1 — Shaymin EX — Roaring Skies (106/108)
1 — Hoopa EX — Ancient Origins (36/98)
2 — Ho-Oh EX — Dragons Exalted (22/124)
2 — Ho-Oh EX — Dragons Exalted (119/124)
3 — Gardevoir EX — Steam Siege (116/114)
3 — Xerneas BREAK — Steam Siege (82/114)
2 — Xerneas — Xerneas Collection Box (XY05)
2 — Xerneas — Steam Siege (81/114)
Trainers [26]
1 — Scramble Switch — Plasma Storm (129/135)
3 — Battle Compressor — Phantom Forces (92/119)
4 — Ultra Ball — Flashfire (99/106)
1 — Steven — Roaring Skies (90/108)
2 — Skyla — BREAKthrough (148/162)
2 — Professor Juniper — Plasma Blast (84/101)
3 — Shauna — X&Y (127/146)
4 — N — League Promo (BW100)
3 — Sky Field — Roaring Skies (89/108)
3 — Exp. Share — Next Destinies (87/99)
Energy [18]
9 — Fairy Energy
2 — Fire Energy
2 — Lightning Energy
2 — Steel Energy
2 — Water Energy
1 — Psychic Energy
Epilogue
Happy Holidays!
Tis the season for lots of eating—and what we've got here is a deck to greatly honor this time cherished tradition!
Here we have a Xerneas BREAK deck, that teams up with the radiant {Rebirth} Ho-Oh-EX from Dragons Exalted, to bring the belly busting pain like no other. Some might have seen a variant of this deck previously that replaces Xerneas BREAK with {Powerful Storm} Huntail from Primal Clash. However, despite how successful many people might have made it look, I'm here to say that deck strategy was truly under-classed in comparison with this one (especially the way that it was presented).
First aspect to note is that Clamperl and Huntail make terrible Swarmers, this mostly because Clamperl is too vulnerable to damage when the player goes first (which is always how you would see it played). Xerneas on the other hand boasts a mighty 130HP, with the legendary power of [Geomancy], that enables supreme adaptability for Xerneas to play first or second, and have just as equal a fighting chance!
Second aspect to note is the more extreme exchange in the pieces, given Huntail's genuinely low 100HP, and Ho-Oh's low HP (for an EX) at just 160. With just Huntail and Ho-Oh-EX, you're likely to lose too many prizes in the exchange, where the game pace becomes too far offset, and too many crucial resources are lost that can be made up for in time.
Xerneas BREAK however (as a single prize Pokémon) hits for crushing damage, while boasting a heavy 160HP. Making it a far superior Slugger than both Huntail and Ho-Oh-EX—back to back!
Another aspect to note would be the worst matchup for a deck like this, which would probably be the [Energy Crush] Leafeon & Manectric. These can attack for a single energy, requiring a low energy alternative offensive resource to combat them. I don't recall any alternative offensive resources in any of the Huntail decks I've ever faced, but scenarios like this is where you'll see [Luminous Blade] Gardevoir-EX show all kinds of useful potential in this deck!
In the development of this deck structure, I had decided from the start that a card like this would be a must have to round out this deck's overall potential and guard against certain wide-range vulnerabilities. Primarily, this Gardevoir acts as a great alternative catch for our opening Pokémon, and when playing second, allows us to easily link up with the average starter and deal a whopping 100 damage off just two energy!
If that deck was to have ever worked (which I'm sure it could be adapted to do), it would have wanted to take an Out-Fighter/Slugger strategy, and led with something like [Outrage] Kyurem, while setting up its [Powerful Storm] from the bench.
Just a little analytics makes it easy to determine the legitimacy of a deck, and this talent further becomes the make or break element in determining what cards make for the best application to your own strategy (or the adaptation of some pseudo-mainstream strategy).
Even at simple attention, you can see how adaptable this deck structure strives to be. We have a very precious resource in Xerneas BREAK, which generally means we can't really afford to discard any copies of it. For this reason, Professor Juniper takes a backseat to Shauna in an elevated split with N, to best our chances for survival.
Not only can we not afford to discard precious copies of Xerneas BREAK, but it's very important to note that this deck can run out of cards really, really fast! It utilizes such an aggressive deck thinning pace, that's really no way it can afford to safely support more copies of Professor Juniper. It also can't afford any majorly shorten range in the potential of its draw, and that's why it leans so strongly towards the definite mid-range wheel effect provided by Shauna.
Shauna helps to provide the best to both sides, providing the best alternative draw at the start of the game, while best preserving the contents of our deck as it aggressively thins out later between Ultra Ball and Battle Compressor.
Skyla and Steven then make an appearance as the third and fourth wheel in the elevated split between Shauna and Professor Juniper. The purpose of these two retrieval Supporters is to complement this deck's bulk draw, and help to bring its flow of the cards to some greater all-terrain potential.
Skyla provides us an extension on Battle Compressor, enabling us to include less of them, which is really beneficial to this deck (as it traditionally can't make use of more than two of them). This deck itself runs really tight on resources, where every unnecessary extra card risks adulterating the deck structure in some significant way.
We don't have room for anything unnecessary, and we need to preserve as many precious resources as possible. It's like saving room for desert, it's a pretty bright idea, lest the enjoyment of even the sweetest delicacy be ruined you. This is where Exp. Share shines it brightest—Exp. Share is beyond the most perfect Pokémon Tool for this deck. It single handedly unlocks supreme levels of potential that enable this deck to topple more aggressive strategies and opposition it might not have as fair a chance against without.
You see, this deck faces some demanding energy needs between the color heavy cost of [Life Stream], the diversity of energy needed for Ho-Oh's {Rebirth}, and the aggressive thinning of our deck's resources to quickly bring all of these pieces together. However, Exp. Share spares us precious copies of our Fairy energy to hasten our offensive potential with Xerneas BREAK against more aggressive Swarmer style decks.
In multiple copies, Exp. Share further doubles to preserve the full power of Xerneas BREAK's [Life Stream], effectively turning Xerneas BREAK into the apple pie DESTROYER, and enabling benched Xerneas BREAK to swing out, and make a snack of the strongest +240HP Pokémon in the game!
It's a really amazing card for this deck!
Another really amazing card for this deck surprisingly, is Hoopa-EX, who makes it appearance here as an interesting tech card to majorly support the utility of {Rebirth} Ho-Oh. It might seem out of the way, but as a triple retrieval, Hoopa-EX can enable some really amazing power plays with cards like Ultra Ball and Professor Juniper, successfully establishing anywhere from 50% to 100% of our full setup potential for {Rebirth} in a single play! And given that {Rebirth} itself replies on the luck of coin flip, getting to that full set up as quickly as possible is as important as can be.
This is all apart of good deck structure development. Resources, that double up on others resources, and act as extensions to one another, to prime the deck's overall potential for beginning, continuing, or finalizing the setup of its main strategy.
Setup proficiency is what a really good spread aims to achieve for you—and a really good spread is exactly what we have here!
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