Bringing The Heat With Centiskorch VMAX!

With our new standard format, Team Up & On, one of the arguably top decks to use at the moment is Centiskorch VMAX! Centiskorch VMAX is a powerful new VMAX that came from Darkness Ablaze and does more damage for each Fire energy on it! And of course, we do have multiple ways of loading up a lot of energy on it, including both Welder & Volcanion! Centiskorch VMAX can keep ramping up energy and taking out everything in its path, including other VMAXs! Let's take a look at what a good Centiskorch list looks like right now!

The List 

Pokémon: 17 
- 4 Centiskorch V (DAA)
- 3 Centiskorch VMAX (DAA)
- 3 Volcanion (UNB)
- 1 Victini V (SWSH)
- 1 Heatran GX (UNI)
- 2 Dedenne GX (UNB)
- 2 Crobat V (DAA)
- 1 Eldegoss V (RCL)

Trainers: 31 
- 2 Fire Crystal (UNI)
- 4 Pokegear (UNB) 
- 4 Pokemon Communication (TEU)
- 4 Quick Ball (SWSH)
- 2 Reset Stamp (UNI)
- 4 Switch (SWSH)
- 3 Giant Hearth (UNI)
- 1 Wondrous Labyrinth (TEU) 
- 2 Boss's Order (RCL)
- 1 Professor's Research (SWSH)
- 4 Welder (UNB) 

Energy: 12 
- 12 Basic Fire Energy 

There are quite a few Centiskorch VMAX lists going around right now as there have been many online tournaments with Centiskorch showing different results! This list here is a pretty basic and simple version of the deck and what to expect when building your Centiskorch VMAX deck. Of course, we do have a 4-3 Centiskorch line here as we want to find our Centiskorch Vs early enough to be able to get a fast VMAX in play and attacking. A very important card in this deck is Volcanion as it uses its attack Flare Starter where if you are going second, you can put 3 energy onto a Centiskorch V! This will help to power up your Centiskorch very fast, and it ramps up a lot of energy on it. Volcanion is also a great attack to have against Decidueye, which is getting more popular, and using Volcanion can allow you to OHKO Decidueye if you have 4 fire energy in play! Having the Victini V in the deck can also help with energy acceleration as it can using its attack Spreading Flames to put energy from your discard pile onto your Centiskorch VMAX! Victini can also provide itself as a good back up 2 prize attacker! Heatran GX can also be good as when you put a lot of energy in play through Welder & Volcanion, you can come in with Heatran GX and move all the fires onto it and use its GX attack Hot Burn to OHKO something! Then, of course, to round out the Pokemon are the draw support Pokémon like Dedenne GX and Crobat V, which just help you when finding certain cards like Welder & Centiskorch VMAX! Eldegoss V can let you reuse Welder when you play it down, and can also attack Bronzong, which can counter Centiskorch VMAX! 

There are some pretty straight forward trainers in this deck too, Welder being the heart of the deck, allowing you to accelerate fire energy onto your Fire Pokemon! Using the Pokegear can also help you when you are trying to find your Welders as this deck doesn't play Jirachi to dig through your deck. Having the 2 Reset Stamp is important to help when say, you have a Volcanion & a Centiskorch VMAX get knocked out, you can Reset Stamp your opponent to 2 cards. This can help in combination with the 1 copy of Wondrous Labyrinth to essentially lock your opponent out of the game if they do not draw a supporter! The Wondrous Labyrinth can be useful when you keep using Giant Hearth and run your opponent out of stadiums. Then you have a Wondrous Labyrinth stick for the remainder of the match. Usually, you don't like seeing this stadium in play because you can't attack, but since Centiskorch VMAX needs 2 energy to attack and will always have more than 2 energy on, it can still attack! The Giant Hearths are also an important stadium in the deck as they grab you 2 fire energy for Welder. The supporter count may be low, but because we have lots of draw support Pokemon, it is not a worry. Mainly we are always trying to use Welder in combination with Dedenne or Crobat V to draw, but when the time is right, we also want to use Boss's Order to gust something from the bench to knock out, or when are hand is bad, we can always use Professor's Research to draw into more cards and have a better hand for next turn! The energy count being at 12 is pretty good, but some list of Centiskorch online have been using Heat Energy, which gives Centiskorch an extra 20hp. Still, it can't be used with Welder or Centiskorch VMAX's attack to grab fire energy from your discard pile. Here are some other cards that can be useful in this deck: Mallow & Lana, 4th Giant Hearth, ReshiZard, Heat Energy, 4th Volcanion & Big Charm. 

It seems that Centiskorch VMAX will continue to be the best Welder based variant going into our new format and will most likely continue to show promise as the months go on, and the deck itself will adapt, and new ideas for Centiskorch VMAX will surely pop up at tournaments! 

Post By: Littledarkfury