I haven't tested the new Rapidash yet, but I like the old one better. One of the appeals of the Blaine deck is the insane 70 damage burst on turn 3 that is only matched by Exeggutor Ex. The new Rapidash does what Ninetails did, but worse. Maybe I will be proven wrong.
@@TheMike0088I disagree on needed little energy, basically the second you’re 9 tails is up an running you no longer will have energy gain, so by having an extra energy requirement you are either waiting a turn to get 9 tails up and running or you are stuck not utilizing rapidash in your pivots
1:40 it's a gimmick based on lore, the idea is to poison with salazzle and swap with salandit for the bonus, and from my experience it's the easiest way to get the bonus damage on a poisoned pokemon
personally, I think the old Rapidash is still better, mainly because it gives you a decent 1 energy beatstick you can use when going first needing 2 energy on all of your main attackers would feel kinda clunky for Blaine imo
New rapidash is good too though, so many games you can’t draw a ninetales to save your life. So having the option to add a point to do some serious bursty damage can be a lifesaver.
The issue with Blaine decks is that unless you set up Ninetails, absolutely ZERO decks lose to Rapidash/Heatmor/Magmar/etc.. Even the new grass decks will be able to deal with the new Rapidash assuming average luck. Blaine NEEDS 90 base damage per turn to finish out games, which means whatever shiny new versions we get will always take a back seat to the core of 1-energy attackers plus Ninetails.
Ninetails is definitely the blaine carry, you are right about that. After playing with the deck a bit more I've dropped mamgar entirely, but I like rapidash for a 'rapid' response to finish something off. It can be a good start while I power up ninetails and the new one has a very nice threat of the 100. Its still not best deck but it does win games. I might improve it some more then run it in a tournament to see how it really stacks.
Salazzle seems to be very Situational. She helped me to kill Celebi and push my rival to change (Cuz Poison) so it could be helpful against Grass Decks.
I like to run one copy of each Rapidash, since both can be useful in different situations. Old Rapidash applies good early game pressure with only 1 energy and likes going first. The new ponyta does the same damage as the old Rapidash 50% of the time, so going second isn't as bad with the new ponyta. The new Rapidash also likes going second. Having at least one new Rapidash feels crucial since you can now 1 shot Starmie Ex, slightly improving the matchup against water types.
As volcaronas number 1 fanboy, I've dedicated myself to making this sadly pretty mediocre volcarona card work. Here's what I cooked: Your core is moltres EX, arcanine EX and volcarona. The reason you pick arcanine is cause you want the most damage available that isn't discarding energy. You also want to run 2 leafs: leaf reducing the retreat cost by two is crucial in those cases where you start off with a growlithe or larvesta in hand and you draw, pokeball or oak a moltres - both growlithe and larvesta have a retreat cost of 2, meaning having an x-speed in your hand over a leaf in a case like that slows you down by a turn. The gameplan is simple: you give your arcanine 3 energy via moltres and as much energy as the situation allows to volcarona (from my experience, 3 energy on arcanine, 1 on volcarona before you switch to arcanine is usually enough). Then you rock out with arcanine, who often won't quite do enough damage to kill high priority targets, but this is where volcarona comes in - you're more than happy with letting folks switch out their mewtwo EX with 30 HP, because you're later gonna snipe with volcarona. And if you don't have anything to snipe, you also run 2x poke flute, which feels like it was made for volcarona - as long as your opponent has some basic mon with 80 or less HP in their discard pile, thats a free point for you.
This is a very creative and clever plan! Just the kind of stuff I like trying! I've been trying to get my blaine deck to a better state; maybe I'll try adding some ideas you mentioned to it!
@@TheMike0088 I started by running magmar, but I found that with ninetails eating energy its hard to also power up magmar. Since then I've replaced magmar with colorless basics that have low energy cost, and I'm playing around with it to see what works. I like the new ponyta best but I'm not sure which rapidash. Using both atm. The new one is more threatening, but the 2 energy is hard to obtain.
@SneakyDragon interesting. Personally, I'm running a pure blaine deck - new ponyta, new rapidash, vulpix and ninetales, thats it for pokemon. I've gone back and forth on it a bit, but ultimately I think new rapidash is better - many of the frequently used early game tanks (sigilyph, dhelmise, druddigon, kangashkan,...) can withstand a blaine'd old rapidash, so the one advantage old rapidash has imo, the scenario where you go first, you draw into ponyta, rapidash and a blaine, meaning you can kill something right away with 70 damage on turn 3, now typically also requires your opponent to lowroll on what basic they get in their starting hand. Its too situational, new rapidash is so much better imo.
In Pokemon Pocket, poison pokemon are retyped to dark! So Salandit is NORMALLY a fire/poison pokemon but in this case it is fire typed BUT acts like poison type which means it would have been better as a dark type! It goes deep lol!
I haven't tested the new Rapidash yet, but I like the old one better. One of the appeals of the Blaine deck is the insane 70 damage burst on turn 3 that is only matched by Exeggutor Ex. The new Rapidash does what Ninetails did, but worse. Maybe I will be proven wrong.
Ditto, I’ve been using the new ponyta and the old rapidash
The thing is, blaine decks need such little energy, and new ponyta is potentially so threatening, that I do think new rwpidash is better
@@TheMike0088I disagree on needed little energy, basically the second you’re 9 tails is up an running you no longer will have energy gain, so by having an extra energy requirement you are either waiting a turn to get 9 tails up and running or you are stuck not utilizing rapidash in your pivots
I just KOed a Mew Ex with the new rapidash + blaine to win the game
@@daniaaal And?
1:40 it's a gimmick based on lore, the idea is to poison with salazzle and swap with salandit for the bonus, and from my experience it's the easiest way to get the bonus damage on a poisoned pokemon
Interesting, I didn't know about the lore! Maybe I should give this a go!
personally, I think the old Rapidash is still better, mainly because it gives you a decent 1 energy beatstick you can use when going first
needing 2 energy on all of your main attackers would feel kinda clunky for Blaine imo
It's also good as a finisher after ninetales is defeated
This is a valid point! Ninetails is so energy hungry. I have started using 1 of each rapidash.
New rapidash is good too though, so many games you can’t draw a ninetales to save your life. So having the option to add a point to do some serious bursty damage can be a lifesaver.
Maybe 1 new and 1 old is a good balance
9:20 in addition centiskortch one shots mew
Fair point!
i cant wait to see the video going over the new steel cards, cant believe they got a lot of support with the new pack
rip I should do that vid as a joke
The issue with Blaine decks is that unless you set up Ninetails, absolutely ZERO decks lose to Rapidash/Heatmor/Magmar/etc.. Even the new grass decks will be able to deal with the new Rapidash assuming average luck. Blaine NEEDS 90 base damage per turn to finish out games, which means whatever shiny new versions we get will always take a back seat to the core of 1-energy attackers plus Ninetails.
Ninetails is definitely the blaine carry, you are right about that. After playing with the deck a bit more I've dropped mamgar entirely, but I like rapidash for a 'rapid' response to finish something off. It can be a good start while I power up ninetails and the new one has a very nice threat of the 100. Its still not best deck but it does win games. I might improve it some more then run it in a tournament to see how it really stacks.
The new rapidash is cooking and i don’t use anything other than rapidash and ninetales and i win probably 80% of the time
nobody:
my brain for some reason because of the thumbnail: Blaine ED
Salazzle seems to be very Situational. She helped me to kill Celebi and push my rival to change (Cuz Poison) so it could be helpful against Grass Decks.
oooooo nice!
I like to run one copy of each Rapidash, since both can be useful in different situations. Old Rapidash applies good early game pressure with only 1 energy and likes going first. The new ponyta does the same damage as the old Rapidash 50% of the time, so going second isn't as bad with the new ponyta. The new Rapidash also likes going second. Having at least one new Rapidash feels crucial since you can now 1 shot Starmie Ex, slightly improving the matchup against water types.
I agree! I started running both too!
As volcaronas number 1 fanboy, I've dedicated myself to making this sadly pretty mediocre volcarona card work. Here's what I cooked:
Your core is moltres EX, arcanine EX and volcarona. The reason you pick arcanine is cause you want the most damage available that isn't discarding energy. You also want to run 2 leafs: leaf reducing the retreat cost by two is crucial in those cases where you start off with a growlithe or larvesta in hand and you draw, pokeball or oak a moltres - both growlithe and larvesta have a retreat cost of 2, meaning having an x-speed in your hand over a leaf in a case like that slows you down by a turn.
The gameplan is simple: you give your arcanine 3 energy via moltres and as much energy as the situation allows to volcarona (from my experience, 3 energy on arcanine, 1 on volcarona before you switch to arcanine is usually enough). Then you rock out with arcanine, who often won't quite do enough damage to kill high priority targets, but this is where volcarona comes in - you're more than happy with letting folks switch out their mewtwo EX with 30 HP, because you're later gonna snipe with volcarona. And if you don't have anything to snipe, you also run 2x poke flute, which feels like it was made for volcarona - as long as your opponent has some basic mon with 80 or less HP in their discard pile, thats a free point for you.
This is a very creative and clever plan! Just the kind of stuff I like trying! I've been trying to get my blaine deck to a better state; maybe I'll try adding some ideas you mentioned to it!
@SneakyDragon cool! Out of curiosity, do you run old ponyta/rapidash or either, maybe both, of the new ones? Also, do you run magmar?
@@TheMike0088 I started by running magmar, but I found that with ninetails eating energy its hard to also power up magmar. Since then I've replaced magmar with colorless basics that have low energy cost, and I'm playing around with it to see what works. I like the new ponyta best but I'm not sure which rapidash. Using both atm. The new one is more threatening, but the 2 energy is hard to obtain.
@SneakyDragon interesting. Personally, I'm running a pure blaine deck - new ponyta, new rapidash, vulpix and ninetales, thats it for pokemon. I've gone back and forth on it a bit, but ultimately I think new rapidash is better - many of the frequently used early game tanks (sigilyph, dhelmise, druddigon, kangashkan,...) can withstand a blaine'd old rapidash, so the one advantage old rapidash has imo, the scenario where you go first, you draw into ponyta, rapidash and a blaine, meaning you can kill something right away with 70 damage on turn 3, now typically also requires your opponent to lowroll on what basic they get in their starting hand. Its too situational, new rapidash is so much better imo.
What happened to Blaine's arm in the Thumbnail though?
Whoops, must be the ditto version of blaine! I'll try to find the real one next time I use him in a thumbnail!
New ponyta doesnt feel so good when you flip tails 3 times in a row 🥲
Ooof, the bad rng. Sorry about that. Got some good news though: statistically you are due to get heads a few times in a row at some point!
Ex speed?
Great card to run! I thought I mentioned it in the vid, if I didn't major oops on my part!
Bro said dark, Salandit is poison. You can’t be serious
In Pokemon Pocket, poison pokemon are retyped to dark! So Salandit is NORMALLY a fire/poison pokemon but in this case it is fire typed BUT acts like poison type which means it would have been better as a dark type! It goes deep lol!
Personally , i prefer the consistency of old ponyta to new ponyta. Imma run old ponyta and new rapidash