Ex-ter-min-ape!

Just Some Monkey Business

You don’t need to travel to the planet of Skaro to know what a war machine looks like — and one of my favorite decks to come into Double Battles is just that! Annihilape absolutely slams with early-game pressure, and combo potential that makes it a powerful pick into this format. With high draw and high damage, what more could you want?

I know what you’re thinking — that’s not quite the Annihilape you thought was going to be super good in DBF. Not only is it a Stage 2, but it also has a two-Energy attack as well as an ability that doesn’t give you too much more value on top of already swinging for 160. Sure, it does a lot of damage, but when everything has at most 170 HP, it makes you wonder why this card could be as good as it is.

The secret comes from several different combo cards that enable this deck to be as powerful as it is. This is an interesting mid-range deck that allows you to have early pressure and draw with Solrock and Lunatone, consistency using the Fighting support cards like Fighting Gong, and plenty more.

But one of the major reasons that happens isn’t because of Annihilape itself, but because of how its ability works with Primeape. As you know, if you have 2 damage counters on Annihilape, its attacks do 120 more damage. Normally, this wouldn’t be of much consequence with Annihilape’s attack — but what if you weren’t using Annihilape’s attack at all?

Primeape is a fascinating Pokémon in DBF for many reasons — and it fills a very interesting niche.

See, you’re not really using Primeape as a primary attacker. It’s does some amount of damage, but the main thing that you get value out of is Drag Off’s “gust effect” where you get to bring up one of your opponent’s Benched Pokémon. This makes Primeape more of a Support Pokémon than an attacker since you can combo it with a side attacker, like Solrock.

But there’s more. As a Support Pokémon, you might not expect it to deal much damage. Not so! Primeape, being a Fighting type, can be used in concert with the Fighting support such as Premium Power Pro to increase its damage. It also does supereffective damage to Tynamo, KOs Baby Pokémon like Budew or spare Pichu, and it can be used in concert with other Fighting Attackers to double-target a Pokémon. This is important because of one of the main combos of Fighting as a type in DBF.

Damage, at a Premium

Because it states “Attacks used by your Fighting Pokémon” on its rules text, Premium Power Pro allows both of your Active Pokémon to benefit from its damage increase. Not only is the damage increase welcome for Primeape — bringing Drag Off’s total damage to 60 — it also boosts Solrock for better damage breakpoints, as well as making Tyrogue a powerful side-attacker. You’re getting, effectively, 60 damage out of a single Premium Power Pro over two attacks.

This means that Primeape will be increasing its damage to 60, and whereas that’s not an incredible amount, it’s enough to pick up decent small KOs on the bench, finish off a damaged Pokémon, or combo with a Solrock (who’s dealing 100 damage now) to deal 160 damage in total to a big, dangerous target.

But that’s not the only thing that makes Primeape good — it’s the Annihilape’s ability. And sure, we can use Relicanth to use Primeape’s “Drag Off” attack with Annihilape, but but how do we get damage onboard to use it? Do we just let our opponents swing into Annihilape, and hope that they don’t KO them?

Cards You Can’t Talk About in an Airport

Team Rocket’s Venture Bomb is really good in this format — trust me! I know this card is absolutely god-awful in the Standard Format, but in this case we get to use it in multiple interesting ways. You may have noticed that it was present in my Diggersby list to activate Pidove, as well as giving ammunition for Munkidori. The same can be said for this deck, as well, although here it’s used in a slightly different way.

In fact, you will actually be getting a bit different, if not better value in this deck given that it can be used as a pseudo-Premium Power Pro, giving you just enough damage to hit some solid breakpoints. But also, used in tandem with Primeape, you can KO Benched Pokémon quite easily.

But, if you get tails (which is the preferred option), you can put the two damage counters on either your Pidove to evolve it into Unfezant, or on Annihilape to activate its “Lose Cool” ability. Naturally, you can also activate this ability using Risky Ruins (and you do), but you also need a method to activate the ability in case you start a Mankey or Pidove.

Why does that matter? Well, when you use Annihilape’s “Lose Cool” Ability, you can use Relicanth’s “Memory Dive” ability to allow Annihilape to use Primeape’s Drag Off attack. Because Lose Cool increases all of Annihilape’s attacks by 120 damage, Drag Off will deal a total of 150 damage. That’s an unreal amount of damage that can effectively lock sommeone out of the game fairly easily, KOing their most valuable Pokémon wherever they are on the board.

So, what’s the list?

Ready to dive in? Check it out!

Pokémon — 20

Qty	Card	Set
2	Mankey	PAF 45
2	Primeape	DRI 91
2	Annihilape	DRI 92
2	Pidove	TEF 133
2	Unfezant	BLK 73
2	Solrock	ASC 106
2	Lunatone	ASC 105
1	Binacle	POR 42
1	Barbaracle	POR 43
1	Relicanth	TEF 84
1	Tyrogue	MEG 71
1	Budew	ASC 16
1	Hop’s Cramorant	JTG 138

Trainers — 32

Qty	Card	Set
2	Team Rocket’s Petrel	ASC 207
2	Lillie’s Determination	MEG 119
2	Brock’s Scouting	JTG 146
2	Harlequin	WHT 83
1	Rosa’s Encouragement	POR 84
1	Boss’s Orders	MEG 114
1	Tarragon	POR 85
2	Premium Power Pro	ASC 199
2	Team Rocket’s Venture Bomb	DRI 179
2	Fighting Gong	ASC 187
2	Poké Pad	ASC 198
2	Buddy-Buddy Poffin	PRE 101
2	Ultra Ball	MEG 131
2	Rare Candy	MEG 125
1	Night Stretcher	SFA 61
1	Secret Box	TWM 163
1	Sacred Ash	DRI 168
1	Switch	MEG 130
1	Air Balloon	BLK 79
2	Risky Ruins	MEG 127

Energy — 8

Qty	Card	Set
8	Fighting Energy	MEE 6

You’ll notice some interesting aspects of the below list. The first you’ll see is Barbaracle, which doesn’t really need explanation, but Regirock’s presence might. Mostly he’s there as a secondary attacker, but he’s also quite a tank early-game if you need a second to develop your board. You typically want to go aggressive, but he’s decent survivability-wise.

Speaking of aggression, you’ll notice some mainstays for Fighting decks in this list. Solrock, Lunatone, and Tyrogue are very powerful early-game attackers. Tyrogue especially can combo quite well with Premium Power Pro, and can both act as a Budew counter as well as a strong early-game pressure piece. Something else worth mentioning is, if you flip a Heads, you’ll be able to KO a Bunnelby — and with a Premium Power Pro, you can deal 140 to a Diggersby, enough to put it to 10 HP remaining.

Unfezant is also present in this list, both as Support as well as an attacker — its capable in both senses! Rosa’s Encouragement makes a lot of sense in this build, as well, given that both Annihilape and Unfezant need two Energy for their big attacks.

In Closing…

Fighting Pokémon can do a wonderful amount of damage using their unique tools, and early aggression for cheap attacks is always appreciated in DBF. But one of the things that make this a strong archetype is their lesser-strength cards like Primeape or Tyrogue, making them more consistent and more targeted in their power.

What do you think? Will you build an Annihilape deck to beat out the Diggersby takeover? Or will you cook up another Fighting Deck?

I can’t wait to see what you’ll cook up!