Building Green's Reshizard after Unified Minds and Rotation

The pre-world’s rotation of Standard Format is mixing things up quite a bit as we are losing many universal staple cards like Nest Ball, Ultra Ball, Guzma, and Double Colorless Energy. This is making current lists of old and new archetypes alike more unique from one another as the optimal search cards, gust affects, and draw support vary depending on the archetype and the player’s strategy. Today I am presenting you with a 40 card skeleton for Green’s Reshizard that I have been perfecting for weeks. At the end of the article I will show my current 60 for this archetype, but I first want to present you with matchups and possible tech cards that can help with these matchups to guide you to building your own list for this powerful archetype. 

4 Volcanion

Volcanion is your ideal starter and also your ideal early attacker in several matchups and situations. Flare Starter is great in the event that you go second since it searches for and attaches 3 fire energy for just 1 fire energy which is huge value. High-Heat Blast is your only low damage attack in the deck (assuming that Reshizard’s Outrage is usually hitting for more than the base of 30 damage) and at 110 damage it’s still moderately high for a single prize attacker and can put dents in your opponent’s Pokemon to later clean up with Reshizard or even with another Volcanion. It is ideal to force your opponent to knock out two Volcanions and then two Reshizards to win the game, essentially making them taking 8 prize cards (the last two prize cards are figurative, as on the last Reshizard they would be at one prize card left knocking out a three prize Pokemon). With 4 Volcanion and 3 Reshizard you have a 66.5% chance of Volcanion being an option as your starting Pokemon, and with 4 Volcanion and 2 Reshizard that chance goes up to 73.8%. You can find information on how to arrive at these numbers on your own in this 2011 article by Daniel Lee.

2 Reshiram Charizard Tag Team GX

Coming in at 270 HP with attacks that deal up to 300 damage, Reshizard remains an obnoxiously strong card in post-rotation Standard. Reshizard is one of the best qualified Tag Team Pokemon to lead a Green’s Exploration engine deck. Since Green’s can only be played if you have no abilities in play, not having an ability is the first attribute to check off. Other than that, Reshizard can tank hits to then be healed by items that are easily searchable by Green’s like Mixed Herbs and Great Potion. 

0 Eevee & Snorlax Tag Team GX

In the early stages of Post-Rotation Green’s Reshi I started my list with 2 Eeveelax. That quickly went down to just 1 and then to none as the uses for the card are incredibly niche compared to it’s NAIC format value versus Zoroark-GX and water type attackers. Eeveelax is a bad starter and a bad card to see over the course of the entire game against most decks that I have been testing against. Although it is nice to have an attacker that is not weak to water like our other two attackers are, Eeveelax is not even guaranteed to be a huge help against any water types you might see (namely Keldeo-GX at the moment). 

Matchups

Pikarom itself needs to reach hard to take a one hit knock out on Reshizard, but Alolan Raichu Raichu can hit 280 with its GX attack at full power and one Electropower. Alolan Raichu Raichu is actually a force to be reckoned with this format because of its first attack which does 80 + 80 and paralysis if Raichu was on the bench this turn. Paralysis is much stronger post rotation since easy ways out of the special condition like Guzma and Acerola are no longer Standard legal cards. Switch and Mixed Herbs can be a huge help if your opponent is using Alolan Raichu Raichu effectively. Power Plant is an inclusion that is strong versus many decks; here it can be used early to stifle Pikarom’s explosive start via Dedenne-GX or throughout the game to shut down their free retreat supplied by Zeraora-GX’s ability. Shrine of Punishments is a very fringe tech in Reshizard since it hits your own Pokemon, but it can tick Flare Strike from 230 to 240 damage on a Pikarom which is game changing when it happens. 

Key cards in this matchup: Switch, Mixed Herbs, Power Plant, Shrine of Punishment

 Mewtwo and Mew decks are hard to pin down because there are a lot of variants of the deck right now between the Fairy-Psychic-Water builds, or Welder builds. The Welder builds can be more Fire based or the deck can be built with a bunch of different types of Pokemon. The matchup can be tough because depending on their list they can have the ability to wall your Reshizard from attacking with the attacks of Altaria-GX or Latias-GX (UNM) and also one shot your Reshizard with Dragonite-GX (UNM)’s attack that deals 270. This can all be stopped by Power Plant since Mewtwo Mew needs to utilize its Perfection ability to copy the attacks of other Pokémon GX. Mew box lists should be running multiple stadiums to counter Power Plant, but a Reset Stamp to a small hand and Power Plant in the same turn can have a fair shot at sticking. It is worth noting that Reshizard’s GX attack at full strength does go through the “wall” attacks that Mew Mewtwo might copy, so this walling strategy is not always perfect. Choice Helmet on a Reshizard is very good here since Mewtwo Mew’s max damage without a GX attack is 270 and Choice Helmet will stop this from one shotting Reshizard. 

Key Cards in this matchup: Power Plant, Choice Helmet

Spell Tag Malamar is currently the best single prize focused deck on the market, and luckily Green’s Reshizard is one of the GX based decks that deals with it best. Since Reshizard has such high HP, Giratina LOT and tech attackers like Mimikyu GRI out of the Malamar deck can never one shot it and needs to establish damage over time with multiple attacks, Giratina’s Distortion Door, and Spell Tags. Volcanion is not very effective attacking into Giratina since it’s dealing 110 to a 130 HP Pokémon, but Volcanion can be utilized to chase down Malamars early with the help of Custom Catchers. Malamar decks are built with little to no Pokémon recycling since Rescue Stretcher has rotated leaving few choices to replace it, and Guzma has rotated making Malamars much less threatened; so a deck that can pick off a Malamar or two will actually feel very aggressive to a Malamar player. Reshizard can deal with the constant moderate damage from Giratina because of Mixed Herbs and Great Potion to heal off some or all of the previous attack. Spell Tag damage can definitely add up over the course of the game, and that is why Lysandre Labs is such a strong tech for Reshi to run for this matchup. 

Key Cards in this matchup: Mixed Herbs, Great Potion, Lysandre Labs, Custom Catcher

The Malamar / Giratina Garchomp Tag Team matchup is slightly different from the single prize Spell Tags matchup because Tinachomp can do 240 damage with its second attack as long as there is damage already on the defending Pokémon. Healing is important in this matchup as well, but a new key card is Choice Helmet since your opponent will have a strong GX attacker. 

Key Cards in this matchup: Mixed Herbs, Great Potion, Lysandre Labs, Custom Catcher, Choice Helmet

  

The big threat that the Dark box deck poses to Greens Reshi is Darkrai Umbreon’s GX attack which at full power for 6 dark energy knocks out the defending Pokémon and locks the opponent from playing trainers next turn. An instant KO is good anywhere, especially versus a deck like Green’s Reshi that is trying to tank and heal damage. This huge GX can be prevented by shutting down their energy engine which is held together by Weavile-GX’s ability that moves dark energy around the board. Knocking out Weavile is a permanent fix if your opponent does not have a back up sneasal or ditto prism, but Power Plant can also do the trick sometimes and locking Weavile-GX’s crucial ability. Since none of this Dark Box’s attackers can one shot Reshizard, healing is fairly important in this matchup but likely a lower priority than dealing with the Weavile-GX. 

Key Cards in this matchup: Custom Catcher, Power Plant, Mixed Herbs, Great Potion

This is a matchup where you can’t do too much to hinder your opponent’s strategy. Power Plant stops Dedenne-GX and Persian-GX if they don’t find a counter stadium, but all it takes for them to one shot Reshizard is a couple of Beast Rings and set up two Naganadels to keep the energy coming for next turn. You can’t realistically force your opponent to knock out two Volcanions followed by two Reshizard’s because they will just use Burst GX to take their final prize if they take the first five by knocking out two Volcanions and one Reshi. The true weak spot that Blacephalon will sometimes encounter is the turn after their Beast Rings turn when you have gone down to two prizes and beast ring is no longer active. If they can get enough energy on the board here they will win, so it is up to the Reshi player to try to stop this with Reset Stamp and potentially a Power Plant. Choice Helmet only matters if your opponent can use Beast Energy to reach for the knockout, so searching out Choice Helmet can be a viable attempt to save your Reshi if your opponent has not already used their beast energy. 

Key Cards in this matchup: Reset Stamp, Power Plant

Building the Deck

Here I will be outlining what to do with the remaining 20 spots left for cards in the skeleton list at the beginning of the article. I encourage you to decide which matchups you want to be strongest in and refer to the corresponding key cards when building your deck. I will put my suggested counts for each of the categories. 

Extra Pokémon | 0-2 slots

2 Reshizard could be risky for best of 1 play, but I think it is just fine for best of 3 since your odds of prizing one of them are roughly 1/10 games. A third Reshi is fine if you really want it, and you could also consider Eeveelax if the meta really calls for it. I’ve seen experimentation with Turtonator as another single prize attacker, but in my eyes, these are all just lowering your percentages of starting Volcanion and thus are not worth it. 

Pokémon Search | 3-5 slots

Here we have Pokémon Fan Club and Cherish Ball. I currently like using both of these, but you could certainly omit Cherish Ball if you’re fine with searching your Reshis via Fan Club. 

Stadiums | 3-4 slots

Heat Factory Prism is almost an automatic inclusion since it grants such awesome draw power, but if you really value another stadium over it then be my guest. As mentioned in the matchups section, Power Plant and Lysandre Labs can be devastating versus the correct decks, so I highly suggest working some combination of these into your list. Giant Furnace is a very good card for fire decks in general, but has no external value in any particular matchups since it has strictly positive qualities. I will list Giant furnace in the energy section as well. 

Energy Retrieval | 4-6 slots

Energy is internally important since we need it to attack, and we need a fair amount of it at that. I like to use 2 Fiery Flint and 2 Fire Crystal for an even amount of retrieval from deck and discard, but you can also utilize cards like Energy Recycler, Energy Recycle System, Giant Furnace, and Energy Spinner as well. 

Additional Healing and Damage Mitigation | 2-5 slots

Great Potion is very useful versus any deck that is not consistently one shotting your reshis and Choice Helmet is useful in preventing one shots from happening. I suggest using both!

Switching and Scooping | 2-4 slots

I personally like Switch to consistently move into a new Reshi or to move into Volcanion if I had a Reshi start, but Super Scoop Up is certainly viable if you wanted extra healing.

Additional Draw Support | 0-4 slots

This deck can exist without a lot of draw support since Welder is both energy acceleration and draw support at the same time, and Green’s Exploration can search out whatever trainer cards you need. I think that Acro Bike is a good choice if you want to see more cards, but it’s risky since there are a lot of resources in this deck like Mixed Herbs, Custom Catcher, and Great Potion that you don’t want to get rid of. Coach Trainer is another option which is a Supporter that draws two cards and then another two if your active Pokémon is a tag team, but I don’t think you ever want to play that over Green’s or Welder which is why I have 4 Pokegear to try to guarantee you have a supporter every turn. 

My Current List

I hope you have enjoyed this spotlight article on Post Rotation Greens Reshizard. I highly respect this deck as a viable contender in the new Standard format, and I enjoy the bag of tricks it has thanks to Green’s Exploration having such a strong search power. Thanks for reading!