blog When Zapdos meets Luxray!

When Zapdos meets Luxray!

Many of you are familiar with Zapdos from Team Up and we all know how strong it is.  The Zapdos and Jirachi deck is a top tier deck no doubt about it, but what would happen if Zapdos met Luxray from Ultra Prism?

Luxray is a 150 HP lighting Pokemon with a really interesting ability (Intimidating Fang ability which reduces damage done to Luxray and all other benched Pokemon for 30 as long it is in the active position). That means damage spread decks won’t have much success against it. Since it’s also very tanky for a non GX Pokemon, it can be a real nightmare for any deck that goes up against it. With free retreat it can make Zapdos’s Thunderous Assault even better since we won’t need a switch to get it in play. For two lighting and one colorless energy, Volt Bolt hits one of our opponent’s Pokemon in play for 150 damage.

However, we must discard all lighting energy cards from Luxray. This is not a big deal, with Thunder Mountain and Counter Energy, Luxray can easily hit for 150 or even more with cards like Choice Band and Electropower. Volt Bolt can do 200+ damage no problem. But that is not all, the real power of this deck is hidden in Luxio’s Disconnect attack. Luxio can hit for 30 and item lock your opponent. If we go second, then Shinx can evolve with Evolutionary Advantage ability on its first turn. Lurxay can also use the advantage of Disconnect with Shining Celebi or Memory Energy. Item lock can be a real nightmare for many decks. We have a lot of top tier decks so far like Zoroark, Zapdos, PikaZekrom, Ultra Necrozma who need loads of item cards to set up properly. With Luxios item lock, we can have an advantage against all of them. There are also some other tech Pokemon in this deck like Absol for extra retreat, Prism Tapu Koko with Dance of the Ancients for extra energy acceleration, Zeraora GX for free retreat and Tapu Koko GX that can surprise on our opponent with Tapu Thunder GX and Aero Trail ability. Imagine going first and playing Marshadow to Let Loose your opponents hand down to four cards and then after that on turn two playing Luxios Disconnect and item locking him, sounds great right? This can end up as a quick game loss for many decks if they don’t find a way to draw a supporter or more Pokemon.

With four Guzma, we can swap between Zapdos damage and Luxio item lock. We can snipe opponents bench with Luxray, retreat for free and 1 HKO anything with Tapu Kokos GX attack. Overall it is a great rogue deck for anyone who likes to counter the current meta.

 

****** Pokémon Trading Card Game Deck List ******

 

##Pokémon - 20

 

* 1 Absol TEU 88

* 1 Shining Celebi PR-SM 79

* 4 Shinx UPR 45

* 1 Tapu Koko {*} TEU 51

* 1 Tapu Koko-GX GRI 47

* 2 Zapdos TEU 40

* 1 Zeraora-GX LOT 86

* 4 Luxio UPR 47

* 3 Luxray UPR 48

* 1 Marshadow SLG 45

* 1 Tapu Lele-GX GRI 60

 

##Trainer Cards - 30

 

* 1 Thunder Mountain {*} LOT 191

* 1 Viridian Forest TEU 156

* 1 Rescue Stretcher GRI 130

* 4 Nest Ball SUM 123

* 4 Cynthia UPR 119

* 1 Volkner UPR 135

* 4 Guzma BUS 115

* 4 Ultra Ball SLG 68

* 2 Choice Band GRI 121

* 4 Electropower LOT 172

* 4 Lillie UPR 125

 

##Energy - 10

 

* 6 Lightning Energy  4

* 2 Counter Energy CIN 100

* 2 Memory Energy LOT 194

Total Cards - 60

****** Deck List Generated by the Pokémon TCG Online www.pokemon.com/TCGO ******