Standard Fairy / Dark (Xerneas / Malamar EX / Yveltal EX)

[ProfElders]

Contemplating whether to get into Pokemon again. Thinking about doing some upcoming League Challenges. I would like something that doesn't auto-loss everything. It has to be somewhat competitive, but I'm not expecting to win anything.

I used to play Xerneas/Aromatisse with a bunch of basics teched in. Thus I have most of these cards lying around. Thinking of going the EX route now. I don't know what the meta-game around here is now; I live in a new city since I last played. I run a similar deck on PTCGO, which does quite well. The strategy is to Geomancy for Fairy Energy and get attackers powered up. I move around Energy as I see fit and I take prizes with the EX pokemon. Match-ups haven't been bad so far on PTCGO, I haven't run into Seismitoad at all though.

Pokémon: 12

• 3 Xerneas (XY)
• 2 Spritzee (XY)
• 2 Aromatisse (XY)
• 2 Malamar EX (Phantom Forces)
• 2 Yveltal EX (XY)
• 1 Xerneas EX (XY)

Trainers/Supporters/Stadiums: 12

• 3 Professor Sycamore
• 3 Professor Birch's Observations
• 1 Judge
• 2 Lysandre
• 1 AZ
• 1 Hex Maniac
• 1 Xerosic

• 3 VS Seeker (I only have 3)
• 3 Ultra Ball
• 2 Level Ball
• 1 Super Rod
• 3 Trainers' Mail
• 2 Professor's Letter
• 2 Trick Coin
• 2 Muscle Band
• 2 Fairy Garden
• 2 Switch

Energy: 14

• 4 Dark Energy
• 10 Fairy Energy

Strategy:

Xerneas accelerates energy. Aromatisse moves is. Malamar (with Trick Coin) and Yveltal attack, use the same Dark Energy. No need for special energies. Xerneas EX can do some nice bench damage if necessary. Seems to be a standard supporter line I have seen others run. Tips welcome. Lots of items. Help me set up, and keep my game going. Worried about Seismitoad here, but I can accelerate and attack without items. My set up is usually quite quick, I hope to outspeed Quaking Punch if I run into it. Once I start accelerating energy onto my EX's I don't need items per se. Is my Energy count alright? I run Super Rod to get back Dark energies if I need to.

Any tips? Is it playable in real-life or am I kidding myself here?

 

[TuxedoBlack]

Interestingly enough, I've played against this particular deck several times over the past few weeks and following are some thoughts and suggested deck changes for your consideration:

IMO, you will not see much (if any) Seismitoad deck presence going forward given the loss of such cards like Hypnotoxic Laser and Virbank City Gym and the popularity of certain Grass decks like Vespiquen and Sceptile. Some decks to be more concerned about are Vespiquen, Night March, Rayquaza variants, Manectric variants, Houndoom, etc.​

Your Pokémon list seem solid to me, but consider adding another Xerneas to maximize your chances of starting with 1.​

The Supporters used for card-drawing seem "light" to me given you have no supplemental card-drawing support via Pokémon, Items or Stadiums. I like to run a minimum of 10 (in non-Shaymin EX decks) card-draw Supporters to provide consistent card-drawing support throughout the game. Undoubtedly, you may "dump" 1-2 early game due to playing a Professor Sycamore, but those are useful assets you can properly use later via VS Seeker. The remaining 5 Supporters: Lysandre, AZ, Hex Maniac and Xerosic are important staples, IMO. There are a variety of situations where those cards have proven (to me at least) to be just too valuable to leave out.​

Of your listed Items, I'd suggest rebalancing this group more in light of providing room for "higher priority" cards, IMO. For example:​

-2 Trainer's Mail - 1 should be sufficient with improved/more card-drawing Supporters
-1 Professor's Letter - 1 should be sufficient with improved/more card-drawing Supporters
-2 Trick Coin - not critical
-1 Switch - 1 should be sufficient, and not critical since Fairy Garden can provide free retreat

+1 Professor Sycamore
+1 Professor Birch's Observations
+1 Judge, Shauna or Tierno
+1 Steven - to search and get needed Basic energy and Supporter
+1 Energy Retrieval - Basic energy recovery, especially when running different types of Basic energy​

10 Fairy energy seem a bit too much; so, this count could be trimmed by 2. From my experience, running a total of 12 energy with some type of energy recovery for reuse worked well for me.​

With the 2 remaining slots, you have a variety of more options to review, test and select. Enjoy

I hope you find these comments helpful.

 

[Yo-yos]

^I disagree again.

If you can't afford a shaymin try a hoopa, it offer's solid bench support early game so if you were to play something like 2 ultra ball, 3 fan club and 3 level ball you could get much more synergy out of your EX's w/o having to mill important cards in your deck, you don't need steven if your playing 2 prof's letter. but dropping all your trainers mail just seems like a better option, would you rather have the card in hand then have a 30-70 chance of getting nothing but energy and or pokemon, I suggest testing it, trainers mail is more of a comfort card at seeing how many cards you don't necessarily need in your deck at a time so I suggest playing with what you think is better before putting trainers mail in, cards like wally, evosoda, energy retrieval or fisherman good a long way in this deck as well. Tool box decks are a great choice to go into first, lot's of different mechanics.

Rainbow energy?

 

[ProfElders]

IMO, you will not see much (if any) Seismitoad deck presence going forward given the loss of such cards like Hypnotoxic Laser and Virbank City Gym and the popularity of certain Grass decks like Vespiquen and Sceptile. Some decks to be more concerned about are Vespiquen, Night March, Rayquaza variants, Manectric variants, Houndoom, etc.

I've played most of those decks online. Not everyone was a great player, but I was able to get knock outs. So that's good.

-2 Trainer's Mail - 1 should be sufficient with improved/more card-drawing Supporters
-1 Professor's Letter - 1 should be sufficient with improved/more card-drawing Supporters
-2 Trick Coin - not critical
-1 Switch - 1 should be sufficient, and not critical since Fairy Garden can provide free retreat

+1 Professor Sycamore
+1 Professor Birch's Observations
+1 Judge, Shauna or Tierno
+1 Steven - to search and get needed Basic energy and Supporter
+1 Energy Retrieval - Basic energy recovery, especially when running different types of Basic energy​

All things I'll definitely try! Thanks for the insights.​

^I disagree again.

If you can't afford a shaymin try a hoopa, it offer's solid bench support early game so if you were to play something like 2 ultra ball, 3 fan club and 3 level ball you could get much more synergy out of your EX's w/o having to mill important cards in your deck, you don't need steven if your playing 2 prof's letter. but dropping all your trainers mail just seems like a better option, would you rather have the card in hand then have a 30-70 chance of getting nothing but energy and or pokemon, I suggest testing it, trainers mail is more of a comfort card at seeing how many cards you don't necessarily need in your deck at a time so I suggest playing with what you think is better before putting trainers mail in, cards like wally, evosoda, energy retrieval or fisherman good a long way in this deck as well. Tool box decks are a great choice to go into first, lot's of different mechanics.

Rainbow energy?

How about Octillery and Archie's Ace in the Hole, or is that too gimmicky? I'll get rid of the Trainer's Mail, it was more of a filler; your suggestions are much better.
I'm not playing it as a Tool Box per se. The use of special energy seems fragile because of Xerosic + 4 VS Seekers being something I might run into. Instead I choose to get lots of fairy energy on the field with Geomancy. Aromatisse then allows for moving all the energy to an attacker, who then attacks for x[Energies Attached]. Both attackers use Dark Energy, which can easily be found. Team Flare Grunt might be a problem there, but I'm expecting Xerosic to have more play to counter the use of DCE. Am I making sense ?

 

[Yo-yos]

If you play the ace in the hole your going to have to build your deck for 4 ultra ball, 4 battle compressor, and at the risk of burning through half your deck turn 1 to get the octillery.

I don't see how they are ever going to waste more then 2 vs seeker on a xerosic when they are going to be using vs seeker for draw power after something get's ko'd, malamar does ko things, you pose a threat by eliminating targets = lose of cards on there side of the board so it just comes down to what is more important their 4 rainbow energy or your energy in the deck to setup to ko their active. Decks that play heavy xersoic and flare grunt lose on draw power that way and tend to fall behind and loses because they just don't have as many options, and running 4 rainbow isn't a risk, play 1-2 is.