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Alt. Format Pale Moon (Shadow Rider Vmax / Galarian Articuno / Cresselia / Zacian V)

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PALE MOON

This deck is intended to be used in a post-rotation SWSH1 to SWSH7 format.

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Pokémon (14):
4 Shadow Rider Vmax (beatdown)
4 Shadow Rider V S6K (beatdown)
2 Galarian Articuno (beatdown)
2 Cresselia S6K (acceleration)
2 Zacian V S8a (acceleration)

Trainer (32):
2 Boss’s Orders (control)
3 Prof. Research (draw)
3 Bird Keeper (draw)
3 Marnie (draw)
4 Evolution Incense (search)
2 Energy Retrieval (retrieve)
1 Escape Rope (control)
3 Air Balloon (retreat)
4 Fog Crystal (search)
4 Quick Ball (search)
3 Training Court (retrieval)

Energy (14):
14 Psychic Energy

STRATEGY:

The main idea is to focus on acceleration and ohkos with Max Geist. Start with either Shadow Rider V or Cresselia. The latter is the idea starter when going second. Make sure to have three copies of Shadow Rider V on the battlefield on the first turn. If you went second and Cresselia is active attach and accelerate to one of the three Shadow Rider V. When the deck goes first start with Shadow Rider V and attach to him. Search for Zacian V and one to two additional Shadow Rider V. At the end of the turn use Zacian V to attach a second Psychic energy from the deck to it. This will allow Shadow Rider V to attack on its second turn similar to the above mentioned Cressealia start. In either case evolve two or more Shadow Rider V into Shadow Rider Vmax on the second turn. Use Underworld Door to accelerate energies onto the battlefield and draw two additional cards for each energy accelerated in this manner. This should result into a total of five to seven energies on the battlefield on the second turns which translates into a solid 160 to 220 damage on the second turn with Max Geist. Galarian Articuno provides additional energy acceleration that can be used to accelerate the speed of the damage output or to replace fallen Shadow Rider Vmax with ease. Galarian Articuno also combos well with Shadow Rider V since both can hit the bench on demand to deal with selected one-prize decks. Energy Retrieval and Trainig Court are used to recover and reuse discarded energy to keep the entire engine moving in trms of draw and damage output.

SPOILER:

Galarian Articuno
Basic Psychic Pokémon
HP: 120
Ability: Cool Charge
When you play this Pokémon from your hand onto your bench during your turn, you may attach 2 [P] energy cards from your hand to it.
[P][C][C] Psycho Laser
Discard all [P] energy from this Pokémon. This attack does 120 damage to 1 of your opponent’s Pokémon.
Retreat Cost: CC
Weakness: D
Resistance: F


CARD SHARK:

In this section I will outline the main rational behind the card choices.

4-4 Shadow Rider Vmax: Max Geist is the main win condition in this deck. Shadow Rider Vmax needs seven [P] energies on the battlefield to knock out most Pokémon V and eleven [P] energies to knock out all Pokémon Vmax. The main method to accelerate [P] energies to the battlefield of Underworld Door which accelerates one [P] to a benched Psychic Pokémon per Shadow Rider Vmax. In addition Underworld Door also allows the deck to draw two cards for each [P] energy accelerated to the battlefield in this manner. To achieve a ohko on Pokémon V on the second turn the deck needs three Shadow Rider Vmax on the battlefield and some assistance from either Cresselia or Galarian Articuno. The choice between these two depends on whether the deck went first or second. On the third turn Max Geist should be able to achieve on-hit knock outs on Pokémon V. For this reason I included the maximum number of Shadow Rider V and Shadow Rider Vmax to increase the likelihood to achieve this aim. Shadow Rider V is also decent on his own. Astral Barrage provides some excellent bench damage which helps versus one-prize decks such as Rapid Strike Malamar and Decidueye since the latter does not prevent effects of attacks.

2 Cresselia: Crescent Glow provides excellent acceleration on the first turn going second and therefore enables the deck to each relevant ohko numbers on Pokémon V on it's second turn even if it went second. In addition Cresselia is also a nice answer to selected one-prize decks such as the aforementioned Rapid Strike Malamar, Decidueye combined with Inteleon, and one-prize Single Strike decks. In other matches and situations the card is not that great. Since the deck can retrieve Pokémon with Ordinary Rod and has an excellent Pokémon search engine two copies should be sufficient.

2 Galarian Articuno: In cases in which the deck went first it used to be hard to accelerate a sufficient number of [P] energies to the battlefield to reach relevant ohko numbers on Pokémon V on the second turn with Max Geist. Cool Charge resolves this issue since it accelerates two [P] energies to the battlefiel out of nowhere. Unlike Underworld Door Cool Charge cannot be shut down with Path to the Peak and from recent test runs it truely speeds up the damage output of the deck. Nevertheless two copies seem sufficient because you will hardly be using Cool Charge more than twice. In addition the aforementioned energy acceleration Psycho Laser provides a nice bench attack that combos well with Shadow Rider V's Astral Barrage in matches versus one-prize Pokémon.

2 Zacian V: Zacian V is used for Roar of the Sword to accelerate a second Basic Psychic to the active Shadow Rider V in order to enable Shadow Rider Vmax to hit for a solid number on the second turn. He can also be used as a counter to Darkness Pokémon such as Galarian Moltres V and Zamazenta V who blocks damage done to it by Pokémon Vmax.

3-3-3 Prof. Research, Marnie, and Bird Keeper: Despite the draw potential of Underworld Door you sure want a stable draw supporter count to ensure a quick and reliable offense with Shadow Rider Vmax. Prof. Research and Marnie are the two best supporters in the game and need no explanation. While most decks maximize the number of these two supporters three copies each seem sufficient in this deck since you supplement these two supporters with a direct draw supporter that neither shuffles cards back into the deck, nor discards your entire hand. The direct draw from cards like Bird Keeper and other direct draw supporters combos well with the draw power provided by Underworld Door. In this deck I decided to run Bird Keeper as the direct draw supporter since he also provides a much needed switch effect. An alternative to Bird Keeper would be Avery. Avery forces the opponent to discard Pokémon from their bench until they have three Pokémon left on their bench. This effect may be benefitial when faced with Eternatus Vmax and most Vmax decks that use the Inteleon engine to provide search and damage acceleration at the same time. In most other matches Avery's side effect does little for this deck and may even benefit the opponent because it allows them to get rid of Crobat and other easier targets that give up multiple prizes. In addition I value to switch effect of Bord Keeper more than the potential protection of Avery but this card slot is up to debates depending on the predicted meta.

2 Boss's Orders: Instant unconditional Gust effects are great in any deck. I decided to run two copies of Boss's Orders instead of the standard three copies since the deck is ment to reach ohko numbers on the third to fourth turn in a reliable manner. In addition Underworld Dorr and the present draw engine should suffice to gain access to Boss's Orders when you need it.

4-4-4 Evolution Incense, Quick Ball, and Fog Crystal: As mentioned in the strategy section the deck aims to have at least three Shadow Rider Vmax on the battlefield on the second turn. To achieve this aim the deck needs a stable Pokémon Search engine. If the deck went first you also need to search for Galarian Articuno to supplement the acceleration with Underworld Doorr and the manual attachment. This is rather important to mantain a fast and stable offense from turn two on. In addition Pokémon search is also used to access Pumpkaboo as an emergency button to deal with Path to the Peak in the set-up and recovery phase after a Shadow Rider Vmax has been knocked out. For these reasons we want to maximize the number of Pokémon search items in this deck. Quick Ball and Fog Crystal allow the deck to search for Basic Pokémon in this deck. The latter can also be used to search of [P] energy and does not require a discard from the hand. Evolution Incense are used to search for Shadow Rider Vmax. I prefer a maximized item search engine over alternatives such as Adventurer's Discovery since the latter is a supporter and it is restricted to Pokémon V. Thus it is less versatile and becomes a dead card after the first one has been used. Running a lower Adventurer's Discovery count over two of the three Pokémon search items also seem less appealing since it cuts into the consistance of the deck.

3 Air Balloon: All Pokémon in this deck have a retreat cost of two or less and the deck needs some mobility on the battlefield in the first few turns. For this reason three Air Balloon have been included in this deck. Another benefit is that it also hurts Leafeon Vmax since it reduces the retreat cost to zero or two if Leafeon has Galar Mine out.

1-2 Escape Rope and Energy Retrieval: Escape Rope is ment to act as the fourth switch card in this deck and can also be used to bypass one-prize prays that the opponent tries to feed to the deck instead of their main two prize or three prize attackers. Energy Retrieval provides needed resource recovery and allows the deck to replace a defeated Shadow Rider Vmax within a turn.

3 Trainig Court: Prior to the rotation most Shadow Rider decks either used one or two Chaotic Swell in addition to Marshadow to deal with Path to the Peak. Post-rotation these options are no longer available. One could replace Marshadow with Pumpkaboo but he remains on the bench and can be taken advantage of. For this reason I decided to use three stadium cards to counter Path to the Peak in addition to Galarian Articuno to retain the energy on the battlefield to enable Shadow Rider Vmax to knock out the defender in one hit.

14 Basic Psychic Energy: On usual most prior lists run no more than twelve energies in total. However the main aim of this decklist is to achive ohkos on Pokémon V on turn two and ohkos on Pokémon Vmax on the third to fourth turn. As outlined above Galarian Articuno helps a lot to achieve this aim since the additional two attachments to the battlefield essentially buys the deck a turn of acceleration and thereby strenghtens the offense and speed of the deck to more closely match the early game speed of decks such as Ice Rider Vmax. However, Galarian Articuno requires the player to have two access energies in hand. For this reason I decided to increase the total energy count to fourtheen instead of twelve.

VISUAL DECKLIST:

Pale Moon.jpg
 
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