play this guy
well that was easy enough.
okay, onto the real tips.
Number One: Play Sceptile ex
there’s a lot of questionable stage 2 decks in RS-PK that are noob traps in their own way, because they were good 20 years ago in a radically different format and metagame. decks like metanite, rocklock, ludicargo, etc. decks that need to set up a bunch of moving parts in order to do OK against a field wholly equipped to stop them every step of the way. there’s plenty of extremely strong stage 2 decks in the format (queendom, LBS, and sceptile come immediately to mind), but many of them just kinda flounder around unable to really have game against the big dogs of the format.
enter sceptile ex. with a 1-0-1 line in any of the above mentioned decks, you at least have a reasonable shot at taking on some of RS-PK’s superthreats like bombtar, scrambled eggs, and bombcatty by sheer virtue of putting 2 cards into your deck that shut off their entire engine. note that you can still lose against those decks (if they bomb early, set up faster than you, or simply play smart after you set up the lizard). but scept ex is a band-aid fix to your pet deck that will at least give you a fighting chance even against skilled pilots.
Number Two: Play a Good Deck That Plays Sceptile ex
cheating a bit here, i know. but the fact remains that if you want to see success, playing a top deck that can naturally slide in scept ex as opposed to something like jamming it into rocklock and hoping for the best is probably the better route to go. we’ve seen success with it in nidoqueen, flygon ex delta, ratlock, and more – and these decks have game against more than just bomb decks (and scept ex itself does way more than just shutting off electrode ex).
these decks can often use it as a side-attacker, and appreciate its utility in clogging up general use ex attackers like rayquaza ex delta and sneasel ex. it also hampers a lot of B-tier and below decks – stuff like banette gets totally neutered by its presence on the field. oftentimes, getting hit with bomb + pow + admin + spinning tail is frustrating to come back against as a newer player, so playing decks that facilitate the hard counter and prevent you from even being in that situation can be a breath of fresh air.
Number Three: Play Girafarig (for Bombtar/Bombchamp/Bombcatty) or Mew Promo (for Scrambled Eggs/Bombchamp/Bombcatty)
these cards have a narrower range than scept ex in that you have to be playing kinda specific decks to even facilitate either of them, but they still have tremendous use against bomb decks. bomb decks that aren’t named scrambled eggs often rely on using jirachi for several turns to prune through their deck and sculpt both their hand and discard pile to set up for the god turn, and if they get to that point there’s often nothing you can do from that position. girafarig (in a deck like hariyama, banette, or even a bombcatty of your own) can hamper their setup, and allow you to either disrupt them further with things like lunarock or special conditions. though girafarig’s application is somewhat narrow, it hits a lot of stage 2 decks as well, which seem more popular than ever in today’s metagame.
mew (and sandstorm ralts, if you’re playing gardevoir as a deck) fits in fewer decks (only really making a home in destiny and ratlock from what i’ve seen), but it works as an emergency tech in those and could conceivably be slotted into other decks if you’re just really annoyed with getting hit with big eggsplosion for 700 damage. it has niche uses against other decks too – including bombtar (despite the resistance and tyranitar’s bulk, it hitting a powered up tyranitar for upwards of 60 damage for 1 energy is worth mentioning) and gardevoir, but its application is rather limited. i’d only recommend this if your deck really struggles with the aforementioned decks but can’t run sceptile ex – but it’s worth experimenting with for sure.
Number Four: Set up Multiple Threats
if you don’t want to take a shortcut to cheese a victory against a bomb deck, the general philosophy i take when playing against them is to set up multiple “threats” they have to “deal with.” even setting up something like a pidgeot against a bomb deck gives them something they have to immediately “deal with” in some way – often by powing it up to KO it, or throwing a cess down.
of course, you don’t need me to tell you to set up pidgeot in pidgeot decks, but bear with me. setting up pidgeot demands an immediate response. setting up an attacker that can reasonably threaten theirs also demands an immediate response (dark tyranitar is a tough cookie, but can he trade with a powered up gardevoir ex well?) in a similar form – pow the guy up and KO them, or pow up a bench sitter and spinning tail. but if you have both an attacker going and a pidgeot in the wings, then they have to choose what to deal with first – and it puts them on a clock too.
oftentimes players will try to take early prizes against these jirachi-based bomb decks, and i’d like to offer an anecdote i see when discussing life points in yugioh: treat your prize cards less like a resource system and more like a bank. you can take 5 prizes all day against bomb decks, but if you never take that 6th then you’ll never win. a lot of the time, instead of trying to take out their jirachi to cripple their setup, players could do better by setting up additional threats so that the bomb deck cannot possibly deal with all of them simultaneously, as opposed to putting up one threat to KO the jirachi which can then get easily reversaled if they happen to top deck their trode ex or whatever.
think about it: scrambled eggs is a great deck, and it can usually OHKO any pokemon – but can it reasonably trade with multiple powered up attackers, especially when they basically are down 2 prizes by default? almost certainly not against most decks. of course, bomb decks often get their setup before more conventional decks get theirs, since their strategy of discarding energy cards happens normally, and their energy acceleration is also their lock in a way, so this is easier said than done. but usually it’s just good to try to set up some things that could be threats soon, spread your energy attachments out a little between them, and go from there, as opposed to putting all of your eggs in one or two baskets and praying that you outspeed them and they brick a turn or two, as just by math those things probably aren’t going to happen.
Number Five: Play the Format
this one is also a bit obvious, but…you are just gonna have to get in the tank and grind it out. RS-PK is an immensely fun format that rewards creativity in deckbuilding, branching out when coming up with techs and strategies, and calculation in games themselves. and when playing against the best decks in the format with a limited understanding of the format, against players far better than you, when you’re usually using sub-optimal decks or decklists (on that note: please, use decklists that have actual results instead of netdecking PTCGarchive or old jason k lists – nothing against either of these places of course but the metagame changes too fast for ye olde raydoom lists last played in 2021 to be as good in modern RS-PK). you’re going to get frustrated losing to these decks sometimes – i certainly was, and still am plenty – and if you handed me flariados and told me to beat the best players in the world playing bombtar, well…
you’re going to learn positioning (as i mentioned with setting up multiple threats), how to build your lists to insulate them against bomb decks (using the above techs i mentioned – or something like playing a lower admin count so you don’t draw into it off of their admin), and how to play decks that just have a better MU against them in general with their own tradeoffs. or maybe, you’ll even go to the dark side and become a bomb player yourself…
core enforcer 