GLC Grass Control

Hello all GLC lovers! Sopko is here again with another creative deck! Giving credit to Plant from Tricky Gym’s discord who had the idea of a Grass deck that ran Cradily, Carnivine & Venusaur to prevent your opponent from retreating. He ran a list with more pokemon that did that combo as more of a stall until he could get knockouts with Torterra or mill them longer with Durant and control those cards being milled with Orbeetle. I took this concept more towards the control aspect. The deck previously felt too bulky with too many stage 2 pokemon and not enough control to stall the opponent in those opening turns. This control build plays really well, fun to play, not to play against and I have had success with it at locals so I wanted to share this with you!

Strategy

The goal of the deck is to make your opponent run out of resources by either stalling a pokemon in their active that does not have enough energy to attack, or to mill them with Durant or our supporters. The deck really relies on Cradily to be setup, Cradily’s Swaying Strangle ability prevents your opponent’s pokemon from retreating who have a special condition. To make this work we either use Carnivine who for 1 energy brings up a bench pokemon to the active and makes that active pokemon now poisoned. This combo can also be completed with the POGO Venusaur who has the Loopy Lasso ability where you flip a coin once per turn, if heads can bring a pokemon from your opponent’s bench to the active, and that pokemon is now asleep & poisoned. These cards combine very well to disrupt your opponent because it means they have to play Trainers that allow them to switch their active pokemon or to attach enough energy to attack.

Setup

Setting up is so important to any deck, in any format, of the pokemon TCG. This deck plays Brigette, Gloria, Peonia, Gladion, Turffield Stadium, Grotle, Grovyle, & multiple ways to search out pokemon, the Unidentified Fossil and evolutions because we want to set up this combo as soon as possible. Most notably, Cradily, a stage 2 who evolves from the fossil so playing Fossil Excavation Map is needed, to get set up, or to bring it back. While we set up, we sit behind Celebi, Robo Substitute, or Lillie’s Poke Doll to prevent the opponent from getting prizes.

Disruption

This deck offers many options against any deck you’ll play against. There are supporters to disrupt such as Marnie, Faba, Team Rocket’s Handiwork, Team Flare Grunt, Delinquent, Miss Fortune Sisters, Boss’s Orders, & Guzma. These supporters can always be replayed by using Cynthia & Caitlyn, Lusamine, Lt. Surge’s Strategy, & Cyllene. I recommend thinking a turn ahead of what your goal is, to discard energy, to bring up a bench pokemon, or to mill their deck more. Many options to choose from and you’ll be prepared for any situation.

The disruption in the items is very small, yet very efficient. An early Captivating Poke Puff to get your opponents basic on to their bench when they want to bench something else is really effective. Maybe they know they prized that stage 1 or 2 or maybe your bringing down their Marshadow, this is what makes the card very good. If your opponent discards a basic or allows one to KO from poison, then we use Echoing Horn so we can have a new target for our gameplan. Lastly, it would not be a control deck without Reset Stamp & Counter Catcher, both amazing cards that need to be used at the correct time. Besides the 3 main pokemon in this deck to make that combo, Celebei, if lucky, can stall an opponent a long time because with float stone/air balloon and a Grovyle or Grotle in play, you can search out the Celebei multiple turns in a row. Yes, I made this happen once before for 4 turns! Our other big powerhouse pokemon is Durant. Durant has the Mountain Munch attack that for 1 energy does 10 damage & discards the top card of your opponent’s deck; However, the other attack Scrape Down can discard 4 cards of your opponent’s deck with 1 Rainbow energy attached also!

This deck has plenty of cards available in Supporters and items to loop our deck full of pokemon, energy, and disruption until it wins! One thing you may notice is for a control deck, no Field Blower, a very common disruption card in GLC. The answer, because Cradily’s ability does not allow them to retreat, means that even with a float stone attached, their pokemon is still stuck in the active!

Review

This deck is my favorite way to play Grass, I hope if you enjoy control decks, you give this deck a try! It is personally my second strongest control deck in GLC. The only weakness I felt it ever had was if it set up really slow (previous version) or your opponent just set up faster which we all know, there’s those games where we draw great and not so great. With that in mind, everything else will allow you to be very disruptive and give you that thrill of control that makes you & your opponent think about every play. Reach out to me @dsopko91 on Twitter, Twitch, YouTube and @ sopko in discord. Thank you for reading, thank you to the CBW website for bringing us great GLC content and allowing me to write these articles for these fun decks! Enjoy all!

Deck List