Anyone who knows me knows that I LOVE this deck. I have been playing variants of it for well over a year and is a style I really enjoy. Anyone who knows me, also knows that I would never say a bad word about this deck, but I will do my best to address its weaknesses so you get a balanced view.
Bronzong is a hugely versatile card that has been used in a variety of decks. Its ability Metal Links allows you to put steel energy from your discard on to any of your benched pokemon. This means it can be used with ANY type of pokemon as long as the energy you're using are steel.
The way I have used this deck is in the classic metal way. I have used Cobalion EX (when it was still in use in the standard format), Dialga EX, Aegislash EX and heatran. This gives you a good mix of strong attackers and defenders. I'll go through why I chose these Pokemon.
Dialga EX
This can be used to attack AND defend. You can use its first attack when playing EX heavy decks, so their active pokemon can't attack next turn. Great to get yourself out of the effects of quaking punch if you're playing against a Seismitoad EX. With a base 60 damage, this is still a solid attack even if you aren't playing against EXs.
The second attack is also great. With 150 base damage, you can knock out almost any EX, and if you attach a muscle band, the attack does 170 damage, knocking out a lot of EXs. The great thing about this deck is that you can just attach the 2 energy to a benched pokemon the next turn so they're not wasted! If you have 2 dialgas set up, you can just keep switching between the 2 and putting the energies back onto the benched one and then switching it to active, so you can use this massive attack every turn.
Aegislash EX
This is mainly a defensive pokemon, but can do a lot of damage too. A lot of decks use special energies so you use this to your advantage. As soon as you see they play some, start powering up an aegislash. If they have any special energy on their pokemon, send one out and they can't do damage to it, so even if you have to power it up by manually attaching 1 energy per turn, you're not taking any damage, so it doesn't matter!
Also if you're getting desperate late in the game, you can pile a bunch of energies onto one for massive OHKOs (one hit knock outs).
Heatran
Most steel decks run a stadium card (either steel shelter or reverse valley) so the first attack can still be quite useful. Heatran is basically like a less powerful Dialga EX, so you can use the second attack in a similar way. The main advantage of heatran is it's not an EX. This means it gets around a bunch of pokemon abilities and your opponent only takes 1 prize card when it's knocked out. Equip it with a Fighting Fury Belt and it has a massive 170HP, making it equivalent to many EXs. I personally have a tendency to under-use heatran, but if you get good at knowing when he's valuable, he's a huge asset in your deck.
Some other cards that deserve an honorable mention:
- Battle Compressor: Helps you get metal energies in the discard early so you can metal links faster
- Jirachi: as with aegislash, this little guy helps when playing against decks running lots of special energies
- Steel shelter: If you're playing in an area where people use a lot of status conditions, this card cripples those decks
- Reverse valley: this just helps to mess up your opponents numbers (most decks are designed to hit for 180) so your pokemon can live longer
- Level ball: Often forgotten from these sorts of decks. This helps you set up your bronzongs much faster
- Sacred ash: Get back the bronzongs that are knocked out or pokemon you've had to discard. You can use super rod instead, if you think getting back energies will be important, but generally you want to leave energies in the discard so you can use bronzongs ability.
So why is this deck good?
- 170 damage (dialga + muscle band) is a solid amount. This can knock out a lot of pokemon in one go.
- Stopping your opponent from attacking can slow them down hugely. Using dialga to do this can stop them using attacks from pokemon such as Mega Manectric to power up their pokemon.
- You can recycle your energies, so discarding to retreat or attack doesn't matter as much as other decks
- You have the potential to power up a pokemon from no energies to four, in one turn. This can't be done in many decks, so means you can turn the game around in one turn
Sounds amazing! What's the down side?
- As this is a set-up deck, it has the same problem that most of them do - if you fail to set up quickly, you're usually too far behind your opponent. However, it does have the ability to make amazing come-backs.
- Without chucking A LOT of energies on aegislash, realistically the most damage you can do is 170. This means you can't one-hit megas or 180HP EXs.
- If you don't run enough switches, bronzongs can get trapped in the active spot for a long time
- Hex maniac gets through aeglislash and bronzong, so if your opponent keeps playing them, it slows you down hugely.
I do believe this is a really solid deck, which is why I play it myself. It's also a very adaptable deck, so you can always switch it to play different attackers (such as Mega Rayquaza) to refresh it to feel like a completely different deck.
Want the deck? Most of the cards come in phantom forces, which is now a little hard to get your hands on, but you can always get a set like roaring skies and try out using mega rayquaza as your attacker!
Cards have been linked to web pages where you can read what the card does, for your convenience. Don't know what some of the words in this article mean? Check out our glossary here to find out.
Let us know what you think in the comments section below!
