Random Man2
HYPER BEAM!
I am convinced that the following is the best deck in the game:
DragonWind Deck
Pokémon Cards
4 Scyther Lv25
2 Kangaskhan Lv38
4 Dratini Lv12
3 Dragonair Lv33
1 Dragonite Lv41
1 Dragonite Lv45
4 Lugia Lv55
Trainer Cards
4 Energy Removal
2 Professor Oak
3 Super Energy Removal
3 Gust of Wind
3 Computer Search
2 Pokémon Trader
4 Bill
Energy Cards
4 Grass Energy
4 Double Colorless Energy
4 Potion Energy
4 Full Heal Energy
4 Recycle Energy
Strategy
This deck combines the Haymaker concept with Dragonair, whose Hyper Beam is one of the best attacks in the entire game, especially when combined with Energy Removals and Super Energy Removals. Let's say the Defending Pokémon requires at least two Energies in order to attack, and let's say it has two Energy Cards attached to it. In that case, simply discard one of the Energy Cards attached to the Defending Pokémon with an Energy Removal and then hit the Defending Pokémon with a Hyper Beam, dealing 20 damage to it while also removing its remaining Energy Card. Now, the opponent cannot attack on his next turn unless he either switches out his Active Pokémon or use Scoop Up on it, since he can only attach one Energy Card per turn, and Hyper Beam discards an Energy Card from the Defending Pokémon at the end of each of your turns. And if the Defending Pokémon requires more than one Energy in order to retreat, then it cannot retreat either unless the opponent has Switch or a Double Colorless Energy. As such, Dragonair can slowly chip the Defending Pokémon to death with Hyper Beam while the opponent cannot attack unless his Active Pokémon requires only one Energy in order to attack, in which case its attack will be quite weak.
If the Defending Pokémon requires at least three Energy Cards in order to attack and it has three Energy Cards attached to it, then by using Energy Removal followed by Hyper Beam, you can lower the number of Energy Cards the Defending Pokémon has attached to it to one. If the Defending Pokémon requires at least two Energy Cards in order to attack and it has three Energy Cards attached to it, then with two Energy Removals followed by a Hyper Beam, or a Super Energy Removal followed by a Hyper Beam, you can lower the number of Energy Cards the Defending Pokémon has attached to it to zero. Basically, try to use a combination of Energy Removal, Super Energy Removal, and Hyper Beam to render the Defending Pokémon unable to attack on the opponent's next turn even if the opponent attaches an Energy Card to his Active Pokémon on his next turn.
If the opponent decides to power up a Benched Pokémon of his with Energy Cards while leaving a fodder Pokémon as his Active Pokémon in order soak up damage from Dragonair's attacks, then you have two options. Firstly, you can simply destroy the Energies of the opponent's Benched Pokémon with a combination of Energy Removals and Super Energy Removals on the turn when Dragonair delivers the finishing blow that defeats the current Defending Pokémon. After that, Dragonair can continue to stop the opponent's new Active Pokémon from ever attacking by spamming Hyper Beam, unless said Pokémon only requires one Energy in order to attack. And the second option is to use Gust of Wind to drag in the Benched Pokémon that the opponent is powering up, and after that, you can force said Pokémon into a dead lock by spamming Hyper Beam.
Aside from the four Dratini, which are required in order to get Dragonair into play, this deck also has ten other basic Pokémon, which are: 4 Scyther Lv25, 2 Kangaskhan Lv38, and 4 Lugia Lv55. The reason why this deck has ten basic Pokémon other than Dratini is to minimize the chances of its user starting with a hand that has no Basic Pokémon other than Dratini. This is to minimize the number of times this deck loses as a result of its user having only Dratini in play at the start of the game followed by Dratini being quickly knocked out by a hard and fast-hitting Basic Pokémon such as Hitmonchan before the user of this deck gets the chance to draw another Pokémon Card, since Dratini is very weak for a Basic Pokémon. Also, this deck uses the Lv12 Dratini rather than the Lv10 one, since I find that Wrap's paralysis chance can be useful in some desperate situations, even if it may cost an extra Energy compared to the Pound of the Lv10 Dratini.
Scyther Lv25, Kangaskhan Lv38, and Lugia Lv55 are all fast and hard-hitting Basic Pokémon that possess high HP. Additionally, all three of them along with the Dratini line only require Colorless Energies in order to attack, and this gives this deck a number of advantages. Firstly, this allows the deck to freely utilize 4 Double Colorless Energies, 4 Potion Energies, 4 Full Heal Energies, and 4 Recycle Energies, all of which provide additional benefits that Basic Energy Cards do not. For example, confusion is one of the most annoying status effects in the game, and Full Heal Energy removes confusion for free. It can also remove paralysis, which can be game-changing against the Base Set Electabuzz. Scyther and Lugia both require three Colorless Energies in order to attack, while Kangaskhan requires three Colorless Energies in order to deal 30 damage (much like Scyther), and Kangaskhan can also use a weaker and less reliable attack for one Colorless Energy. So what this means is that Scyther, Lugia, and Kangaskhan can all, with the help of a Double Colorless Energy, begin dealing big and consistent damage by turn 2. So for example, you can attach a Double Colorless Energy to Kangaskhan on turn 1 before using Dizzy Punch, and if the Defending Pokémon attacks Kangaskhan after that, then on your next turn, you can attach a Potion Energy to Kangaskhan in order to heal it, or attach a Full Heal Energy to it in order to cure it of a status effect. After that, Kangaskhan can start throwing Mega Punches.
Recycle Energy is obviously great for preventing this deck from running out of Energy even when its Pokémon get knocked out. Notably, Recycle Energy also synergizes extremely well with Super Energy Removal (a card that's central to the core strategy of this deck), because you can discard 2 Energy Cards from one of the opponent's Pokémon in exchange for merely returning a Recycle Energy that you have in play back to your hand. And in order to give this deck a total of 20 Energy Cards, 4 Grass Energies are added, because for this deck, Grass Energy has one situational advantage over all the other Basic Energy Cards, which is that it allows Scyther to use the move Swords Dance.
The reason why this deck has a total of 20 Energy Cards is to minimize the occurence of the awkward scenario in which the Pokémon in this deck do not have enough Energy to attack early on in the game, due to its user having drawn a bad hand at the start of the game, combined with bad subsequent draws. And while adding more Professor Oaks to the deck would help to mitigate this problem, Professor Oak can also create the awkward scenario in which the player has Dragonair in his hand, no Dratini in play or in his hand, a Professor Oak in his hand, and a desperate need for a new hand due to not having enough Energy Cards in the early game. This leads to a situation in which the player has to choose between not being able to attack and discarding precious Dragonair cards, which are important later on in the game, and the occurrence of this situation should be minimized.
Professor Oak, Bill, and Computer Search all serve self-explanatory roles, while Pokémon Trader helps to get Dragonair out as soon as possible. Additionally, Pokémon Trader synergizes well with Professor Oak as well. For example, let's say you have Professor Oak, Pokémon Trader, and Dragonair in your hand, but you do not have any Dratini in play or in your hand. In that case, you can simply use Pokémon Trader in order to put Dragonair back into your deck in exchange for putting a Basic Pokémon such as Dratini into your hand. After that, you can put said Basic Pokémon on your Bench before playing Professor Oak. In this way, you can play Professor Oak without needing to waste an Evolution card that you cannot play on the same turn.
You may have also noticed that, despite the fact that this deck is built around Dragonair, it also includes two Dragonite, one of which being the Lv45 Dragonite from the Fossil expansion, and the other being the Lv41 Dragonite--also known as the Legendary Dragonite. Since this deck is, as mentioned before, built around Dragonair, you should not evolve Dragonair into Dragonite whenever it becomes possible to do so. Instead, Dragonair should only ever be evolved into Dragonite if one of several specific conditions is met, and some of the aforementioned conditions are also different depending on which of the two Dragonite cards you intend to evolve a Dragonair into. The fact that this deck is built around Dragonair rather than Dragonite is also the reason why this deck does not contain any Pokémon Breeders despite the fact that it contains two Stage 2 Evolution cards.
In general, it is a viable play to evolve an Active Dragonair into either of the two Dragonite under the condition that the Defending Pokémon requires only one Energy in order to attack and Dragonair is expected to continuously take damage from said Pokémon over the next few turns, even if it uses Hyper Beam. This especially applies in the scenario in which the Defending Pokémon is the Base Set Hitmonchan, since for only one Fighting Energy, Hitmonchan can deal 20 damage to Dragonair per turn--something that Dragonair's Hyper Beam will not be able to stop as long as the opponent has more Fighting Energy Cards in his hand. And when Dragonair evolves, it becomes completely immune to Hitmonchan's Jab, while Hitmonchan will only be able to deal 10 damage per turn to Dragonite with Special Punch after Hitmonchan has three Energy Cards attached to it--something that may not even happen, depending on how coin flips with Slam go, and depending on whether or not you have any Energy Removals or Super Energy Removals in your hand. Also, by evolving an Active Dragonair into either of the two Dragonite, Dragonair's HP changes from 80 to 100, which is always helpful even if the Defending Pokémon is not a Fighting-type Pokémon.
However, in the case of evolving an Active Dragonair into the Legendary Dragonite, this concept is taken a step further, because in addition to Dragonair gaining 20 extra HP upon evolution, 20 damage is also removed from Dragonite due to its Healing Wind Power. So let's say Dragonair has 6 damage counters on it, which means that is now 20 damage away from being knocked out. By evolving Dragonair into the Legendary Dragonite, Dragonite is now 60 damage away from being knocked out, which is a significant difference.
In addition to that, another situation in which it would be viable to evolve an Active Dragonair would be if said Dragonair is under a status condition, especially confusion or poison, because unlike sleep and paralysis, confusion and poison cannot be cured naturally. The reason why evolving a Dragonair that is under a status condition is a good play is because evolution removes status conditions, although you should weigh risk VS. reward before making the decision to evolve Dragonair into Dragonite instead of simply attaching a Full Heal Energy to Dragonair. In general, risk VS. reward should also be weighed when deciding which of the two Dragonite you want to evolve your Active Dragonair into. In general, there is incentive to evolve your Active Dragonair into the Fossil Dragonite if the remaining HP of the Defending Pokémon and possibly other Pokémon that the opponent may have on his Bench is 40, 70, 80, 100, 110, or 120, since the Slam of the Fossil Dragonite is more effective than the Slam of the Legendary Dragonite when it comes to taking out such Pokémon. However, there is generally incentive to evolve your Active Dragonair into the Legendary Dragonite if the more pressing issue is the need to maximize the remaining HP of your Active Pokémon.
Sometimes, there is a reason to evolve not your Active Dragonair, but rather a Dragonair that is on your Bench, and the most obvious reason to do this is to take advantage of the Legendary Dragonite's Healing Wind Power in order to heal the Pokémon you have in play. In such a scenario, if you have two or more Dragonair on your Bench, then it is often best to evolve the Dragonair that has the least number of Energies attached to it, because the Legendary Dragonite is generally inferior to Dragonair when it comes to fighting, and you would want to preserve the fighting ability of the Dragonair that have more Energies attached to them. The Legendary Dragonite's Healing Wind Power synergizes amazingly with this deck due to the completely free retreat cost of its four Scyther. What this means is that one Scyther can fight for a bit until it has taken some damage, and after that, it can be freely switched out to another Scyther, which also fights for a bit before it, too, is freely switched out to, say, a Lugia, a Kangaskhan, or a Dragonair, which also fights a bit while taking some damage. In such a scenario, it would often be beneficial to play the Legendary Dragonite and remove a total of 6 damage counters from your side of the field. Additionally, the Step-In Power of the Fossil Dragonite can contribute to this synergy too, as can the four Recycle Energies, since they, too, can provide virtually free retreats.
Another scenario in which it would be beneficial to evolve a Benched Dragonair would be if you want to take advantage of the Fossil Dragonite's Step-In Power in order to rescue an Active Pokémon that is under a status condition, especially confusion. For example, let's say you have a Kangaskhan as your Active Pokémon, but it is confused, and you do not have any Full Heal Energies to play. Kangaskhan requires three Energies in order to retreat, which can be disastrous if you flip tails while trying to retreat it. In this scenario, you may want to evolve a Benched Dragonair into the Fossil Dragonite before utilizing its Step-In Power. Even after the Fossil Dragonite becomes your Active Pokémon, you do not even need to fight with it, since it only needs one Energy in order to retreat, so the Fossil Dragonite can serve as a pivot in this way. And this especially holds true if the Fossil Dragonite has even a single Recycle Energy attached to it, as said Recycle Energy can allow the Fossil Dragonite to retreat for free. So going back to the previous example, you can use the Fossil Dragonite's Step-In Power to switch your Active Pokémon from your confused Kangaskhan to the Fossil Dragonite. After that, you can return a Recycle Energy that is attached to your Fossil Dragonite to your hand in order to switch your Active Pokémon back to your Kangaskhan, which will no longer be confused. And if your Kangaskhan becomes confused or affected by any other status condition again on any future turn, then you can just attach your Recycle Energy to your Fossil Dragonite again before using your Fossil Dragonite's Step-In Power to make your Fossil Dragonite your Active Pokémon. And after that, you can once again return your Fossil Dragonite's Recycle Energy to your hand in order to switch your Active Pokémon back to Kangaskhan while having just cured its status condition for free.
Finally, there is one more benefit to evolving a Dragonair into the Fossil Dragonite, and because of the Fossil Dragonite's Step-In Power, this applies regardless of whether the Dragonair that is being evolved is Active or Benched. This benefit lies in the Fossil Dragonite's Slam attack, which, with two successful coin flips, becomes the single most powerful attack that can possibly be used by any Pokémon in this deck, as it can deal a total of 80 damage to the Defending Pokémon in one turn. This is helpful if you have less cards in your deck than your opponent does and it looks like your deck has a good chance of running out of cards before you can claim all of your prizes or knock out all of the Pokémon that the opponent has in play. This is especially helpful when considering the fact that it is not uncommon to find this deck getting into long duels, since none of its Pokémon hit particularly hard, and its core strategy involves slowly chipping the opponent's Pokémon to death with Dragonair's Hyper Beam. In general, regardless of whether or not the Fossil Dragonite is your Active Pokémon, Gust of Wind also helps a lot in situations in which you are trying to win before your deck runs out of cards, as Gust of Wind allows you to take prizes by knocking out any lower HP Pokémon that the opponent may have on his Bench.
Also, the Legendary Dragonite has some synergy with this deck's three Super Energy Removals. This is because the Legendary Dragonite's only attack requires only three Colorless Energies, which is in contrast with Dragonair, whose Hyper Beam attack requires four Colorless Energies. What this means is that sometimes, you may find yourself having four Energies attached to a Dragonair in order to enable it to use Hyper Beam, only to later find a reason to evolve that Dragonair into the Legendary Dragonite. If you feel that the extra Energy on your Legendary Dragonite is a waste, then you can solve this problem by making use of a Super Energy Removal, especially if at least one of the Energy Cards that are attached to your Legendary Dragonite happens to be a Recycle Energy.
At the very start of a duel, the rule of thumb is that if you have a Scyther in your initial hand of seven cards, then you should play Scyther as your first Active Pokémon, since it has a free retreat cost and can therefore switch out at any time in the event of an unfavorable matchup. If you do not have a Scyther in your initial hand, then the next most optimal Basic Pokémon to play as your first Active Pokémon would be Kangaskhan, since unlike Lugia, Kangaskhan can attack on the very first turn, whereas Lugia cannot attack until it has three Energies attached to it. The only exception to this rule is if your opponent did not have a Basic Pokémon in his hand at the start of the duel, allowing you to scout his hand in order to determine that his deck is built around Fighting-type Pokémon. And if you have neither Scyther nor Kangaskhan in your initial hand, then the next most optimal Basic Pokémon to start with would be Lugia unless your opponent did not have a Basic Pokémon in his hand at the start of the duel, allowing you to scout his deck and determine that it is built around Psychic-type Pokémon.
It should also be noted that the Pokémon that make up this deck cover each other's weaknesses very well. While Lugia may be weak to Psychic, Psychic is resisted by this deck's two Kangaskhan and four Dratini. And of the four Dratini, up to three of them can potentially evolve into Dragonair, which retains the Psychic resistance. And while Kangaskhan may be weak to Fighting, Fighting is resisted by this deck's four Scyther and four Lugia. In addition to that, up to two of this deck's four Dratini can potentially eventually evolve into Dragonite, which also resists Fighting. Finally, the entire Dratini line has no weaknesses, which leaves Scyther's weakness to Fire as the only weakness in this deck that is not covered by a resistance.
This deck matches up amazingly well against Haymaker decks due to the sheer number of Pokémon in this deck that resist Fighting. This deck is also extremely good against decks that are built around the Legendary Zapdos, since the Legendary Zapdos requires three Lightning Energies in order to use its Big Thunder attack, making it difficult to set up against this deck's four Energy Removals, three Super Energy Removals, and, of course, the Hyper Beams of its Dragonair. And even if the opponent does manage to power up his Zapdos, the only Pokémon that Big Thunder can knock out in a single hit are Dratini and Scyther. However, Dratini can evolve into Dragonair, which barely misses out on being knocked out by a single Big Thunder. Meanwhile, a powered up Zapdos will be struggling to find more chances to attack as it gets repeatedly blasted by Hyper Beam.
The deck archetype that fares best against this deck would be Rain Dance, but even then, despite a Rain Dance deck being able to play any number of Water Energies in a single turn, it is ultimately still only limited to the number of Energy Cards that its user has in his hand and his deck, which means that even a Rain Dance deck can eventually run out of Water Energies with enough Energy Removals, Super Energy Removals, and Hyper Beams.
This deck has a 370 win streak in the Challenge Machine and a 140 win streak in the Team GR Challenge Machine, and here's proof:
Also, here are some videos showing this deck in action:
DragonWind Deck
Pokémon Cards
4 Scyther Lv25
2 Kangaskhan Lv38
4 Dratini Lv12
3 Dragonair Lv33
1 Dragonite Lv41
1 Dragonite Lv45
4 Lugia Lv55
Trainer Cards
4 Energy Removal
2 Professor Oak
3 Super Energy Removal
3 Gust of Wind
3 Computer Search
2 Pokémon Trader
4 Bill
Energy Cards
4 Grass Energy
4 Double Colorless Energy
4 Potion Energy
4 Full Heal Energy
4 Recycle Energy
Strategy
This deck combines the Haymaker concept with Dragonair, whose Hyper Beam is one of the best attacks in the entire game, especially when combined with Energy Removals and Super Energy Removals. Let's say the Defending Pokémon requires at least two Energies in order to attack, and let's say it has two Energy Cards attached to it. In that case, simply discard one of the Energy Cards attached to the Defending Pokémon with an Energy Removal and then hit the Defending Pokémon with a Hyper Beam, dealing 20 damage to it while also removing its remaining Energy Card. Now, the opponent cannot attack on his next turn unless he either switches out his Active Pokémon or use Scoop Up on it, since he can only attach one Energy Card per turn, and Hyper Beam discards an Energy Card from the Defending Pokémon at the end of each of your turns. And if the Defending Pokémon requires more than one Energy in order to retreat, then it cannot retreat either unless the opponent has Switch or a Double Colorless Energy. As such, Dragonair can slowly chip the Defending Pokémon to death with Hyper Beam while the opponent cannot attack unless his Active Pokémon requires only one Energy in order to attack, in which case its attack will be quite weak.
If the Defending Pokémon requires at least three Energy Cards in order to attack and it has three Energy Cards attached to it, then by using Energy Removal followed by Hyper Beam, you can lower the number of Energy Cards the Defending Pokémon has attached to it to one. If the Defending Pokémon requires at least two Energy Cards in order to attack and it has three Energy Cards attached to it, then with two Energy Removals followed by a Hyper Beam, or a Super Energy Removal followed by a Hyper Beam, you can lower the number of Energy Cards the Defending Pokémon has attached to it to zero. Basically, try to use a combination of Energy Removal, Super Energy Removal, and Hyper Beam to render the Defending Pokémon unable to attack on the opponent's next turn even if the opponent attaches an Energy Card to his Active Pokémon on his next turn.
If the opponent decides to power up a Benched Pokémon of his with Energy Cards while leaving a fodder Pokémon as his Active Pokémon in order soak up damage from Dragonair's attacks, then you have two options. Firstly, you can simply destroy the Energies of the opponent's Benched Pokémon with a combination of Energy Removals and Super Energy Removals on the turn when Dragonair delivers the finishing blow that defeats the current Defending Pokémon. After that, Dragonair can continue to stop the opponent's new Active Pokémon from ever attacking by spamming Hyper Beam, unless said Pokémon only requires one Energy in order to attack. And the second option is to use Gust of Wind to drag in the Benched Pokémon that the opponent is powering up, and after that, you can force said Pokémon into a dead lock by spamming Hyper Beam.
Aside from the four Dratini, which are required in order to get Dragonair into play, this deck also has ten other basic Pokémon, which are: 4 Scyther Lv25, 2 Kangaskhan Lv38, and 4 Lugia Lv55. The reason why this deck has ten basic Pokémon other than Dratini is to minimize the chances of its user starting with a hand that has no Basic Pokémon other than Dratini. This is to minimize the number of times this deck loses as a result of its user having only Dratini in play at the start of the game followed by Dratini being quickly knocked out by a hard and fast-hitting Basic Pokémon such as Hitmonchan before the user of this deck gets the chance to draw another Pokémon Card, since Dratini is very weak for a Basic Pokémon. Also, this deck uses the Lv12 Dratini rather than the Lv10 one, since I find that Wrap's paralysis chance can be useful in some desperate situations, even if it may cost an extra Energy compared to the Pound of the Lv10 Dratini.
Scyther Lv25, Kangaskhan Lv38, and Lugia Lv55 are all fast and hard-hitting Basic Pokémon that possess high HP. Additionally, all three of them along with the Dratini line only require Colorless Energies in order to attack, and this gives this deck a number of advantages. Firstly, this allows the deck to freely utilize 4 Double Colorless Energies, 4 Potion Energies, 4 Full Heal Energies, and 4 Recycle Energies, all of which provide additional benefits that Basic Energy Cards do not. For example, confusion is one of the most annoying status effects in the game, and Full Heal Energy removes confusion for free. It can also remove paralysis, which can be game-changing against the Base Set Electabuzz. Scyther and Lugia both require three Colorless Energies in order to attack, while Kangaskhan requires three Colorless Energies in order to deal 30 damage (much like Scyther), and Kangaskhan can also use a weaker and less reliable attack for one Colorless Energy. So what this means is that Scyther, Lugia, and Kangaskhan can all, with the help of a Double Colorless Energy, begin dealing big and consistent damage by turn 2. So for example, you can attach a Double Colorless Energy to Kangaskhan on turn 1 before using Dizzy Punch, and if the Defending Pokémon attacks Kangaskhan after that, then on your next turn, you can attach a Potion Energy to Kangaskhan in order to heal it, or attach a Full Heal Energy to it in order to cure it of a status effect. After that, Kangaskhan can start throwing Mega Punches.
Recycle Energy is obviously great for preventing this deck from running out of Energy even when its Pokémon get knocked out. Notably, Recycle Energy also synergizes extremely well with Super Energy Removal (a card that's central to the core strategy of this deck), because you can discard 2 Energy Cards from one of the opponent's Pokémon in exchange for merely returning a Recycle Energy that you have in play back to your hand. And in order to give this deck a total of 20 Energy Cards, 4 Grass Energies are added, because for this deck, Grass Energy has one situational advantage over all the other Basic Energy Cards, which is that it allows Scyther to use the move Swords Dance.
The reason why this deck has a total of 20 Energy Cards is to minimize the occurence of the awkward scenario in which the Pokémon in this deck do not have enough Energy to attack early on in the game, due to its user having drawn a bad hand at the start of the game, combined with bad subsequent draws. And while adding more Professor Oaks to the deck would help to mitigate this problem, Professor Oak can also create the awkward scenario in which the player has Dragonair in his hand, no Dratini in play or in his hand, a Professor Oak in his hand, and a desperate need for a new hand due to not having enough Energy Cards in the early game. This leads to a situation in which the player has to choose between not being able to attack and discarding precious Dragonair cards, which are important later on in the game, and the occurrence of this situation should be minimized.
Professor Oak, Bill, and Computer Search all serve self-explanatory roles, while Pokémon Trader helps to get Dragonair out as soon as possible. Additionally, Pokémon Trader synergizes well with Professor Oak as well. For example, let's say you have Professor Oak, Pokémon Trader, and Dragonair in your hand, but you do not have any Dratini in play or in your hand. In that case, you can simply use Pokémon Trader in order to put Dragonair back into your deck in exchange for putting a Basic Pokémon such as Dratini into your hand. After that, you can put said Basic Pokémon on your Bench before playing Professor Oak. In this way, you can play Professor Oak without needing to waste an Evolution card that you cannot play on the same turn.
You may have also noticed that, despite the fact that this deck is built around Dragonair, it also includes two Dragonite, one of which being the Lv45 Dragonite from the Fossil expansion, and the other being the Lv41 Dragonite--also known as the Legendary Dragonite. Since this deck is, as mentioned before, built around Dragonair, you should not evolve Dragonair into Dragonite whenever it becomes possible to do so. Instead, Dragonair should only ever be evolved into Dragonite if one of several specific conditions is met, and some of the aforementioned conditions are also different depending on which of the two Dragonite cards you intend to evolve a Dragonair into. The fact that this deck is built around Dragonair rather than Dragonite is also the reason why this deck does not contain any Pokémon Breeders despite the fact that it contains two Stage 2 Evolution cards.
In general, it is a viable play to evolve an Active Dragonair into either of the two Dragonite under the condition that the Defending Pokémon requires only one Energy in order to attack and Dragonair is expected to continuously take damage from said Pokémon over the next few turns, even if it uses Hyper Beam. This especially applies in the scenario in which the Defending Pokémon is the Base Set Hitmonchan, since for only one Fighting Energy, Hitmonchan can deal 20 damage to Dragonair per turn--something that Dragonair's Hyper Beam will not be able to stop as long as the opponent has more Fighting Energy Cards in his hand. And when Dragonair evolves, it becomes completely immune to Hitmonchan's Jab, while Hitmonchan will only be able to deal 10 damage per turn to Dragonite with Special Punch after Hitmonchan has three Energy Cards attached to it--something that may not even happen, depending on how coin flips with Slam go, and depending on whether or not you have any Energy Removals or Super Energy Removals in your hand. Also, by evolving an Active Dragonair into either of the two Dragonite, Dragonair's HP changes from 80 to 100, which is always helpful even if the Defending Pokémon is not a Fighting-type Pokémon.
However, in the case of evolving an Active Dragonair into the Legendary Dragonite, this concept is taken a step further, because in addition to Dragonair gaining 20 extra HP upon evolution, 20 damage is also removed from Dragonite due to its Healing Wind Power. So let's say Dragonair has 6 damage counters on it, which means that is now 20 damage away from being knocked out. By evolving Dragonair into the Legendary Dragonite, Dragonite is now 60 damage away from being knocked out, which is a significant difference.
In addition to that, another situation in which it would be viable to evolve an Active Dragonair would be if said Dragonair is under a status condition, especially confusion or poison, because unlike sleep and paralysis, confusion and poison cannot be cured naturally. The reason why evolving a Dragonair that is under a status condition is a good play is because evolution removes status conditions, although you should weigh risk VS. reward before making the decision to evolve Dragonair into Dragonite instead of simply attaching a Full Heal Energy to Dragonair. In general, risk VS. reward should also be weighed when deciding which of the two Dragonite you want to evolve your Active Dragonair into. In general, there is incentive to evolve your Active Dragonair into the Fossil Dragonite if the remaining HP of the Defending Pokémon and possibly other Pokémon that the opponent may have on his Bench is 40, 70, 80, 100, 110, or 120, since the Slam of the Fossil Dragonite is more effective than the Slam of the Legendary Dragonite when it comes to taking out such Pokémon. However, there is generally incentive to evolve your Active Dragonair into the Legendary Dragonite if the more pressing issue is the need to maximize the remaining HP of your Active Pokémon.
Sometimes, there is a reason to evolve not your Active Dragonair, but rather a Dragonair that is on your Bench, and the most obvious reason to do this is to take advantage of the Legendary Dragonite's Healing Wind Power in order to heal the Pokémon you have in play. In such a scenario, if you have two or more Dragonair on your Bench, then it is often best to evolve the Dragonair that has the least number of Energies attached to it, because the Legendary Dragonite is generally inferior to Dragonair when it comes to fighting, and you would want to preserve the fighting ability of the Dragonair that have more Energies attached to them. The Legendary Dragonite's Healing Wind Power synergizes amazingly with this deck due to the completely free retreat cost of its four Scyther. What this means is that one Scyther can fight for a bit until it has taken some damage, and after that, it can be freely switched out to another Scyther, which also fights for a bit before it, too, is freely switched out to, say, a Lugia, a Kangaskhan, or a Dragonair, which also fights a bit while taking some damage. In such a scenario, it would often be beneficial to play the Legendary Dragonite and remove a total of 6 damage counters from your side of the field. Additionally, the Step-In Power of the Fossil Dragonite can contribute to this synergy too, as can the four Recycle Energies, since they, too, can provide virtually free retreats.
Another scenario in which it would be beneficial to evolve a Benched Dragonair would be if you want to take advantage of the Fossil Dragonite's Step-In Power in order to rescue an Active Pokémon that is under a status condition, especially confusion. For example, let's say you have a Kangaskhan as your Active Pokémon, but it is confused, and you do not have any Full Heal Energies to play. Kangaskhan requires three Energies in order to retreat, which can be disastrous if you flip tails while trying to retreat it. In this scenario, you may want to evolve a Benched Dragonair into the Fossil Dragonite before utilizing its Step-In Power. Even after the Fossil Dragonite becomes your Active Pokémon, you do not even need to fight with it, since it only needs one Energy in order to retreat, so the Fossil Dragonite can serve as a pivot in this way. And this especially holds true if the Fossil Dragonite has even a single Recycle Energy attached to it, as said Recycle Energy can allow the Fossil Dragonite to retreat for free. So going back to the previous example, you can use the Fossil Dragonite's Step-In Power to switch your Active Pokémon from your confused Kangaskhan to the Fossil Dragonite. After that, you can return a Recycle Energy that is attached to your Fossil Dragonite to your hand in order to switch your Active Pokémon back to your Kangaskhan, which will no longer be confused. And if your Kangaskhan becomes confused or affected by any other status condition again on any future turn, then you can just attach your Recycle Energy to your Fossil Dragonite again before using your Fossil Dragonite's Step-In Power to make your Fossil Dragonite your Active Pokémon. And after that, you can once again return your Fossil Dragonite's Recycle Energy to your hand in order to switch your Active Pokémon back to Kangaskhan while having just cured its status condition for free.
Finally, there is one more benefit to evolving a Dragonair into the Fossil Dragonite, and because of the Fossil Dragonite's Step-In Power, this applies regardless of whether the Dragonair that is being evolved is Active or Benched. This benefit lies in the Fossil Dragonite's Slam attack, which, with two successful coin flips, becomes the single most powerful attack that can possibly be used by any Pokémon in this deck, as it can deal a total of 80 damage to the Defending Pokémon in one turn. This is helpful if you have less cards in your deck than your opponent does and it looks like your deck has a good chance of running out of cards before you can claim all of your prizes or knock out all of the Pokémon that the opponent has in play. This is especially helpful when considering the fact that it is not uncommon to find this deck getting into long duels, since none of its Pokémon hit particularly hard, and its core strategy involves slowly chipping the opponent's Pokémon to death with Dragonair's Hyper Beam. In general, regardless of whether or not the Fossil Dragonite is your Active Pokémon, Gust of Wind also helps a lot in situations in which you are trying to win before your deck runs out of cards, as Gust of Wind allows you to take prizes by knocking out any lower HP Pokémon that the opponent may have on his Bench.
Also, the Legendary Dragonite has some synergy with this deck's three Super Energy Removals. This is because the Legendary Dragonite's only attack requires only three Colorless Energies, which is in contrast with Dragonair, whose Hyper Beam attack requires four Colorless Energies. What this means is that sometimes, you may find yourself having four Energies attached to a Dragonair in order to enable it to use Hyper Beam, only to later find a reason to evolve that Dragonair into the Legendary Dragonite. If you feel that the extra Energy on your Legendary Dragonite is a waste, then you can solve this problem by making use of a Super Energy Removal, especially if at least one of the Energy Cards that are attached to your Legendary Dragonite happens to be a Recycle Energy.
At the very start of a duel, the rule of thumb is that if you have a Scyther in your initial hand of seven cards, then you should play Scyther as your first Active Pokémon, since it has a free retreat cost and can therefore switch out at any time in the event of an unfavorable matchup. If you do not have a Scyther in your initial hand, then the next most optimal Basic Pokémon to play as your first Active Pokémon would be Kangaskhan, since unlike Lugia, Kangaskhan can attack on the very first turn, whereas Lugia cannot attack until it has three Energies attached to it. The only exception to this rule is if your opponent did not have a Basic Pokémon in his hand at the start of the duel, allowing you to scout his hand in order to determine that his deck is built around Fighting-type Pokémon. And if you have neither Scyther nor Kangaskhan in your initial hand, then the next most optimal Basic Pokémon to start with would be Lugia unless your opponent did not have a Basic Pokémon in his hand at the start of the duel, allowing you to scout his deck and determine that it is built around Psychic-type Pokémon.
It should also be noted that the Pokémon that make up this deck cover each other's weaknesses very well. While Lugia may be weak to Psychic, Psychic is resisted by this deck's two Kangaskhan and four Dratini. And of the four Dratini, up to three of them can potentially evolve into Dragonair, which retains the Psychic resistance. And while Kangaskhan may be weak to Fighting, Fighting is resisted by this deck's four Scyther and four Lugia. In addition to that, up to two of this deck's four Dratini can potentially eventually evolve into Dragonite, which also resists Fighting. Finally, the entire Dratini line has no weaknesses, which leaves Scyther's weakness to Fire as the only weakness in this deck that is not covered by a resistance.
This deck matches up amazingly well against Haymaker decks due to the sheer number of Pokémon in this deck that resist Fighting. This deck is also extremely good against decks that are built around the Legendary Zapdos, since the Legendary Zapdos requires three Lightning Energies in order to use its Big Thunder attack, making it difficult to set up against this deck's four Energy Removals, three Super Energy Removals, and, of course, the Hyper Beams of its Dragonair. And even if the opponent does manage to power up his Zapdos, the only Pokémon that Big Thunder can knock out in a single hit are Dratini and Scyther. However, Dratini can evolve into Dragonair, which barely misses out on being knocked out by a single Big Thunder. Meanwhile, a powered up Zapdos will be struggling to find more chances to attack as it gets repeatedly blasted by Hyper Beam.
The deck archetype that fares best against this deck would be Rain Dance, but even then, despite a Rain Dance deck being able to play any number of Water Energies in a single turn, it is ultimately still only limited to the number of Energy Cards that its user has in his hand and his deck, which means that even a Rain Dance deck can eventually run out of Water Energies with enough Energy Removals, Super Energy Removals, and Hyper Beams.
This deck has a 370 win streak in the Challenge Machine and a 140 win streak in the Team GR Challenge Machine, and here's proof:
Also, here are some videos showing this deck in action:
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