Blog An In-Depth Guide to Rainbow Force Xerneas

How would you change this deck to fit Standard format, and thinking about Steam Siege cards to add...
 
jbcheshire said:
How would you change this deck to fit Standard format, and thinking about Steam Siege cards to add...
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Well, since you are thinking about Steam Siege, we could leave one Hoopa-EX and the other Standard EX Pokémon, also adding Manaphy-EX and Volcanion-EX, and now we have 4 EXs to choose with Hoopa's ability. The dual-type Galvantula (because its attack costs only one Energy) can take Barbaracle's place, but I wouldn't do that. Also, we could add Garbodor, just in case things get ugly, since we are gonna lose speed compared to the Expanded deck and have more space for non-EX Pokémon. Zoroark becomes a staple now, and change the copies of Colress for N and Professor Sycamore. One brigette instead of a Pokémon Fan Club is also nice.
 
Not a bad decklist I'll admit, but this would be crippled severely in the Standard format as most of the key cards outside of Xerneas and Hoopa aren't in rotation. (It's also why I stick to making decks with cards that are in rotation, cause otherwise when a rotation comes and if I'm using older cards, I've gotta either alter the cards or dismantle the deck if I've got no good substitutes. I ended up dismantling my Venusaur EX deck recently because it had older cards in it(Also because the sleeves were falling apart))

What cards would work if you were to use this in Standard? (I ask that, and you pretty much explained it in the post above me XP)
 
Hemos said:
Not a bad decklist I'll admit, but this would be crippled severely in the Standard format as most of the key cards outside of Xerneas and Hoopa aren't in rotation. (It's also why I stick to making decks with cards that are in rotation, cause otherwise when a rotation comes and if I'm using older cards, I've gotta either alter the cards or dismantle the deck if I've got no good substitutes. I ended up dismantling my Venusaur EX deck recently because it had older cards in it(Also because the sleeves were falling apart))

What cards would work if you were to use this in Standard? (I ask that, and you pretty much explained it in the post above me XP)
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Thanks! Haha yeah, I think about the rotation too, but since I don't think the Expanded cards in this deck will rotate out this year, I think it's worth to get them, at least on PTCGO, because this deck is really consistent to win tournaments. But, as I mentioned above, the Standard version is also playable, with the changes I pointed before. Remember: it's not a poor player's Rayquaza deck, it has its own strenghts!
 
Oh, guys, I've been doing some more thinking about how XY11 can affect this deck, and the new Hawlucha is a fine option here too. We are running only 1 Lysandre and 2 VS Seeker, so it should help with that, and Hawlucha provides another Colorless-type Pokémon for our Bench. Another tech, yeah, but useful, specially for Standard.
 
Really neat deck idea, I hadn't seen any Rainbow Force decks until I read this (granted I don't play all that often these days). Made even more interesting with dual-types coming in with Steam Siege, there's got to be some real ground for this deck.
 
Rainbow Road is probably my favorite deck in Expanded right now. I haven't had this much fun playing something since Donphan/Walls.

Your build looks a lot like what I think of when I envision Rainbow Road in Standard, but with some Expanded cards instead. Have you seen/thought about the Ho-oh-EX DRX build that saw some success in Spring Regionals? My own list runs Maxie's Gallade, Yveltal BKT, and a Jolteon-EX.

I'm keeping my eye on Xerneas in Standard as the metagame shifts back toward big Pokemon-EX attackers, which are the matchups this deck really shines against. The release of Volcanion-EX is a huge coup for Rainbow Road in Standard, but losing Ho-oh-EX and Exeggcute's Abilities still hurts after Sky Field is bumped.
 
Rainbow Xerneas becomes so much better with the next set. Volcanion Ex and stage one dual types now allow the deck to work without Skyfield and make it much less vulnerable to Parallel City since you can retain Volcanion Ex in addition to a dual type stage one and a second Xerneas and still hit hard with the active Xerneas.
 
chella182 said:
Really neat deck idea, I hadn't seen any Rainbow Force decks until I read this (granted I don't play all that often these days). Made even more interesting with dual-types coming in with Steam Siege, there's got to be some real ground for this deck.
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Yeah, even though this deck with dual-type Pokémon becomes slower, it shall improve our chances of winning when playing Standard, since we won't need to rely that much on Sky Field and most of the EXs used here are rotated out. Thanks for the reply!
 
Asclepius24 said:
Rainbow Road is probably my favorite deck in Expanded right now. I haven't had this much fun playing something since Donphan/Walls.

Your build looks a lot like what I think of when I envision Rainbow Road in Standard, but with some Expanded cards instead. Have you seen/thought about the Ho-oh-EX DRX build that saw some success in Spring Regionals? My own list runs Maxie's Gallade, Yveltal BKT, and a Jolteon-EX.

I'm keeping my eye on Xerneas in Standard as the metagame shifts back toward big Pokemon-EX attackers, which are the matchups this deck really shines against. The release of Volcanion-EX is a huge coup for Rainbow Road in Standard, but losing Ho-oh-EX and Exeggcute's Abilities still hurts after Sky Field is bumped.
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Oh, I really liked your Ho-Oh EX idea! It has great synergy with Hoopa-EX and can be recovered when you discard Pokémon due to Sky Field loss. About Jolteon-EX, I thought about it too, but since most of the time we are gonna use Xerneas' attack, giving that much resources to another Pokémon can really hurt us (3 energies to attack too), so I went for more Ability-based EX Pokémon to help us even if they are just sitting on the Bench. It's totally usable, though!

About Gallade, I feel that our hand is gonna be full all the time, so playing Maxie can be hard here. Yveltal is fine, but I think Exeggcute's low life can hurt us a lot, and it's Ability, even though a lot useful, won't shine here, since we aren't relying that much on Ultra Ball or stuff like that.

And yeah, playing against heavy EX dudes is really something great for us, Rainbow Road players! Let's just hope that those BREAK Pokémon don't take their crown haha. Thanks for the insights!
 
Dark Espeon said:
Rainbow Xerneas becomes so much better with the next set. Volcanion Ex and stage one dual types now allow the deck to work without Skyfield and make it much less vulnerable to Parallel City since you can retain Volcanion Ex in addition to a dual type stage one and a second Xerneas and still hit hard with the active Xerneas.
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Oh yeah, our Rainbow Force shall still do tons of damage! Considering that situation with Parallel City, with 2 dual-type Benched Pokémon and 1 backup Xerneas, we can do 180 damage (with Muscle Band), and that's huge against heavy EX attackers. Brigette is a great substitute for Pokémon Fan Club if you are playing with the Stage 1 dual-type Pokémon, but keep in mind to still run Sky Field, to max damage and avoid situations like that. Thanks for the reply!
 
Linthil said:
Thanks! Haha yeah, I think about the rotation too, but since I don't think the Expanded cards in this deck will rotate out this year, I think it's worth to get them, at least on PTCGO, because this deck is really consistent to win tournaments. But, as I mentioned above, the Standard version is also playable, with the changes I pointed before. Remember: it's not a poor player's Rayquaza deck, it has its own strenghts!
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If that's the case if it doesn't rotate out, I can always look to rebuild the Venusaur deck at some stage, or see what the next few sets bring out. I don't even know if I have the cards on TCGO, I'll have to go looking.
 
Hemos said:
If that's the case if it doesn't rotate out, I can always look to rebuild the Venusaur deck at some stage, or see what the next few sets bring out. I don't even know if I have the cards on TCGO, I'll have to go looking.
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Good luck with that! They are always releasing stuff to improve old decks, like Forest of Giant Plants, a card I think might fits yours. But we'll have to wait until World Championship to see the next rotation.
 
Linthil said:
Good luck with that! They are always releasing stuff to improve old decks, like Forest of Giant Plants, a card I think might fits yours. But we'll have to wait until World Championship to see the next rotation.
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Rotation has been announced, and sadly everything before Primal Clash is getting the axe. So I've got some decks to dismantle/rearrange.
 
Hemos said:
Rotation has been announced, and sadly everything before Primal Clash is getting the axe. So I've got some decks to dismantle/rearrange.
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Yeah, at least the Expanded Format won't see change this year, so this deck is still up.
 
I think you forgot an ACE Spec in the deck unless I'm not seeing it. Can't be right to not include a Computer Search.
 
Propayne said:
I think you forgot an ACE Spec in the deck unless I'm not seeing it. Can't be right to not include a Computer Search.
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Oh, right! I totally forgot about that haha. That's embarassing, I thought I had it all covered... Sure you can take out an Ultra Ball for Computer Search. I mean, this deck pretty much gets ready fast anyway, but if that's an option, why not? Thanks for the reply!
 
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