Hi folks! It's me, OrangeOreo, back again with some more archtype reviews. This time it;'s Raindance.
 
    Raindance is a deck that uses powerful Pokemon of the water type. Unfortunately, many of these Pokemon have high-energy costs. The remedy to this? Get a Blastoise out quickly, Raindance 3 to 4 energies onto an Articuno, and do the damage as quickly as possible. To get Blastoise out quickly, many people prefer skipping straight from Squirtle to Blastoise with Pokemon Breeder. The point of this deck is also to use Oaks and Bills to get all of that water energy. When playing these decks, store all your water energy until you have a Blastoise in play, then distribute it all and let the beatdown begin.
    Many of the Pokemon that went into these decks were evolution lines with really bad basics, but thanks to Fossil, everything is better now with Articuno and Lapras. The Pokemon in these decks include:
Articuno
Lapras
Blastoise line
Gyarados line
Dewgong line
Although things may start out pretty grim, just be patient, games involving a Raindancing Blastoise can turn in a second.
    So how do you beat the powerful Raindance. As I stated in my article on Haymakers, there is no sure way to beat anyone, but Raindance is much easier to defeat. Try this:
1) Build a deck around Electabuzz and Electrode
2)Play an archtype yourself
    First, you probably thought I meant Base Set Electrode, but I meant the Jungle Electrode. Why? Because his attack doesn't specifically state,"Don't apply weakness and resistance for benched Pokemon," nor does any rule book. This means his attack does 40 damage to any Raindance Pokemon except Gyarados and Articuno, and 20 damage to all the benched Pokemon with lightning weakness. If you play an archtype against this deck, then use Haymaker or a Stall with Imposter Professor Oak, because Haymaker is faster than Raindance, and with so much card drawing goin' on in Raindance, it wouldn't stand up to a Stall. If you don't like any of these ideas, then as soon as your opponent plays a Squirtle, Gust it and kill it! A smart player would only have played a Squirtle if he had a Blastoise, so kill them' Squirtles. Mew's Devolution Beam also wotks against a Breedered Blastoise, although more decks play Wartortle now because of this.
NOTE: I don't usually play this type of deck, because it's so unreliable. You might not get your Blastoise or water energies 'till it's too late, but I suppose that might not be a valid reason.
Well, that's about it for now. See ya' next time with another archtype!
 
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