Godzira Saves Christmas

Pokémon [16]

4 — Charizard EX — Power Trio Tin (XY29)
1 — Mega Charizard EX — Flashfire (108/106)

4 — Yveltal EX — XY Base Set (79/146)

1 — Lugia EX — Ancient Origins (68/98)

4 — Lunatone — Plasma Storm (73/135)
2 — Sableye — Dark Explorers (62/108)

Trainers [26]

1 — Computer Search — Boundaries Crossed (137/149)
2 — Ultra Ball — Dark Explorers (102/108)
4 — Ether — Plasma Storm (121/135)
4 — Trainers' Mail — Ancient Origins (100/98)

1 — Lysandre's Trump Card — Phantom Forces (118/119)
2 — Professor Birch's Observations — Primal Clash (159/160)
3 — Shauna — XY Base Set (127/146)
3 — N — Dark Explorers (96/108)

2 — Parallel City — BREAKthrough (145/162)

4 — Float Stone — Plasma Freeze (99/116)

Energy [18]

4 — Double Colorless Energy
9 — Dark Energy
5 — Fire Energy

MAIN STRATEGY

Charizard EX & Yveltal EX: 'Twas the night before Christmas—and Santa was nowhere to be found in the land of Nihon. Why? Because Yveltal was eating all the cookies and drinking all the milk—threatening to ruin Christmas for everyone! This calls for a state of emergency. But there was nothing the Imperial Army could do, because Yveltal was far too powerful. Only one monster could possibly stop Yveltal and save Christmas for everyone—Godzira!

Charizard and Yveltal are our two centerpieces for this deck. Both work as powerful starting Pokémon. But just like in any Godzilla movie—the enemy monster comes first here. The main strategy here involves leading with Yveltal, and then getting Charizard EX on the bench so that we can begin pumping him up with energy by using [Y Cyclone]. That would be like the cyclone Yveltal creates while he's guzzling down all the milk down and munching all the cookies.

At Christmas time, nothing is sure to make Godzilla angrier than that—because Santa normally leaves Godzilla all of the cookies and milk that he can't finish as a gift.

As a secondary option (if we have to start with Charizard EX), we'll want to use [Stoke] in hopes of scoring a huge power boost for [Wild Blaze] later. If we can't get the energy right away, we're probably going to want to retreat (as Godzilla does sometimes to bide his power). Either way, we can use Float Stone to retreat for free—and from the bench either finish powering Godzilla up—or jumping straight into our mega evolution. Once Supercharged Godzilla hits the board, it's generally going to be all downhill from there. One-hit KO—after one-hit KO.

And if by some chance they are able to knock Godzilla down (it happens sometimes), between those turns you should have plenty of time to charge up another powerful monster to finish through for the win. Which of course really just depends on what you're up against. Power lines have always been a weakness to Godzilla monsters, so if you're up against an Electric deck, you'll going to want the champion of taking high voltage to powerhouse through that.

Yveltal and Lugia are going to be out of the question for sure. And Yveltal itself has a much more technical purpose in this deck opposed to most Yveltal decks. For example, [Evil Ball] is a really strong attack—but it's not our lead attack here. Don't be alarmed. You should find that this actually works out for the best, because [Evil Ball] is actually a much better attack late in the game, against a powerful enemy Pokémon that's been loaded with energy.

Overall, I would say that the [Evil Ball] strategy is generally second class in most cases. If you have to attack twice anyways to knockout most Pokémon, why not power up some of your Benched Pokémon in the process? It's a two-for-one—while the energy shifting technically makes it a three for one by helping to spare Yveltal from other energy based attackers. This is the winning strategy here, so try not to deviate from it. Lead with [Y Cyclone] and save [Evil Ball] as your follow up later—where you'll have had lots of time to power up Yveltal EX by stuffing it like a Christmas turkey.

Lunatone & Sableye: The night of Christmas Eve—and the little boy who stays up all night waiting for Santa Claws—yet late into the night sees that there's still no presents underneath the tree.

Lunatone is a second centerpiece to this deck. For best results, you're going to want to get at least two of them on the bench so that you can double-up on the power of {Premonition} for Ether. This deck gives you a lot of options to reset the stack, in the event you don't have any energy cards at the top of it to make use of Ether. However, you're going to need a second Lunatone in play to peek the top-two cards of your deck, and put that energy in place if it comes around the second time but also slips into the second spot. That is why Lunatone is in such high volume here. The high volume enables us to make really exceptional use of the combo potential between the two cards.

Sableye is our very distant back-up resource. If you ever have to even send one out, you'll want to use [Junk Hunt] in order to put extra copies of Ether and Trainers' Mail back into your hand for some bonus gifts. Helping Santa is after all a very good deed, sure you put you somewhere on the nice list even if you've been naughty all year. You're not just helping him, you're helping all of the nice children that Santa rewards, and that's sure to score you some extra gifts just like [Junk Hunt].

Lugia EX: Our friendly cameo monster—who is here to help save Christmas. After Yveltal is defeated, Lugia uses his psychic powers to put all the milk and cookies back into their rightful place.

As our cameo monster, you can't expect to see much of Lugia EX in this deck, but it's always going to be there when you need it. Just as with M Charizard EX—a single copy helps to keep Lugia out of the way—while Ultra Ball is there to call upon his power right away if we need to. As for that power, we're going want to lean towards [Deep Hurricane] as strongly a possible. It's the main reason Lugia EX is in this deck. The ability to thrash our opponent's troublesome Stadium cards (like Virbank City Gym—where they don't even believe in Godzilla or Christmas) is a really great power to have on reserve for ourselves.

Lugia can also breathe fire in this deck. And cast a shadow so strong, it eclipses all the lights in total darkness. So feel free to ask him for some hot chocolate—or some help with putting your children to bed on Christmas Eve. Lugia is a miracle worker in ways. Let him work a Christmas miracle for you.

Computer Search: This would be the city going crazy. First from all those damaged power lines creating power surges—then from the other half of the nation jamming up the internet looking for information and updates on Santa's arrival or not.

Computer Search is a really great backup to Ultra Ball mostly. With only one copy of M Charizard (and only two copies of Ultra Ball), it's definitely helpful to have some extra potential to back that up. It can also be used to get to Lysandre's Trump Card right away, thus preventing it from getting discarded by [Wild Blaze] when Supercharged Godzilla begins on a rampage. Getting you to Supporters is yet another great use for Computer Search in this deck. Even if Santa isn't going to make it through this year, you can at least spend Christmas with your loved ones. After all, that's what the holidays are supposed to be about more than anything else—enjoying the company of your loved ones—with peace on Earth and goodwill towards men (the true spirit of Christmas).

Ether: When you gotta supercharge the atomic breath. The people of Nihon also had this clever idea of pitching all their alcohol to the monster. So that Yveltal would get drunk and go home—and Godzilla could beat him with Drunken Boxing. It was actually pretty clever—and effective. Which could even be an understatement if compared to how effective Ether can be in this deck. Lunatone and {Premonition} are an extremely powerful combo, which can enable us to play second, and attack with any of our Pokémon EX on turn one!

From there extra copies of Ether can be used to further supercharge our Pokémon—and light up board as thought the entire city was decorated in Christmas lights. Ether is a card that stacks perfectly with our energy-based attackers, and is also essential to getting M Charizard quickly powered up to the immense five energy that he needs for [Wild Blaze].

Alongside Double Colorless Energy, Ether, and [Y Cyclone]—you can be attacking with M Charizard by no later than turn three—which is lightning fast for a card as restrictive as that one. This potential speaks volumes for the power of Ether. Which will probably sell like crazy next Christmas season—if Ether happens to be what saves Christmas for everyone this year.

Trainers' Mail & Ultra Ball: All of the chimneys that Santa has yet to go down—and the presents that have yet to be delivered to all the good little children of Nihon. These two are utility cards that we use to bring the contents of the deck together. We basically only need the success of Ether (and maybe a little help from Float Stone) to win the game. And at its best, that's what Trainers' Mail does here—it's a powerful catalyst to the power of Ether and {Premonition}.

At first, Trainers' Mail can be used to reach through your deck (like letters to Santa) in hopes of getting just what you're looking for. Then, it can also be used to reset the deck, thus giving you a second chance to make the nice list if there wasn't an energy card sitting at the top the first time. As with the flip of a coin, a second chance will tend to prove itself immensely successful—and will generally guarantee you the energy card that you're looking for on the second time around.

Keep in mind—that you will need at least two Lunatone on the bench to do this. But that doesn't mean you should limit yourself to only two copies—more is definitely better—since it allows you to continuously check your deck after multiple resets with Trainers' Mail, Supporters, or otherwise.

As for Ultra Ball, making good use of it here is much like Christmas presents themselves. You can open them right away, but that's just likely to spoil the spirit of things. We only have two copies in this deck, and you're definitely going to need one to get to M Charizard EX most of the time. So your best move is usually going to be saving those Ultra Ball for the big moment so that you don't miss out on it.

We do have a little extra space to play with, since we have Computer Search to back us up, but it's definitely bad strategy to cop-out that everytime—simply because that backup support is always there. Doing that can actually end up forcing us to waste Computer Search on something below it's greatest potential. Ultra Ball is here for a reason (to spare us from that) so let it be made use of it for what it's there for. Much like those clothes (or other odd gifts) that you might get from friends or family. Everything has its use. So don't despair—just make the best of it.

Float Stone: This would be the coal. Yveltal definitely gets the coal for almost ruining Christmas for everyone. Float Stone can also be the moonstone (that goes with Lunatone)—as well as the meteorite that goes with Godzilla (to supercharge his powers).

A really great technique with Float Stone here involves using it across various Pokémon to create an HP cache between them all. By continuously retreating for free—it can enables us to absorb a large amount of damage between various Pokémon without ever suffering a single KO. As well as enabling us to come back around with our most powerful attacks without having to wait. Given their naturally elevated HP, this technique works especially well with Pokémon EX.

And with the exception of Lysandre (as well as few other technical effects)—this technique can be used to set your opponent at an immense uphill battle—that they simply won't be able to clear alongside all that offensive power pushing them back like the Ghost of Christmas Past.

Professor Birch's Observations & Lysandre's Trump Card: With all the cookies and milk restored, Santa can now deliver all the gifts to the all the nice people of Nihon. But time is of the essence, so Santa has to hustle if he wants to get the job done. That's when Santa realizes he's going to have to pull out of the heavy weapons if he wants to get all the presents to everyone in time.

The big guns. That would be Lysandre's Trump Card—an Acme Deluxe Present Shooting Machine. It shoots the presents all across Nihon, which fall perfectly down the shoot, and snug under each and every Christmas tree. Santa Claus has had lots of practice with this machine to ensure his success in the event of just such a crisis. And with all the presents perfectly in place when the smoke clears—that experience has clearly proven itself.

With all the Christmas presents quickly delivered, Santa then takes a sample tray of cookies (with a carton of milk)—and kindly leaves the rest for Godzilla—and all the lovely people of Nihon.

Professor Birch's Observations is pretty much here as a catalyst to N. With the crazy power of Yveltal EX and Ether, we can start picking up prize cards really fast, which means that N can quickly turn into more of a liability in this deck. To cover for this, N's numbers have been dialed down, and a bleed has been created between Shauna and Professor Birch's Observations. This aims to gives us a higher range of potential to lean on if-or-when the prize cards quickly pick up—and thus put N's potential against our favor.

Even as the game progresses, getting as many cards as possible from your draws with this deck will remain pretty important. Those crucial copies of Ether and Trainers' Mail are going to narrow down as we make use of them—furthering the distance between each copy as the game progresses.

For this reason, you're going to want to save Professor Birch's Observations for later in the game. Since his greatest potential isn't promised, we'll want to lean towards the more promising ranges first to put as many definite cards in our hand as possible. Which in turn should help this deck make use of various resources that thin its contents out—thus concentrating what's left.

And that is why we'll always want to save Professor Birch's Observations for when this deck is thinnest. The content will be spread further apart, yet to somewhat of a much more concentrated degree—where the both the higher and lower ranges will have some support to them.

Lysandre's Trump Card is something like an ace card of itself. Its main purpose is to protect us from decking ourselves with [Wild Blaze]. But if you've got the potential to spare—you can use it as a deck reset to help make use of Ether. Lysandre's Trump Card can also be used to sabotage the setup for [Intelligence Gathering] and [Night March] decks. Those decks tend to run their course really quickly, and drain themselves out of cards in their hands—so that a well-timed Lysandre's Trump Card can leave those decks out in the open where Godzilla alone can stomp them all like bugs.

N, Shauna, & Parallel City: "Christmas is saved! Let's go eat sushi or something." These cards represent all the nice boys and girls on Christmas day—and the land of Nihon itself fully restored to perfect condition (thanks to Lugia—who also used his psychic power to fix everything better than it was).

Parallel City is a powerful utility card here. But it's present here in low numbers because this deck doesn't explicitly benefit from Stadium cards. That room needs to be reserved for our more prominent resources (like Ether and Trainers' Mail). Two copies of Parallel City can still work wonders for what we can do with it. It's a great ace against bench loading decks—yet on the reverse side can be used to limit our own bench space—so that we can drop off heavily damaged Pokémon that we might have cached on the bench (thus preventing them from being KO'd by bench punchers or the effects like Lysandre).

From there, Lysandre's Trump Card can even put those cards back into our deck, so we can put them back onto the bench refreshed entirely. It's some astrayed potential—but it's possible.

Now, since we only have two copies of Parallel City in this deck, you're definitely going to want to save them until you can use one to ace out an opponent's Stadium card. We won't be able to compete against decks that thrive on Stadium cards (and thus are loaded with them)—so the best we can do is not to waste those aces we do have (throwing them out too promptly only to get aced ourselves).

Next, N and Shauna make up the bulk of our drawing power. There is an even split between the two, because this deck would more likely suffer with those cards at any other numbers. For best results with Ether, getting as many cards as possible early in the game is very important. There are more than a few resources involved with this, and we need them all together to make the magic happen.

Especially when it comes to the reset option, because the first time has a decent chance to fail, and getting that energy from Ether on the first turn is very crucial to our immediate success. For this reason, that one extra card that N provides over Shauna at the start of the game can make a world of difference for this. And if N were present in any lower numbers, we wouldn't nearly have as fair a chance to tap into that potential. There are significant drawbacks to both cards, and that is why we have a medium balanced range between the two (in order to even out the liability on both ends).

We've got about two turns to make the best use N (given how it usually takes two attacks before we KO our first Pokémon)—and that is we want to lean towards N as strongly as possible at the start of the game. Keep in mind that it'll also rake your opponent of any cards they search for and reserve for themselves (which is a nice added benefit). And not only that, but given the sheer volume of this deck's power, it shouldn't even hurt you to put cards into your opponent's hand (if they've happened to play theirs out). Through the momentum of Ether, Lunatone, and Trainers' Mail, you should still be able to pull out several turns ahead of your opponent.

Last we have Shauna, which is our second primary Supporter, and continues the wheel power here since this deck can't afford to excessively discard anything. Whatever we can afford to discard needs to be done so through Ultra Ball and Computer Search, yet those spare resources could likely not even be available to if discarded due to the effects of Supporters like Professor Juniper.

Shauna is a much better caregiver here. She will get us all kinds of gifts—without ever taking anything away from us. That kind of support is really important for such resource dependent deck, and Shauna will even get more effective as we tear through the contents of our deck like Christmas presents. So let's not be too shy to cuddle up with her. Enjoy the warmth and Christmas cheer that she brings. Shauna is sure to save Christmas in her own special way. Bringing us something far more precious than presents—tender love and care (the true Spirit of Christmas).