Mad Party Deck- Top 15 Pokemon Cards in Darkness Ablaze #12

Otaku

12th-place is indeed a mad, mad party!  We’re bending the rules quite a bit, but instead of reviewing just one card, we’re reviewing a series of four that are so intertwined, you’d have to be crazy not to run them all in the same deck.  The last time we had cards with such close ties, we got a bit lost as I had the CotD crew experiment and review five cards over four days, with them all technically tying for 1st-place!  This time, we’ll see if covering them all at once is actually the way to go:

• Bunnelby (SSH – Darkness Ablaze 150/189)
• Dedenne (SSH – Darkness Ablaze 078/189)
• Galarian Mr. Rime (SSH – Darkness Ablaze 036/189)
• Polteageist (SSH – Darkness Ablaze 083/189)

are all Pokémon with an attack named “Mad Party”.  The Energy costs are different, so we’ll cover them when we delve into each card individually, but all the attacks do 20 damage for each Pokémon in your discard pile that has the “Mad Party” attack.  That means they can swing for as little as zero damage, or for as much as 300!

There’s still a bit more shared ground to cover with these cards, though nothing else applies to all four Pokémon.  Bunnelby and Dedenne are Basics, making them easy to field, but also meaning you may be stuck opening one when you’d rather something else was up front.  Galarian Mr. Rime and Polteageist are Stage 1 Pokémon, so you’ll have to decide if they’re just discard fodder or if you’re making room for Galarian Mr. Mime and/or Sinistea.  The beefiest of them only has 120 HP, with the rest having 70 or less; if this deck works, it’ll be full of glass cannons.  Only Galarian Mr. Mime has a Retreat Cost of [CC], and the others have just a Retreat Cost of [C], so it shouldn’t be too hard to retreat.  None of these Pokémon have an attack other than Mad Party, though the Stage 1s have Abilities.

Bunnelby is a [C] Type Pokémon, so it can’t exploit Weakness but could risk Powerful Energy for a little extra Punch.  Other [C] support exists in Expanded, but so do additional [C] type counters.  At least it never has to worry about (naturally occurring) Resistance.  Its 40 HP makes it the most fragile; even on the Bench this card might not be safe.  At least that means the [F] Weakness and lack of Resistance should seldom matter.  What makes this card is the cost of its Mad Party; Bunnelby attacks for just [CC]!  Twin Energy can handle this just fine (Double Colorless Energy as well in Expanded).

Dedenne is a Psychic type, which isn’t as good at type-matching or Type-support as it used to be… at least in Standard.  Dedenne does enjoy the second-highest HP at 70, but that amount is still a very likely OHKO while it is Active.  Its [M] Weakness and lack of Resistance don’t help, but once again, because of the HP they don’t really hurt, either.  The attack cost does, though; Dedenne’s Mad Party requires [PCC], so even with a Twin Energy it’ll need another form of Energy acceleration to attack the turn it hits the field… and it doesn’t have the HP to justify trying to build it on your Bench.

Galarian Mr. Rime is a Water type, which can be handy for exploiting Weakness on most Fire types.  It also comes with a decent pool of type-based support, but I’m not sure if it would be worth it given the other Mad Partiers (or Mad Partyers, if you prefer) can’t use it.  I’m not sure if its 120 HP is going to be that much use, either; it has a best chance of surviving out of all of these scores, but it is still more likely to be OHKO’d than not.  [M] Weakness could still be a concern, and lack of Resistance is still the worst but mostly irrelevant.  I’m also a bit worried about the higher Retreat Cost; the rest of the deck could get by with just U-Turn Board, but Galarian Mr. Rime requires Air Balloon.

As it has an Ability and a long name, Galarian Mr. Rime gets a second paragraph.  “Shuffle Dance” is a once-per-turn trick, letting you switch the top card of your opponent’s deck with one of their face-down Prize cards.  If you have multiple instances of it in play, each is “once per turn” but I’m not sure if you’d want any.  It needs [WCC] to use Mad Party, and like with Dedenne, that’s a bit much for the kind of deck I expect Mad Party for form.  Shuffle Dance, while it always works, may not always help; without significant combo partners or your opponent blundering into it, you may simply give your opponent access to an equally good or better card from their Prizes.

Polteageist is another Psychic type, and that’s a bit of a disappointment.  Not only is Psychic still hurting a bit due to what it lost in the rotation, but that means one less Weakness to (potentially) exploit.  Polteageist’s 60 HP means it is nearly as fragile as Bunnelby, even though Polteageist is a Stage 1.  At least that means the [D] Weakness goes from “dangerous” to “doesn’t usually matter”.  Sadly, the same holds true for the otherwise pleasant surprise of [F] Resistance.  We’ll come back to the Ability, but notice that Polteageist can use Mad Party for [CC].  As a Stage 1, it may not be worth it, but it is better than having a chunkier cost like Dedenne or Galarian Mr. Rime.

Polteageist’s “Tea Break” is another Ability you can use once per turn per copy of it you have in play.  This one comes with a cost, and it is a mixed bag; you need to discard a Pokémon with the Mad Party attack on it from your hand.  Yes, you want those Pokémon in your discard pile, but each Mad Partier you decide to field is one less you have as discard fodder, and given you want to discard them ASAP, odds are you’ll only be able to use this Ability a few times early game… and ideally, you may not want to be able to use it at all.  What?  If I go second and want to immediately attack with Bunnelby, Polteageist won’t even be in play.

I’ve got no lists, only Theorymon right now.  Mad Party is, simply put, Night March 3.0, unless you don’t count Lost March, in which case this is the “true” Night March 2.0.  Mad Party works the same way as Night March, just using different Pokémon with a differently named attack.  You’ve got up to four more Mad Partiers than Night Marchers you can run but HP scores are most definitely higher than back then: a Pokémon VMAX can hit 340, while Night March had to just deal with 250 on Wailord-EX.  I’m really thinking that Bunnelby isn’t just your go-to attacker, but your only actual attacker; Dedenne and the evolutions are just discard fodder.

In Expanded, Mad Party has to compete directly with Night March, and Night March hasn’t been the top deck in a long time.  The various Night March counters should also work on Mad Party, though some of the Night March tricks can also be used to supplement your Mad Partiers.  For example, Marshadow-GX so that you can both exploit [F] Weakness and swing for 320 when you’ve got all 16 Mad Party Pokémon in your discard pile.  Mew (XY – Fates Collide 29/124) can’t increase your damage output, but it can copy and use Mad Party from a Basic on your Bench… and you can then use Dimension Valley so that Mew does the attack for [C] less.  It has better stats than Bunnelby, so even if nothing else uses Dimension Valley, this strikes me as a nice deal.  Battle Compressor lets you send up to three Mad Partiers from deck to discard!

There are more generic tricks as well; Expanded means Mad Party gains access to Double Colorless Energy, Muscle Band, VS Seeker and many additional Supporters.  Ditto {*} might make it worth Benching one Galarian Mr. Rime or Polteageist… and the added [P] support may make using Polteageist worthwhile.  Finally moving onto the Limited Format, the bad news is you’re using a 40 card deck, and outside of them being KO’d, the only realistic way you’re getting Mad Partiers into the discard pile is via Polteageist.  The good news is typical HP scores tend to be lower and the 4 Copy Rule doesn’t apply.

Ratings

• Standard: 3/5
• Expanded: 3/5
• Limited: 2/5

Yes, that’s a collective rating… and a generous one at that.  In Limited, they all deserved the same score, but only Bunnelby is really worth the above scores in Standard and Expanded – subtract one (out of five) for everything else.  I considered Mad Party for one of the lower slots in my list, but left it off entirely in the end.  I expect the deck to see play but I’m not so sure it’ll see a lot of competitive success.  After all, Lost March only enjoyed about 15 minutes of fame, and while Night March enjoyed a long, long competitive streak where it often was in the running for the top deck in the metagame… it also enjoyed its original, natural counter having been banned (Lysandre’s Trump Card).

Vince

As you can tell by the title of this COTD, this is an archetype that involves a series of cards that share something in common. In this case, this archetype is all about the “Mad Party” attack found on these cards, and currently, there are four members of this archetype, all from Sword & Shield Darkness Ablaze and the 12th best card(s) in this countdown:

-Polteageist (SS Darkness Ablaze 83/189)
-Galarian Mr. Rime (SS Darkness Ablaze 36/189)
-Bunnelby (SS Darkness Ablaze 150/189)
-Dedenne (SS Darkness Ablaze 78/189)

It’s been quite a while since we get to review multiple cards. I remember having certain days over the last year or two that we’ve reviewed a series of cards, that being the Rotom’s Roto Motor ability and Lost March, which is similar to Night March and/or today’s cards of the day. This time, we are reviewing multiple cards at once instead of reviewing each card separately (like what happened when we reviewed Lost March, which was the best cards of the set) as most of the things said on such cards could be said the same to others, plus whatever else the card has besides said attack. It’s, in my opinion, more efficient to review a series of cards so that we would have other cards to fit in our schedule, and given that some of the expansions after Sun & Moon Team Up are pretty big expansions, it’d be important to cover as much as we can.

Before we get to those cards separately, we need to talk about the Mad Party attack. The attack cost of each cards possessing that attack varies, but so far, based on those four members, they all have the same multiplier of 20x, meaning that this attack will do 20 damage for each Pokémon in your discard pile with the “Mad Party” attack. Since there are four members that possesses the Mad Party attack, and that you can run 4 of each Pokémon in your deck, that means you have 16 Pokémon with the Mad Party attack. Having 15 Pokémon in the discard pile means you can deal 300 damage (because you need one Pokémon in play to attack with Mad Party), which is actually not enough to OHKO anything in the game when talking about VMAX Pokémon because they have HP scores beyond 300 HP. As far as Standard goes, you’ll be doing this much damage; for Expanded, you can do more. With Marshadow-GX enabling you to copy any attacks from any of your Basic Pokémon in your discard pile (assuming your Ability doesn’t go offline), it can copy the “Mad Party” attack, and you can deal a maximum of 320 damage if ALL 16 of those Pokémon are in the discard pile. Add in a couple of damage boosting cards such as Muscle Band, Strong Energy, and/or Diancie Prism Star, and you can finally achieve OHKO levels even with a lot of investment. That didn’t even stop Night March from doing it’s thing, and Battle Compressor helps you thin your deck by grabbing 3 Pokémon with the Night March/Mad Party attack into the discard pile from your deck.

Now we can get to those individual Pokémon:

-Bunnelby is a Basic Colorless type with 40 HP, Fighting Weakness, and a retreat cost of one. It’s version of Mad Party costs CC, which Twin Energy can easily cover, or in the case of Expanded, Double Colorless Energy, whichever works for you.

-Dedenne is a Basic Fairy…I mean, Psychic type (since Fairy type no longer gets supported, Pokemon that were Fairy types are now Psychic types. Still, Dedenne in particular will have three different types to exploit weakness: Lightning, Fairy, and now Psychic) with 70 HP, Metal Weakness, and a retreat cost of 1. It’s only attack, Mad Party, costs PCC, which won’t be the ideal attacker in the Standard format. Expanded, however, has Counter Gain and Dimension Valley, which can shave off two colorless energy and it will cost just a single Psychic Energy!

-Galarian Mr. Rime is a Stage 1 Water type with 120 HP, Metal weakness, and a retreat cost of 2. It has an ability called Shuffle Dance, which lets you switch one of your opponent’s face down Prize cards with the top card of your deck. This could’ve been devastating in conjunction with Chip Chip Ice Axe, but it is banned from Expanded. I doubt you’ll need Mr. Rime on the Bench just for the ability, and you need Mad Party users to be on the discard pile. Being a Stage 1 doesn’t help either…

-…and Polteageist has a similar dilemma like Galarian Mr. Rime, but it’s actually worth being on the Bench for a while. It is a Stage 1 Psychic type with 60 HP, Dark weakness, Fighting Resistance, and a retreat cost of 1. It’s Mad Party actually costs CC, which would be another good attacker IF it was a Basic, but it’s not. You’ll have to include 4 Sinistea in your deck, reducing consistency as well as having to wait a turn for it to evolve. On the other hand, it has a wonderful ability. It’s Tea Break ability is a nerfed Cinccino’s Make Do or Zoroark-GX’s Trade, you have to discard a Pokemon from your hand with the Mad Party attack in order to draw 2 cards. Obviously, this cost is inconsequential for the Mad Party archetype; you need to use them as fodder to fuel up the damage output of Mad Party, and Polteageist has got you covered. Everything else other than Mad Party would run Cinccino instead.

So, if your deck absolutely cannot afford deck space for either Galarian Mr. Mime or Sinistea, then only Bunnelby and Dedenne would be your attackers since they’re Basic Pokemon. However, Dedenne’s version of the Mad Party attack is expensive, needing three energy at worst while Bunnelby only needs two colorless energy. Again, Twin Energy covers the CC cost completely, so looks like only Bunnelby would be used the most as an attacker. Even if Colorless Pokemon doesn’t exploit weakness, the damage output alone is enough to cause major dents to most of the popular decks currently seeing competitive play. Basic Pokemon-V and every single GX Pokemon could be in OHKO range if enough Pokemon are on the discard pile!

It’s important to read older reviews of the Night March and Lost March archetype because I think Mad Party would share similar prospects with others. They were budget decks that players seemed to shrug off at first glance, but it can be powerful under the right circumstances. I recall Night March didn’t have an easy start because Lysandre’s Trump Card was also released on the same set Night March related cards debuted. Lysandre’s Trump Card, even if it used up your Supporter for your turn, has an incredible effect, acting somewhat of a “reset”; it shuffles EVERYTHING from both players’ discard pile onto their decks, and Night March’s damage output suddenly becomes ZERO!!! Even after Lysandre’s Trump Card got banned from both formats, eventually Karen was there to do something similar, which is to put ALL Pokemon from both player’s discard piles onto their decks. Karen still threatens to mess up Night March’s damage output, and unlike Lysandre’s Trump Card, the Night March player suddenly won’t be able to keep spamming Trainer cards because they remain on the discard pile. No Battle Compressor for fodder; No Ultra Ball for fodder; etc. They are stopped cold by a single counter. And yet, that didn’t render Night March completely useless!!!

Mad Party is going to experience a similar fate in Expanded, though not as bad as Night March since Polteageist can slowly send Mad Party Pokemon as fodder due to it’s Tea Break ability. One can argue that Zebstrika from Lost Thunder does have a way to discard fodder, but it’s not related to Night March; Polteageist is more efficient. The best part about Mad Party is that, just like Night March or Lost March, it doesn’t truly have any bad matchups and even has better matchups against most decks because such a deck is made to achieve OHKOs repeatedly, rapidly, and reliably. Yes, Mad Party users possesses very low HP, but they’re worth a single prize and can keep up or be ahead of the prize trade, which is why they can compete against other decks.

Seeing how this archetype is similar to an older archetype that was successful before, I can imagine players wanting to experiment with this archetype. One thing’s for sure, your deck is already forced to use 16 Pokemon with the Mad Party attack, no less, as well as 4 Twin Energy (and/or 4 DCE). So, you have room for 40 Trainer cards to hopefully facilitate the objective of this deck style.

Ratings: Collective followed by individual Pokemon if you’re curious

Standard: 3.5/5 (Bunnelby: 4/5, Dedenne: 2/5, Galarian Mr. Rime: 1/5, Polteageist: 3/5)

Expanded: 3/5 (Bunnelby: 4.5/5, Dedenne: 3.5/5, Galarian Mr. Rime: 1/5, Polteageist: 3/5)

Limited: 4/5 (Bunnelby: 5/5, Dedenne: 2/5, Galarian Mr. Rime: 2/5, Polteageist: 3/5)

Conclusion:

These scores are based on the entire archetype. You can’t really review a certain Pokémon without addressing the others, which is why occasionally multiple cards have to be reviewed on the same day, and today is one of those cases. This is yet another new deck that players have to watch out for, as they have the potential to set up much quicker than others. If older reviews of a similar archetype don’t convince you of their potential, then I don’t know what will.