Table of Contents
Overview
Dealing With Difficulties
Way to Play
Additional Additions
Perilous Pitfalls
Overview
Reshiram EX seems like it is the product of Pokemon sitting down and figuring out how to make the abslutely most powerful Pokemon card yet. It has 180 HP (the highest base HP the game has ever seen outside of Wailord), can deliver a gut-wrenching blow of 150 base damage (again a Pokemon TCG record), it's a basic, it can abuse Double Colorless Energy, it's a fire type (the type with the most available energy acceleration and one of the few remaining Pokemon engines), it has a pretty good weakness in water(one of the lesser-played, lower-damaging types), and to top it all off, it has some killer artwork to boot. It seems like the perfect card, but . . . What's the catch?
While this powerhouse Pokemon is a fantastic card, it does have its drawbacks. Due to the new EX Rule, knocking out an EX merits your opponent two prize cards. This can have a dramatic effect on the game, since that is one third of the way to a complete victory. Another drawback is the fat {C}{C}{C} retreat cost. This, however, can be utilized to be advantageous. The third, and probably one of the most detrimental, of the drawbacks is that Brave Fire -Reshiram EX's most powerful and damaging attack- makes you flip a coin. If that coinflip is tails, Reshiram EX does 50 damage to itself. In many matchups, this can prove fatal.
Dealing with Difficulties
With so many benefits and recoils, you are probably wondering how to make Reshiram EX -in and of itself- "safe". Here I will show you ways to deal with Reshiram EX's drawbacks, and make the card itself virtually without any recoil.
First and foremost, let's address that nasty EX Rule - the rule printed on the card that states that when it is knocked out, your opponent takes two prize cards. The most obvious solution to this problem is not to let your Reshiram EX's be KO'd. Well, that's quite a bit easier said than done. There are many ways of doing this, wether it be by using Reuniclus's Damage Swap Ability to move damage off of Reshiram EX, using Super Scoop Up (SSU) or Seeker to pick up your damaged Reshiram EX -which you would then restore to the field with some form of energy acceleration-, or by simply healing off massive amounts of damage with cards like Blissey Prime, Max Potion, etc. After each of these healing methods you would need to reattach energies with some form of energy acceleration, though. There are other forms of healing damage, like with Serperior's Royal Heal Ability, but I find the mass-damage healing methods to be far more effective when dealing with such a high-HP Pokemon.
The second problem that Reshiram EX needs addressed is the {C}{C}{C} retreat cost. This, however, is more easily remedied than was the EX Rule. You can use Switch to switch between your Benched and Active Pokemon freely. Under trainer-lock, however, you'll have to use Double Colorless Energy (DCE) if you want to be able to retreat more easily.
The third problem is that pesky 50 damage possibly being self-inflicted by Brave Fire. This damage can be game-changing in some matchups, putting you into others' KO ranges. You can improve your odds from 50/50 to 75/25 by using "FlipTini" Victini's Victory Star Ability, which allows you to reflip if you should get tails. You can also use the card Eviolite to reduce any damage that is done by attacks by 20 damage, as well as keep you out of other Pokemon's KO range if you should damage yourself.
With these assisting cards, you will be doing a consistent 150 damage with little to no recoil.
Ways to Play
If you're bent on using this card, there are several decks that Reshiram EX will go nicely into. The main ones are:
Reshiram EX / Emboar
Reshiram EX / Typhlosion Prime
Reshiram EX / Typhlosion Prime / Ninetales
Reshiram EX / Electrode Prime
Reshiram EX / Reuniclus / Vileplume
(I don't make them up, folks, I just write about them.) I will now proceed to describe each of them in detail, however, first you need the correct mentality. You cannot go into building a deck with this card trying to make it like the old Reshiram. You have to think of this as its own, individual deck, with an individual strategy. (And I strongly discourage running the EX and regular together.)
[img=300x433]http://www.pokebeach.com/scans/black-and-white/20-emboar.jpg[/img]
We'll start off with my personal favorite, my "child project" if you will. I have been doing quite a bit of work with the new ReshiBoar, and I find it able to abuse many of the new trainers. Heavy Ball, which allows you to search for any pokemon with a retreat cost of {C}{C}{C} or more can search for any pokemon except Tepig and Fliptini, which are searchable with Collector anyways. Now, the goal of this deck is to rush for a T2 Brave Fire. You'll use Emboar's Inferno Fandango to attach either four {R} energies or 2 {R} energies and a DCE. T1 you'll hopefully start with a Reshiram EX, and you can Collector for a FlipTini and two Tepigs. Bench both Tepigs, but keep the FlipTini in your hand until you're ready to attack. T2 you can use a combination of Heavy Ball, Pokemon Communication, Rare Candy, etc. to get an Emboar on your bench. Now bench the Victini and use either a draw supporter, like Professor Juniper and Professor Oak's New Theory or the new Cilan supporter (which allows you to search your deck for three basic energies) to get energy and power up Reshiram EX (attaching them all with Emboar's Inferno Fandango). Now you're free to swing for 150 damage, and use SSU to pick up the Reshiram if it is close to being KO'd. If you do use SSU to pick up your active Reshiram, all you need to do is send up one you've got on the bench and reattach all the energy with Emboar, giving you a fresh Reshiram EX active to continue dishing out 150 damage Brave Fires every turn.
This is a major example of what I'm talking about when I say people are trying to use it like the old one. With this deck, you really have to dedicate quite a bit of time to getting {R} Energies in the discard pile, wether it be by Sage's Training, Junk Arm, or Professor Juniper. You also have to set up multiple Stage 2's, which will require you to burn more resources, make the deck slower to set up, and make the deck less consistent. When you start, you're going to want to start with Reshiram EX, and use Pokemon Collector to get two Cyndaquils on the bench, and a FlipTini in your hand. Drop the Victini when Reshiram EX is ready to attack, but not before. Typhlosion Prime's Poke Power, Afterburner, requires you to put a damage couinter on Reshiram EX for every energy you put on him, putting him into other EX's very deadly KO range, so either run some smaller healing cards or manage your damage carefully. In my personal opinion, it's overall outperformed and outclassed by ReshiBoar, but this deck can do well in the mid-late game if it can make it past the early game.
This deck is a little bit better than the last one. It's less consistent in the beginning, because you have to get out different basics with Collector. Instead of just Reshiram EX, Cydnaquil, and FlipTini, you now also have to get out all of those plus Vulpix, making using Collector very difficult. You'll probably need to supplement it with Level Ball, a new card that allows you to search your deck for any Pokemon that has 90 HP or less. This would help the general consistency of the deck as well, since it can search out anything except Typhlosion Prime and Reshiram EX. This version is also better because you have an engine (Ninetales) and a way to discard energies (Ninetales) so you can focus more on setting up Typhlosion Primes than with the previous deck. As with both of these Typhlosion Prime variants, you gain the ability to use cards like Max Potion and/or Blissey Prime, since Typhlosion Prime can get the energies right back. This deck excels the most in the mid-late game, and usually really kicks into high gear after you've got a Ninetales or two out.
This is a rather experimental deck that has had varying results. The strategy is to start with Reshiram EX, and T1 use Pokmon Collector to get a Voltorb, Victini, and a second Reshiram EX. T2 you want to use Research Record repeatedly via mjultiple copies and Junk Arms to cycle through the top four cards of your deck, putting anything that isn't an energy on the bottom of the deck, therefore increasing your odds of hitting energies with Electrode Prime's Energymite Poke Power. You then attach four energies to your active Reshiram EX, and the rest to your benched Reshiram EX. You'll then attach energies to power up your benched Reshiram EX manually, since the active will be walling long enough to allow you to power up. The main drawback of this deck is that there's hardly any support for energy acceleration after your first two Reshiram EX's. Some people will argue that the free prize you give up at the beginning is too much of a price, but if they only KO your active Reshiram EX's, they'll still need to KO three of them. Now, they could Catcher and KO a Victini (but you should be running two so that you have a replacement) and then they'd only need to KO two Reshiram EX's. This is one of, if not the, fastest Reshiram EX builds - it just tends to fizzle out later in the game.
Much like its predecessor, The Truth, this deck is a locking/tanking deck that comes from behind to win. Taking advantage of Pichu HGSS's Playground attack you can fill your Bench T1 with two Oddishes, two Solosises, and a Reshiram EX. Once your opponent takes a prize off of one of your weak basics, you can promote Reshiram EX and use Twins to begin the lock, getting Rare Candy and either Vileplume or Reuniclus. You'll also need to fish out a Victini at some point before then, probably with a Level Ball. You must then proceed to get both Stage 2's up, and once you're set up you'll have put your opponent in a nearly unbreakable lock, since your active cannot be KO'd because you keep moving enough damage off of Reshiram EX to keep it out of KO range, while dealing massive damage to their active Pokemon. The main problem with this deck is the lack of energy acceleration, as it can take a while for you to power up Reshiram EX (unless you happen to hit a DCE, in which case it only takes two turns to start putting out damage, three to get going full swing). This deck will struggle early game, but is unstoppable if it gets the lock fully set in. Some key cards you'll need to run in this deck are Level Ball, Twins, Professor Elm's Training Method, and Seeker.
Additional Additions
This section covers cards that can be added, or "splashed", into some of these decks. Some decks these techs are not compatable with, so I will be pointing out which ones are applicable where. Some will require extra cards to pull off the full effect the tech was ment to do, and those will also be explained.
A lot of people seem to like this one. Rayquaza & Deoxys LEGEND's (RDL's) main purpose here is to target enemy EX's, which will undoubtedly be quite populat. One EX recieving a lot of hype right now is Mewtwo EX, which is OHKO'd by this beast. But why not just do 150 with Reshiram EX? Well, (this one hits Mewtwo EX for weakness, and) the true gem of RDL lies in its PokeBody, Space Virus, allowing you to draw an extra prize card if RDL KO's a Pokemon. Well, that means that Space Virus combined with the EX Rule means that if an EX is KO'd by RDL, you draw three prizes. That's half the game! If Mewtwo EX -or any EX that can be OHKO'd by RDL, for that matter- gets really popular, this will be a very good play. The biggest drawback to this card is that you need to tech in at least one or two Rainbow Energies or {L} Energies in order to satisfy the attack cost of {R}{R}{L}{C}. Another drawback of RDL is that it discards all {R} Energies attached to it, meaning that it will be losing all of its energies unless you played the {L} instead of the Rainbow Energy(s). Therefore, this tech is best suited to go in the Typhlosion Variants or ReshiBoar. The third, and final, bit of recoil from RDL is that if your opponent KO's it, they take two prize cards due to the LEGEND Rule.
Rocky Helmet is largely functional as another EX counter. Any of the 170 HP EX's will KO themselves if they attack you after you've Brave Fired them, keeping the prize exchange flowing in your favor. If you run PlusPower, you can do the same to 180 HP EX's. Rocky Helmet is valid and valuable in any Reshiram EX deck.
This card is considered the "opposite twin" of Rocky Helmet. Instead of adding 20 to your opponent's active Pokemon when they attack, you subtract 20 from the damage they're doing to your active Pokemon. It also helps if you want some added protection against the recoil damage that you could possibly get from Brave Fire. With Eviolite on, even if you flip double tails for the recoil damge and your opponen's active Pokemont is a Reshiram EX using Brave Fire, you still cannot be KO'd. You'll still have 30 HP left, and are garunteed to survive until next turn. You can also use it to protect your Victinis against things like Donphan Prime.
Perilous Pitfalls
This is just a little section of things to look out for when you're playing, building your deck, etc.
When making your decklist, don't make it too "gimmicky". That means don't try and incorporate too many other things, like trying to put Typhlosion, Emboar, and Reshiram EX into the same deck. It's just clunky and isn't going to function. I've also seen people try trainer lock with these types of decks, and it just doesn't work, because by the time they've set up their normal setup and a Vileplume, their opponent will already be set up beyond the point at which they can still catch up.
Be very meticulous about dropping your FlipTini. They will probably try to Catcher KO it, so only drop it when you intend to use it that turn. Catcher can really wreak havoc on Reshiram EX decks, so make sure you run two Victinis (at least), and also make sure you don't run fewer than two Switches, since your opponent will almost always try and stall you by dragging up something with a high retreat cost and no energy.
Remember that certain cards merit as search cards and some as straight draw. The more search cards you have, the fewer straight draw Supporters you'll need (although I would go below 6 on these, and that's if you have a lot of search) and vise versa. With more search cards coming out, we'll able to make these decks quite a bit more consistent and less reliant on luck-of-the-draw (not to be confused with hand refresh. Luck of the draw means you're just blindly shuffling cards in and out of the deck hoping to hit something. Hand refresh means you're getting a hand, using/burning what you can out of it, then shuffling away/discarding the remains for a new hand.)
My final bit of advice is don't just netdeck a list and try it without first going through it very carefully and analyzing it very in-depth. You'll play this particular breed of deck far better if you built and thoroughly understand the list and its components (although I really hope this article is helpful in that process!).
Sincerely yours,
Rikko145
Rikko145
