Ushering in the Year with a Blazer of Glory
• "We want to gather data that will help us protect the Ultra Beasts. If you would accept the Blacephalon as your partners, it would be of great assistance to us. Oh, and for the record, it seems there are at least three Blacephalon." ~ Dulse, Ultra Sun
Today’s Card of the Month is Blacephalon from Unbroken Bonds, a Pokémon that holds a warm place in my heart. In fact, Blacephalon was my first competitive deck. I built my first Blacephalon list coming off of a disastrous experiment with a Vikavolt V / Honchkrow GX / Malamar VMAX deck that was supposed to be the world’s next Seismitoad EX / Giratina EX, and my use of “Baby Blowns” marked the beginning of my interest in playing what better players were playing rather than reinventing the wheel each time I designed a deck or just using whatever I had at hand.
The nickname “Baby Blowns” stems from two Pokénese roots: “Baby,” which is slang for “single prize” (not to be mistaken for the TCG mechanic “baby” or the informal class of Pokémon “baby”), and “Blowns,” a nickname for the first Blacephalon deck, the runner-up at the 2019 World Championships.
Despite being worth one more prize, Blacephalon GX still had some advantages in the 2019 Worlds format. For one thing, the 2017 sets (officially the “A” block in Japan) were rotated out before Worlds rather than after, cutting into the consistency of the format by removing staples like Nest Ball and Ultra Ball. Pokémon Communication was the best the format could offer “Baby Blowns”, while Blacephalon GX could use Cherish Ball to search for its star attacker and Mysterious Treasure to search for (and set up) the Naganadel. For another thing, Blacephalon GX could live off the board more effectively in a format with Judge and Reset Stamp (a one-sided N on an item card). You could attach Energy from your hand with Welder, but you could also attach it from your discard pile with Naganadel or your deck with Beast Ring. Mysterious Treasure, Heat Factory Prism Star and Dedenne GX all let you discard Energy from your hand for reattachment and added consistency, rewarding you for dumping cards when Baby Blowns forced you to hold on to as many resources as humanly possible. In short, Blacephalon GX let you go with the flow of the best consistency options rather than fight against the grain. Finally, thanks to its ability to utilize Beast Ring, Blacephalon GX could rely less on Welder and effectively utilize draw supporters such as Cynthia later in the game, whereas in Baby Blowns, consistency supporters were a means to an end:
However, the benefits of being worth only one prize won out. Baby Blowns took second place at the Paris Special Event and continued to see play throughout the 2020 season.
Source: Joshua Vanoverschelde - 2nd Place Paris Special Event
View other decks from the 2019 Worlds format here.
By Cosmic Eclipse, Blacephalon’s worst enemy (Malamar) was on the decline. Stéphane Ivanoff cites the rise of Mallow & Lana as the cause in his article “The Fireball Circus is in Town – Not the Baby Blowns You Think.” Malamar’s primary attacker, Giratina from Lost Thunder, relies on two-hit-KOing Tag Team Pokémon with its 130 damage Shadow Impact, but Mallow & Lana could erase nearly all that damage instantly. Ivanoff’s response: “Which is why it is time to crown a new king of non-GX attackers: Blacephalon.” (By the way, does anyone else ever call it “Mallow & Lana GX” by mistake? I always struggle not to add the “GX” suffix to the name of fellow-Tag Team Supporter Cynthia & Caitlin, which I played far more frequently.)
Throughout all of Blacephalon’s iterations, its strategy was simple: fill your hand with Energy, dump those Energy directly into your discard pile for massive damage with Fireball Circus, obliterate massive Pokémon GX and V, recover your Energy, rinse and repeat. Some of these lists ran cards like Guzma, Escape Rope, Counter Catcher, and, later, Great Catcher and Boss’s Orders, but usually you were content to attack whatever was in front of you, as long as it was worth two or more prizes.
Historically, Blacephalon from Unbroken Bonds was first played with few to no other Pokémon (some players, like American player Nathaniel Kaplan, used Victini Prism Star) and a mix of Supporter cards, primarily Green’s Exploration and Welder. Green’s Exploration was powerful in decks with no abilities, but some players, like American player John Eng, chose to play Lt. Surge so they could use Green and Welder on the same turn.
Build 1
Build 2
Source: Nathaniel Kaplan - Top 4 North American Internationals
Source: Jon Eng - Top 32 North American Internationals
View other decks from the 2019 SUM-UNB format here.
After rotation, a Pidgeot variant emerged at the 2020 Latin America International Championships in the Ultra Prism through Cosmic Eclipse format, making 9th place under Austrian player Manuel Jorach and 11th place under Netherlands player Owyn Kamerman. This version also leaned into the Jirachi / Escape Board combo that would live on until the deck’s demise under the name of Jirachi / Scoop Up Net. With two thick Support Pokémon lines boasting Abilities, Green’s Exploration was cut for Professor Elm’s Lecture.
As the Sword and Shield era began and the previously slow and disruptive Arceus & Dialga & Palkia GX deck (ADP) morphed into a turbo deck that could take three prizes in two attacks, Blacephalon also became faster, relying on the very Pokémon ADP feasted on — Dedenne GX, Oricorio GX, and, eventually, Crobat V — to outspeed it. By this time, Blacephalon was virtually unrivaled for the office of meta single-prize deck, save for the odd Galarian Obstagoon rogue deck. This was good news for Blacephalon, which struggles to trade favorably with single prize decks. With multiple abilities for drawing cards that could be used on a single turn, Baby Blowns could afford to forego all Supporters but Welder (and perhaps a single Boss’s Orders), relying on back-to-back Stellar Wishes and on-drop Abilities to cycle through your deck. Here are two lists from the pandemic period: one is an Ultra Prism through Rebel Clash list from French player Stéphane Ivanoff, and the other is a Team Up through Darkness Ablaze list from American player Jimmy Pendarvis. (Wow, the Fireball Circus must have been on a world tour, even in the midst of lockdown!)
Deck 1
Deck 2
Source: Stéphane Ivanoff - Link to Article
Source: Jimmy Pendarvis - Link to Article
View other decks from the 2019 SUM-UNB format here.
Both of these lists do some cool things. Ivanoff’s list has an aggressive Jirachi Prism Star Mr. Mime / Oranguru combo that can eek out an extra prize card or two, and Pendarvis’s list uses Beast Bringer for a similar effect. Both are excellent reminders that Pokémon history is littered with effects that cheese extra prize cards and most of them weren’t as game warping as ADP (which, to be fair, still needed Zacian V and Boss’s Orders to shed it’s slow, Keldeo GX and Cryogonal playstyle). This is off topic, but I think it bears remembering after I saw several people compare Iron Hands ex to Arceus & Dialga & Palkia GX instead of Guzzlord from Cosmic Eclipse (which has the same attack for two Dark and two Colorless) or Lugia EX (which has a functionally similar attack, has access to its own Item acceleration in Colress Machine, and was teched into Plasma in the same way that Iron Hands is teched into Chien Pao ex, MIraidon ex or Lost Box). Jimmy Pendarvis’ list also used a Great Catcher for fishing out benched GXs and four Judge Whistle to essentially give you a 56 card deck.
I personally began playing with a homemade Salazzle variant I constructed from hints in the free portion of one of Stéphane Ivanoff’s articles, “The Salazzle Experiment – A Fire Draw Engine for Centiskorch VMAX and Blacephalon,” but upgraded my deck to something closer to Jimmy’s list after the Zacian V League Battle Deck made Scoop Up Net and Jirachi more accessible (they were previously $4 staples).
I eventually backdated the deck to Team Up through Darkness Ablaze, (the format for the finals of the Players Cup 1 and the qualifiers for the Players Cup 2). I had circled back around to something close to Jimmy’s list, which is the list I still own today. However many changes I have made to it, I have never deconstructed my Blacephalon deck in the three years I have owned it, making it my oldest surviving deck to date.
Do you still have any of your old standard format decks, or any of your old decks period? Is your most cherished deck not old enough to be retro but not new enough to be recent news? Did your New Year's fireworks look disturbingly like Blacephalon’s head? (It is the Fireworks Pokémon, after all.) Tag us at @PTCG_Legends using the button below, then send me an email so I can see your story too. And if you like what you see, consider supporting this wonderful website on Patreon using the link below!
