This week I got to play in the largest card game tournament I ever went to, A Pokémon Gym Leader Challenge free-entry special, featuring a whole 40 players. For reference, I’m used to local weeklies with 16 players tops.

For this tournament though, I’ve piloted a deck of my own invention: “30 Energy Water Dondozo”. Here’s the list at time of writing:

Link to the Cardboard Warriors list.

What a claim, huh?

As far as I know I’m the only person online using this strategy in competitive GLC, at least publically. The only other deck in pokemoncard.io using Dondozo is this one, which doesn’t play into the gimmick. There’s also this one at Cardboard Warriors that uses 30 energies but it only added Dondozo replacing Kyogre by March, around the time I had already built mine, and also says it’s not competitive. lol.

However, I can’t say this idea is unique. Other than that earlier cardboardwarriors one, there are some decks in pokemoncard.io that have come to this same conclusion, either in standard or expanded. My first draft of this deck, however, is at least 5 months old at the time of writing, older than all of those, so I got that going for me.

And, of course, the deck idea didn’t come from nothing, I’m not that smart. Decks using that Celebrations Kyogre already existed, and in fact were my main inspiration for this build.

Design Process

Yes, the soul of the deck can be found in this old TrickyGym video (it wouldn’t be one of my posts without a video embed).

RIP PTCG Online.

“Cool, there’s a Cryogonal that can get those energies for you pretty fast, and a Volcarona that sends them back to the deck. That’s really funny. Probably worthless if you open with Cryogonals and don’t get a lucky Sonia.”

A few weeks later one of my boosters got me that quirky Dondozo. “Hmm, this looks just like that Cryogonal, but it also attacks by itself.” I wasn’t playing Standard at that time due to money limitations so I instead looked at building a GLC list, but having only one copy of each would be difficult. It still felt clunky with just Dondozo, Kyogre and Cryogonal as I had to luck out and open with two of them (everything else was energy).

I naivelly had the non-ex Chien-Pao in the list, thinking he’s a basic that can get its own energy and hits for 120, he’s probably self-sufficient like Dondozo. Difference is, Chien-Pao discards energy on attacks so you can’t even attack repeatedly and set up your board too, you had to choose either. Later on I felt it was a liability and removed it.

A few more weeks later, when building a Palafin list and looking for Grudge Dive Basculegion I found that Upstream Spirits Basculegion and immediately thought of that Volcarona. “Well, if I have less energy and a few trainers, for each trainer I use my deck becomes more energy, and if I recycle those energy it is all energy now”. With that thought process, I made my list with Dondozo and Cryogonal to remove cards from the deck (and Kyogre, but a bit more forceful), Basculegion accompanied by Super Rod, Energy Recycler and Brock’s Grit, as well as Stretcher and Rod to recover results of prize trades, which all would allow me to both better find energy with Dondozo and discard energy with Kyogre. The 40 Energy list was born.

Fun fact: “Upstream Spirits” is translated in brazillian cards as “Espiritos de Piracema”, with Piracema referring to the specific period where fish swim upstream the Paraguay river to reproduce. A huge step for localization considering it’s the same game that would translate “Light(weak) Punch” as “Light(sunlight) Punch”.

The final list has been thinned down to 29 energy as my friends suggested I could include even more trainers, to further increase my actions at the first turns. It eventually worked, reducing the chances I get unlucky with a starting hand full of energy but it increased my dependancy on Basculegion reshuffling energies, and thus the need to find it via Dive Ball or Irida or Gladion.

The chosen pokémon are very carefully selected as to avoid as many lock states as possible. Both Basculin and Vulpix exist as extra basics I can open with on turn 1 and still find my pieces. Kyogre can most likely attack during turn 3, and most decks haven’t set up by then (Water might, though). Dondozo is, again, self-sufficient and most likely takes 3-4 turns as well. Cryogonal is the worst draw possible but having his Elemental Chain be versatile enough to energize both Dondozo and Kyogre at once (preventing me from investing in one and losing it to a gust) is totally worth the tradeoff. I couldn’t find any more pokémon to include for a long while.

Random Receiver was a surprise find while scrolling through online shop listings of cards. Of course I dismissed Pokégear 3.0, the top 7 cards of my deck will probably have water and a few items, but this? This only stops when it hits a supporter, so it’s guaranteed to give me a random one. As a side effect it makes a for funny reveal of the gimmick before Kyogre (although twice I’ve hit a supporter as the first revealed card).

Gladion is absolutely required for the later 30 energy build, but still nice here, as you want to send your energies back to deck with Basculegion and missing that opportunity because it is prized is terrible. Peony could suffice but the random aspect is a put-off for some. You also absolutely need Hisuian Heavy Ball if you prize any of the pivotal mons and Gladion can serve as redundancy for that.

Red Card is actually not needed, but I just love the reactions I get from opponents when I tutor it with Irida or Green as it’s not a common card at all. Better yet, I’ve pulled it turn 1 a few times, accidentally offsetting all the extra cards I gave them to mulligans.

Acerola was a late inclusion for the tournament, as I removed Candice because I hadn’t used it in all my recent tests, getting all my pokémon in the field by items and stadiums before she could be useful. My thought process was, if I cape any of the two, I can recover their health easily. But with Wailord and Haxorus running free in my local meta it is more likely the opponent will OHKO you with an absurd number before you can use Acerola.

The Tournament

I already took the 30 energy deck to a smaller tournament, but we all only played 4 rounds, one of my victories was essentially me using turn 1 Red Card on my Fighting opponnent and locking him out of the game which felt unfair, and another victory from a newbie player, and my losses were against a pro player and one of my friends who already knew the deck. I felt those games didn’t prove anything, right.

So this massive tournament was my opportunity to gather a larger sample size, to further exploit the surprise factor of Dondozo and simply just to play more of the deck with people other than my friends, who knew the deck front and back.

The deck only has 5 basic pokémon so you’d expect the mulligan rates to be high (they were), but I probably lucked out this day, with two 1-mulls and one 2-mull. My opponents and results were:

Dragon: L Water: W Water: L Fighting: W Grass: W Water: L

Not a biased meta at all.

Water really is one of the worst matchups here, as both Frosmoth and Baxcalibur can keep Cetitan, Wailord, Kyogre and even Wishiwashi well fed really quickly, and have at least 2 or three attackers set up for back-to-back trades, which I can’t afford unless my own table is fully 100% set up. There were also two Lightning decks I had the luck of not fighting against, as they have great repeatable consistency. I only won that matchup once because I used Red Card on their 4 energy after Kyogre’s snipe attack, after they used all their energy search.

Best matchups I feel are probably Fighting and Dark, as Dark hits for very low numbers most of the time and has no Abilities to cancel, and Fighting has and equally slow setup as you but is succeptible to Red Cards and Marnies to lock them out. Fire isn’t actually a great matchup as Basculegion is the only mon to realistically take advantage of the weakness for quick KOs, but you want it to use its free attack before it dies so it’s a risky tradeoff. Dragon seems manageable as their setup is as slow as Dondozo’s so you can build your bench while they build theirs, then Dondozo for a few kills, Basculegion to shuffle energy, and finally Mallow 2 energy then Kyogre to take their big benched Stage2s away leaving them no escape.

Actually, I pulled off the Mallow-Kyogre combo two times this evening. From all my Aqua Storms I also got one 100%, 250 damage Aqua Storm which had me and bystanders scream in surprise and awe. I try to avoid using Aqua Storm early in the game as with 30 not 40 energies it’s very likely I would discard my Basculegion and other important cards and deal no damage, so I leave it to after Basculegion has done its job (usually KO for 200+ damage).

It was very fun seeing the reactions of players who didn’t know me nor my deck, “I lost to a 30 energy deck” and “he hit my bench for 250 on two”. Of course, I also had my fair share of suprise moments like an opp fully setting up Cetitan on turn 2 or the Dragon player using a clutch Special Charge into Guzma and Hala for the double dragon energy I couldn’t even have predicted, but those are the norm around those players.

Upgrade Ideas

Some friends mentioned I should add more gust effects like Boss’s Orders. I’m reluctant to add them, as most of my Supporter cards here are actually present to either search for items or retrieve/recover other search supporters in a chain (like Crasher Wake into Green’s into Marnie), so I don’t get stuck with a bad hand for many turns. As such, having any of these search for Boss would tip my plan to the opponent for next turn, while cards like Gallade and Dragonite can do those as needed. I’m also not a big fan of Counter Catcher here as both Dondozo and Kyogre give me a big lead at the start, and if the enemy is winning at the start I hardly have any resources (deck issue).

I also considered Snom and Frosmoth as Snom has “Call for Family”. In theory I could use Ice Dance to set up either Dondozo or Kyogre easier, but I’m not drawing many energies per turn (only one card per turn) so my hand often doesn’t have a lot of energy to rain, actually. However, removing Cryogonal, I could see the deck rebuilt with Frosmoth as well as Capacious Bucket, Professor’s Letter and Earthen Vessel to rain dance with, and Acerola and Penny. Raihan could work fine too, I guess, but I can’t use it whenever. Professor’s Research could work well with Frosmoth as I’d remove all items from my deck leaving my hand full of energies from Basculegion.

Some tools that caught my attention were Heavy Baton and especially Powerglass. Baton would speed up Kyogre if I equipped Dondozo with it, and Powerglass would speed up either of the two if I had any energy discarded (and between Cycling Road and Crasher Wake I discard energy very often). Not a fan of Heavy Baton as sometimes I full-cost retreat Dondozo just so I can get extra energies to power up Basculegion, so keeping them in the game isn’t ideal. Powerglass is nice but Kyogre is fragile and could use the Luxurious Cape in most circumstances; Dondozo wants the cape against Water too.

Finally, considering the local meta in my city loves Cetitan/Wailord and is getting around to Haxorus lists, I need to consider more Special Energy removal, like Special Hammer or Eneporter (moving to a dud mon works just as well as removing them). There’s just too many energies in those decks I can’t realistically remove all of them, and Special Charge exists. I’ll keep it in mind either way, it’s the most likely upgrade I will make.

What’s next?

I want to record gameplay of this deck with me piloting it, but I don’t have a webcam setup and am not entirelu sure about how well received ptcgsim gameplay would be. I’m also not great at commentary, nor are my non-english speaking friends, so that throws a wrench on my plans. Mostly because I can’t quite explain my thought process when playing (I’m not that good of a player haha).

People at the tournament said I was piloting the deck very well, probably due to the many moments I retreated Dondozo on purpose or used Escape Rope or Red Card when opp had search pokemon or energy to rain dance, so I do think this deck doesn’t play itself like the original 40 energy idea was supposed to be, but despite that I still got a 50% winrate so maybe the deck’s potential is capped with the current meta. Who knows.