Searching Standard: Scovillain EX

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 Scovillain ex TEF 22 alongside a bunch of different ways to mess with your opponent's plans. Let's get started by taking a look at the deck list.

Scovillain ex TEF 22 is the main attacker for this deck. Most often, you'll want to attack with its Two-Headed Crushing attack, which will deal 140 damage. It also allows you to discard a random card from your opponent's hand and the top card of your opponent's deck. This allows you to disrupt their future plans, making it difficult for them to plan for upcoming turns.

As a means of drawing extra cards, this deck relies on the Bibarel BRS 121 / Skwovet SVI 151 engine. If you have a handful of cards that aren't all that helpful, you can shuffle them to the bottom of your deck with Skwovet SVI 151's Nest Stash Ability. Then, you can draw until you have five cards in your hand with Bibarel BRS 121's Industrious Incisors Ability. By doing this each turn, you can quickly cycle through your deck to find the cards you need.

Manaphy BRS 41 serves one purpose in this deck: to keep your Benched Pokemon safe from taking damage when your opponent's Active Pokemon attacks. While its Wave Veil Ability can be useful, there's no way for Manaphy BRS 41 to attack, so you'll want to move it back to your Bench as soon as possible if it gets moved to your Active Spot.

Since your plan is to mess with your opponent's hand, there are a couple of great Trainer cards in this deck that help with that plan. Grabber MEW 162 lets you look at your opponent's hand and then discard a Pokemon from it. Similarly, Eri TEF 146 also lets you see your opponent's hand and discard up to two Item cards from it. Be sure to make a mental note of the cards you see that are left in your opponent's hand, so you'll know what to expect from them on future turns.

Both Crushing Hammer SVI 168 and Giovanni's Charisma MEW 161 remove an Energy from your opponent's Pokemon, albeit in different ways. Crushing Hammer SVI 168 is dependent on a coin flip to discard an Energy, but it can be used on any Pokemon. Giovanni's Charisma MEW 161 simply puts an Energy card attached to your opponent's Active Pokemon back into their hand, but it also allows you to attach an Energy card from your hand to your Active Pokemon. So you decrease the amount of Energy they have, while accelerating your Energy at the same time.

Roxanne ASR 150 is only playable if your opponent has three or fewer Prize cards remaining, but she definitely works well in this deck. By forcing your opponent to draw a new hand of only two cards, you remove a lot of the options they may have had, and you can further limit their options when you attack with Scovillain ex TEF 22's Two-Headed Crushing attack. Technical Machine: Devolution PAR 177 acts as a safety valve against decks relying on Stage 2 Evolutions that use Rare Candy to evolve.

To make Scovillain ex TEF 22 more of a nuisance, you can attach Hero's Cape TEF 152 to it to bring its HP up to 360. This will make it capable of withstanding multiple attacks in most cases. Alternatively, you can attach Rigid Band MEW 165 to it, preventing 30 points of damage from each attack against it.

If discarding cards from your opponent's hand isn't enough disruption, this deck also has Iono PAL 185 and Judge SVI 176 for you to utilize. Judge SVI 176 will always reset you and your opponent's hand to four cards, while Iono PAL 185 resets each players'

hand to the number of Prize cards they have remaining. By lowering the number of cards your opponent has in their hand, you make it easier to randomly discard things of importance.

Both Boss’s Orders PAL 172 and Counter Catcher PAR 160 offer you the means of choosing one of your opponent's Benched Pokemon to attack. A single copy of Switch SVI 194 is included so you have a free way of moving a Pokemon back to the safety of your Bench, or moving a fully powered Pokemon to your Active Spot.

Every deck uses some Trainer cards to help find the Pokemon you need from within your deck. Buddy-Buddy Poffin TEF 144 and Nest Ball SVI 181 are both great ways to find Basic Pokemon, while Ultra Ball SVI 196 can be used to find any Pokemon you need, regardless of whether it's Basic or Evolved.

Since this deck only plans on attacking with Evolved Pokemon, playing Pokémon League Headquarters OBF 192 will only negatively affect your opponent. The final pair of cards, Earthen Vessel PAR 163 and Super Rod PAL 188, are found in most Standard decks as a way of ensuring that you have the Energy needed to make your attacks, and to recycle some cards that have gone to your discard pile. Give those Energy or Pokemon cards another chance to make an impact on the game.

Wrapping Up

While Scovillain ex TEF 22 might not hit the hardest, playing against this deck can be quite annoying. By making it so that your opponent isn't sure of exactly what cards they will have in their hand next turn, you can force your opponent to over play their cards, which can certainly give you an advantage. If you like causing your opponent a bit of grief, give this deck a try!

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