Leading the Burning Charge – Flareon’s Place in the Metagame

I have somewhat of a love-hate relationship with the Flareon ex deck. In my opinion, it is the most interesting deck in the current format, and is also one of the most complicated. On the other hand, it ruins Gholdengo ex and brought my Atlanta run to a screeching halt. I haven't yet decided it was the best play at a major tournament, but depending on the way the meta lines up, Flareon is looking to be a strong play. The deck truly has a lot going for it, and it has the tools to deal with any situation or matchup (although some are certainly better than others).

This deck is probably no stranger to you, as it is one of the most popular users of the insane Fan Rotom / Noctowl engine. Of course, the main attacker is Flareon ex, which is the perfect partner for Noctowl decks. Burning Charge accelerates Energy, taking a lot of strain off Noctowl and Crispin, which opens up the door to do pull off some truly gnarly combos. While the Carnelian attack costs an awkward combination of Energy, this is easily managed with Sparkling Crystal, Crispin, or the previous Flareon's Burning Charge. Eevee was blessed with a plethora of strong evolutions this time around. Since we're already playing several of them, we can tech some of the other ones besides just Flareon.

Sylveon ex is what makes this deck so interesting. The effect of Sylveon's Angelite attack is so rarely seen in the Pokemon TCG, and usually such a strong effect was reserved for once-per-game. Although you cannot use Angelite to delete your opponent's most important Pokemon twice in a row, you can use it every other turn. Against setup heavy decks, this can be absolutely devastating. Sylveon single-handedly opens up tons of options for this deck, allowing you to go with a controlling strategy or pivot on a dime. As far as Hail Mary plays go, Angelite is an extremely powerful one. Sylveon's first attack deals respectable damage while debuffing your opponent's Active. If they don't have many mobility options, the first attack can be even more situationally useful than Angelite! Another very underrated aspect of Sylveon is that it is a Psychic-type, which means it can utilize the Weakness buff granted by Lillie's Clefairy ex.

Some people have tried Umbreon ex in this deck because it one-shots Gardevoir ex, which is a difficult matchup. I think Umbreon is bad and always has been, but a new Eeveelution does make its way into the fold. Leafeon ex is the obvious inclusion into a Grimmsnarl meta, and it's also the right one. For just two Energy, Leafeon's first attack (usually) one-shots Marnie's Grimmsnarl ex. Not only that, but its second attack even heals up your Bench (and also one-shots Grimmsnarl). This healing attack basically shuts off an opponent's possible win condition, and is particularly strong against decks that spread damage. Of course, even in those matchups it's sometimes better to race towards the end of the game with overwhelming offense.

The new Team Rocket's Watchtower could become a slight annoyance, but I only expect to see it in a handful of decks like Dragapult ex and Gholdengo, which are still decent matchups. Mew ex and Fezandipiti ex draw plenty of cards even when Watchtower is up, and we can easily play three Stadiums to lower the chances of losing to Watchtower. As for the rest of the metagame, Flareon has a decent matchup spread. It struggles against primarily Gardevoir and Joltik, but does well against everything else. Even in its tougher matchups, Flareon can reasonably win because its such a strong deck.

I haven't done anything too crazy with regards to the list. I used to be a huge fan of Wellspring Mask Ogerpon ex in this deck because it completely fixed the Gardevoir matchup, but that is no longer the case with the existence of Shaymin. Before Shaymin, it was a mystery to me why nobody played Wellspring. Similarly, Iron Bundle was extremely strong in the deck, especially alongside Wellspring Ogerpon. Iron Bundle is still good, but it's not a high priority to include into the list without Ogerpon. Here's my current list:

This concludes the public portion of this article.

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