Standard - Greninja ex Terastal: Deckbuilding for Twilight Masquerade

Twilight Masquerade, Scarlet & Violet's new, 6th base set has been announced! It is a mix of two Japanese sets: Mask of Change and Crimson Haze. Now that we have more details, we can start cooking up decks using Greninja ex Terastal, which will be the star of this set.

This Greninja is quite aggressive as a "recursive" Pokémon, considering its first attack looks for specific cards in your deck and puts them in your hand. However, it is also a great "sniper" attacker. It will be great against Standard's Electric Pokémon, like Iron Hands ex sv4 70.

Decklist

Greninja ex: Understanding its Mechanic

This card is very straightforward (besides easy to learn), and, the best of all, it is relatively aggressive.

► Shinobi Blade deals 170 damage and lets you search for any card in your deck and put it in your hand! Additionally, you'll only have to use one Water energy card to use this attack!

► Mirage Barrage deals 120 damage to two of your opponent's Pokémon. To use this attack, you need to discard two energy cards attached to Greninja ex Terastal.

The first attack already deals with Electric Pokémon in Standard. If you apply the Pokémon's weakness debuff, instead of 170 damage, you'll deal 340 damage, which easily knocks down most Pokémon in this format.

As for its second attack, it is a type of "sniper" attack, and will deal with Pokémon that have less HP. You'll use it to remove any Manaphy BRS 41 on your opponent's side, using Canceling Cologne ASR 136 to disable its ability as well.

Greninja ex (Promo Card): How to Use it In a Deck?

Also an incredibly aggressive Pokémon, Greninja ex PR-SV 54 is quite similar to its Terastal version, but it has a few key differences:

► Its first attack deals 40 damage to one of your opponent's Pokémon, and it is also a type of "sniper" attack.

► Its second attack is meant to be a finishing move, as it deals 240 damage if your opponent's active Pokémon has any damage counters. Otherwise, it will only deal 120 damage.

Recursive Pokémon

Pokémon to Get Energy Cards

This Pokémon is critical because of its ability, which moves Water energy cards in your hand to your Pokémon. Considering both Greninja ex Terastal and Radiant Greninja have attacks that force you to discard energy cards, it is particularly important in this strategy. Superior Energy Retrieval sv2 189 will also help us.

This Pokémon, if you play it from your hand, lets you look for a Supporter in your deck and place it in your hand, as its ability states.

To protect it from your opponent, you can use it as an attacker, move some energy cards to it with Baxcalibur PR-SV 19's ability, deal 120 damage, and then return it to your deck.

Pokémon to Draw Cards and Attack

Concealed Cards is a great ability for this deck. As for Moonlight Shuriken, it is a type of "sniper" attack just like Greninja ex Terastal, and will help you complement your damage to knock down more Pokémon.

Trainer: Most Relevant Cards for this Deck

Stadium

Supporter

Every Water deck needs this support card, as it allows us to search for a Water Pokémon and also any Item card in our deck. This will make it easier for us to evolve Froakie into Greninja ex Terastal, even more so if we use Rare Candy PGO 69, or if we look for these Pokémon with Buddy-Buddy Poffin TEF 144.

Item

► Earthen Vessel sv4 163 is critical to filter the cards in our deck, and therefore get our Water Energy CIN 124 sooner to use Radiant Greninja ASR 46's ability and start moving energy cards with Baxcalibur PR-SV 19.

► Superior Energy Retrieval sv2 189 is critical to get the energy cards we need to use Baxcalibur PR-SV 19 and move these energy cards to our Pokémon in play. We'll get the copies of Water Energy CIN 124 in our discard pile this way.

► Canceling Cologne ASR 136 is useful to disable an enemy Manaphy BRS 41's ability, as we'll only be able to use our "sniper" attacks if we do so.

► Finally, Buddy-Buddy Poffin TEF 144 is critical to set up your Pokémon in play, such as our Froakie sv3 56. It also replaced Battle VIP Pass FST 225, which was rotated.

Tools

- Technical Machine: Devolution sv4 177's job is to deal with the Pokémon ex in this format that have the higher number of HP. This means "base" Pokémon that evolved through Rare Candy PGO 69 or other Pokémon in their evolution line. By devolving these Pokémon, we can knock them out because of our damage counters.

- Technical Machine: Evolution sv4 178's job is to evolve your Froakie sv3 56 into Frogadier sv3 57.

ACE SPEC: Prime Catcher

Favorable Matchups

- Considering Greninja ex Terastal, we have favorable matches against Electric decks because of opponents like Iron Hands ex sv4 70, Raichu V BRS 45, Miraidon ex PR-SV 28, and Regieleki VMAX SIT 58.

- We can also deal with the Fire archetype, as our deck is 98% a Water-type deck - Entei V BRS 22, Charizard ex sv3pt5 6, Incineroar ex TEF 34, and Gouging Fire ex TEF 38 are all great matchups.

- Rogue decks which mostly have low-HP Pokémon are also easy to deal with, as Greninja ex Terastal can easily knock out these Pokémon.

Unfavorable Matchups

- Psychic decks like Alakazam ex PR-SV 50, Gardevoir ex sv4pt5 29, and Iron Valiant ex PR-SV 68 are difficult matches.

- Roaring Moon ex PR-SV 67 is a hard matchup because of its "instant K.O." effect.

- Any deck that uses an "anti-Pokémon ex/V barrier", like Aegislash sv4 134 and Mimikyu sv2 97 is difficult to deal with. You can check out more about this type of strategy here, but, of course, please also note the cards that were rotated out (all E-type cards), and make the necessary adjustments.

- Lost Box decks are challenging if your opponent manages to set up their Pokémon with everything they need.

As we mentioned before, this is only one of the ways we can build a Greninja ex Terastal strategy.

So, that's all! Comment down below what you thought about this deck idea and tell us your feedback.

See you next time!