Worlds Winning Deck (15+): Queendom

[Venusaur]

[Editor's note: This article details the strategy of the Worlds 2005 15-up 1st/3rd place deck -- 'Queendom'. In addition to learning about this deck's strategy, you will also get a glimpse of the strategy of the major archetype's present at Worlds 2005 in the Matchups section of this article. You can read more about the unique development and World's 2005 success of this deck in Mudkip's & Venusaur's tournament articles.
Discuss THIS article HERE in the new Archetype sub-forum of Deck help.]

Article by: plaidlesspez/Mudkip/Venusaur
Title: Queendom
Date: September 6th, 2005
Latest set released: EX:Unseen Forces
Current Format: HL-On (But this article is mainly for RS-On)

Decklist:

Pokemon (<21>)

3x Pidgey RG
2x Pidgeotto RG
3x Pidgeot RG
4x Nidoran RG (F)
3x Nidorina RG
4x Nidoqueen RG
1x Feebas HL
1x Milotic HL

Trainers (<24>)

4x Celio's Network
4x Desert Ruins
4x Rare Candy
4x Copycat
3x Great Ball
2x Steven's Advice
2x Rocket's Admin
1x Mr. Briney's Compassion

Energy (<15>)

6x Grass Energy
4x Double Rainbow Energy
3x Heal Energy
2x Fighting Energy

Please go to http://www.pokebeach.com/sets/ to look at card scans if you're unsure about the text of any of these cards.

Card Descriptions:

3 Pidgey - used to increase the chances of getting a Pidgeot into play by turn 1. Pidgey's Corner attack can also help stall in the early game by preventing your opponent's retreat, and his Resistance to Fighting can buy you some time vs T2 (Medicham ex/Hariyama ex) decks.

2 Pidgeotto - used for pretty much the same reason as the 3 Pidgey, getting out Pidgeot ASAP. Also with 2 Pidgeotto, the chance of both being prized are slim, so if Pidgeot happened to be Rare Candied into play and then gets ATM Rocked by the opponent, you could always search out a Pidgeotto via Celio's Network or just play one from your hand to make it ATM Rock proof.

3 Pidgeot - The reason for the 3/2/3 Pidgeot line is not only to increase your chances of getting Pidgeot into play Turn 1 or Turn 2 of the game, but it becomes easier to sacrifice one since you most likely will have a second one in play. If one of your Pidgeot gets POWed or Pokemon Reversaled to the Active position and then KOed, you'll have another one to take its place, ready to Quick Search. Quick Search is helpful in this deck because it lets you search for whatever you may need, like maybe that Desert Ruins, or that Nidorina that's been hiding at the bottom of your deck.

4 Nidoran - Without these basics there couldn't be a deck! Call for Friends isn't as good as Dunsparce's Strike and Run, but it's similar. Say you have a Pidgeot and Rare Candy in your opening hand but no Pidgey. By using CFF you have a fair chance of getting that Pidgey which sets you up for the turn 2 Pidgeot. You also may be lucky enough to have Rare Candy and Celio's Network/Nidoqueen in your opening hand which sets you up for a turn 1 Toxic. This can be devastating to the opponent, forcing them to retreat or be KOed by the poison. Nidoran is the best basic opener in this deck, so if you have a Nidoran, Feebas, and Pidgey in your opening hand, you should probably put Nidoran active.

3 Nidorina - This is all about its Fast Evolution attack. Get that Pidgeot or Pidgeotto that you need, get the Nidoqueen so you can evolve Nidorina next turn, whatever. When your hand is subpar and you don't have any draw cards, use Fast Evolution to setup your Pidgeot to start Quick Searching and get back into the game. 3 copies are used to increase the chance of drawing into a Nidorina. Maybe you'll even be lucky enough to have Nidoran, Nidorina, Rare Candy, and DRE in your opening hand.

4 Nidoqueen - Cornerstone of the deck.

Toxic - very efficient for the 1 Energy cost, doing 60 damage total over one round of turns if the opponent doesn't remove the poison. Also since it only costs 1 Energy to use, it's immune to your opponent's Energy Removal 2s and POW! Hand Extensions that remove your energy.

Power Lariat - With how fast the deck sets up with evolutions, it's not unusual to get 6 evolutions into play by the 4th or 5th turn. Get a DRE and 1 other energy on Nidoqueen to have it doing a massive 90 damage a turn. 90 damage for only 3 energy on a non-ex Pokemon? There aren't many Pokemon that can do that much for so little energy. Usually 1-2 Power Lariats will KO any Pokemon your opponent sends out.

Poke-Body: Family Bonds - This gives Nidoran and Nidorina free retreat. This can be helpful if you have a Nidoran stuck active with no energy and want to move it to the bench. Also if your opponent puts a Team Aqua's Hideout into play AND you have the Nidoran stuck active, the retreat cost is still 0. This basically means the whole deck has a free retreat cost since Nidoqueen should barely ever retreat, and Milotic should never be Active.

Weakness: Grass - In RSon modified, the few grass decks that are competitive usually lose to Metal types like Dark Steelix and Fire types like Blaziken. It's also difficult for grass decks to hold their own vs many other decks. This gives Nidoqueen an advantage since most competitive decks are NOT grass, so Weakness is almost never a factor.

Retreat Cost 2 - Lame that it's not 1, but at least it's not 3. You can just slap a DRE on and retreat it that way.

1 Feebas HL - This is only used to evolve to Milotic. Since we don't use any water energy, the only feebas choices are HL or the EM Submerge one. We chose the HL one since these are the only archetypical cards that can hit the bench which would give Submerge Feebas an advantage:

Spinning Tail Tyranitar? They wouldn't dare put it active since it gets KOed in 1 hit by Nidoqueen, plus it'd only do 20 damage to Feebas, not enough to KO it. If they did do 20 damage to it you could just evolve to Milotic on your turn and remove all damage.

Blaziken ex? There's no way they'd KO a puny little Feebas on the bench when a Nidoqueen is staring them in the face.

Rocket's Tricky Gym? Feint attack goes through Submerge, which makes it useless.

1 Milotic HL - Very helpful. The first person to use the 1/1 Milotic tech in a Nidoqueen deck was Pooka. We used Milotic in this deck because Queen doesn't have a chance vs Rocklock otherwise. Milotic shuts them down. More info in matchups section. If your opponent doesn't know you're playing Milotic, or if you're afraid it will be pulled Active and KOed, then don't play Feebas. Just hold it in your hand and then play Feebas Rare Candy Milotic all in 1 turn. By constantly retreating your Pidgeot and Nidoqueen, and then playing Milotic, you could easily be healing hundreds of damage total. Just make sure you don't retreat your Queens too much, or else you'll run of energy.

4 Celio's Network - Makes it easier to pull a Turn 1 or Turn 2 Pidgeot. Also helps a lot against decks where the Quick Search power is shut off, like against Medicham ex, since Celio is your only way of searching for the Nidoqueen etc. that you need.

4 Desert Ruins - We were deciding between 3 or 4 Ruins. We finally decided on 4 for 2 reasons.

1. We thought lots of decks would play 4 Battle Frontier, which shuts down Pidgeot. We need 4 countergyms to counter their 4 BFs.

2. Nidoqueen is disadvantaged vs Blaziken, and that 4th Ruins can help a lot against it. It also helps tons against any deck with Pokemon-ex, since 4 Ruins maximizes your chance of drawing into it when you need it.

4 Rare Candy - 4 copies are used to increase the chance of an early Pidgeot and/or Nidoqueen. Also used to do the Feebas/Rare Candy/Milotic trick. It helps lategame too, when you just need to do 10 more damage with Power Lariat and have no more basics on your bench, you can play the basic/rare candy/evolution all in 1 turn for that 10 extra damage.

4 Copycat - 4 of these are used because it works against just about all decks, usually giving you a new hand of at least 5 cards. If the opponent has only 3 or less cards, it's not like they have lots of options anyway, which puts you in a good position.

3 Great Ball - This has sorta a Dunsparce Strike and Run effect, except you only get 1 Pokemon. Sometimes it is better than Dunsparce, so you don't have to waste a turn attacking. You just Great Ball for the Pidgey and Rare Candy/Pidgeot all in the 1st turn. Great Ball is also better in the midgame, when there's no way you would give up attacking with Queen to put up a Dunsparce and use SARS. Great Ball can get you that Feebas/Pidgey/Nidoran when you need it without wasting an attack.

2 Steven's Advice - Again, 2-3 copies are used. It's helpful vs Ludicargo and Rocklock since they have large benches, but not that good vs some other stuff like Medicham ex.

2 Rocket's Admin - This is used to disrupt the opponent midgame or lategame, or just to draw a new hand of 6 cards at the beginning of the game. Disrupts Magcargo's Smooth Over and can destroy a hand of 10 cards into a hand of 4, giving the opponent less options.

1 Mr. Briney's Compassion - This is usually used lategame to pickup the Milotic so you can heal all over again. If Milotic isn't available, you can also pickup that Nidoqueen that has 110 damage, or the Pidgeot on your bench with 80 damage for example.

6 Grass Energy - So many Grass Energy are used to guarantee an early Toxic. You don't want to be stuck with the wrong energy type in your hand unable to Toxic.

4 Double Rainbow Energy - Gives speed to the deck. Lets you use Power Lariat with only 2 Energy cards, and let's you use Pidgeot's Clutch for 1 Energy card for a clean 30 damage. The -10 damage is a small price to pay. Also is a "Toxicable" and "Power Lariatable" Energy all in one.

3 Heal Energy - Can make or break the game. Removing 10 damage could mess up your opponent's plans and make them 10 damage short of the KO.

2 Fighting Energy - Only 2 of these are used since DRE usually provides the Power Lariat cost. It's sometimes better than DRE though, because it doesn't have the -10 damage effect like DRE does, so you're able to do a maximum of 100 damage.

Strategy of Queendom

The perfect play area is this, 1 Nidoqueen Active, 2 Nidoqueen Benched, 2 Pidgeot Benched, and 1 spot on your bench left open for the Feebas/RC/Milotic trick. You want to get a Pidgeot out ASAP so you can begin setup quickly. Use Toxic and Power Lariat as you see necessary.

Matchups

Here are descriptions of how the Nidoqueen deck works against popular archetypes of the time. Please let us know if we're forgetting any.

ZapTurnDos - a tough match. If Zapdos goes first and Nidoqueen can't pull any more basics, it's a turn 2 loss.

Rocket's Admin helps in this matchup, shuffling in their Zapdos ex that they just Dual Balled for. With some good luck, you can get a turn 2 win, by either getting Nidoran/Rare Candy/Nidoqueen turn 1 and doing Toxic on their Voltorb/Electrike/Elekid who they are planning on gathering a 2nd Lightning Energy with, or by getting a turn 1 Pidgeot and Clutching their Lightning-type basic they're planning on recharging.

Desert Ruins and Toxic work hand-in-hand in this matchup when you get into a fullblown game. By constantly hitting them with Toxic, they'll be forced to play a new Zapdos ex and send the old one to the bench. The more Zapdos in play the better, because each of them is taking Desert Ruins damage. It works especially well if they fail some of their Super Scoop Up flips. You should win about 6 turns later since you're able to search for Desert Ruins(Pidgeot), and they have no way of searching for countergyms.

Milotic and Heal Energy can play mindgames. Say you have a Nidoqueen active with no damage and a Feebas on your bench. The opponent has a Zapdos ex Active. They may consider doing only 50 damage with Electroburn instead of 70, since they figure you'll evolve Feebas to Milotic next turn anyway, so might as well conserve energy. If they do that, then you can play Heal Energy and bring Queen's damage down to 40, making it safe from a Zapdos ex hit the next turn since the maximum they can do is 70, 10 away from the KO (assuming they don't have Strength Charm in their hand). Now if they orginally did 70 damage with Electroburn, you play the Milotic and heal Nidoqueen, which means they DID waste an energy doing the extra 20 damage. Since Zapdos ex is an ex, Milotic doesn't heal it.

Dark Slowking - Another tough matchup. This is similar to Zapdos ex since they can do a turn 2 KO, plus Nidoran/Nidorina is weak to Psychic. Once you get at least 1 Nidoqueen into play it becomes much easier due to his changed weakness to grass. 1 Toxic can shut them down if they're unable to retreat for a 2nd Dark Slowking, since they can't Cunning and mess up your topdecks, and have less chances to stall the clock with 1 less Cunning to use, AND are taking 20 damage at the end of each turn. Dark Slowking can't OHKO Nidoqueen (it would need 3 Darkness Energy attached + Strength Charm + 2 Tools to toss). Milotic helps a lot in this matchup also. You do heal Dark Slowking's damage, but with Slowking's low HP (80), you just need a decent amount of Evolutions on your bench to OHKO Slowking.

Blaziken - Very tough matchup if they play 4 countergyms to counter your Ruins. Fortunately for some reason, Blaziken decks usually use 3 or less countergyms. With Rayquaza ex and Blaziken ex doomed to an eventual death by Ruins damage it becomes easier to win.

Blaziken ex using Volcanic Ash on Pidgeot can hurt bigtime, destroying your search engine. The Blaziken player can also rotate around Blazikens (Firestarter), doing Fire Stream for 50 damage and 10 to the bench. After a couple fire streams, the Nidoqueens have 100 or less HP left which makes em easy pickings for Blaziken ex.

Rayquaza ex is also trouble for Nidoqueen, OHKOing it for only 1 Multi and 2 Fire. Pidgeot can help though, since a 3/2/3 line of it is played you can sacrifice one by clutching Rayquaza. With 2 normal Energy on a Pidgeot and a Desert Ruins in play, you're doing 90 total damage to Rayquaza that turn. Even if they countergym your Ruins and KO Pidgeot that turn, you can re-countergym with ruins next turn to have Rayquaza KOed at the end of your turn.

Ludicargo - Pretty easy. If the opponent doesn't have a great start and just fetches cards with Jirachi and/or Dunsparce, just attaches energy etc, it's best to not KO their Jirachi/Dunsparce. You don't want to activate their Scramble Energy and have them attack you when you're not ready. If you can get 6 evolutions into play, Nidoqueen does 100 which KOs anything in the Ludicargo deck, and even with a full bench Ludicolo only does 110 to Nidoqueen (assuming they don't have a Strength Charm). Toxic helps against Ludicolo by turning off its Swing Dance. Milotic helps too, since if you want to get off to a fast start you can KO their Dunsparce/Jirachi to put the prize count at 5-6, then have them hit you with Ludicolo for say, 90 damage. Then play Milotic and heal off the 90 damage, and for the rest of the game you will have a 1 prize advantage over Ludicargo (4-6, 4-5, 3-5, 3-4, etc.)

Metagross - hard matchup. If they have the cards for a Turn 2 DX Metagross, that's enough to KO your Nidoran/Nidorina and lose you the game. It's usually best to just have 1 Grass Energy on Nidoqueen and keep using Toxic. Metagross DX won't be able to match your energy count so it only does 40, and Deoxys ex (Attack) can only do 70 max (since Nidoqueen only has 1 energy attached). By doing Toxic they'll be forced to keep retreating, keep using Metagross DX's power and taking 10 damage from that, and soon they'll be loaded with damage. Ruins helps vs Metagross ex and Deoxys ex. Also Metagross ex is weak to Fighting.

Rock Lock - An easy matchup. Milotic is the key. These are the only "decent" attackers in the Rocklock deck and how they do vs Queendom:

Pidgeot: Not a very good attacker, can only do up to 40 damage and will be constantly Toxiced by Nidoqueen, which forces it to keep wasting Heal Energy on it or probably retreat it for something else.

Dark Ampharos: The opponent would be crazy to put this active. It's weak to fighting so you OHKO it, and once if it's gone you don't take anymore evolving damage.

Dark Tyranitar (Spinning Tail): The opponent will probably not want to put this active, since it's also OHKOed by Nidoqueen. Even if they do get in a few spinning tails, that's where Milotic comes in.

Dark Tyranitar (Sand Damage): The only attacker in the Rocklock deck that can harm Nidoqueen. But even this one isn't hard for Nidoqueen to beat. They only have 2 choices with this: Lock Queendom down with multiple ATM Rocks + Dark Ampharos + Sand Damage, or just keep using second strike. If they do the former, (first of all Feebas should not be on your Bench yet), you wait for them to do about 2 ATM rock/sand damage attacks, then do the Feebas/rc/Milotic trick. Now they're done for because using an ATM rock would send Milotic back to your hand and able to heal again. By constantly attacking with Second Strike they'll eventually lose the game. Their army has 2-3 Sand Damage Ttar (Spin tail, Pidg, and Dark amphy don't count for the reasons above). Your army has 4 Nidoqueen + 2 Pidgeot + Milotic healing capabilities. The bigger army should overcome :)

Dark Steelix (Turn 2 Jirachi version) - A pretty easy matchup. Just slap a grass on Nidoqueen and keep using Toxic. They don't use Pidgeot, so they have no way of searching for their Heal Energy and Life Herbs. Even if they do topdeck all their Heal Energy/Life Herb, they'll eventually run out of them. When D. Steelix stays poisoned until it's your turn again, it's time to use Power Lariat for some big damage + Toxic damage.

ZRE(Zapdos/Rayquaza/Electrode ex) - Pretty easy matchup. ZRE decks usually try to explode a Trode early, POW! your searcher (Pidgeot), Rocket's Admin, KO it, and win the game from there. Because of this, you need to get out 2 Pidgeot ASAP. After all they can only gust + KO one of them. Also with their lack of search power, you may get a Ruins to stay in play for a while, giving their Zapdos ex and Rayquaza ex a lot of damage. For strategies against Zapdos ex see the ZapTurnDos matchup, and strategies against Rayquaza see the Blaziken matchup. Even though Blaziken uses DR Rayquaza ex while ZRE uses DX Rayquaza ex, they both have the same HP and weakness to Pidgeot.

Medicham ex (Turn 2 Jirachi version) - An easy matchup. Since we use 4 Desert Ruins, and since Cham ex has to topdeck their countergyms, their HP will be worn down. Toxic plays a big part too, because it forces them to play Island Cave, which you can then counter with ruins. Even if Island Cave stays in play forever, they're going to have to keep playing an energy each time they want to heal their Cham ex. And who wants a Medicham ex with 7 energy??

Heal Energy helps a lot too. Say they've just Sky Kicked you for 60 damage. Play Heal Energy to put yourself down to 50 damage, and now you just bought yourself another turn of life, since they most damage they can do is 60 they won't be able to KO Queen that turn.

IMPORTANT: Never play Feebas nor Milotic! Milotic's power is shut off, plus it can be Pokemon Reversaled active and locked into place, making it easy for Medicham ex to pure power your bench.

Hariyama ex (Turn 2 Jirachi version) - Easier than Medicham. When the opponent is using Hariyama ex they are put into a pickle. Do they play Battle Frontier to shut down your Pidgeot, but let themselves suffer Toxic damage? Or do they play Island Cave to heal the Toxic Damage, but let you search with Pidgeot and setup? This dilemma that Hex is put through makes it an easy matchup.

Muk ex (Turn 2 Jirachi version) - Probably easier than Hariyama ex! Sure they are grass type so Queen is OHKOed, but their heavy retreat cost combined with their inability to take advantage of Island Cave makes them lose to Toxic.

DragTrode - If they are using the version with 4 Rocket's Sneasel ex, 4 R Energy, 4 Lanette's Net Search, 4 Rocket's Poke Balls, and 4 Pokemon Reversals it can be difficult, since they have a good chance of opening with sneasel and just dragging off + KOing whatever Nidoqueen plays down. Also in the midgame, Sneasel can do up to 130 damage, enough to KO Nidoqueen. Because of this you should try to have 2 Nidoqueens powered up so that your Benched one can immediately KO the Sneasel that KOed your first Queen, and by KOing sneasel they lose a few darkness energy, a necessary part of that deck. Any other version is pretty easy for Nidoqueen to beat.