This counter to my own experience with Theme Decks. We might mean something very difference by "well-balanced".
The SM-series is where the decks started to get... well, "good" might be too strong of a word, but "adequate". While still poor compared to decks built for competitive Standard Format play, they finally had a decent balance between different Pokémon lines and stages, between Items and Supporters, and between Pokémon, Trainers and Energy.
The best XY-era decks
might be better balanced than the worst Sun & Moon0-era decks, but not by much. There are some issues with the Sun & Moon-era that
technically don't apply to the XY-era, but that's because of how lacking I find the XY-era Theme Decks to have been:
- Power creep
- Poor Type representation
- Certain mechanics/decks a little "too good" for the Theme Format.
- Stretches of one deck dominance
I might be mistaken, but the XY-era decks
may have been better than the BW-era decks. The XY-era decks - even factoring in power creep - are better than the HS-era Theme Decks. Theme Decks just have been pretty bad for most of the Pokémon TCG's history.
Definite exceptions, of course, like "Blackout", one of the first wave of Theme Decks, even.
Yes, I am coming back to the thread's actual question, I seem to recall that Battle Ruler was one of the better Theme Decks available IRL
and on the PTCGO.
Not as good as the Sun & Moon series decks from the same "era" (based on experience), or a matched set of Battle Arena Decks (based on word of mouth/reading the lists for those decks).
I probably should explain the former. While still not well balanced, SM Theme Decks from the first four sets are kind of balanced with each other. Those from the middle four sets are kind of balanced with each other, and those from the last four decks are almost balanced with each other. In this case "almost" is better than "kind of".
