Gastrodon Anti-Meta (Milotic Gastrodon SSP)

Doesn't gastrodon's ability hinder cornerstone?

SammyGunz  Gastrodon's effect only applies to benched staged 2 pokemon so no if their active has an effect regardless of it's stage Gastrodon's effect will not be applied

Thanks DeathX for the comment. Well explained! 💯

I've been playing this one on the Live Ladder quite a bit and there ended up being some counterplay with people using cards like Sableye (Lost Origin) and Radiant Greninja (Astral Radiance) to attack benched pokemon with lower HP. I discovered that adding either (or both) Jirachi (Paradox Rift) or Manaphy (Brilliant Stars) helps there a lot.

The biggest flaw that I've noticed besides that is a general weakness to Boss's Orders (Rebel Clash). A good number of these cards have pretty high retreat costs and Gastrodon's ability doesn't do anything unless it's on the bench. So, unless I have a Switch card sitting around (or, in the case of Gastrodon, have another Gastrodon on the bench,) there's not a lot that can be done. I've also noticed that it has a bit of a weakness to Hydreigon ex (Surging Sparks) decks since, even if Hydreigon's attack damage is blocked, it still causes you to discard three cards which can be pretty devestating.

I'm pretty new to deck building so I'm not entirely sure how to fix this but I really love what this deck is doing. The current Meta is incredibly irritating to me so I love playing this and really throwing a wrench in people's plans. Big fan!

W comment Woedenaz! ❤️

Thx for all the input about potential weaknesses, because all you said is legit. 

- due to the counter box nature of this deck, manaphy and Jirachi are great picks, thx I will consider them!

- Boss is unfortunately kinda a thing you can't prevent in today's meta, even if you do have switch, it's more or less useless bc the turn they boss is the turn they take the KO, further proving ur point of why boss is a general weakness, but stuff like this can't be helped. 😭

- Same with Hydreigon. Mitigation attempts have been taken with rods and stretchers, but like you said, counterplay exists, and sometimes inevitably HAS to exist to make the game fun for everyone. 

again, thx for the comment! 🥰

No problem Siegislash!

I have made a few other edits since then. I've added Fezandipiti ex (Shrouded Fable) since I noticed the deck just doesn't really have a way to get new cards. Plus Pokemon getting knocked out isn't a totally uncommon thing to happen. I thought about using Radiant Greninja (Astral Radiance) but energy is incredibly valuable in this deck and discarding one just seems like a bad idea, even with trainer cards that can pull them back out of the discard.

I also added Sandshrew (151) to deal with some decks that really love to recycle Trainer cards from their discard pile. Not 100% sure how helpful it is but it has definitely annoyed at least one opponent so far.

I'm trying out using Genesect (Shrouded Fable) to stop the use of Ace Spec cards but I haven't had a ton of success with it so far. It's required me adding more Pokemon Tools to the deck and I'm not sure the trade-off is worth it. I have found that adding a couple Powerglass (Shrouded Fable) cards has been pretty helpful, though. Since Energy is so precious in this deck and losing just one to the discard pile can be pretty painful, they have helped a lot in getting them back out and onto the Pokemon that need them.

If anything, I really love how fun this deck is to poke around at and try to figure out ways to alter and tweak it in order to irritate people as much as possible. It's really fun seeing an opponent burn an Ultraball and a Rare Candy to evolve a Pidgey into a Pidgeot EX and have them instantly concede when they realize Gastrodon is disabling the ability :p

Yeah Woedenaz! 💯

Those are all cool ideas, particularly powerglass bc of the reasons you stated in addition to the fact that the only reason powerglass is normally lackluster is bc the pokemon u attach it to is gonna get KOed before the energy can even be used, but this deck revolves around invincibility, negating that caveat. Thanks

ye its crazy funny when they do what they normally do with their decks and realize that won't work lmao