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The number nine key card we’ll lose to the September 3rd rotation
to BCR-On is… Accelgor (BW: Dark Explorers
11/108)! So what does our favorite “sort-of” ninja
Pokémon bring to the table that we’ll miss? Some
vicious and surprisingly successful lock decks.
Normally I cover Abilities and/or attacks after the rest of the
card, but this card’s second attack is pretty key here:
Deck and Cover. Besides being an awesome name, the
attack offers automatic Poison and Paralysis plus 50
points of damage, all for [CC]. Both bonus and
drawback, the attack sends the user flying into the
deck, along with all cards attached… and that has proven
very important. This allows Accelgor to
soft-lock the opponent’s Active Pokémon, and there are a
couple well known dance partners we’ll cover later that
go along with that, though I’ll mention now that the
deck loves to spam Double Colorless Energy over
and over again (as it keeps going back to the deck along
with Accelgor). The first attack, Hammer In,
costs [G], hits for 20 and will almost never matter:
many Accelgor decks I have encountered (granted,
its the PTCGO) run few if any Energy outside of
Double Colorless Energy (it does keep going back to
the deck, after all) and may not run any source of [G]
Energy… and if they do it is almost certainly for
something more important. Hammer In is pretty weak for
a non-Evolving Stage 1, but that was probably on purpose
(imagine if it was also good!).
Being a Grass-Type is roughly average; the support available to
them hasn’t led to anything and doesn’t do much for
Accelgor due to its method of use, and for that
matter hitting for Weakness isn’t a huge deal either
(and sometimes can even backfire). Being a Stage 1 is
probably the main intrinsic balancing mechanism for the
card; it just wouldn’t work well enough as a Stage 2 and
it would work too well as a Basic. 90 HP ended up being
perfect for this format; it is the most a Pokémon can
have while being Level Ball compliant. Its Fire
Weakness is dangerous, but thanks to Deck and Cover it
often won’t matter. Similarly, the lack of Resistance
is even less significant for the same reason. The free
Retreat Cost is pretty important; you can promote it
after a KO without worrying about it already being
prepped to attack.
Even both currently legal Shelmet are a bit better than
being pure filler. Your choices are BW: Dark
Explorers 10/108 and BW: Plasma Blast 7/101.
Shelmet are pretty slow in the video games,
granting it a hefty Retreat Cost of three… which would
be a bad thing except it makes Shelmet a legal
Heavy Ball target, and one of the partners we often
see used with Accelgor is Dusknoir (BW:
Boundaries Crossed
63/149; BW: Plasma Blast 63/149) which is also a
legal target… and due to how the deck works it isn’t
unheard of to run multiple copies of Heavy Ball,
Level Ball and Ultra Ball… and Shelmet
is also small enough for Level Ball to snag, so
all three can do the job. Otherwise its another
“placeholder” kind of Pokémon. The two only differ in
terms of attacks, and I would favor BW: Plasma Blast
7/101 due Yawn, its first attack: for [C] you afflict
the opponent with Sleep. You don’t ever want to have to
attack with Shelmet, so if you must then
potential stalling is decent and as mentioned earlier,
there is a good chance you won’t even be able to use the
other attack (on either this card, or the other
version).
Helping with the lock is usually Dusknoir, used
so that you never actually KO what you’re attacking,
just keeping it stuck in the Active slot; Trevenant
(XY 55/146) and before that Gothitelle (BW:
Emerging Powers 47/98; BW: Legendary Treasures
72/113) to block an opponent’s Items and cut off the
option of using Switch or Escape Rope or
Scoop Up Cyclone to break the lock; Flygon
(BW: Boundaries Crossed 99/149) is used because
of its Ability which places damage counters on each of
your opponent’s Pokémon between turns and probably some
more obscure options I just don’t know. Also
Dusknoir is used alongside either of the other two,
but rarely on its own. Supplementing Accelgor in
attacking has been Mew-EX; its low HP doesn’t
matter as it hides in the deck right away, and being a
Basic it is easier to prep; you just need to keep an
Accelgor on the Bench for versatile to copy.
Wrapping up what is actually in the deck, it seems
fairly common for more general support cards like
Electrode (BW: Plasma Freeze 33/116) and/or
Jirachi-EX to be present to help with the
difficulty of set-up: both are also Level Ball
legal targets. The deck’s main weakness is its
complexity; whiffing on a piece of the combo, suffering
due to sluggish set-up and vulnerability to Item or
Ability lock. There is also an issue as certain decks
are good at breaking the soft lock to begin with due to
blocking (or effectively treating) Special Conditions,
or simply changing out their Active.
So these decks are going to no longer be a concern for
Standard once it becomes BCR-On; more traditional
“porter” decks will attempt to fill the void, but it
just won’t be the same: Accelgor decks were odd
in that if your deck wasn’t naturally strong against
them, most could only spare a card or two as a counter
because you needed the room for more valuable choices.
Indeed said one or two cards usually were there for
general usage more than to counter the lock. It wasn’t
a deck that was “everywhere”, save perhaps when it was
still all new and shiney and everyone wanted to try one
of the few successful multiple Evolution decks. In
fact, it still is one of said few. The fact that it
seems inevitable that the deck’s set-up will
periodically collapse under its own weight and that a
single misplay can easily cost you the game (you won’t
be playing on “autopilot”) more so than many other
popular strategies likely contributed to that.
In Expanded, I believe Accelgor decks will
endure, with the mixed blessing being the heightened
competition. If the format ends up being diverse
(relatively speaking), it is usually too hard to prepare
for “everything” and thus just like now decks won’t have
room to run additional counters (just what is already
present in a deck’s build naturally). If the dominant
decks of yesteryear, today and tomorrow crowd out
everything else (and the lowest performing of each
other) then space will still be precious preparing
counters for them, and not Accelgor. Just like
now, though, there will be some match-ups that are
terrible, beyond being “uphill battles”.
On the highly unlikely chance you’re playing in a
Limited event with BW: Dark Explorers packs, this
is a very good pull. Hammer In might actually prove
somewhat useful, because you can probably risk swinging
with it before following up with Deck and Cover. This
will “erase” an attack by your opponent and give your
deck extra stamina. Even if you can’t get that extra
hit in (for example because nothing else in the deck
besides Shelmet needs Grass Energy so you
don’t run anyway), then the combination of 50 points of
damage, Paralysis and Poison is still great. Your
opponent isn’t likely to have any answer to it. Just
remember you aren’t going to be spamming this trick.
Mostly skip it if you’ve got more reliable tricks (Shelmet
has to show up at the right time for this to even be an
option) and be careful not to forget you need a Bench to
avoid losing due to Deck and Cover (also a risk
elsewhere, but more problematic here). Both with a +39
deck (one Pokémon plus 39 non-Basic Pokémon cards so you
have to start with said Pokémon) or just excellent
pulls, you may legitimately leave this out.
Ratings
Modified (NXD-On):
3.5/5 - While it was the focus of the deck, the main
thing that it has done better than other porter decks
was hiding in the deck (instead of on the Bench or in
the hand) while being reasonable to re-ready. The deck
very much relies on the strength of other cards;
Accelgor is pretty weak without said support.
Modified (BCR-On):
N/A - As per the point of the list.
Expanded (BW-On):
3.5/5 - The new Sparkling Robe Pokémon Tool
blocks Special Conditions, but due to Garbodor (BW:
Dragons Exalted 54/124; BW: Plasma Freeze
119/116; BW: Legendary Treasures 68/113)
Accelgor decks are already likely to run multiple
Startling Megaphone, so I don’t think that, the
influx of Fighting support, or anything added by
extending back to Black & White will really alter
this card’s performance.
Limited:
4/5 - Only skip it if you’re running a +39 deck or get
so much fantastic other stuff that its not worth the
risk of working in Accelgor. Don’t forget that
despite the high rating, its often just going to be
filler; such is the nature of Limited.
Summary:
Accelgor decks have been a feature of the game
for about two years now (I don’t quite remember when it
racked up enough high profile wins to be considered
“legit”), and it will be missed. Sometimes cheerfully,
if you favor decks unusually vulnerable to it. I
believe it will still play a role in Expanded, but we’ll
have to wait and see if that’s a good prediction or one
of those I’d like to forget.
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