Week of Pokemon! - Tony's Personal Deck

Well now you know some of the big things about the Pokemon TCG including card types, strategies, and upcoming changes but now you’re asking yourself, what kind of deck does Tony play?  Well up until recently I was playing the popular Blastoise/Keldeo deck which revolves around Blastoise’s Deluge Ability to load Keldeo EX with Water Energy.  But myself I thought I’d play a deck that was not nearly as played as some of the other decks out there which is why I turned to the Toolbox Trubbish Deck.  More on what this deck is after the break!  

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hat is this deck all about?  Well it’s goal is to take advantage of Sigliph Toolbox Ability which allows it to hold four tools as opposed to one tool in conjunction with the Trubbish from Plasma Storm with the Tool Drop Attack.  Tool Drop does 20X the amount of Tools in play on both sides.  Combined with the Toolbox ability of Sigliph you have the potential to deal out loads of damage all from a very small Pokemon.  


Deck List

Keep in mind this deck list is always forever changing so if you actually want to use a deck like this you’ll have to keep an open mind as well as your own personal playing style, which this deck surprisingly allows for a little flexibility.  Cards that I think are absolutely vital to the deck I’ll keep Bolded with an explanation of why they’re important


4 Trubbish PS

This seems pretty self explanatory.  As the main attacker of the deck you’ll need to max out your Trubbish PS count not only because he’s the main attacker but because he’s pretty much what we refer to as a Glass Cannon, a Pokemon with a stupidly high attack with stupidly low HP.  


4 Sigilyph PB

The crux of this deck,  you’d be crazy not to run four of him in this deck.  If however you start running low on Trubbish or if you’re out of Trubbish then Sigilyph does make for a good secondary attacker, but just barely.  It’s attack Cutting Wind does a decent amount of damage for one Psychic and two colorless.  If you run this deck with Team Plasma Badges, Colress Machines, and Plasma Energy, it is possible to power this sucker up in one turn, but I wouldn’t rely on him.  


2 Surskit

Just a basic Surskit, mainly used for Masquerain.  Some people would like to run a 3-2 line of Surskit and Masquerain but I find with a deck that relies on a whole lot of Tools and Supporters there’s just not enough room.  


2 Masquerain

This Pokemon is why this deck works as well as it does.  With Masuerain’s Tool Reversal Ability you can take Tools attached to any of your Pokemon back to your hand and since there is no limit as to how many times you can attach a Tool, you are essentially moving Tools back and forth between your Pokemon.  This strategy is key when powering  up a Trubbish, especially with such a low HP and high Energy count to attack.  

The idea is you have one fully powered up Trubbish with the Exp Share Tool (Which allows you to take one Energy attached to an active Pokemon and place it onto the Pokemon with the Exp Share) and you have another Trubbish waiting in the back.   You use Tool Reversal to take the Exp Share off the Active Trubbish and onto the Bench Trubbish with no Energy.  When the Active Trubbish inevitably gets knocked out you attack the Energy from the Active Trubbish to the bench Trubbish with the Exp Share.  Now you’ve just saved one turn of Energy attachments and can continue the Tool Drop chain provided you don’t wiff on the draws for any Energy.  


Alternatively you could use the Plasma Badge to power up the Trubbish (like I alluded to earlier).  You move the Plasma Badge onto any Trubbish temporarily turning it into a Team Plasma Pokemon and then use Colress Machine which allows you to attach a Plasma Energy from your deck  onto any Team Plasma Pokemon on your side of the field.  This doesn’t count as the Energy attachment for the turn so as long as you have one Psychic Energy you’re still golden.  


As you can see it’s important to to have a Masquerain on the sidelines for his powerful Tool Reversal Ability and is the main reason why this deck works so well.

Tools

4 Exp Share

No brainer here.  You need to have four of these Tools in your deck because of the high Energy cost of not only Tool Drop but for Cutting Wind if you’re in a bind.  The text of the card reads “When your Active Pokemon is Knocked out by damage from an opponents attack, you may move 1 basic Energy card that was attached to that Pokemon to the Pokemon this card is attached to”.  Basically this card helps you keep your Energy in play rather than in the Discard Pile where it basically can’t do anything save for a Super Rod (more on that later).  


4 Silver Bangle

Silver Bangle is not always necessary in this deck but it definitely helps in taking down some big EX Pokemon.  Dealing out 30 more damage to an EX Pokemon is helpful in this deck but not needed as because all you need is four fully decked out Sigilyph and then a Tool on Trubbish to knock out any EX in the game except for a Black Kyurem EX with Crystal Wall (which boosts his HP to 300).  


4 Silver Mirror

Again another kind of junk tool to have in this deck, Silver Mirror is best used if anyone wants to run a Chalot PB on you.  Chalot’s attack Misinformation discards all tools in play but if you load up a Sigilyph with three tools and a Silver Mirror then your tools are safe.  Conversely if you don’t mind having tools on the bench for a turn you can just use Tool Reversal to bring all your tools back to your hand.  Silver Mirror is primarily there as Tool and as a tech card against Plasma Decks.


2 Eviolite

If you wanted to have some real fun you could throw up a Sigilyph into the Active spot and put four Eviolite onto it.  This will give it a -40 damage reduction just in tools alone.  This is a handy technique just to stall for a turn if you need to get a Trubbish or two ready.  Again Eviolite is just another resource for Tool Drops.  It’s not going to protect poor Trubbish from anything.  


2 Float Stone

Float Stone will be in the format for a very long time just because how well it jives with every other card in the set.  Attaching it to any Pokemon gives it a free retreat cost.  Great for getting that Trubbish into the Active Position for an attack.  

Items

4 Bicycle
This is another key card for a Tool Drop deck.  Because the deck is so Tool heavy to support the weight of Toolbox, you’ll more likely than not draw a pretty full hand of Tools.  One way to keep a well stocked hand, whether it’s Tools or otherwise, is Bicycle, which allows you to draw till you have four cards in your hand.  You don’t always have to use it to draw four, you can use it to even just draw two cards but because it’s just an ordinary item card you can use multiple per turn given the opportunity. 


4 Level Ball

It wouldn’t be a Pokemon TCG without a Ball of some sort and in the Tool Drop deck the Level Ball is a Godsend.  If there was one card I wish I could have more of in this deck it would be this card.  Level Ball allows you to search your deck for a Pokemon card with HP of 90 or less.  It just so happens that all the Pokemon in this deck have HPs of 90 or less.  Pretty much if you start a hand with a Basic and a Level Ball you’re going to be set up pretty fast, even better if you have two Level Balls.


1 Super Rod

This kind of deck you don’t need to run more than two I find.  Super Rod lets you shuffle in back into your deck from your Discard Pile any combination of 3 Pokemon or Energy Cards.  Usually I do this to shuffle back in a Trubbish only to pull it back out with a Level Ball.  Also you need to keep an eye on how much Energy you burn through.  Tool Drop decks have a weakness of running low on Energy so Super Rod can help aid in that as well.  


2 Pokemon Catcher

Now I already went into a little bit of detail about the infamous Pokemon Catcher in yesterdays post but I’ll just briefly go over how it’s used in this deck.  You’re not using a Catcher to pull up any Pokemon for the Knock Out because by the time you have everything set up you should be able to Knock anything out.  That said I toyed around with three Catchers before but I found that I didn’t have to use them at all.  Now with the coin flip chance of failing I’m even considering dropping it down my Catcher count to one just so I can fit in an extra Supporter or Energy card.  

Supporters

4 N

N is one of the key Supporter cards in the game and if you don’t have a full playset of these guys let me know or something because I will help you get a full playset.  N makes each player shuffle their hands into their decks and then draw the amount of Prize Cards you each have left.  


Popular strategies with N is to play your hand down to two or three and then N for a full hand early on.  This helps the Tool Drop deck because you’ll want to be attaching as many Tools and getting all your Trubbishs set up as soon as possible.  


Another fun strategy which is a little harder to nail is if you are falling behind in prizes and you notice your opponent’s hand is a little big you can N them down to one or two cards disrupting their strategy.


Essentially N is the shit disturber of the Pokemon TCG.  


4 Juniper/Sycamore

The other mandatory Supporter card in the TCG, this card allows you to draw a brand new seven card hand by discarding your current hand.  


In the Tool Drop deck, Juniper/Sycamore serves the same purpose as N in that you want your hand fully stocked with Tools and/or Trubbish.  The fun thing about Juniper/Sycamore is that if you have no cards in your hand other than this Supporter card you don’t need to discard anything.  You’re pretty much just getting a free seven card draw.  

2 Bianca
Bianca is like a Super Bicycle in that instead of drawing cards till you hit four, you do it till you hit six.  The only downside is that is is your Supporter for your tur so use it wisely

2 Skyla
Skyla is a very powerful Supporter as it allows you to search your deck for an Item card.  I've toyed around with the idea of switching some other drawing Supporter cards in favour of a full playset of Skyla just to prevent Decking Out.  

Ace Spec

When playing a Tool Drop Deck you basically have the option of two Ace Spec cards that are best for this deck

Computer Search

This is my personal card of choice.  By discarding two cards and searching for any one card getting Computer Search early in the game can give you a strong advantage regardless of the deck.  You could Computer Search for a Supporter if you played all your tools in your hand and pick out an N or Juniper/Sycamore to refresh your hand or just look for a specific Pokemon.  Either way it’s a very strong card which offers a diverse flexibility in any deck.


Dowsing Machine

The second Ace Spec of choice in this deck, Dowsing Machine allows for you to recycle an Item Card back from the Discard Pile.  It might not be the best Ace Spec for a Tool Box deck primarily because of the vast amount of Tools that could end up in the Discard Pile.  You may have a hard time deciding which Tool or Item to bring back.  Either way Dowsing Machine would be good if you needed to get a Level Ball back to get that Trubbish out of your deck or for a Silver Bangle for that extra damage.  

By my count that should be a card count of 53 leaving 8 slots left for Energy Cards.  Now you might be saying to yourself, that’s not a lot of energy for a 60 card deck.  You have to keep in mind that even though there is a high energy cost of Trubbish’s attack, you only need to Knock Out six of the opponent’s Pokemon.  Less if there’s EX Pokemon in play.  

Why this deck doesn’t work

Well I’ve gone over why this deck works but here’s a few reasons why this deck is still only a Tier 2-3 deck. 

Garbotoxin Threat

Garbodor’s Garbotoxin ability shuts off all abilities other than his own if he has a Tool Attached to him.  Needless to say being able to shut off both Toolbox and Tool Reversal is a huge counter to this deck.  Whats worse is if you have multiple Tools attached to a Sigilyph you’ll have to discard till you have only one on it.  While most people counter Garbotoxin with a Tool Scrapper, I don’t tend to include it into my deck because I don’t like to reduce Tool Drop’s potential power but you could include one Tool Scrapper if you feel inclined to.  You could just take out a Supporter or an Item.  


Tool Scrapper Mania

It’s not too bad if you lose four tools to two Tool Scrappers, but any more than that you find yourself scraping the bottom of your deck for Tools to power up that Tool Drop attack.  What I’m finding is that people don’t run a whole lot of Tool Scrappers in their decks, at most two, so this isn’t high on my threat list, at least not as bad as Garbotoxin.  

So there you have it.  A brief overview of one of my decks that I like to play with.  It’s fun, it’s crazy, it’s not nearly competitive enough for professional play, though there are a few cards coming in the upcoming sets that might give this deck the edge that it needs, but until they come out I’m going to assume they don’t exist.  


Again if you have any comments, questions, or suggestions of deck or card strategies please feel free to give us a shout out in the comments section or through our Twitter.  Tomorrow I will have a brief overview of some of the big new changes coming to the Pokemon X & Y game.  Please stay tuned!