If you’ve cracked a handful of boosters from the Pokémon TCG’s Pitch Black expansion, then you’ve probably opened a few copies of Sizzlipede. This relatively unremarkable common possesses the “Bug Out” attack, which deals more damage the more cards with Bug Out you have among the bottom seven cards of your deck. As the only card with Bug Out, Sizzlipede has currently failed to garner a lot of attention, but fortunately this sizzling insect will be receiving a swarm of support in the new Delta Reign expansion.
Delta Reign introduces three new cards with Bug Out: a Combee, a Spinarak, and a Masquerain. This means that the maximum number of cards you can include in a deck with the attack has risen sharply from 4 to 16. It’s now theoretically possible that all seven cards on the bottom of your deck can have Bug Out, meaning that the attack can now actually hit its damage cap of 350. In addition, Masquerain can use Bug Out for only a single grass energy, making it much less onerous to start bugging out early.
Does this additional support mean that players are now going to be bugging out all the time, and that these humble insects are going to become some of the best Pokémon cards around? Well no, but this might be a fun fringe strategy to experiment with.
Using Bug Out discards any revealed cards that don’t have the move, while shuffling any cards with the attack back into the deck. This means that it gradually thins your deck, while ensuring that you can still hit relevant targets when you need to. By combining this with trainers that allow you to draw additional cards, while stacking the bottom of your deck, like Lucian, and Kofu, you’ll be able to rig the odds in your favor and reliably hit the damage cap, or at least get close to it.
The big weakness of this strategy is that all of the bugs that it relies upon are incredibly fragile, with none of them having more than 110 hp. While they only give away one prize card each, it’ll be difficult for them to remain in play long enough to deal some real damage. For Bug Out decks to truly become viable, they’re going to need a sturdier attacker.
Does the thought of trying out a strategy like this give you butterflies in your stomach, or do you intend to keep away from creepy crawlies? Let us know in the Wargamer Discord.
Source: Wargamer
