Zoroark-GX Decks for Pokemon Worlds

World Championships 2018 is just around the corner, and Zoroark-GX decks are once again at their peak. Tord Reklev and the Schulz brothers piloted a control variant of Zoroark-GX at NAIC which only gets stronger with Celestial Storm. Stephane Ivanoff won the NAIC with Zoroark/Garbodor, a variant that usually does not see large amounts of play but has had recent success from both Stephane and Frank Diaz. Ryan Antonucci was the only ZoroRoc in top 8 of NAIC, and played a unique list with Weakness Policies to better combat Buzzwole decks. ZoroPod saw a major resurgence piloted by top players like Jimmy Pendarvis and Joe Ruettiger. I believe that Buzzwole-GX/Lycanroc-GX is at an all-time low in BKT-CST, which would be another factor in Zoroark-GX’s favor.  

Theorymon-ing

Players have been pairing Stage 1 Pokemon with Zoroark-GX since Shining Legends’ release when we saw ZoroPod take the game by storm. When new Stage 1 (and sometime Stage 2) GX Pokemon with potential come out, many will stick a line of the Pokemon in a Zoroark-GX deck and work from there. It works well sometimes (ZoroPod, ZoroRoc, ZoroGardy, Zoro/Alolan Exeggcutor, Zoro/Lucario-GX) and other times there’s just not enough inherent synergy and/or power between the cards. We still have about a month until Worlds, so there is plenty of time to make breakthroughs in the meta. Here are a few new Zoroark variants that I’ve heard about, thought about, and/or tried for myself that have either not impressed me or still need more testing to evaluate them fully.

Zoroark-GX/Banette-GX

Banette-GX is one of the many spiritual reprints we are receiving in Celestial Storm. Its ability is very unique, allowing you to move a damage counter from anywhere on the board to anywhere else. Its attack Shadow Chant caps at 130 damage without additional modifiers, which is great for a one-shot on anything weak to psychic or two-shotting just about any Pokemon-GX. It also has the same GX attack as Decidueye-GX which allows you to grab 3 cards from your discard pile. Overall, it’s a great card… aside from its weakness. Being weak to dark is really bad going into World’s format in my opinion. If we had gotten this in Forbidden Light, I imagine it would have seen play to help Zoroark-GX variants beat Buzzroc. But I hypothesize that Buzzroc will be on the decline and that the Zoroark-GX mirror matches will be more important to tech for. Being a psychic Pokemon that’s not weak to Psychic itself is a really good trait to have, so maybe this will work out for Banette-GX. I expect to see it teched into some ZoroGarb decks and that is something I will be trying myself. As of now, Banette-GX is not in my frontrunners for best Zoroark-GX partner, but I absolutely love the card and I’m sure it will see play at some point.

Zoroark-GX/Shiftry-GX

Shiftry-GX is a really solid card, except for the fact that it’s a Stage 2 Pokemon. For the most part, Stage 2 Pokemon have recently seen success only if the card is so strong that it makes up for needing Rare Candy in your deck, ie: Gardevoir-GX. I am not yet sure if Shiftry-GX is worth playing over a Stage 1 attacker like Golisopod-GX, or an already established Stage 2 partner for Zoroark like Gardevoir-GX. Extrasensory has the potential to one-shot Zoroark-GX, but it needs a Grass Energy, a Double Colorless Energy, a Choice Band, and the extra damage requirement of both players having equal hand sizes. Equal hand size is not a deal breaker as we have Copycat and Judge which can both achieve this requirement, but that does mean you are limited to your supporter for the turn if you cannot reach your opponent’s hand size another way and you need to deal the extra 90 damage with Extrasensory. Needing to evolve up to a Stage 2 gives your opponent plenty of time to KO Seedot’s, Nuzleaf’s, and disrupt your board with Parallel City and Enhanced Hammer. And then once you finally get to a fully powered Shiftry-GX, you also need a Choice band and equal hand size if you want to hit for 210. I really like the card and I do think that people will get it working at a somewhat consistent rate, but I don’t think that it’s the best thing to be combatting other Zoroark-GX variants with. The high HP of 240 makes me want to use Max Potion, but that would only work if I was focusing the deck on using Shiftry’s first attack. His first attack is really good, but 70 damage (with a Choice Band) and confusion is likely not going to be enough to overcome some of the big hitters we have in this format. I fully believe that Zoroark-GX/Shiftry-GX will make a showing at World’s, but I do not think it is anywhere close to being the best Zoroark-GX variant.

My Preferred Zoroark-GX Variants

As of now, I believe the three best Zoroark variants for World’s are Zoroark Control, ZoroPod, and ZoroGarb. My two favorite decks of the 17’-18’ season, ZoroRoc and ZoroGardy, are close behind but need some updating for the BKT-CST meta. ZoroRoc built with 4 Strong Energy to combat Buzzroc takes a hard loss to Zoro Control because it is very unlikely you’ll ever be able to keep your special energies on the board due to Zoro Control playing 2-3 Enhanced Hammer, Team Flare Grunt, 4 Puzzle of Time, and Oranguru to get it all back. ZoroGardy might be able to make its return because Gardevoir-GX combats Zoroark Control well due to its efficient use of basic energy, high HP, dark resistance, fair damage output, built in resource renewal in Twilight-GX, and synergy with Max Potion. That is all without mentioning that Gallade comes as a package deal, and Sensitive Blade can OHKO an opposing Zoroark-GX if it is without a Weakness Policy.

Zoroark Control

Inspired by Tord Reklev’s NAIC 2nd Place list, this deck is built to control the board and run your opponent out of resources with Enhanced Hammer, Team Flare Grunt, Delinquent, and Parallel City while simultaneously denying knock outs as best you can with Max Potion and Acerola. It is typical that your opponent will take a prize card or two while you are setting up  since this deck is not built to shell out massive damage; because of this, Counter Catcher is a really great card that helps you regain control and keep tempo. Magcargo from Celestial Storm, which allows you to put a card from your deck on top of your deck once a turn (like Mallow, except only one card), is a great addition to this Zoroark-GX variant. I have also added 1 Sylveon-EX and 1 Choice Band to have something in the deck that can one-shot Rayquaza-GX.

Possible Changes

• I have tested 1-1 Alolan Muk SUM in place of the 1 Sylveon-EX/1 Choice Band as a soft counter to Rayquaza-GX. While Sylveon-EX is a direct hard counter to Rayquaza-GX, the Alolan Muk line gives a small boost to this deck’s Rayquaza-GX matchup while also helping in other matchups like Buzzroc (to shut off Diancie prism’s ability), Beast Box (to shut off Stakataka-GX’s ability), and against any decks running Hoopa.

Zoro Control Matchups

ZoroPod

This is a fairly basic ZoroPod list. I have added the Tapu Lele UPR as a hard Rayquaza-GX counter and it works really well. It’s not too hard to chain KOs on Rayquaza-GXs with Tapu Lele because of Rescue Stretcher and Puzzle of Time. Oranguru makes the Zoro Control matchup a resource war. There are less slots for Buzzroc counters, but Buzzroc should be going back to 2 Buzzwole-GX due to the meta shift, making the matchup slightly more manageable for Zoropod.

Possible Changes

• Delinquent is a really cool Supporter to include in this deck, but I feel like we would have to sacrifice a matchup to add it in. We need Tapu Lele UPR to better our Rayquaza-GX matchup, Mew-EX for Buzzroc, and the Enhanced Hammers for every Zoroark-GX matchup. In my opinion there isn’t room for Delinquent.

• Sylveon-EX is also a Rayquaza-GX counter, but I chose to use Tapu Lele UPR as it is a one prize attacker and Rainbow Energy fit easily into this deck already.

ZoroGarb

NA International Champion of 2018 Stephane Ivanoff played a ZoroGarb list that I think needs little changed for the BKT-CST format. I have decided to omit the 3 Unit Energy and go with 3 basic Psychic energy for two reasons. Reason one being that Enhanced Hammer became very prominent in our meta once again, and having an energy that it does not remove is very good. Reason two being that I decided to cut Kartana-GX for extra space I needed to fit a 1-1 Banette-GX into the list. Banette-GX is really good against Buzzwole and Buzzwole-GX because it hits them for weakness while being resistant to their attacks. It is possible I may up the line to 2-2 to make the Buzzroc matchup favored, but I don’t anticipate Buzzroc being one of the most popular decks as of now. Banette-GX also has an amazing GX attack that works well for this deck, which puts any 3 cards from your discard to your hand for one Psychic energy.

Possible Changes

I have a long list of cards that did not make my latest draft of my ZoroGarb list:

• Dusk Mane Necrozma Promo (With Unit Energy)
• Celesteela CST (With Unit Energy)
• Kartana-GX (With Unit Energy)
• Weakness Policy
• Mysterious Treasure
• Zoroark BKT
• Mewtwo EVO
• 2nd Garbotoxin Garbodor

Matchups

ZoroRoc

This list is a concoction of my own NAIC ZoroRoc list, my friend Ryan Antonucci’s Top 8 NAIC ZoroRoc list, and a couple of changes based on Zoro Control being part of the meta. The major change based on the meta shift is the energy lineup. We are in a meta where Enhanced Hammer is arguably necessary in all Zoroark-GX variants. 4 Strong Energy 4 DCE is not going to cut it if I am expecting to play against any Zoro Control variants; I will never get to attack with Lycanroc-GX because of the energy removal. Against any Zoroark-GX variant, the ideal start with this list is to get a basic energy on a benched Rockruff. To make up for the loss of consistent Strong Energy against baby Buzzwole in the Buzzroc matchup, I have taken a page out of Antonucci’s book and included Weakness Policy to protect my Zoroark-GXs, and Reverse Valley so that Riotous Beating can OHKO baby Buzzwole. I have also included a Diancie Prism so that Claw Slash can hit 130 without Strong Energy. The matchup this is important in is Buzzroc, which will often have a Brooklet Hill in play that I can use to grab Diancie.

Matchups

Zoro Gardy

This list hasn’t changed much since Q3 of this season. I have included 2 Gardevoir-GX and 2 Gallade since they are both important against other Zoroark-GX decks. The 3rd Field Blower is important because of ZoroGarb’s rising popularity and the Weakness Policies in Zoroark Control.

Matchups

All of these Zoroark-GX variants are in my pool of choices for World’s. I am still changing these lists and testing them more every day, but this is where the lists are with about a month of testing left to go.