Zoroark Ver. 1.0 – MirrorArk

Hello SixPrizes! It’s me again with a decklist… check it out:

Pokémon – 23 

4 Zorua BW
4 Zoroark BW
3 Snivey BW
2 Servine BW
3 Serperior BW (Royal Heal)
2 Zekrom BW
2 Reshiram BW
1 Solosis BW
1 Duosion BW
1 Reuniclus BW

Trainers – 19 

3 Professor Oak’s New Theory
2 Professor Elm’s Training Method
3 Pokémon Collector
2 Pokémon Communication
2 Energy Search
3 Rare Candy
3 Cheerleader’s Cheer/Emcee’s Chatter
1 Twins

Energy – 16 

4 Double Colorless
4 Rainbow
4 Special D
4 D

And now for the breakdown…

Zoroark

pokebeach.comThis lovely young lady-Pokémon (if you go by the movie) is the proverbial star of the show as she becomes brutal with the attack “Foul Play”. Using this attack you can pretty much do what ever you want to the defending Pokémon by just slapping on a Double Colorless and going to town.

Just remember to use this Pokémon as an avenger to a fallen comrade, if you can. especially if your going against something with a Fighting attribute to it like Donphan.

Side Note:

In my last article, someone commented on Zoroark not being able to use a move that requires a specific cost. In that case, it was discarding a specific energy. The ruling on Zoroark is that you only have to discard the energy IF the energy is attached.

Serperior

With this guy in your deck, you may want to think about a couple of copies of Potion for added healing power. With 130 HP its a wall, dealing 60 damage, and able to shift that Rainbow over to a Pokémon that needs it (without damaging it of course) is also an added bonus.

However this guy is more of a sitter in this list. Royal Heal replaces our lost Nidoqueen’s Maternal Comfort, taking a damage counter off of each of your Pokémon a turn – an ability that’s sure to come in handy with the upcoming format.

Cheerleader’s Cheer / Emcee’s Chatter

pokebeach.comThese cards are especially useful when you consider that most new decks will need some sort of draw engine. I listed both of these simply because of the potential to draw up to 3 cards. The downside is that Cheerleader’s Cheer gives your opponent a draw as well. Another card to consider, while I’m on the subject of draw power, is Engineer’s Adjustments, which lets you draw four for discarding an energy.

Sitting with three of these guys on your bench could serve the smack down in a late game showdown, and aiding this card with Rare Candy, Pokémon Communication, and/or Pokémon Collector would probably be a good idea – get your basics turn one, and then turn two skip your Stage One! The addition of Servine may or may not help, but you’re free to experiment.

Tech Options:

Noctowl HS

With the deck the way it is, and me liking to draw extra cards (who doesn’t?), Noctowl becomes best friends with Zoroark giving the potential to speed up an evolution.

Servine

pokebeach.comI personally chose to exclude this guy from my list as Rare Candy gets this Serperior up and healing faster than any three-part evolution chain ever could – well in most cases. For that off-chance that you feel you need it, Servine could be a great addition to your deck.

Cinccino

If you feel lucky or have a knack for getting your bench full, try this guy on for size. Tom Hall, one of the Underground contributors here on 6P, put this at the top of his list for favored Black and White cards – with good reason. Do The Wave is a huge attack doing up to 100 damage in a single swing. Call me crazy, but for a little 90 HP squirrel-rabbit-rat thingy, that’s pretty sweet!

With the handful of above mentioned Pokémon, Professor Elm’s Training Method is starting to look pretty good. And with that, maybe some more of these suggestions will help you out!

Revive

Seeing as how a Zorua will most likely be one of your starters, it will also most likely be Knocked Out within the first turn or two by something much bigger, as Zorua only has 60 HP. This is where Revive comes in. One of the better trainers to be reprinted in ages, you get to put that Knocked Out little fox onto your bench when Mi Ma makes her way into your hand. Not only that, you can get back other things that have been sent to the scrap heap, like a Snivey, Zekrom, Reshiram or anything else your playing, in any other deck at that.

Pokéball

pokebeach.comThis one makes my list of techs simply because of the coin flip. I personally have never had much luck with luck, so I tend to stay away from things that involve a proverbial crap shoot. With the right flip, you got your self a Pokémon that you really need to make your strategy work.

Smeargle

This is another tech to consider – maybe a 1-off. I’m starting to tire of this card, so I’m not including it in my deck, but it could come in handy for mirroring your opponent further, and well, lets face it, this deck is all about the mirror. Set this guy up as a starter and see where the pieces fall.

Donphan Prime

This could be a great card in place of Serperior as Zekrom and Reshiram are your backup attackers, Donphan can start placing damage on stuff, Reuniclus moves them around and makes one of your dragons’ Outrage attacks stronger.

Super Scoop Up/Seeker

These are notable cards for pretty much any deck. I’m not a huge fan ass people play it for donk purposes, but to each their own, I suppose.

So now that we have a shiny new list, go have some fun! I’ll be back soon with some more ideas to kick around. Until then, stay frosty!

Reader Interactions

33 replies

  1. Anonymous

    Sorry dude, I just don’t see this working that well.  It’s too fragile, and you have 1-1-1 lines and  energy search, which can only find basic darks…. yeah, this needs to pick a focus and go with it, you’re trying to do too much. 

  2. Andrew Daley

     What is the strategy of the deck? YOu didn’t even describe why Zekrom and Reshiram were in there and how does Serperior help when you Zoroarks will get OHKOed by anything that is expected to be good next format?

  3. Anonymous

    I’m sorry, but this doesn’t really seem coherent enough to do anything, not to mention Zoroark isn’t that great. A ton of people seem to be convinced that it’s a great Zekrom/Reshiram counter, but it will get 1-shot by Zekrom, Reshiram, Machamp Prime, Donphan Prime, Blastoise, Cinccino, and others.

  4. Jak Stewart-Armstead

    I don’t understand how this is a deck. Sorry.

    Zoroark makes a great tech, but a main attacker with 2 Stage 2 lines Supporting it? Nah.

    Zekrom and Reshi? I don’t even . . .

    This isn’t going to be pretty.

    My advice is to take your time over the next one.

  5. Travis Yeary

    “In my last article,
    someone commented on Zoroark not being able to use a move that requires
    a specific cost. In that case, it was discarding a specific energy. The
    ruling on Zoroark is that you only have to discard the energy IF the
    energy is attached.”

    My bad. I don’t agree with it, but the most official people I can find are claiming that it is indeed the rule. That just means Zoroark is more awesome than I thought he (she) was.

    Love the idea though. Zoroark will be a beast against the right decks, though I see a problem with the Reshiboar matchup

    Assume 1 Rehiram with a Boar, and a Vulpix on the bench against an active Zoroark with DCE, and let’s even give him a special dark, and the first attack. Zoroark uses “Foul Play” to copy “Blue Flare” discarding no energy and KOs Reshiram. The Reshiram player would then either dual ball or revive up another one, throw 3 energy on him and KO Zoroark fairly easy.

    The problem now, is that if you didn’t put 2 Zoruas down, there’s no way to get another Zoroark the next turn. There’s also no way to recover the two special energies now in the discard. The idea is great, but when put against the deck it’s hyped to crush, it runs into problems with speedy recovery against a deck that can easily do 120 every turn with a basic.

    This is not to say I  don’t like the deck. Zoroark is awesome, and will see some play this rotation. Thanks for the article.

    • Adam Capriola  → Colin

      I denied the article twice letting Frank know I thought it would get flamed, but he insisted I post it.

      • Anonymous  → Adam

         https://sixprizes.com/forums/miscellaneous-musings/3338-regarding-front-page-quality-issue.html#post32722

        My thoughts on this matter.

      • Anonymous  → Adam

        I personally would’ve just laid down the hammer with a solid “no”. In
        the end, this is your site, and a site that’s being read by A LOT of
        people for superior-quality articles. It doesn’t matter how much someone
        insists their article be posted — even if it’s posted as a lesson to
        him and everyone else who thinks the same, it only ends up causing more
        drama than it’s worth (and I can’t imagine that -25 rating can be good
        for the poor guy’s self-esteem, either).

        I know it sounds horribly elitist, but sometimes people have to know
        that what they think is good just won’t cut it. Typically, the people
        who are the most confident about their own work simply don’t know enough
        about the medium they’re working in to determine flaws in their work.
        (And this isn’t just something I’ve noticed — there are actually
        studies done about this that you can probably Google for.) Sometimes,
        people need a wake-up call — I’m positive you know how to do that
        without being offensive, so make good use of that.

        Though I’m sure this isn’t at all problem, make sure you give firm
        reasons why an article was rejected and maybe some constructive
        criticism to supplement that. With the approved contributers system,
        there shouldn’t be too many submissions for that to be significantly
        time-consuming (though feel free to correct me if I’m wrong).

        • Adam Capriola  → Anonymous

          I decided to post it just because I thought the author needed a wake up call. Just me telling them the deck isn’t good didn’t seem to register in their head as well as this will. 

          Yeah it’s probably tough for them to take, and they might not feel good, but this will make them realize they need a lot of work as a player to improve. 

          One example I’ll use is Michael Massacre who wrote about Tangrowth/Gengar I think (some bad deck combination) and we got flack for posting the article, but Michael took that as motivation and is now a solid player.

          It’s my fault for allowing the author to be a front page contributor in the first place though, sometimes I let people get through that probably should be allowed to post on the front page. I need to be a little tighter on that to prevent this kind of thing.This is why we have the like/dislike system though, if an article isn’t good enough then it’s easily apparent and the author knows they need to improve.

          I’ll try to make sure this doesn’t happen again in the future though, I’ll be more picky about allowing people front page contributor access.

  6. Joseph Moore-Costa

     Serperior can only move grass so you couldn’t do anything with the rainbows as well

    • theo Seeds  → Joseph

      no man dont you know the beauty of rainbow?

      It says it’s every type of energy, which would include grass.

      Serperior says move grass

  7. Garrett Williamson

    Funny thing is I saw this played the other day….

    I’m not even lying.

    • theo Seeds  → Garrett

      woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow

  8. Poet Larsen

    Why did you say in your techs section that you excluded servine, and yet it says you have servine in the decklist.   

  9. Robby Gill

     Im paying 15 bucks a month for this… adam i love this site and will continue to support the underground, ( swear to arceus ill wear that 6p shirt 3 times a week), but this is just awful. the article isnt even an article, its a note with a rough list. not to mention the deck is just bad even on paper. this article is below pokebeach. 

    I know you got a lot going on, and new ideas for articles are tough sometimes, but id rather another luxchomp list than this. 

    …or a spwars article

    • Andrew Adams  → Robby

      You seem to be confused as to how this works.  The article wasn’t Adam’s idea, and you paid nothing to read it.

    • Tony  → Robby

       This is Mr. SP-ar Wars, and I agree that we need to get back to either high quality deck articles like others write or outrageous, low quality articles like mine.  The problem with this article is that it should have been a joke.  When someone posts a serious deck article with a horrible deck list, it gets blasted.  But see, if you just let everyone you stink at Pokemon like I do, then your’re fine.

  10. Julian Silva

    Okay so instead of repeating all of the obvious problems with the decklist, I’m just gonna say that every deck needs a good starting Pokemon in the HGSS-on format, except for those that can take advantage of Roast Reveal. Relying on a trainer based engine is going to be too slow compared to Cleffa’s Eeeeek and Ninetale’s Roast Reveal.

    If you are going to insist on running Zoroark, get rid of the unnecessary cards like: Reuniclus, Duosion, Solosis, Zekrom, Reshiram, Energy Search, Cheerleader’s Cheer/ Emcee’s Chatter and Rainbow Energy.

    Include cards like Professor Juniper, Cleffa, and PlusPower.

    Also, I would swap out the Serperior line and put in a “Inferno Fandango” Emboar and switch the line to a 2-1-2 or a 2-2-2. This way you can include Ninetales for draw power and keep Rainbow Energies, while removing the Darkness energies. But if you go this way you might as well run Reshiboar.

  11. Dave Wilson

    This deck is the most schizophrenic I have ever seen. I’m sure I do not have to explain why a 1-1-1 of a stage 2 support tech is a terrible idea (particularly in an HGSS-on format). Additionally, I am not completely certain as to the author’s understanding of the meaning of the word ‘proverbial.’

  12. Anonymous

    This decklist should be in the workshop so it can receive constructive criticism rather than on the front page making sixprizes look like a bunch noob goons. What will the new traffic to the site think?

    • Adam Capriola  → Anonymous

      He did post it for help and didn’t get much reply: https://sixprizes.com/forums/deck-discussion/3244-zoroark-mirror-hs-format.html

      • Anonymous  → Adam

         that makes more sense. every once in a while it may be a good idea to have a front page article directing attention to the forums especially to help in deck building. We have to keep in mind that a new set is out a new season is beginning and with it a lot of new players will need help from veterans. This site is an amazing resource for that, so a well timed article welcoming new players and reminding everyone how things work here could go over well.

  13. jw

     I’m actually really surprised and impressed that you fit all those worthless cards into one decklist! Next time I need help with my Vileplume, Cicinno, Donphan, Umbreon, Mismagius deck, I’ll definitely be coming to you!

  14. Adam Capriola

     What does everyone think about a system where if an article reaches a certain amount of dislikes, it gets removed from the site?

    So like if an article hits a rating of minus 10 or 15, it gets automatically removed?

Leave a Reply

You are logged out. Register. Log in.