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Cardz Shop

Cardz Shop 10 - Grass Week! - VilplEX

07.13.05  Welcome to Grass Week! My plan was to open the week with a report of how I did at Nationals. However, due to extenuating circumstances, I was unable to compete. I do have an Origins report and the deck that I had planned on playing so that you can see what you might expect at Worlds this year if you plan on attending. So, keep your eye out for that this week.

To start the week off, however, I’m going to have a look at a VilplEX deck which, at first glance, doesn’t look like much a deck. However, I noticed a lot of synergy between the different parts, so I decided to give the deck a working over.
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My name is Rory Hatchel in VA and I am a huge lover of Grass type pokemon,
I always have, and plan to always run Grass type themed decks. My area
around here doesn't really have a metagame. i see a lot of ludicolo and a
lot of blastoise ex, and even some quagsires. Few dragonite, a lot of
Gardervoir though. I currently RUn Vileplume ex to lock in Battle Frontier
to try and battle the national metagame. At the PA regional I did not so
well, i lost to a whole lot of psychic. I do fairly well locally but
really want help so I can make it to worlds, PLEASE HELP!

4 Vileplume ex
1 Bellossom
3 Gloom
4 Oddish
4 Dunsparce
2 Horsea
1 Seadra
2 Kingdra

3 Copycat
3 Steven
2 Crystal Shard
2 Wally
4 Rare Candy
2 Switch
1 Scott
1 VS Seeker
2 BF
2 LPS

4 Multi
13 Grass

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE HELP a true lover of the Grass Type. (On a side note,
I did notice that the inability of Plume to do heavy damage is a HUGE factor)
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In a subsequent email, Rory mentioned that the top three decks in his are were the ever popular Ludicargo, Gardevoir, and Dragitode and he wanted a high level fix. With that, I think I’ve got enough info to do justice to this deck fix.
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Pokemon: Well, it’s obvious your plan is to run aggressive VileplEX and lock in favorable Stadiums. BTW, does anyone else think they toned down Hay Fever way too much when they reprinted this card. The whole point of Hay Fever was that you shut down your opponent’s draw and support engine. Oh well, I guess I’m just the odd person here.

Anyway, my first thought when I looked at this deck was, “Why the heck is Kingdra in here?”. Sure, Kingdra’s a great TecH card, but it didn’t seem like it fit in this deck. Only when I received the second email and found out that Gardy was big in his area, did I understand the importance of Kingdra. By eliminating the [P] weakness, it left a lot of time for VilplEX to wreck havoc upon your opponent. However, the lack of a second Bellossom rather shocked me. Bellossom is as good as a supporting pokémon, if not better, as Kingdra. Add another Bellossom to make this deck run, and heal, much better.

Also, the format has progressed to the point where 4 Dunsparce has finally become overkill. With all the draw power and speed of the format, you really don’t need to run 4 Dunsparce religiously. Take one out to make things run a tad more smoothly.

-1 Dunsparce

+1 Bellossom

Trainers: Also, a great selection here, but could be improved, if only slightly. 4 Dunsparce may have become passé, but 4 Steven’s won’t for some time. Add one more to round things out. Also, any high level competitive deck right now is running 2 Rocket’s Admin. as disruption. It’s a great card and, when it comes to tie-breaks, no card is better at disruption right now. Add two of those and drop your CC count to 2 as well. 3 is overkill. Also, I’m dropping your one Scott. With some of the changes I’m making with other trainers, he just isn’t needed now.

As for the rest of your trainers, they all look fine with the exception of one glaring problem: LPS. Why is that in here if your trying to combat a metagame with Dragitrodes and Pidgeots? Drop both of them and add another BF. It will help out the main strategy of your deck and allow you to find your BF much more easily.

-1 CopyCat
-2 LPS
-Scott

+1 Steven’s
+2 Rocket’s Admin.
+1 BF

Energy: no change. 17 energy is just high enough for this deck, considering all your pokémon need 3 energy to attack and you can’t use DRE on your main attacker, any less than 17 is just asking for a loss IMO.
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Well, there ya go. No major adjustments to the deck. Just a note on strategy, though. If you have no Dunsparce in your opening hand, start with Oddish and evolve to Gloom turn 2 instead of using Rare Candy to get out VileplEX turn 2. Instead you should try to get out one of your supporting pokémon turn 2, like Bellossom or Kingdra. Then evolve to VileplEX turn 3 and lock in Battle Frontier. This should be your goal. Also, I really wanted to add some Strength Charms to the deck, but I couldn’t find any room for them. See if you can tinker with that thought and see if it works out eventually.
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4 Vileplume ex
2 Bellossom
3 Gloom
4 Oddish
3 Dunsparce (SS)
2 Horsea (DR, Wave Slash; any will work here)
1 Seadra (DR, Energy Cannon; any will work here)
2 Kingdra (RR)

2 Copycat
4 Steven
2 Crystal Shard
2 Wally
2 Rocket’s Admin.
4 Rare Candy
2 Switch
1 VS Seeker
3 BF

4 Multi
13 Grass
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RaNd0m Thoughts: Well, since it is Grass Week, I thought I might do some Thoughts… on gardening, nature, etc. But, instead, some other things have caught my eye. In case any of you haven’t picked this up yet, I live in Ohio and, in Ohio, they have a public organization called Stand. Some of you may have heard of it, others of you may not have. What it is is a group organized to get people to stop smoking and educate children about why smoking is wrong and why no one should do it. Perosnally, I’d support the group since I personally don’t like it when people smoke. But, they almost always take rather odd approaches to going against smoking.

Like their most recent testimonial commercial. They have this kid who’s most likely no more than 14 years old talking about how much she hates smoking and, whenever she’s around people who smoke, all she does is cough because “I don’t like it” and “It makes me sick.” The fact that she said this stuff about a restaurant atmosphere, where (trust me) you can sit across the restaurant and breathe in the equivalent of no tobacco fumes, I thought was incredibly ludacris and that “daddy’s little princess” needed a strong dose of reality.

The commercial ended with one of the must ridiculous stamements I had ever seen: “Smoking sections of restaurants make as much sense as peeing sections in pools.” The first time and all subsequest times I’ve seen this commercial, I laugh. Not just alittle chuckle. No, its an all out laugh. First off, the thought of such things being compared to each other was really stupid. There is such a section at pools; it’s called the baby or wading pool. And, secondly, this idea is very stupid. If you don’t want any second hand smoke, stay away from the smoking section. It’s very true that you don’t have to endure such a thing as second hand smoke; it just involves movement around a restaurant or finding a non-smoker friendly area of the building.

And, to close this, I’m also going to burst the bubble of all those who support the prohibition of smoking (as this is more or less what this coalition is attempting to do). Guess what: smokers are actually people to! They have feelings and some of them are really nice people. Also, smoking is legal and, if you don’t want to smoke, you don’t have to. If you want to, you can. America even sanctions this and its revenue helps the government. So, those of you who bash smokers, just remember this. One wrong thing doesn’t make a person completely evil as these Stand people would have you believe. Try thinking for yourself before you believe everything that other people throw at you as ultimate truth and knowledge.