Green’s Pikachu and Zekrom — Slow and Steady Wins the Race

Never thought I’d like Green's Exploration / Pikachu and Zekrom-GX, but I do. Boltund V completely changed the deck for the better; it now has an amazing starting Pokemon and operates much like Green’s Exploration / Reshiram and Charizard-GX did “back in the day”. Tapu Koko Prism Star can even be used in this deck because in using its Ability you can remove it from play. The only bad situation you can run into is starting it and no other Pokemon, deactivating your Green’s Exploration until further notice. So why is Green’s Exploration good? It’s like a chain, you can get one with another, as well as a card you want. This builds a strong hand and never leaves you on the button to get things moving. The deck is highly consistent. Green’s Exploration puts the keys in your hands, and you choose your destiny of how you want the game to go.

So why would you ever part with techs like Zeraora-GX or support Pokemon like Dedenne-GX? Power Plant is never a bad card to have, especially when paired with Reset Stamp. That disruption can be too much for a lot of today’s metagame to handle, this package is another advantage this deck can bring to the table. Green’s Exploration / Pikachu and Zekrom-GX keeps it simple without an excess of liabilities on the Bench.

List and Explanations

The greatest advantage this deck brings is its simplicity; there aren’t many moving pieces, just good cards that carry value by themselves. Being so low maintenance lets you maximize the strength of Green’s Exploration, mapping your turns out with ease. Playing your first turn? Grab Energy Spinner and another Green’s Exploration; second turn grab Air Balloon to retreat Boltund V to Pikachu and Zekrom-GX, and so on. This deck should choose to go second in all matchups; I have tried going first exclusively, however after trying the inverse I can confidently say that second is best. The list comes from testing mate Azul Garcia Griego:

Two Professor’s Research

You can’t play more than four Green’s Exploration, so defaulting to the next best Supporter is the only real choice left. Discarding and drawing cards doesn’t play amazingly well into a deck that focuses on two for one plays. You’re naturally stockpiling a hand of resources, so Professor's Research doesn’t flow that well into that plan. However, you can play into it specifically, aggressively dumping the cards out of your hand that you’ve compiled while still getting value out of them. In short, discarding and drawing seven cards like this isn’t the ideal option for this deck, but it’s the next best thing to Green’s Exploration itself. You can also go for a Professor’s Research play early, then build onto your hand with Green’s Exploration later. This deck has a lot of flexibility since you can pick almost everything that you want in your hand, so you can make this work.

One Mallow and Lana, One Guzma and Hala, One Cynthia and Caitlin, and Two Tag Call

Turning the spotlight even brighter to the “two for one” philosophy, each of these Supporter cards being fetched by Tag Call accomplish those same ends: play Tag Call, one card, get two cards! Each Supporter has merit in its own right, Mallow and Lana is great against Dragapult VMAX; Guzma and Hala is kind of like a Green’s Exploration alternative; and Cynthia and Caitlin is a quick burst of draw for if you’re in a pinch. Overall, I couldn’t be happier with these inclusions, they’ve all earned their passage for me.

Four Quick Ball

Discarding cards is never ideal in Green’s Exploration-based decks, but Quick Ball opens your gameplan up. The rationale here is basically “if you have a Quick Ball in hand then you don’t need to get one with Green’s Exploration.” Since you’re choosing to go second and hoping to get the first turn Electrify, you’ll need an out to Boltund V much of the time, an Energy, and a switching card. This is a lot simpler when you already have one of these cards in hand! Quick Ball is the best of these options to buff out the count, as it’s also an out to Tapu Koko Prism Star as well as a way to activate its Ability by getting Lightning Energy into your discard pile. If you could fit a maxed out count of every resource in your deck you would, but space constrictions dictate otherwise; Quick Ball has seemed to be the best card for the playset assignment.

One Wait and See Hammer

Going second naturally opens you to getting a big tempo swing out of Wait and See Hammer. By going first, one of the biggest advantages is getting the first Energy attachment; you can completely destroy this advantage with Wait and See Hammer, yet another fetchable tech with Green’s Exploration, ready-made for your choosing.

One Vitality Band

This saves you an Electropower very frequently. Some examples:

• Dragapult VMAX with 320 HP
  • Bolt Storm for 260 plus two Electropower
• Zacian V with 220 HP
  • Full Blitz for 160 plus two Electropower
• Zeraora-GX with 190 HP
  • Full Blitz for 160 plus one Electropower

I could keep going; in a metagame full of massive Pokemon, you’ll want all the damage modification you can get without stooping to playing Electrocharger, gross!

This concludes the public portion of this article.

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