Hello, readers! My name is Rowan Stavenow and today I’m excited to be writing my first article for Cut or Tap. For those of you who don’t know me, I am currently ranked #17 in North America and have been playing straight Dragapult since the Atlanta Regionals. Of course I call it a Dragapult deck, but Itchy Pollen is easily the most used attack in the deck, the source of the deck’s success, and our topic of conversation in today’s article.
On surface level, Budew blocks Item cards and does 10 damage – which is often enough to bring your opponent’s setup to an immediate halt. Even if they have the tools to KO Budew, they will be immediately set to two cards by an Unfair Stamp (an aptly named card), and a useless Pokemon is likely to be trapped in the active by the likes of Counter Catcher. So what is the opponent to do? Not KO the Budew? That would allow you time to create a Dragapult ex, establish Energy and use Phantom Dive. This is what Budew does on a deeper level, creating a dilemma for our opponents; either attack us with an underdeveloped board, or allow us time to set up Dragapult ex. Of course, Budew can be used for the same purpose, in a different context. Whether it’s Gardevoir ex, Zoroark ex, or something else entirely, the idea is to either buy time to set up a powerful threat, or force our opponent to overextend.
Over the past few weekends, we have seen more and more players picking up on the power of Budew, adapting their decks to beat it, or playing around it in new ways. In this article, I’ll be covering the ways in which Itchy Pollen creates opportunities for Dragapult ex, how to exploit underdeveloped board states, and what to do when your opponent decides not to KO your Budew. For the purposes of this article, I will be talking from the lens of a Dragapult ex deck, but the concepts of this article are also applicable to Gardevoir, Zoroark, or any other Budew-stalling deck.
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Great article!