you get a burn, three energy and you can one shot a whole VirGen deck while accelerating Fire energy to power up another attacker. Also, if you run Heavy Balls alongside Terrakion EX, you could also run Entei EX.

Free Slots?

LaserBank/Virbank-Because Carnivine is already providing you with the Poison, you could almost just run Virbank as a stand alone Gym and rely on Carnivine essentially doing 30 every time it drags a Pokemon out. You do loose the nice utility of sleep chance as well, but with VirGen running around, you don't need to already create more dead cards in your hand.

Super Rod-Everything in here (unless you run Prisms, Blends or Double Colorless) is Basic Eergy-getting some of those cards back is not a bad play.

Energy Search-If you're running a third Basic Energy line (Fire?), it's nice to have an out for searching out what you need. Of course, if you're running Victini EX this might be not as much of a problem.

DCE/Mewtwo EX-You have ways to accelerate energy pretty fast in this deck. Mewtwo has always put pressure, and though he's fallen out of favor, his power is still not to be underestimated. Plus, if you're Spit Squalling potential loaded threats back to the hand, you can clean shop on anything remaining.

Switch Cards (Float Stones/Switch)-You'll need some form of retreat especially because you're running a high retreat attacker (Terrakion EX). Your only psedo-switch card in here is a lone Escape Rope.

Tool Scrapper?-It's pretty much a two-of in pretty much all decks that don't want to get shut down by Garbo variants and also to combat Float Stones. This deck would love to fit this in as it would improve a lot of match-ups mostly against Float Stone happy decks. (This deck isn't really troubled that much by Garbo variants)




ACE SPEC- Computer Search, Dowsing Machine, Victory Piece (Victini EX tech)

Computer Search: Gives you ways to search stuff out and gives you the discard power to fuel a 4 Juniper/4 N/4 Bicycle Supporter line. If you run any Double Colorless Energy as a 1-2 count along with a Mewtwo EX, this can help grab crucial cards.

Dowsing Machine: Same deal with discard power. But this time it allows you to gain some mid-to-late game steam.

Victory Piece (Victini EX tech): Gives you an energy-less way to accelerate and swing at EX's. Also has a neat way in dispatching VirGen decks when attacked to Victini for free.


I haven't really finished thinking this deck out thoroughly, but maybe in the time after Fall Regionals and into my upcoming winter break, I think I'll tinker around with this some more. It seems like an interesting and fun concept, and goodness knows this format needs more fun.

Bicycle Away!

-Kalyst


Images from Bulbapedia