Saturday, 5 April 2014

A Storm of Brains in Flashfire (Trevenant / Magnezone)

Hey everyone! This is an interesting deck idea that I found on Pokebeach, and since annoying the crap outta people using Trevenant is so fun to do, I loved this Magnezone variant so much. And Magnezone can attack Pyroar, so I approve.

Alongside Pyroar / Archeops, this deck seems like a deck that I will be playing next format due to its awesome (in my opinion) strategy. And since I think this deck is awesome, I'm sharing it with you guys to try out as well. Overall, I can't see a ton of people playing this deck like it's the #1 meta deck in the world or something, but I'm on quite the budget, so I approve.

The main thing I like about this deck is that it runs a healthy amount of Supporters thanks to Magnezone PLS's ability, Dual Brains, allowing you to play 2 Supporter cards per turn. Other than its ability, Magnezone PLS is also your main attacker with its Gyro Ball attack, forcing your opponent to switch into a benched Pokemon while you switch from Magnezone into Trevenant and lock up your opponent from using those items. Also, if you have Magnezone in play, you are allowed to use Lysandre and Juniper in one turn, so 4 Lysandre is essential.

I have 2 brains, automatically making me better than you.

Trevenant is for obvious reasons because your opponent simply can't play Item cards. Yup, no items for your opponent until the zombie tree becomes dead once again. No Scrapper. No Level Ball. No Ace Specs. Fun stuff!

Bother bother bother

Emolga EX is used as an alternate attacker when you can't set up a Magnezone fast enough, because its first attack, Energy Glide, allows you to search your deck for a Lightning Energy, attach it to Emolga, and then switch into Trevenant for 1 Colorless. It's fairly decent for when Magnezone just doesn't cut it, because its second attack, Electron Crush, can OHKO Yveltal EX and Lugia EX (if you discard a Lightning), where Magnezone requires a Muscle Band to do that. Emolga EX would have been great with Eels, my favorite deck ever before Plasma Storm came out.


Normally, I don't like the idea of Jirachi EX in decks because it's an EX with only 90 HP, so it can be KO'd easily, and also because of limited bench space. However, with the amount of Supporters that this deck consists of, Jirachi EX is a great idea. The other plus about it is that it can be searched out by Level Ball to get out a Supporter for world famous dead drawers like me. That's another thing about the supporters in this deck - less dead drawing, more consistency. I love this deck. Thank you Jirachi EX for being a thing... even if I didn't really like you that much at first, things can change once in a while.

The one good card from Plasma Blast that I actually have

Now for the Trainers. As I have already stated many times, this deck runs many Supporters thanks to Magnezone, but the one thing that really clicks is Lysandre. Lysandre is exactly like EPO Catcher, but it's a Supporter. However, with Magnezone, it's like the return of the good Catcher, and I'm probably going to say Catcher instead of Lysandre whenever I play it. Cause I can. All of the other Supporters in this deck are just draw and Skyla, but there's one more that you may be able to tech in.

"Switch 1 of your opponent's active Pokemon with 1 of his or her Benched Pokemon."
Lysandre Full Art print from Wild Blaze. Such amazing artwork, I applaud the illustrator of this card.

One more idea could be Iris, which you might be able to tech in and replace some draw Supporters such as Colress, or possibly run 1 of each. Still, Iris is a decent card, and the later the game, the better she gets. During your turn, when you play Iris, your Pokemon's attacks do 10 more damage for each Prize card your opponent has taken. Dependant on Prizes, Magnezone might be able to OHKO Pyroar with a Gyro Ball. Sure, Emolga EX can do that by just attaching a Muscle Band to it, but the only way to get back those discarded energys (now) is Super Rod. One more use for Iris is if you can't OHKO Pyroar with Magnezone, Trevenant could possibly be used as an alternate attacker for the Pyroar matchup.

Sorry bro, no more PlusPower for you

For most of the Items, it's quite obvious why you're running them, but there are a few that aren't just self-explanatory.

Run 1 Float Stone for each Trevenant you run so that you can retreat into your attackers, then simply just attack and switch back up to Trevenant. It gives Trevenant free retreat to make things awesome.

Because it sucks not to have free retreat, especially for decks that are very consistent and cheap at the same time.

Run 2 Muscle band for Magnezone to OHKO Yveltal EX and Lugia EX. This one is pretty self-explanatory, just not exactly essential for every deck.


The last thing I need to explain would be Computer Search over Dowsing Machine. You're probably thinking, "Just... why?" Well, Computer Search is indeed MUCH more useful when playing Trevenant with Accelgor to search out DCEs early in the game, but the 3 main reasons why I run Computer Search are because it's the second best Ace Spec since come on guys, you can get anything from your deck by discarding 2. The second reason is because of how everyone used it back when Boundaries Crossed came out, then I went on a 1-year TCG hiatus once Plasma Storm came out. Last reason is because I own 2 copies of this card while owning no copies of Dowsing Machine, and I'm on quite the budget here. Trevenant variants are really also the only decks nowadays that use Computer Search as their Ace Spec, with almost everything else running Dowsing Machine.


Well, now looking at what I just wrote, I can put together a list for this deck:

Trevenant / Magnezone

Pokemon: 17
  • 4-4 Trevenant XY
  • 3-1-3 Magnezone PLS 46
  • 1 Emolga EX
  • 1 Jirachi EX
T/S/S: 34
  • 4 Professor Juniper/Sycamore
  • 4 Lysandre
  • 3 N
  • 3 Skyla
  • 2 Colress
  • 4 Float Stone
  • 3 Rare Candy
  • 2 Muscle Band
  • 2 Ultra Ball
  • 2 Level Ball
  • 2 Surprise Megaphone/Tool Scrapper
  • 1 Energy Switch
  • 1 Super Rod
  • 1 Computer Search
Energy: 9
  • 9 Lightning Energy

Find out more about this deck in Back to the Future!

 - The TCG 101 team of 1 person

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