Rayquaza & Deoxys and Reshiboar: A Match Made In Heaven?

Greetings SixPrizers. It’s been a while hasn’t it? Well, I’ve been keeping myself busy with trying to get a repilca prop business off the ground and almost done with my first commission job: an Iron Man suit! It’s a pretty big deal as it has taken me almost a year and going through several rebuilds.

But were not here to talk about that, right? Today we are here for the deck that, I admit, never showed much love to in the past but it has come to grow on me. That deck is Reshiboar.

Now I tried playing with the more traditional build that was posted a while back (found here) and it did not play so well for me, so I left the list to sit for a while and went back to playing unlimited with my friends at league. One of my friends, Spencer, told me I should play a Fire based deck, and at the time there really was not any thing good around. We were still a few weeks away from a hahn’s TyRam list, which I do like by the way.

After a while of testing I started to get bored with the build and wanted to do some experimenting. For weeks I tried several different combinations and different lines. It wasn’t until Rayquaza & Deoxys LEGEND was brought up by another friend of mine at league (Thanks, Vinnie!), that I truly found peace with Reshiboar.

As I play tested it, I came to see the Rayquaza & Deoxys LEGEND as more of a tech, or a mid game set up, for the cheap win, and I kind of feel that it should be regarded as such. So now that my thoughts are out of the way, please allow me to share with you my list and further thoughts.

Pokémon – 212 Tepig BLW Promo
1 Tepig BLW #16
1 Pignite BLW #17
1 Pignite BLW #182 Emboar BLW #20
1 Emboar BLW #192 Vulpix UL
2 Ninetales HS/CL
2 Reshiram BLW
2 Zekrom BLW
2/2 Rayquaza & Deoxys LEGEND

1 Cleffa HS/CL

Trainers – 274 Pokémon Communication
3 Energy Search
4 Pokémon Circulator/Pokémon Catcher
4 Energy Retrieval
1 Rare Candy
3 Pokémon collector
3 Professor Oak’s New Theory
2 Fisherman
2 Judge
1 Twins
Energy – 128 R
4 L

pokebeach.comThis list is really tight and I made sacrifices as best I could. There were some things the deck could do without, and some that took support away from the main aspect of the deck. For me, I felt that Reshiram was good at 2, others swear by up to four, so the jury is still out on that one I’d say.

I kind of feel like the addition of Zekrom gives this deck a bit of a nudge when playing against decks like Floatzel/Feraligatr Prime and Yanmega/Magnezone. When playing against Yanmega/Magnezone, it’s important to not waste your Circulators/Reversals, and eventually Pokémon Catcher, as there really is not a lot of room for Junk Arm here.

You could sacrifice the Rare Candy, but then it will be a tad bit harder to set up your Abiliboar (Emboar #20 for those playing along at home).

Breaking Down the List

I wanted to do something a bit different, but still viable as something competitive. While I have had comments on it already, mostly good with no real way to improve on the above list, I still don’t feel like I’m giving this list a lot of love. So if I come off at any time as hating on it, please just keep in mind, I’m not doing it on purpose.

Emboar #20 – Abiliboar

pokebeach.comThis is what some argue is the backbone of the deck. I don’t entirely agree with that assessment as it’s not really made to attack. With a cost of two Fire and two Colorless, Heat Crash is not a fitting attack. This will easily wound larger attackers and force your opponent into a situation where they will have to retreat, thus slowing them down, if you play right.

The Retreat Cost of four is a bit high for me as well, and unless you know for a fact your going to get an kills with this one, I’d say leave this one on your bench. If it gets Catcher’d, then by all means, attack with it, but not before.

However, the real reason this is here, is for the Inferno Fandango, of course, to accelerate those Fire energies like mad.

Emboar #19 – Bad, boar. Bad, Bad boar…

I really don’t agree with discounting this guy. He is a great counter to most cards and with the other Boar on the bench, it’s almost a sure thing. Sure if you run into a random Water Pokémon it gets Nerf’d, but the way I see it, Kingdra Prime is the only one seeing play right now with Mandibuzz/Kingdra becoming more popular, and as a very viable tech in many other decks. Even then, it looses a lot of bite while up against ANY Fire types with its single attack going from 60, to 20 before weakness.

This also opens up your ability to counter the heck out of Donphan, Zekrom, and even Reshiram. I am sure that there are others that this guy counters easily so feel free to get creative.

Raquaza & Deoxys LEGEND

This has been described by many as “overpowered”. When you really break down this card as a whole, its main purpose is to take the last 2 Prizes. If you can get it set up in the first few turns and keep it consistently ready for battle, at most they will hit it twice for huge damage UNLESS your opponent has set up a Magnezone Prime and is ready to hit it next turn.

Now, I like to run two of these guys, opening up multiple attacks. Ozone Buster is, no doubt, a decent attack. Doing 150 damage for four energy isn’t bad at all, so you will definatly be able to get 4 Prizes before it is discarded. With another one on the bench you can easily use a Retrieval to get back some of the energy you just lost, Fandango four Fires and Ozone Bust for the game.

Pokémon Circulator

This card doesn’t see too much play in my area, and I’m sure only a handful of people play it, as the thought of Reversal is more appealing. However, if you are like me and don’t believe in manipulating flips, then give this card a look.

Yeah, sure it won’t let you choose what you’re hitting, but you set yourself up, at the very least, for an extra turn to get something ready. This can be crucial when you have a dead hand and need that one turn to bring it around.

Techs

Now there really is not a lot of room in this list for a lot of techs. I feel like it’s over-teched right now, but then again I could be paranoid, but here is a list of cards that may be useful.

Umbreon Prime/CL

pokebeach.comEven though we do have some Pokés with Abilities it’s still an extremely viable card, in my opinion. If nothing else, this will allow you to slow down the opponent and hopefully force a retreat. In a format where everything has a retreat of 1 or more, with Yanmega Prime being the only good prime with a free retreat, Moonlight Fang becomes a really good asset.

If you are teching this in, then I would suggest pulling the Emboar #19 and a Tepig, as you would be swapping a tech for a tech. This would really depend on what you are comfortable with.

Rainbow Energy

Some will swear by this card, but I’m a bit leery about it. Some will say that it gets around the discard rule, but I am not too sure about that, as it counts for all energy types while in play, only providing one at a time for the attack. Someone can feel free to correct me if I am wrong about having to discard it.

Downside number one is that putting 10 Damage on what ever you attach this to, and downside two is that you have to discard it if attaching it to RDL.

That damage it provides becomes a blessing for Zekrom and Reshiram as they can use the damage for Out Rage, or use it for their respective 120 attacks, Bolt Strike and Blue Flare.

I wouldn’t go out of my way to fit this into my build personally, but there are some who like this one, so feel free to experiment.

Tornadus

In my opinion this is a reprint of Garchomp C LV.X. While it only hits the active for 80, needing only 3 energy to do so is a bit better than Abiliboar’s Heat Crash. While you have to move a Basic energy from it to a benched Pokémon.

With this in mind, we could load two Double Colorless on it and not move the energy, also risking a Lost Remover, OR you could load it up via Inferno Fandango (Fire Dance if any one wants the Translation and were unaware) and safely move the Fire or Lightning energy on it to a suitable target, like RDL. When you think about it, this card easily fits into this build by simply plucking Cleffa out, and almost seems as it it was made for Emboar.

Final Thoughts

I’m, not too sure what is seeing heavy play right now for Worlds as I have not had a chance to go to Nationals yet (I don’t think I’m ready for that level of play yet) and Worlds would just be WAY too expensive to go without having taken top four at any of the events I have been to.

With that in mind, I really can’t say what will be prevalent this coming season, but I do expect Catcher to ruin the game for A LOT of players, especially those just starting to play competitively.

Reader Interactions

21 replies

  1. Anonymous

    I’m not really seeing the advantage to teching in a Tornadus to be honest. As for Umbreon, I suppose it could be useful for stalling a turn or something, but the idea of ReshiBoar is to hit hard and consistently.

    Oh, and you’ll probably want Junk Arm.

  2. Anonymous

    honestly this is bad, reshiphlosion has proved over and over to be the play. RDL is still cool but most decks now will tear you apart before you can play it.
    having 1 candy is horrible. almost pointless. might as well play a 3-3-3 line. no junk arm???? no plus power???????
    3 energy search???????????????????????????????? and what on earth is zekrom doing in this??
    and judge really hurts ninetails. great with magnezone bad with tails. 
    how much did you test this list before you wrote the article? i think you have sorely missed why certain cards are played in certain decks.

    as i said judge is great in magebor, zone loves judge. ninetails hates it. zekrom can be teched in with typlosion because you can afterburn energy to outrage, mainly used for the sammy tech in the mirror match. you have no way to accelerate the lightning so you wont be bolt striking any time soon. 
    1 candy is truly a mistake, 3-4 is necessary. with 3 -4 junk arms and sages training. which is my next point. your only hand refresh is 3 pont and 2 judge. if you dont get out ninetails your sorely screwed. which brings another point why ninetails over magnezone? because its a s1? zone can attack and since you have to recover you energy ninetails hurts you. your evergy count seems low, 8 fire isnt good for ninetails and if you play bad boar 2 dce helps soo much.

    and your techs, umbreon-why? what does it do for you? you should be 1hkoing everything. 
    tornados- again why? 80 dmg? for ccc? your suposed to be doing 120+ every turn. and comparing it to garchomp c lv x makes no sense. garchomp healed sp’s, had an engine to run it and sniped pokemon. this does none of this things. 
    rainbow- yes you have to discard it. and if you wouldnt play it why suggest it? its an option but not a good one. you cant roast reveal with it and its discarded by your attacks. 
    circulator- i like the card to get around babies but with all the yanmega flying around making them switch just means theyll retreat for free. reversal is worth the risk especially with junk arms

    2 reshirams and 1 bad boar is not going to buy you enough time to take 4 prizes then drop rdl. and why no revive????? it does wonders for reshiram. 2 fisherman and 4 retrieval is overkill by the way.

    Im not trying to be a jerk but i really dont think you prepared for this article very well. your list is sloppy, your techs make no sense and it really doesnt seem like you tested this at all. 

  3. Kyle Lane

    1. Bad boar is not really needed with a 2-2 RDL Line 
    2. Needs at least 2-3 rare candy 

    3. 4 collector. Mandatory. 

    4. Judge is great! Not in this deck though, almost suicide if you dont hit fire energy. 

    5. Speaking of which… needs more energy 

    6. 3 energy search? 1 should be fine. 

    7. Fisherman seems like overkill. 

    8.1 twins? Meh. 

    1. I like the zekrom tech a lot, but not at the cost of 2 reshiram. 
  4. Needs a couple PP and Junk arm. 

  5. Now I’m saying these things because I have play tested against (extensively) reshiboar with RDL…

  6. Frank

    Thanks for the constructive input guys – I’m glad that I’m not getting dogged our right here. I do see how your suggestions would/will work. All I have really for testing is my league, which to be honest is not very big with about 4-6 Masters running mostly fun decks, with a few Meta-decks, so this is what works best for me right now. 

  7. David Griggs

    No offense dude… but every article I’ve seen of yours so far gets a “meh” at best.

    This list is off, missing key elements, running weird lines, and overall just not that good. I don’t see it being consistent enough to win… consistently. >_<

    • Frank  → David

      It’s consistent enough for me right now, as playing a lot isn’t really doable at the moment – when i do play with it against the few meta-builds at our League, I do win. I do appreciate your feed back, so please feel free to continue to do so, even in the forums.

      • Anonymous  → Frank

        Playing against people at league =/= playing against good people. If you’re not playing against good people, you’re not really gaining much experience.

      • David Griggs  → Frank

        My point is that before putting out an article, get some feedback… Every comment here has something that you probably should’ve put into the deck or thought about before writing the article.

        • Mekkah  → David

          I’m with this ^ guy. iirc Adam implemented some kind of system where you can post your article on the forums to get feedback before it goes FP?

  8. Anonymous

    I’ll be serious here. This deck needs a lot of work.

    First off, if you’re running 2-2 RDL, you don’t need Big Red (bad boar). Exchange Big Red for a second Ability Emboar.

    Second, why is there Zekrom? If it’s for Yanmega, Reshiram can OHKO it anyways. Take out the 2 Zekrom for 2 more Reshiram.

    Third, max out collectors. You want 4 for consistency.

    I can go on more, but I’m not up to typing more right now. You really should work on the list a lot.

  9. ricky turrietta

    meh just use a 1-1 with no energy search you play enough energy and your only using it late game and added with retrievals and fisherman you only need one on him or at least play an energy switch so you can move 1 electric already placed down then attach 1 electric for your turn and then infandango 2 fire

  10. samuel roach

    This list needs a lot of work. PM me if you want some help with it.

  11. Keaton Gill

    How is Tornadus “a reprint of Garchomp C Lv.X”? He shares NONE of the same properties. Garchomp healed your field and could snipe for 80, Tornadus does…80? I mean, I could KIND OF see your logic if you ran 4 catchers…but nope.

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