Y’all Got Anymore of Them Basics? Jolteon-EX and Why He’s Getting Hype

As all of you should know, it’s Pokémon’s 20th Anniversary. If you were unaware of this monumental year, please close your web browser and step on a stray Lego brick. This is what you get and probably deserve for being ignorant throughout the last two months, and frankly, I don’t know if you can call yourself a true Pokémon fan. (If you are a completely random stranger that stumbled upon this article due to the mysterious tides of the internet and have no idea what Pokémon even is, pardon my brash introduction and visit pokemon.com for more information on this beautiful phenomenon.)

Anyways, in response to Pokémon’s birthday, a crapton of products have been rolled out featuring particular Mythical Pokémon every month – Mew swagged out in February, Celebi’s killin’ it in March, and we’ll see our boi Jirachi thuggin’ in April. One of these goodies that have been all the rage recently have been the Mythical Pokémon Collection boxes, featuring a full art version of the monthly Mythical Pokémon (or whatever your local Target or Gamestop has available lol) and two highly-coveted Generations booster packs.

Inside these booster packs are flashbacks from the past – original 151 Pokémon with some super-reminiscent artwork in cards like Tauros from Jungle and even the goofy Imakuni? you might recognize from that ancient Pokémon Trading Card Game Game Boy game. Mesmerizing beauty from the second round of Radiant Collection cards leave none unimpressed (JUST LOOK AT THE CUTE SHAYMIN) and even the Basic Energy look Gucci (and come in reverse foil, if you’re lucky!).

But as of just a few days…no other card has received as much hype as Jolteon-EX.

What’s good in the hood everybody! It’s ya boi John back at it with another hopefully-not-abysmal read on the up-and-coming Lightning Pokémon getting all kinds of hype right now. I dunno about you guys, but at my first glance of Generations I was like “Yippee Eeveelution EXs” but was more concerned with how Espeon-EX BKP was gonna be (my personal fave) than care about the others.

That wasn’t before I saw this.

Yeah, right? Holy smokes I almost lost it. No, wait. I definitely lost it. Obviously this isn’t what people were paying, but it’s easily selling for $40 – about as much as the full art Shaymin-EX outta Roaring Skies. But after doing some more digging, I found that this card was indeed picking up some steam – a lot of it actually. Pokémon doesn’t have all of the Generations scans up at this point, (y’all get anymore of them Japanese translations?), so lemme detail what this card does to you real quick:

Jolteon-EX – Lightning – HP160
Basic Pokémon

[L] Swift: 30 damage. This attack’s damage isn’t affected by Weakness, Resistance, or any other effects on your opponent’s Active Pokémon.

[L][C][C] Flash Ray: 70 damage. This Pokémon can’t be damaged by any Basic Pokémon during your opponent’s next turn.

When a Pokémon-EX has been Knocked Out, your opponent takes 2 Prize Cards.

Weakness: Fighting (x2)
Resistance: Metal (-20)
Retreat: 0

Gimme a few minutes and I’ll get into the nitty-gritty on how the numbers and things add up for our homie, and then afterward I’ll even throw a Standard list at you for your patience. (I’m going to focus on this guy mainly in the Standard format because of where we’re at in the season. It’s the most pertinent information I can provide for right now.) People are throwing tens of dollars at this card for good reason, so let’s get started on why this little puppy’s worthy of our money.

The Stats

160 HP: Looking at Jolteon-EX we’re already like “ahhh it’s a Pokémon-EX that’s two Prize Cards” when we first see it. This usually means bad news for us against decks that fire all cylinders on the first turn, like Night March. Everyone fears little Joltik PHF or plump Pumpkaboo PHF hitting the magic 180 after a handful of Battle Compressor PHF drops, but with Jolteon…that number’s just a bit easier to attain. Why? Because Night March only needs to hit 160 now. That’s one attacker they can hold onto or an extra Night Marcher they could potentially Prize or a Muscle Band XY they could save for someone else. In a game where resource management is pinnacle, 20 HP is huge – especially for a deck like Night March.

This is also scary when we’re talking about Lucario-EX FUF. While mono-Fighting decks aren’t as prevalent as they used to be, we might see an increase in these to counter our pal in question. Lucario-EX’s first attack, Missile Jab, does 30 for a single Fighting Energy. Ok, so it can attack on the first turn for 60 if we account for Weakness. Not that bad. But…we’re talking about Fighting-types, and they have plenty of ways to beef up damage output. Rather than attaching a Basic Fighting Energy, your opponent can smack a Strong Energy FUF and turn that 30 damage to 50, before Weakness. And if we’re hanging out in Lucario’s crib, aka Fighting Stadium FUF, that’s 20 more. Yo, that’s 70 damage before Weakness. BREAKpoint introduced a crazy-powerful Pokémon Tool in the form of Fighting Fury Belt BKP which boosts a Basic Pokémon’s HP by 40 and its damage output by 10. …and there you have it. If your opponent has these three pieces of the puzzle of sadness, that Lucario’s at a nutty 220 HP swinging for 160 on your Jolteon and no one’s happy. Except your opponent. He’s excited.

Usually, though, 160 HP is a pretty safe number. Other than Night Marchers and that random Lucario-EX and Friends deck that one scrub is running at League, you’re not gonna see too many OHKOs early on for you to get that one attack off that you’ve probably predicted before reading this article. But let’s keep moving.

Swift: So this attack isn’t blowing anybody out of the water anytime soon. One Lightning Energy for 30? Yay. You can OHKO a Joltik. Ahh. You can’t even OHKO Zubat PHF because Swift doesn’t account for Weakness. Don’t use this unless you have no other option.

Fighting-type We- “John you skipped Flash Ra-” I KNOW I SKIPPED FLASH RAY HOLD ON CAN I FINISH PLEASE “Sorry sorry do what you gotta do.” Sigh. Thank you.

Fighting-type Weakness: So we touched on Lucario-EX pretty briefly, but everyone knows the main Fighting-type threat comes in the form of Gallade BKT. YZG (or Yveltal XY / Yveltal-EX XY / Zoroark BKT / Gallade) is still going to see a bit of play, meaning Gallade is too, to our dismay (ayyy we in the rap game now). After Trevenant XY’s recent Regional win in the Expanded format, it’s likely that players are going to want to give this Item-locking monster a go in the Standard format as well. Baby Yveltal takes a one-hit Knock Out (calling it an OHKO from now on) on all the Phantumps in the format (you’ll probably see Phantump BKP because it uses Ascension to get the first-turn Trevenant) and can charge up Zoroark and/or Yveltal-EX on the Bench to hit the trees for Weakness. So yeah, we’ll see Gallade in the format for a little longer. Gallade has no problem taking OHKOs on Jolteon-EX with the help of a single Double Colorless Energy XY (aka DCE) using Sensitive Blade for a base damage of 60, or 60 + 70 if a Supporter card was played that turn (which should be, like, every turn). With Weakness, Gallade is smacking Jolteon for 260 damage, taking a pretty easy two Prize Cards. This is definitely our biggest threat when playing Jolteon, especially when YZG is still comfortable as a leading contender in the metagame.

Garchomp BKP is a brand-spanking-new card outta BREAKpoint that’s gotten a little hype as well. Not quite last-stock-Super-Smash-Bros-like hype, but there’s a tad. Unfortunately, it isn’t as versatile as Gallade because it runs solely on Fighting-type Energy, but it won’t take you long to realize that this one Mach Pokémon could rain on our parade pretty hard. For a single Fighting Energy, Garchomp’s Turbo Assault does 60 damage and attaches any type of Energy from the Discard to a Benched Pokémon. What does this mean for us? Tears. Salty. Salty. Tears. Because this Garchomp is a Fighting-type unlike the once-popular Dragons Exalted Garchomp, it has access to Strong Energy, meaning Turbo Assault is hitting for 80…multiplied by two…sad face. Oh, you discarded a Strong Energy earlier? Turbo Assault that bad boy to another Garchomp on your Bench. Your opponent could potentially stream Garchomp with Strong Energy and hit for OHKOs all game long if you’re not careful, so this is also very scary to play against. Let’s hope that the popularity of Vespiquen AOR sticks around in Standard to buzz Garchomp away from the competition so we don’t need to worry about him.

Metal-type Resistance: Alright, so we’ll take Resistance whenever we can, even when Metal doesn’t seem to be too big of an issue at this point. M Scizor-EX BKP doesn’t seem too groundbreaking, Bronzong PHF’s too busy hanging out with Night March or Tyrantrum-EX XYP if anything, and Jirachi XYP popping up only here and there doesn’t make the Resistance too special but it’s better than nothing. Metal doesn’t even see play in Expanded so I can’t even go there. Yeesh.

Free Retreat Cost: Free is always good, and in this case, it’s very, very good. Now that Max Elixir BKP is Standard-legal, we have flexibility in terms of who we can move around as our Max Elixir target, especially if we have Jolteon-EX in the Active slot. I’ll dive more into the decisions we make with Max Elixir because I include this card in my list – it’s just way too good to pass up. We like being able to Retreat between damaged attackers and Heal efficiently with Rough Seas PRC without needing to discard a lot of Energy. We also enjoy getting out of Poison without paying a Retreat Cost too (because isn’t Sceptile-EX AOR and Ariados AOR starting to see play with Fighting Fury Belt?). Anyways, this is great.

Flash Ray: FINALLY. The meat and potatoes of it all – Flash Ray. This attack is what makes Jolteon-EX expensive, and for very good reason. Ok. You’re sick and tired of losing to Night March, ToadTina (Seismitoad-EX FUF / Giratina-EX AOR) has been getting on your nerves, and you’ve had enough of getting burned by Entei AOR. No longer! All you need to do is hit one Flash Ray. And if your opponent can’t Lysandre FLF around you? They’re gonna be sitting for a while.Unlike Regice AOR with an attack similar to Flash Ray in Resistance Blizzard, Flash Ray covers Basic Pokémon in general, not specifically Pokémon-EX! This sounds familiar, and it’s because the attack is similar to Pyroar FLF’s Ability. While you’re not granted complete immunity from damage counters and Special Conditions, damage exclusion is still really really good. People have been drooling over the idea of partnering Jolteon with Archeops out of Noble Victories to lock your opponent out of mounting any sort of attack in the Expanded format, too, and that’s just dirty. Going back on the 160 HP-factor mentioned earlier, Jolteon’s HP isn’t too big of an issue if your opponent can’t even hit you. Flash Ray is essentially a hard counter to all of those decks listed before. Sure, Night March can hit for so much damage, but if you use Flash Ray turn after turn…what’s the big deal? You know what? Let’s just make a list of some semi-prevalent Pokémon in the meta right now that can’t touch Jolteon-EX after a Flash Ray:

• Joltik PHF
• Pumpkaboo PHF
• Seismitoad-EX FUF
• Giratina-EX AOR
• Manectric-EX PHF
• Yveltal XY
• Yveltal-EX XY
• Lucario-EX FUF
• Entei AOR
• Charizard-EX FLF
• Raikou BKT
• Darkrai-EX BKP
• Palkia-EX BKP
• Caterpie FLF
• Blue-Eyes White Dragon

Flash Ray requires a Lightning-type Energy and two of whatever Energy to attack, and there are many ways to achieve this. Immediately, some are like, “Yup, that’s a DCE,” and…that’s definitely an option. If we’re talking about hitting a T1 Flash Ray, it’s possible. I discussed Max Elixir early on – if you have a Benched Jolteon-EX, you can Max Elixir for a Basic Lightning Energy to attach to the Benched Jolteon-EX. Retreat as needed to the Max Elixir’d Jolteon, and attach the DCE in-hand for a T1 Flash Ray. The Retreating aspect might be hard to pull off, but if you can start with a Jolteon or draw into Switch or Float Stone BKT, it’s not a problem. Another way you can go about charging up Jolteon is with Magnezone BKT. Its Magnetic Circuit Ability essentially drops all the Basic Lightning Energy on your Pokémon whenever you feel like it, so you can steadily stream Jolteon-EX turn after turn. Unfortunately, the T1 Flash Ray is out of reach because of the need to evolve into Magnezone, but it might be worth it. There’s another way you can fuel Jolteon-EX that I’ll dive into when we hit the decklist.

Flash Ray deals 70 damage, which isn’t a bad number. For one, it’s hitting for Weakness against Shaymin-EX, taking free Knock Outs by dealing 140 against it. Flash Ray can OHKO Joltiks with Fighting Fury Belt and baby Yveltal (again for Weakness), two Pokémon commonly caught in the Active spot. Unfortunately, we miss out on a couple of key goodies in 2HKOing EXs like Seismitoad and Giratina. Another turn for those to survive is another turn for your opponent to draw into a VS Seeker PHF for a key Lysandre play and potentially lock you out of resources. Flash Ray without a Muscle Band can’t even OHKO Yveltal-EX, Raichu XY, or a Vespiquen, which is kind of disheartening. For the latter two, (the only two Pokémon that can even hit Jolteon through Flash Ray), this can mean big problems, because both can hit very high numbers relatively easily. Vespiquen has more than enough Discarding power with Battle Compressor and Raichu teams up with Sky Field ROS to smack Jolteon for a perfect 160 by filling the Bench. We’ll get into these weaknesses a little bit later.

While 70 is good against some and meh against others, the idea is that damage output doesn’t really matter. Seismitoad-EX has long succeeded because of its ability to simply lock your opponent out of key resources to do anything, leaving them in really uncomfortable and actually kinda irritating positions. (Of course, 30 is actually bad, which is why we see it paired with plenty of Crobat PHF and Muscle Band and Fighting Fury Belt to expedite the process. You gotta win within twenty-four hours or else what are you doing with your life.) Unlike the case for Pyroar, you can’t Hex Maniac AOR an attack – you either have an Evolved Pokémon or you don’t, and if you don’t have an out built in, the game’s over. Flash Ray can do exactly that, and it’s why it’s been fueling the hype train for the past few days.

So what can stop the train?

It’s not terribly difficult, actually. Plenty of builds in today’s meta have Evolved Pokémon that can cut through Flash Ray. I just mentioned Vespiquen and Raichu for starts, and Gallade’s right there as the most popular Jolteon-EX counter. It’s all about being careful. These are a few things you can do.

Check the meta. If you know your area seems to dig the new Jolteon thing, don’t solely play Basics! Jolteon-EX hard counters Night March, ToadTina, and Entei decks, so stay away from these. If your meta usually consists of the decks I just mentioned, you might be like, “Ok, so some dudes might try and run up with a Jolteon deck, so let’s try Garchomp / Octillery BKT for the lulz?” This would make sense. Of course, you could also succumb to the Jolteon-EX hype, but would you rather have an advantage or play the mirror? I think the former, but don’t overmetagame. Then it gets risky and you might be playing yourself. But regardless, check your meta before you get rekt.

Just play a deck with Evolutions. Yeah. Play Bees. Play Raichu. Play Trevenant. Play Gallade. This is literally all you need to do to get around Flash Ray. You can’t get locked if you don’t play Basics, so take the 70 like a boss and do what you need to do to take your two Prize Cards and, hopefully, the match.

Lysandre intelligently. If you’re super ignorant and don’t want to do either of the previous steps, then at the very least be smart with your Lysandre plays. Once your opponent hits you with the Flash Ray, you need to be careful – every Lysandre or VS Seeker needs to be for a Prize Card or two. Ideally, you’ll OHKO a Shaymin-EX or two, and then finally be forced to hit other things. Unfortunately, if you run out of targets for Lysandre and don’t have an Evolved Pokémon, it’s over, so you should probably try out the two other steps. Seriously.

Make Jolteon whiff an attack. This leaves an opening for you to attack Jolteon, if you can make it happen. Here, this is what I mean. To help out against Jolteon-EX, you might consider cards like Enhanced Hammer PHF or Xerosic PHF to detach DCE from opposing Jolteon-EX. If your opponent misses a Flash Ray, you can either go for an OHKO or deal enough damage to follow-up with another attack later. Or, if your opponent mistakenly commits too many DCE around the field and doesn’t account for Special Energy removal, he can’t use Flash Ray and you’re free to attack in that case. Regardless, you force your opponent to spend resources to dig for that DCE, giving yourself a little bit of a chance in the face of a super-annoying attack. Feels good when you’re not locked, eh?

All of these things are fine and dandy, but I’m sure you’re looking for a list at this point. If you recall my previous article, I discussed all things regarding my main homie M Manectric-EX PHF. You might be able to guess where I’m going with this, and you’re right! This is my personal build of M Manectric-EX / Jolteon-EX, and boy it’s so good to see two of my favorite Pokémon teaming up. Heads up! There’s totally supposed to be two Jolteon-EX in that list, but the decklist builder’s funky and not including em. Sorry for the weirdness.

So after a bit of a hiatus pre-BREAKpoint, I can officially declare that M Manectric-EX and I are more than likely going to be together again (I’m calling him MegaMan I ain’t got time to type that out all day)! With a few new cards from BREAKpoint and a formidable partner in the form of Jolteon-EX, this combo is sure to make some waves in the Standard format. Coupling MegaMan’s Turbo Bolt with Jolteon’s Flash Ray, you can potentially cripple an entire deck by the third turn, all centered around a singular type for optimal consistency. In a format filled with Yveltal as well, the pair should zap the birds straight out of the sky without much of a problem. This is my take on the strategy, so there’s definitely more than one way to go about this. Lemme go through some of my specific card decisions from the top of the list. I did get a little techy here and there, so feel free to build your own interpretation of my build.

The Pokémon Goods

• 4-3 MegaMan line: This is standard and offers the maximum amount of consistency. We want to start with at least two Manectric-EX PHF on the first turn, in case one gets Knocked Out by a crazy Gallade play or the filth that is Night March. There are a few ways of going about the first turn, depending on the hand and the matchup. We’ll discuss those options with the cards later, but the main thing here is that we want to guarantee a second-turn (finna abbreviate this to T2) MegaMan to charge up whatever. The T2 MegaMan is a must-have because he’s the beginning of consistent damage output and Energy acceleration capabilities, so we definitely need our 210-HP champion asap in this super-fast format. Against Trevenant, you probably want to stream MegaMan because Jolteon-EX is kinda useless against Evolutions and MegaMan’s Turbo Bolt hits the magic 110 for OHKOs on the tree. Against anything with just Basics, we’re targeting Jolteon, of course.
• Just 2 Jolteon-EX: “Wait, what the heck John? You spend a couple thousand words talking about Jolteon and you only play two?” Yup. As mentioned earlier with Bees and Raichu, not all the decks we battle against will focus solely on Basic Pokémon. Opting for more than two would be too aggressive, and opting for one is asking for danger if it gets Prized. So we run two.
• A Thunderkitty (Raikou): So I threw a Raikou in here because it’s a nice wall for sure. Raikou’s Ability, Shining Body, reduces any damage by attacks by 20 if it’s got a Lightning Energy attached to it. In addition to this nice buffering Ability, we play Assault Vest BKT, a Pokémon Tool that decreases damage by 40 if the attack is by a Pokémon with Special Energy. In a format filled with DCE, this is super nifty and super helpful for sure, especially when you need a turn to Evolve Manectric into its Mega. Furthermore, Raikou’s a strong one-Prize attacker with a solid attack too. Thunder Lance does 50 and 20 more for each Lightning Energy attached, meaning that by fulfilling its Energy requirement with three of em you’re hitting for 110 – enough to easily OHKO any form of Yveltal, Raichu, Vespiquen, and Shaymin-EX. Even better – Raikou’s damage cap doesn’t end at 110! Attach more Energy and it does more damage, so use it at will – especially if your opponent’s running plenty of DCE. And with Assault Vest, Raikou might be able to stick around to take more than just a Prize, making this guy a pretty formidable tech option.
• A Wish Maker (Jirachi): I’ve always liked Jirachi because of its first attack, Stardust. It deals a measly 10 damage, but it Discards a Special Energy attached to your opponent’s Active Pokémon and grants it immunity during the next turn. Against decks like ToadTina that can completely lock you out of much if you open up with a pretty poopy hand, Jirachi is dirty. Stardust can discard the Toad’s DCE and prevent any damage next turn. Sure, you’re Item locked, but if your opponent wants to continue the Item lock he’s going to need to attach another DCE – and attack for no damage in the process. One whiffed Quaking Punch opens up plenty of options and gives you plenty of time to bounce back so far ahead that Item lock really won’t affect you all that much. In addition, Gallade uses Double Colorless Energy for Sensitive Blade. If you don’t have access to Flash Energy (because we play only two), this can get very scary very fast. We can Max Elixir Lightning Energy to Jirachi to soften up the 150-HP (which is an awkward number to hit with this deck) Blade Pokémon and force the opponent to dig for DCE and a Lysandre to take a Knock Out that turn. While there is no one trick pony solution to Gallade, it can help. Jirachi’s a personal favorite and probably the first to be cut from most lists, so keep this in mind and don’t think I’m lame for playing the card.
• Two Shaymin and a Hula Hoop (Hoopa-EX AOR): This lineup is also relatively standard for Mega Evolution deck builds. You can get the baby version of the Mega, the Mega, and a Shaymin with Hoopa-EX’s Scoundrel Ring Ability, or get whatever you need to set up. In our deck, we’d like to have started with a Manectric already. Thus, we can search for another attacker of choice, (Manectric or Jolteon), the MegaMan to save for the next turn, and a Shaymin to get some drawpower going. If we have all this, we can save a couple Ultra Ball plays for a non-EX or another Shaymin if we really want to get aggressive.

The T/S/S Team

Most of this is standard, like four Professor Sycamore XY, four VS Seeker, and four Ultra Ball FLF. I’m not gonna get into those. What I am gonna chat about are the nifty and different Trainer card selections and decisions. I’ll go right down the decklist with these.

• 2 Crazy Cat Lady (Hex Maniac): If there’s a card that needs to be in twos, it’s this one right now. I dunno why, but I’m afraid of Trevenant. I hate Item lock and Hex is a key out to the tree’s Forest’s Curse Ability. We play a deck that runs a lot of Items, so if we have no access to those…it’s tough trying to get anything going. If we go first, we’ll have one turn of Items, granted the opponent gets a Trevenant up and running on their first turn which is very likely because of Wally ROS and Phantump’s Ascension attack. This gives us one turn to use Battle Compressor and pitch a Hex Maniac in the Discard Pile so that we can target it with VS Seeker, or hit one with Trainers' Mail ROS and save for later. If we only ran one, we run the risk of it being Prized, significantly hurting our chances there. Furthermore, Hex Maniac is a powerful Supporter altogether, and in a deck that doesn’t rely on Abilities, this is very convenient. We can shut down Trevenant, Shaymin, even Gallade might get irritated if it can’t choose its own destiny with Premonition. Our old lady friend can put in some work for us for sure, and slow down the opponent before he or she can even get set up. Hex Maniac is a very strong card right now, and we’re gonna make use of her.
• 1 Mysterious Man with Raggedy Scarf (AZ): Have you ever started lone Hoopa in your life? You don’t want him sitting out there, absolutely not! AZ can cradle our good friend back to safety and make use of the Ability it’s good for when unfortunate beginnings like this one occur. But, AZ isn’t just for bad starts or picking up Pokémon that are stuck in the Active spot. If Jolteon-EX is putting in work up front with Flash Ray, you don’t want your opponent snatching free Prizes with Lysandre. Take the time locking your opponent out wisely by AZing Shaymin-EX on your Bench so your opponent can feel even more miserable. If they have no real target for Lysandre, the game swings heavily in your favor and you can continue to Flash Ray your opponent without much of a worry. Another way we can make use of AZ is for heavily damaged Pokémon. I don’t have room for Max Potion BKP in my list, (which is a considerable option indeed), so AZ does the trick in terms of relieving a Pokémon close to getting KO’d from battle. In addition, I can VS Seeker for AZ over and over again, rather than committing precious extra slots for multiple Max Potion.
• 2 Fashionable Assault Vests by Versace: Rather than getting aggressive, I’ve opted for the high-quality Italian Assault Vest for a couple of reasons. Going back to my brief blurb on Raikou, we can significantly decrease the amount of damage we take by Pokémon with Special Energy. If we’re trying to set up Jolteon, the second-to-last thing we want is for him to get Lysandre’d up and OHKO’d. We can prevent that by slapping an Assault Vest on our homie for a bit of protection in the Special Energy ghetto, giving us a better chance of sneaking in that Flash Ray and beginning the irritation for our opponent. Remember, we’re not always playing against decks that are solo-Basic builds – I’m looking at decks featuring Raichu and Vespiquen in particular. While we may not be streaming Jolteon-EX, we can ease the hits our Manectric and Raikou take with this Tool.
• Only 2 Battle Compressor?: That’s it. I don’t see the need in running three or four Battle Compressor especially in a deck that runs Max Elixir. Of course, our goal is to pitch Supporters and a couple of Lightning Energy so that we can eventually hit MegaMan’s Turbo Bolt, but there are so many ways in doing that already – we have Ultra Ball and Professor Sycamore that will undoubtedly take some of those cards we need later to the Discard Pile. Playing four Trainers’ Mail can help us pick one out when needed, but it’s not a first-turn necessity unlike in decks like Night March and Bees. Some might opt for three (which is understandable) but to max out the count is a little overreaching for my taste.
• 2 Max Elixir by Celadon Pharmaceuticals: This guy’s too good man. Ever since Celadon Pharmaceuticals got bummed with Ether PLS many sets ago, they decided to raise the bar and released Max Elixir to the market. Their stocks have never been higher. I chose Max Elixir over Mega Turbo ROS because Max Elixir can help charge up a Jolteon-EX for a Turbo Bolt to hit exactly three Energy, or get a T2 MegaMan from no Energy if the Manectric we committed an attachment to gets Knocked Out. This kind of “comeback card” helps bring MegaMan back to life and is going to see play all around the meta. One of the reasons I play eleven Energy is so that we can take better advantage of Max Elixir when needed and increase our chances of hitting a Basic Energy. I’d play three if I cut the Jirachi, so there’s some wiggle room here and there with what edits you decide. Make adjustments based on your own take with the deck.
• 3 Predictions of Bad Weather (Rough Seas): Guys. Trevenant BREAK is going to frickin’ cry when they see this card. Any sort of spreading action they do just gets washed away, and it’s just so good in this deck with Assault Vest. While already taking 40 less damage, you heal an additional 30 to prevent seven damage counters’ worth of damage. This is just bonkers. MegaMan has 210 HP, too. So get your Turbo Bolt off, take the hit, Retreat to the Bench for free and start Healing the damage away so he can return to the tides of battle refreshed and rejuvenated.

The 9 / 2 Basic Lightning / Flash Split

• 9 Basic Lightning Energy: From my experience, 10 Energy has always been the magic number for MegaMan builds. In this case, however, when we’ve got Max Elixir at our disposal, I kind of wanted to increase those chances by tossing an eleventh Energy into the mix. Because we play Battle Compressor, it’s likely that we’re going to send a couple of those to the Discard Pile when we see it in our hand, reducing the effectiveness of Max Elixir. In a deck that simply can’t be behind early on, we want to guarantee attachments every turn, which is also why I went with a heavier Energy count than usual. Furthermore, if you’re up against Trevenant, (I think I’ve made it pretty clear that I don’t like being matched up with this log thing), you might get lucky and simply draw into one of your three MegaMan and the Energy needed to start taking KOs with Turbo Bolt while Healing with Rough Seas.
• 2 Flash Energy AOR: We have a Flash Energy for each Gallade that most YZG builds play. Flash Energy can only be attached to Lightning-type Pokémon (which is generally fine because of what we’re playing haha) but removes that scary Fighting-type Weakness in the process. We’re suddenly not getting OHKO’d by Gallade or taking major damage from Garchomp, giving us the next turn to get further ahead by dropping Lysandres on stray Shaymin-EX or whatever’s the next big threat. I suppose you could soften up the Gallade for a 2HKO if your opponent’s hand is huge (remember, they need to have no cards in their hand for the Maxie's Hidden Ball Trick PRC to work) so you should be safe from any further spontaneous Fighting-type threats.

Potential Changes

• Bands make her dance (Muscle Band): So instead of running the pair of Assault Vest, you could try on a couple of Muscle Band by Louis Vuitton. These beautiful and stylish ornaments will make your deck more aggressive altogether. For one, Manectric-EX can Overrun for 40, OHKOing Joltiks and take out Zubat PHF for Weakness. Muscle Band also gives Jolteon the ability to hit for 2HKOs on most Pokémon-EX with 90-damage Flash Ray attacks. Hitting the magic number of 90, your Jolteon can now take care of Raichu and Vespiquen all by itself! He’s so grown-up now (‘:
• Mega Turbo over Max Elixir: If you feel like upping the Battle Compressor count, you probably want to consider swapping the Max Elixir for Mega Turbo due to the reduced likelihood of hitting those Basic Energy. You’d still have that “comeback” ability if your already-partially-charged-up Manectric gets OHKO’d by a pesky Night Marcher or something by playing Mega Turbo and proceeding to get two Energy on a MegaMan in one turn. Furthermore, you don’t need to worry about Retreating weirdness because Mega Turbo targets a Mega Evolution anywhere on the field. Pretty cool.
• A Parallel City BKT: Zoroark hitting you too hard? Finding that your opponent requires too much setup? Tech in one of these bad boys. Parallel City has sick artwork and has two different effects, based on what side’s facing whom. If the red side’s facing you, your Grass-, Fire-, and Water-type do 20 less damage. If the blue side’s facing you, you’re permitted only three Benched Pokémon. If played correctly, both are huge. Against Bees and Greninja BREAK BKP builds, you can decrease the amount of damage they deal to you while also removing stray Shaymin-EX or Hoopa-EX from your Bench. Or, if you’re playing against YZG, the latter will decrease Zoroark’s Mind Jack damage output by 60! Against decks like Raichu and M Rayquaza-EX ROS, decks that rely on filling up their Bench for optimum damage output, you can make them super sad by reducing their Bench to only three Pokémon. Try this card out if you’d like – it’s a pretty sick play.
• A different deck or card game: This is always an option. If you find that the price of Jolteon-EX is just too high, or you can’t seem to get your hands on a few of those Mythical Pokémon Collection boxes, or you’re bad at Pokémon…just switch to something else. There’s no judgment over here. Have a lot of money? Magic: The Gathering’ll burn right through your wallet. Wanna get your cards stolen? Yu-Gi-Oh!’s community will be more than happy to take your prized collection. Like waifus? Force of Will’s got the most kawaii artwork on the planet. Have kids? Uno is one that the entire family can enjoy. There’s so many choices out there, so if you’re ready to rage quit and control-alt-delete out of Pokémon the Trading Card Game Online forever, any of these other card games just might be for you!

Head-to-head Theorymon

So how do we do against the meta? This chunk of text is gonna give us the breakdown of our new Thunderpuppies deck does against it. If I miss a matchup or analyze one completely incorrectly, let me know in the comments! I might be (I am) slightly biased, so hit a brotha up if I’m not giving your personal favorite any justice.

• Night March: Favorable
  • I’m calling this a favorable match-up as long as we get our Jolteon in play. Once we hit a Flash Ray, it’s all about AZing everything else that could be seen as Lysandre targets. Making sure you stream plenty of Hex Maniac keeps Milotic PRC from activating Sparkling Ripples, potentially activating one of those cute Target Whistle PHF-to-Lysandre combos on Discarded Shaymin-EX, or just dropping two or three Shaymin to get everything they need on the field on the first turn. If you can’t get a Hex off, you run the risk of your opponent seeing your strategy and immediately going for any Jolteon-EX on the field. In this matchup, you could go for a more aggressive strategy by digging for Max Elixir and hitting a T2 Flash Ray. Force your opponent to Lysandre this Jolteon and go through all their resources possible to make it happen, though. Make sure Assault Vest is attached to Jolteon so they commit more of their attackers to the Discard Pile.
• Greninja Variants: Pretty favorable
  • This matchup isn’t bad because of our emphasis on Hex Maniac. Greninja BW and Greninja BREAK have Abilities that Discard Water Energy for damage counters on the field. On the other hand, that’s their main source of damage output. If they can’t activate Water Shuriken or Giant Water Shuriken respectively, they’re hitting for pretty pathetic damage. And guess what. Rough Seas takes care of that without a problem. You can’t OHKO anything on their side, however, but it’s not that big of a deal. I would be cycling through MegaMan all game, chipping away at these frogs until you can claim victory! Just remember to chain those Hex Maniacs though.

• YZG: Ehhhhh
  • This one’s tough, because it’s about Gallade. If you can keep this guy at bay, get your Flash Energy on the field, and Jirachi appropriately, you’ll be alright. If neither of these things happen, it’s gonna be a bad time. An untimely Xerosic PHF of your Flash Energy could drain any hopes of overcoming Sensitive Blade also. On the other hand, if your opponent can’t seem to make this play happen…it’s a good day. You’re smackin’ these black birds for Weakness and taking no damage at all with Flash Ray if you so choose. I would almost just want to keep MegaMan in the Active slot and deal 220 turn after turn, though, because of the Illusion Fox Pokémon. If you don’t watch your Bench size, a Zoroark can sneak up on ya and soften up any of your beefy attackers big time. They have Reverse Valley BKP now, meaning that their Darkness-type Pokémon can deal 10 extra damage. If you have a full Bench and Zoroark hits you with Mind Jack, he can deal 160…and another 10, enough to OHKO Manectric-EX. Pick these suckers off early and AZ any stragglers from your Bench, while taking advantage of Rough Seas to Heal any wounded attackers.
• ToadTina: Lol
  • Oh, we’re gonna fun. No matter what, you’re guaranteed a turn of Items. Play everything you can to guarantee a Flash Ray attack, and have at it. They play plenty of Crushing Hammer and Team Flare Grunt XY, however, so make sure you have Energy in-hand to save for when the inevitable happens. I wouldn’t Battle Compressor away more than two Lightning Energy for Turbo Bolt fuel, just so that you can increase your chances in drawing into extra Energy if they do get Discarded. Regardless, with Rough Seas and Assault Vest on your side, Seismitoad-EX isn’t even gonna scratch you. Giratina-EX only scares away our Stadium and Supporter cards, but if you get a Flash Ray off…Chaos Wheel is hitting for a big, fat goose egg. GGs.
• Raichu / Bats: \:
  • This is a weird game. Jolteon-EX should be Battle Compressor’d away because of its uselessness against Evolution-based decks, and especially against Raichu / Bats where they only need to have a Sky Field and a full Bench to take two Prizes off your 160-HP EX. Major keys to this matchup are Raikou and Assault Vest, definitely. Making sure Rough Seas stays in play reduces the damage cap of Raichu’s Circle Circuit to only 100, and with Healing capabilities is pretty nice to keep your opponent from hitting big numbers. This doesn’t keep Raichu from making explosive moves in combination with Golbat PHF and Crobat to take big Knock Outs, however. Hex Maniac will come in handy here as well, keeping Sneaky Bite Abilities at bay and preventing Raichu from hitting magic numbers. Lysandre out Shaymin-EX when you can, because no one likes trading two-Prize attackers for one. Utilize Raikou and Assault Vest to put a frown on Raichu’s face when he’s got a DCE attached. I personally think this leans a little more in our favor because MegaMan is so beefy, but if they can stream

    

    consistent attacks with big Bat plays, things could get scary.

• Vespiquen / Vileplume AOR: Depends
  • Did I say something about Item lock? Because I definitely think I did. Not only can they fire off Item lock on the very first turn with Vileplume’s Irritating Pollen Ability, they can stream Vespiquen with Forest of Giant Plants AOR as well. Without access to our Items, we can’t do anything cool with Max Elixir, we have to wait a turn to Mega Evolve without Spirit Links, and we can’t Battle Compressor for Hex Maniac to VS Seeker for. This puts us in a very frustrating position, especially when this deck usually gets a Vespiquen that deals enough damage to usually 2HKO anything. With that said, they can even attack on the first turn, putting us at a disadvantage. If we go first and get an Assault Vest on a Raikou or a Manectric-EX, we have a better shot. If we go first and make sure we can chain a couple of Hex Maniac and Turbo Bolt to MegaMan and Raikou in a row, we’re in even better shape. Vespiquen in this build usually can’t hit the 210 mark to take OHKOs on MegaMan, so if this happens and we can rob the opponent of their main attacker, they usually struggle bouncing back due to being unable to play Items as well. Alas, it all comes down to the coin flip, and if they get the Vileplume before we can do anything, it’s a bad day.

• Trevenant BREAK / Wobbuffet PHF / Bursting Balloon BKP: Even Steven
  • Ok team. We may have a decent matchup against what’s potentially the bdif. From our build, we should be ok! Rough Seas makes Trevenant BREAK look silly and Turbo Bolt hits Trevenant and Wobbuffet for the magic 110 for OHKO action. Of course, we’re gonna be irritated when we get Item locked, but if we get our hands on Rough Seas and even a couple of Energy, we might be alright. This is a very strategic matchup, especially when Bursting Balloon is in play. Trees players will try to make decisions difficult for you by slapping this new Tool outta BREAKpoint to their Active Trevenant. If you choose to attack it, you’re taking six damage counters. Don’t, and the balloon floats away. Bursting Balloon isn’t all that scary, because on the turn it’s played on the field, we can choose to Mega Evolve (without the expense of a Spirit Link) instead! In this match-up, Hex Maniac is still big – just like in the Vespiquen / Vileplume match-up. If you open with a dead hand and your opponent gets the T1 Trevenant, yikes. They can still take plenty of control of the game and deal big damage with Wobbuffet. I think because of the initial decreased damage output (Tree Slam only deals 60 and some residual damage to the Bench) that this match-up is more favorable than with the Bees and Plume, but it still isn’t a given. This is why I’m saying games between these two decks are relatively close.

• Entei / Charizard-EX: See ya later
  • This deck runs nothing but Basic Pokémon. Get your Flash Ray on and it’s gg for your opponent. I would recommend against attaching Flash Energy to the Jolteon-EX you’ll be attacking with, however, if you want to speed up the game at all. Entei’s Ancient Trait, θ Double, means you can equip him with two Pokémon Tools. And unless you wanna see Flash Ray do nothing because Entei decides to double up on swag Versace Assault Vests, then do so. But if you wanna win sometime within the time limit, attach Basic Lightning Energy. Just something to keep in mind. I would also suggest you dress your own Jolteon-EX with an Assault Vest so your opponent doesn’t pull off any DCE and double Louis Vuitton Muscle Band and Blacksmith FLF shenanigans.

RIP wallet? Or hello Forbes list?

You finally got your hands on a couple of Generations packs…and lo-and-behold, you’ve done it! A Jolteon-EX, right there in the flesh! You have one of three options: 1. keep the card and force yourself to buy a couple more so you can play it. 2. Sell the card and make yourself some hard-earned cash. 3. Grab a pair of scissors, cut the card in half, and post the results on social media for everyone to freak out over.

Regardless of what you choose, Jolteon-EX has received plenty of attention for the reasons aforementioned, and you should be happy to have such a powerful and potentially meta-changing card in your possession! I hope you learned a few things and if you didn’t, after all seven-thousand-some words…um…the mitochondrion is the powerhouse of the cell. :D

Thanks for tuning into my second article here on PokéBeach. If you’ve made it this far, I really do appreciate the read and hope you got something out of it, whether that be on Jolteon’s potential impact on the meta or the random biology bit at the end there. If you merely scrolled from the top to the bottom just to see what I was going to say to close this article, I still thank you for clicking out of curiosity or boredom. Please PM me or comment with any questions (or concerns D:) about my list or even some aspects of Jolteon-EX I might’ve forgotten about!

Thank you again and take it easy,

John / Serperior