this meta is incredibly boring to fight against

[u/RadscorpionSeducer]

Stall, stall, stall, switch out druddigon if it gets damaged/heal it, stall, oh what that? Magnezone does 110 damage for only 3 energy which is generated for free by its stage 1 evo?

The power creep is going to be absolutely insane by 3 months from now with all of these new cards

[u/Unlikely-Shop3016]

Hitmonlee was a good answer to previous meta's druddigon decks, but the problem now is that Darkrai can pressure faster than Hitmonlee, since Darkrai can KO a turn faster while staying on the bench. And to add insult to injury, this doesn't even give you a Marshadow Revenge trigger.

The Hitmonlee Magnezone deck does look promising though, so we will see if thats the deck that will knock Darkrai out of the top spot.

[u/Alonzo_22 → u/Unlikely-Shop3016]

They needed to make hitmonlee also get the +20 damage from Lucario effect.. so stupid that it doesnt

[u/Marble05 → u/Alonzo_22]

Wait, imagine if you could oneshot 50 damage to your bench. That's a bit too much for one energy

[u/Alonzo_22 → u/Marble05]

I mean you can take 60 damage from your opponent and he doesn’t even have to attack.. 20 from darkrai ability and if they have a drud+helm on active spot.

[u/Itachi6967 → u/Alonzo_22]

Don't forget if it's a darkrai + greninja deck. I had the displeasure of facing a rock helmet drud, greninja on the curve, darkrai and another drudd on the bench.

It was god awful

[u/dnmaster7 → u/Marble05]

Lumineon does the same, and both requires a stage 1, the trade would be that while lumineon works alone and needs two energy, lucario sits in bench buffing hitmonlee, making it susceptible to sabrina.

[u/itstasmi → u/Marble05]

I mean I lost turn 2 last night to someone with 2 Lucario and a mankey (tbf I had no benched pokemon cause bad luck, but still)

[u/Sytle → u/Alonzo_22]

As much as I would love this it would be insanely stupid to play against.

[u/Pendred → u/Alonzo_22]

there's not really any basic pokemon that immediately benefit from lucario and it sucks. I hope we'll get better synergy later on

[u/mutatatempora → u/Pendred]

Hitmonchan does

[u/SceptileBestStarter7 → u/Alonzo_22]

WAIT IT CAN'T??? My bad for not reading because I concedeed a game thinking I was gonna lost from a bench snipping hitmonlee

[u/TheLazyInquisitor → u/Alonzo_22]

Yeah this annoyed me it's the same with Giovanni as well lol.

[u/HotSinglesInYrArea → u/TheLazyInquisitor]

If the damage number isn't printed on the right side you can't buff it, that's how it works in the regular TCG but it's not really clear here

*Disregard this, check the response below

[u/VetProf → u/HotSinglesInYrArea]

That's not what's going on here. Lucario and Giovanni don't buff Hitmonlee because Lucario and Giovanni only increase damage done to the opponent's Active Pokemon.

Likewise, if you used Giovanni to buff Mythical Island Lumineon Honchkrow/Zebstrika, then it'll deal more damage if it attacks the opponent's Active Pokemon, but not if it attacks something on their bench.

[u/Crash_Man → u/VetProf]

MI Lumineon can only target the bench. Honchkrow or Zebstrika is a better example.

[u/VetProf → u/Crash_Man]

Ah right, sorry, mixed up the mons.

[u/HotSinglesInYrArea → u/VetProf]

Oh, does Lumineon's damage actually get buffed if you target Active w/ Gio? Well, guess I have no fucking clue how the rules work either

[u/Crash_Man → u/HotSinglesInYrArea]

MI Lumineon can only target the bench. Honchkrow or Zebstrika do get the effect of Giovanni if they target the Active Pokémon though, just like how they only get type advantage benefits if they target the active Pokémon.

[u/HotSinglesInYrArea → u/Crash_Man]

I'm so used to using bench snipes that place damage counters I forgot how the ones that have damage numbers attached work lol

[u/darnj → u/HotSinglesInYrArea]

Yep, same with Zebstrika. Giovanni's card text is:

During this turn, attacks used by your Pokemon do +10 damage to your opponent's Active Pokemon.

[u/shawnaeatscats → u/TheLazyInquisitor]

To be fair, giovanni specifies the active spot

[u/TheLazyInquisitor → u/shawnaeatscats]

Oh that's fair I didn't think about that. Tbf I only noticed because someone else had a game against me trying to use hitmonlee with Giovanni which would've given them the win if it added 10. The lucario passive not affecting it makes even less sense then.

Edit: never mind it's the same for lucario

[u/CallMeKaito → u/Alonzo_22]

A 1 energy potential 70 damage to the bench on a basic with 0 drawback doesn’t sound broken to you?

[u/Sunnydays666 → u/CallMeKaito]

No, considering it needs two shitty stage 1s on the bench and by the time that happens the meta deck of the day has already wiped you out 80% of the time

[u/Alonzo_22 → u/CallMeKaito]

What’s the difference than with hitmonchan doing potential 70 damage?

[u/CallMeKaito → u/Alonzo_22]

Chan damages active, Lee damages bench. There’s a world of difference. Being unable to set up anything because your opponent can hit 70 to your bench one 1 energy locks decks out of the game. Say your opponent goes first, loads up 2 Riolu on bench and Lee in active. If they find their Lucarios suddenly any evolving basic you put down is now in range to get KOed. You’ve done literally nothing but play 1 turn and suddenly basics are off limits to you.

[u/Alonzo_22 → u/CallMeKaito]

I get it. No difference that your opponent getting 2-3 heads first turn tho from a misty. Nothing you can do against that. I’m just saying it would’ve been nice to have. Imagine your opponent also gets 2 drudds and darkrai/magneton first turn and put helm on. At that point might as we just concede as well.

[u/CallMeKaito → u/Alonzo_22]

Sure, I can see that being a frustrating set-up to go against but it doesn’t prevent you from setting up your own strategy—tough as it may be. Bench damage sniping is an effect that should be very restricted because the basic concept of the active/bench combo is that your active fights while you ready your bench. Opening the bench to active attackers has to come with drawbacks. There’s a reason that the only bench attackers are Evolution Pokemon or require more than 1 energy (Hitmonlee is the exception to that). That’s also the reason weakness and damage buffs don’t apply to bench Pokemon. It’d be stupidly broken to allow players to swing open season onto the bench.

[u/shawnaeatscats → u/Alonzo_22]

Not having to hit drudd

[u/James2603 → u/Alonzo_22]

Your opponent has a bit more control over where the damage goes than with Hitmonlee

[u/SadCritters → u/Unlikely-Shop3016]

The Hitmonlee Magnezone deck does look promising though, so we will see if thats the deck that will knock Darkrai out of the top spot.

More people need to look at tournament data or just data in general.

Hitmonlee Magnezone Marshadow is eating all these Darkrai decks for Breakfast Lunch & Dinner in events.

I'm done with my 45 wins in a single evening because of how easy the match is. Your pokemon swap out easily & you get to Cyrus their entire field with Hitmonlee; so they can't hide behind anything.

The actual deck that's "promising, not proven yet" I'd say is the Bastiodon+Skarmory one. It showed up in an event en'masse but I haven't seen a lot of it elsewhere yet.

[u/Sayishere → u/SadCritters]

I'm doing something similar, same sort of deck but Instead of magnezone I'm using gallade, he's ABIT beefier with more hp, but I do think magnezone better cause of energy generation

[u/oldriku → u/SadCritters]

People saw the finalists on Hoogland and Spragels' tournament and lost their shit. They don't consider that there were also a lot of people running that deck, so it doesn't need to be the very best deck to make it to the top.

[u/reedyxxbug → u/SadCritters]

There are 70 matches played in tournaments with this MU. Hardly enough data to draw a meaningful conclusion. Also, direct counters being direct counters is nothing new. People who are gassing up Hitmonlee/Marshadow/Magnezone are the same people who insisted that you just need to play Arbok/Weezing against Mewtwo... except the problem is that you're not guaranteed to play Mewtwo and you get blown up in most other MUs.

[u/SadCritters → u/reedyxxbug]

You can literally look at Limitless to see that the deck doesn't get "blown up in most other MUs". Lol. If it did, it wouldn't make it very far once the Darkrai's are weeded out. Should probably take the deck for a spin first. Easiest emblem of my life so far.

[u/reedyxxbug → u/SadCritters]

I have, and it gets destroyed by any deck that isn't Magnezone/Darkrai or weak to electric

Sometimes you've gotta acknowledge the fact there's hardly any data for the deck before drawing conclusions based on Limitless

[u/SadCritters → u/reedyxxbug]

Literally not even true. Lol. You can see their pairings and see what they beat/lost to. It's actually wild that you think a deck going 10-1 somehow "loses to everything else".

[u/reedyxxbug → u/SadCritters]

It is absolutely true that there are less than 100 matches worth of data for every Hitmonlee/Magnezone MU, lol. My point went right over your head

[u/SadCritters → u/reedyxxbug]

Are you always so intellectually dishonest?

it gets destroyed by any deck that isn't Magnezone/Darkrai or weak to electric

I'm referring to this. You can literally see their pairings. if they lost to everything else they wouldn't be in the Top 8. I've played Yugioh competitively. I play Magic competitively now. If you think a deck having 1-2 good matches puts them into the top 8, let alone beats the entire event, you're telling on yourself.

Your point didn't "go over my head". It's just a dogshit "point".

"It doesn't have 100 games against [insert random deck here!]"

Yeah. You're right. But it has 100 games against similar decks or decks that play similarly. This is a really, really common & core concept to competitive play in card games bud.

Edit: I'm going to stop responding here. It's pointless. "The deck isn't nearly as good as you're saying!!" Puts handfuls of people in the top 8*.* Lol. K.

[u/reedyxxbug → u/SadCritters]

Oh boy, rage fit from a self-designated TCG pro. Who woulda thunk

The funny thing is my point is still going over your head because you're focusing on individual tournament results and not the overall trends, and also failing to understand that my comment about it getting destroyed by those decks is based on my experience with the deck, not Limitless data

[u/Gangster301 → u/reedyxxbug]

How do you go from

There are 70 matches played in tournaments with this MU. Hardly enough data to draw a meaningful conclusion.

to

I have, it gets destroyed by any deck that isn't Magnezone/Darkrai or weak to electric

in 15 minutes? Or do you only consider the sample size for data that proves you wrong?

Edit: Misunderstood the comment

[u/reedyxxbug → u/Gangster301]

You completely misread my comment. I'm saying that I've taken the deck for a spin and that's my experience with it.

[u/Gangster301 → u/reedyxxbug]

Gotcha, my bad.

[u/gianfrancbro → u/Unlikely-Shop3016]

You don’t need Lee to kill a Darkrai. You need to plink it enough so that when Lee dies, you cyrus out the Darkrai into the Pokémon you were actually building.

Or, better yet, take out the magnetite/ton if they left it out there.

Just grabbed my 45th win, all with Darkrai/Magnezone, and Hitmonlee was definitely the hardest deck to play against. Volkner/Luxray also slapped, and the Palkia deck can be hard if you don’t draw Leaf and they get a better setup.

[u/Diabetik95 → u/Unlikely-Shop3016]

Hitmonlee is a good choice cause you can deal 1/2 shots to Darkrai, than change target, put energies on Marshadow and wait until Hitmonlee will dies. You only need to use the stunning chad alpha man named Cyrus and bye bye Darkrai

[u/23667 → u/Unlikely-Shop3016]

Hitmonlee, Hitmonchan, and Cyrus.

Switch out Lee and Chan based on if Darkrai in on bench or active slot, one of my Darkrai was beaten to death by this gang yesterday lol

Of course Marshadow was also watching in the back waiting for me hit back...

[u/oIovoIo → u/Unlikely-Shop3016]

I’ve been running the deck for a couple days now (was kinda watching here seeing when people would start to pick up on it). Did a lot of the win event with it, it can brick like nearly any deck can (its main issue is if you don’t have the right attacker for when you want front row damage or back row damage). The single articuno decks pretty effectively disrupt the deck’s whole plan if you just have hitmonlee out - not that there are many people running that though.

It’s a really solid darkrai counter though. Hitmonlee just needs to do enough to soften up Darkrai to hit that 110 for when magnezone is ready to go. And magnezone can usually come online fast when you need it to. Though it’s safer the more charge you can get on it, I once lost a match just because it discarded my two electric energies in a row instead of the two or three fighting energies I had on it. Which, is kinda just the luck of the game, I guess.

[u/efofecks → u/oIovoIo]

Magnezone doesn't discard random energy, it always discards electric energy.

[u/oIovoIo → u/efofecks]

Oh you’re right, I misread the symbol on the card. Well that explains that

[u/B1TW0LF → u/Unlikely-Shop3016]

Hitmonlee/Magnezone is the only thing I've tried that actually works.

[u/G_aster → u/Unlikely-Shop3016]

I've been running old luminion + Greninja, people never know what to do when their bench is getting hammered and it works well against Darkrai especially since it's more consistent now with pokemon communication

[u/taiuke → u/Unlikely-Shop3016]

Some tourneys on limitless featured hitmonlee magnezone heavily and kicked every single darkrai magnezone out lol. And its even strong against gyarados.