First Teaser Info for S6 'Silver Lance' and 'Jet-Black Spirit!'

Ranger64

Mewtwo Mastermind
Member
So Shadow rider ability Hellgate is nerfed by the stadium, but the stadium is slightly nerfed by both shadow rider V's Shadow Mist and the ability to play your own stadium. Maybe it's not too absurdly broken afterall.
 

Michael Stadler

Aspiring Trainer
Member
When did it ever leave? Empoleon only shuts things if it's in the active spot, as soon as it goes to the bench and Urshifu becomes active to use G-Max Flow Mew is working again... As far as the rest of what you said goes, I can't make heads or tails of it, my goodness.
I guess empoleon + scrolls + passimian work to do 60 to mew + 60 to the other pokemons, other that that not sure what he was thinking exactly.
 

cardgjammer

Aspiring Trainer
Member
When did it ever leave? Empoleon only shuts things if it's in the active spot, as soon as it goes to the bench and Urshifu becomes active to use G-Max Flow Mew is working again... As far as the rest of what you said goes, I can't make heads or tails of it, my goodness.

VS. RS Urshifu + Empoleon V:

I thought empoleon v applied to the Bench too, and I thought that Strafe can lead to mew's ability being locked AND limit Calyrex's ability to set up while RSU sets up behind the cover of a Rare Fossil, and I thought the stadium could fix that, at the cost of Calyrex not being able to set up due to its ability being disabled too... Misread and mistaken. :(

Ice Rider + Inteleon MFI/Shadow Rider VS. Eternatus:

Shadow Rider:

Lead with Cress, put down Old Cemetery immediately if you can, then use billowing fan or crushing hammer to remove energy from eternatus, bench 2 Calyrex V, 1 Crobat V, and 1 Blipbug, then use Cress's acceleration attack. Next, on your second turn, replenish stadium and fan or hammer if you have to, SupN Cress, Crobat V to Candy Bilpbug into Orbeetle, evolve the 2 Calyrex V into Calyrex VMAXes to accelerate further under the cover of an Active Orbeetle Battle Styles, while being mindful of bench space, and Twin Energy, or even single Energy, to get Chandelure RCL onto the Bench, and on your opponent's turn, if Avery's used, you can discard the Bats, and NOT having to worry about discarding one of your vmaxes, and with Chandelure's ability in play, no need to mourn the coming loss of Weakness Guard Energy from Standard, and you don't have to worry about eternatus weakness, UNLESS in the event the ability is "ordered" out. But hopefully, by the time Chandelure's dropped down, ordered out or not, when your turn comes up again, you can either put down another Calyrex V, and KO Eternatus VMAX and coast from there, whether 1 hit or 2 hits are needed to do so, while not worrying about a second Avery, as if it comes up, you can discard Orbeetle, and if you have to make room on your turn, you can use a second SupN to put Orbeetle back in hand to make room for another Calyrex V, and carry out what's necessary to finish the game from there w/ your VMAX...

Ice Rider:

Lead w/ Blipbug, and same steps as above, only with these changes: the stadium can be the Path to the Peak instead of Old Cemetery, and wait instead of attack-to-accelerate(no Cress here), and other than that, same as before, only that you can add Inteleon MFI(for the added ability-induced counters) on top of Chandelure RCL on Orbeetle's evolution-cheating attack... :)
 
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Diego Lima

Aspiring Trainer
Member
VS. RS Urshifu + Empoleon V:

I thought empoleon v applied to the Bench too, and I thought that Strafe can lead to mew's ability being locked AND limit Calyrex's ability to set up while RSU sets up behind the cover of a Rare Fossil, and I thought the stadium could fix that, at the cost of Calyrex not being able to set up due to its ability being disabled too... Misread and mistaken. :(

Ice Rider + Inteleon MFI/Shadow Rider VS. Eternatus:

Shadow Rider:

Lead with Cress, put down Old Cemetery immediately if you can, then use billowing fan or crushing hammer to remove energy from eternatus, bench 2 Calyrex V, 1 Crobat V, and 1 Blipbug, then use Cress's acceleration attack. Next, on your second turn, SupN Cress, Crobat V to Candy Bilpbug into Orbeetle, evolve the 2 Calyrex V into Calyrex VMAXes to accelerate further under the cover of an Active Orbeetle Battle Styles, while being mindful of bench space, and Twin Energy, or even single Energy, to get Chandelure RCL onto the Bench, and if Avery's used, you can discard the Bats, and NOT having to worry about discarding one of your vmaxes, and with Chandelure's ability in play, no need to mourn the coming loss of Weakness Guard Energy from Standard, and you don't have to worry about eternatus weakness, UNLESS in the event the ability is "ordered" out. But hopefully, by the time Chandelure's dropped down, ordered out or not, you can use another SupN to put Orbeetle back in hand to make room for another Calyrex V, and maybe 2HKO Eternatus VMAX if he doesn't "order" Chandelure out, finish the game from there w/ your VMAX...

Ice Rider:

Lead w/ Blipbug, and same steps as above, only with these changes: the stadium can be the Path to the Peak instead of Old Cemetery, and wait instead of attack-to-accelerate(no Cress here), and other than that, same as before, only that you can add Inteleon MFI on top of Chandelure RCL on Orbeetle's evolution-cheating attack... :)


That sounds unbelievably clunky, no way a deck should bother with all that and sacrifice that much consistency against everything else just so it can tech against a bad matchup. At that point it's better to be as consistent as possible and just take the loss against a specific matchup. There will probably be easier ways to tech against specific matchups anyways.
 

Stalltar

Aspiring Trainer
Member
We have
- Psychic Volcanion
- Water Welder
- Psychic Net Ball
- Psychic Rayquaza but acceleration is from hand with Zoroark's trade in built in
- Ultra Necrozma but Water type
- Power Plant but for everything

The most interesting card here is Old Cemetery, which enables the already annoying Galarian Cursola and Dracozolt decks to build even more damage counters on opponent's Pokémon. We're heading into a triangle meta once again - Dark > Psychi > Fighting, and fortunately with the rotation of ADP soon, single-prize decks will have a chance to compete. Metal will likely remain prominent into the meta, what with Cheryl Bronzong decks and Zacian turbo, Water with Calyrex Ice and Frosmoth, and Grass has two native accelerators in Cherrim and Rillaboom, we only need a good attacker. A shame for Fire which will likely plunge into the depths of irrelevance after Welder rotates, and Lightning, whose only remaining acceleration will be Electrode.

Still, given how prominent Calyrex Shadow will be, and the three-prize liability that it becomes when it can't win the prize race, single prizers should do well as long as they are able to consistently evolve and attack. This is my biggest consolation, they just need to print better single-prize darkness and psychic pokémon.
Old Cemetery is indeed pretty neat, but it’s also a 1 to 1 reprint of frozen city, except psychic types are immune. It really blows my mind how creatively bankrupt they’ve been in the swsh era. So many cards are just rehashes of BW-SM cards
 

MagnaDrake

Aspiring Trainer
Member
Old Cemetery is indeed pretty neat, but it’s also a 1 to 1 reprint of frozen city, except psychic types are immune. It really blows my mind how creatively bankrupt they’ve been in the swsh era. So many cards are just rehashes of BW-SM cards
Happens in card games. Sometimes the design space just overlap with each other, or it's an intentional functional reprint, just in another color.

If you look far enough, BW-SM cards are rehashes from RSE-HGSS cards, and so on and so forth, just power scaled to the current modern level.
 

MagnaDrake

Aspiring Trainer
Member
With Swell going out of rotation, I am tempted to bring Wyndon Stadium to my Metal decks just to bump Path to the Peak off.
 

Dark Espeon

Dark Avatar
Member
I guess empoleon + scrolls + passimian work to do 60 to mew + 60 to the other pokemons, other that that not sure what he was thinking exactly.

Similar to Telescopic Sight Passimian only increases the damage done to bench Pokémon V and Pokémon GX. Your options to handle Mew are Falinks combined with Boss's Orders or Inteleon's Quick Shooter. In both cases you do not need to expose Rapid Strike Urshifu Vmax to deal with Mew.
 

Michael Stadler

Aspiring Trainer
Member
Similar to Telescopic Sight Passimian only increases the damage done to bench Pokémon V and Pokémon GX. Your options to handle Mew are Falinks combined with Boss's Orders or Inteleon's Quick Shooter. In both cases you do not need to expose Rapid Strike Urshifu Vmax to deal with Mew.
thanks for correcting, I have read that card way to quickly. I guess it's Boss or Inteleon then, Mustard + Inteleon could be fun (If you're already playing mustard).
 

Hunga

Oh no! Rotation in sight
Member
How much power creep do you want?

Yes

Sorry, but these cards are RIDICULOUS compared to anything from the B/W era or before.
Geez... :/
 

jamashawalker

Ikouze!
Member
I've been thinking about these two all day. And the best things to come out of these reveals is the support they'll receive.

Cresselia is an amazing starter for Psychic decks all around. Unfortunately it's NOT as good as Volcanion due to be limited to only ONE pokemon and not spread the energy ANYWHERE you like. Also this means you must go second every game if you're relying on cresselia for your Psychic deck. Going first in Welder deck that plays Volcanion isn't the worse thing ever, going second is just better.

Melony. Ok I really really love this card. She opens up options for how you want to build your decks and is not as busted as Welder. BTW something no one has mentioned is that she is not limited to only Water V pokemon. I can see a deck in the future that may want to play some sort of V toolbox that utilizes Melony+ a special energy. (looking at a possible rapid strike box)

Fog Crystal will be an instant 4 of in all psychic decks. Net Ball for psychic pokemon lol who is saying no to not adding 4 of them in your deck.

Path to Peak. For the time being this will be a great inclusion to make the "Plant+Stamp" combo stronger. It's funny that this card gives Ice Rider Calyrex a much better Match up against straight Zacian Decks. Hurting their ability to intrepid sword slows them down tremendously.

Old Cemetery+Path to Peak will most likely make players run more stadium cards in their decks. Frosmoth decks will HATE old Cemetery and a bunch of decks won't appreciate that extra 20 damage. This also brings alot of value to Sabeleye decks. Hopefully this what it was missing to make it more viable lol

Ice Rider Calyrex. I might be one of the very few that likes this one over the Shadow Rider as an attacker. If 250 for 2 was on a fire pokemon with Welder in the format everyone would instantly scream busted on it (Yes I know Welder is better than Melony but the similarity is the same for this card) Another thing to love about this card is the early turn pressure it can give your opponent, extremely similar to Victini VMAX. A benched V with an energy attached is vulnerable to be gusted next to turn and KOed with little effort. That pesky metal weakness though, can never overlook that.

Shadow Rider Calyrex. I'm sorry I'm just not as hyped as everyone else on this card. As a support pokemon who wants to power up other Psychic pokemon, ABSOLUTELY!! As it's own stand alone deck, I just don't see the power being there without drawing extremely well, even then you need alot to reach Ice Rider's level of power and for everything to go right. This is where my problem lies in the deck alone. You absolutely need to go second no matter what. Cresselia's attack is also a must but leaves you vunerable because you're putting all your energy into one pokemon. If I'm any deck, I would try my best to gust up that shadow calyrex on the bench with loaded energy for game instantly. Also a KOed Shadow Calyrex is 100 extra damage gone + the loss of energy acceleration. So yeah, looks amazing on paper but in a fast paced metagame (even post rotation) I'm not sold on it.
 

Dark Espeon

Dark Avatar
Member
Shadow Rider Calyrex. I'm sorry I'm just not as hyped as everyone else on this card. As a support pokemon who wants to power up other Psychic pokemon, ABSOLUTELY!! As it's own stand alone deck, I just don't see the power being there without drawing extremely well, even then you need alot to reach Ice Rider's level of power and for everything to go right. This is where my problem lies in the deck alone. You absolutely need to go second no matter what. Cresselia's attack is also a must but leaves you vunerable because you're putting all your energy into one pokemon. If I'm any deck, I would try my best to gust up that shadow calyrex on the bench with loaded energy for game instantly. Also a KOed Shadow Calyrex is 100 extra damage gone + the loss of energy acceleration. So yeah, looks amazing on paper but in a fast paced metagame (even post rotation) I'm not sold on it.

Unlike Ice Rider Vmax the Shadow Rider Vmax version is a set up deck that because gradually better over time but it does need time to reach numbers. Ice Rider Vmax is faster and nonetheless has a decent damage output. It is a slightly less self-sufficient but stonger version of Victini Vmax that also has access to a small Frosmoth line to stream attackers. Nevertheless I believe that Shadow Rider Vmax is actually nice due to all the support it recieved with a total of four Basic Pokémon search cards and the built in acceleration and draw. A fueld and defeated Shadow Rider Vmax costs the deck 90 damage instead of 100. It still is a considerable amount and we will have to see what other Basic non-V Psychic Pokémon will be available to Shadow Rider Vmax in addition to Cresselia. I would not write the card off but I agree that people seem to be sleeping on Ice Rider Vmax similar to Victini Vmax when Battle Styles was released.
 

John InCENAroar

Praising the Vish, Praying for Sableye V
Member
By the looks of things, it looks like there will be 4-6 dominant decks that form two triangles post-rotation. Etern. --> SRC --> Urshifu RS/Quad G. Zapdos and Zacian --> IRC --> (insert fire deck here). The first is going to be the more prominent of the two, since Shadow Rider Calyrex (SRC) is so stupidly good, and Eternatus is still very solid, even post-rotation; people will likely run some fighting deck in order to counter Eternatus if it still has more market share than Calyrex. Honestly I don't know how to feel about it becasue I'm on team Ice Rider and wanted that one to be the better of the two, but oh well.
 

Diego Lima

Aspiring Trainer
Member
I've been thinking about these two all day. And the best things to come out of these reveals is the support they'll receive.

Cresselia is an amazing starter for Psychic decks all around. Unfortunately it's NOT as good as Volcanion due to be limited to only ONE pokemon and not spread the energy ANYWHERE you like. Also this means you must go second every game if you're relying on cresselia for your Psychic deck. Going first in Welder deck that plays Volcanion isn't the worse thing ever, going second is just better.

Melony. Ok I really really love this card. She opens up options for how you want to build your decks and is not as busted as Welder. BTW something no one has mentioned is that she is not limited to only Water V pokemon. I can see a deck in the future that may want to play some sort of V toolbox that utilizes Melony+ a special energy. (looking at a possible rapid strike box)

Fog Crystal will be an instant 4 of in all psychic decks. Net Ball for psychic pokemon lol who is saying no to not adding 4 of them in your deck.

Path to Peak. For the time being this will be a great inclusion to make the "Plant+Stamp" combo stronger. It's funny that this card gives Ice Rider Calyrex a much better Match up against straight Zacian Decks. Hurting their ability to intrepid sword slows them down tremendously.

Old Cemetery+Path to Peak will most likely make players run more stadium cards in their decks. Frosmoth decks will HATE old Cemetery and a bunch of decks won't appreciate that extra 20 damage. This also brings alot of value to Sabeleye decks. Hopefully this what it was missing to make it more viable lol

Ice Rider Calyrex. I might be one of the very few that likes this one over the Shadow Rider as an attacker. If 250 for 2 was on a fire pokemon with Welder in the format everyone would instantly scream busted on it (Yes I know Welder is better than Melony but the similarity is the same for this card) Another thing to love about this card is the early turn pressure it can give your opponent, extremely similar to Victini VMAX. A benched V with an energy attached is vulnerable to be gusted next to turn and KOed with little effort. That pesky metal weakness though, can never overlook that.

Shadow Rider Calyrex. I'm sorry I'm just not as hyped as everyone else on this card. As a support pokemon who wants to power up other Psychic pokemon, ABSOLUTELY!! As it's own stand alone deck, I just don't see the power being there without drawing extremely well, even then you need alot to reach Ice Rider's level of power and for everything to go right. This is where my problem lies in the deck alone. You absolutely need to go second no matter what. Cresselia's attack is also a must but leaves you vunerable because you're putting all your energy into one pokemon. If I'm any deck, I would try my best to gust up that shadow calyrex on the bench with loaded energy for game instantly. Also a KOed Shadow Calyrex is 100 extra damage gone + the loss of energy acceleration. So yeah, looks amazing on paper but in a fast paced metagame (even post rotation) I'm not sold on it.

Ok, so, Ice Rider Calyrex VMAX. Looks pretty good, very straight forward. There's enough water support to make it work I would assume, between Frosmoth, Capacious bucket and Melony. It can work like Victini does, trying to always go first so it can Boss and murder whatever they were setting up turn two. With guaranteed 250 damage it should be more than enough to accomplish that pretty consistently. Plus, since we've mentioned it, Victini is pretty good, early data confirms that, in case anyone was still sleeping on the card (and only tends to get better once rotation happens and there's no more GXs that it can't hit for 220), so that's good for this card.

Yup, we have prettty similar thoughts on Ice Rider. One thing I didn't see anyone around here commenting on though is its first attack, it's super relevant, and gives the card a very welcome versatility. With a full bench on their side it's enough to KO fire 3 prizers, sparing you from having to discard anything, leaving you room to confortably use Melony to charge a second one in the bench for instance. Against non-weak to water mons, you can use it to soften up Vmaxes for the kill with the second attack next turn, even if they only have like 3 benched pokémon. So, yeah, I think it's very underrated at the moment, card looks pretty dope, especially when it can use Path to the Peak.

On the Shadow Rider side, I've had many reality checks since my first impression and with more careful thought I also agree with you that it's not as insane as it seems upon first read. I noticed most reactions saying it's a mistake or whatever, seem to evaluate the card by assuming the deck will somehow always go first, have 4 Vmaxes, and 11 energies on board by turn 3 (by evolving all 4 Vs turn 2 and having 5 energies to put on board turns 2 and 3). Well games won't go like that every time, opponents will disrupt you, sometimes you'll lose the coin flip and be forced to go second, using Cresselia to charge up a V only to see it Bossed and murdered by Victini turn 2. Sometimes you'll have 3 Vmaxes on board, but once you attach the energy to draw 2 on the first one, you don't draw any more eneries, so you can't use the abilities on the other 2. When one of them dies you lose not only the damage, but also the accel and draw it provided. Anyway, it's obviously gonna be good, but no, you bunch of drama queens, it won't break the game.
 

Michael Stadler

Aspiring Trainer
Member
I don't think people said the Ice raider is terrible, but what it does (2HKO VMAXs and OHKO Vs) can be done by Victini without having to discard, while Victini can choose to go for Ninetail on bench to have a Boss substitute to chase on kill one pokemon V each turn. The 250 damage from Calyrex (instead of 220 of Victini) is only relevant against 230 HP Vs or single prizers that have more than 100 HP (and those numbers are decidueye and Zamazenta that are already immunes to Vmaxs). Only things that could matter are the stone energy putting urshifus to virtually 240 HP, or googles/charms, but I'm not sure it would be a sufficiant reason to play Ice raider over Victini, at last typing might be a reason, depending of what is more popular between Steel or Water.
 

Flygonite

Meta/budget player
Member
People are also behaving like Shadow Ryder Calyrex doesn't have access to all the consistency in the world between Crobat, Dedenne and supporters. Even if you discard them or they get KO'd, you can quickly recover them with Klara - people are assuming they get lost forever when they don't, and in a deck like this, Klara easily seems a must-have. You can recover your Shadow Rider V-Max and 2 extra energies to attach. The field where you can attach 5 per turn and draw 8 cards is obviously something you can't manage every game, but this is no different to Zoroark, where the consistent draw power + damage output easily ends up overtaking other decks. This is Shadow Rider biggest advantage in the format, IMO. That it isn't as weak to Stamp/Marnie as other decks, that as long as you have a Shadow Rider in play, a Klara, a Psychic Ball or some way to draw into energies, you can easily rebuild your board. The fact that the deck also has an excellent starter in Cresselia, or can go first and try to setup three Calyrex Shadow on bench - to go ham next turn - only makes it more consistent. You don't have to put all eggs on a single basket.

Also, if Zacian/Victini become such a problem in the long run, you can start including Cape of Toughness in your deck. IMO, the thing actually holding Shadow Rider from overtaking the meta - just like with Zoroark - will be a massive weakness, in this case to Darkness. After rotation happens, you can't even include Weakness Guard Energy, and your best bet would be to mix with Alcremie V-Max.
 
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Diego Lima

Aspiring Trainer
Member
People are also behaving like Shadow Ryder Calyrex doesn't have access to all the consistency in the world between Crobat, Dedenne and supporters. Even if you discard them or they get KO'd, you can quickly recover them with Klara - people are assuming they get lost forever when they don't, and in a deck like this, Klara easily seems a must-have. You can recover your Shadow Rider V-Max and 2 extra energies to attach. The field where you can attach 5 per turn and draw 8 cards is obviously something you can't manage every game, but this is no different to Zoroark, where the consistent draw power + damage output easily ends up overtaking other decks. This is Shadow Rider biggest advantage in the format, IMO. That it isn't as weak to Stamp/Marnie as other decks, that as long as you have a Shadow Rider in play, a Klara, a Psychic Ball or some way to draw into energies, you can easily rebuild your board. The fact that the deck also has an excellent starter in Cresselia, or can go first and try to setup three Calyrex Shadow on bench - to go ham next turn - only makes it more consistent. You don't have to put all eggs on a single basket.

Also, if Zacian/Victini become such a problem in the long run, you can start including Cape of Toughness in your deck. IMO, the thing actually holding Shadow Rider from overtaking the meta - just like with Zoroark - will be a massive weakness, in this case to Darkness. After rotation happens, you can't even include Weakness Guard Energy, and your best bet would be to mix with Alcremie V-Max.

No one said that the card is trash or that the deck won't be good, just that it has weaknesses and games don't always go like the christmas land scenarios people think when they first imagine the card in action. I think there's a big distance between saying the card won't be good and saying that it won't be the end of the game like many have suggested.
 

Alolan Teddiursa

Aspiring Trainer
Member
In expanded, I think that the Shadow Rider would be a good supporter for other psychic Pokemon, rather than always being a main attacker. It might fit well in a psychic toolbox deck with Giratina, Wobbuffet etc. With it's draw support, ADP may be quite difficult to win due to the deck's accessibility to Pokemon ranger and ability lock. Also has a great chance to beat stall decks. Not sure if will be top tier though as theory turns out often quite different with reality.

The ice rider would also be a playable deck. I would say that both attacks would be useful and would be quite versatile in matches. There might be two strategies to use: (1) pair with max potion, acerola and the new supporter (2) replace zacian in ADP. Personally, I feel (2) might be a bit clunky. Again, these are just pure theories.
 
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