Hello and welcome to another episode of Searching Standard, where each and every week I look for new, innovative decks for you to play in Standard. This week, I'm looking at a deck that was recently featured on the YouTube channel of LittleDarkFury. It features a pair of Flamigo that take Prize cards with ease by spreading damage all around on your opponent's team of Pokemon. Let's get started by taking a look at the deck list.
Double Flamigo Deck
LittleDarkFury
Pokemon
1 Bloodmoon Ursaluna ex TWM 141
2 Budew 4
2 Flamigo 185
2 Flamigo 106
3 Froslass 53
1 Maractus 8
3 Munkidori 95
3 Snorunt 51
Trainers
1 Air Balloon 79
2 Artazon 76
4 Arven 186
4 Buddy-Buddy Poffin 101
3 Counter Catcher 160
2 Counter Gain 169
1 Crispin 133
4 Iono 80
1 Nest Ball 84
2 Night Stretcher 61
3 Pokégear 3.0 186
4 Professor's Research 122
2 Technical Machine: Devolution 177
1 Ultra Ball 91
1 Unfair Stamp 165
Energy
5 Basic Darkness Energy
3 Basic Fighting Energy
Flamigo OBF 185 is the main attacker for this deck. Its Synchronized Feathers attack deals 60 damage to your opponent's Active Pokemon, plus an additional 60 damage to one of your opponent's Benched Pokemon, as long as you have a Flamigo on your Bench. Flamigo PAR 106 acts as a secondary attacker. By using its Combat Beak attack, you'll deal a base amount of 20 damage, plus an additional 20 damage for each Pokemon your opponent has on their Bench. That can add up to a lot of damage. Both of your Flamigo's can benefit from having Counter Gain SSP 169 attached to them, making their attacks need 1 less Energy to use (since you'll likely want to be behind on taking Prize cards throughout the game).
Helping spread additional damage to your opponent's team are Froslass TWM 53 and Munkidori TWM 95. With Froslass TWM 53's Freezing Shroud Ability, each Pokemon (other than Froslass) that has an Ability will get 1 damage counter during Pokemon Checkup. Munkidori TWM 95's Adrena-Brain Ability allows you to move some damage from one of your Pokemon to one of your opponent's Pokemon. Use this to move the damage that Froslass TWM 53's Freezing Shroud Ability has placed on your Pokemon, or damage from your opponent's attacks.
The remaining Pokemon in this deck are all backup attackers. Both Budew PRE 4 and Maractus JTG 8 are good early game attackers, whose attacks can really throw a wrench into your opponent's plans. Bloodmoon Ursaluna ex TWM 141 is a great late game attacker, dealing a lot of damage for little to no Energy once your opponent has taken most of their Prize cards.
Most of the Trainer cards in this deck are generally found in a lot of current Standard decks. Artazon PAF 76, Buddy-Buddy Poffin PRE 101, and Nest Ball PAF 84 are all useful in helping you find the Basic Pokemon you need.
The lone copy of Ultra Ball PAF 91 is useful in finding Froslass TWM 53 from your deck, but it can be used to find any of your Basic Pokemon if needed. Technical Machine: Devolution PAR 177 offers you a route to victory against those decks that like to evolve their team quickly. By devolving their Pokemon, you might score some Prize cards if you've spread more damage to those Pokemon than their less evolved form has HP's. Air Balloon BLK 79 helps any Pokemon on your team, with the exception of Bloodmoon Ursaluna ex TWM 141, retreat for free.
Drawing extra cards is always beneficial, helping you find what you need more quickly. There's no Supporter in Standard that's better at drawing you new cards than Professor's Research PRE 122. Iono PAF 80 also offers you the chance to draw a new hand of cards, but she also resets your opponent's hand, and in many instances, she can slow down your opponent's momentum, stalling them out when they need extra cards more than ever. Unfair Stamp TWM 165 similarly resets both your and your opponent's hand, but it can only be played on the turn after one of your Pokemon was Knocked Out.
Arven OBF 186 is one of my favorite Supporters currently in Standard. He allows you to search your deck for any Item card (of which there are a lot of great cards to choose from) and a Pokemon Tool (which has a lot fewer cards to choose from, but which will certainly help out your strategy). Playing Crispin SCR 133 is a great way to accelerate the amount of Energy you have attached to your Pokemon. He allows you to quickly power up either Flamigo OBF 185 or Flamigo PAR 106 in the event that you haven't drawn a copy of Counter Gain SSP 169 to attach to them.
Even though this deck wants to spread damage around to your opponent's team, being able to choose which Pokemon of theirs you are attacking can be a crucial factor for you winning the game. Counter Catcher PAR 160 does just this.
Playing Night Stretcher SFA 61 is a terrific way of reusing a card that has gone to your discard pile. You can get either a Basic Energy or a Pokemon into your hand, which you'll usually play immediately afterwards. Since this deck has a number of useful Supporter cards, you can play Pokégear 3.0 SVI 186 to put one of them into your hand if one is found within the top 7 cards of your deck. Pokégear 3.0 SVI 186 also has you reshuffle your deck, which might be important if you placed anything you need right away on the bottom of your deck when you played Iono PAF 80.
Wrapping Up
Decks that are able to spread damage around to any opposing Pokemon in play can be a lot of fun to play and are surprisingly powerful. Even though the Flamigo cards in this deck are just Basic Pokemon, this deck proves that even Basic Pokemon shouldn't be underestimated.
What do you think of this deck? Do you have any suggestions for improvements? Let me know by leaving a comment below. And be sure to join me here again next week as I continue my search for innovative decks in the Pokemon TCG. I'll see you then!
- Mike Likes
