Whimsicott: more Tools, more Power

With the release of the Pokemon TCG’s newest expansion, Vivid Voltage, we now have a whole new onslaught of archetypes to face off against. While we aren’t quite sure which ones will rise to the top, the community is starting to gravitate towards a few choice favourites – namely Coalossal VMAX, Orbeetle VMAX, and a surprise guest at the table – Whimsicott. This cotton candy fluffball has rose onto the scene as being the most constent, aggressive 1-Prize attacker in format: this floofer packs a PUNCH. A 250 damage punch, to be exact! Being able to consecutively stream these massive attacks against the opponent is what makes the deck so strong – since we’re just a frail Stage 1 Pokemon, we’ll need to setup many many many of these guys. However, our deck is engineered to spawn as many attackers as needed, so we’re in luck! Generally speaking, I enjoy playing this deck more than most other 1-Prizer decks because of how turbo it is, and just how fool-proof your board can become in the late game. For any Expanded players or long-time veterans of the game, this deck feels very comparable to the late Vespiqueen, except instead of waiting until the end of the game to do high damage amounts with Bee Revenge, we can get there as quickly as the second turn! Without further ado, let’s jump into the article! Let’s talk about one of my favourite new decks, Whimsicott!

Whimsicott’s strength lies mainly in the fact that it is a 1-Prize attacker that can do a steep amount of damage very quickly. This deck feels very glass-cannony, so it is vital to setup as many of our attacker as we possibly can. In most matchups, we require at least 2 Whimsicott/Cottonee on the field at all times in order to ensure a consistent stream of attacks. If we fail to do this, the opponent will begin to mount a favourable board position; this is one of the few downfalls of being a 90 HP Stage 1 Pokemon: you have to wait a turn to evolve. With that being said, Whimsicott is mostly so fast because of its high damage cap, and low amount of energy required to use attacks.

Flying Fury is often the only attack we’ll announce all game, and is based around us discarding Tool cards off of our Pokemon in order to buff our damage. This is a solid attack for just one energy because we can discard up to 6 tools, which means that we can control our damage output to fit how much HP our opponent’s active has. This attack has very strong synergy with U-Turn Board, which goes back to our hand if it is ever discarded from play. Due to the unique attack Whimsicott has, we can include many niche Pokemon Tool cards that most other decks can’t include due to space restrictions. Some of these cool Tool cards include Island Challenge Amulet (to safeguard our GX/EX Pokemon), Lucky Egg (for hand replenishing), U-Turn Board and Air Balloon (playing 6 Tool cards that reduce our retreat cost allow us a high level of mobility that is more so than other decks).

The remainder of our Pokemon in the list help us to establish our board and retain it for the rest of the game. Much like Baby Blacephalon, we are able to stay afloat throughout the entirety of the game with support Pokemon such as Dedenne-GX, Eldegoss V, Amazing Jirachi, Oranguru, and most importantly Oricorio-GX! Let’s take a peek at the list so you can have a better idea of how our list is structured to take on all threats.

Whimsicott is arguably one of the most fun decks Standard has seen in some time, and I strongly urge you to pickup some PTCGO codes in order to build it! It is moderately inexpensive to build, and has some serious value to it right now in the format. Go and get some Pokemon online codes, and enjoy playing!