Expanded Evomancy – The Craziest Control Deck You’ve Ever Seen

Hello everyone! I have an exciting deck to talk about today…

Recently in Expanded an interesting Orbeetle deck has popped up and has been doing well in online events — this is due to Sander Wojcik’s Top 8 at a recent major event.

Orbeetle’s Evomancy attack may remind some of you of Cradily‘s Lifesplosion from all those years ago… Cradily, though a supremely interesting card, never saw much competitive use because it was a fully-evolved form of a fossil. Today’s Orbeetle, being a Stage 2, isn’t the easiest thing in the world to set up, but it’s much more consistent than Cradily was.

The Orbeetle Deck

I’ve been playing this Orbeetle deck lately and I’ve been having a ton of fun with it. I’ve also made some changes and improvements to the original list, which is what I started with.

This deck fully exploits the Evomancy attack along with plenty of insane Stage 2 Pokemon that the Expanded format has to offer, so let’s take a look!

Playing the Deck

This decklist is a bit overwhelming, and at first glance, there’s a lot going on.

The first thing you need to know is that this is a control deck; the end goal for this deck is to lock the opponent out of the game, stripping away their options until they are powerless. There are all sorts of unique Stage 2 Pokemon in Expanded’s vast card pool, but this deck only has so much space to work with, so only the necessities are included.

The first order of business is setting up Orbeetle; usually, you’ll be using Evomancy with Triple Acceleration Energy to get three Stage 2 Pokemon, though sometimes you have an additional Capture Energy attached and can get four Stage 2’s. Since one of these Stage 2’s is usually Vileplume, and Orbeetle can’t search out other Orbeetle, you should assume that you’ll only get one chance to use Evomancy each game.

The Stage 2 Pokemon you choose depends primarily on the current matchup. Oftentimes the selections are Stoutland, Vileplume, and Magnezone. These Pokemon not matchup-specific like the rest of them, and you can make a nasty control game with only the three of them. The rest of the selection comes down to specific matchups and situations — I’ll go over them each in detail.

Once you’ve set up the desired Stage 2 Pokemon, use disruptive cards like N, Team Flare Grunt, Lucario and Melmetal-GX, Unfezant, etc. Simply use whatever is needed to completely reset the opponent’s tempo. After you’ve set up and halted the opponent’s momentum, it becomes incredibly easy to lock them.

Decklist Breakdown

4-1-2 Orbeetle Line

This line looks a little strange but there is sound reasoning behind each of these counts; this deck will usually lose when it does not set up Orbeetle’s Evomancy. The deck has to run four Blipbug to maximize the chances of getting one or two down as soon as possible. As far as which Blipbug you choose, it’s up in the air between the Call for Family option or the extra 10 HP. I think Call for Family is better. You typically try to get two Blipbug down on turn one in case one of them gets sniped down by Guzma.

The copy of Dottler is included in order to give this deck an out against opposing Vileplume, which will always get accelerated into play with Super Growth before we get a chance to use Rare Candy. If you do manage to set up Orbeetle, it isn’t hard to defeat opposing Vileplume decks. At that point, this deck is made to operate under Item lock. Dottler also lets you set up a second Orbeetle later in the game under your own Item lock, in case you want or need to use Evomancy again.

We only need one Orbeetle each game, but play two for consistency and Prize card reasons.

Two Zacian V

Zacian V is great for early-game consistency and it gives this deck something to do on the many turns it isn’t attacking. If you’ve already got your two Blipbug ready to go, grab Zacian V and get yourself some extra cards. Alternatively, if your only draw option is Capture Energy or Pokémon Communication, Zacian V can save your skin and give you some cards to work with. Zacian V’s high HP also makes it useful as an early-game wall while you set up.

Zero Jirachi

Most versions of this deck play Jirachi, which is a card I never found particularly useful, so I cut it from the deck as it has negative synergy with Capture Energy. With Jirachi, it would make more sense to run Nest Ball instead, but Capture Energy is way better for this deck.

It’s also terribly hard for this deck to move Jirachi out of the Active position after using Stellar Wish, which often makes it useless at best and a liability at worst. I’d almost always rather grab Zacian V and use Intrepid Sword. Jirachi makes for a convenient sacrifice while setting up, however, but so does your extra Blipbug or your Zacian V that can tank a hit or two.

This concludes the public portion of this article.

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