Pokemon Pocket - Nihilego + Weezing Poison Deck

Hi there. In this Pokemon TCG Pocket post I present this Nihilego and Weezing Poison deck. When I saw Nihilego and its Poison damage boosting ability, I thought of using Poison Pokemon.

Decklist

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Here is my decklist. I use this site to build the picture.

Pokémon: 7
2 Koffing A1 176
2 Weezing A1 177
2 Nihilego A3a 42
1 Darkrai ex A2 110

Trainer: 13
2 Poké Ball P-A 5
2 Professor's Research P-A 7
1 Potion P-A 1
1 X Speed P-A 2
1 Red Card P-A 6
1 Giant Cape A2 147
1 Poison Barb A3 146
1 Repel A3a 64
1 Koga A1 222
1 Mars A2 155
1 Cyrus A2 150

Key Cards

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Nihilego

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Nihilego as an attacker is okay. For one Dark Energy + one Colourless Energy you deal 30 damage plus Poison.

The ability is the main plus from Nihilego. More Poison deals 10 more Poison damage in between turns. Add a second Nihilego to deal 30 Poison damage in between turns.

Weezing

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Weezing is tanky 110HP Stage 1 Dark Pokemon. For one Dark Energy, its attack does 30 damage. The Gas Leak ability can be used once during your turn where you can Poison the opponent's Active Pokemon.

Koga

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Koga is a situational Supporter card for Muk or Weezing. You can put your Active Spot Muk or Weezing into your hand. This effect puts your Muk/Weezing to safety and you would switch in a new attacker.

Cyrus

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Cyrus makes sense as Poisoned Pokemon tend to run away to safety. Any damaged Pokemon on the opponent's Bench is vulnerable to Cyrus as you can knock out weak Pokemon.

Darkrai ex (1 Copy)

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My first version of this deck did not have Darkrai ex. I had Poipole and Naganadel as additional attackers. For this decklist I thought of adding Darkrai ex for more firepower.

In some cases you could have Weezing in the Active Spot and the use Gas Leak ability for Poison damage. With Darkrai ex at the back you can charge it up and deal 20 damage to the opponent's Active Pokemon with Darkrai ex's ability.

Repel

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Instead of using Sabrina, I am trying out Repel. Sabrina kicks out the opponent's Active Pokemon with a new one of their choice. Repel does the same but only for Basic Pokemon in the opponent's Active Spot. Repel is an Item card while Sabrina is a Supporter card.

Deck Strategy and Gameplay

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This Weezing + Nihilego deck is simple and easy to use. You want to have Koffing in the Active Spot with 1 or 2 Nihilego on the Bench. An early Weezing is ideal with the Nihilego so you can deal damage plus Poison.

Having Darkrai ex on the Bench is also good. You can use Weezing's Gas Leak to Poison the opponent while you charge up Darkrai ex and deal 20 damage with Darkrai's ability.

The one copy of Koga is there to bring a weak Weezing into safety. Mars and Red Card provides hand disruption control.

Do use the Cyrus supporter wisely as there is one copy. Use Cyrus to bring out damaged Pokemon from the Bench into the opponent's Active Spot.

Advantages

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Through a bit of playing in Ranked (up to Great Ball) and testing, this Poison deck setups kind of up fast. You can kind of punish slower decks and you apply Poison pressure on them.

Weezing is fairly low maintence with its one Dark Energy attack and its Poison. There are cases where you don't attack with Weezing but you just use its ability to Poison the opponent's Active Pokemon.

There are times where you can knockout the opponent's Pokemon with Poison. A knockout by Poison counts as between turns. Certain cards cannot be played if the knockout if outside of your turn.

Having Darkrai ex can serve as powerful late game attacker. Combine this Cyrus to pick off weak Pokemon ex.

Take advatange of Dark types against Psychic Pokemon. Psychic types are weak to Dark.

Disadvantages

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This Poison deck does not have one hit knockout power unfortunately. Opponent decks that run a lot of healing or switching cards can remove Poison easily.

Decks that have attackers that have one hit knockout power against you is pretty bad. I don't recall winning against Incineroar ex decks.

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A hard counter to deck is Ultra Beast decks with Celesteela. Celesteela can use its Ultra Thrusters ability to switch Ultra Beast Pokemon and remove Poison. It is a very bad matchup. I lost to a Celesteela + Guzzlord deck in ranked (Great Ball). It was not a good feeling.

Weezing is weak to Fighting and Darkrai ex is weak to Grass. Something like Rampardos can pick you apart quite easily.

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Some Screenshots

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In this section I show some screenshots, scenarios and gameplay. These were from ranked games.

Versus Silvally + Rampardos

In this matchup I think my setup was good while the Rampardos player had a slower setup. I think I won this one in the end. I do think this is not a favourable matchup overall. Rampardos is favoured if they get a good setup.

Against Silvally + Dialga ex

Going up against this Dialga ex + Silvally was interesting. I think I got the win in the end but it was not easy. There was a lot of retreating and attacking from both sides.

My endgame here was to use Cyrus to bring out the 30HP Dialga ex. Then attack it for the win.

Vs Weezing + Paldean Clodsire ex

This one is not exactly a mirror match as the opponent has Paldean Woopers. There was a Weezing versus Weezing showdown. With 2 Nihilego and Darkrai ex and the back, I win this Weezing war.

Facing This Stall Deck With Oricorio, Greninja

There is this one deck I faced that was just annoying to face against. Although my deck goes through Oricorio, this game took a bit of time. I eventually got the win. Oricorio is really bad against decks that don't rely on Pokemon ex.

Even though the opponent's Greninja is in the back dealing 20 damage per turn (not shown in screenshot), the Poison damage is higher than his Greninja damage.

Closing Notes

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I think this deck is fairly easy to use and play. Doing well with it could take a bit more practice though. It is a tactical deck as knockouts don't come that easy. There are rarely one hit knockouts with this deck.

Weezing and Nihilego provide early aggression versus slow setup decks. The main weakness is dealing with one hit knockout attackers as well as large HP Pokemon.

Many of the cards should be easy to pull and craft. If Darkrai ex is hard to get then you can replace it with a card of your choice.

Thank you for reading.