Discussion Bending the Expanded Format

Chicken Nugget Master

Chicken Nugget Master

I had the munchies when I came up with my username
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So who likes the new Lysandre Prism Star? Me, that's who. So much so that I think I have stumbled upon something quite big, and I reckon it will change the expanded format that we know today.

Flareon from Ancient Origins.

That's right, Flareon + Zoroark GX + Lysandre = Frustration.

Here is Lysandre Prism Star's Translation:
For each of your Fire Pokémon in play, put a card from your opponent's discard pile into their lost zone.

Flareon's Ability:
Each of your Stage 1 Pokémon in play is now a Fire type in addition to its existing types.

So the idea is to get as many Zoroark GX in play as possible, then utilize Flareon's ability to put cards from your opponent's discard pile into their lost zone.

I am currently drafting up a list for this combination that will be in the Deck Garage Forum soon, so keep a lookout for that. If you have any ideas on how to improve or counter this strategy, leave it here for other people to see. I hope you have all enjoyed this, and look forward to seeing it bending the format in 3 months time.
 
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Sorry to break it to you, but a strategy build around a card that is limited to 1 per deck isn't very strong. Don't forget Prism Supporters can't be retrieved with VS Seeker because they always go to the Lost Zone. Plus Lysandre Prism will end up being in your Prize Cards roughly 10% of your games. For this to work you also have to put a remotely useless 90HP Pokémon on your bench: Flareon. Besides Zoroark GX and Flareon both rely on abilities and don't do well under an ability lock. If your strategy is to keep your opponent's Pokémon without Energy you're better off playing an item lock deck with additional energy removal support.

Also decks that solely rely on a few Special Energies aren't great expanded decks in my opinion.
 
It's not necessarily built around Lysandre, it just includes it. Flareon does have its uses, as it allows you to hit for weakness against Pokemon like Golisopod. That means Zoroark hits weakness against (some) psychic, Grass and metal types. You can't complain about the end result though, permanently removing all of your opponents DCEs is just too powerful. It'd still be a LonZoroark list, only it'd work slightly differently.
 
Robin Aisaga said:
Also decks that solely rely on a few Special Energies aren't great expanded decks in my opinion.
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Your right night march and lonzoro tottaly suck and have never done well in a tournament....ignorance

In all honesty this combo could work to some extent however the timing could be tricky you would have to use lysandre card at the exact time in which they have used all there DCE's and by then they could take all there prizes and due to the possible chance of them retrieving there DCE's before they reach 4 you could be waiting a long time just to do your ultimate kill move.

Though there are other ways to make a night marcher cry sky field then lysandre prism there Pokemon into the lost zone and against a zoroark you can parallel then lysaner a good chunk of basics includeing there eggecute into the zone
 
In order for this to work, you need multiple pieces of the puzzle to be working at once
  • The deck must be very reliant on DCE Energy
  • The deck needs to have all 4 DCE discarded
  • You must have Flareon in play, as well as 3 other non-fire stage 1's
  • Lysandre Prism Star must be in your hand
As stressed before, it's situational. Although it might be common at one point for DCE heavy decks, you need them to already run through all 4 of their DCE. Typically DCE-only decks won't do this, because they'll play conservative with their DCE in hand, and they'll use cards like Special Charge (STS) as soon as possible to recycle energy.

Lysandre prism star would find it's niche as a good tech for Fire type decks that have bad matchups against Discard-reliant decks (such as Night March), as it can completely remove their firepower from the game permanently.

On the other hand, I believe Expanded is already BROKEN. I don't even believe regionals exist, and I don't touch that format with a 10 foot pole :p
 
Even if we completely ignore the Lysandre/Flareon part, it's still a LonZoroark list. The best deck in the expanded format (you could try to argue that but it's true) which on its own is ludicrously strong. There are ways to increase the chances of the situation happening though, such as Enhanced Hammer and Lele. You'll normally have 3 Zoroark GX in play, all you need to do is get out the Flareon and you're going. You don't have to remove all the DCEs either, you could remove 3 (or even 2) and they'd still struggle immensely, as they'd only have 1 to last them the entire game. It's not just for DCEs, you could get rid of other power cards such as their Colress and N, then Red Card/Hex Maniac them. The realm of possibility is so vast.
 
You do realize Zoroark decks run Puzzle of Time and Special Charge so can get DCE back from the discard pile several times right? Unless you remove all of them or play Lysander Prism on the turn to dump multiple DCE into the discard they can just get it back.
 
You will never execute this strategy against any player worth a damn. Once this card comes out those decks will never allow more than one DCE to be in the discard pile at any given time. And this isn't even a breaking strategy, it's just a way to neuter DCE-reliant decks.
 
PMJ said:
You will never execute this strategy against any player worth a damn. Once this card comes out those decks will never allow more than one DCE to be in the discard pile at any given time. And this isn't even a breaking strategy, it's just a way to neuter DCE-reliant decks.
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Ok, so it's not game breaking :( just a loophole in Lysandre's logic. I am going to find a way to make this deck work nonetheless, as I have nothing better to do with my time than create rogue decks. Maybe it won't work with DCEs, but it is still a good tech against Night March to turn the matchup in your favour if it wasn't already. But if you could find a way to put all 4 of your opponents DCEs in their discard pile so they could go in the lost zone, this strategy would still be game breaking, am I right?
 
AuraJackle said:
Your right night march and lonzoro tottaly suck and have never done well in a tournament....ignorance
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I know there are exceptions. With ''my opinion'' I meant to say I that prefer not to run decks with such obvious weaknesses. A lot of decks decks are equiped to get rid of your DCE and running a few basic energies to counter that is always part of my playstyle.
 
PMJ said:
You will never execute this strategy against any player worth a damn. Once this card comes out those decks will never allow more than one DCE to be in the discard pile at any given time. And this isn't even a breaking strategy, it's just a way to neuter DCE-reliant decks.
Click to expand...

Emphasis added so I could make the point that... well... unfortunately at least half the player base is still going to struggle against the combo.

Chicken Nugget Master said:
Ok, so it's not game breaking :( just a loophole in Lysandre's logic. I am going to find a way to make this deck work nonetheless, as I have nothing better to do with my time than create rogue decks. Maybe it won't work with DCEs, but it is still a good tech against Night March to turn the matchup in your favour if it wasn't already. But if you could find a way to put all 4 of your opponents DCEs in their discard pile so they could go in the lost zone, this strategy would still be game breaking, am I right?
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I think the issue here is that you went with hyperbole. I'm still going through withdrawal, but I'm trying to get myself off the stuff because of how often I use it wrong. XP

I'm guessing most experienced players realized that Lysandre [Prism Star] could cripple certain decks if used well, quickly followed by "This is a new staple for Volcanion-EX decks and future [R] decks." While not everyone thought about Flareon (AOR) to use it with Zoroark-GX, a decent chunk of us did (or using it with Stage 1 Pokémon in general). This could become a new power-play for some Zoroark-GX decks in Expanded.

You don't seem to know what "game breaking" is going to mean to a lot of folks. Game breaking is Lysandre's Trump Card. Not because it was really good, but because made the game behave in ways in which it wasn't supposed to, with which both game balance and (sometimes) fundamental rules struggled. Same for Forest of Giant Plants. This is a potentially nasty combo... and before you get into detail. Just take any Stage 1 deck, and try to work in Flareon (AOR) plus Lysandre [Prism Star]. Exploit Fire Weakness, remove key cards once during the game. You might be able to cripple certain decks, but only if you play your cards right, your opponent doesn't sense it coming and avoid it, and if luck is with you. Honestly, I'm not as worried about Lysandre [Prism Star] being Prized as I am being forced to discard it from hand. You know, like because I'm about to use Professor Sycamore. ;)

Robin Aisaga said:
I know there are exceptions. With ''my opinion'' I meant to say I that prefer not to run decks with such obvious weaknesses. A lot of decks decks are equiped to get rid of your DCE and running a few basic energies to counter that is always part of my playstyle.
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Your playstyle may become dominant once again, Robin, and it was once the norm as well. Now? Looking at the results from the last Expanded Format Regional Championship, held on January 27, 2018, in Dallas, TX, things have changed. For the Masters Division, among the top 8 decks, 37.5% (so three) ran on just four DCE, and those were first through third place! Fourth place used four DCE plus two basic Fighting Energy cards. Fourth place also had no way to reclaim Energy from the discard pile except through Puzzle of Time.

So, and at this point, I'm addressing everyone, we will need to adjust to Lysandre [Prism Star] by the time it releases. Does any competitive deck not contain cards it intends to reuse in its discard pile a good deal of the game? Energy (basic or Special), Pokémon, or Trainers (especially Supporters), your opponent just needs to nail the exact ones to trip up a lot of decks. Trip up, but not automatically cripple. ;)
 
Otaku said:
Emphasis added so I could make the point that... well... unfortunately at least half the player base is still going to struggle against the combo.



I think the issue here is that you went with hyperbole. I'm still going through withdrawal, but I'm trying to get myself off the stuff because of how often I use it wrong. XP

I'm guessing most experienced players realized that Lysandre [Prism Star] could cripple certain decks if used well, quickly followed by "This is a new staple for Volcanion-EX decks and future [R] decks." While not everyone thought about Flareon (AOR) to use it with Zoroark-GX, a decent chunk of us did (or using it with Stage 1 Pokémon in general). This could become a new power-play for some Zoroark-GX decks in Expanded.

You don't seem to know what "game breaking" is going to mean to a lot of folks. Game breaking is Lysandre's Trump Card. Not because it was really good, but because made the game behave in ways in which it wasn't supposed to, with which both game balance and (sometimes) fundamental rules struggled. Same for Forest of Giant Plants. This is a potentially nasty combo... and before you get into detail. Just take any Stage 1 deck, and try to work in Flareon (AOR) plus Lysandre [Prism Star]. Exploit Fire Weakness, remove key cards once during the game. You might be able to cripple certain decks, but only if you play your cards right, your opponent doesn't sense it coming and avoid it, and if luck is with you. Honestly, I'm not as worried about Lysandre [Prism Star] being Prized as I am being forced to discard it from hand. You know, like because I'm about to use Professor Sycamore. ;)



Your playstyle may become dominant once again, Robin, and it was once the norm as well. Now? Looking at the results from the last Expanded Format Regional Championship, held on January 27, 2018, in Dallas, TX, things have changed. For the Masters Division, among the top 8 decks, 37.5% (so three) ran on just four DCE, and those were first through third place! Fourth place used four DCE plus two basic Fighting Energy cards. Fourth place also had no way to reclaim Energy from the discard pile except through Puzzle of Time.

So, and at this point, I'm addressing everyone, we will need to adjust to Lysandre [Prism Star] by the time it releases. Does any competitive deck not contain cards it intends to reuse in its discard pile a good deal of the game? Energy (basic or Special), Pokémon, or Trainers (especially Supporters), your opponent just needs to nail the exact ones to trip up a lot of decks. Trip up, but not automatically cripple. ;)
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Yes, maybe game-breaking is a little too far, but Lysandre is notorious for breaking the format so it was the first thing that came to mind. You could play it in any Stage 1 deck, but we can all agree that Zoroark is the best Stage 1 we have right now. I will amend the post and my status so not to mislead people. Maybe I didn't break the format, but I bent it somewhat and that's enough for me. :)
 
Seems interesting, but it seems to be very situational. The use of hyperbole i.e. "game breaking" is definitely an overstatement. If this theoretical deck was game breaking, then so would any other deck that wins or has large potential. However, I would like to see the deck list you make, because it may be too early to form opinions as it's currently just a theory.
 
I’m trying to work the deck in sort of a control build that’s a bit centric around Lysandre Prism.

It’ll work if no one takes the card seriously. But I’m curious if the card will change how deck techs are put in decks

EDIT: I have the general concept and have a decent list on paper. Now onto proxy testing.
 
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