Mid-Range in the Base-Fossil Format

Decks in Base-Fossil: Mid-Range

Mid-range decks aren't quite like the other decks in the format. You've got your dedicated offensive decks, your dedicated defensive decks, your offbeat rogue decks, but then you've got mid-range. The archetype that's neither here nor there.

A good mid-range deck lets you get the best of both worlds, featuring a mix of power and tankiness that you can't get out of the more dedicated playstyles.

Step In

Dragonite is the quintessential mid-range card. It hits pretty hard, has a low retreat cost, and has pretty high HP. But most importantly, it has a Pokémon Power just dripping with potential.

Are you stuck in the active with a high retreat cost and no energy? Step In. Do you need to get rid of a pesky status ailment? Step In. Do you just really like dragons? Step In.

Dragonite is the glue that holds the deck together, regardless of what you partner it with.

KangaNite is a classic combo. Kangaskhan loves soaking up hits and drawing cards to help you set up your Evolutions, but it's not uncommon for it to get stuck in the active with nothing to do.

Dragonite fixes that problem. As soon as you're done building up your bench, you can swap Kangaskhan out for a healthy dragon and start pounding away at your opponent. Bonus points if you have Dodrio in play, since this will give Dragonite a free retreat cost if it ever needs to step back out.

Vileplume is the Dragonite partner for non-conformists. It's definitely not optimal, but the allure of hitting 80+ damage without having to deal with the downside of Petal Dance is always going to turn some heads.

By abusing Dragonite, Switch, and Full Heal, you can safely use the powerful attacks that Gloom and Vileplume come with and never have to deal with the pesky self-confusion effects. But you are running multiple Stage 2 lines in a single deck, so don't go thinking this is going to be smooth sailing.

Energy Trans

Otherwise known as the VenuCenter deck, this deck hits hard and takes hits almost as well as a dedicated stall deck. If you had said that Venusaur might be as good as Rain Dance in 1999 you would've been laughed out of the room, but in the modern Base-Fossil format? You could make a compelling case.

The deck really started to take off when players realized that Exeggutor is ultimately a noob trap. Venusaur doesn't even need a secondary attacker, but if you do want to use one, then you should prioritize something that doesn't share a weakness with it, like Kangaskhan.

It's impossible to talk about Venusaur without talking about Pokémon Center. There's a reason the deck is called VenuCenter. Similar to the loophole that Damage Swap uses, the idea is to just move all of your energy off of your damaged 'mons. Since you only need to remove energy from cards that were actually healed, you end up with all your energy and none of the damage.

This gives the deck an absolutely unreasonable amount of longevity, especially since Venusaur itself has a whopping 100 HP.

The high cost of Solar Beam means that this isn't really a deck that you can turbo through with Pokémon Breeder, so it's usually better to just add in the copies of Ivysaur and evolve up the old-fashioned way.

But Ivysaur isn't just a mandatory inclusion. It's recommended to keep one Ivysaur in play if you already have a Venusaur, since it can counter Mr. Mime's obnoxious Invisible Wall ability with Poisonpowder.

Its HP is painfully low, but at least it has a low retreat cost.

Boyfriends

There will be players who say that Boyfriends belongs in the rogue category, or maybe that it shouldn't even be mentioned. But frankly, I think the deck can be viable if played conservatively. There's a strong temptation to turbo through your deck in a crazed attempt to fill your bench with as many Nidoking as possible, but you don't actually have to do that.

If you get even just one Nidoking in play, then Nidoqueen can do 40 damage on turn 2, the same as Mewtwo. This is a deck that actually functions better if you play it methodically and let the progress happen organically. The worst case scenario is resorting to Toxic, which honestly isn't a horrible backup plan.

If Nidoking is in the active spot, things probably didn't go according to plan. But Nidoking is at least not a terrible Stage 2, and it can close out a game when it absolutely needs to.

This is also a deck that benefits greatly from Double Colorless Energy, since almost every member of the Nido family has an attack that can be accelerated with it. Unfortunately, sharing a weakness to Psychic really kills any momentum this deck might have had. Sprinkling in a Psychic resist like Lickitung or Kangaskhan can certainly help, but you'll always be aware of how limited your deck space is.

I consider 4 copies of Breeder to be a no brainer for this deck, personally. The middle Evolutions aren't super compelling and the Stage 2's are actually capable of attacking on turn 2 with proper energy management. Breeder is also easy to retrieve from your discard pile, so you don't have to protect it in your hand the way you would an actual Evolution card.

I'm not going to pretend this deck is up there with Rain Dance and Energy Trans. That would be heresy. But it can hold its own against the underdogs of the format and deserves a second chance. It's just very, very hard to build and pilot this deck, since it kind of wants you to go fast and slow at the same time.

Closing Thoughts

Mid-range decks should have theoretically been easier to come by, but Super Energy Removal chokes all but the best evolutionary lines out of the format. Cards like Machamp and Beedrill aren't exactly worthless per se, but they struggle to get anything done on a consistent basis.

It's a little sad, because these jack-of-all-trade style decks are incredibly rewarding to master. But it is what it is, and honestly it's impressive that the Base-Fossil format is playable at all, considering how degenerate the Trainer Cards are.