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Standard Rayquaza/Zeraora

PlatinumDude

Aspiring Trainer
Member
****** Pokémon Trading Card Game Deck List ******

##Pokémon - 12

* 4 Rayquaza-GX CES 160
* 2 Dhelmise CES 22
* 1 Shuckle LOT 16
* 2 Zeraora-GX LOT 86
* 1 Marshadow SLG 45
* 2 Tapu Lele-GX GRI 137

##Trainer Cards - 34

* 2 Rescue Stretcher BUS 165
* 1 Thunder Mountain {*} LOT 191
* 2 Lillie SUM 147
* 2 Mysterious Treasure FLI 113
* 1 Pokémon Fan Club FLF 106
* 2 Wishful Baton BUS 128
* 2 Choice Band GRI 121
* 1 Acro Bike PRC 122
* 4 Guzma BUS 115
* 2 Energy Recycler AOR 72
* 4 Ultra Ball FCO 113
* 3 Cynthia UPR 119
* 2 Field Blower GRI 125
* 2 Sightseer LOT 189
* 2 Volkner UPR 135
* 2 Nest Ball SUM 123

##Energy - 14

* 7 Lightning Energy Energy 4
* 7 Grass Energy Energy 1

Total Cards - 60

****** Deck List Generated by the Pokémon TCG Online www.pokemon.com/TCGO ******

I've been testing out VikaRay on PTCGO and it's been fun to use because Steven's Resolve helps guarantee the turn 2 Vikavolt. I read part of one of Pokebeach's articles and it said that Rayquaza/Zeraora might be the better way to go moving forward because Zeraora's Full Voltage accelerates a bunch of energy all at once for Rayquaza to smash in subsequent turns. I tried out the variant myself and I found it hard to get 5 energies into the discard early for Full Voltage to accelerate. I know I have Shuckle to help, but during testing, I found that bench space tended to get a bit tight since Shuckle became dead weight as soon as its job was done. Would a Zeraora/Vikavolt hybrid work out here?

Edit: I don't have Shining Lugia, so a second Dhelmise is a stand-in for it.
 

momand

Aspiring Trainer
Member
I would honestly say that you should cut a bunch of unnecessary cards
Here are my suggested changes:
-1 Energy Recycler (You don't play Vikavolt, you only really need 1 at the most)
-2 Nest Ball (You don't really need Nest Ball at all, the only thing you'd be getting with it is Zeraora or Dhelmise, and you have Ultra Ball and Net Ball for that)
-1 Volkner (Not necessary to have 2, you don't play Vikavolt)
-1 Thunder Mountain (You rarely use Plasma Fists, and when you do, you could easily get the 3 energy on it)
-2 Field Blower (Garbotoxin/Float Stone isn't in format so field blower is kinda bad, usually a dead card)
-1 Rescue Stretcher (Not entirely sure if you need 2 to be honest. Rays don't die THAT quickly)

+2 Acro Bike (More aggro energy discarding)
+2 Net Ball (Gets Shuckle much more easily)
+1 Shuckle (You need more of these bad boys)
+1 Cynthia (More consistency)
+1 Wishful Baton (Without Vikavolt, you want to keep as much energy on your board as possible)

So here's my suggested list:
4x Rayquaza GX
2x Dhelmise CES or Shining Lugia
2x Zeraora GX
2x Shuckle LOT
2x Tapu Lele GX
1x Marshadow SHL

4x Cynthia
4x Guzma
2x Lillie
2x Sightseer
1x Volkner
1x Pokemon Fan Club

4x Ultra Ball
3x Wishful Baton
3x Acro Bike
2x Choice Band
2x Mysterious Treasure
2x Net Ball
1x Rescue Stretcher
1x Energy Recycler

7x Grass Energy
7x Lightning Energy

Shuckle is good bc you don't necessarily need bench space. Marshadow is dead weight once it does its job as well and it's very necessary for the deck IMO.

Zeraora + Vikavolt is far too clunky so I personally wouldn't do it. Ray is busted with Zeraora and Wishful Baton.
 

Duo

RIP Nessa 2023
Member
I'm going to offer you the list I've settled on after some discussion in a previous thread and allow you to pick and choose what you think has value or not or what you have on hand to build with. But before I do that I just want to say that through a lot of playtesting, I can comfortably say that Ray/Zeraora is very strong. It's got the following pros going for it:

1. The Zeraora variant runs strictly basic Pokemon. No evolutions needed, and this makes the deck incredibly consistent when you add in cards like Mysterious Treasure and Lillie. I very often have 14-16 turn 1 hands thanks to Lillie.

2. This deck is very fast. Good set ups will have you seeing 10-12 energy on the board by the end of turn 2, which is just 3 more turns of OHKOs on GX decks or 6 turns of OHKOs on non-GX decks. Due to the way Rayquaza snowballs, it can also be molded to handle 1 prize decks due to the much lower energy requirements for OHKOs as well as some of your own 1 prize tech options being able to take good trades. It's also not afraid to see Stage 2 Pokemon with 230+ HP, because it can OHKO those without fizzling out its own resources like Blacephalon does.

3. The fact that Zeraora and Shuckle become "dead weight" on your bench is actually a good thing. At the end of turn 2 of the game, assuming you didn't brick by opening 6 energies, Guzma, and a Rayquaza (oops), you should be seeing at least 2 Rayquaza GX that are ready to grab OHKOs. Most of the time you'll see 3 with good card order. This doesn't give your opponent time to go after Zeraora or Shuckle whereas Vikavolt is something your opponent can target while you're setting up, and if it does get knocked out it puts a pretty big kink into your plan. In my dozens of playtesting rounds vs other decks, anytime I experimented with going after Zeraora or Shuckle for free prizes, I end up losing since I'm ignoring the huge threat level that 3 fully charged Ray GXs has. Now obviously if your opponent only has 1 or 2 prizes left to take, they can just go in on you, but this is true of every deck and is not a problem exclusive to Ray. From my own experience, "dead weight" cards like Tapu Lele, Alolan Ninetales GX, etc, are only ever dead weight if you have no form of pressure to force your opponent to focus on something else. This deck doesn't lack pressure, so your Rayquazas are always protecting the rest of your bench.

As for my list...

Pokemon x13

Rayquaza GX x4
Zeraora GX x2
Shuckle x2 (mandatory, IMO)
Tapu Lele GX x1 (you only need it once for T1 Lillie, and that's about it. Is kind of scary to prize it but you have enough draw support consistency to not worry about it).
Tapu Koko Promo x1 (more type coverage than spamming Shining Lugia. Spread damage is relevant in a 1 prize attacker focused game) - Becomes Tapu Koko Prism Star (Dark Order)
Shining Lugia x1
Zekrom (Dragon's Majesty) x1 (guaranteed OHKO on any relevant 1 prize attacker with Devoured Field) - Becomes Shaymin Prism Star (GX Ultra Shiny)
Latias Prism Star x1 (super under rated card. Hits for 30 which effectively chops off 1 energy requirement for your first Ray KO. Perfect for when you don't have 5 energy in discard but you do have 2-3. Makes Mysterious Treasure significantly more relevant.)

Supporter x13

Cynthia x4
Lillie x3 - best turn 1 supporter card in the format. 4 is too many, but 3 is just right.
Guzma x3
Sightseer x2
Tate & Liza x1 - becomes Lisia with Tapu Koko & Shaymin Prism

Item x18

Ultra Ball x4
Mysterious Treasure x4 (Max out on this to max out on seeing Lele, Rayquaza GX, and Latias Prism. Also discards your energy in hand so Ray GX's ability can't miss.)
Wishful Baton x4
Rescue Stretcher x2 (Lets you mill recklessly with Ray GX and then recover Pokemon like Shuckle and Zeraora. I do this once per game in most games).
Pal Pad x1 (probably the least useful card in the deck that's mostly here as an oh frick card, because 3 Ray can accidentally mill 3 Cynthias in 1 turn).

Devoured Field x2 (Field Blower can't affect Prism Star stadiums, and there aren't enough Pokemon tools being played that actually straight up auto-lose you the game. Devoured Field gives you some nice numbers while fighting the stadium wars. Don't underestimate Latias Prism Star poke damage, lets you OHKO Buzzwole GX with only 6 energy in play).
Thunder Mountain Prism Star x1 (Lets you GX attack for free on Zeraora GX. This lets you attach energy to Ray and not Zeraora. Effectively a 9th Eletric energy. Makes Tapu Koko a better 1 prize attacker. OHKOs Sigilyph GX and opposing Shining Lugia. Comes up frequently).

Energy x16 (14 energy pool is too small to be consistent when you're looking to use 8-10 of it every game and usually prize 2-3 of it).

Grass Energy x8
Electric Energy x8
 

PlatinumDude

Aspiring Trainer
Member
Updated list, trying to take both of what @Duo and @TSA123 in consideration:

****** Pokémon Trading Card Game Deck List ******

##Pokémon - 12

* 1 Latias {*} CES 107
* 4 Rayquaza-GX CES 160
* 1 Dhelmise CES 22
* 2 Shuckle LOT 16
* 1 Tapu Koko PR-SM SM31
* 2 Zeraora-GX LOT 86
* 1 Tapu Lele-GX GRI 137

##Trainer Cards - 32

* 2 Rescue Stretcher BUS 165
* 1 Thunder Mountain {*} LOT 191
* 4 Mysterious Treasure FLI 113
* 3 Lillie SUM 147
* 3 Wishful Baton BUS 128
* 2 Choice Band GRI 121
* 3 Guzma BUS 115
* 1 Energy Recycler AOR 72
* 4 Ultra Ball FCO 113
* 4 Cynthia UPR 119
* 2 Sightseer LOT 189
* 2 Devoured Field CIN 93
* 1 Volkner UPR 135

##Energy - 16

* 8 Lightning Energy Energy 4
* 8 Grass Energy Energy 1

Total Cards - 60

****** Deck List Generated by the Pokémon TCG Online www.pokemon.com/TCGO ******

I would honestly say that you should cut a bunch of unnecessary cards
Here are my suggested changes:
-1 Energy Recycler (You don't play Vikavolt, you only really need 1 at the most)
-2 Nest Ball (You don't really need Nest Ball at all, the only thing you'd be getting with it is Zeraora or Dhelmise, and you have Ultra Ball and Net Ball for that)
-1 Volkner (Not necessary to have 2, you don't play Vikavolt)
-1 Thunder Mountain (You rarely use Plasma Fists, and when you do, you could easily get the 3 energy on it)
-2 Field Blower (Garbotoxin/Float Stone isn't in format so field blower is kinda bad, usually a dead card)
-1 Rescue Stretcher (Not entirely sure if you need 2 to be honest. Rays don't die THAT quickly)

+2 Acro Bike (More aggro energy discarding)
+2 Net Ball (Gets Shuckle much more easily)
+1 Shuckle (You need more of these bad boys)
+1 Cynthia (More consistency)
+1 Wishful Baton (Without Vikavolt, you want to keep as much energy on your board as possible)

So here's my suggested list:
4x Rayquaza GX
2x Dhelmise CES or Shining Lugia
2x Zeraora GX
2x Shuckle LOT
2x Tapu Lele GX
1x Marshadow SHL

4x Cynthia
4x Guzma
2x Lillie
2x Sightseer
1x Volkner
1x Pokemon Fan Club

4x Ultra Ball
3x Wishful Baton
3x Acro Bike
2x Choice Band
2x Mysterious Treasure
2x Net Ball
1x Rescue Stretcher
1x Energy Recycler

7x Grass Energy
7x Lightning Energy

Shuckle is good bc you don't necessarily need bench space. Marshadow is dead weight once it does its job as well and it's very necessary for the deck IMO.

Zeraora + Vikavolt is far too clunky so I personally wouldn't do it. Ray is busted with Zeraora and Wishful Baton.
Thunder Mountain is in the deck to turn Full Voltage into a free attack as well.
 

Sabaku

Aspiring Trainer
Member
Have you ever thought about using Naganadel in this deck over Vikavolt? It gives you a way to keep Energies in play for Ray's attack and gives an out against Buzzwole.
 

The Red Genesect

The robot that made it past Captcha
Member
I’ve thought about using Venusaur SLG 3 but it’s a Stage 2 and also, I’m not really sure if Dragon Break would still work with Venusaur’s ability.
 

Fafnirchaos

Aspiring Trainer
Member
I’ve thought about using Venusaur SLG 3 but it’s a Stage 2 and also, I’m not really sure if Dragon Break would still work with Venusaur’s ability.

Yeah no it doesn't work, It only counts physical energy on all pokemon. I learnt that the hard way when I did 60 damage instead of the 90 you would get with the base energy cost.
 

AuraJackle

Aspiring Trainer
Member
Venasaur does work with ray it's a bug on tcgo also this was another necro bump plz look at the date tag on the decklist the owner of this list has likely moved on
 

Missilistico

Aspiring Trainer
Member
Hi, I like your deck but I have some suggestion for you.
Get rid of Choice Band, and just concentrate on attach more energies. A good idea could be to use Viridian Forest and Tapu Koko Prism Star: the stadium lets you control the stadium war, and it combos quite well with Koko, Zeraora, and with discarding cards, like Ultra Ball and Mysterious Treasure. So I'd say

- Thunder Mountain
- 2 Choice Band

+ Tapu Koko Prism Star
+ 2 Viridian Forest

Then, since you don't play Vikavolt, I'd say

- Dhelmise
+ Shining Lugia

Finally, since you don't play Vikavolt and I think Sightseer is underwhelming,

- 2 Sightseer
- Volkner

+ 3 Acro Bike (ora maybe 2 Acro Bike and a Sophocles)

Hope to have been useful!
 

Audiofreak19

Aspiring Trainer
Member
Anyone have good results with this deck? No offense but it seems a bit slow to get energy on the field. At max I could only see you getting 5 energy turn 1 max and then you still don’t have a way to get the third energy on Ray for turn two. You could throw in an energy switch to accel the attachment to the active ray and then use the baton to keep the energy in play.
 
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