Standard Deck Tech: Articuno + Inteleon - Brisbane Regionals Champion

Focusing on the Brisbane Regional, in Australia, let's discuss the deck that was consecrated in the first place, used by the Australian player Tim Franklin, with a paralysis strategy built around a forgotten "baby" card: Articuno, from Silver Tempest, adding the Sobble/ Drizzle /Inteleon line for support, and Alolan Vulpix VStar as a secondary attacker.

So, let's analyze his deck and understand how it works.

Decklist

Articuno: the main striker

1) Attack - Ice Wing (W): Deals 20 damage.

2) Attack - Wild Freeze (W)(W): Deals 70 damage and deal 50 damage to itself. Also, the opponent's Active Pokémon is now paralyzed.

The trick here is to paralyze the enemy and in order not to lose your Pokémon due to the recoil effect, you use Scoop Up Net RCL 165 to take it out of play and return it to your hand. The energies attached to it will be discarded, but then Frosmoth SHF 30 will enter as a power-up Pokémon in the Rain Dance setup if you have water energies in your hand, to return to the combo.

Alolan Vulpix VStar: the second striker

Basically, Alolan Vulpix holds its own against Pokémon that have abilities, as well as preventing attack effects. A perfect water attacking Pokémon that causes plenty of headaches to the opponent.

Examples:

1) Assuming there's a Pokémon like a Duraludon VMAX EVS 219 against your Alolan Vulpix VSTAR SIT 34, Duraludon VMax won't be able to hit it.

2) The prevention that Alolan Vulpix VSTAR SIT 34 can inhibit are those such as if the opponent's attack can say in an attack description that "it cannot take damage from evolved Pokémon", the Alolan Vulpix VStar ignore it.

Eiscue: the third striker

Here, for the second attack, Blockface, it comes in as a "counter" mainly to Blissey V CRE 119, Empoleon V BST 40 and many Radiant Pokémon like Radiant Charizard PGO 11 and Radiant Greninja ASR 46, in addition to Amazing Rare such as Reshiram SHF 17, Raikou VIV 50 and Rayquaza VIV 138.

Drapion V: the fourth striker

1) Ability - Wild Style: This Pokémon's attacks cost one less Colorless Energy for each Single Strike, Rapid Strike, and Fusion Strike Pokémon on the opponent's field.

2) Attack - Dynamic Tail (C)(C)(C)(C): Deals 190 damage, and you choose one of your Benched Pokémon to take 60 damage.

It only comes in as a counter to the Mew V FST 113 deck: purely and solely for that.

Recursive Pokémon

For power-up - “Rain Dance” Strategy

Its Ice Dance Ability is what we're interested in here, as it powers up basic Water Energy from your hand to your Benched Pokémon.

Recursive Pokémon - Sobble/ Drizzile/ Inteleon Line

- Sobble CRE 41 comes in with its attack Keep Calling, which summons 3 basic Pokémon of the Rapid Strike type to the bench, that is, more Sobble to generate the combo of evolutions for Drizzile and start resource searches.

- Drizzile SSH 56 has Shady Dealings, which means that when you evolve a Sobble into this Pokémon, you can search your deck for a Trainer card, reveal it, and then put it into your hand.

- Inteleon SSH 58 With the improved version of Shady Dealings, you can search for two Trainer cards rather than one, different from its previous evolution.

- Inteleon CRE 43 comes in as an indirect attacker for damage counters (so-called “spread”) with the ability Quick Shooting, which puts two damage counters between turns on one of your opponent's Pokémon.

Essential Recursive Pokémon for “Draw Power” - Radiant Greninja

With its Concealed Cards ability, you can discard an Energy card from your hand to draw 2 cards from the top of your deck.

Trainer Cards

- Irida ASR 147 is used to search your deck for a Water Pokémon and an Item-type Trainer card.

- Nessa VIV 157 serves to cycle from the discard pile a combination of 4 cards that can be basic Water Energy or Water Pokémon in any order.

- Boss's Orders BRS 132 serves to pull a specific Pokémon from the opponent's Bench to deal damage for victory, speeding up the drawing of prize cards.

- Battle VIP Pass FST 225 searches the deck for two Basic Pokémon and putting them into play right away, but this card can only be played during your first turn for the entire game.

So, the faster you create this setup in the first turn, the better, to develop all Sobble on the field and guarantee their evolutions in the next turn and build your combo.

- Capacious Bucket RCL 156 Search your deck for two Water Energy and put them in your hand.

- Ultra Ball BRS 150 serves to search any Pokémon in the deck, to the tribute of discarding two cards in your hand.

- Level Ball BST 129 is used to search for any Pokémon that has 90 HP or less, such as Sobble CRE 41 and Drizzile SSH 56.

- Quick Ball FST 237 is used to search a basic Pokémon from the deck with the Tribute cost of discarding a card from your hand.

- Emergency Jelly SIT 155: At the end of your turn, if your Pokémon has 30 HP or less, it heals 120 damage from it. By doing so, you discard that tool.

- Air Balloon SSH 156 reduces the retreat cost of the Pokémon it is attached to by two colorless Energies.

- Training Court RCL 169 is essential to combo with Frosmoth SHF 30 with “Rain Dance” to accelerate the energies between your Pokémon.

Special Energies

- Wash Water Energy VIV 165 works only on water types, and with that, it prevents the opponent's attack effects.

Advantages

The main focus of the deck is precisely the paralysis condition, just like Joel Suryadi's deck strategy with Zekrom.

However, we have a more aggressive attacker as a second option, which is Alolan Vulpix VSTAR SIT 34 as it dodges effects from the opponent and is still exempt from attacks from Pokémon that have abilities, which means only certain Pokémon can hit it, like Mew VMAX FST 114.

Disadvantages

- Control decks like Mewtwo-VUnion.

- Decks that use massive sniper attacks.

- Mew VMAX FST 114 deck that can use all of its various attacks to give versatility to strategies like the Mew V attack that hits 70 and goes back to the deck, for example.

- Aggressive decks with high raw damage like Reshiram SHF 17.

It's a pretty amazing deck with cards that are "simple" to use. In Articuno's case, which gained this notoriety with the base expansion that came out, Silver Tempest, showing that in this middle of the Pokémon TCG Metagame, anything is possible.

And now it's up to you: what do you think of the deck? Feel free to leave your opinions about it in the comments below!