Standard Enter The Dragon (M Rayquaza EX / Reshiram / Hydreigon EX)

[Lucian_Lane]

Pokemon: 13

• 3 Rayquaza-EX ROS 60
• 3 M Rayquaza-EX ROS 61
• 3 Reshiram ROS
• 2 Hydreigon-EX
• 2 Shaymin-EX ROS

Trainers/Supporters/Stadiums: 34

• 4 Professor Sycamore
• 3 Shauna
• 2 Lysandre
• 1 Lysandre’s Trump Card
• 1 Teammates

• 4 VS Seeker
• 4 Ultra Ball
• 4 Mega Turbo
• 2 Switch
• 3 Hard Charm
• 2 Robo Substitute
• 1 Head Ringer

• 3 Scorched Earth

Energy: 13

• 8 Fire Energy
• 4 Double Dragon Energy
• 1 Lightning Energy

Strategy:

Hi everyone I've been working hard to make a very strong Dra-Ray (dragon rayquaza) deck. I found its a deck that just loves walling everything and that's the idea here.

You may notice there's no spirit link for mega ray, I took them out for the hard charms because its not such a big deal in this deck as rotation will kill many decks such as laser/bank toad and safeguard donphan decks and Manectric will have to waste 3-4 turns on a hard charm mega rayquaza.

Robo sub is here because stall power is amazing.

The strategy is get reshiram to power up rayquaza hard charm ray lose a turn with mega evolving (its worth it) mega turbo (if you can) it combos well with scorched earth trump card at the right time head ringer something you don't like as its useful sometimes and use double dragon energy when you're certain to get a prize or 2.

Any feedback good or bad would be highly appreciated

 

[iMarty]

This looks solid. I'm going to try it out. Thanks for posting!

 

[Lucian_Lane]

Thank you I'm making this for after the rotation I cannot try this on PTCGO because I've only got my phone so it'll be great to know how it does against some top decks when you test it do you mind posting a comment of what you played against and how it does against those decks?

 

[Mora]

Let's try to stay on topic guys.

About playing Hard Charms over Spirit Links, you could play both with Tool Retriever. With that card, you could take the Spirit Link off and replace it with a Hard Charm while having a Spirit Link for another Rayquaza on the Bench. I played around with that idea during the brief time I spent with that deck.

Also why do you play Shauna over N? Is this for Expanded or Standard?

 

[Lucian_Lane]

I did try use tool retriever but most of the time it is in your hand doing nothing and there's a space problem if you did want to put in spirit links what do you take out without making the deck even slower? The problem with spirit links in most decks is you can whiff them easily

I've played this deck against turbo night march and manectric/yevitol and it held its ground against both decks it got flawless wins on yeviltol (I tried 3 games against both decks to make sure when it won it wasn't a fluke) it lost to night march 2-1 because night March goes for the major KO's so quickly and Rayquaza just doesn't have enough support yet to beat decks as fast as night march.

Shauna is in there over N because we don't want to give our opponants more cards and I found Shauna more reliable as if you're on 1 prize remaining and your opponant has 4 you don't want to N as at that point as you give your opponant a new hand which could be a Shaymin etc we want to draw our own shaymin when we do we can play the majority of stuff in our hand and nice new bonus' with our shaymin but when the next set comes out I'd defo put in ace trainer and this is a slight guide for after the rotation as we lose N so I thought I'd give people more options

 

[Lucian_Lane]

Oh and for this deck to work well you MUST be sure you bench shaymin at the right time because this WILL cost you the game against some things that can abuse Lysandre and vs seeker that's how I lost to night march

 

[Mora]

I did try use tool retriever but most of the time it is in your hand doing nothing and there's a space problem if you did want to put in spirit links what do you take out without making the deck even slower? The problem with spirit links in most decks is you can whiff them easily

I've played this deck against turbo night march and manectric/yevitol and it held its ground against both decks it got flawless wins on yeviltol (I tried 3 games against both decks to make sure when it won it wasn't a fluke) it lost to night march 2-1 because night March goes for the major KO's so quickly and Rayquaza just doesn't have enough support yet to beat decks as fast as night march.

Shauna is in there over N because we don't want to give our opponants more cards and I found Shauna more reliable as if you're on 1 prize remaining and your opponant has 4 you don't want to N as at that point as you give your opponant a new hand which could be a Shaymin etc we want to draw our own shaymin when we do we can play the majority of stuff in our hand and nice new bonus' with our shaymin but when the next set comes out I'd defo put in ace trainer and this is a slight guide for after the rotation as we lose N so I thought I'd give people more options

Other than -3 Hard Charm +3 Spirit Link, I think you could afford to drop 1 Head Ringer, 1 Hard Charm, 1 Mega Turbo, 1 Hydreigon EX, or 1 Teammates.

N is almost too good to not include for the opposite reason that playing it can put your opponent down to only a few cards in hand. Of course, if you find that you are simply taking prizes too fast, I can see running fewer copies, but I'd still have one just in case you get off to a slow start or your opponent gets a giant hand. You can always VS Seeker for it when you need it once you get it into the discard. I'd still play around with some of the other shuffle draw Supporters as well. Colress and Professor Birch's Observations seem like better choices than Shauna.

 

[Lucian_Lane]

You do have a point about all the cards youve mentioned especially N, but this deck is mainly focusing on the rotation.

The thing I like about using hard charm over the spirit link is most of the time when you need the link to mega evolve you don't have it and so to survive you sometimes need to mega without having the aid of the link so I thought if that happens the link is now useless until you can get another ray and mega ray so why not use the hard charm so things like toad, yevital, donphan, manectric, primal groudon, (C) Ray etc have a very hard time dealing with it while you stall for a turn or 2 or 3 or even 4! until you're ready to start destroying everything you can and its pretty easy to do that and hard charm is very versatile with mega rays ancient trait so why not abuse it?

 

[Snyder005]

I still think that Shrine of Memories is the best stadium for this deck. Scorched Earth is good at first glance, until you realize you want your Fire Energy in your hand to attach with Reshiram, not in the discard. Sure you have Mega Turbo, but wouldn't it be more beneficial to Mega Turbo onto the Rayquaza EX after it attacks to keep the stream of KO's. I've found early game, Reshiram is main energy acceleration. Late game, Mega Turbo is key energy acceleration. If you dump all your Fire Energy early game, then your energy set-up slows considerably, and your late game is harmed by burning resources accelerating from the discard to initially set up.

Now why Shrine of Memories? Energy conservation of course. I don't know how many times I needed to swing a KO, but only had 4 energy on my M-Rayquaza EX. Or, more often then not, 300 damage was overkill for many of the non-EX attackers (and Shaymin EX). Having the option to hit for 130 with a beefy 230 HP Rayquaza, and still threaten the 300 "blow-up-the-table" attack is insanely good. In a similar situation, I would need to find some means of attaching 2 energy to M-Rayquaza, something that gets more difficult in the late game as resources are burned. Even the 30 damage attack comes in handy for taking out Joltik's without burning 2 energy. I definitely recommend testing it out.

 

[Lucian_Lane]

Totally agree with you on energy conservation, the problem is without scorched earth its so hard to do a mega turbo combo, people I've seen use scorched earth have no idea how to properly use it to their advantage, (only 1 fire in their hand and discarding it with the stadium) most of the time you won't draw another fire, its only ok to do it if you have 2 fires in your hand.

This deck is a good mixed attacker though so using hydregion isn't a bad idea to KO things, if you've got DDE and turboblaze a fire onto it.

Its a very precise deck most of the time so anyone who plays it really needs to think ahead.

But what would be good is if anyone who reads this that knows players with YouTube channels that are pretty good at playing so other people can see how it works so if you know Rmmo25, Professor Aloe, LittleDarkFury, MikePTCGO, TheCatsMeowth etc please drop them a message on Facebook, twitter, Skype or whatever you use as it'll be good to see my deck in action

Also please ask them to give Lucian Lane aka the father of dragons a shout out!