Expanded Deck Tech: Venusaur VMax (Grass Box)

Hello everybody. I'm Rodrigo, bringing news about the Pokémon TCG and its vast media. And today, I will show you a little bit of the Expanded format, where your imagination with deck building possibilities are endless, as xards from the Black/White block expansions (from 2011) to the present day are legal.

And with that, I'm going to bring you some suggestions with decks from Kanto's starters: Venusaur, Charizard and Blastoise.

Today, we will talk about Venusaur VMax.

Venusaur Expanded Decklist

With that, we have the main attacker, whose Pokémon's HP is extremely high and long-lasting.

The first attack, Forest Storm, for two colorless energies deals 30 times the damage per amount of grass energies of your Pokémon in play — since the deck has 10 energies, it can hit for up to 300 damage. However, this damage can be increased, thanks to Venusaur SLG 3 whose ability doubles the effects of basic grass energies, providing two at the same time. So, virtually, the deck has 20 grass energies.

The second attack, G-Max Bloom, for two grass and two colorless energies, deals 210 damage and heals itself for 30 damage. It's weak damage for the current format, but then the point is to try to destroy the opponent with the previous attacks of its base form, from Venusaur V CPA 1, using the Tool Memory Capsule VIV 155.

Starting with Venusaur, what interests us is its first attack, Pollen Bomb, which for two grass energies and a colorless one, deals 80 damage and leaves the opponent asleep and poisoned.

That's where the issue comes in because it causes these special conditions, "bad status", that will languish the opponent's Pokémon. For this, we have the resource of the tool Memory Capsule VIV 155 that allows you to copy the previous attacks of the previous evolution of the Pokémon, that is, first hitting with the Pollen Bomb and then using the G-Max Bloom. In order, 80 (bad status aside) plus 210 is 290 damage, plus 10 more from poison between turns!

Recursive Pokémon

Here is the most delicate part of the deck for having only one copy of its basic forms, be it Grookey, Bulbasaur or Cherubi.

That's why the ideal is to put them on the field as soon as possible so that they have a quick setup, allowing Venusaur VMax to attack quickly, having 4 Evolution Incense SSH 163 and 4 Rare Candy CES 142.

Ideally, our combination is Bulbasaur to Venusaur; and Grookey to Rillaboom, and we'll explain.

- Venusaur SLG 3 has its ability Jungle Totem, which makes grass base energies worth two energies at once, making it easier to tribute the attack cost.

- Rillaboom SHF 13 has its Voltage Beat ability, which makes you search your deck for two grass energy in the deck and attach it to one of your Pokémon.

- Cherrim UPR 11 has its Weather Guard ability, which makes all your Grass Pokémon have no weakness, and is optional if facing a fire-type archetype deck, in addition to the ease of it being a stage 1, without needing to use Rare Candy CES 142, just Evolution Incense SSH 163 for the process.

Trainer Cards

- Professor's Research (Professor Oak) CEL 23 is the draw accelerator: you discard your hand until you draw 7 new cards.

- Gardenia's Vigor ASR 143 is the energizer. You attach two Grass Energy from your hand to one of your Benched Pokémon. If you do, you draw 2 cards.

- Cynthia UPR 119 is used to shuffle your hand and draw 6 cards.

- Net Ball LOT 187 fetches a Grass Pokémon or Grass Energy from your deck.

- Trainers' Mail ROS 92 makes you search the top 4 cards of your deck for any Trainer-type card, choose one of them, reveal it to your opponent and put it in your hand, then shuffle your deck.

- Rare Candy CES 142 is used to advance the evolution of a basic Pokémon to stage 2.

- Evolution Incense SSH 163 is used to search your deck for a card of a Pokémon evolution, working with Rare Candy for recursive Pokémon.

- The Stadium Life Forest ◇ LOT 180 heals 60 damage to all your grass Pokémon and removes any special conditions they are suffering from. But as it is a Prism Star card, if it is discarded, it goes to the Lost Zone.

- The Stadium Turffield Stadium RCL 170 is used to look for evolutions of grass-type Pokémon, facilitating the evolution of recursive Pokémon from the deck, to combo with Rare Candy, in addition to the evolution of the Venusaur V for Venusaur VMax.

Advantages

Obviously, it has an advantage against water Pokémon that are weak to grass.

If you build fast with Rillaboom SHF 13 and Venusaur SLG 3 in your game, rest assured you will have great consistency at the very least with a benched Venusaur V as a backup, in addition to the active Venusaur V at any moment that it can evolve into its VMax form and perform the damage cycle already mentioned using the item Memory Capsule VIV 155, with its system of dealing 80 damage and giving the "bad status" and then finishing with 210 damage while healing itself.

Disadvantages

The setup of recursive Pokémon, in the case of Venusaur and Rillaboom, being a 1-1 line, is a little complicated in the deck and this can be a problem to not speed up as quickly as possible, being very honest in the deck building.

This is the essential part of the deck for it to spin with greater speed in a few turns, so you should pay attention to this objective.

And of course, if you can't build your Cherrim UPR 11, you'll suffer against fire archetype decks.

And the card Avery CRE 130 is the deck's greatest threat, as it can force you to discard your Pokémon, forcing you to sacrifice your recursion engine.

It's a good deck. Even though I'm not a fan of the grass type, it has these benefits thanks to Venusaur, Rillaboom and Cherrim, which makes this deck have its dominance strength, and can even challenge fire decks if the entire setup is well executed.

And so, I would like your opinion with my deck tech. What are your expectations? What would you change about it to improve it? Do you think the setup is good enough?

Don't hesitate to leave your comment, and thanks for reading!