Standard Deck Tech: Dewgong - Cheap deck with strong damage

Hello everybody. I'm Rodrigo, and I'm here to bring you more deck possibilities for the Standard format in the Pokémon TCG.

With the hype of Lost Origin with new cards that star in the expansion, I bring a water-type Single Prize cheap deck for beginners: Dewgong .

Deck Analysis

The plan here is very straightforward. You should put as many energies as possible on Dewgong LOR 34 by using Capacious Bucket RCL 156 to search for two water energies from the deck for each card in that turn.

This way, you perform his second attack, Floe Return, for two colorless energies, where you shuffle an unlimited number of water energies back into your deck, dealing 40 damage for each energy. And considering the deck contains 11 water energies, you'll be able to deal a total of 440 damage!

And to protect your game against "Spread Sniper" decks that can knock out Dewgong, we have Manaphy BRS 41 to protect your bench and help assemble Finneon's set-up and Dewgong more smoothly.

Recursive Pokémon

1) To protect your game against “Spread Sniper” against Dewgong and your Finneon, we have to Manaphy BRS 41 because of its Wave Velt ability, which grants protection to your Bench if they take direct damage from your opponent's attacks.

2) Radiant Greninja ASR 46, which with its Concealed Cards ability, you discard an energy card from your hand to draw two cards.

3) Finneon LOR 40 enters to speed the game up with Oceanic Accompaniment, which causes during your turn if there are any Pokémon with the name attack Swim Freely (which is Dewgong's first attack) you can move as many energies as you want to this Dewgong.

4) And for extra draws, we have Bibarel BRS 121 with its Industrious Incisors ability that during your turn, you can draw until you have 5 cards in your hand during your turn.

Trainer Cards

- Irida ASR 147 is to get a Finneon or a Dewgong and a Capacious Bucket.

- Lady FLI 109 is to optimize the acceleration of energies between Finneon and Dewgong.

- Nessa VIV 157 retrieves from the discard pile a combination of 4 cards that can be switched between Water Pokémon and Water Energy and puts them into your hand.

- Capacious Bucket RCL 156 is for taking two water energies from the deck and putting them in your hand. It is essential to have this card to speed up the power-up of your Pokémon.

- Ordinary Rod SSH 171 is for recycling basic energy resources and Pokémon in your discard, being able to choose one of the two options or both.

- The Stadium Training Court RCL 169 serves precisely between the turns (yours and the opponent's) to get a basic energy from the discard pile and put it in your hand; thus contributing to the Finneon + Dewgong combo.

Advantages

With 6 energies, Dewgong manages to attack 240 damage, knocking out all Pokémon V of the current format, since their average HP is 220 and the maximum is 230.

With 7 energies, Dewgong does 280 damage, which is possible to knock out any VStar of the current format, since the Pokémon that have this highest amount of HP are Arceus VSTAR BRS 123 and Giratina VSTAR LOR 131.

With 9 energies, Dewgong can reach 360 damage, dealing with virtually all VMax in the current format.

And yet as a purely Single Prize deck, it's good at playing against ultra-rare decks.

Disadvantages

Decks that feature “Spread” with damage counters like Mewtwo VUnion, Mimikyu VMax, Dragapult VMax + Sableye.

If Manaphy is not in play, decks that have more aggressive “Spread Sniper” power like Greninja VUnion, Urshifu VMax -Rapid Strike- and Magnezone VStar can be tricky.

Decks with electric archetypes like Raikou V combined with Arceus VStar as energy accelerator are also problematic.

It's a good deck for beginners to start learning about the Pokémon TCG, being cheap and great value for money (except maybe for Radiant Greninja), but worth building it for fun and knowledge of the game.