I would just like to say thanks
for those that read these
articles on Pojo and for those
that contact me to discuss
decks. It's really great to
hear from many of you and I
can't believe that there are so
many that read from lands afar
such as Indonesia and
Singapore. Hopefully you can
all make it to Worlds this
year.
This week's deck we are going to
look at the ever popular
DragTrode deck. DragTrode was
discovered upon the release of
the Team Rocket Returns set. It
incorporates important game
'cheats' such as free energy
search, evolution, and multiple
energy attachments which can
make the deck very fast. Now I
call them 'cheats' not because
you are actually cheating but
because it breaks normal game
rules as we will look at
further. Anytime a certain
card combo can provide a method
to break the normal game rules
such as multiple energy
attachments in a turn, those
combos will be heavily tested
and played since it gives you an
advantage over your opponent.
Let's look at one of those 1st
tricks that Dragtrode runs. The
1st comes from Dark
Electrode's Poke-Power Darkness
Navigation which lets you search
your deck once per turn for a
Darkness energy or Dark-Metal
energy and attach it to Dark
Electrode. You can only do this
as long as Dark Electrode has no
energy attached to it. This
essentially lets you accomplish
2 things at once. 1st
it allows a free energy
attachment per turn. Remember
when I said that if you can get
an extra energy attachment
during your turn you will be up
on energies on your opponent.
This also lets you look through
your deck and see what cards are
prized and most importantly it
serves to thin out your deck so
that you can pull cards that you
need such as Stadiums and draw
power. While we are on Dark
Electrode, Dark Electrode is
both Dark and Lightning Type so
in a pinch he can be a decent
attacker against popular
Lightning weak types such as
Zapdos-ex and Pidgeot. With his
Energy Bomb attack just attack
and then move all the energies
to your bench so that the next
part of this combo will work
with Dark Trance.
Dark Trance which is from Dark
Dragonite allows you to as often
as you like during your turn but
before you attack, move a Dark
energy card attached to 1 of
your Pokemon to another of your
Pokemon. This combo goes hand
in hand with Darkness
Navigation. By Turn 3 you can
have a fully pumped Dark
Dragonite dishing out 80 for 3
or a pumped Rocket's Sneasel
cleaning up the board with Dark
Ring that does a base damage of
30 plus 10 more damage for each
of your Dark Pokemon in play.
Once again Dark Trance allows
you a second little combat trick
that if your opponent is not
also playing Dragtrode allows
you to 'energy-trans' your Dark,
Rainbow, and/or Dark-Metal
energies around. Thus the reason
to run Mr. Briney's Compassion.
Trance the energies off of the
damaged Pokemon that you will be
picking up then re-attach by
using Dark Trance.
One final trick that this deck
runs off of is Dark Dragonair's
Evolutionary Light Poke-Power.
Evolutionary Light allows you to
search your deck for an
evolution card when Dark
Dragonair is in the active
position and then put it into
your hand. Again this allows
you to thin out your deck and to
check what you have left or what
is in your prize cards.
Depending on your setup you may
need to search for a Dark
Electrode or Dark Dragonite.
Combo this with Rocket Ball and
you should have no problem
finding the evo's that you need
to be up and running in no
time. Here is a deck list to
start from:
Pokemon- 21
4 - Dunsparce
3 - Dratini
3 - Dark Dragonair
3 - Dark Dragonite
3 - Voltorb
3 - Dark Electrode
2 - Rocket's Sneasel ex
Trainers: 24
3 - Steven's Advice
3 - Rocket Ball
2 - Rare Candy
2 - Copycat
2 - Rockets Admin
2 - Mr. Briney's Compassion
2 - Warp Point
2 - Swoop! Teleporter
2 - Crystal Shard
2 - Desert Ruins
1 - Rocket's Hideout
1 ' Scott
Energy: 15
4 - Darkness
4 - Dark Metal
4 - Rainbow
3 - R. Energy
I've seen some Dragtrode builds
without Dunsparce and some that
include Pidgeot. Keep in mind
that Battle Frontier can
severely hurt this deck as all
of your powers are based on Dark
Pokemon. Thus you may want to
run it with 2 Scott and another
Stadium to search out the
Stadiums to counter Battle
Frontier. There are many
different successful builds out
there that may vary slightly by
a card here or there. I placed
3rd in a State
Championship with a Dragtrode
build that included Pidgeot and
Kingdra to counter the colorless
weakness since Sally was popular
at that time. So that is yet
another example.
As always please feel free to
revise this deck list to fit
your needs and play style
accordingly.
This Sunday June 25th,
I'll be at the New Jersey Gym
Challenge held at Time Warp
Comics and Games in Cedar Grove,
NJ. So if you are going to
participate come and say hi!
Also please contact me at
JSChimento@aol.com
or AIM me at JSChimento if you
wish to discuss this article or
any decks.
