Hi there. In this Pokemon TCG post I am doing something a little different. This post looks like at a gameplay video of a Galvantula ex deck from Japan. This is one of the first Galvanutla ex decks out there based on Stellar Miracle.
Video Source:
Topics
- Key Cards
- Video Commentary
- Concluding Thoughts
Key Cards
Joltik
Joltik is a 30 HP Basic Lightning Pokemon that evolves into Galvantula. Its attack of Jolting Charge is a super powerful and maybe broken energy acceleration attack. You search your deck for up to 2 Grass Basic Energy cards and up to 2 Basic Lightning Energy and attach them to your Pokemon in any way you like. Once you use this attack you can power up multiple Pokemon as alternate attackers.
Galvantula (Grass Single Prize From Night Wanderer)
This Galvantula is a Stage 1 Grass type Pokemon card from the Night Wanderer set. It is a single prize Pokemon which can help in the prize trade in the game.
The ability of Compound Eyes allows Galvantula do 50 more damage if the opponent's Active Pokemon has an ability. The attack of Shocking Web has a base damage of 50. If Galvantula has any Lightning energy attached this attack does 130 damage instead. When this Galvantula attacks Charizard ex with Lightning energy then Galvantula does 180 damage times 2 for weakness. This results in 360 damage against Charizard ex knocking it out. This Grass Galvantula is a hard counter to Charizard ex and those with Grass weakness.
Galvantula ex
Galvantula ex is a very dangerous attacker in my opinion. Joltik can powerup multiple attackers including this one. The first attack of Upper Thread has 110 base damage for the cost of one Lightning Energy and one colourless Energy. If Galvantula ex attacks a Pokemon ex or V with Upper Thread then the attack does 220 damage. This 220 damage amount does knockout many Basic Pokemon V and Basic Pokemon ex. This first attack is quite good.
The second attack of Fulgurite requires one Grass Energy, one Lightning Energy and one Fighting Energy. It does 180 damage with the added effect of discarding all Energy from this Pokemon to prevent the opponent from playing Item cards during the opponent's next turn.
Sparkling Crystal ACE SPEC Tool
The Sparkling Crystal ACE SPEC Tool card is very good for Tera Pokemon. As Galvantula ex is a Tera Pokemon you can use this Tool card to make Tera Pokemon attacks cost one less Energy of any type.
Crispin Supporter Card
Crispin is a powerful Supporter card that has good Energy acceleration. You search your deck for two Basic Energy cards of different types. One of the Basic Energy cards is attached to 1 of your Pokemon and the second one goes to your hand. In theory and practice, the Crispin card can power up a Pokemon with two Basic Energy cards. One from Crispin and the one from the hand for the once per turn manual Energy attachment.
Video Commentary Key Moments
Right player first turn goes first. She has one Charmander in active with one Charmander one the Bench, a Pidgey and Bidoof on the Bench.
Left player first turn going second at 1:22. He opens with Joltik in Active spot and Arven to search for Buddy Buddy Poffin and Sparkling Crystal. Buddy Buddy Poffin is used to bench two Joltiks. He attaches one Lightning Energy to Active Joltik to use the attack where he puts one Lightning and one Grass to each of his two Benched Joltiks.
Right player at 2:10 uses Rare Candy and evolves Pidgey to Pidgeot ex. She then attaches second Fire Energy to active Charmander and knocks out left player's Joltik for 30 damage. She goes from 6 prize cards to 5 prize cards.
At 2:47 left player puts Joltik with Sparkling Crystal into Active Spot. This active spot Joltik evolves into Galvantula ex. Left side player uses the second attack that does 180 damage and discards all energy so the right side opponent cannot play Item cards on her next turn. Only two energies discarded as the Galvantula ex has the ACE SPEC Sparkling Crystal tool attached.
Note that the right side player cannot play the Item card Rare Candy to evolve from Charmander to Charizard ex.
Right side player cannot really attack at 4:27. The best thing here is to use Bidoof and TM:Evolution to evolve the one Bidoof on the Bench to Bibarel and the one of two Charmanders on the Bench into Charmeleon.
Galvantula ex player on the left at 4:42 uses the Supporter Crispin. He gets one Fighting Energy and one Lightning Energy from Crispin. The Lightning Energy is attached to the active Galavantula ex from Crispin. He knockouts out the right side Bidoof with the second attack. Right side player moves the Pidgeot ex to the Active after her Bidoof got knocked out at 5:44. She cannot play Item cards again as left side player used the second attack.
Female player on right side at around 6:08 evolves the Charmeleon into Charizard ex. This Charizard also has Maximum Belt to do 180 + 60 + 50 = 290 damage to one hit the Galvantula ex. She goes from 5 prize cards to 3 prize cards remaining.
At 6:41 the player on the left does a lot of tasks in further setup. Then at 7:24 the player on the left plays the supporter card Iono. Then he evolves the Active Joltik with one Lightning Energy and one Grass Energy into the Grass Galvanutla. This Galvantula does 360 damage (50 + 50 + 80 then times 2) to one hit knockout the right side player's Charizard ex. Left player on two prize cards remaining vs right player 3 prize cards remaining.
The Charizard ex player on the right gets some setup going. It appears that she uses Pidgeot ex's Quick Search ability to get a Boss's Orders and plays it. Left player's Fezandipiti ex is moved to the active spot. She retreats the Pidgeot ex (free retreat cost) and uses Radiant Charizard with the manual Fire energy attachment for the turn to attack the Fezandipiti ex. Note that the left side player has two Prize cards remaining so Radiant Charizard's attack of 250 damage costs 1 Fire Energy. She goes from 3 prize cards to 1 Prize card remaining.
Left side Galvantula ex player does some setup plays including getting another Lightning Galvantula ex in play. At 10:41, he gets a Boss's Orders in play to target the Charizard ex player's Pidgeot ex. Lightning Galvantula ex knockous the Pidgeot ex for ease and for the game. Pidgeot ex has Lightning weakness so Galvantula does 110 + 110 which is 220 then times 2 for weakness to do 440 damage.
Concluding Thoughts
Here is the decklist from the video. I include a typed out (and translated) decklist.
Pokemon (16)
- Joltik 30 HP x4
- Galvantula (Grass from Night Wanderer) x2
- Galvantula ex (Tera Lightning, Stellar Miracle) x2
- Iron Hands ex x1
- Miraidon ex x1
- Fezandipiti ex x1
- Radiant Greninja x1
- Bidoof x2
- Bibarel x2
Trainer Cards (34)
- Ultra Ball x4
- Buddy Buddy Poffin x4
- Nest Ball x2
- Earthen Vessel x2
- Super Rod x2
- Switch x2
- Counter Catcher x1
- Rescue Board x2
- Sparkling Crystal ACE SPEC x1
- Arven x4
- Iono x4
- Crispin x2
- Boss's Orders x2
- Town Store (Stadium) x2
Energy (10)
- Basic Grass Energy x4
- Basic Lightning Energy x4
- Basic Fighting Energy x2
This decklist is pretty good as an anti Charizard deck. I am not sure how this Galvantula deck does against other decks. The Iron Hands ex there can be good against low HP Pokemon allowing you get an extra Prize card if you knock out with the Amp You Very Much attack. It is hard to meet the energy requirements for Iron Hands ex though. You could switch Iron Hands ex with something like Bloodmoon Ursaluna ex for a late game attacker. Maybe.
Radiant Greninja is a good choice for extra draw power.
Having Fezandipiti ex is good to draw more cards if your Pokemon get knocked out.
Two Super Rod is better than one to put Basic Energy and Pokemon back into your deck.
I am somewhat confused about one copy of Miraidon ex. Two copies could be better to really ensure consistent setup of the Joltiks. Maybe 1 Miraidon ex is okay as you have 4 copies of Buddy Buddy Poffin.
Sparkling Crystal ACE SPEC is the right ACE SPEC card for this deck.
This decklist does have a heavy focus on Tool search cards. We have four copies of Arven and two Town Store Stadiums. Getting the ACE SPEC Sparkling Crystal Tool card looks like a high priority in order to use the Fulgurite attack ASAP and delay evolution decks from using Rare Candy in the next turn.
Thank you for reading.