In a very special edition of "Deck List Dump," we here are HeyTrainer look to solve the condundrum of LostGar (Gengar Prime Triumphant/Lost World Call of Legends). If you check out the corresponding forum thread, you'll realize one thing, and that's that very few people have consensus on the deck!
So, what to do about this little issue? Well, for the next few segments of Deck List Dump, I will be posting nothing BUT LostGar (the supposed new tier one deck), as well as my comments on the strengths and weaknesses of each variant. Today, we'll be examining the first known variant of any success: Gengar Prime/Mew Prime, which has seen a ton of play in Japan.
(If my Stormfront cousin eats childrens' brains, then don't I eat their souls?)
Now, the biggest question that should be on your mind is, "why do we have no standard on how to build this deck yet?"
Simple: the successful lists in Japan all had Claydol (Great Encounters) and Roseanne's Research (Secret Wonders) accessible to them. With Claydol, consistency was guaranteed against even the dreaded SP, and with Roseanne, you could be relatively sure that you had access to much-needed energy. Unfortunately, though, those two great cards have been rotated out of our modified format. With neither of those, we arrive at a bit of a conundrum on how to make it the best deck we can.
Since our Modified format is in a completely different context, here is what I would envision a Gengar Prime/Mew Prime for Majestic Dawn-on Modified to look like…
[WARNING: THE BELOW LIST IS LARGELY UNTESTED!]
Pokemon (23):
4 Mew Prime
4 Gastly SF
2 Haunter SF
1 Haunter TM
3 Gengar Prime
1 Gengar Prime LV.X
1 Mr. Mime CoL
1Spiritomb TM
2 Uxie LA
2 Mesprit LA
1 Azelf LA
1 Unown Q MD
Trainers/Stadiums/Supporters (28):
4 Pokemon Collector
4 Seeker
4 Poke Drawer+
4 Broken Time-Space (or 4 Rare Candy? Or Something else?)
3 Lost World
3 Bebe's Search
2 Junk Arm
2 VS Seeker
1 Luxury Ball
1 Pokemon Communication
Energy (9):
9 Psychic
The strategy is pretty basic: ideally start with Mew Prime, See Off a Gengar Prime, and by the second turn, you should be able to Lost Link Hurl Into Darkness, which – in time – should get you your much-desired Lost World win condition.
*Mr. Mime is for revealing your opponents hand, so you can optimize your chances of success for Hurl.
*Spiritomb Tirumphant is to force them into more Pokemon for Hurl targets. The reason why we don't run Giratina is because it draws LESS, and because THEY choose how much they draw!
*Mesprit is to help maintain a long, reliable Trainer lock. Thanks to Junk Arm, VS Seeker, and Seeker, you can use this power up to ten times in a single game.
*Seeker not only picks up your Mesprits/damaged guys, but also forces a Pokemon from the opponent's bench to his/her hand. As a result, you'll usually have some sort of Hurl target, thus making this card a must-of in every Lostgar variant.
***Strengths: since Mew Prime is a basic, it's much easier to setup, and as a result, allows you the chance to very quickly start Hurling from the second turn-onward, and perhaps for more than one Pokemon!
***Weaknesses: a big problem with this variant is that, without the aforementioned cards, it ends up becoming much more brittle. Furthermore, you have a lot of easily-KO'd, low-HP Basics to rely on, which allows for even more vulnerability to the super-speedy SP variants of this format.
(…Am I really a good choice right now?)
The list may be imperfect, and may be far from tested, but it should be a pretty reasonable starting point for anyone interested in LostGar For the next edition of Deck List Dump, I'll be posting a variant with Palkia G LV.X. Stay tuned, and be sure to tell your friends about /blog!
-HeyTrainer