It was October 2017 and Pokemon had just released its newest set, Shining Legends. There were some very cool cards in it, the so called Shining Pokemon (Genesect, Volcanion, Arceus), a number of interesting attackers and one card that would change the direction of the metagame forever: the one and only Zoroark GX. Since then, Zoroark has never stopped winning. In my time playing the trading card game I have to stress that I’ve never seen a Pokémon with such an impact in the entire enviroment as the one Zoroark had.

In those early days, people started playing Zoroark tentatively, paring it up with some other strategies that, technically, could create some synergy like for example Ninetales GX in order to get water energy in the discard pile. But it was Tord’s EUIC Zoroak Golisopod the deck that changed everything in a single tournament. This new concept of a Zoroark deck was almost entirely focused on the draw power and consistency using a 4-4 core line of the dark GX Pokemon. This opened the door to a new idea in which Zoroark became the recurrent pillar of any strategy and the only thing that changed was the secondary attackers it was paired with. Being this the case, that year, Zoroark saw huge levels of success with Golisopod, Lycanroc and Garbodor although there were many other combinations that were viable.  In the end, Zoroark culminated its debut year with a brilliant first place in Worlds.

For the past two years, whenever a new set was released, many players have though Zoroark was not going to be relevant anymore because it lacked the aggressively and the power to stand against the new GX or Tag Team cards. And again and again, Zoroark has proved everyone wrong. It doesn’t really matter what goes around, Zoroark is just one of the most reliable and consistent strategies of the format once it gets its set up. No wonder why it has recently taken another big win to its collection some weeks ago when it won NAIC with the help of new partners in crime, Naganadel GX (a new comer) & Dewgong.

A very good example to check how great Zoroark is by itself is to analyze its path in Expanded. Thanks to the existence of Skyfield and the infinite recycling power of Exeggcute, Zoroark could just abuse its draw power and fill up the field turn after turn. The deck got to be so abusive that Pokemon decided to step in and take measures, banning some key cards of the deck. As a result, with the passage of time, Zoroark lost Puzzle of Time, Hex Maniac, Delinquent and Ghetsis from its arsenal. Of course, Zoroark was not the only deck using those cards but it was a deck that could abuse those strategies so it was a short of indirect blow from Pokémon. And, guess what? It didn’t matter much as Zoroark just kept reinventing itself and winning.

For this past two years, Zoroark has been loved and hated by many players from every place in the world but what we have to agree on is that it has definitively marked an era in the game… which is not something many cards can say! Now it will be time to say goodbye to this dark friend and make space for the new generation. Thanks for reading!