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WE ACCEPT
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Walrein/Milotic by Martin Moreno
It all started at the San Diego Hidden Legends Prerelease event. Just as
usual, I was giving the terrible selection of cards I acquired a hideous
stare. Amongst the seemingly endless pile of unworkable sealed play
material, I stumbled upon Walrein. I was fortunate enough to have both
pre-evolutions of the card, so I decided to give it a shot.
Now if we take a closer look at this card's value in sealed 40 card
deckplay, it doesn't seem like such a beast, especially in a 1-1-1 line
ratio. The possibility of it even seeing light in a match is atrocious.
However, I was attracted to getting a 50% chance of a free energy card
attachment. A 40 card deck with nearly have of which consisting of energy
puts Crush Draw's success ratio at a near coin flip.
After teaming Walrein up with various psychic and fighting Pokemon, the deck
bombed the prerelease. I won 3 games out of 5, all of the wins coming from
games I was successfully able to bring out Walrein. I was quite pleased with
this. When the tournament was over, I met up with my step brother who also
did not do well in the tourney. I looked through his deck to see what he was
working with and a certain card caught my attention. This card had it all.
This card had a powerful attack, a nice sized amount of hit points, a
situationally helpful Pokemon Power, and seemingly good possible synergy
with Walrein. This card was Milotic.
So there it was, the blueprint to what would become my deck project for the
new Hidden Legends Modified format. I remember telling Matt Dunford at the
prerelease, "This is going to be my deck." And it was.
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A Work in Progress
Walrein was an extremely fun deck to work with. The first person I turned to
for help on this was Chad Harris. After seeing his excellent performance at
e both the LA and SD Gym Challenge events, I knew testing this deck out
against his Blaziken would be the perfect way to figure out if this was
really what I thought it would be.
When I first started building this concept, beating Blaziken was my number
one priority. So I got to work and tested it against Blaze. It's results am
amazed me. In my first three games against Chad's Blaziken I got a record of
three consecutive victories. Granted he blames the losses via bad opening
draws, I knew what really won those games ... the overwhelming swarm
capabilities Walrein possesses of course.
Here is a quick list on why this deck beat Blaziken:
1. Being the water type, you have an advantage with both Walrein and
Milotic.
2. Milotic's second attack one hit KO's a Blaziken ex. Even with a Double
Rainbow attached.
3. A Crystal Shard gives you an advantage over Rayquaza.
4. Spheal is a great opening Pokemon. Using Freezing Breath you have a 75%
chance of disabling a Dunsparce in turn denying your opponent an accurate
set up.
Now that I had the best deck in the game under my belt, how would this fair
against the rest? I wasn't sure.
One of the people I playtested this deck with (Kyle Sucevich) took this out
to the Pokemon National Championships for a test drive. Walrein did pretty
well considering he ended up in second place taking a trip to the World
Championships. However, his loss in the finals to a poorly constructed
Gardevoir had me worried. I did not want to have a deck that only helped
Gardevoir (a deck I do not particularly care for) win big events by
eliminating it's main threat (Blaziken). To my relief, after further
investigation, I realized this deck did not simply lose to Gardevoir. So I
once again had a lot of confidence in this project.
The Deck
Pokemon 20
4x Dunsparce (Sandstorm)
4x Spheal (Hidden Legends)
3x Sealeo (Hidden Legends)
4x Walrein (Hidden Legends)
2x Feebas (Hidden Legends)
2x Milotic (Hidden Legends)
1x Regice EX (Hidden Legends)
Walrein is the definition of workable. The Pokemon Power "Crush Draw" allows
you to reveal the top card of your deck. If the top card is a Water Energy,
you are allowed to place that on any one of your Pokemon. This does not
count towards your one energy card per turn attachment, which allows you to
get an advantage over your opponent. Speed is what this is all about. The
Oracle Supporter is perfect for this deck because it allows you to stack
energy for your Walrein(s) to use. The more Walrein you have in play, the
more extra energy you can potentially attach to your Pokemon. Simple as
that.
Milotic's second attack is expensive, but with your Walrein's powering it
up, you need not to worry about not being able to get it out fast enough.
Double Rainbow Energy is also a nice tactic to surprise your opponent with.
You can even use it to get a quick Walrein if you must, however I do not
recommend it.
Trainers 24
4x Copycat (Expedition)
4x Oracle (Skyridge)
3x Steven's Advice (Hidden Legends)
4x Pokemon Reversal (Expedition)
3x Rare Candy (SandStorm)
2x Desert Ruins (Hidden Legends)
1x Ancient Technical Machine [Rock] (Hidden Legends)
1x Crystal Shard (Skyridge)
1x Town Volunteers (Aquapolis)
1x Warp Point/Switch
The trainer selection is nothing special. You have a powerful drawing engine
accompanied by a good amount of disrupting cards. Pokemon Reversal is a
great card for this deck to eliminate benched threats. If you see something
big building on the bench, try to pull it up with the Pokemon Reversal.
Desert Ruins is the perfect Stadium Card for this deck because you play no
EX Pokemon that can be affected by it's negative attribute. So you have an
advantage over those pesky Blaziken ex's and Gardevoir ex's to help you pull
off those later game prizes.
Energy 16
14x Water Energy
2x Double Rainbow Energy
You need Water energy of course. The Double Rainbow is nice for powering up
things out of nowhere. Maybe not the Regice. Ouch.
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This deck has problems with Metagross. To be honest Metagross is the only
deck I see giving Walrein problems often. The deck isn't only fast, but it's
squared attack does 60 a flip to your poor Walrein because of it's weakness
to the metal type. You might try Ancient Tomb, however your opponent will
not have a hard time defaulting it from play since more stadiums are being
played in the current environment.
Walrein is a solid deck which I think will make a nice showing in the
Pokemon World Championships come August. Give it a shot, I'm sure you will
be pleased.
-Martin Moreno
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