Panty Raid

Pokémon [18]

2 — Hydreigon EX — Roaring Skies (62/108)

2 — Latios EX — Roaring Skies (58/108)
2 — Latios EX — Powers Beyond Tin (XY72)
3 — Mega Latios EX — Powers Beyond Tin (XY72)

2 — Regice — Ancient Origins (24/98)
3 — Deoxys — Roaring Skies (33/108)
4 — Unown — Ancient Origins (30/98)

Trainers [25]

2 — Enhanced Hammer — Primal Clash (162/160)
3 — Acro Bike — Primal Clash (122/160)
3 — Trainers' Mail — Ancient Origins (100/98)

2 — Steven — Roaring Skies (90/108)
2 — Professor Sycamore — XY Base Set (122/146)
2 — Giovanni's Scheme — BREAKthrough (162/162)
4 — Professor Birch's Observations — Primal Clash (159/160)

3 — Team Magma's Secret Base — Double Crisis (32/34)

4 — Latios Spirit Link — Roaring Skies (85/108)

Energy [17]

4 — Double Dragon Energy — Roaring Skies (97/108)
4 — Double Colorless Energy
4 — Psychic Energy
5 — Water Energy

MAIN STRATEGY

Steven & Latios Spirit Link: "Boys...we're going on a panty raid!!" Steven would be our frat brother (he's a bad-influence on us)—and Latios Spirit Link would be the girl's panties. Legend has it, this magical item can somehow be a divine link between us and the object of our affection. But no one has figured out yet exactly how to unlock that potential. They just seem to collect their panties for the rapture, when knowledge of this can send them all to hentai heaven.

As for Steven, just like around the house, we don't see much of him in this deck. He's just a supplementary resource that gives us an extension on our other Supporters. In addition to this, Steven also provides some selective diversity between the array of Supporters we have together.

In particular, the tactical pair of Giovanni's Scheme and Professor Sycamore. Ideally, they do two different things entirely—and both have such conditions that their greatest potential only becomes available at select times. This has prominently been my main use of Steven since its release (as the gateway between a tactical spread of many different Supporters).

In those spreads, copies of Steven appear in high volume—and so this deck here shows the opposite potential of that, using Steven in spare copies as an extension of our more prominent Supporters (rather than being the prominent Supporter itself that then connects us after).

And there is a good reason for that application here. You see—this deck is very desperate for resources, and vies on being able to obtain a diverse amount of resources very quickly. We need M Latios, we need Latios Spirit Link—Double Dragon Energies—and we also want to get Team Magma's Secret Base out as soon as possible. Due to this high demand, we can't afford to idle our turns away through Steven as our primary Supporter. He works best as an access extension here—helping tie up loose ends in a similar way that Random Receiver can be used to do.

The added bonus of Steven's energy retrieval is the main reason why I chose him over 2 copies of some other card (such as Shauna, Tierno, Acro Bike, or Trainers' Mail). Steven is a definite answer in the event you need to get to a specific energy right away, but can't afford to leave it on the luck of the draw. A definite answer is generally the best option over a gamble. And that principal is especially applies here, since we have two different types of Basic energy, and each are in spare numbers. Where despite the spare numbers of Steven, this low volume aims to serve us best when we need it most (late in the game—when such resources are few and far between).

Team Magma's Secret Base: The sorority house—Mega Alpha Bitch. This is where the panties be. Yet one should beware—this is a dangerous stronghold. Behind these cold walls lies a mob of young girls with poor nutrition, known to prominently stay awake all hours of the night indulging themselves—or cramming because they spent all their free time indulging themselves.

Aside from the flavor aspect, the main reason Team Magma's Secret Base is our select Stadium card for this deck—lies in M Latios' [Sonic Ace] attack and its damage limitations. [Sonic Ace] only does 120 damage, where that extra 20 damage from Team Magma's Secret Base puts us in range to one-hit KO anything at 140HP or below. Although this still doesn't put us in range to one-hit KO most Pokémon EX, it's still very useful to take out prominent cards with [Sonic Ace] (such as [Geomancy] Xerneas—and [Oblivion Wing] Yveltal).

Our Pokémon can be expected to take a hit from Team Magma's Secret Base as well (which I suppose is the equal to getting whapped by one of the sorority girls). Yet this should hardly matter—since we're prominently flying high on M Latios EX's 220HP. And Hydreigon EX mostly just sits on the bench and never sees any combat. Then have Unown, which is an immediate expendable resource anyway (where the damage doesn't even matter). And lastly, if Regice goes active, it's generally to flawlessly finish the game for us anyways—so it's not a big deal.

Just like a real panty raid (or some real panties)—your best bet is to just put it down quick and forget about it. On a final note, keep in mind that we only have three copies of this card here. I had to cut back from four copies so that a more prominent resource of ours (Latios Spirit Link) could take the higher volume that it more prominently needs. Consistency with that card is far more essential to our success than with Team Magma's Secret Base—so I had to budget.

With this lower volume, it means that we can't be sure to come across another copy if we cash out our hand—so we want to just get it out there right away and roll with the punches. It'll be far more important to get those counters on your opponent's Pokémon during their next turn, than it will be to spare our own Pokémon from a couple damage counters by not playing it right away. Kind of like if someone confronts you during the raid—just push them over and run.

The College Board of Supporters: Here we have the part where the Dean of the school calls you into his office for questioning. "I heard there was a break-in at the Mega Alpha Bitch house..." But you didn't hear anything about it, and you've got to go right away, because you're late for class. "Ahhh, behold my glorious panty collection—and I sell some too." The Dean also leads a second life—but let's not go into that now. Let's just hope nobody blames him for it.

As I said before, this deck has a lot of diverse resources that we need to obtain right away, so it can't afford to idle much time away on short draws or round-about Supporters. In addition to that, this deck's resources are also incredibly precious to our success—so that we can't really afford to be throwing them away either. Since this deck was intended to be legal in the current Standard Format, this left me with Professor Birch's Observations as our lead Supporter. Yet that's not to say this was a bad thing by any means, because Professor Birch's Observations is a mighty Supporter here.

The technique for this deck revolves around Professor Birch's Observations pull out a bulk draw for us—then boost off our additional Item retrieval cards—to reach further into our deck, and thin out the contents so that Professor Birch's Observations is made more effective each play. These item retrieval cards also help to take the edge off the short end of Professor Birch's draw (in the event we only get four cards). There are 10 retrieval cards to back us up here (not including Deoxys)—which we'll need to use to reach through our deck and nab additional cards.

Professor Sycamore resides as a power back up to this. The potential of a straight seven card draw is a nice ace to have on reserve. Later in the game (once we've got the bulk of our content on the table) we can come to likely situation where we only need a certain specific resource to follow through for the win (like Double Dragon Energy or Double Colorless energy for this deck).

That event is a very likely scenario for this deck. So much so, that having Professor Sycamore around is probably essential to this deck. It's the only Supporter that can dramatically clear our a situation like this. Not to mention, since we have Steven in this deck, we can further that potential—since Steven operates an a round-about extension of Professor Sycamore. Steven can provide a gateway to Professor Sycamore whenever we need it, thus enabling us to cut back on the liability of running Professor Sycamore in high volume.

Giovanni's Scheme is our tactical back-up. I like to consider him a tactical pair with Professor Sycamore. They both do similar things, yet one offers some distinct contrast to broaden our overall potential. It might not be much, but those few extra cards we can get from Giovanni's Scheme can really save the day. And it also works along the same lines as Professor Birch's Observations does with our item retrieval cards (which is a nice bonus).

As for the contrast, every additional damage counter can be just as significant as every extra card—where the 20 additional damage that we can get out of Giovanni's Scheme can pull us ahead of the game—where we might otherwise fall behind a turn.

The most prominent example of this would be in a follow up attack with [Fast Raid], after we hit our opponent with [Sonic Ace]. M Latios EX is going to deal 120 damage, yet at the cost of two energy that we might not be able to replace right away. Instead, we can retreat M Latios EX, then follow up with [Fast Raid] & Giovanni's Scheme which would deal 60 damage—and bring us to 180 damage total (enough to KO most Pokémon EX—which reside at 170HP or greater).

Acro Bike, Enhanced Hammer, & Trainers' Mail: If you're on a panty raid, you want to get in and out as quickly as possible. First of all, you don't want to be walking, because that's an easy way to get busted near the premises with the goods (goods?). But you don't want to be running either, because that's actually not fast enough. It creates an easy trail to follow and it's suspicious. What you need for this job is a bike. It's fast, and blends right in with the surroundings. Oh, and don't forget your bandit tools—to bust into the panty drawer.

M Latios EX is a very technical card. [Sonic Ace] requires us to discard 2 energy just to use the attack—and although it's range is unlimited—for that cost it only does an average amount of damage. Based demanding resources such as this, I conceived that I would need to strongly reinforce the deck structure here with resource obtaining cards in order to stabilize it. From this, I choose to include two very prominent cards for this (Acro Bike and Trainers' Mail)—then placed them both at even numbers with one another. The even numbers were to ensure balance here, since both cards have their own unique potential in how they operate, yet this deck in particular wouldn't seem benefit from having the cards in some higher volume than the other.

For example, Acro Bike is the only one between the two that can get us special energy—while Trainers' Mail can get us to everything else (as well as to copies of Acro Bike). However, the drawbacks are that Trainers' Mail can't get to copies of itself (while Acro Bike can)—yet Acro Bike also forces us to discard a card in the process (something considerably counterproductive here). Not wanting to tilt towards either extreme, I felt like it would just be best to even them out—and that balance between the cards inevitably seemed to do what it was intended perfectly.

In deep pockets of our backpack, we have Enhanced Hammer, which has been included to provide some powerful support to this deck's momentum. It's a really great removal card, which works wonders to buy time that's desperately needed. Just one turn can be extremely significant to this deck, especially when it comes to M Latios EX and [Sonic Ace]. At only 120 damage a hit, it's generally going to take at least two hits to knock out most Pokémon EX. And with that, Enhanced Hammer becomes an amazing card for knocking our opponent's momentum back, so that we can more flawlessly overtake them with M Latios EX & [Sonic Ace].

Unown & Regice: Unown—our panty raiders; or sorority sisters (checking the house); or maybe even the police. You can bet that they're going to have some questions for us like the Dean. Now Regice—those are the granny panties. No one wants those. But they're great to pwn your enemies, so it might be intuitive to grab yourself a dirty pair if you have the personal space for them. Unown is here to further the concentration of cards such as Acro Bike and Trainers' Mail—helping to further accelerate the flow of the cards—and fulfill our resource demands faster. It's nearly essential too. It does literally take all this concentrated potential to bring this deck together. Without it all, there's probably no way we would be able to get as much use out of M Latios EX as we do here.

Now, making good use of Unown may sometimes involve a little technique.

For example, if you're going to use Professor Birch's Observations (unless you have a ton of cards in your hand)—it's generally going to be a good idea to wait until after you play Professor Birch's Observations before you active any {Farewell Letter} you have (just in case you pull the shortest straw). This doesn't mean you'll always want to save your card advantage stuff like this though. I find that it's a give and take, where you'll want to play one and save one for best results. Saving them all can actually end up polluting the deck and resulting in a dead draw whenever you do get around to using it. So do be mindful to apply a little technique when working with these cards. Don't just spam them mindlessly—but don't obsessively hoard them either. Try to create a flow with them—because that's exactly what they're intended to provide.

Last we have Regice, which is a far simpler resource to make good use of. If you need it, it's there for you—while the lower volume present helps to keep the card out of your way if it doesn't happen to be much use to you. Moreso than not, we should be able to get the job done with just M Latios EX alone (even against Pokémon-EX). However, there are always bound to be a few really tough scenarios (especially in regards to certain Pokémon-EX)—and primarily why Regice has been included in this deck. It's a somewhat lesser version of {Safeguard} Suicune—with its own advantages and disadvantages. Take it for what you will. It's definitely better than nothing—which ironically is how some poor souls feel about granny panties.

Latios & M Latios EX: This is you and your bro—digging through the panty drawer (and the dirty clothes) lookin' for the goods—then taking off like Sonic the Hedgehog once you've got 'em. M Latios EX is our centerpiece for this deck, which makes Latios EX our primary starter. Unlike most decks I create, the strategy for this deck involves always playing first if you can. It's the main reason why we have [Close Encounter] Deoxys here instead of something like [Solar Generator] Solrock. It's so that we can consistently play first, because consistency is very important in this, and our turn order is not something we can afford to be in the dark about it.

The offensive edge provided by [Fast Raid] is the main reason Latios EX is our primary starter—this damage helps to convex (or round out) the lesser side of [Sonic Ace]'s damage. [Fast Raid] gives us a jump start on the damage aspect, which can be expected to bottom out on us once we Mega Evolve. The energy advantage is another big reason why we want to lead with Latios EX. The energy demand for these two cards are very high. M Latios EX has to expend a vast amount of energy in order to keep attacking, and the energies we use for M Latios are also very susceptible to cards like Enhanced Hammer—so we want to get them on and off as quickly as possible. For this reason, taking the energy lead is also very important to us.

And with that, getting to M Latios EX as quickly as possible is also crucial to our success. As stated, that is why I've included Latios Spirit Link in such high volume. What M Latios EX offers is tactical power, an aspect that's naturally balanced in this card by curbing its raw power. This challenging factor becomes an aspect of time, which we can only make for by doubling time. And that is the logic behind how and why making good time is so important for this deck.

The tactical edge of [Sonic Ace] can be its own balance at times. With [Sonic Ace], we can go around our opponent's active Pokémon, and start to rack up the damage on whatever they might be trying to put together on the bench. This is another big benefactor of [Sonic Ace] over Latios EX's stronger attack, [Light Pulse]. That attack requires four energy (a much steeper climb)—is even more susceptible to Enhanced Hammer—and also forces us to play through our opponent's active Pokémon.

This factor can stall for turns against us—or take up unnecessary amounts of energy—as well as grind us against the force of explicitly powerful cards (such as Rock Guard, Dangerous Energy, and Lucky Helmet). This should stress the importance of getting to [Sonic Ace] right away in a littler greater detail. The ability to bomb around can be vastly superior to brute forcing your way through ranks of Active Pokémon. Give it a whirl and see what I mean. You might not be able to realize true greatness of this until the power's at your fingertips. Unfortunately, I don't think the same can be said about panties—so don't trust anybody that tries to say that.

Hydreigon EX & Deoxys: Here we have the sorority sisters. Deoxys represents what could be a [Close Encounter] in your panty raid—if say one of the girls suddenly comes home—or wakes up because she thinks that she hears somebody perving. The second—Hydreigon EX—represents the other sorority girls in a darker form. These pretty ladies look pretty pissed. Not only have their panties been stolen, but it's their fancy expensive ones that are missing. This of course—can bring about the Apocalypse. Which is why someone called the police—and that's why they were around earlier—but now we have everyone running around commando. Which is kind of neat, since it's exactly what we have Hydreigon EX do in this deck.

Hydreigon EX is a tactical resource, which can also double as a backup to M Latios EX. Although Hydreigon EX also requires three energy to attack (and only does 80 damage) it's still an amazingly useful card to have around. Just the potential of [Shred] alone is considerably worth it, seeing as how [Shred] can get around stubborn abilities that would otherwise prevent us from damaging our opponent's Pokémon at all. Much like those backup granny panties you'll be needed to bust out—it's always better to have them and not need them—than to need them and not have them. This explains the tactical contrast Hydreigon EX provides, which I'm sure you'll find to be amazing if you ever face off against any granny Regice for yourself.

However, keep in mind that Hydreigon EX's main purpose here is not an offensive one. It's mostly to just to be seated on the bench, so that we can freely move between our copies of Latios EX. {Dragon Road} reduces the retreat cost of Latios EX to zero, which is really great to transition them between M Latios EX—for either the clean-up or the follow-up. {Dragon Road} also enables Hydreigon to retreat for free as well, and given how this is our primary use for Hydreigon EX, it's very helpful since we generally don't want to put much emphasis on attaching energy to them. M Latios EX is going to need those energy far more prominently—so try not to misplace them.

On the far end, Deoxys is our secondary starter for this deck. As previously mentioned, [Solar Generator] Solrock was a deep consideration in place of Deoxys. However, Solrock had no offensive potential here, and wasn't compatible with the play first power of [Fast Raid]. This took away my ability to consistently play first, and thus made the deck unstable.

Deoxys on the other hand (as a starting Pokémon) enables us to play first every time. As our primary attack, [Close Encounter] works arguably even better than [Solar Generator] to get us the resources we need here. [Close Encounter] can get us to special energies, it can get us Mega Evolved faster, and it can get to any Supporters we might need to keep our momentum going. However, keep in mind that Latios EX remain our primary starter between the two—so make sure to always bench Deoxys if you have to choose between the two.

Beyond the crucial demand for resources that we face, we also face the lower curve of [Sonic Ace]'s damage potential, which readily threatens to set us behind the pace of more aggressive decks. Playing first and getting that first attack with [Fast Raid] can essential to victory. Don't think you can make up for it with Deoxys & [Overdrive Smash], because that can actually end up putting you behind. [Overdrive Smash] requires two energy, and takes two turns before the damage it does becomes reasonable. That sets us three turns behind, and two energies behind even beginning to power up Latios EX. We need to start strong if we want to finish strong. A loss in momentum like that, and we're bound to crash and burn, so keep Deoxys as your secondary unless you opening hand suffers so terribly [Close Encounter] is your only hope.

As some secondary potential, Deoxys can also be thrown out there to stall for a few turns while we either put together another M Latios EX—or get one fueled up for another hit with [Sonic Ace]. Deoxys and its 110HP sets it a slightly above the curve and enables Deoxys to eat up a 100 damage attack without giving way. That added grit is going to be extremely significant in a tight spot, further proving Deoxys to be a superior resource. Much like your nerdy sorority sister who always stays home. If it wasn't for her, the panty raiders might have gotten away with your dirty toys too—and you would have probably blamed her for it—some sister you are.

Big Ol' Bag of Candy

Pokémon [17]

2 — Toxicroak EX — Flashfire (41/106)
2 — Toxicroak EX — Flashfire (102/106)

2 — Sigilyph — Plasma Freeze (118/116)
3 — Venipede — Boundaries Crossed (72/149)
4 — Skarmory — Roaring Skies (69/108)

2 — Gulpin — Phantom Forces (37/119)
2 — Swalot — Phantom Forces (38/119)

Trainers [26]

4 — Hypnotoxic Laser — Plasma Storm (123/135)
4 — Robo Substitute — Phantom Forces (102/119)

2 — Ace Trainer — Ancient Origins (69/98)
3 — Teammates — Primal Clash (160/160)
4 — N — Dark Explorers (96/108)

4 — Virbank City Gym — Plasma Storm (126/135)

1 — Rock Guard — Plasma Freeze (108/116)
4 — Rocky Helm — Boundaries Crossed (153/149)

Energy [17]

4 — Mystery Energy — Phantom Forces (112/119)
4 — Double Colorless Energy
9 — Psychic Energy

MAIN STRATEGY

Skarmory & Sigilyph: Skarmory represents going door to door on Halloween to collect candy—and Sigilyph is like when we get home and pour out the candy to see what we got. These two are not a starting pair though. Sigilyph holds about as much potential as a starter in this deck as Gulpin does. It's pretty low. Skarmory is our primary starter for this deck. And the strategy generally involves playing second, so that we can use [Call for Family] right away.

Even at first, the contents of this deck appeared to me as though they were going to be really difficult to work with. Yet by the end of the development process, it had been assured that this was one of most difficult deck structures I had ever developed. I was extremely surprised to learn that this deck would literally require Skarmory to stabilize the flow of the cards—especially since this deck doesn't run high on evolution chains, or rely on the bench in any way.

Given the prominence of item cards here, I had originally tried working with [Close Encounter] Deoxys—yet that card kept falling terribly short in the test runs (even with Dimension Valley—the original Stadium card for this deck). It was then I had the idea to try [Call for Family] instead—given how universal the potential of that effect tends to be. And it was from that decision that I had discovered it was the Pokémon base in this deck that had been polluting the flow of the cards.

And it was by filtering them out—with [Call for Family]—that I was majorly able to unlock this flow. Unfortunately, the art on the card for Skarmory didn't match the Halloween theme as well as the art on [Close Encounter] Deoxys did—but I guess I actually ended up getting a little more flavor out of it this way. Because sometimes it rains on Halloween, and other times you have to Trick or Treat in the daylight—both of which can spoil the fun of Halloween a little.

As for Sigilyph, it could probably double as our secret stash given how it often plays out here. You see, Sigilyph has a habit of hiding away, and doesn't see much action in this deck (at least based on my experiences with it). It's very much a distant backup resource, that you save for a rainy day (thus the double entendre). And even if you perceive that you don't need it, keep in mind that it can block up the flow of the cards if you carelessly shuffle them back into your deck.

For this reason, there is somewhat of an importance of not keeping them in your hand (even if you can't use them). In order to snug in all of the tactical content that was needed to stabilize the deck structure, it thinned out our card advantage resources pretty well. And given how many of them are conditional, we don't want to pollute the contents of our deck any—so try to play out the first Sigilyph you get into your hand (even if you don't need it)—and get it out of the way to help concentrate the flow of the cards.

Gulpin & Swalot:

"Why don't you give meee some candy?"

"Ewuuuu...I don't think so...you're fat enough."

These two represent our dysfunctional family—always trying to get us to do stuff we don't want to do. Which is an interesting gem of symbolism, since developing this deck literally involved forcing myself to figure out how in the hell to make good use of Phantom Forces Swalot. I had not choice either, because this card was the counterpart to Gourgiest, and the centerpiece for a post-Halloween deck revolving around the theme of eating candy. Ironically, figuring out how to use this card was more like Nightmare on Elm Street. Which is actually kind of funny—when you look at the art for the card.

In my attempts to work this magic, I had originally started with [Dimension Valley]—feeling as though its power was needed in order to bridge the high costs of Swalot's attacks. This didn't work out however—since the power of [Poison Gas] is miserably low for a Stage 1 Pokémon (even at 1 energy). And Swalot's HP is also too low to make consistent use of [Swallow Up] (even at 2 energy).

I had tried a bunch of different combinations trying to unlock the hidden potential. It was like the Hellraiser puzzle box. At first I included [Close Encounter] Deoxys and [Psychic Assault] Wobbuffet—both of which attack for one energy—and work incrementally with attacks like [Poison Gas] and [Triple Poison]. With such quick attack power, I was convinced that there had to be someway to get Dimensional Valley to in this deck with Swalot. However, I had come to conclude that the deck structure was just too unstable with Swalot.

And so, this forced me to try something new. And in the end, I had learned something unique from this experience. Normally, I like to run a broad line of 4/3—or 3/3 for my Stage 1 evolution chains. You need a broad line like that in order to ensure consistency. It's essential to quickly get your cards on the table and make decent use of your Stage 1 Pokémon.

However, it appeared to be that Swalot was a special case. Where seemingly, the only way to get the card to actually work—is by running the evolution chain in a thin line like we have here. The reason for this was because the card itself isn't especially useful. It does have potential, yet that potential is so narrow, it requires you to run a thin line if you want to actually make good use of it. If you try to run a broader line, then the lesser qualities of the card are going to hold you back.

As far as I can tell, Swalot's best potential seems to be as a late game finisher—when you only have one two prize cards left, and you need to deal a troublesome 100 damage to finish the game. This can't be achieved in one attack with any other Pokémon in this deck—and that's where Swalot rises above the crowd a little. So maybe it wouldn't be so bad to give him a little candy. After all, Swalot is likely to be the one that has your back when no one else does.

Toxicroak EX & Venipede: This combination probably sums up the fun of Halloween for us all. We all start out as a little peapod in this big world, looking back at Mom & Dad, and wondering if they're really going to send us up to the door all by ourselves—to a broke kid in college running around on Halloween all by ourselves with no shame in collecting free candy from other adults. Toxicroak EX can make quick of pretty much anything in this deck—like some horror movie killer. And that's why there are four of them here, because Toxicroak is an explicitly strong starting Pokémon.

In this deck, all you need is a double colorless energy, and you can totally dominate with [Triple Poison] between Virbank City Gym, Mystery Energy, and Robo Substitute. You'll be stacking up 50 damage a turn on your opponent without even needing Toxicroak EX to remain your active Pokémon, while Mystery Energy enables you to vanish like Michael Myers. Put a Rocky Helmet Toxicroak—and you'll be tearing them up like Jason Voorhees. Throw Rock Guard on there—and that's like Jason Takes Manhattan. Heads will roll.

Venipede on the other hand is our distant backup starter in this deck, and doubles as a transitional resource whenever we need to switch to a defensive stance. {Poison Point} and Virbank City Gym go hand-in-hand. This combination can keep a smart opponent at bay, while more reckless opponents are going to start stacking up some heavy poison damage on themselves from {Poison Point}—thus adding some offensive edge to what would otherwise be an unprogressive stalling tactic.

As such a resource, Venipede also doubles as an enabler for us—working powerful Supporters like Ace Trainer and Teammates. We couldn't possibly get this much out of any other basic Pokémon in the game, which kind of makes Venipede appear to me as the old lady at the top of the hill, who drops so much candy in your bag—you can't help but love her. She's our favorite person in the world to visit on Halloween, and just ringing her door bell makes our heart glow like a jack-o'-lantern.

Hypnotoxic Laser & Robo Substitute: Robo Substitute—that's like us at the hospital. I think we might have eaten too much candy. And Hypnotoxic Laser is like equipment they have to use to see if we're going to go into diabetic shock. Both of these cards are powerful resources for any Virbank City Gym deck. Hypnotic Laser can jump start the poison damage when we can't even begin to attack yet, while Robo Substitute can extend the range of that damage to at least 90 over the course of a single turn (and that's not even including our follow up attack).

Toxicroak EX makes a sweet pair with Robo Substitute as well, further increasing the overall synergy of the deck. Over the course of a single go, your opponent will get one attack on Toxicroak EX—and by the time it comes back around next turn (after Robo Substitute gets knocked out)—200 damage will have passed from [Triple Poison]. You can use this technique to bag fresh Pokémon EX that your opponent sends out from the bench but hasn't powered up yet. They won't even be able to get two energies on it and it'll be gone.

I guess that could make this pair of cards something like having to fend off our siblings from our candy with a Super Soaker (because they ate all of theirs already). They might be lucky to get one to two pieces, but it'll take a true fat ass to stand there and mooch our candy in the face of getting hosed.

Our Halloween Crew & Virbank City Gym: Ace Trainer reminds me of the perfect Halloween date. There's nothing quite as romantic as a night on the town together amidst the Halloween atmosphere. Virbank City Gym is like our neighborhood on Halloween—or possibly our real home afterwards (where everyone steals our candy). Ace Trainer also represents our friends, where Teammates is like our little sister and her friend. We said that we would take them Trick or Treating so they didn't have to stay inside on Halloween. We don't mind if they tag along. It would have broke their heart to have had to stay inside—which I guess makes us like the brave and endearing hero N by default.

This spread of Supporters is truly beyond anything I would ever think possible. Yet it was through forcing myself to develop this deck that I had unlocked the potential to do the impossible. I had first tried a bunch of different Supporter combinations, many of which were very successful for similar deck structures of mine—yet none of them seemed to work very well at all for this deck in specific. Ultimately, it was in the final major revision of the deck—that there should be some extremely rare and unique potential for this deck's Supporter spread.

After I had unlocked the secret of Skarmory's potential for this deck, and switched over from Dimension Valley to Virbank City Gym (adding Venipede to the deck to suite it)—I had concluded that this deck should have the potential to run an explicitly tactical Supporter pair featuring both Ace Trainer and Teammates. This was something totally unprecedented otherwise (due to their restrictions)—yet in this deck should thrive, given the immense number of satellite resources we have to heavily support both cards. For this same reason, it was obvious to me that N would make a beautiful compliment at the core of this Supporter spread. It works along the lines of the main strategy—and provides the support needed here to accentuate the flow of the cards.

Ace Trainer makes a really great follow up to N, mid-game for example, after your opponent has knocked out one of your Skarmory, Venipede, or even Toxicroak maybe. Yet it's still too conditional to see any extensive use here (due to the prominence of poison damage). The style of this deck is not intended to provide some perfectly one-sided landslide victory. It vies on explicit tactic—revolving around the consistency of poison damage, and all of our tactical resources to support that. Our opponent is likely to pick up more than a few prize cards as we strive to counterstep them, yet we should ultimately pull victory out from under them.

This tactical style is one of the greatest techniques in the game, because it not only works best deck's that are based on simple brute force, it is the only type of deck that has a chance to best other explicitly tactical decks. And this is where title of endearing hero is going to take full perspective for both Ace Trainer & N—with their ability to aggressively short our opponent's hand while they collect prize cards off our satellite resources.

While Teammates plays for free off Robo Substitute—giving us all kinds of tactical retrieval power—that's sure to be especially dangerous in this deck. In fact, it should not only save the day for us—but keeping the pressure on our opponents with Hypnotoxic Laser, Virbank City Gym (and anything else we might need) should come natural.

Rocky Helm & Rocky Guard: Rocky Helmet is like the knots on your head—tryin' to steal my candy; and Rock Guard is like our candy collection when there's nothing left but Tootsie Rolls. You can have them all. It could also be like our stash of the good stuff I guess, versus all of the junk stuff that we give to our family to keep the fiends out of our stash. It could even be our stomach in knots after eating too much junk food (that's how we ended up in the hospital). There are lots of possibilities here...makes it hard to pick just one.

Luckily, making good use of these cards is about as simple as can be—you won't have to put too much thought into it. You'll just want to save Rock Guard for Toxicroak as often as possible—as well as Rocky Helmet for something like Swalot or Skarmory. We want to get the most out of these cards, so we don't want to attach them to any Pokémon with low HP, unless it would be a game winning move. So eat up all the good stuff right away, but try to savor the flavor if you can. That's what's most comfortable, so that's always going to be our best move.

Trick or Treat

TRICK OR TREAT DECK

No descriptions today—just some Halloween fun. Here is a Highlander deck in the spirit of Halloween. See if you can figure out all of the references here representing each card.

Happy Halloween!!

All Hallows' Eve

Pokémon [16]

2 — Chandelure EX — Legendary Treasures (77/113)
2 — Gengar EX — Phantom Forces (114/119)

2 — Sigilyph — Plasma Freeze (118/116)

3 — Lunatone — Plasma Storm (73/135)

4 — Pumpkaboo — XY Base Set (56/146)

3 — Gourgeist — XY Base Set (57/146)

Trainers [27]

1 — Scramble Switch — Plasma Storm (129/135)

4 — Trainers' Mail — Ancient Origins (100/98)

4 — Hypnotoxic Laser — Plasma Storm (123/135)

4 — Robo Substitute — Phantom Forces (102/119)

3 — Teammates — Primal Clash (160/160)

4 — Shauna — Phantom Forces (104/119)

4 — N — Dark Explorers (96/108)

4 — Virbank City Gym — Plasma Storm (126/135)

Energy [17]

4 — Mystery Energy — Phantom Forces (112/119)

4 — Double Colorless Energy

9 — Psychic Energy

MAIN STRATEGY

Lunatone: It's All Hallow's Eve—and the moon hangs ominously in the sky. Lunatone is mostly here for flavor, but it also makes a really great transitional resource to keep the cards coming to us. What we've got here is a deck that's light on hard resources, and the last thing we want is for any of those resources to left all alone in the dark. {Premonition} works wonders in this way, enabling us to filter through the top two cards of our deck so we don't lose our way.

We don't want to get ahead of ourselves though. The technical resources in this deck are dense, not only are there a number of them, there's a heavy volume of each provided here. Coinciding with this, there's generally a narrow chance that whatever we need can't be obtained by greater means with one of our Supporters—so don't look back. Keep the light in front of you, and save {Premonition} for the end of the turn to keep us from the dangers of what lurks in the darkness.

Sigilyph: Shadows on the moon—sometimes they feel closer to us than they appear. Like the haunting feeling that something surrounds us. It stops us for a moment, frozen in place—just like Sigilyph can do against our opponents. We want Sigilyph to dance around our opponent's Pokémon, and that makes Mystery Energy a really great choice for this card. Send them in to block your opponent's most powerful resources, but retreat them as soon as {Safeguard} has no effect.

Sigilyph will totally dominate against players who have packed their decks with Pokémon EX exclusively, but that is about the extent of Sigilyph's potential. Keep one on the bench for reserve, but don't start attaching energies to it unless it's a priority you face. In doing that prematurely, you could end up setting yourself one too many steps behind and get lost in your shadow.

Gengar & Chandelure EX: Ghosts in the night—whose presence becomes hauntingly close to us as the veil between the two worlds becomes thinnest. Gengar revolves around [Dark Corridor] with Robo Substitute and Virbank City Gym—like the hand of death. By the time the chill of Gengar's touch subsides, the defending Pokémon is likely to be passed out cold from 180 damage stacked up over the course of two turns. [Night Attack] makes a strong tactical option as well, in the event your opponent attempts to retreat and throw something basic in your way. Gengar can phase right through whatever might be trying to block him and get the job done.

Chandelure and [Cursed Drop] holds much of the same potential, only a little stronger, and more diverse with the ability to spread the damage counters out. [Cursed Drop] is likely to be your primary attack in this deck. It's quick, it's tactical, and it compliments cards like Hypnotoxic Laser very well. [Eerie Light] on the other hand can be somewhat of a delve into darkness. If you can reach the light, it can be used to burn your opponent's to the ground. Expect that to be a bit of a challenge though, since we're using Virbank City Gym and not Dimension Valley.

Our greatest strategy will generally involve placing a Mystery Energy on Chandelure, so we can quickly retreat it in and out as we need. From there we can deftly employ [Cursed Drop] as a compliment to cards like Hypnotoxic Laser and Gourgeist—or settle Chandelure alongside shadows of the moon, until [Eerie Light] can be used to guide our opponents into the afterlife.

Pumpkaboo & Gourgeist: Lost souls that wander the earth—their pain and sorrow can be felt on this special night—but it's said that memory of it will haunt you for the rest of your life. Be warned. Gourgeist is a very dangerous card—one that doesn't take sides—and has no problem equally being the end of you, as well as it can be the end of your opponent. [Spirit Scream] holds the power to reduce any Pokémon to 10HP—yet at the cost of reducing its own HP to the same amount.

Hypnotoxic Laser is a specialty with this attack—to instantly send any Pokémon to the grave after poison damage. This technique usually comes at the cost of losing a prize card though, once Gourgeist gets knocked out during your opponent's next turn, so we want to reserve the power of Gourgeist for something truly worthy of sending to hell with it.

Be careful with these two cards. Gourgeist has a rather low HP, so you don't want Pumpkaboo out there as our starter. You want to keep Pumpkaboo on the bench until you can get Gourgeist ready to scare some unsuspecting soul half to death with [Spirit Scream].

To set the mood for this, I've provided a 4/3 split between the two cards. The higher end gives us some room to breathe (with the rather delicate Pumpkaboo)—while the lower end helps to prevent Gourgeist from making a tortured soul out of us.

In this deck, you'll only be able to make use of about two Gourgeist at most in any given game. So three is a good number to ghostride the flow of the cards, while that one extra slot makes a far better use elsewhere (like a card that supports the flow of the cards in general)—which can help us when it comes to these cards as well as many others.

Ghost Hunting Item Cards: Robo Substitute—that's us to ghosts. We can't see them, but we can feel them around us, and it's scary because we're not exactly sure what they're capable of. We want to throw these out there like we would do our younger brother or sister—to hide behind for Gengar EX—or just to stall for time until we can get our energy up to defend ourselves.

Hypnotic Laser is our heavy weapons. It's loaded with holy water, sparkling grape juice (a Christmas staple), and stale Mt. Dew. So if there's anything that's going to kill a ghost—it's this. Because we all know holy water is already good for it. And Christmas like...cancels out Halloween—right? The Mt. Dew is not only stale—it's watered down. We could probably kill anyone with this, so let's not get careless. I don't know what I'm saying here really, I can't image anyone who wouldn't panic when it comes to ghosts. Murphy's Law also dictates that you don't have to see the enemy—to shoot the enemy. Spray and pray. So just do your best stay alive, I guess.

Trainer's Mail is our ghost deterrent—the flashlight. And Scramble Switch is the button on it. Keeping them away to begin with is always better than killing them. That is the principal of deterrency. So unless we're about to make a dash for it, we want to flash these like crazy to find our item cards that keep the advantage on our side. This is one of the only resources we have to filter out the deck's contents—and with the concentration of item cards here (alongside the faintness of hard resources) our best move is likeliest to be spam Trainer's Mail.

Halloween Thrillseekers & Virbank City Gym: It's All Hallows' Eve—and we're going on a date through the graveyard. Are you getting excited too? Because my heart is starting to race just thinking about it. Once we get there, we're going to find a nice spot—far in the back—where we can light some candles and set the mood for some real excitement.

At the end of the development process, I reached the Supporter section—which hauntingly appeared to me as a ghost bridge over a long body of water. After trying a few combinations, I became unsure for a moment as of to crossover. The concentration of utility resources in this deck (which are essential to the foundation of this deck)—alongside the low abundancy of hard resources (such as Basic Pokémon)—seemed like such a paradox world, that it seemed as though there was no way of truly crossing this bridge without falling through at some point sooner or later.

It was at that point, that I had decided I must be striving to be too tactical—and from that conceived the notion that the nature of this deck demanded more simplicity in order to stabilize the deck structure.

This deck has a lot of item cards in it, and each of them are very important, so it can't really afford to be discarding cards with Supporters like Professor Juniper. In addition to that, this deck could suffer immensely from a short draw early in the game (the likes of such Supporters as Professor Birch's Observations). So I continued isolate points of interest like this based on my experience with what I worked with until I came to what we have here—which is moreso a tactical pair of Supporters—than it is a tactical spread.

Wheel supporters provide a strong measure of flexibility to spare us our precious item cards and Gourgeist when we can't use them, yet can't afford to throw away either. These wheel effect supporters in specific do very well to guide us through the darkness alongside one retrieval effect Supporter that has some very special potential here—thanks to the presence of Robo Substitute in this deck. Teammates also compliments the power of Trainer's Mail very well, since the potential of that card by itself can be underwhelming at times due to the nature of its restriction.

As a suite of cards however, your pace should pick up increasingly as you play them out. We're not filtering out the deck from the board, but from within the Trainer card engine itself. And although this isn't as quick as the board method, it enables us to work with a greater abundance of inherently strong Item card instead—which there wouldn't be enough space for otherwise, because those spaces would need to be appropriated in order to support our board demands.

It's a simple one—but the tactic for these cards primarily revolves around leading with Teammates most of all. We don't have many Pokémon in this deck to spare, so if you see that the opportunity to make use of a Teammates is present—take it right away if you can.

From there on out, you'll probably want to alternate between Shauna and N. The stability of our grounding can dramatically veer between two extremes due to the structure of this deck. And that is why I say to alternate between them if you can. Shauna keeps our card advantage one-sided—and with Trainer's Mail—we can peer through the deck and grab extra cards anyways (so there's no need for us to get greedy). Pay closer attention to what's going on around you—and try keep your opponent in the dark—where the ghosts can eat them up.

Honeymoon In Vegas

Pokémon [16]

3 — Diancie EX — Mega Diancie Collection Box (XY43)
2 — Mega Diancie EX — Mega Diancie Collection Box (XY44)

2 — Malamar EX — Phantom Forces (58/119)

2 — Spiritomb — Legendary Treasures (87/113)
3 — Skarmory — Roaring Skies (69/108)
4 — Xerneas — XY Base Set (96/146)

Trainers [26]

1 — Scramble Switch — Plasma Storm (129/135)
2 — Enhanced Hammer — Dark Explorers (94/108)
2 — Paint Roller — Ancient Origins (79/98)
3 — Ultra Ball — Dark Explorers (102/108)

2 — Ace Trainer — Ancient Origins (69/98)
2 — Professor Juniper — Dark Explorers (98/108)
3 — Steven — Roaring Skies (90/108)
3 — Professor Birch's Observations — Primal Clash (90/108)

2 — Lucky Helmet — Ancient Origins (77/98)

2 — Trick Coin — Phantom Forces (108/119)

4 — Fairy Garden — XY Base Set (117/146)

Energy [18]

2 — Double Colorless Energy

4 — Dark Energy

14 — Fairy Energy

MAIN STRATEGY

Xerneas & Skarmory: These two cards symbolize our transportation to Las Vegas. Because we could fly there if you want—or we could drive there instead, because that can be all kinds of fun. Xerneas is our primary stater for this deck, we want to get Xerneas out by no later than the second turn, to start attaching energies with [Geomancy] to either Malamar or Diancie (depending on your needs). Based on my experience with this deck, Xerneas doesn't come in very handy after that—especially since there are only 12 Fairy energies in this deck, and that doesn't give us much room to stretch the power of [Geomancy] very far.

Xerneas is kind of like renting a Ferrari. It's fast, and fun, and looks real good—but once our time is up—we've gotta take it back right away, because there's no way we can afford another day. We might have to sell our car, and fly back home—and that's about equal to the potential of [Rainbow Spear] in this deck. You'll go broke trying to power up a Xerneas to use this attack—so don't even bother.

Skarmory is our best option between the two when it comes to offensive power. [Blow Through] is only two energy, with a frequent chance its power will be boosted to 60 for us. This should be more than enough to follow through behind powerful attackers like Malamar EX and Mega Diance. But it isn't very strong by itself, and therein lies the importance of planning out your offensive very carefully. Because a moderate attack like [Blow Through] at 60 damage isn't going to carry you very far if that's all you've got to rely on.

In addition to offensive power, Skarmory is also our backup starter for this deck, which runs on a pretty strict clock for a couple of reasons. And for those reasons, [Call for Family] is the main reason why Skarmory is in this deck. It can be essential to keep this deck in pace with the game.

However, if you throw Skarmory out there in your opening turn—it can be crucial that you don't leave him out there. Use [Call for Family] once—fetch yourself a Xerneas, and whichever Pokémon EX that suites your needs, then get him out of there right away so you can begin powering up your bench with [Geomancy].

We've got a very limited number of offensive cards in this deck—and if you can't get the job done between them—then your luck is up. And that's why the technique here involves getting those high rollers out on the prowl as soon as possible (to cut back on the heat that they take). So keep that in mind because it can be the difference between success or fail. You can always throw him back out there later if you need to stall for a turn or two while you get your offensive all geared up.

Malamar EX & Mega Diancie: Diancie represents the newlyweds in Vegas—and Malamar EX represents what should be—the last (and best) part of the honeymoon (the sweet stuff). These two are your high rollers—and my God do they make really great couple. Most decks revolve around the power of Pokémon EX, and that makes Mega Diancie your primary between the two.

In many cases, getting Mega Diancie out and attacking can be all it takes to win the game. [Diamond Force] takes three energy to get going, but against an opponent who's packed their deck with Pokémon EX—it's all downhill from there. [Diamond Force] is going to prevent the damage from your opponent's Pokémon EX, even if Mega Diancie isn't the Active Pokémon anymore. Not to mention, once lady luck is out there working her magic, it can buy you all kinds of time to load up Malamar EX with energies—while further putting your opponent's Active Pokémon to sleep each turn—via {Hyper Hypnosis}.

They're kind of like the perfect slot-machine couple. The lucky one sits there and rakes it in little by little, while other comes back for the extra until the love between them wins it all.

Another reason why Malamar EX is such a great counterpart to Diancie—is because it's so strong by itself. Unlike Diancie EX, which really isn't powerful enough to stand alone (especially late in the game). Her HP is really low, and her [Luminous Swirl] attack requires a color heavy three energy to use. And although it can be powerful—it's still far too unpredictable to rely on.

Mega Diancie has some pretty low HP as well—and no Spirit Link either—with her own color heavy three energy attack. These qualities make Diancie & Mega Diancie rather technical cards to use. Like many beautiful things—they're delicate. And so it takes a light touch to handle them. And this explains their low numbers here. They can be powerful, but in order to harness that power, you'll have to build your deck in respects to their lesser qualities if you don't want those qualities to ultimately hold you back (because they're sure to otherwise).

Spiritomb: Spiritomb is like the blacklist at the casino that makes it impossible for you to win at the slot machines. It uses face recognition technology to determine if you're a frequent visitor, and then tracks your location to the exact slot machine (or series of slot machines) that you sit down at and reduces the rate to nothing. The system also analyzes your betting pattern, and if it detects that your betting pattern is too aggressive—it will blacklist you on the spot.

This is an Extended format deck, so among the other options that were available, the narrow open spot lead me to notion that Spiritomb would be a really great choice—since it blocks the power of ACE SPEC cards, which are prominently game winning staples in Extended format decks.

Ironically, there's an ACE SPEC card in this deck, and that's not usually the style that you want to roll with if you're going to be blocking that potential (because it can often hold you back in a tight spot). However, in my experience I've come to realize some potential for running both in the same deck. Where the technique simply involves running a very select number of Spiritomb so that its existence remains light in the deck—where it's easy to get out, and easy to get rid of.

However, in order to utilize this properly, the deck itself has to be one that doesn't rely on the power of [Hexed Mirror] at all. I have some that strongly benefit from it, but that requires you to run higher numbers Spiritomb to make use of—and in a deck like this that would only be many types of get in the way. As it stands, it does still get in the way some—yet based on my experience I think that it's been far more beneficial than it has been a liability.

Scramble Switch, Enhanced Hammer, & Paint Roller: Scramble Switch is the slot machine button—and Enhanced Hammer is like the playtime's over bitch. That's how we paint the town. These cards together make a really aggressive combination. They check some very prominent powers in the game. I have yet to see a single game they don't command respect. There aren't really any special instructions for using them, seeing has how the nature of the cards is basic removal.

However, you can consider a neat trick with Paint Roller, by using it to wipe out your own Stadium card before you re-up your hand with something like Ace Trainer or Professor Juniper. You might get a card from it that you can use right away, further improving the concentration of your next draw.

Every card counts, and there are four copies of Fairy Garden in this deck—yet due to the general offensive strategy, there's not as big a need for it here as with certain other decks. You shouldn't really need to retreat that often here, which makes Fairy Garden a rather expendable card. So consider this tactic if you've got some room to spare—in many cases you'll be able to replace Fairy Garden with another copy right away after the draw.

Ultra Ball: Our coin cup. Goes well with Mega Diancie—but that's about all there is to it.

Card Advantage Supporters: Ace Trainer is our power couple, and Professor Birch's Observations is like the fatty at the buffet. This guy got up to fill his plate three times since we've been here. Next we've got our man Steven—the hotel manager. And lastly we have Professor Juniper—the casino teller. She said that she'll give us 20% of our earnings in chips right now if we don't cash out until the end of the night. I say we take her up on that and let's go take a nap on the couch.

This is a really technical deck, and working that requires a more technical Supporter spread than normal. I've gained a lot of experience with this thankfully, and the more experience I gain, the better I've become at putting together extremely technical combination. The biggest aspect of developing a tactical spread is contouring your Supporter cards around the nature of your surrounding content. You want to choose Supporter cards with effects that compliment the nature of your cards in some way—or that counterbalance some problematic attribute of theirs.

For example, this deck doesn't have a lot of Pokémon in it, and among those it does have, most of them it can't even make use of. The nature of these cards becomes a potential blockade (because we can't make any use them). And that is going to be problematic since they would go back into the deck to dilute the potency of our draw in wheel effects.

Ultra Ball is here to counterbalance this some, yet more proficiently we have Professor Juniper on the high end of this to provide a very strong drawing option—that not only gives us a powerful number of cards—but also enables us to ditch any problematic cards so they're not in the way anymore.

Next, Steven is the axis of this tactical spread. We only have one Dark-type Pokémon in this deck that needs its type energy to support it. So based on the dynamics of Special Energy (and how they work with the flow of the cards)—four energy should be enough to support that. However, as with Special Energy, it's not exactly absolute—and that's what makes Steven such a great card for this deck. It not only holds the amazing potential to reserve a specific energy for us, it can also reserve the exact style of Supporter we need to use next.

Steven is a great card when it comes to adaptability, but I've come to learn that this card can also work against us in a technical decks such as this one (where the needs are more specific and less general). In a deck like this, four copies won't help you as much as they seem to hurt you—and that's why the numbers have been slightly dialed down here. It helps to reserve his best potential for us, without him often overstaying his welcome.

On the flip side, Professor Birch's Observations has been dialed up slightly, because his potential is more general—and those elevated numbers aim to create a heatsink—that cools down the flow of the cards by providing a little extra circulation. A lot isn't needed, that could actually hold us back by taking up unnecessary spots that are better held by more tactical cards (such as Item cards).

Just a little extra (or little less) can make a world of difference, and this is the principal I use when determining the perfect numbers for any given card (especially Supporter cards). I take my collective experience and estimate what should be the perfect amount, then go little by little up or down, paying close attention to the variance between those numbers to determine the perfect measure.

There are quite a few ways to toss cards in this deck, and that give Professor Birch's Observations a little extra potential here—yet the foundation of the deck as a whole suggests we'll need a little extra if we want to tap into that. The ideal scenario isn't always going to be present, and so the slightly elevated numbers provide some cushion for the pushin'.

On the far end of town, Ace Trainer makes a tactical pair with Professor Juniper—proving the especially powerful effect of a double-advantage. It can only be used when your opponent has fewer prize cards than you, but it will strongly re-up your hand while cutting your opponent's down to size. In many ways, Ace Trainer is even better than N—yet I find it to be such a technical card, that it moreso runs along the same lines as Teammates.

If you can make use out of more than three copies, that's beyond me.

The card's condition is actually pretty hard to fulfill without setting yourself on the losing end of the game's momentum. It tends to be that once the prize cards start picking up, they finish picking up fast. You don't want to set yourself on the losing end of that momentum for the simple advantage of cards in your hand. What your opponent will have secured in the process is board advantage—and when that's strongly against you all the cards in the world are useless.

Two is a comfortable number for Ace Trainer. You don't want to try using it all the time. It makes a really great game winning card—for cutting off your opponent's momentum, and taking the cards out of their hand that they desperately needed to keep pace with you in a close game. Making good use of this card involves a very narrow window of opportunity, so you'll generally want to keep the numbers low (so that it doesn't disrupt the flow of the cards)—and also run it alongside a card like Steven—that can put Ace Trainer by your side right when you need it.

Lucky Helmet & Trick Coin: Our lucky underwear—and what could be the coin that wins it all for us. This right here is actually a Pokémon Tool split that I'd never think possible. The numbers are so narrow, and Pokémon Tool cards generally require a lot of depth and concentration to make perfect use of. Surprisingly, it actually works pretty well. At two copies each, they seem to float around with the same consistency as Enhanced Hammer—which does very well at two copies—and just as useful.

Lucky Helmet fits our starters perfectly, and works extra wonders when we have to throw out a decoy Pokémon to stall for time. Lucky Helmet can net us a lot of important cards, which includes some of the powerful removal cards we've got—or getting us to our ACE SPEC card—as well as netting us a few extra cards to throw away to Ultra Ball. Lucky Helmet provides us with some straight draw power—the potential of which is an amazing compliment to otherwise immensely complex Supporter suite that this deck utilizes.

Trick Coin also does really well here despite the spare numbers. Its place follows a principal that I often use when developing my deck structures. The principal revolves around certain complimentary cards in the deck—and involves including a number of copies no greater than the number of copies of the primary card itself. This technique works really well to provide exactly what we need—yet within strict proportion—which opens up potential for diversity elsewhere.

Getting Malamar EX onto the bench is pretty much a have-to-do each game—but we're only looking to get one good copy out on the board, so two copies of Trick Coin actually does well to deliver the goods—and often even leave us with a little extra to play with. I was surprised. I'm not normally comfortable with a split between any less than 3/2. And I would have done that here with Lucky Helmet at the higher end of the split. But there wasn't any room for that—so I was forced to play it out as it is—and in the end it turned out to be a sweet bit of serendipity.

Till Death Do Us Part

Pokémon [19]

4 — Gardevoir EX — Primal Clash (105/160)
3 — Mega Gardevoir EX — Primal Clash (156/160)

4 — Audino — Boundaries Crossed (126/149)
4 — Carbink — Flashfire (68/106)
4 — Xerneas — XY Base Set (96/146)

Trainers [22]

1 — Master Ball — Plasma Blast (94/101)
4 — Trainers' Mail — Roaring Skies (92/108)

2 — Skyla — Boundaries Crossed (149/149)
2 — Lysandre — Flashfire (104/106)
3 — Colress — Plasma Storm (118/135)
4 — N — Dark Explorers (96/108)

3 — Gardevoir Spirit Link — Primal Clash (130/160)

4 — Fairy Garden — XY Base Set (117/146)

Energy [19]

3 — Wonder Energy — Primal Clash (114/160)
16 — Fairy Energy

MAIN STRATEGY

Xerneas: Xerneas here is like the husband. He gets out there and brings home the bacon—and gives it all his woman so she can stay looking real good. The strategy here for Xerneas is much the same as any other. You want to lead with Xerneas as often as possible and use [Geomancy] to begin filtering out your deck and attaching as many Fairy energy onto your benched Pokémon as you can. Unlike some other decks though, this deck can't afford to do this carelessly. So you're going to want to be very cautious in the way you use [Geomancy] here.

Nearly every one of our Pokémon in this deck require three energy to attack. And once you're all out of energies—that's it. This deck can run out of energies really fast, and that can leave you totally stranded with an odd end when it comes to energies. For best results, try to stick with your main girl Gardevoir as best as possible—and from there follow up with Audino, Xerneas, or another Gardevoir. Concentration is very important—so don't get careless and put them all over the place.

Gardevoir & Mega Gardevoir: Here we have the girl in all her glory—the bride. This woman is the center of our universe. Our main offensive in this deck relies on Mega Gardevoir and her infinitely powerful attack—[Bright Arrow]. Since time is always of the essence, we want to get Mega Gardevoir out on the offensive as soon as possible. So in the process of powering up Gardevoir—make sure to double up on that effort—and attach the energy from your hand onto Gardevoir while you use Xerneas' [Geomancy] to do the same.

You don't want to overload her with energies though. This is one of the most important aspects involved with using Mega Gardevoir properly. Resources can get thin here, so even though the power of [Bright Arrow] is linked to the number of energies you have on the board—once you get three energy on Gardevoir—stop there. Every single energy can be significant, so don't get excessive, because you might need those energies later to rebound—and keep your offense or defense up.

Carbink: The wedding ring. Because of course, when you find a woman as amazingly beautiful as Mega Gardevoir—you've gotta put a huge rock on that. Carbink is mostly our backup starter for Xerneas. For one energy, you can bling on your opponent with the power of [Crystal Barrier] to potentially stall for any number of turns while you get your cards all geared up. This is a really great way to buy time when you need a turn or two to get things in place—and works really well in the middle of a heated game.

[Wonder Blast] can be a really great follow-up attack as well. It deals 100 damage stand-alone, which is enough to One-Hit KO troublesome cards like {Safeguard} Sigilyph & Suicune. For best results however, try to keep Carbink on the defensive and stick with [Crystal Barrier] as best you can. Another copy of Xerneas (with its high HP) is almost always going to be a better offensive card than Carbink, because the low HP of Carbink makes it too much of a liability as an offensive card. Especially given the fact that losing Carbink to a cheap 70 damage attack is going to drop the power of Mega Gardevoir's [Brilliant Arrow] by at least 90 damage afterwards.

Audino: The bridesmaids. They're here to back up the bride on her big day. Audino is a really amazing card in so many ways—and it finds a really special here in this deck. {Busybody} is a really powerful ability, that you can use at anytime to heal 10 damage and remove 1 Special Condition from your Active Pokémon. This works wonders against conditions like Paralyzed and Asleep—but you won't be able to use this ability once you've placed Audino on the bench—so try to keep Audino in your hand as often as possible to reserve the power of {Busybody} for yourself.

One the other end, Audino doubles up our potential to stall time if we need to—via its [Hip Bump] attack. This is a really great way to stall for time and get some damage in while you cover odd ends and get your cards in place. However, since [Hip Bump] is two energy, it might be in your best interests to put your first copy of Audino onto the bench in your opening turn—and then split your energy between it and Gardevoir to reserve Audino as strong backup attacker. The tactical prowess of [Hip Bump] can work wonders to stall for time while you put together another Mega Gardevoir.

Master Ball: Because when you first saw that ass, you was like, "Go, Master Ball." This deck desperately needed as much direct retrieval support as I could spare, and it's from that notion I decided Master Ball would be the best selection for this deck among other ACE SPEC cards. And this, opposed to what some say, where Scramble Switch or Computer Search is a better option.

First off—those don't match the theme at all—but to elaborate further; there are a few major demands in this deck that have to met in hopes of keeping pace with the game. And Master Ball's potential to meet these demands at no cost makes it the best selection for this deck. The first urgency is getting Gardevoir onto the bench as soon as possible—so that you can begin powering her up for [Bright Arrow]. And the second urgency—is evolving her to Mega Gardevoir as soon as possible so that you can begin a quick offensive movement.

Now, there are only three copies of Mega Gardevoir in this deck, and this is done in order to help prevent any redundancy issues from blocking up the flow of the cards in this deck. I use this technique to sharpen the structure of every deck I create that involves evolution lines featuring Pokémon that don't offer any immediate offensive or defensive potential. It promotes a better fluency in the flow of the cards, but you can also expect to experience a little latency here and there when it comes to availability. For this reason, I try to always include some form of direct retrieval to help further improve the flow of the cards and bring everything full circle.

And that's what Master Ball is here for. If any distance develops between your copies of Gardevoir or Mega Gardevoir—Master Ball is here to help tie the knot. You see—this is a very concentrated deck—one that can't afford discarding masses of cards in exchange for a single card. That is why you don't see Ultra Ball in here—and that is also why Master Ball makes a better option over Computer Search. Another perk to this is—even though there's only one copy of Master Ball in the deck—there are various other cards in the deck (such as Trainer's Mail and Skyla) that can cascade into Master Ball so you can use it right away at no additional expense.

And whenever the flow of the cards in your favor (where your copies of Gardevoir and Mega Gardevoir come to you naturally), you can always use Master Ball to fetch yourself a copy of Audino—and reserve the power of {Busybody} for yourself to be used at a later time.

Trainers' Mail: Our golden wedding invitations. Unfortunately, this might not be as exciting for everyone despite our cheer about it. Even so, I think glamour that we put into it is good effort to say the least. Striving to lift their spirits and reach out for what's important—which is exactly what this card is all about here. Trainers' Mail makes an amazing retrieval card—contrasting the erratic card advantage of our wheel Supporters in this deck. Trainers' Mail makes an excellent catalyst in a concentrated deck like this, quickly getting us to copies of important cards like Supporters, Fairy Garden—and maybe most importantly—Gardevoir Spirit Link.

Trainers' Mail can be a make or break card here—so don't use it carelessly. Shuffle them back into your deck for later if the need for a specific card is not eminent. Wasting this card is likely to lose you the game in a climactic match—so don't just throw it out there early in the game—every game. This deck in specifically does not benefit from Trainers' Mail that dynamically. The content here is concentrated—and most of it is condition-based content. Meaning, that you can only make good use of it when certain other conditions are present. And if they're not—those cards sit around and go to waste.

For this deck, Trainers' Mail has the most potential later in the game—after a majority the content have been thinned out, and the remaining gems come closer together.

From a neutral ground, that's when you're going to get the most out of your Trainers' Mail, so unless the need for a specific card has you in dire straits—save them for later in the game.

Colress & N: Gathered here we have the priest and the best man. These two are here to see us through on our big day and together make up the majority of our card advantage potential.

Colress resides on the lesser end of the split—to help prevent the liability generally involved with such a conditional card advantage Supporter like himself. Although we have a slightly elevated number of Pokémon in this deck (at 19)—we can't account for at least six of them; because three of them are evolution cards. And for good measure, we want to displace at least three copies of Audino, in order to cover the potential need for its {Busybody} ability.

This gives us a decent enough number to make use of Colress—but not likely until later in the game. So just like with Professor Juniper in some decks, the structure of this deck requires a light touch in order to tap into the full potential of Colress—where Colress is also our best option overall.

That would be the case here—and the major reason for this is due to the concentration of this deck structure. You see—we don't have a diversity of pieces in this deck—and this creates an importance for each unique piece that we do have. In the sense that, each piece is so important that we really can't afford throwing any of them away—and that is a big reason why I chose wheel effect Supporters for this deck.

However, it also compliments the aspect deck thinning effects like Xerneas' [Geomancy]—which brings the contents of our deck closer together, and increases the potency of cards like Trainer's Mail in addition to other copies of our wheel Supporters.

The closest competitor to Colress was Professor Birch's Observations, but I came to the conclusion that Colress ultimately trumps him. And the reason for this is because Colress holds a higher range of potential over Professor Birch's Observations (especially in the mid-to-late game scenarios) where board position is at a climax—and there might be a strict need to either keep your card advantage one-sided—or reach far into your deck exceeding 7 cards. Since every ounce of potential is significant when it comes to making our decks the best they can be, I had not other choice but to go with Colress.

On the higher end of the split, our best man N makes up the majority of our card advantage potential—and I have to say that it was a nightmare deliberating the effectiveness of N over other card advantage Supporters here. N is just both a very technical and conditional card. I went over a number of matches that played out like a roller coaster ride. N's technicality a few times over seemed to hold me back, where I had captured too many prize cards, and wasn't able to draw cards with N in the depth that I needed to succeed.

Yet in the end, I had seen more than enough games that I need to see (where a late game N had totally saved the day and ensured victory)—to decide that no other Supporter card could have provided this for me. And therefore, the tactical edge of N must be crucial to the potency of this deck structure in specific.

Since N is our main outlet to card advantage, it really does leave us with many options in regards to the techniques that we can use to play him. It pretty much equates to spam N for best results. With the only exception being—events where there's a lot of Pokémon in play—and you can play Colress to a greater benefit (while also keeping the card advantage one-sided).

Other than that—the only other advice that I can give—is that sometimes your best move is actually to not play him. Seriously, the power of this deck is very low maintenance. You should be able to get everything you need rather quickly (and by simple means). So be cautious of times where you might be low on cards, but more importantly your opponent is low on cards, and your best move actually becomes to starve your opponent's hand—and prevent them from obtaining anything that can build up their advantage against you—or even win them the game. Apply some discernment. N is a double-edged sword after all, which can be turn against you.

Lysandre & Skyla:

Priest: "Do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife...to have and to hold...through sickness and through health...till death do you part?"

Lysandre: "I do..."

Priest: "And do you, take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband...to have and to hold?"

Skyla: "Aww yeah...you already know."

The bride and the groom—in their most dynamic form. What we have here between these two Supporter cards is a tactical pair. One of which adds to our direct retrieval power, and the other which adds some tactical edge to our combat potential. An aspect that would otherwise be a weakness for us. And in these spare numbers, they accent the power of this deck with the flexibility needed to prevent them from disrupting the flow of the cards so we can actually make good use of them.

Lysandre can be used at any time to flash out bench warmers which might pose a threat to us. Such as aspiring Pokémon EX for example—or more technical bench warmers, like {Fairy Transfer} Aromatisse and {Deluge} Blastoise cards. As a neat combat trick, Lysandre can also be used to flash out a Pokémon with the intentions to stall your opponent for a few turns. This in-turn can not only buy you a few times, but also force your opponent to waste a few energy if they're desperate enough to retreat the Pokémon so they can spare it from being Knocked Out.

Skyla's can be used at any time to net us a copy of Fairy Garden (or more prominently Gardevoir Spirit Link) when no other card can. Skyla can also get us a copy of Lysandre late in the game, where we a turn to spare, and a tactical move like that's separating us from victory. Skyla is also a direct ticket to Master Ball (if-or-when you need it that badly).

She really opens up a lot of options, and strongly reinforces what could otherwise be some rather insignificant potential from Trainers' Mail (what with only four copies to carry the whole deck). This is another great example of doubling up on something that you want to do successfully. So I hope the extra potential Skyla that provides here helps to make this concept as a whole more prevalent for you to understand.

Energy Base: As a bonus, I'd like to explain the energy base here—because it does hold some significance in regard to the structure of this deck—and I can imagine there are a number of people who might be questioning why there are only three copies of Wonder Energy opposed to four.

The reason for this—is to maximize the potential of [Geomancy]—and cut back on the liability posed by facing off against excessive numbers of cards like Enhanced Hammer. Even at sixteen large, [Geomancy] can still consistently run your deck out of Fairy energy. I've learned this to be true for nearly every energy retrieval-styled deck that I've built, so I've learned to build such decks on a large energy base in order to fully support that dynamic potential.

Wonder Energy does have some amazing potential, and that's why it's in here to begin with. But even the potential benefit of Wonder Energy comes second place to the possible consequence of prematurely running dry on energies with Xerneas & [Geomancy]. And therein, a high number of basic energy aims to support (rather than suffocate) the full potential of this deck structure in specific.

Nara Deer Park

Pokémon [18]

1 — Xerneas EX — XY Base Set (97/146)
1 — Xerneas EX — XY Base Set (146/146)
1 — Xerneas EX — Legends of Kalos Tin (XY07)

4 — Xerneas — XY Base Set (96/146)
4 — Kangaskhan — Plasma Blast (71/101)

4 — Spritzee — XY Base Set (92/146)
3 — Aromatisse — XY Base Set (93/146)

Trainers [24]

1 — Computer Search — Boundaries Crossed (129/135)
3 — Max Potion — Emerging Powers (94/98)
3 — Ultra Ball — Dark Explorers (102/108)
4 — Random Receiver — Dark Explorers (99/108)

2 — Professor Juniper — Plasma Freeze (116/116)
3 — Professor Birch's Observations — Primal Clash (159/160)
4 — Cheren — Boundaries Crossed (148/149)

4 — Fairy Garden — XY Base Set (117/146)

Energy [18]

3 — Double Colorless Energy
15 — Fairy Energy

MAIN STRATEGY

Kangaskhan & Xerneas: "Hey honey...come look at the deer!" Kangaskhan here in this deck represents your loved ones that you go to Nara Park with. Xerneas of course are the deer, and both play an equal role in this deck are your primary starter resources. This deck revolves around a setup style of play, where you would want to use either Kangaskhan or Xerneas as your starter Pokémon to begin setting up your board advantage, until you've built up enough to where you can begin making an offensive. Whenever your deck is incorporating this setup style of play, you'll always want to have to have at least two options to wing on. Just one is almost never going to be enough. And that is why, although Xerneas is our primary starter, that Kangaskhan is there to reinforce the potency of our opening turn potential.

The strategy between them is fairly simple. If you get Kangaskhan in your opening turn, then you're going to want to spam [Call for Family] in order to thin out your deck, and fill up your bench with whatever pieces you might be missing to complete the puzzle here. This deck thrives on concentration, so in just a single turn, you might be able to fill up your bench with everything you need. If you don't have a Xerneas, that's definitely going to be the first card you want to call for—alongside something like Spritzee, so that you can evolve that to Aromatisse as quickly as possible—and begin transferring Fairy energies as soon as you might need to do that.

I would generally always place Xerneas EX at the end of the line here, simply because there are three of them to begin with—making it rather abundant, and thus easy to fish out naturally with your card advantage Supporters. In addition to that, as a stand-alone Pokémon EX, the nature of the card is very simple (opposed to the complexity of Stage 1/Stage 2 cards). You can just play Xerneas EX from your hand, and then power it up right away with {Fairy Transfer} and begin attacking.

For this reason, you're going to want to make it your last priority with [Call for Family] unless your board position distinctly suggests otherwise. You might run into special case scenarios, where you have Xerneas on the bench to begin with, and you can begin double powering Xerneas EX with [Geomancy]. Another scenario would be if you're somehow running behind, and you need to make up for time and power real fast. Then you would want to put Xerneas EX into play as fast as possible and power it up with [Geomancy], from which you can put your other pieces together in the time afterwards.

Xerneas EX: Xerneas EX represents the bucks I guess. They tend to be all over the place in Nara Park, and also have a bad habit of being the most stubborn and pushy of them all. Not a bad thing here though, since these qualities make Xerneas EX our primary powerhouse. And in this deck, Xerneas EX takes those qualities to a whole new extreme—stubborn and pushy. Between {Fairy Transfer}, Fairy Garden, and Max Potion—Xerneas EX is going to be almost impossible to get rid of—while it continuously barrels out damage on your opponent's Pokémon. And that's just one—you have three—acting like two additional life lines between them and {Fairy Transfer}.

On the offensive, Xerneas has one power attack and one tactical move. You're going to want veer between these two attacks based on the current game state, and how your offensives move forward. If your opponent's Pokémon has a lot of HP left, hit it with an [X Blast] first to knock it's HP down to almost nothing—then finish it off with a [Break Through]—which will punch through to your opponent's bench for 30 damage, which could possibly amount to being a setup for a one-hit KO with [X-Blast] the next time you attack.

These two attacks have a harmonious relationship with each other in this way, and that's the attack pattern you're going to want to follow unless you have the opportunity to keep using [Break Through] to stack up double damage, because that's always going to put you farther ahead of the game than any straightforward attack pattern will here. So if that opportunity presents itself, trample on their benched Pokémon as much as possible to set up as many future KO's as you can.

Spritzee & Aromatisse: These two represent all the happy visitors of Nara Park, who enjoy the beautiful scenery and love feeding the deer. Despite their importance to the deck, there isn't much to the strategy here. You'll just need to evolve Spritzee as fast as possible so that {Fairy Transfer} can be used to power your offensive and defensive force. Transfer abilities like this are very powerful, because they can be used to power up all of your Pokémon with the energy of just one. You can also use abilities like this with Max Potion, to heal all of the damage from your most powerful Pokémon (like Xerneas EX) without losing all of your energy—simply by transferring all of your energy to another Pokémon first, then transferring it back after you've played Max Potion. This is a really strong move—one that's sure to be a game winner for you.

Random Receiver & Computer Search: These two of cards represent your cell phone and the internet—where you can share all of the beautiful pictures you took of Nara Park. The deck structure here involves a two primary functions in the flow of the cards. The first function filters through the deck's contents and thins it out (via cards like Kangaskhan and Xerneas), then the other function seeks to draw out the concentrated portion of what's left directly. Random Receiver acts as a catalyst to this, bridging the gap between any empty space that might develop and disrupt your ability to keep drawing out contents from the deck.

In heated matches this is very important, because getting multiple copies of specific cards (like Fairy Garden and Max Potion) can mean the difference between victory and defeat. Since the contents of this deck are so simple, the ability to keep those cards in hand (or on the board) is essential to your success—and therein lies the importance of Random Receiver in this deck. It strives to ensure that you can keep the flow of the cards consistent, so that from the little you have here, you're able to keep your most important cards in hand or on the board.

Computer Search is the tactical backup to this—much like Random Receiver (but more along the lines of Ultra Ball)—it seeks to patch over vulnerability here of traditionally having no control over what you draw. So that in the event there's a card you need right away (from the little that this deck uses) you can get it in an instant rather than trying to wing it on a hope and a prayer with one of your Supporters. This tactical balance is called contrast, in the sense that it contrasts the concentrated deck engine which focuses on filtering the deck out, then drawing from the concentrated contents.

Concentration is core-essential to every successful deck engine, because it's concentration that ensures consistency—and it's consistency that ensures your deck operates as a well-oiled machine. Doing a single something simply isn't enough, and trying to cover all bases by implementing a diversity of different things is only sure to stretch your potential too thin and leave you stranded most of the time. If you want to do something successful (no matter what it is), then you're going to want to double up on that as best you can. And in doing so, adding a little contrast to your concentrated strategy can help to cover just one base for you—but does it well—and without disrupting your potential or stretching your deck's contents too thin.

Ultra Ball & Company: Ultra Ball symbolizes the bait—and our band of Supporters together represent the friendly and knowledgeable park staff. The spread is designed to coincide with tactic of the rest of the deck. Cheren makes up the majority of your card advantage here, because it's a clean three cards, that stacks powerfully alongside the two cards that you're going to be thinning from your deck each turn with Kangaskhan or Xerneas. Professor Birch's Observations picks up the tactical end of your card advantage, giving you a strong seven cards half the time—as well as the ability to shuffle any extra energies that you've collected in your hand back into your deck, so that you can fetch them directly with Xerneas.

And on the far end, two copies of Professor Juniper provide the power draw. Professor Juniper is a very powerful card, boasting a definite seven cards every time—potential that is immense for a deck as concentrated as this one. However, that power can be dangerous here, because this deck filters itself out too well. It needs a light touch, and that is what the two copies of Professor Juniper is intended to provide. In general, I find that a light touch works best with Professor Juniper. The card can be a drawback, but a light touch will put the best of her potential at the tips of your fingers—without getting your hands burned by any overexposure.