When you see all the powerful Pokémon V and Pokémon VMAX making headlines, it’s easy to assume you need to build a deck around Pokémon with huge HP and attacks that dish out massive base damage. But the beauty of the Pokémon TCG is there are many paths to victory, including using Pokémon that look pretty meager at first.
In this episode, Andrew Mahone is going to look at one such deck that uses the fluffy Whimsicott at its center. The Pokémon looks like it’ll get blown away in a stiff breeze, but you’ll be surprised how firmly this Pokémon can stand against far more-imposing Pokémon!
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What’s up, everybody? Andrew Mahone, trading card game player and host of Tricky Gym, here with Pokémon’s Top Deck Academy. Today we’re going to be taking a look at a unique deck that focuses on Whimsicott from the Sword & Shield—Vivid Voltage expansion. This deck is a lot of fun to play. When set up, Whimsicott can do 250 damage for just a single Energy!
If you’re new to the Pokémon Trading Card Game or just learning how to play, I highly recommend heading over to tcg.pokemon.com/how-to-play to start your journey with our how-to-play videos.
The deck we are going to talk about today relies on attacking with Pokémon that give up a single Prize card, allowing them to trade favorably with Pokémon V and Pokémon-GX (which give up 2 Prize cards each)!
This deck primarily uses cards from the Pokémon TCG: Sword & Shield Series. In Step 1, we’ll look at the main Pokémon in the deck. Step 2, Pokémon Tool cards. Step 3, recovery cards. Step 4, draw and search cards. Step 5, Energy cards.
The main attacker in this deck is Whimsicott from the Sword & Shield—Vivid Voltage expansion. Though it’s a relatively small Pokémon, with only 90 hit points, its Flying Fury attack can pack a big punch! Flying Fury does 10 damage plus 40 more damage for each Pokémon Tool card you discard from play. Though you can’t attach multiple Pokémon Tools to the same Pokémon, if you have six Pokémon in play and each has a Pokémon Tool card attached, and you discard all of them, you can deal a whopping 250 damage for just one Psychic Energy!
To help you set up in the early game, Whimsicott’s Triple Draw attack draws three cards for a single Colorless Energy—which means you can attach any type of Energy to pay that cost. Whimsicott’s biggest strengths are its efficient attacks.
In order to attack for big damage, Whimsicott needs to have a lot of Pokémon Tools in play. Greedent from Sword & Shield—Rebel Clash makes an awesome partner for Whimsicott thanks to its Greedy Tail Ability. Greedy Tail allows you to search your deck for a Pokémon Tool card and put it into your hand—and if you have multiple Greedent in play, each one can use its Ability once per turn. With a couple of Greedent helping out, you will be able to search out Tool cards to discard with Flying Fury turn after turn.
Since Whimsicott does more damage for each Pokémon Tool discarded from play, it's important to play a lot of Pokémon Tool cards in this deck. Fortunately, there are many powerful Pokémon Tools to choose from, which can help the deck out in other ways as well! U-Turn Board is a Pokémon Tool that decreases the Retreat Cost of the Pokémon it’s attached to by one Energy. Since the highest Retreat Cost in the deck is 1, it effectively gives all the Pokémon in the deck free retreat! The best part about this Tool is that it returns to your hand when it gets discarded from play. When Whimsicott discards U-Turn Board with the effect of Flying Fury, U-Turn Board returns to your hand instead of getting discarded!
Similar to U-Turn Board, Air Balloon from Sword & Shield decreases the Retreat Cost of the Pokémon it’s attached to by two Energy! With U-Turn Board and Air Balloon in the deck, it’s always easy to get your Whimsicott into the Active Spot to use a powerful attack.
When playing the Pokémon TCG, your Pokémon will eventually get Knocked Out. Since Whimsicott only has 90 HP, this will happen quite a bit! Both Lucky Egg and Rocky Helmet help to respond to your opponent’s attacks. When the Pokémon that has Lucky Egg attached gets Knocked Out by damage from an opponent’s attack, you draw cards until you have seven cards in hand. Lucky Egg helps you to stream attacks with Whimsicott turn after turn, even when your Active Whimsicott gets Knocked Out.
Rocky Helmet lets your Pokémon strike back after taking damage, putting two damage counters on the Attacking Pokémon. With 15 Pokémon Tools in the deck, one in every four cards is a Pokémon Tool, giving Whimsicott plenty of fuel for its Flying Fury attack.
Since our Whimsicott will usually get Knocked Out every turn, it’s important to put them back into the deck so that they can attack again later. In decks that focus on low-HP attackers, it’s important to include ways to recover your Pokémon from the discard pile. Ordinary Rod from Sword & Shield is a great inclusion in this deck because it recovers both Pokémon and Energy cards from the discard pile. Ordinary Rod allows you to shuffle up to two Pokémon, two basic Energy, or even two of each from the discard pile back into the deck.
The most important part of any deck is setting up. You won’t be able to win a game if you can’t get the resources you need out of your deck and into play. To help with setup, this deck plays plenty of search and draw cards. Great Ball and Quick Ball from Sword & Shield help to retrieve Pokémon from the deck to put into play. Quick Ball gets any Basic Pokémon out of the deck at the cost of discarding another card from your hand, where Great Ball allows you to look at the top seven cards of your deck and put any Pokémon you find there into your hand. Since this deck plays two Stage 1 Pokémon, it’s important to have search cards to get your Basic Pokémon into play so that they can evolve as soon as possible.
Professor’s Research and Marnie are two of the best draw Supporters in the Pokémon TCG right now. Professor’s Research allows you to discard your hand and draw seven new cards, while Marnie shuffles your hand and puts it on the bottom of the deck before allowing you to draw five new cards off the top. Marnie is also good for disrupting the opponent’s strategy, shuffling the opponent's hand and placing it on the bottom of their deck before allowing them to draw four new cards.
Playing Pokémon that draw cards increases the consistency of any deck. Pokémon like Crobat V, Oricorio-GX, and Amazing Jirachi boost consistency by turning search cards like Quick Ball and Great Ball into draw cards! Evolving multiple Whimsicott and Greedent is a lot of work, and this deck needs as much draw power as possible to make it happen. Crobat V’s Dark Asset Ability allows you to draw cards until you have six cards in your hand when you play it from your hand to the Bench.
Oricorio-GX is a good way to respond when your Pokémon gets Knocked Out, since its Dance of Tribute Ability allows you to draw three cards if any of your Pokémon were Knocked Out the previous turn. Amazing Jirachi from Vivid Voltage, on the other hand, is an excellent pivot card! When Amazing Jirachi is in the Active Spot, you can look at the top two cards of your deck and put one of them into your hand before putting the other one back. Amazing Jirachi gets free retreat with the help of Air Balloon or U-Turn Board, making it the best card to promote when a Whimsicott gets Knocked Out!
Since Whimsicott only needs one Psychic Energy in order to attack, this deck can afford to play a limited amount of Energy. This deck only plays seven total Energy cards: four Horror Psychic Energy and three basic Psychic Energy. Horror Psychic Energy, like Rocky Helmet, helps Whimsicott to strike back after it takes damage from an attack, putting two damage counters on the Attacking Pokémon. These damage counters can add up throughout the course of a game and help Whimsicott to score big Knock Outs—even against high-HP Pokémon VMAX! It’s also important to play basic Energy in this deck since they can be recovered with Ordinary Rod. This deck only needs to attack a handful of times in order to win a game, making seven Energy just the right amount.
And that’s it for the Whimsicott deck featuring Greedent! This deck uses a unique combination of Abilities and Pokémon Tool cards to dish out a ton of damage, all for just one Energy. Hit me up in the comments below [on YouTube.com only] and let me know what are your favorite cards from Sword & Shield—Vivid Voltage.
It’s extra credit time! Check out the full deck list for this Whimsicott deck:
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Whimsicott
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4Horror Psychic Energy
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3Psychic Energy
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4Marnie
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4Professor's Research (Professor Magnolia)
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3Boss’s Orders (Giovanni)
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4Air Balloon
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4Great Ball
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4Lucky Egg
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4Quick Ball
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4U-Turn Board
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3Rocky Helmet
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2Ordinary Rod
