Wildfire-Dot-Deck (TCG)

The Wildfire-Dot-Deck is a type deck found in the Pokémon Trading Card Game Fossil Expansion Player's Guide. The deck is classified as one of the tournament winning decks, containing more rare cards and strategy than other easy-to-build decks.

Description

CONCEPTS: Here's a Stall deck with an obscure name. It's derived from Moltres' unique attack move along with the necessary filename extension that a certain online card game program adds: "Wildfire.dec". Stall is definitely the name of the game with Wildfire. Stall long enough to bring up a horrendously over-energized Moltres to K-O the opponent's deck in dying blow.

TIPS FOR PLAYING: As far as monsters in a stalling deck go, Chansey is the de-facto standard for slowing down an opponent's onslaught of attacks. With 120 Hit Points, it is the single biggest Basic Pokémon in the game. Scrunch is really the only attack move that should be utilized in this deck—The goal is to completely deprive your opponent of prize cards, and the self inflicted damage that Chansey's Double-edge attack entails is too detrimental. Only use Double-edge in extreme situations where an opponent's K-O will seriously hurt their long term performance (if they have invested al their energy onto the defending Pokémon or if their defending Pokémon is their only in-play monster for example.)

Scyther works remarkably well in stall decks because of its inherently large quantity of Hit Points for a basic Pokémon and the mobility that a free retreat provides. In addition, any Fighting type opponents will have a difficult time breaking through Scyther's resistance. Preferably you can get multiple Scythers in play in order to totally abuse their free retreats, and fill your bench with multiple rounds of your opponent's attacks. Once your Scythers have had their fill it's time to bring in a few scrunching Chanseys, and eventually wipe the whole board clean with just one of your multiple Pokémon Center healing cards.

Moltres has a dual use in "Wildfire-dot-deck". The obvious function for this card is the Wildfire attack move. IN fact, at least one of these legendary birds should be safe on your bench getting primed with Fire energy cards through most of the game. Wildfire is the ultimate "closer" for depleting your opponent's draw pile. However, additional copies of Moltres can be used for damage sponges when Chansey is hiding or when its Fighting resistance can be put to use. 70 Hit Points is not too shabby and should buy you a few rounds of time. Any Fire energy cards placed on Moltres are best used on a Wildfire attack, so avoid trying to retreat too often. Use Scoop Up as an effective means to get MOltres out of battle and cheat your opponent out of a Prize card they desperately trying to earn.

Trainer cards included here to support the Stall theme include Gambler, Energy Removal, Super Energy Removal, and Pokémon Center. Gambler is genuinely risky to rely on when you really need new cards, but in a stall deck, it takes on an all-new purpose—it can actually increase the size of your draw pile. Since every card in your hand is put back into your deck with Gambler, you should have to worry about depleting your deck faster than your opponent depletes their deck. If you do get "lucky" and draw 8 cards, you better make sure that your opponent has used at least 1 Professor Oak to keep your library the tallest.

Stall decks only work well when a significant number of the opponent's attack rounds can be voided through the Stall player's actions. After multiple turns of taking beatings, use up one of the four Pokémon Center cards in this deck to "Start over". It is imperative that the solitary Moltres you are priming for a crushing Wildfire attack is completely damage free before using Pokémon Center! The Center requires the discard of all energy cards attached to monsters that it heals. However, if no damage counters exist on one of your Pokémon (and so Pokémon Center heals no damage to that monster) you are not required to discard any of its energy. If even a single damage counter is resident on the energy-laden Moltres, be sure to advance it for an early Wildfire. Make the most of this energy before the Pokémon Center tosses it.

Use Energy Removal and Super Energy Removal to discard key resources off of the most damaging of the other player's Pokémon. Try to select Double Colorless Energy cards or specific color energy that the opponent's attacker will be useless without it. It will be impossible to totally deprive the opposition from enough energy to put on some kind of an offensive, so be prepared with scrunching Chanseys, treating Scythers, and Scooped Up Moltres.

PITFALLS: Big-daddy, tournament-champion Haymaker should have plenty of trouble with Wildfire-dot-deck. Two-thirds of the Pokémon in this deck are resistant to Fighting, and if absolutely necessary, Moltres' Dvie Bomb attack can dispatch a pesky Scyther or two along the way. However, the other big deck archetype to fear—Rain Dance—will rip this deck apart. Wildfire-dot-deck is just to slow and too shallow to handle the beatings that a good mono-Water deck can inflict. In this situation it's best to hold your Energy Removal cards in your hand until you are certain the opponent has selected their prime attacker. Luckily for Wildfire, most Rain Dance decks make heavy use of Professor Oak to get what they need, so the number of rounds you need to stall for should be drastically reduced Hold fast and play smart!

Deck list

Quantity	Card	Type
4×	Moltres
4×	Chansey
4×	Scyther
3×	Gambler	T
2×	Energy Retrieval	T
2×	Item Finder	T
3×	Scoop Up	T
4×	Energy Removal	T
4×	Super Energy Removal	T
4×	Pokémon Center	T
22×	Fire Energy	E
4×	Double Colorless Energy	E

This article is part of Project TCG, a Bulbapedia project that aims to report on every aspect of the Pokémon Trading Card Game.