Searching Standard: Durant Mill

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 Durant BST 10 attempting to run your opponent out of cards in their deck. Let's get started by taking a look at the deck list.

By attacking with Durant BST 10's Devour attack, you'll discard the top card of your opponent's deck for each of your Durant in play. If you're able to get all four Durant BST 10 into play, that's four cards each turn that you'll mill from your opponent's deck. From my experience, most decks already play a lot of cards that allow extra cards to be drawn, so you might only need to use this attack a few times before your opponent has no cards left in their deck.

To help protect yourself from your opponent's attack, you can use Spidops ex SVI 19's Trap Territory Ability to keep your opponent's Active Pokemon trapped in place. This only works well when they are unable to attack or retreat, but this deck has ways of moving your opponent's Pokemon around. Calamitous Wasteland PAL 175 helps with this plan by adding an Energy to the Retreat Cost of non-Fighting Type Pokemon. While this will affect your Pokemon as well, this effect will generally hurt your opponent more than it hurts you.

The final Pokemon in this deck is Manaphy BRS 41, which is included in this deck as a means of protecting your Benched Pokemon. Since you want to keep any Benched Durant BST 10 from getting Knocked out, you'll be able to count on Manaphy BRS 41's Wave Veil Ability to protect them from damage.

To make sure you can find all of your Durant BST 10 from your deck, this deck is running a variety of Items. While Battle VIP Pass FST 225 can only be played on your first turn of the game, the benefit you gain from it is worth the risk of including it in your deck. Both Level Ball BST 129 and Nest Ball SVI 181 can find additional copies of Durant BST 10, in addition to your other Basic Pokemon.

If you are able to search through your deck during a game, be sure to count the number of Durant BST 10 you find. If you notice less than four, you can be assured that one (or more) are trapped within your Prize cards. Since this deck is looking to win via an alternate-win condition, you might not be able to count on taking any Prizes during the game. For those times, you'll want to play Hisuian Heavy Ball ASR 146. This deck also includes a copy of Technical Machine: Evolution PAR 178, which you can use to help find Spidops ex SVI 19.

To attack with Durant BST 10's Devour attack, you'll often want to attach a copy of Double Turbo Energy BRS 151 to it. To help find this Special Energy more easily, you can play Energy Loto ASR 140. There's also a copy of Earthen Vessel PAR 163 that you can use to get two Basic Grass Energy from your deck.

Since you want to lock a Pokemon that is unable to attack into your opponent's Active Spot, this deck includes a variety of Trainer cards to help with this. Both Counter Catcher PAR 160 and Boss’s Orders PAL 172 allows you to choose whichever Benched Pokemon you want to move to your opponent's Active Spot. There's also Erika's Invitation MEW 160, which allows you to see what cards your opponent has in their hand, as well as putting a Basic Pokemon found there into play, directly into their Active Spot.

You'll be able to play Echoing Horn CRE 136 to put any Basic Pokemon from your opponent's discard pile directly onto their Bench. This can be especially useful if you know you've already milled the Pokemon it could Evolve into. In the event that you have a Pokemon get Knocked Out, there are a couple of Trainer cards you can play to catch back up. First is Bruno BST 121, who offers you the chance to draw a bunch of additional cards. There's also Raihan EVS 152, which allows you to accelerate your Energy by attaching a Basic Energy card from your discard pile to one of your Pokemon. If you're able to do this, you can also search your deck for any one card you'd like.

For a deck that's usually behind on taking Prize cards, there are not many cards that are better to play to slow down your opponent's momentum than Iono PAL 185. Judge SVI 176 is similar to Iono PAL 185, and arguably better during the early stages of the game, but in the later stages, playing Iono PAL 185 will force your opponent to draw fewer cards than you will. Finally, another way for you to draw extra cards is by playing Professor's Research SVI 190. Doing this will force you to discard your current hand before drawing seven new cards, so be sure to play everything you are able to before playing Professor's Research SVI 190.

Arven SVI 166 is a great Supporter to play that can help you find both an Item and a Pokemon Tool from within your deck. While there are a lot of different Items you might get, depending on your needs at the time, you'll most often want to find Defiance Vest PAR 162 as your Pokemon Tool. Attaching this to your Durant BST 10 allows it to take 40 less damage from your opponent's attack, as long as you have taken fewer Prize cards than your opponent. Finally, as you've seen, this deck has some great Supporter cards. You can play Pokégear 3.0 SVI 186 as a way of finding them more easily than simply waiting to draw them.

The final Trainer in this deck is Rescue Carrier CRZ 142, which is a great way of returning any previously Knocked out copies of Durant BST 10 from your discard pile to your hand. This allows you to play them to your Bench again, and you'll be able to mill extra cards from your opponent's deck with your next attack.

Wrapping Up

I'm a big fan of decks that offer an alternate method of winning, so this is a deck that excites me. It doesn't operate like your usual deck, and you'll need to have a lot of patience when playing it, because it will be difficult to know if you're winning or losing since you won't be taking any Prize cards (usually). If you're up for a challenge, give this deck a try.

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