One much anticipated card in Paldea Evolved is Reversal Energy, which was recently released in Japan's Snow Hazard.
Another card that will be introduced in Paldea Evolved seems absolutely tailor-made for this Special Energy, and is among the few Pokémon that stand out as potential targets for this Special Energy. That card would be Cetitan, also from Snow Hazard.
This is where the question of what an ideal Reversal Energy deck would look like comes into play. Ideally, a Reversal Energy deck would have some single prize chip attacker that could soften up VMAXs and Stage 2 ??'s for a low Energy cost that requires no Energy acceleration. This chip attacker would then get Knocked Out, putting you at a 6-5/4-3/2-1 prize ratio. Perfect for Cetitan to charge in and swing for the Knock Out with Special Horn. This combo is important for a few reasons, besides needing to trigger Reversal Energy's effect in the first place. First, you only have a limited supply of Reversal Energy, and it's not the easiest card to find, either. Second, just as you can only run 4 Reversal Energy, you are also limited to 4 Cetitan or whatever you choose to play, and the more retrieval cards you play, the less space you have in your deck. Also, you need to make sure you can successfully sequence your board development, which means finding the Pokémon you need when you need them.
While I hardly think it's the next rogue deck waiting to happen, I do have an idea for a possible partner for Cetitan using this principle outlined above: Lokix, which was released earlier in the SV2 block, in Triplet Beat. Please bear with me as I explain the combo and outline the theoretical principles at work:
Fun fact: you could possibly get away with running Wo-Chien ?? in this deck, but I'm not sure you have a safe way of attaching three Grass Energy to this thing before your opponent Boss's it up and breaks the combo. It would be a cool card to bust out at the end, however.
What did you think of this concept? Does the theory that a card like Cetitan would work best with a chip attacker in the spirit of Lokix seem like a fair appraisal of the ideal Reversal Energy deck? I'd appreciate the feedback. I got the idea after reading @LightYearLiam's appraisal (quoted below) of Raichu from Pokémon Card 151.
While we have seen the similar Scramble Energy used to much success in the EX era, the Scarlet & Violet era has a much faster and more cutthroat gameplay dynamic, and so far Scramble Energy hasn't seen much success in Japan.
Another card that will be introduced in Paldea Evolved seems absolutely tailor-made for this Special Energy, and is among the few Pokémon that stand out as potential targets for this Special Energy. That card would be Cetitan, also from Snow Hazard.
As you can see, this single prize stage 1 can hit for 220 damage with only a Reversal Energy attached. For this reason, a few Zoroark Box lists in Japan (as shown on Pokemoncard.io's weekly tournament reports) have played a Cetitan and a Reversal Energy. However, the idea has yet to take off, and Reversal Energy remains more prominent as an occasional tech in Gardevoir, while Cetitan has yet to emerge as the focus of its own deck.
This is where the question of what an ideal Reversal Energy deck would look like comes into play. Ideally, a Reversal Energy deck would have some single prize chip attacker that could soften up VMAXs and Stage 2 ??'s for a low Energy cost that requires no Energy acceleration. This chip attacker would then get Knocked Out, putting you at a 6-5/4-3/2-1 prize ratio. Perfect for Cetitan to charge in and swing for the Knock Out with Special Horn. This combo is important for a few reasons, besides needing to trigger Reversal Energy's effect in the first place. First, you only have a limited supply of Reversal Energy, and it's not the easiest card to find, either. Second, just as you can only run 4 Reversal Energy, you are also limited to 4 Cetitan or whatever you choose to play, and the more retrieval cards you play, the less space you have in your deck. Also, you need to make sure you can successfully sequence your board development, which means finding the Pokémon you need when you need them.
While I hardly think it's the next rogue deck waiting to happen, I do have an idea for a possible partner for Cetitan using this principle outlined above: Lokix, which was released earlier in the SV2 block, in Triplet Beat. Please bear with me as I explain the combo and outline the theoretical principles at work:
I know this card poses the problem of successfully evolving this Pokémon before sacrificing a Nymble and losing your momentum, but it seems to fit the bill for chip attacker better than anything else I can think of, save Moltres from Brilliant Stars (which doesn't hit the ideal 100-120 threshold and requires you to run a Stadium and switching cards). Lokix can use Assault Kick to deal out 130 for a single Grass Energy, which works great as a chip attacker as long as your opponent isn't running the "resist 30" ability we've seen on two bulky ??'s now (the two ??'s being Copperaja ?? and Blastoise ??). The fact that you can't repeat Assault Kick inhibits this card from functioning on its own, but just Lokix covers Cetitan's bases, so does Cetitan cover Lokix's bases. The two attackers mesh together to form the perfect two-hit KO on any double-prizer in the format. Ironically this deck would struggle with other single prize decks unless you were able to somehow force your opponent to stay ahead in the prize trade, then lock them out of the final prize, but in theory it works against double prize decks fairly well. As for what sort of engine this deck would run to keep it consistent, I would probably stick with Bibarel or Revaroom. The latter has the advantage of seeing more of your deck at a time (helping you find the elusive Reversal Energy more consistently), but also has the disadvantage of compelling you to run higher counts of basic Grass Energy card to reliably use its ability. (Also, Skwovet is already helping you churn through your deck more quickly if you stick with Bibarel.)
Fun fact: you could possibly get away with running Wo-Chien ?? in this deck, but I'm not sure you have a safe way of attaching three Grass Energy to this thing before your opponent Boss's it up and breaks the combo. It would be a cool card to bust out at the end, however.
(I included the card text just in case.)
What did you think of this concept? Does the theory that a card like Cetitan would work best with a chip attacker in the spirit of Lokix seem like a fair appraisal of the ideal Reversal Energy deck? I'd appreciate the feedback. I got the idea after reading @LightYearLiam's appraisal (quoted below) of Raichu from Pokémon Card 151.