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Standard St. Paddy's Salvage (Lanturn LOT/Swampert/Shuckle GX)

rewster1

rewster1

Aspiring Trainer
Member
****** Pokémon Trading Card Game Deck List ******

##Pokémon - 18

* 1 Shuckle-GX LOT 17
* 2 Chinchou LOT 73
* 2 Chinchou SUM 49
* 4 Lanturn LOT 74
* 1 Jirachi TEU 99
* 4 Mudkip CES 32
* 4 Swampert CES 35

##Trainer Cards - 36

* 2 Lusamine CIN 96
* 4 Missing Clover UPR 129
* 4 Crushing Hammer EPO 92
* 2 Brock's Grit EVO 74
* 4 Rare Candy DEX 100
* 2 Gladion CIN 95
* 4 Hau CES 132
* 4 Whitney LOT 193
* 4 Nest Ball SUM 123
* 2 Guzma BUS 115
* 4 Pokémon Communication BLW 99

##Energy - 6

* 6 Water Energy 12

Total Cards - 60

****** Deck List Generated by the Pokémon TCG Online www.pokemon.com/TCGO ******

The strategy here is simple, deck yourself out with swampert and whitney while using shuckle-GX and hammers to stall. Lanturn can be used to recycle hammers if needed, but the end game is to use salvage to recycle your 4 clovers every turn. Gladion gets your clovers out if they are prized (if both gladions and a clover are prized, your only hope is a KO by shuckle or possibly swampert... odds aren't great).

Obviously this is a fun deck and has no competitive value, but it can win a game here and there, and if you have any ideas for making it that little bit more competitive, I'm all ears!
The loop works great if you are up on prizes, but of course the main problem is you get behind on prizes early if you can't stall well enough, and so that's where I'm looking for any advice because I don't have a lot of experience stalling.
 
HA! Missing Clover works, finally! Kudos to you for trying this. The list looks pretty optimal to me.
 
Put in a super boost for one of the water energies. It does the same thing regarding Salvage, but if you have 3 swamperts then you can go in for a 160 damage hydro pump off one attachment.

Also, I'd put in an Unown hand as an alternate win condition. This deck loses immediately to Girafarig LOT, which is played in heaps of stall decks these days, and unown can help fix that if you think you plan out from turn one that that's what you're going to do.

Jirachi is fairly useless without escape board, by the way, since you can't retreat while asleep. It's still good, but you can't do much after using the ability. If you're going to use it, which I do suggest since you'd appreciate a pivot when lanturn gets KOed, I'd add at least one more and some escape boards. Alternatively, any other free retreater works as a pivot too.

Jirachi prism star, however, could do ok here. If you get it into your prizes, you can take an extra prize -- not great in decks that take three KOs to win a game and therefore don't need the extra card, but it wouldn't hurt if you have the space. At worst it just gets pitched to the lost zone with Power Draw.

Magcargo will absolutely help with your consistency and draws, letting you take prizes with clover even when you have half a deck left. I strongly recommend this.

Lusamine doesn't seem to serve a purpose. Salvage will do the trick if you need a supporter back next turn.

I know I've only suggested stuff to put in without suggesting what to cut, but I'll come back here soon with those in mind.

This is just my two cents, though. I haven't played anything like this with missing clover before (I did play unown hand once) so I'm by no means an expert.
 
Hi, thanks for the feedback. Super boost is an excellent idea, I wish I had thought of that. I do often have 3 swamperts out because the lanturns are what is being KO'd if anything. So being able to swing for 160 if needed could definitely work well (that was originally why I used water energies, but I never had time to power up a swampert so they just sat there getting cards). Unown hand is another good idea, but I had just built the deck and really wanted to win with clovers, lol. Also I think if I see a deck I think might be playing girafarig, I'll just hold my clovers until I can salvage them same turn. Unown is also going to be the way to go against malamar or any deck with lots of energy recovery and acceleration (that I'm probably just about auto losing anyway, but oh well).

I only have the one jirachi and am in no hurry to trade my life away for more, it's good to get a rare candy to get swampert up, or a draw supporter if I didn't get one in my opening hand, and that's mainly what I use it for so I'm fairly happy to lose it after a turn or two, and I don't know what I would switch it out with if I did put in escape boards. I do have jirachi prism, so that might be fun for that sneaky extra prize (would be much more fun if I also had magcargo and that new Mr. Mime coming out, along with an acerola or two).

Lusamine is oddly helpful, it turns out, because swampert is hungry for cards even when you only need to use it once to get your three other clovers, so lusamine is just an easy every turn way to get back discardable cards in the end game. Also salvage unfortunately only gets items, so if I need a guzma or brock I need lusamine to get it, unless I switched to pal pad, but the beauty of salvage is that it gets you all 4 clovers for that every turn prize, and this would make that beauty slightly less beautiful. o_O Though three hammers and a pal pad would maybe be good for the turns I'm getting hammers anyway (you have to get the hammers if they have any energy and you are behind, so that you can catch up).

I had only seen clovers tried with oranguru before, and lanturn looks at first glance like it wouldn't work because oh no, they go back to your deck shuffled, rather than bottom of the deck so you can use looker, but I just had that lightbulb moment of "what if you delete your deck like that Shintaro greninja list, then it's clovers every turn!"
 
rewster1 said:
Hi, thanks for the feedback. Super boost is an excellent idea, I wish I had thought of that. I do often have 3 swamperts out because the lanturns are what is being KO'd if anything. So being able to swing for 160 if needed could definitely work well (that was originally why I used water energies, but I never had time to power up a swampert so they just sat there getting cards). Unown hand is another good idea, but I had just built the deck and really wanted to win with clovers, lol. Also I think if I see a deck I think might be playing girafarig, I'll just hold my clovers until I can salvage them same turn. Unown is also going to be the way to go against malamar or any deck with lots of energy recovery and acceleration (that I'm probably just about auto losing anyway, but oh well).

I only have the one jirachi and am in no hurry to trade my life away for more, it's good to get a rare candy to get swampert up, or a draw supporter if I didn't get one in my opening hand, and that's mainly what I use it for so I'm fairly happy to lose it after a turn or two, and I don't know what I would switch it out with if I did put in escape boards. I do have jirachi prism, so that might be fun for that sneaky extra prize (would be much more fun if I also had magcargo and that new Mr. Mime coming out, along with an acerola or two).

Lusamine is oddly helpful, it turns out, because swampert is hungry for cards even when you only need to use it once to get your three other clovers, so lusamine is just an easy every turn way to get back discardable cards in the end game. Also salvage unfortunately only gets items, so if I need a guzma or brock I need lusamine to get it, unless I switched to pal pad, but the beauty of salvage is that it gets you all 4 clovers for that every turn prize, and this would make that beauty slightly less beautiful. o_O Though three hammers and a pal pad would maybe be good for the turns I'm getting hammers anyway (you have to get the hammers if they have any energy and you are behind, so that you can catch up).
Click to expand...

Oh! I thought Salvage could get back any card, my bad.

It's fair enough that you don't want to bankrupt yourself for more Jirachi (I don't have any myself) and if it's been working for you then I'm not going to tell you to stop. I still feel like Magcargo is the way to go for consistency, but that's really up to you.

That trick with Lusamine is pretty clever, by the way. I hadn't thought of them as draw resources. Same goes with the synergy between Jirachi <> and Mr Mime -- I'd never have come up with that myself.
 
I went back and played this again for 5 games... won 4. It's really not too bad, but I lost against, oddly enough a Mewtwo GX/Espeon GX deck with no malamar, because they played 16+ energy!!! Lol, I figured they'd run out eventually... 5 prizes later and 12 energy (including all 4 dce) in the bin, they play lady and grab 4 more. :eek:
 
I get sad. :oops:
Actually, it depends. If it's on turn 1, I get sad, because I may be dead drawing until I get benched. A couple turns in, I use swampert to get out of it but I have to re-delete my deck so hopefully it isn't enough to get them to 6 prizes before I get down to zero in deck. Oddly enough, swampert both draws and deletes a lot of cards, so late game marshadow has little effect if I can just power draw three times and play a whitney and be right back to no cards. If I take out the clovers and just focus on hammers and unown hand, then it would be devestating, but I never did that.
 
True that late game it'll have little effect, especially with 3 Swampert.

I was playing Ito's Ninja GX Loop, whose optimal board was usually 2 Swampert/2 Meganium and whatever. Judge would wreck me at any point of the game, because I had at most 2 out of maximum 3 Swamperts, so I quit playing that deck :/ I guess with 3 it would be better, but I'm still concerned about your ability to get Rare Candy in time. Have you considered Bill's Analysis?

Also, Pokemon Communication doesn't seem to help you thin the deck. And Brock's Grit is doing the opposite? From my Ninja deck, I'd recommend Timer Ball and Rescue Stretcher to replace those two, but I've never tested your deck so I can't really say.

Always glad to see an original deck though! Keep up the good work!

EDIT: Steven's Resolve and/or Looker Whistle+Looker instead of Hau and/or Whitney, and Pal Pad instead of Lusamine are also some things I use in my deck.
 
Okay I actually tried using this, albeit in a different list, and I just can't get how you're supposed to win the prize trade. The time it takes to set up everything is wayyyy too slow, and hammer isn't that consistent in stopping the opponent, *even* if you discard energy.
 
Well yes, it is a slow list, and depending on your ELO you might be facing too many pikaroms tag bolting you out of a couple swamperts to really stand a chance. I think if I played it right now after climbing the ladder a bit with alolan eggs (very underrated deck IMO) I would probably lose most games. I actually looked at tournament results from Denver, and watched Caleb's video playing his deck, and realized my list is just a gimmicky poor man's zoro control, so probably what you would want to do is put in better control cards, better supporters, take out the clovers (alas?) and just get back all the hammers all the time. Maybe even switch to oranguru. You can get unlucky with hammers but if you are seeing 3 or 4 a turn most decks will run out before they take that final prize. I see swampert control was even played by Gedemer at a tournament recently, and I have all the cards in that list except the leles so I might try that out...
 
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