“Squid Games” - Malamar is a 1- Prize Beast!

Top of the morning everybody! I hope you’re all having a great time enjoying Fall wherever you are in the world - the trees are turning colors, the day is getting darker earlier, and singe Prize Card Pokemon (“single Prizers”) are coming out to play! It’s a VMAX eat VMAX world out there, and in order to get ahead in a game, you’ll need to have an efficient Prize Trade. The Prize Trade refers to how quickly you can draw Prize Cards as opposed to our opponent - if you can OHKO their VMAXs turn after turn, you can draw three Prize Cards every turn. If your opponent can only OHKO your single Prizer each turn, they will only draw one Prize Card per turn; this means you would win the game far quicker than them provided you don’t hit any stumbles. Unfortunately, one of the main snags of single Prize decks is that they tend to be less consistent than other pokemon online decks. Malamar　, however, is a deck that spends the first few turns investing in the long game so that it can take big OHKOs very consistently. This reason makes it one of my favorite single Prize deck and is part of the reason why we’re going to talk about it today. Without further adieu, let’s get into Malamar　!

I booted up my Pokemon Trading Card Game Online app, loaded up some PTCGO codes, and then traded those Pokemon online codes to trade for this deck. I was very excited, and it honestly didn’t take that many PTCGL codes to make the deck. If you’re looking to buy some codes, we sell them here on PTCGO Store, and I highly urge you to check out our competitive pricing and swift delivery! Let’s talk about the newest way to play Malamar today!

The main strategy behind Malamar is to setup a board state that is like a train: once it gets going, it won’t be able to be stopped. We can do this by investing into our board by setting up multiple Cinccino, an オクタン, and of course, have at least two Inkay/Malamar　 in play at all times. The reason why we need at least two Inkay/Malamar in play is that if we only had one and it got KO’d on our opponent’s turn, we wouldn’t have a follow-up attacker for at least one additional turn because Inkay needs a turn to evolve.

Cincinno and オクタン aid us in drawing cards into our hands to fuel Malamar’s Rapid Strike Tentacles attack. We usually will use Octillery for a Korrina’s Focus to draw up until we have six cards in hand, and then follow up with a couple of Make Do's to draw into what we need. This combination will usually get us to an 8-10 card hand, and then take big KOs on opposing VMAXs! This combination makes Malamar　 one of the strongest single Prize Pokémon in the entire format. Let’s take a look at a list for Rapid Strike Malamar!

4 Inkay CRE 69

4 Malamar CRE 70

4 Remoraid BST 36

3 オクタン BST 37

3 Minccino SSH 145

3 Cinccino SSH 147

4 Bruno BST 121

4 Korrina's Focus BST 128

4 Level Ball BST 129　

4 Evolution Incense SSH 163　

4 Fog Crystal CRE 140　

4 Great Ball CPA 52

2 Rescue Carrier EVS 154

2 Scoop Up Net RCL 165　

2 Ordinary Rod SSH 171　

1 Pal Pad SSH 172

2 Tower of Waters BST 138

4 Spiral Energy CRE 159

2 Psychic Energy 5

4-4 Rapid Strike Malamar - The main attacker in our deck! Malamar　 is a Stage 1 Psychic-type attacker, meaning it can hit Goliath Pokémon like Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX for a ton of damage. 120 HP may not seem like a lot of HP, however, it can escape an OHKO from G-Max Rapid Flow because of its resistance, which is -30 damage from Fighting-types. Regardless of this little buffer, most of the time our Malamar is going to be getting hit for enough damage usually for it to be OHKO’d. That means turn after turn, we will have to set up a new attacker to replace the old one. That being said, Malamar onlyrequires single energy to attack, and it can hit 40 damage for each Rapid Strike Pokemon we shuffle into our deck from our hand. This means we can go from having no damage on an opposing VMAX to an OHKO! It’s important to note that both the Inkay and Malamar　 are Rapid Strike Pokemon that fuel the Rapid Strike Tentacles attack. Let’s see how we’ve built the rest of our deck around this Pokémon to support Malamar’s crazy attack.

4-3 Rapid Strike Octillery - オクタン is one of the few board pieces that help us to continuously fuel our Rapid Strike Tentacles attack. Rapid Strike Search allows us to skim through our deck and add any Rapid Strike card into our hand. This means it can either be +40 damage by holding that card in our hand, it can help us set up more attackers, or it could even get us a draw Support like Korrina’s Focus to allow us to draw until we have six cards in hand; this usually results in us drawing many Rapid Strike cards! Octillery’s ability can only be used once per turn, meaning it isn’t valuable to setup multiple Octillery. That being said, we play such a thick lineup so that we can draw into the pieces while setting up, and to also draw into them later to use with our attack. Keep in mind: each of the Remoraid and オクタン cards in our deck have Rapid Strike printed onto them, meaning they can fuel Rapid Strike Tentacles!

3-3 Cincinno – Cincinno has been around for what feels like forever, initially gaining traction within the infamous Oranguru/Control deck from just over a year ago. This card is centered all-around supporting other Pokemon within your deck and aims to aid your Rapid Strike Tentacles attack. Cinccino can help setup your board at any point in the game, mostly helping you to draw into important cards such as Inkay and perhaps Energy Cards. Cinccino can be setup by cards such as Level Ball because it is a low HP Pokemon. Its attack, Energy Assist, can hit for 40 damage and help by attaching energy to one of your other Pokemon. This attack is cool because it can be used to soften up a VMAX Pokemon (or perhaps even finish off a KO). This is one of the cornerstones of your deck and is a staple on your bench. I’d aim to setup two of these on your bench.

2 Rescue Carrier – This card was printed in our most recent expansion, Evolving Skies, and I think it’s one of the best inclusions within our deck. It can help to recover multiple Inkay from the discard pile while simultaneously giving you the ability to get more Rapid Strike Pokemon into your hand for extra damage with Malamar’s Rapid Strike Tentacles. Rescue Carrier is also a compound card, meaning it gives more value than the space it takes up within your deck; you can grab two Pokemon back with Carrier, meaning that you’ve made a positive exchange (playing a single copy of Rescue Carrier to obtain two Pokemon). Cards like this are amazing in pokemon online decks that require you to dish out hefty amounts of resources to do lots of damage. Another example of a compound card similar to this one would be Fire Crystal within Blacephalon UNB decks. They got back multiple Energy Cards for the cost of playing a single card from your hand – these cards can make or break decks!

2 Ordinary Rod – This card is most vital because it can recover Psychic Energy from your discard pile which can then be searched by Fog Crystal. Ordinary Rod is important for cycling through attackers or potentially recovering your support Pokemon (like オクタン and Cinccino).

2 Tower of Waters – This card on paper doesn’t seem too amazing, but in practice, it has been one of the most important cards in my opinion! Having a Stadium card that offers mobility is vital to our strategy. Tower of Waters is searchable via オクタン at any point in the game and can help us get our attacker into the active slot. Tower of Waters is a Rapid Strike card, meaning it can contribute to hitting high numbers with Malamar　.

4 Korrina’s Focus – This is a searchable Supporter via Octillery’s ability. You’re usually going to use this card after you’ve used Rapid Strike Tentacles and depleted your hand down to a low amount. Korrina will help you draw until you have a full hand of six cards – afterward, you can use Cincinno’s Make Do ability to draw huge amounts of cards. Korrina is a Rapid Strike Supporter, meaning it can fuel Malamar’s attack.

1 Pal Pad – An essential card for getting back additional copies of Korrina’s Focus because this deck goes through that Supporter very quickly. Pal Pad can also get back additional copies of Bruno for a more aggressive draw strategy.

2 Scoop Up Net – This card holds a dual purpose for our deck – first off, Scoop Up Net allows us to have mobility for our Pokemon, especially those that can’t abuse Tower of Waters. It also functions as a damage booster for us because it can pick up Rapid Strike Pokemon, allowing us to have more cards to fuel our Rapid Strike Tentacles with. In some cases, it can be both a pivot card and a damage booster simultaneously in the same turn! It’s a unique card that is necessary in our deck.

4 Spiral Energy – Spiral Energy is a very weird inclusion in our deck because it is a Special Energy card that doesn’t serve our deck any other purpose than as to provide Psychic Energy. So you may ask, “why not just play a Psychic Energy”? It’s because Spiral Energy actually is a Rapid Strike card, which means two things:

It also has the added caveat that it can negate any paralysis inflicted by the opponent. The card can’t be shuffled in with Ordinary Rod, however, the perks of this card make up for it in a big way.

This deck is one of the most fun pokemon online decks to play in the format, and it really stands a chance against almost anything it its path provided you setup. If you like trading efficiently with Pokémon V and VMAX then I highly urge you to try out this deck. This deck doesn’t require too many PTCGL codes because it only needs a few cards from the new expansion, so it’s perfect for beginners. I’d suggest nabbing some PTCGO codes and building this deck online because this deck will only get stronger. Until next time, have fun!

 

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