Dog and Dragon go well together.
Stoutland is in high demand here. With 140 HP, Sharp Fang deals 70 damage for 2 energy, what really stands out with Stoutland is the Guard Dog Visage ability, as long as Stoutland is in the active spot, attacks used by your opponent’s pokemon require 1 extra colorless energy. This makes Stoutland a very interesting card, having enough bulk to withstand heavy hits, a strong enough attack to apply pressure and an ability that slows down your opponents offense.
Being a normal type, there are seemingly countless combinations for Stoutland, though in my opinion this pokemon is the ideal teammate for OG Garchomp.
In today’s deck dog and dragon unite, in a dual energy Garchomp Cynthia list which aims to make use of Stoutlands ability to slow down the game. Guard Dog Visage is amazing for Garchomp, by combining these 2 pokemon together we end up with a lineup of strong 2 energy attackers who function extremely well together. Garchomp’s dragon claw only requires 2 energy, yet Garchomp is a stage 2 evolution, and both energy sources are of different specific typings. This means despite the Dragon Claw’s low cost, RNG can limit the speed at which we enable him, this makes Stoutland the perfect lead. As Stoutland’s Sharp Fang attack can function with energy of any color, making him unaffected by the randomness of our energy generation, and while he’s in the front line, our opponents will require one extra turn to attack, slowing down their offense while defending our bench with a great HP stat to boot. This buys us time to find our pieces, and roll both energy types needed, as once Garchomp is online, very few pokemon can withstand a Cynthia boosted dragon claw.
We do in fact run a pair of stage 2 evolution lines in this deck, with Garchomp this is completely manageable as we can active our reckless shearing to discard all excess pokemon to cycle through our deck, our objective is to build up 2 garchomps in the bench to avenge our fallen doggo lead.
There’s no doubt about it, Stoutland makes Garchomp Cynthia better than it’s ever been. Stoutland will slow down our opponents rhythm, Garchomp will keep our deck nice and thin, Cynthia will boost our Dragon Claw for the win.
