Fun Deck Friday - Typhlosion

Another month has passed, but you know what that means, we're one month closer to Christmas! Oh and it's time for another Fun Deck Friday!

This month we're looking at a deck that one of my good friends plays, which he started off making just to have some fun at hobby league, but it does have real potential. I'm talking about Typhlosion! So shout out to Kezza for the idea. Remember that this is a fun deck and while it won't win every match, it's a lot of fun and won't break the bank

How does it work?

Basically you want to get out a bunch of Typhlosions and run a LOT of energy and then use Massive Eruption to do up to 400 damage! It's a pretty simple deck and if you want, you can just run 4 cyndaquil, 2 quilava and 4 Typhlosions as all the Pokemon in your deck!

It's a super simple deck with a really basic idea, you just have to make sure you build the deck so it is consistent and you can get your typhlosions out fast and don't end up decking yourself out.

Why is it good?

  • If you want, you can run just the one evolution line of Pokemon, making it very easy to build the deck and set up
  • Typhlosion only requires one energy, so it is very easy to get enough energy to attack
  • Depending on how you build the deck, you can run around half the deck as fire energies, so it is a very cheap deck to make
  • It can do up to 400 damage, which is enough to knock out anything currently in format
  • It doesn't require any EXs, so your opponent needs to knock out 6 of your pokemon to win
  • Typhlosion has a pesky 150HP, so for decks that work around doing lots of small amounts of damage will have as much trouble knocking out a Typhlosion as they would an EX
  • The average amount of damage an attack will do is somewhere around 160, depending on how many energy you run, so it will knock out most things most turns

Why is it not so good?

  • The water weakness can be a pain if you play with a lot of people that play decks like Greninja
  • Evolving to a stage 2 can be difficult and if you choose not to run Volcanion, you won't have any attackers early in the game
  • It has a tendency to run out of steam, you'll need to keep recycling your Typhlosions or you'll run out of attackers
  • Typhlosion has a retreat cost of 3, so it's hard to switch things around. You may need to run a few float stone to combat this
  • If you don't run enough cards to get things back in your deck, you can deck yourself out quite quickly
  • Cyndaquil are relatively easy to knock out, so you'll need to evolve quickly
  • You have to run a lot of energy, which limits what other cards you can run
  • You can get really unlucky and end up discarding all the cards you want

What other cards would benefit this deck?

  • As always, if you can afford it, Shaymin EX is always a solid option to help set up faster (hehehe get it?!) but isn't essential if you don't have them, it just helps to get it going faster.
  • Volcanion from Steam Siege could also be a good option to help you set up lots of benched Pokemon quickly and also gives you a basic that has a decent attack, so is useful in the early game
  • Rare Candy is always good in decks that require a stage 2, like this one
  • Super rod and Energy recycler are a must. You'll be discarding a lot of cards from your deck, so you need ways to put back the pokemon so you can use them again and put back plenty of energies so they can be discarded for Typhlosion's attack
  • If you're playing in an expanded or unlimited league, you can also run things like Blacksmith and Fiery Torch to help recycle energies and draw cards

Where can I get it?

Typhlosion comes from Breakthrough, but really the cards from this deck come from all over the place, so the best thing would be to trade for them. Get yourself some booster packs (I'd suggest steam siege because it has some handy cards for the deck) to build up your collection and then head to your local hobby league to trade for the cards you need!

So that's it! It's a really easy deck to learn as it really only has one strategy, so just make sure you build the deck properly and it should be a lot of fun! Remember to come back on the last Friday of next month for the next Fun Deck Friday!

Deck profile