Somehow, Zoroark Returned — A Look At The New N Archetype

Hello everyone! We're just past the first Regional Championships of the new format, with Atlanta last weekend, followed by Regionals in Europe and Latin America shortly afterward. It will certainly be interesting to see which of the new archetypes from Journey Together are able to have the most success.

Already on PokeBeach we've gone over a few of them, including Tera Box, Feraligatr, and Milotic ex, though funnily enough we have not actually mentioned any of the Trainer’s Pokemon archetypes that are the main theme of Journey Together. This article will end that streak, as I'll be going over my favorite of those archetypes, the N deck, led by N's Zoroark ex.

For players who were around before the pandemic, N’s Zoroark ex should immediately bring back memories of Zoroark-GX, which was one of the most dominant Pokemon in the history of the TCG. From the first tournament to the last tournament before it rotated out, Zoroark-GX was winning Standard events, and had an equally large impact on the Expanded field. Even as power creep kept pushing forward (the later events had Zoroark-GX competing with Tag Teams, and even VMAXs in 2020 Expanded events), Zoroark-GX simply kept winning. Between the incredible card draw that came from its Trade Ability and its efficient, solid damage output, its versatility made it a card to be reckoned with, and led it to be extremely successful.

N’s Zoroark ex may not be quite the same, but it does share a lot of parallels with its predecessor. For one, it still has Trade, which is as good now as it has ever been, and it still has good damage output to go along with its strong Ability. Where it does come short however is with regards to versatility, as it now requires two Darkness Energy to attack instead of two Colorless Energy (or a single Double Colorless Energy), and it requires another N’s Pokemon to be in play in order to actually do anything with its attack. This means that we likely won’t see a huge smattering of different N’s Zoroark ex archetypes, since you can’t just throw it into anything and have a good secondary attacker.

A deck that already uses Darkness Energy may be able to play it without too much trouble, but a deck that doesn’t is going to have difficulty utilizing it for anything more than its Ability. It could still see play in that capacity, ala Cinccino, but I don’t see any deck that would necessarily want that at the moment. With that said, while N’s Zoroark ex isn’t an easy inclusion in every deck, it does come with its own built-in archetype, in the form of the N’s Deck, built around the other N’s Pokemon from Journey Together. This deck is designed around attacking with N’s Zoroark ex, and it does a lot more than the simple 120 damage of Riotous Beating.

The N's archetype deck centers around a trio of Pokemon: N's Zoroark ex, which is your main attacker, and two Pokemon for it to copy, N's Darmanitan and N's Reshiram. N's Darmanitan will mostly be used for Flamebody Cannon, which can set up tankier Pokemon to be KO'd, or provide immense pressure on decks with evolving basics. Notably, Manaphy has rotated, leaving no easy way for an opponent to prevent Bench damage. For decks that require setup like Dragapult ex, a turn two Flamebody Cannon can be devastating. N's Darmanitan can also attack itself with Reversal Energy, which can be a good strategy if you need to use a non-ex attacker, or if you're up against Grass or Metal types. Back Draft won't be used as often, but it can come up in some important scenarios, so do keep an eye on your opponent's count of discarded Energy. N's Reshiram is the deck's main source of direct damage, with both Virtuous Flame and Powerful Rage being quite important. Virtuous Flame's 170 damage is a touch lackluster, but it can be boosted enough to get the occasional OHKO, or it can 2HKO a Stage 2 Pokemon ex. Powerful Rage is more situational, but it does mean that if your opponent can't OHKO you, you'll likely be able to OHKO anything on their field following their attack. N's Zoroark ex is decently tanky at 280 HP, so there are quite a few matchups where you'll be able to take advantage of Powerful Rage. Between the four attacks, you’ll have a lot of different ways to approach the game, so while N’s Zoroark ex may not fit into a bunch of different decks, it can feel like you’re playing multiple when you get into a game with the N’s archetype.

This concludes the public portion of this article.

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