Venomoth – Pokémon TCG Highlander

Fast in flight and quick with an arsenal of adaptive play and defenses, Venomoth’s Shinobi-Style in Highlander brings a wide range of tricks to help you win the game.

Strategy Points:

• “Dangerous Scales” creates a guaranteed trap for opponent’s to consider whenever their Pokémon damages Venomoth. This includes Pokémon that do spread damage while Venomoth is on the bench.
  • If you have Virbank City Gym, Weezing, Butterfree – Level X, and Shiinotic, you can quickly dial up the damage between turns, creating knock out scenarios after your opponent attack.
  • You can run Rocky Helmet and Nidoking to add up even more counter damage.
• “Shift” allows for a wide range of options for Venomoth:
  • Not only does Scovillain allow for Venomoth to shift to a Fire Type, but “Double Type” allows for Fire Energy to work for “Disturbance Dive.”
  • There is a wide range of fully evolved Basic Pokémon you can run that provides a lot of utility for your deck, without having to play their respective Energy types:
    • Dodrio (Colorless) to give Venomoth a free retreat cost.
    • Absol (Darkness) to quickly move around damage counters for big knock out plays.
    • Druddigon (Dragon) as a revenge killer.
    • Tapu Koko (Fairy) as a free retreating pivot that can provide crucial spread damage for knock outs later in the game.
    • Relicanth (Fighting) as a reliable consistency Pokémon that can lock EXs with Dangerous Scales.
    • Victini (Fire) to provide increased coin flip reliability, which helps with running Pokemon like Maractus and Vespiquen
    • Plusle (Lightning) which grants you great draw power and Energy recycling for your deck.
    • Genesect (Metal) makes for swift board set ups thanks to “Call for Family” searching for Grass Types.
    • Hoopa (Psychic) to quickly search out Pokémon that Venomoth can combo with, which also allows for more type options to be played from your opponent that Venomoth can also copy. Pay attention to potential branched out Weaknesses and Resistances that your opponent might play here.
    • Phione (Water) helps quickly evolve your Pokémon while providing reliable Trainer card recovery.
  • Kecleon’s “Colorful Body” Poké-Body allows Venomoth become every type. This does mean that you will always hit for Weakness and Resistance (unless those get removed.) You can run Vileplume, Tropius, and Supereffective Glasses to further increase your damage.
    • Cherrim’s “Sunny Day” provides a great +10 damage for Venomoth as well as providing crucial healing with “Sunny Heal” for Kecleon to keep “Colorful Body” active.
  • “Disturbance Dive” provides great reliable damage and layers of protection, stopping an assortment of Special Conditions and Energy Removal on Venomoth.
  • “Radar Eyes” allow for crucial card retrieval upon your first turn if you start with Venonant. While “Flop” allows for Venomoth to use a Double Colorless Energy with Shrine of Memories or Memory Berry to do damage with previously mentioned modifiers.
• Venomoth – Level X:
• “Wondrous Illusion” is a dangerous lock that will make opponent’s careful if they need to continuously stream cards with their Supporters. Using Red Card, Delinquent, and Tsareena’s “Queenly Majesty” makes your opponent’s possibilities to play a Supporter dire.
  • Hit and Run strategies with Pokemon like Accelgor, Frosmoth, and Maractus, provides strong combo cycles that keeps the lock of “Wondrous Illusion” with the potential counter attacking threat of “Dangerous Scales.”
• “Strike While Sick” has a requisite that can be quickly met with “Dangerous Scales”, “Miracle Aroma” from Venusaur, “Hot Poison” from Salazzle, “Poisonous Nest” from Ariados, and “Sporprise” from Amoongus.
  • Applying Weakness and Resistance to Benched Pokémon creates the potential one hit knock out range to 100 damage, before applying spread damage with Poké-Powers from Decidueye and Meowscarada.