Standard Decidueye GX/Zoroark GX Deck List

[Duo]

Not using Tapu Koko isn't a bad thing. Tapu Koko is not an every game card, but it's there as free retreat, forcing the 7 prize game, and as a source of filler damage if you don't want to commit your Zoroark GX to the active (i.e. your opponent has a Ho-Oh GX with 4 energy on it and you don't want to get OHKO'd by a choice band attach next turn).

And of course, Tapu Koko is just amazing in any deck that wants to Guzma. Perhaps it would be wiser to cut Tapu Koko to 1 to have 3 float stone so that your Decidueye GX can rotate more often, but I don't think that change is necessary. The 2 Koko seems more important to me, especially since you are interested in max bench space. Tapu Koko is never a waste of a bench spot if you need free retreating or a Guzma pivot.

Since most people are going to be stacking their benches full for their own Zoroark GX, you can probably expect Tapu Koko do be committing the full 120 damage to your opponent's side of the field (20 per Poke), and then if you feather arrow 3 times you've still done mathematically 180 damage during that turn.

Once I get my Zoroark GX's online I'll be testing this deck to see if Koko is needed or not. My hunch is that there's nothing better to play in place of it at the moment.

 

[FrostBiter12]

Great! Just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing anything. Tapu Koko does have a lot of synergy with this deck, I guess I didn't need at the time though.

Thanks for the feedback and let us know how your testing goes! I only have Tapu Bulu and Metagross to practice with at the moment (Waiting for Zoroark GXs to come; using proxies at the moment) but the moment everything is tournament legal, I'm definitely playing Zoroark GX/Decidueye GX! Good Luck!

 

[FrostBiter12]

Just a thought, but I was wondering if this deck could utilize Shining Jirachi or Espeon EX? With Jirachi, you could feather arrow once on say a Metagross GX or Gardevoir GX and with a choice band, Stellar Reign is doing 40, just hitting that 60 HP limit. Or you have Espeon EX, which requires a few more feather arrows, but gets the job done.

Might be just a fun inclusion (even though space is now extremely tight!) but does help with those bulky stage 2s. Let me know what you think!

 

[Duo]

If we're going to include one of those, we would be trading out the Hoopa.

The one flaw I think about the Hoopa is Guzma. The point of Alolan Ninetales BUS is to not have a single GX on the board when you use it, or at least not enough GXs for you to lose the game.

The idea in this deck is that you're going to be setting up 2-3 Decidueye GX every game, so it just takes a Guzma to kind of ruin your plans, especially if you're trying to wall against Fire.

I think people are sleeping a bit on Shining Jirachi and saying it's worse than Espeon EX. It is because it's not for colorless energy, but as you mentioned, the attack does damage and it devolves all the way to the bottom no matter what. Espeon EX will devolve to the Stage 1 if it's there, and you probably are not getting a KO on a Stage 1 intermediate. The Jirachi is also a 1 prize loss as opposed to a 2 prize loss.

The issue with Jirachi is whether or not you really want to waste a choice band on it. It's going to die very quickly, so that choice band might not be worth it. Also, Jirachi doesn't have the ability to take more than 1 prize with its attack whereas Espeon EX can take 2,3, 4 prizes. I would probably play the Espeon EX if we went this route all things considered.

 

[FrostBiter12]

For Jirachi, I'll compare it to Alolan Vulpix. It is a one prize attacker and will most likely get knocked out, but it serves its purpose. People play Vulpix to help set up there board while Jirachi is an easy way to dismantle it. Not to mention Jirachi has the 70 HP (one more than normal) not much of a difference, but could be significate. Even if you don't use a choice band on it, Decidueye GX can finish them off the next turn. The advantage over Espeon EX is that you take away two turns of evolving (or one rare candy) instead of your opponent immediately playing the stage 2 back down.

For Espeon EX, it is bulkier than Jirachi, but gives up the two prizes so unless you can set up damage on the bench, it is a waste of prizes (with the knock out damage hovering at 180 {Drampa, Gardevoir, Metagross, ex.}). The advantage is that it can take a DBC or Rainbow while Jirachi can only take Rainbow (and I'm assuming the 3 count of rainbow is still used), so chances are you will not get the energy for Jirachi when you need it.

Overall, this is another matter of preference and local meta (funny how that keeps popping up). Compared to Hoopa though, Hoopa is probably better (once again) and works on all of the decks Jirachi and Espeon EX do and many more.

On the matter of Guzma plays, you could try playing a second Hoopa and just have those on your field. That would probably do the trick, just watch the baby volcanions, yveltals, and other one-prizers. What about Gallade? I can't figure out how Hoopa and Zoroark GX can survive that with the fighting weakness. Maybe there is another way around it, but I can't think of one right now. The best option would probably just be feather arrow the Gallade are the ralts/kirlia until it is within knock out range of Tapu Lele GX or Decidueye GX.

Once again, thanks for the feedback and I'll post if I have any other solutions for Gallade or Guzma plays.

 

[Bella]

I got my cards online and have also been seeing a lot of success. So far I've won every game except for 2 times when I was against fighting decks that could one-shot my zoroarks. Those games I also could have played better and were partly due to not being able to set up my decidueyes to stall. Here's a few things I noted so far.

Hoopa won me a game over glaceon EX and had a chance to help me out against one of the fighting decks, so I think I'll be keeping him in for the time being. He also could have helped in many more matches but my bench was too full to use him. I think any more than 1 is excessive though, a 1 count is perfect for him.

I'm running 1 max potion which has been completely useless so far, have never needed it or when I did need it I couldn't get it. Might consider dropping it for more supporter support.

Running 3 rare candy but I might consider bumping it back up to 4. There were rarely times where I would draw both decidueye and rare candy and would end up having to mallow to find one or the other, rare candy more often than decidueye. I would like that to happen less often.

Puzzle is great so far and has won me a game i would have lost without it, and also using one puzzle if you only have one in hand before using trade is actually really good and has let me get some really good uses of trade and avoid really bad ones by just using N and trading after if I don't like the top 3 cards. The amount of options you have in the late game when running puzzle is just super good. It also just synergizes so well with decidueyes gx attack.

1 special charge has been a good card for me so far. Played against a deck using hammers and another with drampa, it's let me win both those games. Don't think you need more than 1 though, especially with puzzle.

1 rescue stretcher and it's been used literally once to get a decidueye back into my hand to rare candy it and thats it (didn't even need that decidueye up to win the game). Hasn't been useful especially when running 3 zoroark (6prizes) anyway, and I'm always able to puzzle a pokemon back if I'm that desperate. I get why its there, if i prize 2 zoroarks I'll need it but the chance of that happening is low and the chance ill have it when it does happen is even lower. Might consider dropping this card but I'll keep it in a bit longer, haven't tested nearly enough yet.

Mallow is fantastic and I honestly can't see running less than 4. A skyla that can also find energy and pokemon and find 2 of them and put them in your hand is just the best, I think 3 games I've won just by mallowing for dce/floatstone or decidueye/rare candy for extra 20 damage to bench to kill something. I know most of you will only run 1-2 but I'm not dropping it below 4, it's been crucial in 90% of my games.

Other than that I think the cores of our decks are the same, except I'm only running 2 rainbow energy and have easily gotten it both times i've needed it; once for hoopa once for decidueye gx attack. I think 2 rainbow is fine especially with puzzle and special charge, but ill let you know if lack of rainbow causes me to lose a game.

Also I only run 1 tapu lele gx and no tapu koko, thats mainly due to cost more than anything. I haven't really needed koko so far and dont think ill ever want more than 1 lele on the bench, but I realize 2 lele is far more consistent than one. 3 might be excessive though, having lele as your starter pokemon in this deck just sucks.

Anyway these are just kneejerk reactions, need to test a lot more, thanks for reading and thanks again Duo for the great deck idea!

 

[Duo]

Been thinking about it for a while now, and I think Latios from Shining Legends is a mandatory inclusion in this deck.

Your biggest concern is fighting types, so Latios gives you a playable Psychic type that hits for weakness against most of your concerns (Marshadow GX, and upcoming Buzzwole GX) while maintaining some spread damage. If you Choice Band Latios you're hitting 120 to the active with the first attack, which is easy clean up for Decidueye or Zoroark later. Alternatively, you can go for the 2nd attack Choice Banded to OHKO both of those threats hitting for 200 damage. As for the Gallade, hitting it with the spread 30 while it's still a Ralts means you can easily KO it with a full bench Zoroark later, or feather arrow to compensate for any missing bench spots. As for Lycanroc, you have Razor Leaf on Decidueye GX. 1 Feather Arrow and 180 with Razor Leaf is an "OHKO." As I always like to say for the Pokemon TCG, if you can OHKO your weakness, you have a winnable match up.

30/30 is also sometimes a better damage split than 20 all with Koko. Against Gardevoir GX and Metagross GX, you only need 2 turns to KO the basics. This applies a lot of pressure since your opponent is forced to sacrifice a basic, KO Latios for the 7 prize game, evolve quickly with the damage on it and risk losing 2 prizes later in the game, or be forced to play recovery cards like Acerola or Max Potion. Sometimes the 30 damage doesn't math out in your favor since you produce odd numbers when you need evens and vice versa, but it is undeniably a big threat throughout the game.

I need more time to think about a list for this, but the most obvios change would be to split my 2 Kokos to 1 Koko and 1 Latios.

 

[Mack Dabson]

Been thinking about it for a while now, and I think Latios from Shining Legends is a mandatory inclusion in this deck.

Your biggest concern is fighting types, so Latios gives you a playable Psychic type that hits for weakness against most of your concerns (Marshadow GX, and upcoming Buzzwole GX) while maintaining some spread damage. If you Choice Band Latios you're hitting 120 to the active with the first attack, which is easy clean up for Decidueye or Zoroark later. Alternatively, you can go for the 2nd attack Choice Banded to OHKO both of those threats hitting for 200 damage. As for the Gallade, hitting it with the spread 30 while it's still a Ralts means you can easily KO it with a full bench Zoroark later, or feather arrow to compensate for any missing bench spots. As for Lycanroc, you have Razor Leaf on Decidueye GX. 1 Feather Arrow and 180 with Razor Leaf is an "OHKO." As I always like to say for the Pokemon TCG, if you can OHKO your weakness, you have a winnable match up.

30/30 is also sometimes a better damage split than 20 all with Koko. Against Gardevoir GX and Metagross GX, you only need 2 turns to KO the basics. This applies a lot of pressure since your opponent is forced to sacrifice a basic, KO Latios for the 7 prize game, evolve quickly with the damage on it and risk losing 2 prizes later in the game, or be forced to play recovery cards like Acerola or Max Potion. Sometimes the 30 damage doesn't math out in your favor since you produce odd numbers when you need evens and vice versa, but it is undeniably a big threat throughout the game.

I need more time to think about a list for this, but the most obvios change would be to split my 2 Kokos to 1 Koko and 1 Latios.

the most common fighting type is lycanroc and you can dunk on him with decidueye, and if theyre using marshadow, its an easy 150 hp KO

 

[Duo]

That's true, but that's only one aspect of Latios vs Koko. 2 hit KOs on select bench basics is very threatening and can slow down your opponent's set up specifically. Plus, I would rather trade my 1 prize attacker for their 2 prize attacker, not my 2 prize for their 2 prize. The Latios has multiple applications which is why I think it's a reasonable addition, plus most Marshadow dependant decks should be playing 4 fighting fury belt, which Latios's second attack can still OHKO through whereas a Zoroark GX needs help from a bigger set up.

For me the thing first and foremost is less turns for attacking to reach optimal numbers. 150 choice banded zoroark +30 latios spread, no feather arrows is a 2 hit KO on all 180 HP Pokemon. Koko + Zoroark cannot take care of those same threats with the same speed. There are circumstances that prefer Latios outside of hitting for weakness.

 

[FrostBiter12]

Been thinking about it for a while now, and I think Latios from Shining Legends is a mandatory inclusion in this deck.

Your biggest concern is fighting types, so Latios gives you a playable Psychic type that hits for weakness against most of your concerns (Marshadow GX, and upcoming Buzzwole GX) while maintaining some spread damage. If you Choice Band Latios you're hitting 120 to the active with the first attack, which is easy clean up for Decidueye or Zoroark later. Alternatively, you can go for the 2nd attack Choice Banded to OHKO both of those threats hitting for 200 damage. As for the Gallade, hitting it with the spread 30 while it's still a Ralts means you can easily KO it with a full bench Zoroark later, or feather arrow to compensate for any missing bench spots. As for Lycanroc, you have Razor Leaf on Decidueye GX. 1 Feather Arrow and 180 with Razor Leaf is an "OHKO." As I always like to say for the Pokemon TCG, if you can OHKO your weakness, you have a winnable match up.

30/30 is also sometimes a better damage split than 20 all with Koko. Against Gardevoir GX and Metagross GX, you only need 2 turns to KO the basics. This applies a lot of pressure since your opponent is forced to sacrifice a basic, KO Latios for the 7 prize game, evolve quickly with the damage on it and risk losing 2 prizes later in the game, or be forced to play recovery cards like Acerola or Max Potion. Sometimes the 30 damage doesn't math out in your favor since you produce odd numbers when you need evens and vice versa, but it is undeniably a big threat throughout the game.

I need more time to think about a list for this, but the most obvios change would be to split my 2 Kokos to 1 Koko and 1 Latios.

Nice find! Great spread (even though it's only to one of your opponent's benched pokemon) with 30 damage, psychic type, one shots psychic-weak pokemon, and a decent 110 HP fits the bill. Only thing that I find it lacking is free retreat cost and weakness to psychic. One of the major pluses of Tapu Koko is that free retreat, so unless your willing to use the energy or Guzma, it won't move (which isn't as bad as it sounds). Latios also helps with the math (as you mentioned above) to set up two 180 HP K.O.s which is very useful at the moment.

Overall, not a bad card. I completely missed Latios so way to keep an eye out!

While I'm here, I was wondering if there was any stadium that could work for Zoroark GX/Decidueye GX? I was thinking Parallel City (though it counteracts Riotous Beating), Reverse Valley (helps hit the 180 HP mark but is it worth it?), and Altar of the Moone (helps the retreat of Decidueye GX or Zoroark GX while keeping the energy). Maybe there are others I missed but would any of these be useful?

Let me know if you have any ideas!

 

[FrostBiter12]

I got my cards online and have also been seeing a lot of success. So far I've won every game except for 2 times when I was against fighting decks that could one-shot my zoroarks. Those games I also could have played better and were partly due to not being able to set up my decidueyes to stall. Here's a few things I noted so far.

Hoopa won me a game over glaceon EX and had a chance to help me out against one of the fighting decks, so I think I'll be keeping him in for the time being. He also could have helped in many more matches but my bench was too full to use him. I think any more than 1 is excessive though, a 1 count is perfect for him.

I'm running 1 max potion which has been completely useless so far, have never needed it or when I did need it I couldn't get it. Might consider dropping it for more supporter support.

Running 3 rare candy but I might consider bumping it back up to 4. There were rarely times where I would draw both decidueye and rare candy and would end up having to mallow to find one or the other, rare candy more often than decidueye. I would like that to happen less often.

Puzzle is great so far and has won me a game i would have lost without it, and also using one puzzle if you only have one in hand before using trade is actually really good and has let me get some really good uses of trade and avoid really bad ones by just using N and trading after if I don't like the top 3 cards. The amount of options you have in the late game when running puzzle is just super good. It also just synergizes so well with decidueyes gx attack.

1 special charge has been a good card for me so far. Played against a deck using hammers and another with drampa, it's let me win both those games. Don't think you need more than 1 though, especially with puzzle.

1 rescue stretcher and it's been used literally once to get a decidueye back into my hand to rare candy it and thats it (didn't even need that decidueye up to win the game). Hasn't been useful especially when running 3 zoroark (6prizes) anyway, and I'm always able to puzzle a pokemon back if I'm that desperate. I get why its there, if i prize 2 zoroarks I'll need it but the chance of that happening is low and the chance ill have it when it does happen is even lower. Might consider dropping this card but I'll keep it in a bit longer, haven't tested nearly enough yet.

Mallow is fantastic and I honestly can't see running less than 4. A skyla that can also find energy and pokemon and find 2 of them and put them in your hand is just the best, I think 3 games I've won just by mallowing for dce/floatstone or decidueye/rare candy for extra 20 damage to bench to kill something. I know most of you will only run 1-2 but I'm not dropping it below 4, it's been crucial in 90% of my games.

Other than that I think the cores of our decks are the same, except I'm only running 2 rainbow energy and have easily gotten it both times i've needed it; once for hoopa once for decidueye gx attack. I think 2 rainbow is fine especially with puzzle and special charge, but ill let you know if lack of rainbow causes me to lose a game.

Also I only run 1 tapu lele gx and no tapu koko, thats mainly due to cost more than anything. I haven't really needed koko so far and dont think ill ever want more than 1 lele on the bench, but I realize 2 lele is far more consistent than one. 3 might be excessive though, having lele as your starter pokemon in this deck just sucks.

Anyway these are just kneejerk reactions, need to test a lot more, thanks for reading and thanks again Duo for the great deck idea!

Great! Glad to see some people already playing. The info card wise is useful, so thanks for getting it out there! Only thing I would say is maybe drop a mallow, because (though you probably already heard) Mallow doesn't effectively thin out your deck as well as Sycamore, and I bet the matches you lost were due to not drawing the right cards when setting up. This is only an opinion, and whatever works for you is probably what you should stick with.

If you can remember, I'd be interested in hearing match-ups against the decks you played. Let us know if you have any other info and let the testing continue. Good Luck!

 

[SmiteKnight]

Nice find! Great spread (even though it's only to one of your opponent's benched pokemon) with 30 damage, psychic type, one shots psychic-weak pokemon, and a decent 110 HP fits the bill. Only thing that I find it lacking is free retreat cost and weakness to psychic. One of the major pluses of Tapu Koko is that free retreat, so unless your willing to use the energy or Guzma, it won't move (which isn't as bad as it sounds). Latios also helps with the math (as you mentioned above) to set up two 180 HP K.O.s which is very useful at the moment.

Overall, not a bad card. I completely missed Latios so way to keep an eye out!

While I'm here, I was wondering if there was any stadium that could work for Zoroark GX/Decidueye GX? I was thinking Parallel City (though it counteracts Riotous Beating), Reverse Valley (helps hit the 180 HP mark but is it worth it?), and Altar of the Moone (helps the retreat of Decidueye GX or Zoroark GX while keeping the energy). Maybe there are others I missed but would any of these be useful?

Let me know if you have any ideas!

Altar of the Moone would be the best out of the 3, but I don’t think there is anything to be cut in the list to make space.

 

[Bella]

I was thinking about latios as well as a replacement for koko since they're pretty similar, but only because i happened to have one of them and no koko, didn't even realize the advantage it gives against fighting decks until you brought it up. I'll tech one in and let you guys know how it goes when im up against fighting decks. The no free retreat is kind of meh and makes using guzma a lot harder, but i feel like koko doing 20 to certain pokemon is useless in some scenarios if they are non-gx's with 120 or less hp, where zoroark will one shot them anyway. Being able to focus an extra 10 on 2 targets might be worth it.

And Frostbite, I'll try editing the supporter counts a bit. There were some times where I need more than 2 specific cards where I wished a mallow was a syca in some cases. My biggest issue is sycamoring away my hand when I have valuable reasources that i can't use yet, such as having 1 or 2 rare candy and no decidueye. That's the main reason I run puzzle but it still feels like syca might be losing me the game if i discard too much, maybe it's just a stigma i need to get over.

Also on stadiums I agree with smite, space is so tight in this deck I can't feasibly see cutting 3-4 cards for a consistent stadium count when stadiums are so easily removed from play. Especially when the best possible stadium is altar of the moone, would rather just put in more float and guzma if you need to switch that badly.

 

[Mack Dabson]

With latios, i think its just over-teching the deck my dude

 

[FrostBiter12]

I was thinking about latios as well as a replacement for koko since they're pretty similar, but only because i happened to have one of them and no koko, didn't even realize the advantage it gives against fighting decks until you brought it up. I'll tech one in and let you guys know how it goes when im up against fighting decks. The no free retreat is kind of meh and makes using guzma a lot harder, but i feel like koko doing 20 to certain pokemon is useless in some scenarios if they are non-gx's with 120 or less hp, where zoroark will one shot them anyway. Being able to focus an extra 10 on 2 targets might be worth it.

And Frostbite, I'll try editing the supporter counts a bit. There were some times where I need more than 2 specific cards where I wished a mallow was a syca in some cases. My biggest issue is sycamoring away my hand when I have valuable reasources that i can't use yet, such as having 1 or 2 rare candy and no decidueye. That's the main reason I run puzzle but it still feels like syca might be losing me the game if i discard too much, maybe it's just a stigma i need to get over.

Also on stadiums I agree with smite, space is so tight in this deck I can't feasibly see cutting 3-4 cards for a consistent stadium count when stadiums are so easily removed from play. Especially when the best possible stadium is altar of the moone, would rather just put in more float and guzma if you need to switch that badly.

Great! Thanks for letting me know. Also keep in mind that I probably have less experience than you and if you feel there is something inconsistent or everything is just fine, change whatever you think is for the best. Just to clarify (incase I miscommunicated) the reason I would suggest adding a Sycamore is because you have Puzzle of Time. When you discard cards from your hand that you may need later on, a 9 card hand (Sycamore and one Trade) is your best bet to have other necessary cards (Rare Candy, Decidueye GX, etc.) and whatever you need to retrieve what you had lost (two Puzzles).

Altar of the Moone would be the best out of the 3, but I don’t think there is anything to be cut in the list to make space.

On the topic of stadiums, I just wanted to make sure that we weren't missing anything that could be extremely useful (worth taking something out for) since this list didn't include any stadiums. Now that (I think) everyone agrees that there are no useful stadiums (and unless no new ones are released), we don't need to fret about removing cards with the already cramped list.

Thanks for replying and let us know if any other ideas arise!

 

[Duo]

So I played myself against my own Gardevoir GX deck using the list that's in my opening post, except I got rid of 1 Brigette for 1 Necrozma.

Gardevoir GX won. The main issue as I've found which is the same with every Zoroark GX built deck - Gallade.

As soon as Gallade hit the board, Guzma, KO on the first Zoroark. I am forced to redirect my Feather Arrows onto Gallade, set up a new Zoroark GX, attach 2 energy, and go in for the Gallade KO which only nets me one prize. In the mean time, Gardevoir GX already secret springed enough energy to KO Zoroark GX next turn. After that, just charge on a few more energy and a choice band, and that's 6 prizes on a decidueye GX OHKO.

I thought that Decidueye GX's tankiness would hold me over for a while, but it actually ended up working more like a domino effect. By naturally scaling up energy to OHKO a Zoroark GX, Gardevoir GX eventually scales up enough to KO a Decidueye GX to close the game. I literally beat the entire deck with 1 Gallade and 1 Gardevoir GX.

When Zoroark GX falls, it's just impossible to keep up.

Gallade is such a hard counter right now that I won't be playing Zoroark GX in my own Gardevoir deck like I thought I would. You will lose every mirror match guaranteed if you do that.

Now, there is a bit of bias here because I have been playing Gardevoir GX since it came out and only a handful of Decidueye GX/Zoroark GX games, but I just want to point out how a Gardevoir player would navigate through Decidueye GX/Zoroark GX for the win. It's not very hard at all.

 

[FrostBiter12]

So I played myself against my own Gardevoir GX deck using the list that's in my opening post, except I got rid of 1 Brigette for 1 Necrozma.

Gardevoir GX won. The main issue as I've found which is the same with every Zoroark GX built deck - Gallade.

As soon as Gallade hit the board, Guzma, KO on the first Zoroark. I am forced to redirect my Feather Arrows onto Gallade, set up a new Zoroark GX, attach 2 energy, and go in for the Gallade KO which only nets me one prize. In the mean time, Gardevoir GX already secret springed enough energy to KO Zoroark GX next turn. After that, just charge on a few more energy and a choice band, and that's 6 prizes on a decidueye GX OHKO.

I thought that Decidueye GX's tankiness would hold me over for a while, but it actually ended up working more like a domino effect. By naturally scaling up energy to OHKO a Zoroark GX, Gardevoir GX eventually scales up enough to KO a Decidueye GX to close the game. I literally beat the entire deck with 1 Gallade and 1 Gardevoir GX.

When Zoroark GX falls, it's just impossible to keep up.

Gallade is such a hard counter right now that I won't be playing Zoroark GX in my own Gardevoir deck like I thought I would. You will lose every mirror match guaranteed if you do that.

Now, there is a bit of bias here because I have been playing Gardevoir GX since it came out and only a handful of Decidueye GX/Zoroark GX games, but I just want to point out how a Gardevoir player would navigate through Decidueye GX/Zoroark GX for the win. It's not very hard at all.

I think the best options available at the moment are: Espeon EX, Latios, and Necrozma GX (as Duo had mentioned a few above). Personably, I would prefer Espeon EX more than the other two; Latios being the second in that order.

Espeon EX is my favorite of the three due to the devolution being in great use with Decidueye GX. If your opponent doesn't even play a Gallade in their list and you set down the Espeon EX, it is still useful if you can move just a bit faster than your opponent. Not to mention that Espeon EX is useful against all types of decks (Metagross GX, Gardevoir GX, any other evolution decks) so it isn't a waste of space as a tech for one deck.

Latios is a great spinoff of Tapu Koko as well as being a psychic type (which comes with pros and cons). For one, Latios (with the help of Decidueye GX) can OHKO a Trubbish or THKO a Garbodor (with side effect of being weak to Garbodor). Dealing the 30 damage to the bench helps greatly with Zoroark GX's math (30+150 of a Choice Banded Zoroark GX= 180). Next, the Latios can OHKO (with the help of Decidueye GX) a Gallade when using its Lagoon Flight for 70*2+20=160.

Necrozma GX is probably the weakest of the three, though I predict this will change with the upcoming release of Sivally GX. The GX attack synergizes well with Decidueye GX and helps Zoroark GX with the hefty stage 2 GXs (Gardevoir GX, Metagross GX, etc.). The only problem is that the GX attack is all it is really use full, since discarding that Rainbow Energy with Prismatic Burst can be quite scary since you only play three. Not to mention the turn after Necrozma GX has used its GX attack, unless you have removed a attacker, it is most likely getting knock out and you lose the two prizes.

Keep in mind, these our just opinions so if you don't think these statements are true, let me why you think so. I'd be happy to hear your opinions and I'm completely open to suggestions. By the way, after reading through what you have posted, Duo, I would suggest removing a Tapu Koko or the Hoopa (which isn't the best option) for one of the cards mentioned above and test to see if they help. I'm sure that at least one of the listed cards can help.

Let me know if this proves useful and if you have any other ideas. Thanks!

 

[FrostBiter12]

Just realized that Espeon EX's Psyshock attack can get through the Hoopa, baby Ninetales, and Xuritree GX (This attack's damage isn't affected by any effects on your opponent's Active Pokemon.). It might be more viable then we thought!

 

[Duo]

Psyshock is great but it's a little bit excessive energy commitment for only 70/100 damage + feather arrows. That being said, it's still a 1 card does all without having to splash a Jolteon in here since you can also go for the devolve play after some feather arrows and spread damage.

Something about relying on Espeon EX really irks me to be honest (I can't figure out why it bothers me to rely on it), so I've been avoiding lists that play it.

But yes, if we want to talk about a realistic chance at success, dropping in 1 Espeon EX is pretty ideal.

 

[FrostBiter12]

Psyshock is great but it's a little bit excessive energy commitment for only 70/100 damage + feather arrows. That being said, it's still a 1 card does all without having to splash a Jolteon in here since you can also go for the devolve play after some feather arrows and spread damage.

Something about relying on Espeon EX really irks me to be honest (I can't figure out why it bothers me to rely on it), so I've been avoiding lists that play it.

But yes, if we want to talk about a realistic chance at success, dropping in 1 Espeon EX is pretty ideal.

As you said, it is very versatile with what it does. Devolving, Psyshock, and a psychic type to get rid of the annoying Gallades. I would highly recommend fitting one in if you have room.