Searching Standard: Raikou / Butterfree Deck
by Mike Likes // Dec 03, 2020
Hello and welcome to another episode of Searching Standard. Each week I search for fun, innovative decks for you to play at your local tournaments or against your friends. This week, I have a deck from a YouTuber named The Slowpoke Well. It features one of the new Amazing Pokemon from Vivid Voltage, Raikou VIV 50. Let’s start by taking a look at the deck.
Thanks to Raikou VIV 50's Amazing Shot attack, you'll be able to deal 120 damage to your opponent's Active Pokemon and one of their Benched Pokemon. The downside to this attack is that it requires three different types of Energy. Luckily, this deck has a way of attaching those three Energy fairly easily...
Attaching the Energy to Raikou VIV 50 can be a breeze when you use Butterfree UNB 4's Triple Charge attack. This attack requires only a single Energy, and it doesn't matter what kind of Energy you have attached to Butterfree UNB 4. Triple Charge allows you to search for any three Energy cards from your deck and attach them to your Pokemon in any way you'd like. This can allow you to power up Raikou VIV 50 in a single turn. One other thing to note is that you'll be able to evolve into Butterfree UNB 4 right away since both Caterpie RCL 1 and Metapod RCL 2 have the Adaptive Evolution Ability that allows them to evolve on your first turn or on the turn you play them.
Both Crobat V DAA 104 and Dedenne-GX UNB 57 are included for their Abilities that allow you to draw additional cards. Crobat V DAA 104 has the Dark Asset Ability that has you draw cards until you have six in your hand. Dedenne-GX UNB 57 has the Dedechange Ability, which has you discard your hand in order to draw a new hand of six cards.
All decks need ways of finding their necessary Pokemon easier. That's the purpose for including this batch of cards. Great Ball BCR 129 is able to find you any Pokemon from the top seven cards of your deck. Quick Ball SSH 179 can only be used to find Basic Pokemon. By playing it in conjunction with Pokemon Communication TEU 152, however, you'll be able to search your deck for any Pokemon you need.
Turffield Stadium RCL 170 allows either player to search their deck on their turn for a Grass Type Evolution Pokemon to put into their hand. This will be the easiest way for you to find the evolutions of Caterpie RCL 1 that you'll need, but remember that this Stadium might help out your opponent too if they happen to be playing any Grass Type Pokemon.
With Turbo Patch DAA 172, and a little luck, you'll be able to reuse any of the Energy that has been sent to your discard pile. Since Raikou VIV 50's Amazing Shot attack requires specific types of Energy to use, Turbo Patch DAA 172 might be the Item you need to be able to attack each and every turn.
You'll want to use Boss's Orders RCL 154 to set up opportunities where you can Knock Out two of your opponent's Pokemon with a single use of Raikou VIV 50's Amazing Shot attack. You can also use it to bring up a Benched Pokemon your opponent doesn't have much Energy attached to that requires a lot of Energy to Retreat. This can allow you a couple of rounds of free attacks.
Since Raikou VIV 50 is a Basic Pokemon with only 110 HP, you'll want to utilize hit-and-run tactics whenever you can. In order to keep Raikou VIV 50 in play longer, you'll want to attach a copy of Air Balloon SSH 156 to it, which will allow Raikou VIV 50 to Retreat for free.
Our last group of cards all help you by drawing you additional cards. Professor's Research SSH 178 draws you a new hand of seven cards, but at the cost of discarding your current hand. Marnie SSH 169 has you and your opponent shuffle your hands onto the bottom of your decks and draw a new hand of cards. This can be very useful when your opponent has searched their deck for specific cards that they haven't played yet.
Wrapping Up
Since the Amazing Pokemon subset from Vivid Voltage all have attacks that require two or three different types of Energy, I imagine this won't be the last time we'll see Butterfree UNB 4 alongside them.
What do you think of this deck? Do you have any suggestions for improvements? Let me know by leaving a comment below. Also, check out my other column, Flash Forward, where we take a look at decks using cards from upcoming releases.
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