Discussion Tapu Lele+Brigette combo Substitute

Fenrir Kamiya

Aspiring Trainer
Member
Hi buddys!

I often play in a store near my house and we use a special rule on certains tournaments that neither player can use -EX, -GX, BREAK, Prism Star or Shining cards.

I'm thinking on a way to substitute our standard Tapu lele-GX ==> brigette combo T1.

Any ideias of a consistent way to fill the bench quick on early turns???
(In the tournament I mentioned early, I pretend to use a Garchomp/Lucario deck).

P.S. I'm brazilian, sorry for the bad english.
 

Kietharr

Aspiring Trainer
Member
Nest Balls, Brooklet Hill for decks with W/F basics, Mysterious Treasure for decks with P/N basics, Alolan Vulpix is good for evolution heavy decks, and higher N/Sycamore/Cynthia counts to make up for the lack of ultra ball/Lele pathways to them.

Even with Lele I typically recommend running a Vulpix in Lukechomp since it's stage 1/2 and you need both in play for the deck to work.
 

Fenrir Kamiya

Aspiring Trainer
Member
Nest Balls, Brooklet Hill for decks with W/F basics, Mysterious Treasure for decks with P/N basics, Alolan Vulpix is good for evolution heavy decks, and higher N/Sycamore/Cynthia counts to make up for the lack of ultra ball/Lele pathways to them.

Even with Lele I typically recommend running a Vulpix in Lukechomp since it's stage 1/2 and you need both in play for the deck to work.
Thanks for the tip, i'll try 4 Ultra balls, 2 Nest Balls, 3-3 N/ Sycamore and 4 Cynthia.
 

Sunderaj

Aspiring Trainer
Member
How bad is pokemon Fan Club as a substitute? Or does 2 instead of three make that much of a difference???
 

OppositeAttract

Aspiring Trainer
Member
In addition to other options others have posted, Apricorn Maker seems like it might have some potential. The card lets you search out two cards that have ball in their name and put them into your hand. In a post sycamore/Brigette year that could be beneficial.
 

Attix

Electric Delivery Driver from Washington
Member
How bad is pokemon Fan Club as a substitute? Or does 2 instead of three make that much of a difference???

At casual levels, not really. At World's levels, it's like the difference between a beachfront vacation home in Hawaii and a rundown back-alley shack in Gary, Indiana, at least as far as early-game acceleration and bench-filling is concerned. Still, depending on the deck, it's better than nothing.

As someone else said, a Dunsparce with an attack that's basically Brigette is coming out, although I don't know exactly how practical it will be especially if you go first.
 

WinterShorts

Aspiring Trainer
Member
Option 1: Tapu Lele-GX + Pokémon Fan Club

Not as effective as Tapu Lele-GX + Brigette but you still get basics onto your bench, as well as the fact that you get the benefit of using any abilities that activate when played from the hand like Tapu Koko-GX or GRI Oricorio.

Option 2: Celestial Storm Dunsparce / Ultra Prism Shaymin / Other unknown "Call for Family" effects / attacks.

This is what players have done back in 2004: Use cards like Dunsparce to set up your basics. It's a little flawed nowadays since A. you can't attack on your first turn and immediatley reap the benefits and B. Buzzwole can punch it and give you a hard time (which I realize the card is losing a lot of support after rotation, but one way or another that card is probably still gonna be used).

On the topic of this option, there's a Luvdisc coming in the next set I found particularly interesting. It has an attack for one colorless that gets you benched pokemon equal to the number of your opponents, which in my opinion might make for a good set up pokemon going second. And you can use Brooklet Hill to get it!

Option 3: Hard Draw the basics / search for them individually.

This works in decks that have a lot of search power already like Malamar variants. With 4 Inkays plus 4 Ultra Balls plus 4 Mysterious Treasures = 12 opening cards into an Inkay. Odds are you'll probably run into enough of these openings to get 2 or 3 Inkays on your bench even on the first turn.

There's probably other ways to get bench setup, these are just what was on my mind.
 
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