Standard Deck Tech: Centiskorch Deck Out

Hello everybody. I'm Rodrigo, bringing another interesting deck building guide with 80% of the Pokémon GO TCG cards.

Here's a proposition that almost nobody uses very regularly in the game: victory by deck out — that is, when your opponent has no more cards to play in the deck. Credits to Andrew Mahone, who launched this curiosity.

Shall we follow this list?

Deck Analysis

There's not much mystery here. To ensure that your Sizzlipede SSH 37 stays alive and doesn't take a Boss's Orders BRS 132 from the opponent sabotaging your game and strategy, the ideal is to start by putting 3 Diancie ASR 68 (1), which, thanks to its Princess's Curtain ability, prevents any Trainer-type Supporter card effects from affecting any Basic Pokémon on your field.

This will be essential as the base deck mechanics build needs a Squirtle PGO 15 to generate the Blastoise PGO 17 and use its ability to turn on the energies, a Charmander PGO 8 to become the Charizard PGO 10 to make its ability with energy doubling effect and Sizzlipede SSH 37 to become the Centiskorch SSH 39).

So if the match starts with the Trainer Item Battle VIP Pass FST 225 right in the first round, on your first turn it will be excellent. This card only works under these conditions. Secure at least two Diancie ASR 68 and equip them with the Trainer Item Lucky Egg SSH 167 (2), which grants an effect of, if the opponent knocks out your Diancie, and if you have less than seven cards in your hand, you will draw until you have seven in hand, having an absurd Draw Power.

This is considering the hypothesis that in this draw comes the card Bruno BST 121 (3) that shuffles your current hand and draws 4 cards, but if in the previous turn, any of your Pokémon was knocked out, instead of drawing 4 cards, you draw 7 cards; in addition to the other alternate version of this effect, which is Cynthia's Ambition BRS 138 (3), where you shuffle your hand by drawing 4, but if your Pokémon was Knocked Out the previous turn, you draw 8 instead of 4.

And to speed up power up, we have Raihan EVS 152, which can only be played when one of your Pokémon has been previously Knocked Out, and if that happened, you can power up an Energy from your discard pile on a Pokémon you choose and still get any Trainer card from the deck and put it in your hand, accelerating the search for resources.

For resource acceleration, we have Radiant Greninja ASR 46, which with its Concealed Cards ability, you can discard an energy card from your hand to draw two cards. The only downside would be if your opponent plays Trainer Stadium Path to the Peak CRE 148, which nullifies abilities of Pokémon that have “Rule Box”, and since every Radiant card has this feature, it loses effect.

With this kind of Draw Power feature mentioned above, the point is to prioritize the evolution from Squirtle PGO 15 to Blastoise PGO 17 using Rare Candy SSH 180. This is to use Blastoise's ability, Vitality Spring, where you attach up to 6 energies to your Pokémon, and if you do, your turn ends.

Blastoise is an excellent energizer as it doesn't specify the type of energy and can be any type for this search. Doing this ability twice in a turn grants you 12 energies in the process (excluding the turn energies you can put in your hand for Sizzlipede).

To find Squirtle PGO 15, Blastoise PGO 17 and Rare Candy SSH 180, the card Irida ASR 147 is one of the main cards of the deck to speed up this process because it looks for a water Pokémon, in addition to a Trainer Item card, which in this case, applies to Rare Candy.

If you want to evolve Charmander PGO 8 to Charizard PGO 10 along with Squirtle PGO 15 and Blastoise PGO 17, it's even valid. But to ensure that this Charmander PGO 8 doesn't take a Boss's Orders BRS 132, I recommend that in round 3, play it, having the guarantee that in the next turn your Sizzlipede SSH 37 will evolve to Centiskorch SSH 39 at the same time as Charmander PGO 8 to Charizard PGO 10.

Then, the Charizard's ability, Burn Brightly, grants the effect that its base fire energy is doubled, that is, one base energy is worth two. Assuming in the perfect scenario that the 18 energies are linked to Centiskorch SSH 39, these 18 energies become 36 energies, i.e. a power of destruction that consumes 2/3 of the opponent's deck with the attack Hundred-Foot Flames.

About cards with indicative numbering of “reprints”

(1) About Diancie ASR 68, its ability is similar to Articuno TEU 32 from the Sun/Moon: Team Up block, but with the difference that Articuno only protects Pokémon from water, regardless of whether it's basic or evolution, unlike Diancie, which only protects basics;

(2) About Lucky Egg SSH 167, is a reprint of the card in the Diamond/Pearl: Platinum Arceus expansion;

(3) About Bruno BST 121 and Cynthia's Ambition BRS 138, they have the same similar effects as Cynthia's Feelings LA 131 from the Diamond/Pearl: Legends Awaken expansion, being more precisely, Cynthia's Ambition is the version that comes closest to this “reprint”.

Resources

For resource situations, with loss of Pokémon or energies, we have these cards:

1) Energy Recycler BST 124 to recycle 5 energies from the discard and put them back into your deck;

2) Ordinary Rod SSH 171 to choose one or both options, which are: recover two Pokémon from discard to deck; or recover two energies from discard to deck; or both;

3) Rescue Carrier EVS 154 just to recover from the discard Pokémon with 90 HP or less to your hand, being able to bring the key Pokémon to the Sizzlipede SSH 37 like Squirtle PGO 15 and Charmander PGO 8 or even Diancie ASR 68 to stall the enemy and buy more time;

4) Ultra Ball BRS 150 is for chasing any Pokémon for the cost of discarding two cards from your hand. There goes the criterion and your situation, assuming you have energy to discard and being able to recycle with the Energy Recycler BST 124 or Ordinary Rod SSH 171 to perform this combo, for example;

5) Level Ball BST 129 looks for Pokémon that have 90 HP or less and puts it in your hand, practically looking for all the basic Pokémon in the deck;

6) Hisuian Heavy Ball ASR 146 is a very specific card, as it searches your prize pile for the basic face-down Pokémon, where the biggest concern in the deck is precisely the Charmander PGO 8, for having only one copy.

Advantages

As a deck that doesn't offer the risk of giving two prize cards in the current format like Pokémon-V or Pokémon-VStar cards or three prizes like Pokémon-VMax or Pokémon-VUnion, it has the comfort of losing only one prize card per knockout received.

In addition, you are more likely to be able to fight back to make the deck out combo, that is, helping more in the current format that many use and abuse discard cards to speed up draws, such as Professor's Research BRS 147.

Disadvantages

As it depends on many stage 2 Pokémon to evolve, such as Charmander to Charizard, and Squirtle to Blastoise, it is a little slow, which can delay the combo a bit.

If the opponent knows that you need to be in a loop of knocking out Diancie to "clear the way" and you have little hand to make the Luck Egg effect, they may very well stall the game, delaying your draws, since Diancie doesn't have a strong attack, or if it doesn't come with speed at least three Diancie to guarantee preservation of its Pokémon against Boss's Orders BRS 132. And if the opponent notices this in time, and still has resources that guarantee energy recycling, the deck can lose advantage.

Another possibility is cards that use damage counters (which can bypass Diancie's defenses, being able to attack the reserve bench), such as Mimikyu VMAX BRS 69 with the implement of the card Acerola's Premonition BRS 129 or the dreaded Mewtwo -VUnion (Mewtwo V-UNION PR-SW SWSH159, Mewtwo V-UNION PR-SW SWSH160, Mewtwo V-UNION PR-SW SWSH161 and Mewtwo V-UNION PR-SW SWSH162).

And we can't forget about the card that counters of any type of archetype deck out, that was released recently and mentioned in the special mentions of Pokémon GO TCG's most playable cards: Bibarel PGO 60.

It's a deck that's worth the investment to play with your friends and make your opponents have a hard time figuring out how to deal with this alternate wincondition.

That said, it is one of the most “cheap” decks and accessible to the public who cannot afford to invest in expensive decks in the current Metagame.

Thanks for reading, and until next time!