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Alt. Format SuMo Solgaleo GX/Alolan Ninetales GX (Fairy) Deck List (WIP)

Duo

Duo

RIP Nessa 2023
Member
With the new Alolan Ninetales GX announced, we have ourselves probably some of the best 0 energy searching we're going to get out of a single line of Pokemon. Alolan Vulpix can Beacon for 2 of any Pokemon to find evolutions, and Alolan Ninetales GX can find our items, namely Rare Candy.

After thinking about it for a while, I think that the double Solgaleo GX deck that everyone was hyping up a while back is actually meta relevant thanks to Alolan Ninetales GX. One of the best advantages of this particular pairing is that Newgaleo GX removing weaknesses prevents Alolan Ninetales GX from being free food for other metal decks. Let's start with a base deck list.

Pokemon x18

SuMo Solgaleo GX x3
New Solgaleo GX x1
Nebby x4
Alolan Ninetales GX (Fairy) x2
Alolan Vulpix x2
Tapu Lele GX x3
Dusk Mane Necrozma GX x1
Celesteela x1
Solgaleo Prism Star x1

Supporter x15

Cynthia x4
Guzma x3
Professor Elm x3
Olivia x2
Sightseer x2
Hala x1

Item x15

Ultra Ball x4
Rare Candy x4
Nest Ball x2
Choice Band x2
Energy Recycle System x1
Rescue Stretcher x1
Field Blower x1

Energy x12

Metal Energy x9
DCE x3

This deck focuses heavily on getting its Pokemon into play as the Pokemon are what drive this deck.

Beacon searches Pokemon, Alolan Ninetales GX searches Rare Candy, SuMo Solgaleo GX searches your energy and has Ultra Road to switch freely, and New Solgaleo GX has energy acceleration to play out of your discard.

Fundamentally speaking, this deck only needs 1 copy of each Solgaleo GX in play in order to fuction as a complete system. A complete system with 250 HP, no weaknesses, OHKOs everything in the game when choice banded, and has energy acceleration.

Here is the turn by turn logic of this deck:

BEACON ROUTE (If you are going second, this route is 1 turn faster):

Turn 1: Do whatever it takes to see an Alolan Vulpix in the active. The two worst possible starters in the deck are Dusk Mane Necrozma GX and Solgaleo Prism Star as those cannot be retreated for 1 energy. Play down Pokemon Fan Club and get two Cosmogs on the bench. Nest Ball is an insurance policy to make it even more likely that you can finish turn 1 with Alolan Vulpix and 2 Cosmog.

Turn 2: Beacon for two of your missing GXs. Optimally at the end of this turn or by the start of next turn, you want to see Alolan Ninetales GX and one of each Solgaleo GX in your hand. Between 6 copies of GX Pokemon and 4 Ultra Ball, odds are you should have at least 1 naturally in hand. Also, if you already have a Rare Candy in hand, you can search for an Ultra Ball instead to grab a Pokemon. Try to get a second Alolan Vulpix into play since your active one might get KO'd.

Turn 3: Evolve up into Alolan Ninetales GX, search for two rare candies, and evolve up your two Cosmogs into one of each Solgaleo GX. Attach a metal energy (you have 3 turns to do this) to SuMo Solgaleo GX, Ultra Road into the active, GX attack and set up your whole board. Alternatively, if you naturally found DCE or managed to attach 2 metal energy in time, Ultra Road your Newgaleo GX into the active and apply pressure while accelerating for upcoming OHKOs.

OLIVIA ROUTE (If you are going First):

Turn 1: Same as above, except your active Pokemon is irrelivent. Just finish Turn 1 with Vulpix and 2x Cosmog in play.

Turn 2: Instead of beaconing, bench a Lele to grab Olivia to search out 2 GXs from your deck and hope that you have the missing 3rd GX in hand. Evolve up your Pokemon and be one turn ahead of the Beacon route.

Beacon route allows you to play a draw supporter on Turn 2 and 3 to better sculpt your hand and progress your deck further, but Olivia route allows you to be one turn ahead and outspeed or match the speed of other decks while not putting your Alolan Vulpix in the line of fire. Olivia route is also Judge proof. Having access to both routes gives you more options for reaching your win condition.

Card Choices:

The list is self explanatory for the most part in terms of Pokemon. 3 Tapu Lele GX are needed because you might be going Olivia route instead of Beacon route, and odds are you're going to be using Lele to find both Fan Club and Olivia. Nest Ball might mitigate the need for Fan Clubbing on Turn 1.

Dusk Mane Necrozma GX is here as a back up attacker in case you don't have the time to evolve up a Solgaleo GX or just simply don't have it due to one being in the prizes and one getting KO'd.

Solgaleo Prism Star is here as back up acceleration to get everything going again mid-game without needing to evolve up.

As far as supporters are concerned, Pokemon Fan Club and Olivia are both ran at 2 because I never want to see them prized in any game. Due to the speed of Olivia route, I consider the Beacon route for this deck's set up to be the back up strategy, not the primary strategy.

Actually to be more accurate, Olivia route is if you go first, and Beacon route is if you go second. If you go second and are allowed to attack on your T1, then you can have T2 going second with everything ready to go and ready to Sol Burst GX.

Sightseer can remain as 2 copies because Ultra Ball should already be enough to see your metal energy in discard. You only need 2 energy in the discard pile to continuously loop them.

Items are fairly straight forward. Max out on Ultra Ball & Nest Ball in order to maximize your odds of setting up on Turn 1. As a stage 2 deck, running both Fan Club and Nest Ball is needed to minimize opening a game with a bricked hand (it can still happen). Choice Band is here to OHKO the mirror match and decks running Stakataka GX for defense, and Rescue Stretcher helps you recover your low Pokemon counts if they get KO'd.

9/3 energy ratio is all I think the deck really needs since you are going to be GX attacking to search energy almost every game. Remember that Sol Burst GX can also search out DCE, not only basic energy.


Now, I know I'm going to get critiqued for running only 7 draw supporters in this deck, but I think the value of hard searching in this deck in particular is far too strong to ignore. As I mentioned up top, your Pokemon do everything. They allow you to switch, they search your energy out of your deck, they search your items. I don't need to run as many draw supporters when I can just search for everything I need in the first 2 turns, then play draw supporters after.

Bottomline - this needs to be playtested, and I think that it has a ton of potential if it can run consistently.

Feedback always welcome.
 
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Feedback on the list after playtesting results:

This deck is just as consistent as I would hope it would be. I also learned through playtesting that the New Solgaleo GX is completely unnecessary for the deck.

Between Solgaleo GX and Dusk Mane Necrozma GX, simply using Sol Burst GX allows you to charge up these 2 Pokemon to have enough energy for 3 OHKOs. Just like how we used to use DCE to pay for the discard cost of Alolan Ninetales GX's Blizzard Edge, we can also do the same here to efficiently discard energy off of Dusk Mane Necrozma GX. Having Solgaleo Prism Star is all the energy recovery/acceleration this deck needs to stay in the game in case Solgaleo GX gets OHKO'd after GX attacking (very rare).

The only time Newgaleo GX would be necessary is if people started to super saturate playing Fire decks, but even then something like Magcargo GX would honestly have a hard time outspeeding this deck, believe it or not.

The combination of Olivia and Alolan Ninetales GX (fairy) is ridiculous. Olivia searches Alolan Ninetales GX and Solgaleo GX. Alolan Ninetales GX searches Rare Candy and Nest Ball. Nest Ball searches Dusk Mane Necrozma GX. Play & evolve, get Solgaleo GX in the active with Ultra Road, and boom, you're ready to go. This deck is almost guaranteed to Sol Burst GX by turn 2 of the game.

Unfortunately, this deck cannot beat Rayquaza GX/Zeraora GX in most games, but it does completely butcher everything else with its massive damage and huge HP value on Solgaleo GX. UNGX/Malamar cannot handle this deck due to UNGX needing far too much energy to OHKO a Solgaleo GX. Nagandel GX/Stakataka GX can't win with its 2 hit KO logic either.

In light of this, until fire becomes a big thing I'm removing Newgaleo GX completely.

-2 Newgaleo GX

+1 Solgaleo GX
+1 Dusk Mane Necrozma GX

Also since this deck is pretty much guaranteed to use its GX attack by Turn 2 of the game, I'm replacing Lillie with Hala.

You are 90% of the time going to play Fan Club on Turn 1 to make sure you have Alolan Vulpix and a Cosmog in play, and Turn 2 you are also very likely to play Olivia to guarantee your searches. Turn 3 and beyond you can get yourself caught up by Leleing for a Hala to shuffle draw 7.

-1 Lillie
+1 Hala

I've found that Rescue Stretcher has held very little value in this deck, much to my surprise. I just never use it for anything. I have yet to decide on 2 cards that I would replace it with though. Probably 2 copies of Energy Recycle System instead. This gives you the ability to make sure you can still keep attaching for turn out of your discard pile, because after you pop Sol Burst GX, you have almost no energy cards left in your deck and will be hard pressed to continue attaching for the next 1-2 turns.

-2 Rescue Stretcher
+2 Energy Recycle System
 
Bumping this list once more with updates now that Professor Elm is a confirmed card.

Obviously Pokemon Fan Club is getting replaced, and we're also reducing our Nest Ball copies since we are no longer looking at it as a back up strategy. We are very much so looking to open every game with Professor Elm.

-1 Nest Ball
-2 Pokemon Fan Club

+3 Professor Elm

Going all in on 3 copies because this is just a card we need to see every game. Professor Elm allows us to overstock our bench with an extra Cosmog or an extra Alolan Vulpix depending on our needs for the game, and as such that means we'll be needing Dusk Mane Necrozma GX less and less as a back up attacker. We can feasibly set up 2 Solgaleo GX by turn 2 with Elm/Olivia combo.

In exchange, we can add a very valuable 1 prize attacker - Celesteela. Celesteela is actually good in this deck thanks to Sol Burst GX allowing us to search 5 of ANY energy from the deck. This means we can instantly charge a Celesteela with 1 Metal and 2 DCE regardless of the prize condition, still have 2 metal left to attach to Solgaleo GX itself, and just have it sit in the active with a Choice Band taking OHKOs on Buzzwole, UGNX, Ray GX, Zeraora GX, etc, all day. It can also become a very energy efficient mid game attacker since this deck is very much starved for energy after a Sol Burst GX.

-1 Dusk Mane Necrozma GX
+1 Celesteela

A single copy of field blower is pretty good in this deck, primarily for getting rid of Wishful Batons vs Ray GX. I haven't really encountered anything this deck is afraid of either than Choice Bands in the mirror and Wishful Batons in Ray GX. The 1 copy can be searched out with Alolan Ninetales GX, so it's a handy addition.

-1 Nest Ball
+1 Field Blower

Now, the only thing this deck is really lacking at this point is 1 copy of Rescue Stretcher. After a bit more testing I realized it's just something I feel the deck needs in case you're forced to make an unfavorable Ultra Ball discard early in the game to have your set up even start up at all. I want to believe I can reduce Choice Band by 1 with the logic that I can search it out with Alolan Ninetales GX if I'm really really desperate (Professor Elm lets us set up more Vulpix more reliably to make this happen). Choice Band is only needed vs anything with 240 HP or more and for Celesteela to take easy games vs basic GXs, so I feel that running 3 is a bit too high. 2 should be just right to take care of specific situational needs.

-1 Choice Band
+1 Rescue Stretcher

Final list updated in original post.
 
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Hi Duo,

Nice deck. Consider this version:

Pokémon (17):
  • 1 Solgaleo Prism Star (accelerates)
  • 2 Alolan Ninetales GX (searches)
  • 2 Alolan Vulpix SM2 (evolution)
  • 3 Solgaleo GX SM1 (beatdown)
  • 1 Solgaleo GX SM8 (enables)
  • 1 Cosmoem SM1 (evolution)
  • 4 Cosmog SM1 (evolution)
  • 2 Tapu Lele GX (search)
  • 1 Celesteela (beatdown)
Trainer (31):
  • 2 Prof Elm's Lecture (search)
  • 2 Tate and Liza (draw)
  • 2 Sightseer (draw)
  • 3 Guzma (control)
  • 4 Cynthia (draw)
  • 2 Lillie (draw)
  • 1 Rescue Stretcher (retrieval)
  • 2 Choice Band (beatdown)
  • 4 Rare Candy (evolution)
  • 1 Field Blower (discard)
  • 2 Timer Ball (search)
  • 4 Ultra Ball (search)
  • 2 Nest Ball (search)
Energy (12):
  • 12 Metal Energy
In essence I modified the trainer line to include more draw supporter and less Tapu Lele Gx since bench space is limited and valued. Also consider that this still is a ohko format and Tapu Lele GX provides two easy prizes. Also included one copy of the new Solgaleo GX to cancel weakness since Magcargo GX is a rather consistent card on its own and combined with Zoroark GX. It also provides an additional means to accelerate from the dicard. I also took out Energy recycle System since your entire acceleration other than the GX attack work from the dicard. This means that you do not mind having your energy dicarded. I included two copies of Timer Ball to replace Olivia and increase the utility of Alolan Ninetales GX. Hope this provides some initial assistance.
 
Hey Dark Espeon.

I have been teetering going back and forth on a 3/0, 3/1, or a 2/2 Solgaleo split, mostly boiling down to the concern that the deck does not have any method of passive acceleration, and it is possible to just straight up brick on energy after you take 2 KOs and discard all of your energy. Energy Recycle System is very much so a "replacement" for the new Solgaleo GX and helps you continue to attach for turn over 3 turns as you take 2 OHKOs with Solgaleo GX and Dusk Mane Necrozma GX, and having only 1 copy of Solgaleo Prism is not perfectly reliable (it IS an asset in this deck).

Tapu Lele GX only provides 2 easy prizes if you are not applying pressure with your board, or to close out the game. This has been true ever since Tapu Lele GX's initial printing. Decks like Bulu, Gardy, and Kiawe have already been able to OHKO them for a very long time. I don't think that concern increases - it's just always a concern but it's a necessary evil to not lose the match to straight up bricking. My philosophy is that if I increase my success rate of setting up properly and KOing my opponent's Pokemon, they won't have the room to take a cheeky KO on Lele to begin with.

Bench space also isn't nearly as tight as it is here as it is in Ray GX or Malamar decks. You really only need 1 Solgaleo GX, 1 Alolan Ninetales GX, and back up attacker (Dusk Mane GX/Celesteela) on the bench in order to stream OHKOs. From there you can shape your bench as needed, whether that means evolving another Solgaleo GX or using Solgaleo Prism to get you back in the game. Mostly the 3 counts is because I absolutely cannot miss T1 Professor Elm.

Lillie is not very effective in this deck since your T1 of choice is going to be Elm, and I usually find myself holding onto my Stage 2s and rare candies if I see them in hand. I rarely play down to lower than a handsize of 4. Also, with the amount of deck thinning you achieve from searching 2 items and 5 energy out of your deck with Ninetales and Solgaleo GX, you have an incredibly high chance of finding your draw supporters. I prioritize the Olivia over draw support a lot for this deck specifically because searching out Solgaleo GX and Alolan Ninetales GX leads to you searching out 7 cards (2 items, 5 energy) from your deck that you NEED. It's obscenely powerful when it shows up and to me much better than blind/shuffle drawing 5 or 6.

For now I will subtract 1 Energy Recycle System to +1 of the New Solgaleo GX since having another accelerator on top of Solgaleo Prism Star will help, as well as for the resistance in any Magcargo or other fire match ups as you mentioned. It can also afford the luxury of doing 2 hit KOs due to its bulk.

I've also been deliberating the Dusk Mane Necrozma GX and whether or not I still want it. It makes it very easy to streamline OHKOs, and using DCEs for the discard cost allows it to take 2 OHKOs back to back granted you are also attaching for turn (hence the energy recycle systems).

Apologies if I'm sounding resistant to your suggestions. This list in particular is being playtested against Rayquaza GX/Zeraora GX a LOT and I have tried a handful of things already such as Lillie and a Metal only energy pool. For me personally, the list that I have now is having the greatest success vs Ray/Zera.
 
Hi Duo,

Sounds fine. I would still cut one Professor Elm's Lecture and one Olivia for two Tate and Liza since two Professor Elm's Lecture are sufficient to have a turn one means to get out the neded Basic Pokémon from the evolution lines. I also still like the 2-2 split on Timer Ball and Nest Ball since Alolan Ninetales GX can search them out and it provides the deck with a lot of options. Works rather well in my Gardevoir deck. What is the specific reason for Double Colorless Energy in this deck?
 
I'll tango with the supporter ratios as I continue testing. Usually takes me about 5-10 games for me to really settle on whether or not things are working.

I will however say the 1 copy of Hala has been fantastic. This deck NEEDS to Sol Burst GX by turn 2 if it wants the right momentum, and I can pull this off about 70% of the time right now. This gives you huge draw power after setting up and it's amazing.

I'm not afraid of running 3 Elm for now as I've seen a lot of top performing lists running 3-4 Brigette in the current rotation. It may be unnecessary, but as far as I'm concerned, extra copies are just free discard fodder for Sightseer and Ultra Ball.

With the addition of New Solgaleo GX, there are 3 reasons for using DCE.

1. Allows you to enable New Solgaleo GX in one attachment if you brick on energy while setting up, or if you need to recover mid game. Also allows you to expend only 1 of 5 Sol Burst energy attachments instead of 2.
2. Just like with Alolan Ninetales GX (water), using DCE to pay for discard cost of Dusk Mane Necrozma GX is very efficient at keeping 3 metal on it to swing twice consecutively. I use Dusk Mane Necrozma GX every game there's anything with more than 190 HP to swing at.
3. Solgaleo GX's Sol Burst can search 5 of any energy out of the deck, not just basic. This means it only takes 1 metal and 2 DCE to get Celesteela accelerated and able to attack, even without the prize condition. The other 2 energy go on Solgaleo GX, which puts it up to 3 and ready to OHKO next turn (it already had 1 energy on it to attack to begin with).
 
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