The Main Attacker

A Deck’s Focus

The Main Attacker is the Pokémon whose primary job is to deal damage to or take damage from the opponent’s active Pokémon. As the focal point of the deck, this Pokémon will directly influence every other card included in the deck. Every Pokémon has strengths and shortcomings, but a Pokémon must be able to bear the brunt of an opponent’s strategy in order to be a viable candidate for taking on the role of main attacker.

A main attacker needs the following attributes in order to be viable in a deck:

1. It must be able to setup quickly.

2. It must be able to trade favorably in the prize trade.

Setup Time

A main attacker needs to be able to be ready to attack first when possible and must always be ready to respond with an attack of its own. The more difficult a Pokémon is to set up, the more potent its attacks, HP, and other utility must be to warrant its role in a deck.

In short, big numbers like high HP and high damage aren’t enough. For example, Charizard VSTAR BRS 18, pictured below, has 280 HP. That’s not bad. It’s enough to withstand a few of the popular attackers in the game. However, Charizard VSTAR’s attack leaves a rather lot to be desired. In the Pokémon Trading Card Game, attacks are often thought of their cost in Energy Attachments—or the number of separate instances energy would need to be attached in order to have sufficient energy to use an attack.

The lower energy cost allows Raging Bolt ex to get out and attacking sooner than Charizard VSTAR would, affording it more flexibility to take knockouts against Pokémon with low remaining HP after one its own player’s Pokémon have been knocked out. Additionally, the option between two different attacks means that the player playing Raging Bolt ex has the choice to discard their hand and draw six fresh cards they can use during their next turn if they don’t need to take a knockout that turn or to go for the damaging option with Bellowing Thunder.

Charizard VSTAR and Raging Bolt ex both have forms of energy acceleration available to them. Charizard VSTAR has energy acceleration in the form of Magma Basin BRS 144 and Raging Bolt ex has energy acceleration available in the form of Professor Sada’s Vitality PAR 170. However, Raging Bolt ex’s lower attack cost makes it less difficult to build up toward attacking after one of them has been knocked out.

In the examples above, Charizard VSTAR is an evolved Pokémon V—specifically a Pokémon VSTAR. Like Stage 1 Pokémon, this means that, from the start of the game, the player who plans to attack with these Pokémon in a deck will need at least two turns of Setup—or the time it takes to go from beginning the game to having a Pokémon that is ready to take knockouts against the opponent’s Pokémon or for the player to be otherwise be ready to execute the deck’s strategy to win. By contrast, Raging Bolt ex is a Basic Pokémon, meaning that its minimum setup time is just a single turn. In the right circumstances, Raging Bolt ex can be attacking the same turn it comes into play! This makes it a significantly faster attacker than Charizard VSTAR and also means that the opponent has less time to knock it out before it is ready to start attacking.

Prize Trade

A main attacker must be able to do enough damage before it is knocked out—either by setting up a knock out for another Pokémon or by taking a knock out of its own. The higher number of prizes a Pokémon gives up when it is knocked out, the higher that damage must be in order to be considered “enough.”

A single-prize Pokémon capable of consistently dealing 160 damage before being knocked out is superior to a two-prize Pokémon of the equivalent evolution stage that also does 160 damage for a similar attack cost. Even if your attacker isn’t taking prizes each time it attacks, it may not necessarily be a loser in the prize race. Setting up knockouts and finishing up knock outs are both common uses for a variety of single prize Pokémon, even in decks that focus around multi-prize Pokémon, like Pokémon ex.

To keep ahead in the prize race, your stream of attackers must give up fewer prize cards than your opponent’s when knocked out—or must avoid being knocked out so that they don’t give up prize cards in the first place.

Card Counts

When considering the inclusion of any Pokémon in a deck, it is important to maximize the deck’s consistency by carefully considering its Line—the number of cards included for all necessary stages of evolution for a Pokémon.

Below are a few common examples of Pokémon lines for Main Attackers, based on their stage of evolution.

Because the Main Attacker is often the most important Pokémon in any deck, it receives a great deal of priority for card Count—or the number of copies of a particular card included in a deck. The more copies of a particular card included in your deck, the more likely you are to draw into it when you need it. Your most important cards should always have their counts as high as possible. Having higher counts of your important cards decreases your chance of Whiffing—or failing to draw into—a critical card when trying to draw into it. (But don’t forget the Rule of Four!)

When speaking of Pokémon lines, it is common to refer to them as in the examples below:

“A 4-3 line of Quagsire”

“A 4-0-4 line of Bellossom”

In the first example, the speaker is referring to four copies of the Basic Pokémon (Wooper) and three copies of the Stage 1 Pokémon, Quagsire. In the second example, the speaker is referring to four copies of the Basic Pokémon (Oddish), zero copies of the Stage 1 (Gloom), and 4 copies of the Stage 2 Pokémon, Bellossom. Including fewer copies of the Stage 1 than of the Stage 2 also tells us that the speaker includes an Item Card called Rare Candy in their deck.

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