Discussion Zoroark / Zoroark Break Viability in Standard

Bungeegum

Bungeegum

Aspiring Trainer
Member
Zoroark Hp 100

Ability: Stand In. Once during your turn (before your attack), if this Pokémon is on your Bench, you may switch this Pokémon with your Active Pokémon.

Mind Jack (C)(C) 10+: This attack does 30 more damage for each of your opponent's Benched Pokémon.

Weakness (F) Resistance (P) Retreat Cost (C)(C)

Zoroark Break Hp 140

Zoroark BREAK retains the attacks, Abilities, Weakness, Resistance, and Retreat Cost of its previous Evolution.

Foul Play (D): Choose 1 of your opponent's Active Pokémon's attacks and use it as this attack.

What do you guys think about the recently released Zoroaks in Break Trough? Personally I will love to see it having competitive presence, but right now i'm struggling trying to build a STANDAR deck around it. The posibilities i'm considering are the following:

1.- Zoroark / Zoroak Break / Yveltal / Yveltal ex: Full darkness deck, almost a standar Yveltal ex deck but with zoroark serving as secondary attacker and also doing a similar job to that made by Darkrai ex before the rotation.
2.- Zoroark / Zoroark Break / Eevelutions / Target whistle / Sky field: Zoroark as main attacker, hitting for weakness thanks to eeveelutions and target whistle + sky field helping to reach magic numbers.
3.- Zoroark / Vileplume: Just a crazy idea, Zoroark here will cover Vileplume high retreat cost and will serve as main attacker.

What are your thoughts? Do you have considered other options to pair Zoroark with?
 
Bronzong/Aegislash EX/Tyrantum EX/Smeargle/Zoroark

Aegislash ex and tyrantum ex as main attackers, smeargle to change energies for tyrantum ex, zoroark + float stone to cover retreat costs and use as a secondary attacker if the situation presents itself
 
I think Zoroark will be really useful in M-Tyranitar decks for a few reasons. Firstly, M-Tyranitar has a horrible retreat cost and can easily be Lysandred before its ready to attack. Secondly, M-Tyranitar gets totally blocked by Regice/Hippowdon, Beautifly, and Giratina-EX. There aren't really any viable dark non-EX attackers to respond to these threats, besides Zoroark. You could tech in Hydreigon-EX, but then you have to either add Psychic or Rainbow energies, and it 2HKO's these Pokemon. Also its a solid one prize attacker to use against Night March or Vespiquen, at least until M-Tyranitar gets powered up.
 
Personally, I believe that if Keldeo + Float Stone can STILL be useful in a format such as Expanded, its Pseudo (Zoroark + Float Stone) can be useful in something slower. Zoroark also comes with a very strong attack in the form of Mind Jack. Against decks that rely on the Bench (I'm looking at you Ray Ray), this card can provide an extremely viable and reliable check. With 5 Pokemon on the bench, Zoroark will hit for 160, which is neither an uncommon scenario nor a small deal.

Now, this is simply for a 1-1 Zoroark Line-Up. If you further extend to its BREAK form, you gain access to a useful, albeit situational attack in Foul Play. Personally, I feel that unless you are playing something that can already feed Zoroark a Darkness Energy (Mainly M Tyranitar as Vaultboy91 mentioned above), there is little reason to extend to this stage. The uses of Foul Play in Standard are not 100% clear to me yet. If anything, the best thing about evolving to this stage is the extra HP, which in a lot of situations may be good (being able to survive a potential Lysandre is always a good trait to have), but I feel that it is almost not worth the card slot. That said, testing will always prove best.

All in all, I personally believe a minimum of 1-1 Zoroark will become a trend in Standard Play. He provides an already infamous "escape route" for "heavier" Pokemon and has a really, REALLY good attack. Even if he is not a main strategy, he will be a great tech for sure.
 
I don't know if either card will prove themselves in competitive play, but I suspect Zoroark BREAK will prove too cumbersome as it is basically just a fancy Stage 2 that doesn't count as a Stage 2 for effects like that of Miltank (FLF) and its "Powerful Friends" attack. The regular Zoroark from XY: BREAKThrough seems promising; it won't replace Keldeo-EX in all or likely most decks, but I think it has a chance in the typical Dark build (Hoopa-EX compatibility/general space concerns are the only reason why you might stick with our little pony... well, beyond personal preference).

In Standard, there is no Keldeo-EX and decks that really needed there to be one will probably work in Zoroark plus Float Stone... but such lists seem so tight on space I have doubts about the end result. Overall though, I think it promising.
 
Just letting you know eeveelutions will not work with Zoroark break seeing as Zoroark Break is a break evolution and not a Stage 1.
 
zaratath said:
just letting you know eveelutions will not work with zoroark break seeing as zoroark break is a break evolution and not a stage 1.
Click to expand...

This is true, but based on the wording

Bungeegum said:
2.- Zoroark / Zoroark Break / Eevelutions / Target whistle / Sky field: Zoroark as main attacker, hitting for weakness thanks to eeveelutions and target whistle + sky field helping to reach magic numbers.
Click to expand...

I think the idea was to focus on the new "plain" Zoroark and the Eeveelutions, with Zoroark BREAK included because one might as well, just in case you need to copy a "raw power" kind of attack, like against Tyrantrum-EX.
 
The issue with zoroark is the limitation of it's attack, mind jack is good but what about the giratina, aegislash, night march or dugtrio matchup, tina and aegislash locks you and shuts down your setup/attack, night march plain out speeds your deck and dugtrio out speed's/dmg's you on stage 1 versus break, even decks like raichu/bats, Msceptile which can play under radar and heal every attack you deal, decks that will be popular plays for standard seem to just be better decks overall just due to use of attack and how uncompatible zoroark is with them, if anything zoroark is just a tech.

And to say that a target whistle strategy is effective it's 9/10 time not as effective game 2 and 3.
 
I still haven't made up my mind about this as a new deck, but I'm not that impressed by most of this set; normally my problem is seeing all the new "toys" and thinking they'll be far more effective then they actually prove so unless this is an exception and I'm low balling the lot of it, it might be that Zoroark is just the most impressive of a lackluster bunch.

Yo-yos, I am having a hard time following what you said.

Yo-yos said:
The issue with zoroark is the limitation of it's attack, mind jack is good but what about the giratina, aegislash, night march or dugtrio matchup, tina and aegislash locks you and shuts down your setup/attack, night march plain out speeds your deck and dugtrio out speed's/dmg's you on stage 1 versus break, even decks like raichu/bats, Msceptile which can play under radar and heal every attack you deal, decks that will be popular plays for standard seem to just be better decks overall just due to use of attack and how uncompatible zoroark is with them, if anything zoroark is just a tech.

And to say that a target whistle strategy is effective it's 9/10 time not as effective game 2 and 3.
Click to expand...

The last bit warning about Target Whistle seems like a good call; surprise only works while it is a surprise. I'd add that in this case, it sounds like once people learn to cope with it, even Game 1 it will lose some effectiveness.

The rest, as stated, I would appreciate if you could take some time and when you're not rushed, elaborate. Mind Jack is great except when the opponent can keep a small Bench... and based on early play testing people are already starting to pick up on that.

Giratina-EX stops the easy "Drop a DCE" approach, but unless backed by other effects it won't Zoroark for long (and when backed up by an entire deck, it means we need to consider entire deck A versus entire deck B). I think Giratina-EX is when Zoroark BREAK gets a chance to shine; drop it and force your opponent to cope with no new Pokémon Tools, Stadium cards or Special Energy and for a single [D]. Aegislash-EX (unless you meant the regular versions?) doesn't fair that well if you don't drop a Special Energy onto Zoroark so power up with regular Darkness Energy, same as against Giratina-EX. If the point is that getting two onto Zoroark is too difficult... okay. I didn't realize it was that hard. Dugtrio might be annoying because of trades but... well that is that. Fall back to a different attacker if possible; definitely avoid dropping Zoroark BREAK unless there is something both work copying and work OHKOing with it: same for Raichu/Bats. I've no good ideas for how to handle M Sceptile-EX. Not sure why Night March is supposed to be a problem; am I wrong in thinking of a typical Darkness deck backing up Zoroark? Yveltal (XY, not the EX) OHKOs Pumpkaboo and Joltik; if it is Expanded have Zoroark focus on taking out Mew-EX.

So... if all of that is wrong because of stuff I missed, let me know. If I understood what you were saying, go ahead and let me know.
 
I'm playing mine with Yveltal EX for brute force. 3-3-2 break line, 2 or 3 Yveltal EX, three head ringers, 2 or 3 float stones. You see where this is going, use the opponents game breaking attack on them before they can power up to use it. And if they do power up KO with bacon-god EX. Seems pretty simple and is quite effective against most match ups. No really bad matchups. And cause it's all dark you can use a few copies of Parallel town to mess up your opponents early game set up. Might try a single copy of wobbofet just to mess up people if I can get him to start.
 
Otaku you may like to talk about how good the deck is, but zoroark just doesn't have as much support as decks like raichu has level ball, dugtrio has korrina and level ball, giratina has hoopa and etc I mentioned that have those additional support cards to make it easier to setup. It's not the fact of how easy it is to attack, it's the turn by turn strategy, Wally's or attack evolve, it's just not viable, there is just better decks out there.
 
Draaka said:
I'm playing mine with Yveltal EX for brute force. 3-3-2 break line, 2 or 3 Yveltal EX, three head ringers, 2 or 3 float stones. You see where this is going, use the opponents game breaking attack on them before they can power up to use it. And if they do power up KO with bacon-god EX. Seems pretty simple and is quite effective against most match ups. No really bad matchups. And cause it's all dark you can use a few copies of Parallel town to mess up your opponents early game set up. Might try a single copy of wobbofet just to mess up people if I can get him to start.
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Interesting! I was thinking Yveltal too. I haven't built it yet. But are you running Briget for a supporter in the deck. I find Briget useful because of the quick setup with the basics. Currently, it is banned for online play. If the deck can get two or three Zoura's out on first turn than lysander becomes a bit mute.
 
I have an extremely strong zoroark/zoroark break/yveltal ex/noivern/gengar deck which can lead to some pretty sick combos.
ie: My Noivern has an attack called boomburst which does 30 damage to all of your opponents pokemon. And my gengar has an attack called creep show which one shots any pokemon with 30 damage on it.
So basically you can one shot all their pokemon.
Hope you found this helpful,

-The_Rainbow_Zoroark
 
RainbowGengar64 said:
My Noivern has an attack called boomburst which does 30 damage to all of your opponents pokemon. And my gengar has an attack called creep show which one shots any pokemon with 30 damage on it.
So basically you can one shot all their pokemon.
Click to expand...

...

Attacking twice means you may two shot any Pokémon. Which isn't a bad thing, but it isn't a one shot. ;)
 
One of the key advantages I like most about Zoroark BREAK is its Foul Play attack which has been quite useful in matches against Giratina EX - I Foul Play'd the opponent's Chaos Wheel attack several times to prevent their Special energy attachment or my opponent's Psychic Infinity attack to KO his damaged M Mewtwo EX. I'm definitely a fan of this particular BREAK Pokémon.
 
I have been trying to find a way to make Zoroark work in Standard for some time now. Without Muscle Band to buff it's own damage output, and no reliable way to remove FFB and bring big Pokemon EX down to OHKO range, Zoroark finds itself as a fragile attacker that are hard to stream (based on it being an evolution and relying on a limited resource to attack; DCE). Bursting Balloon somewhat fills both of these gaps by tacking on additional damage, or potentially forcing your opponent to find another target to attack, giving Zoroark more longevity on the play field.

What Pokemon have you guys considered playing alongside Zoroark (besides the obvious Dark stuff like Yveltal)?
 
My biggest issue with Zoroark right now is the sheer fact that he relies on your opponent to be viable. Your opponent MUST have benched Pokemon to make its attack worthwhile. Your opponent MUST be willing to put things on his/her bench, even when running Target Whistles. If you're seen starting out with Zorua, you're basically screaming what your strategy is and that makes games harder to win, sadly.

That said, I personally think running the deck in a Greninja BREAK-esque manner may be the best we can do at this time. Unfortunately, Zoroark BREAK doesn't quite have the survivability that Greninja BREAK does, but 140 hp is better than 100 and having access to others' attacks may be something to note. As far as other attackers go, perhaps we can toy with the new Magearna Promo, Jirachi, even go so far as Ratata/Raticate? I'm not 100% sure quite yet, but I think there's at least some viability for this deck to remain Tier 3 or so.

For now, we just have to think of ways to continuously make Mind Jack work in our favor. That'll be the biggest puzzle to solve for this strategy.

-Asmer
 
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