Classically, Dusknoir BCR has been partnered with Accelgor and Empoleon, both from Dark Explorers. Both of these decks saw success in the 2013 and 2014 seasons. They each functioned a little differently.
Accelgor decks typically came in two flavors. The more widely known variant used Gothitelle EMP and later Trevenant XY to prevent the opponent from playing Items. This generally meant that their Active Pokemon was stuck there, Paralyzed and Poisoned, unable to attack or switch. Dusknoir was used to move damage from the Active Pokemon to the Bench and Knock Out their Benched Pokemon from there. The Active would be stuck, never getting KOed itself, since that would give the opponent a chance to attack. Flygon BCR was a different option, which instead of locking Items, put 10 damage on each of the opponent's Pokemon between turns while it was Active. This resulted in more damage being done, at the cost of letting the opponent use Items and possibly be able to counter more easily due to that.
Empoleon decks instead used Dusknoir to "save" excess damage. Empoleon itself was a powerful non-EX attacker that did 10 damage for each Pokemon in play. Miltank FLF was another partner here, which is a basic that could do a lot of damage for just one Energy with is Powerful Friends attack. You generally had a good Prize trade with EX decks.
The problem is that Dusknoir itself is a Stage 2, and so are some of its traditional partners. Stage 2s are tricky to use in Expanded (Dusknoir BRC is only legal in Expanded) because Item lock is so prevalent. Dusknoir hasn't had any major successes in quite a while because of the popularity of Seismitoad-EX. Not being able to use Rare Candy makes setting up multiple Stage 2 Pokemon tricky. On top of that is Hex Maniac, which can come out of nowhere and lock Abilities for a turn. Played a critical moment, a well-timed Hex Maniac can shut Dusknoir down.
However, if you'd like to give Dusknoir a try, you want to look for attacks that can damage multiple Pokemon, or those that prevent a Pokemon from attacking. Accelgor can still fulfill its original purpose in Expanded, though it has largely moved on to other partners. Darkrai-EX is another Pokemon that has been used with Dusknoir. Notably, Mia Violet played this combination at Worlds in 2014 and performed well (actually, she's been a big fan of Dusknoir for a while). Yveltal-EX, as you have mentioned is a natural partner here since it has the same typing and is a different attacking option. Any other attacker with a "spread" attack can also perform nicely with Dusknoir. I've seen it used with Kyurem BLW's Glaciate attack, which does 30 to each of your opponent's Pokemon. Notably, Kyurem-EX from Ancient Origins has the exact same attack.
- Gabking5458
