GLC Psychic Handlock Deck

Hi all, I’m Joey or Nettneutrality. I am here to take you all through the process and origin of the Goth Mom Psychic build that I have been playing the last few weeks. I will go over the trainer choices and Pokémon choices that I landed on after theory crafting this with ZmanCuddles for a few weeks. 

The Pokémon

I got into playing psychic at NAIC last year and it sparked the love interest in psychic GLC. A few months later, while playing casually at Zman’s house, I was introduced to Gothitelle. Since that introduction, we have been working on creating a fun, hand and top deck control type deck around our lovable Goth Mom. I tested it in a normal psychic build and substituting it for Dragapult but keeping a majority of the deck the same. Arbok came as Zmancuddles sent me a picture of the card and we came to the conclusion that it could work well as and extra disruption type attacker since you need to play Jesse & James to do more damage:

My original thought wanted to have the new Bronzong and Bronzor from Temporal Forces in the deck because of the evolution disruption. The idea was that you could attack with Bronzong to stop the evolutions then next turn discard the evolutions from the hand, stalling the opponent. Sadly, after multiple tries testing it, the deck was just trying to do too much, so we landed on full hand disruption and top deck control. 

I like the idea of keeping cards like the Gallade/Kirlia line and Necrozma in the deck, allowing me to hit larger numbers on some of the bulkier decks that are in the format - I’m looking at you Wailord. The Gallade line gives the extra draw support and Supporter search, so I can grab Jessie & James to set up Arbok, grab Delinquent during a key moment, or set up the disruption trap for Gothitelle. 

Early game, to help get set up and the shenanigans started, I want to ideally Marshadow turn 1, get Wobbuffet into the active to help slow the opposing deck down and potentially get Spectrier set up to help fix the damage numbers against targets like Wailord or any mon with cape and such attached. I also try to focus on getting Gothita and Ralts down to get the main engine of the deck going. 

The Disruption

The main goal of this deck, while it may come off as a bit mean, is to stop your opponent from having a hand, a playable top deck, or be able to even play the game. 

Gothitelle’s attack does 120 and discards a random card from your opponent's hand and its ability allows you to control their top deck, so the deck was built with that attack in mind. Psychic already has some very good stall and disruption cards available for use, cough *Marshadow* cough. Marshadow can allow you to get your opponent down to 3, sometimes 0 cards in hand on turn 2. 

The original build only had Arbok, Gothitelle, Marshadow, and Jessie & James as the disruption, but the value and consistency of disruption came when red card and Delinquent came into play. The goal here is to play Red Card, putting your opponent to 4 cards, playing Delinquent to get rid of 3 of those cards, then use Gothitelle’s ability to control the top deck, and finally attack with Goth to discard that last card in your opponent’s hand. 

The Clean-up crew

The clean up crew or heavy hitters are the same as most mainstream Psychic lists. We have Gallade and Necrozma which both hit for 160. Both come in handy when, in the later game, you have gotten the control set up and have potentially lost Gothitelle and just need to swing the big numbers. A hand full of times I have used Gallade to get Necrozma set up with that energy switch after attack and Malamar. This allows the deck to pull off the game ending combos. 

Items and Supporters

The deck runs most of the mainstream items and supporters that Psychic runs like fog crystal, Colress, Guzma, and a handful of other search options. I did add cards like scoop-up net and Tulip to help recycle potential options with Marshadow and the Gothitelle line if things go sideways early game. This helps the consistency a lot, which was a massive concern of mine when first creating the deck.

Matchups

Matchups with the deck can be like every GLC deck because of prizing and other scenarios that all decks can run into. The hardest matchups I have had with this particular deck build are Lightning, since the deck does not run bench barrier, and Snorlax Colorless, since it is easier for it to hit bigger numbers. For both, keeping Wobbuffet in the active for slightly longer can help because it stops their draw and energy acceleration, allowing you to get set up with more time and a little less worry. Water and Grass are the most common in my area and they are easy to navigate. Start with Wobbuffet, and work towards getting Gothitelle set up so you can Guzma or switch into Gothitelle to try and get the heavy hitters like Wailmer/Wailord and Torterra out of the way and keep cycling Delinquent and Marshadow to control hand size. Always make sure to use Gothitelle to control the top deck which can save you in a lot of scenarios, like a Fire deck trying to use Magcargo to put Klara or some other Supporter onto the top of the deck. I have not run into the mirror or Dark much at locals, but I expect them to be the hardest matchups due to weakness and not having a way to stall the abilities with Wobbuffet. 

Conclusion

This deck was originally a Meme idea that was created between myself and Zmancuddles as a way to make playing Gothitelle more interesting in the format (entering our “goth era”). Being able to get your opponent down to a 0 card hand while controlling their top deck can be really fun (for the person doing it) - especially when playing against other top meta decks like grass and water. Delinquent, Red Card, Jessie & James and Arbok really help this deck function and Marshadow, well, it’s just Marshadow. The deck is really fun and has helped fuel the love for the GLC format.