TCG Jump: Deck Spotlight- Koga

Welcome to a new segment for TCG Jump called Deck Spotlight! Here we will showcase a deck that could be fun to play and rather interesting. We hope that by looking at our featured deck that you will be inspired to build this deck and try it out. So lets get started and show off our first deck in Deck Spotlight!

For our first Deck Spotlight, we are going to be enlisting the help of ninjas! Quick attacks that will slowly drain the HP of your opponent’s Pokemon! These strikes will put pressure on your opponent’s Pokemon and force them to think quickly. They will not see these attacks coming! It is just like the famed Pokemon ninja once said:

“Prepare to be the victim of my sinister techniques! Fwahahahaha! Pokémon are not merely about brute force–you shall see soon enough!“

The use of the ninja arts will be at your disposal with shurikens, bats and other devious tricks that would any ninja in the Pokmeon world proud. This deck is all about the ninjas with Greninja, Crobat, and…Miltank? Either way, there are so many ninja references in this deck which is why it is appropriately called: Koga!

Deck List:

Pokemon: 18
4 Zubat PLS* 53
4 Golbat PHF 32
3 Crobat PHF 33
3 Miltank FLF 83
2 Greninja XY 41
1 Jirachi EX PLB 98
1 Exeggcute PLF 4

Trainers: 24
4 Professor Juniper
1 N
1 Archie’s Ace in the Hole
1 AZ
1 Lysandre’s Trump Card
1 Xerosic
3 VS Seeker
4 Ultra Ball
2 Battle Compressor
1 Computer Search
3 Superior Energy Retrieval
2 Muscle Band

Energy: 8
8 Water Energy

Free spots: 10

*Card Set Key

Deck Breakdown:
The main purpose of this deck is to get Greninja on your bench as quickly as possible. You will be doing this by using cards like Battle Compressor and Ultra Ball to get Greninja into your discard. Once you have Greninja in your discard, play your hand down to one. This can be done by setting Pokemon on the bench or just discarding cards by usingas Ultra Ball or Superior Energy Retrieval. Then once you get your hand down to nothing, spring your plan to get Archie’s Ace in the Hole to make Greninja appear on your bench in a cloak of smoke and a new five card hand.

Some of the best ways to get Archie’s in your hand is to either use Ultra Ball for a Jirachi so it will be your only card in your hand. That way you can set it down on your bench and search for Archie’s and play it during the same turn. Another way to get Archie’s as your only card in your hand is to use Battle Compressor and VS Seeker. You will use Battle Compressor to discard Greninja along Archie’s and some other card that you could use later such as a Water Energy or Exeggcute. Once you have gotten your hand down to a single VS Seeker, use it and retrieve Archie’s from your discard. Activate it and get Greninja on your bench and a new hand!

With a little practice, you can get Greninja on your bench on your first turn. Once you have done that, get ready to discard Water energy to use Water Shuriken to soften up your opponent’s Pokemon.

The fun doesn’t end there. You will want to set up as many Zubat as you can to evolve into Golbat and Crobat. That way you can use their Sneaky Bite and Surprise Bite ability to inflect more damage on your opponent’s Pokemon. Simply evolve your Zubat into Golbat to use their Sneaky Bite ability to inflect 20 damage to any of your opponent’s Pokemon. Evolve once again into Crobat to use Surprise Bite to do 30 damage on another or the same Pokemon. Make sure the Zubat that you are using for this deck is the one from Plasma Storm. It has the Free Flight ability which allows it to retreat for free if it has no energy attached to it. This will allow you to easily move it from the active position if you happen to start with it in the early game.

With all the Water Shuriken, Sneaky Bites and Surprise Bites flying around, you will be putting some serious damage on your opponent’s Pokemon. If you use Water Shuriken, Sneaky Bite and Surprise Bite once on one of your opponent’s Pokemon then that is 80 damage on it. That is almost half of an EX Pokemon’s HP which is perfect for the heavy hitter of the deck to knock out: Miltank.

Miltank has the Powerful Friends attack which allows it to hit for 80 damage with a single energy and a Stage 2 Pokemon on the bench. If you set up Greninja on your bench during your first turn then you can hit for 80 damage in the same turn. Attach a Muscle Band to Miltank and you will be hitting for 100 damage to knock out an EX Pokemon that has already lost 80 HP thanks to Greninja and your bats.

Greninja is not slacker either as it has Mist Slash to do 50 damage for a single energy. It can also be used to pick off heavily damaged Pokemon on your opponent’s bench who try to escape a beating from Miltank thanks to discarding a single Water energy to use Water Shuriken. Crobat and Golbat can do similar things as well thanks to their Colorless single energy attacks.

Your trainers should be easy to use. You want to use Battle Compressor to discard cards that you want in the discard in the early game to retrieve later. The main goal is to get Greninja on the bench. Eventually you may want to discard Water energy to easily retrieve them by using Superior Energy Retrieval. You will want Water Energy to discard by using Greninja’s Water Shuriken or power up another Miltank. Superior Energy Retrieval is also good to get more Water energy when you want to retrieve Water energy that you had discarded from previous Water Shuriken. Exeggcute’s Propagation ability plays a role her as it makes paying for the use of Energy Retrieval cheaper.

AZ is in this deck so you can pull up your Crobat and Golbat after evolving and then using them to evolve another Zubat and Golbat to carry on biting your opponent’s Pokemon.

This list has ten free spots. This will allow you to customize the deck to fit what you need, your play style or the threats in your playing area. It is suggested that you put in a Stadium card to counter your opponent’s seeing that each deck now has a Stadium. You will want to play at least 2 Training Center seeing that you have plenty of Stage 2 Pokemon in this deck who will appreciate the extra HP in case they are targets of attacks.

Adding a few Battle Compressor and VS Seeker will help so you can pull off the turn one Greninja easier. Another Archie’s may not be a bad idea to avoid it being prized.

You may want to include Super Scoop Up so you can have an item based Bench-to-hand Pokemon retrieval. It depends on a coinflip but if you get heads then that could mean more bites on your opponent’s bench thanks to Golbat and Crobat that you Super Scoop-ed Up.

Lastly, add Lysandre so you can pull heavily bitten and Water Shuriken damaged Pokemon into the active to get hit by Miltank.

If you add: 2 Training Center, 2 Battle Compressor, 1 VS Seeker, 1 Lysandre and 1 Archie’s Ace in the Hole then that will leave you with three card spaces to fill. Those last three can be your choice to help make this deck successful in your hands. These spots could also be used depending on how many Super Scoop Up you want to play.

You will not like seeing Seismitoad EX due to it’s Quaking Punch attack which prevents you from using items such as Battle Compressor and VS Seeker. That is why you play Xerosic to discard their Double Colorless Energy. If they don’t have another DCE then you may have stopped them from using Quaking Punch for a turn and regain usage of your items.

Overall
Just like Koga and any great ninja, you want to move quick when playing this deck. Pick out threats on your opponent’s side of the field and take them out using Miltank. This is a deck that lives and dies by the way of the ninja! So make sure to do Koga proud as you use his deck of ninjas and bats!