The Golden Rainbow — A Look at Ethan’s Ho-Oh ex

Hello everyone! I'm back with one more article before the NAIC, and once again I’ll be looking at one of the new decks from Destined Rivals. In my last article, I went over Marnie's Grimmsnarl ex and how it worked within the Froslass / Munkidori core. In this article, I’ll be going over a different Trainer’s Pokemon: Ethan's Ho-Oh ex. Ethan’s Ho-Oh ex is one of my favorite decks from the new set, and while it doesn’t have anywhere near the established tournament pedigree of Marnie’s Grimmsnarl ex, it is an archetype that has a lot of potential, particularly as the lists for the archetype get more refined.

Just as the Marnie's Grimmsnarl ex deck was not a “Marnie” deck, the Ethan's Ho-Oh ex deck is not at all an “Ethan” deck. Instead, it is more of a box-style archetype, as it utilizes the Energy acceleration from Golden Flame to quickly power up a wide variety of attackers. The key to this is Armarouge, as Fire Off allows you to move those accelerated Energy off of Ethan's Ho-Oh ex and onto a different attacker. Fittingly for a Ho-Oh deck, you have quite a rainbow of Pokemon to use, so the deck feels a bit like a new-age Tera Box. If the Pokemon can attack with one Luminous Energy and a bunch of Fire Energy — so anything with only one colored Energy type in its attack cost — then this deck can use it, and probably will if the attacker is good enough. The nice thing too is that this deck doesn't need to rely on Trainer cards like Crispin or Energy Switch. Simply get an Armarouge and an Ethan’s Ho-Oh ex into play, and you’re going.

Unlike Tera Box, this deck can more easily use attackers that require four Energy, which opens it up to more powerful Pokemon like Iron Hands ex and Regigigas. To an extent, it can be reminiscent of Lugia VSTAR / Archeops, in that you set up your Pokemon, and then open yourself up to a bunch of incredibly strong attacking options. In the current diverse metagame, having a bunch of attackers that can deal with anything is a huge plus, and is especially nice here at the beginning of a new meta, where there is more uncertainty about what to expect. Heading into the NAIC, having such an advantage can go a long way.

This deck may not be quite as ridiculous as Archeops was back in the day — the numerous Amazing Rare Pokemon it had gave it a group of attackers whose strength relative to the meta may not be seen again for quite a while — but it still does have quite a bit to work with. As you’ll see below, in my list, I have strong options like Iron Hands ex, Wellspring Mask Ogerpon ex, Regigigas, and Gouging Fire ex, plus a few more. Between extra Prizes, type matchups, spread damage, and hard-hitting attacks, your Pokemon give you a lot of different ways to approach various matchups, and give you a positive matchup spread against a wide array of opposing archetypes.

My Deck List And Card Explanations

Now, that all sounds pretty great, but it does lead to the question: If the deck has all of these powerful options, why hasn’t it seen any real tournament success in Japan? Unfortunately, while the archetype itself has a lot of potential, many of the lists that I have seen going around have one major issue: they are simply inconsistent. When the deck works, it feels unstoppable. There will be games where you’ll go from a turn 2 Iron Hands ex to a Wellspring Mask Ogerpon ex, and then finish them off on turn four. In those games, Ho-Oh makes you think that it’s the best deck in the format. But then you’ll play the next game, you’ll miss your Armarouge, draw into a bricked hand, and then wonder why you ever stopped playing Grimmsnarl. Having a deck that has immense potential but requires a bit of luck to overcome inconsistency is hardly new — Greninja, Regigigas, and even some of the Lugia VSTAR decks come to mind — but it does make for a particularly risky play when it comes to large events.

My goal then has been to see if this deck can indeed be consistent, to the point where it is over the threshold needed to become a reliable tournament play, not just a gamble for a lucky high roll. In the list below, you’ll see the result of those efforts, a Ho-Oh list that actually can do what it wants to do, quickly and without the maddening inconsistency that plagues so many of these Ho-Oh decks. Here’s the list:

This concludes the public portion of this article.

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