Searching Standard: Misty's Gyarados

Hello and welcome to another episode of Searching Standard, where each and every week I look for new, innovative decks for you to play in Standard. This week, I'm looking at a deck that was recently featured on the YouTube channel of LittleDarkFury. It features Misty's Gyarados DRI 49, a Pokemon capable of dealing up to 490 damage with a single attack. Let's get started by taking a look at the deck list.

Misty's Gyarados
LittleDarkFury
Pokemon
  1 Fezandipiti ex 38
  4 Misty's Gyarados 49
  3 Misty's Lapras 50
  4 Misty's Magikarp 48
  4 Misty's Psyduck 45
  2 Misty's Starmie 47
  3 Misty's Staryu 46
Trainers
  3 Academy at Night 54
  4 Buddy-Buddy Poffin 144
  4 Kofu 138
  4 Lana's Aid 155
  1 Max Rod 116
  2 Miriam 179
  4 Night Stretcher 61
  4 Professor's Research 122
  4 Sacred Ash 168
  2 Super Rod 188
Energy
  7 Basic Water Energy

With just a single Energy attached, you can use Misty's Gyarados DRI 49's Splashing Panic attack. You'll then discard the top 7 cards from your deck into your discard pile, dealing 70 damage to your opponent's Active Pokemon for each Misty's Pokemon you discarded with this attack. Keep this attack in mind when placing Pokemon onto your Bench, as you'll want to keep a lot of Misty's Pokemon in your deck for maximum effectiveness. Misty's Psyduck DRI 45 is a great exception to this, as you'll want to play them to your Bench so you can activate their Flustered Leap Ability to put them on the top of your deck, ensuring some amount of controllable damage when using Misty's Gyarados DRI 49's Splashing Panic attack.

Misty's Lapras DRI 50 is a good Pokemon to play early, as you can use its Swim Together attack to find 3 Misty's Pokemon from your deck to put into your hand. This can be a great way to find any missing Misty's Gyarados DRI 49 or Misty's Magikarp DRI 48 that you need to get things rolling. Misty's Starmie DRI 47 also has an attack that only requires 1 Energy to use, but it and Misty's Staryu DRI 46 are best left as Pokemon to find when using Misty's Gyarados DRI 49's Splashing Panic attack.

Fezandipiti ex SFA 38 is only included in this deck as a way of drawing extra cards with the use of its Flip the Script Ability. There should never be a time that you'll want to power up its Cruel Arrow attack, as it requires too much of an Energy commitment.

Both Miriam SVI 179 and Sacred Ash DRI 168 allow you to shuffle up to 5 Pokemon from your discard pile back into your deck. Miriam SVI 179 also offers a little bit of card draw, but you'll have to hope that those Pokemon you just put back stay in the deck instead of being drawn into your hand. Super Rod PAL 188 lets you shuffle back any 3 Pokemon or Basic Energy into your deck. All of these are great ways to get additional damage with Misty's Gyarados DRI 49's Splashing Panic attack a second time.

By playing Lana's Aid TWM 155, you'll get to put any combination of up to 3 Basic Energy cards or Pokemon that don't have a Rule Box from your discard pile into your hand. You can then, on a future turn, play Kofu SCR 138 to put any 2 cards from your hand onto the bottom of your deck and draw 4 cards. Academy at Night SFA 54 is another way for you to put cards from your hand into your deck. You can use it once per turn to put any card from your hand on top of your deck.

Max Rod PRE 116 is the ACE SPEC for this deck. It allows you to put up to 5 Pokemon or Basic Energy cards from your discard pile into your hand. Night Stretcher SFA 61 does the same thing, but it only returns 1 card instead of up to 5.

The final pair of Trainer cards are staples found in most Standard decks. Buddy-Buddy Poffin TEF 144 helps you find a pair of Basic Pokemon with 70 HP or less from your deck. They'll go to your Bench, so this can be a great way of finding a pair of Misty's Psyduck DRI 45. Then we have a playset of Professor's Research PRE 122, the best method of drawing additional cards in Standard.

Wrapping Up

While the damage you'll deal with Misty's Gyarados DRI 49's Splashing Panic attack might be randomly decided, this deck has a few ways of mitigating that luck. Being able to Knock Out any opposing Pokemon with a single attack shouldn't be overlooked, even if the damage is determined randomly.

What do you think of this deck? Do you have any suggestions for improvements? Let me know by leaving a comment below. And be sure to join me here again next week as I continue my search for innovative decks in the Pokemon TCG. I'll see you then!

- Mike Likes