Drampa GX/Garbador Deck - need help for improvement

[Eden2902]

Hi,

 

I trade for the following deck:

 

4 trubbish (that one with acid spray)

3 garbodor and 1 ability lock garbodor

3 drampa gx

 

4 sycamore

4 N

4 guzma

2 hala

 

4 choice band

4 float stone

4 ultraball

2 recuse stretcher

2 field blower
 

3 Po Town

4 rainbow energy

6 psychic energy

4 double colourless energy

 

1 basic-energy back trainer (5 basic energies from discard)

1 special-energy back trainer (2 double colorless back)

 

That deck is really cool, but there are a few flaws in my opinion, maybe you could help me to improve it:

 

- That deck is incredible vulnerable to that special hammer where you have to discard double colorless. I faced a few trainer who running 4 team flare grunt (discard basic-energy) and 4 crushing hammers and my deck really struggle against it. So I use the latter two trainer and hoping.

- How I should begin the matches? I am maybe too stupid but I don't find an opportunity / good moment to use drampas gx move. I mostly give it one double and attack with his 20-attack (+30 choice band if I have it in my initial hand), then one rainbow or one psychic and then give one rainbow to garbador (if I haven't Po played out). That looks so slow... And if I play garbador as first active pokemon then my damage output is really underwhelming. At the end of the game Garbador is OP. I one-shot Darkrai GX! So, how are the most efficient first turns? How do I play Drampa GX/Garbador Deck? I feel so slow because I manage to attack Drampa GX and the opponent has many fully evolved Pokemon with all full of energy with top elexiers, rare candies and so on ...

- Beside Tapu Lele GX and Tapu Koko Promo (which I trade for in maybe 10 years )... what pokemon are best added to this deck? I thought of Zoroark (1-1 line? BREAK needed?) or Raichu (full bank = 120 damage + choice band for one double colorless)? Maybe there are more EX / GX with coloreless attacks?

 

It would be glad if someone could improve that deck or give me hints for that points mentioned. And again: I am already trying to get Tapu Lele GX (2x) and Tapu Koko Promo (1x) but this will take much time.

 

Eden2902

[theotherguytm]

6 basic Energy is overkill and cut Energy Recycler (the Basic Energy one), Drampador does not need to recycle Energies since Garb can hit for 1 Energy. Enhanced hammer is an Item, and so fuels Trash! If your opponent feels obliged to play multiple, better for you! Energy hate-decks can be beaten, you just need to be careful with your resources!

Try and use Big Wheel GX as early as you can, but not if your opponet has an N in hand. Even if you think he does have an N, if might be better just to draw it out, to restrict his options and refresh your hand.

The whole idea of the deck is set up Berserk asap and pressure your opponents into playing Items. Po Town is the main tool for this.

Definitely avoid starting with Garb, at all costs. Save him for later and sweep with Guzma.

Techs you can run:

Magearna EX (prevent attack effects done to Pokémon with Rainbow on them)

Espeon EX (Devolve, and force your opponent to take the full wrath of Po Town, works particularly well with koko promo, recommended)

Necrozma GX (for the mirror and as an alternative GX attacker)

Oranguru (lategame N defence, highly recommended for budget players, perhaps even run 2)

Acerola (pickup would-be 2HKO victims)

Zoroark is a potential candidate (but not a 1-1 line!), as Drampa/Zoroark was a good deck before BurnShad. But tiring to mingle it with Garb as well... could really clunk.

And not Raichu. Without Sky Field it just loses too much ****.

Unfortunately Drampador isn't a very good budget deck, as you need at least 2 Lele before the deck comes into its own. It also suffers against Gardevior GX, which is one of the top-tier decks right now. I hope for you the grinding is now over, and you can see the skill involved in the game!

[Ishobi]

Oranguru...no need to thank me

[Eden2902]

Thx for response. Maybe a specific "use x instead of y" would be cool and more suggestions to pokemon to integrete in Drampa GX/Garbador. Could Oranguru really work in this deck? With so much drawing power I have I am never at under 3 cards?!

[BowserLuigi]

Thx for response. Maybe a specific "use x instead of y" would be cool and more suggestions to pokemon to integrete in Drampa GX/Garbador. Could Oranguru really work in this deck? With so much drawing power I have I am never at under 3 cards?!

Yes you will. Ultra Ball. Late-game N. You'll thank banana master eventually

[Sadra]

Oranguru not only gives you draw power but also prevents a devastating late game N.

[Eden2902]

Oranguru not only gives you draw power but also prevents a devastating late game N.

How many should I include? Thinking of additional 4x Team Flare Grunts for disrupting. Does this make sense? Any further hints are welcome. Thx for those replies

[BowserLuigi]

How many should I include? Thinking of additional 4x Team Flare Grunts for disrupting. Does this make sense? Any further hints are welcome. Thx for those replies

No it doesn't. Clutters up your deck for no reason. You are gonna go for one-shots most of the time and a two-shot at worst. Team Flare Grunts are ABSOLUTELY worthless here.

 

Oranguru is usually a one of in most decks but 2 is acceptable for Lele-free builds

[Eden2902]

No it doesn't. Clutters up your deck for no reason. You are gonna go for one-shots most of the time and a two-shot at worst. Team Flare Grunts are ABSOLUTELY worthless here.

 

Oranguru is usually a one of in most decks but 2 is acceptable for Lele-free builds

I've got one oranguru. Is it worth to trade for a second? I use atm no more energy recycler. Instead I use 1 Team Flare Grunt and two Team Skull Grunt. The one oranguru makes this deck more consistent as I saw. The Grunts made until now no difference. Maybe situational? I just see how disrupting it is to lose double colorless energy. So I thought it's not bad to include such trainer?

 

Is Octillery better in my case then oranguru? What else could be better in this deck? I am thankful to all suggestions!!!

[ahoodedman]

I've got one oranguru. Is it worth to trade for a second? I use atm no more energy recycler. Instead I use 1 Team Flare Grunt and two Team Skull Grunt. The one oranguru makes this deck more consistent as I saw. The Grunts made until now no difference. Maybe situational? I just see how disrupting it is to lose double colorless energy. So I thought it's not bad to include such trainer?

 

Is Octillery better in my case then oranguru? What else could be better in this deck? I am thankful to all suggestions!!!

 

octillery is better then oranguru however in drampa garbodor you often want to have garbotoixn in play its better to only have 1 dead card then 2 or 4. For that same reason you only need 1 copy for this deck and if you really needed it back you got rescue stretcher; also its not worth trading for it sense you can get it in the shop its in roaring heat.

As for the whole energy disruption trainers, flare grunt and skull grunt are not that useful. Flare grunt only works on the active and sense you are mostly relying on 1 shots discarding energy is not going to help you often and when you do need to you got trubbish's attack. Team skull grunt is pretty nice if you use it on turn 1 but its hard to do that without tapu lele and brittgete is just better.

Now you could try running plumria, a somewhat new card in garbodor decks but Sam Chen proved it to be good with his top 8 worlds finish this year. He ran 1 copy and its main use was for the mirror, you could use it early game on your opponents drampa from getting their berserk first, it could also be used with righteous edge to discard all energy attached to an drampa. Its does work in a few other match ups, for example decidueye but its mostly for the mirror. The problem with plumria is that without vs seeker you can no longer reuse it so you have to run more copies and that can get clunky. Also there are a lot of match ups that the card is useless in now greninja, volcanion, metagross and gardevor are a few.

[BowserLuigi]

octillery is better then oranguru however in drampa garbodor you often want to have garbotoixn in play its better to only have 1 dead card then 2 or 4. For that same reason you only need 1 copy for this deck and if you really needed it back you got rescue stretcher; also its not worth trading for it sense you can get it in the shop its in roaring heat.

As for the whole energy disruption trainers, flare grunt and skull grunt are not that useful. Flare grunt only works on the active and sense you are mostly relying on 1 shots discarding energy is not going to help you often and when you do need to you got trubbish's attack. Team skull grunt is pretty nice if you use it on turn 1 but its hard to do that without tapu lele and brittgete is just better.

Now you could try running plumria, a somewhat new card in garbodor decks but Sam Chen proved it to be good with his top 8 worlds finish this year. He ran 1 copy and its main use was for the mirror, you could use it early game on your opponents drampa from getting their berserk first, it could also be used with righteous edge to discard all energy attached to an drampa. Its does work in a few other match ups, for example decidueye but its mostly for the mirror. The problem with plumria is that without vs seeker you can no longer reuse it so you have to run more copies and that can get clunky. Also there are a lot of match ups that the card is useless in now greninja, volcanion, metagross and gardevor are a few.

Also it is difficult to search out Plumeria without Lele which TC does not have

 

TC the reason why grunts (and plumeria) are not played in every deck is because they are not always useful and they don't draw cards so they don't help in setting up. The main idea is that since they are so situational you might as well not include them in your deck. Yes getting rid of the opponent's DCE is sweet and all but what's the point if you can't sycamore/N to find your own evos/DCE? Or as ahoodedman posted they may be useless against certain decks. E.g face greninja break and you'll instantly have 4 completely dead team flare grunts that might as well have the effect "Toss this card into the discard and do nothing".

 

Only the most dedicated disruption decks run an extensive line of grunts. Drampadore is not one of those so just keep the grunts out of this and you'll fare much better.

[theotherguytm]

Agree totally.

Beginner Mistake #12: Random Energy discards for no reason.

From experience, every beginner who has TFG or SkullG will run one random copy. While they can occasionally be a nasty surprise, mostly I'll just recover Energy and attack.

What is pointless is playing an Enhanced Hammer/TFG and discarding my lone Energy in play, then KOing the Pokémon it's attached to. In Drampador you'll find yourself doing that way too often, as Garb and Drampa 1HKO most G/EXs comfortably. Those few that Drampa can't 1HKO (Metagross comes to mind) are easy 2HKOs, or can be wiped out by Garb later.

If you want to hurt your opponent's Energy, that's what Drampa's R. Edge is for, though don't use it too often. Or just KO the Pokémon with Energy attached to them, that works well.

[Eden2902]

Thx for your hints, you helped me a lot!!!!

[Eden2902]

Hey there, I know that this deck would be perfect with 2-3 Lele GX, but could I use the Octillery Line instead until I have enough booster? Does this make sense? How should be the line? 2-2? Or is there another card which can temporary make the job for Lele? atm I have instead of the energy back trainer: 2 team skull grunts and 1 team flare grunt. This 3 cards don't make any impact, but I still win nearly every match. Oh and I got enough packs to got Tapu Koko Promo, with is mentioned in many deck, but WHY is this mentioned? 20 to all Pokemon from the opponent looks good, but I 1-shot nearly everything in T2, so for what is it? To bring GX with high hp in range of Drampa? Free retreat is nice, but 90 hp not overwhelming... didn't get it

[theotherguytm]

Hey there, I know that this deck would be perfect with 2-3 Lele GX, but could I use the Octillery Line instead until I have enough booster? Does this make sense? How should be the line? 2-2? Or is there another card which can temporary make the job for Lele? atm I have instead of the energy back trainer: 2 team skull grunts and 1 team flare grunt. This 3 cards don't make any impact, but I still win nearly every match. Oh and I got enough packs to got Tapu Koko Promo, with is mentioned in many deck, but WHY is this mentioned? 20 to all Pokemon from the opponent looks good, but I 1-shot nearly everything in T2, so for what is it? To bring GX with high hp in range of Drampa? Free retreat is nice, but 90 hp not overwhelming... didn't get it

The 20 to all is for bringing specific Pokémon in range for 1HKOs and pressuring unevolved Pokémon, it combos nicely with Po Town and Espeon EX as well for huge damage. The free retreat is a huge slab of icing for a fairly nice cake, as it works well with Guzma as well as Drampa.

Overall, it's not a very good card at first glance, but the more tactical you get, the more you realise how useful it is in many situations.

As ahoodedman pointed out, you are using Garbotoxin, and the deck works best with that, making Oct near-useless, but it's a reliable option for decks in general. I can recommend Octillery to beginners in general for both Expanded and Standard, I run it in my Vesp deck, and I am almost never hit by bad Ns or run out of draw power. If Shaymin is playing 1 extra Supporter on your turn and Lele is getting any supporter while being a functional attacker (another reason this deck really likes it), the Octillery is like having 1 and a 1/2 Supporters every turn from your second turn onwards.

So, in short, you can drop the Garbotoxin to play Oct, it will hurt, but the draw power may make up for it.

And either play a 2-1 or a 2-2 if you fear the Prizes and want to be sure. Not a 1-1.

And do remove the Grunts. Replace them with extra Hala and Po Town for consistency, or your Oct line if you go that route.

Best of luck!

[Eden2902]

The 20 to all is for bringing specific Pokémon in range for 1HKOs and pressuring unevolved Pokémon, it combos nicely with Po Town and Espeon EX as well for huge damage. The free retreat is a huge slab of icing for a fairly nice cake, as it works well with Guzma as well as Drampa.

Overall, it's not a very good card at first glance, but the more tactical you get, the more you realise how useful it is in many situations.

As ahoodedman pointed out, you are using Garbotoxin, and the deck works best with that, making Oct near-useless, but it's a reliable option for decks in general. I can recommend Octillery to beginners in general for both Expanded and Standard, I run it in my Vesp deck, and I am almost never hit by bad Ns or run out of draw power. If Shaymin is playing 1 extra Supporter on your turn and Lele is getting any supporter while being a functional attacker (another reason this deck really likes it), the Octillery is like having 1 and a 1/2 Supporters every turn from your second turn onwards.

So, in short, you can drop the Garbotoxin to play Oct, it will hurt, but the draw power may make up for it.

And either play a 2-1 or a 2-2 if you fear the Prizes and want to be sure. Not a 1-1.

And do remove the Grunts. Replace them with extra Hala and Po Town for consistency, or your Oct line if you go that route.

Best of luck!

Great answer, thank you very much!

 

How many Koko Promo do you recommend?

[BowserLuigi]

Great answer, thank you very much!

 

How many Koko Promo do you recommend?

I think one will do for this deck. Some will run 2. Don't think anyone will run more than that.

[theotherguytm]

Great answer, thank you very much!

 

How many Koko Promo do you recommend?

 

I think one will do for this deck. Some will run 2. Don't think anyone will run more than that.

Yeah, every top-level deck I've seen that uses it runs 1. 2 at most, never more.

[Eden2902]

So this should be the optimum?

 

4 trubbish (that one with acid spray)

3 garbodor and 1 ability lock garbodor

3 drampa gx

 

4 sycamore

4 N

4 guzma

3 hala

 

4 choice band

4 float stone

4 ultraball

2 recuse stretcher

2 field blower
 

4 Po Town

4 rainbow energy

5 psychic energy

4 double colourless energy

 

1 Tapu Koko Promo

1 Espeon EX

 

or?

 

And when I manage two Tapu Lele GX, then I use -1 Hala and -1 Po Town?

[BowserLuigi]

With Lele you'll definitely want a single Brigette as well. Best first-turn supporter in the game for non-fire decks.

[Eden2902]

With Lele you'll definitely want a single Brigette as well. Best first-turn supporter in the game for non-fire decks.

4 trubbish (that one with acid spray)

3 garbodor and 1 ability lock garbodor

3 drampa gx

 

4 sycamore

4 N

4 guzma

3 hala

 

4 choice band

4 float stone

4 ultraball

2 recuse stretcher

2 field blower

 

3 Po Town

4 rainbow energy

5 psychic energy

4 double colourless energy

 

1 Tapu Lele GX

1 Brigette

1 Espeon EX

 

That's my deck now, I got yesterday one Lele GX

 

What is best to add and to take away? Pls comment like -1 Po +1 Tectass GX. Something like this

[Untilitbreaks]

4 trubbish (that one with acid spray)

3 garbodor and 1 ability lock garbodor

3 drampa gx

 

4 sycamore

4 N

4 guzma

3 hala

 

4 choice band

4 float stone

4 ultraball

2 recuse stretcher

2 field blower

 

3 Po Town

4 rainbow energy

5 psychic energy

4 double colourless energy

 

1 Tapu Lele GX

1 Brigette

1 Espeon EX

 

That's my deck now, I got yesterday one Lele GX

 

What is best to add and to take away? Pls comment like -1 Po +1 Tectass GX. Something like this

-3 Hala: If you play GX attack your opponent can shuffle your 10 cards back in deck with N

 

+1 Oranguru: can help you with its ability before you shut it with garbotoxin

                      attack does 60 dmg + 20 for each energy attached to opponent active pokemon (1pe + dce to set up)

 

+2 Skyla: let you search any item card, mostly you'll be using her to search for ultra ball or float stone

[ahoodedman]

 

What is best to add and to take away? Pls comment like -1 Po +1 Tectass GX. Something like this

congrats on the lele!

you can cut a single hala, its mostly there as a place holder for lele sense you often use bug wheel gx early game but now that you have an lele a whole 3 count is unnecessary

[LordCharizardX]

How does this deck take down the very fast VikaBulu deck? It's popping up like crazy locally to the point only myself and 4 others aren't running it, I run GarbEspeon rather than Drampador, but the decks are similar enough that I'm asking here,

[Eden2902]

Hi, got my 2nd Lele GX. What changes are useful on my deck above? Does it make sense to grind for more Leles?