Heavy Metal - Klinklang / Cobalion-EX for 2013 German Nationals (BW-on)

Hey everyone! Over the course of the past few weeks, I spent some time to rebuilt interesting and successful decks from the past. With the help of Cardmarket’s awesome Wants Lists feature, I managed to get my hands on the missing cards in almost no time. Today it’s time for Klinklang / Cobalion - a more unique deck that I among some teammates played for 2013 German Nationals.

With the release of Plasma Freeze, a couple of interesting cards became legal for tournament play and redefined the metagame right from the start. Kyurem, Thundurus-EX and Deoxys-EX formed the new “Team Plasma” archetype that was able to hit hard as early as turn 1. Darkrai-EX found a powerful one-prize partner in Absol. Blastoise became viable again thanks to Superior Energy Retrieval. Last but not least, Garbodor got its new favorite tool Float Stone.

Klinklang did not receive any useful cards except Float Stone, but the metagame seemed to shift towards being even more Pokémon-EX centered. Karl predicted that shift and told us about his take on Klinklang. Unlike the previous Klinklang decks that focused on moving around Energies to attackers of multiple types, Karl’s version was pure Metal. 4 Cobalion-EX, 1 Cobalion NVI and 2 of each Klinklang, that’s it.

Obviously, this deck was not designed to hit hard. The goal was to setup Klinklang PLS as early as possible to protect all Pokémon from attacks of Pokémon-EX. Most decks played a maximum of 1 or 2 single-prize attackers, if any. None of them were able to OHKO a Cobalion-EX or a Klinklang.

Karl’s list was basically a 4-of-everything. 4 Tropical Beach, 4 Heavy Ball, 4 Rare Candy, 4 Max Potion, 4 Colress and 4 N. Professor Juniper wasn’t included because the deck couldn’t afford wasting resources when setting up. Pokémon Catcher and Tool Scrapper were useful against Garbodor decks.

Dennis and I made Day 2 at 2013 German Nationals with Klinklang (see the bracket on Challonge). Top 16 marked the end of the tournament for both of us, though. My Top 16 match vs. the eventual runner-up Joshua and his Darkrai-EX/Absol deck was extremely close. I won the first game despite a prize loss for “marked” Computer Search and Klinklang BW that had curled overnight. Game 2 went to time – Joshua flipped Heads on a Hypnotoxic Laser, I flipped Tails on sleep check and topdecked the wrong card of 3 left in deck. Sudden Death and the dreaded “N to 1” knocked Klinklang’s light out.