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Alt. Format Rayquaza's Second Flight (Post Rotation)

jamashawalker

Ikouze!
Member
****** Pokémon Trading Card Game Deck List ******

##Pokémon - 15

* 4 Rayquaza-GX CES 177
* 1 Shaymin {*} TEU 10
* 2 Dedenne-GX UNB 57
* 1 Tapu Koko {*} TEU 51
* 1 Zeraora-GX LOT 86
* 3 Poipole FLI 55
* 3 Naganadel LOT 108

##Trainer Cards - 23

* 4 Mysterious Treasure FLI 113
* 4 Pokégear 3.0 UNB 182
* 4 Energy Switch CES 129
* 2 Dana TEU 137
* 1 Cynthia UPR 119
* 2 Nita TEU 151
* 2 Ultra Space FLI 115
* 2 Evelyn TEU 141
* 2 Morgan TEU 149

4 Misty's Request
4 Cherish Ball


##Energy - 14

* 7 Lightning Energy 13
* 7 Grass Energy 10

Total Cards - 52

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

Misty's Request
Misty's Request- Search your deck for up to 3 Supporter cards, reveal them, and put them into your hand. Then, shuffle your deck.


Cherish Ball
Cherish Ball- Search your deck for a Pokémon-GX, reveal it, and put it into your hand. Then, shuffle your deck.



Description: As you can see from this deck the idea is to play Misty's request Turn 1 and dig for it the best you can. Misty's Request will allow you to grab 3 of the 4 Battle ladys. Hopefully by turn 2 you should have all 4 in your hand to use Morgan so that you can accelerate a good amount of energy onto your pokemon for the game. Right now this is just a skeleton idea which needs ALOT of tweeking and testing.

Pros:
  • We are losing Marshadow and a good form of hand disruption except for reset stamp.
  • The metagame is slower, and rayquaza has always been a turn 2 attacker anyways.
  • It's a 2 prize attacker who isn't losing that much of a beat after a KO thanks to Naganadel
Cons:
  • Without any draw supporters, and relying on Dedenne may cause alot of bricks
  • The next format is unpredictable so this deck may not work at all
  • Morgan isn't the most reliable form of energy acceleration
Let me know what you think of the idea? Right now it's just a theory and not the final product by any means
 

Duo

RIP Nessa 2023
Member
Instead of using the Morgan kit, wouldn't it still be advantageous to run Shuckle from Lost Thunder?

Running a few shuckle and Net Ball (to also search for energy if you're good on Pokemon and then you can discard that energy with Mysterious Treasure or grab your Shaymin Prism Star) sounds like a more reliable way to get energy going. Doing a turn 1 Misty's Request then a turn 2 Morgan I feel like is not as good as a Turn 1 Lillie and a Turn 2 Cynthia/Erika.

My biggest concern with Morgan is that the energy dig is not consistent. In the worst case scenarios you could land only 1 or 2 which is catastrophic for using up 2 turns of supporters for.

I also feel like with Ultra Ball gone, the list absolutely needs to include Latias Prism Star as a Mysterious Treasure searchable Pokemon for energy acceleration/recovery, which is another reason why I feel like the Shuckle + Net Ball combo has even more value.

I see what you're going for with the Nagandel + energy switch, engine, but that seems relatively inconsistent and not that potent since you have a max of 4 energy to move per game with no item recovery. Even if Nagandel can passively recover some energy onto the board, that doesn't mean you'll have the energy you need to attack on your primary attackers.

Instead, I think Zinnia is a better card for this. Zinnia attaching 2 energy and then doing your attach for turn means that you can immediately recover the following turn while satisfying Ray's 3 energy requirement to attack for a revenge KO, and if you simultaneously need draw power, then you can bench a Dedenne GX the same turn you play a Zinnia. Running Net Ball and Viridian Forest reinforces this strategy in order to help make sure you have energy in hand, as well as 1 copy of Energy Recycle System just to replenish the deck if you discarded a little bit too hard early on, or to just add one to hand for the play.

This is sort of what I'm looking at modifying my 2018-2019 Ray/Zeraora list

Pokemon x12

Rayquaza GX x4
Zeraora GX x2
Shuckle x2
Dedenne GX x1
Shaymin Prism Star x1
Tapu Koko Prism Star x1
Latias Prism Star x1

Supporter x12

Lillie x4
Cynthia x4
Erika's Hospitality x2
Zinnia x2

Item x18

Mysterious Treasure x4
Poke Gear 3.0 x4
Cherish Ball x3
Net Ball x3
Great Catcher x3
Energy Recycle System x1

Stadium x2

Viridian Forest x2

Energy x16

Grass Energy x8
Electric Energy x8

I value the Viridian Forest to always have energy in hand, especially based on the way Ray GX and Shaymin Prism do damage. It's also a way to thin the deck to have Poke Gear 3.0 more likely to hit a supporter card, and as previously explained it helps make Zinnia more viable as a recovery option now that Wishful Baton is gone.

I think Zeraora GX should remain at 2 copies no matter what. The GX attack is amazing energy acceleration and most likely used every game, and the free retreat ability is something that I think has been a high value utility ever since float stone rotated from standard.

4 Lillie, 4 Cynthia, 2 Erika is about as consistent as I think you can get with draw support in the upcoming rotation from currently known cards.

Zinnia is explained above. I think 2 copies is the right value to see it often enough but also not over investing in it.

I've considered Acro Bike, but granted Rescue Stretcher is gone and Rayquaza GX has the ability to mill 3 cards to begin with, I don't want to discard any more cards than I need to get the job done. I used to mill willingly with Ray GX with the goal of forcing Pokemon into the discard pile and hitting Rescue Stretcher with Lillie, but that's not a thing anymore.



If you are committed to the Morgan skeleton then apologies if it sounds like I'm just throwing your ideas out the window, but I think it's important to consider all options, especially when we're talking about rotation changing everything, so I just wanted to make sure everything gets put up for discussion.


EDIT: Didn't realize Great Catcher was a thing that's happening, so had to change the ratios of the list to include it. Just like 3 Guzma I think 3 copies of Great Catcher is fine for most lists.
 
Last edited:

jamashawalker

Ikouze!
Member
Hey Duo thanks for the discussion.

As of right now this is just an idea/shell.

I recently tested Hat ladies with what we have now and so far I've landed nothing short of 5 energy. But there were ALOT of key differences. For one I was able to thin out my deck a bunch thanks to Acro Bikes+ Ultra balls+ Rayquazas+Dedenne+Marshadow. By turn 2 I had an average of 25 cards in my deck. One game I landed 9 energies.

I came across some problems with the Hat ladies as expected. I dug through a bunch of key pieces that would've helped mid-late game. Koko Prism+Shaymin Prism etc. Early game they turned out to be amazing being able to hit on average 240 turn 2 but as the game progressed the cracks began to show. Also this is a Marshadow metagame, so setting up with the turn 2 was great if my opponent didn't marshadow turn 1. Pros is that Marshadow will be gone and nobody would want to waist their reset stamp or Judge in the early game.

Your Deck idea.

I actually want to give it a shot! Putting energy in the discard and getting them out seems nice. I'm not too keen on Latias Prism star as that is a prize you are giving up for energy acceleration. However I do see the appeal if you can swing the prize trade in your favor in some way.

Zinnia+Viridian Forest looks like a cool combo especially with your energy count. Situational but still gives you momentum you can't afford to lose. I might test that out with what we have now.

We don't have to worry about Great Catcher yet as it won't be coming in our August set which means that's 3 more slots open.

Good Looking out for the ideas! I'll be sure to check back on this deck when post rotation happens :)
 

Duo

RIP Nessa 2023
Member
Thanks for giving feedback on energy counts with your testing.

It's definitely a really interesting approach and there might be ways to fix the mid to late game issues.

The Shuckle/Zeraora method that I brought up is the method that I used when Lost Thunder first came out and saw great success with it. I really like the way it works, but it also has the disadvantage of being a "turn behind" since the energy acceleration is attack based not supporter or ability based. I do like to choose to go second with the deck so I can attack on my first turn, but my peak performance with a shuckle/zeraora focused list I have a relatively high success rate of getting 10 energy on the board by the end of my 2nd turn, and unless I completely brick I have at least 8 in play, with my highest ever being 12. That energy is usually distributed across 3 Rayquaza GX which all have 2-3 energy on them ready to go (My ideal is 1 energy on Zeraora GX to attack, then 3 energy on 3 Rayquazas for 10 total). The logic is that even if someone were to KO my Zeraora/Shuckle/Latias Prism, etc, they haven't damaged my snowball which is 3 fully charged Ray GXs. Even if they nip off some early prizes, I still have the momentum in terms of board pressure, so unless people can streamline OHKOs faster than 3 Rayquaza GX can, it kind of just works out for me.

Now I'm certain your Morgan version can set up the exact same board, but I think the main issue for Ray GX in general is just that we won't have Wishful Baton anymore, which I run 4 of right now so that I basically never lose momentum. And I know we aren't getting Great Catcher for a little bit, but to give more value to Latias Prism Star & the Zinnia play, since Great Catcher only snags GX/EX Pokemon, putting the energy from Zinnia onto a non-GX Pokemon kind of protects that investment if you already have a charged up Ray GX ready to go or if you are using Shaymin Prism as the attacker.

I'm also debating if Pikachu & Zekrom GX is worth running in this list as a back up attacker/energy accelerator. It gives the deck access to a somewhat healthier Pokemon at 240 HP that will be able to survive harassment/big damage like Charizard & Reshiram GX and kind of fills the void for when you have bad games with the rest of your kit. Some games I just don't get Shuckle or don't get energy in hand to discard with Mysterious Treasure, etc. Combined with Thunder Mountain Prism Star, Pikachu & Zekrom GX can get started up pretty quick (with the added benefit of Zeraora GX being able to GX attack for free).

I would also opt in to add a Lisia to the list so that you can search out Thunder Mountain Prism Star and Tapu Koko Prism Star at the same time. Doing this allows you to just go in with Pikachu & Zekrom GX immediately by dropping the attack cost to 2 and using Tapu Koko Prism to get the second energy on top of your attach per turn. If you're confident you can get away with it, you can supply the energy to Pikachu & Zekrom GX itself and then go for a double KO with the GX attack. The GX attack is massive prize value any time there's a Dedenne GX hanging out on your opponent's bench.

Pokemon x13

Rayquaza GX x4
Zeraora GX x2
Shuckle x2
Pikachu & Zekrom GX x1
Dedenne GX x1
Shaymin Prism Star x1
Tapu Koko Prism Star x1
Latias Prism Star x1

Supporter x11

Lillie x4
Cynthia x4
Erika's Hospitality x2
Lisia x1

Item x16

Mysterious Treasure x4
Poke Gear 3.0 x4
Cherish Ball x3
Great Catcher x3
Net Ball x2

Stadium x4

Viridian Forest x3
Thunder Mountain Prism Star x1

Energy x16

Grass Energy x8
Electric Energy x8


I would play the ratios something like this. (Great Catchers can be Acro Bikes for now). Lisia is a tech card I really like in this list due to the high value of Prism Star Pokemon & Stadiums for all kinds of various situations. The fact that Ultra Ball/Nest Ball are going out the window I think increases her value by a respectable amount specifically for a deck list like this.

I'm also pretty partial to the Latias Prism Star since the 30 damage it does on acceleration counts as a pseudo "extra energy" for your first KO since it helps bring things closer in range for Ray & Shaymin. I only ever use her when I have 2-3 Rayquaza GX in play and 4 or less energy in discard, but when I do use her she is really impactful at doing things like allowing me to preserve my GX attack for a different timing and playing the 7 prize game. I don't like to GX attack with Zeraora unless I have the full 5 energy in discard pile, so Latias is a really strong intermediate.

Just more food for thought.
 
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