Standard Deck Tech: Radiant Charizard + Entei V

Hello everybody. I'm Rodrigo, and I'm here to talk about Pokémon TCG news for you. This time, we will elaborate on cards within the special expansion of Pokémon GO, exploring all the capabilities for deck building.

The star this time is the powerful and destructive Radiant Charizard.

This card is precisely the "ace" of the sleeve in your deck, as it does 250 damage at its peak, but using the premise of its Excited Heart ability, that for each prize card your opponent has taken, the attack cost of your Radiant Charizard PGO 11 costs one less colorless energy.

Knowing that it's 4 colorless energies and 1 fire energy, at a critical game moment where your opponent has taken 5 prize cards, your Radiant Charizard PGO 11 for just one energy can deal 250 damage and even more with the Choice Belt to reach 280 damage in one hit!

So let's analyze this deck:

Deck Analysis

1) Your main attacker will be Entei V BRS 22 with its Burning Rondo attack, dealing 20 + 20 damage for each Pokémon on both players' bench, then 200 (100 of yours plus 100 of the opponent's) and counting base damage = 220 damage. Also, graced by the draw power with the passive Fleet-Footed, that if this Pokémon is your active, you can draw a card that turn.

2) To complete this combo of multiple Pokémon on your Bench, you must at least put Moltres PGO 12, which with its Flare Symbol ability, all your basic Fire-type Pokémon (except Moltres or any cards named Moltres) gain 10 more damage. Assuming in a very comfortable situation that your bench has all 5 filled, you have the added damage thanks to the passives of these Moltres for your Entei or Radiant Charizard.

3) And finally, during the final moments of the game, it is important to play your Radiant Charizard PGO 11 to precisely use its attack Combustion Blast, causing 250 and being able to be potentiated by the passive of Moltres PGO 12 and with Choice Belt BRS 135 against V-Type Pokémon (V, VMax, VStar, VUnion, etc).

Trainer Cards

Again, the trio of most beloved and must-have Supporter-type cards that should be in most decks of the current format are present here:

1) Professor’s Research, 2) Marnie and 3) Boss’s Orders.

- Professor's Research (Professor Oak) CEL 23 is practically the supreme draw engine of the format, discard your hand and draw 7 new cards. This speeds up your resources, assuming a situation that you need to discard your hand.

It's useful to get rid of Pokémon that are "dead weight" in your hand or resources that are not worth it, such as at a certain point in the game when your board is set up and especially being able to discard fire energies to make use of Magma Basin (which we'll talk about later).

- Marnie SSH 169 is that opponent's hand control: they shuffle their hand to the bottom of the deck and then draws only 4 cards, while you normally shuffle your hand to the deck and draw only 5 cards ; having this advantage of taking the opponent's resources with a full hand with 8 cards or more, and whenever possible.

- Boss's Orders RCL 154 is just to pull that Pokémon-V, VMax, VStar or VUnion from the opponent that is on the bench to guarantee a precise knockout with your Radiant Charizard.

- Raihan EVS 152 is extremely important for synergy with your Radiant Charizardd, or speeding up some Entei-V so that there is an immediate recharge on the attack cost.

The card has the effect of being activated when your Pokémon is Knocked Out, where it can attach a Basic Energy card in your discard pile to one of your Pokémon and search for any card in your deck. And since Entei-V only asks for two energies (one fire and one colorless) and Radiant Charizard during the game moment when your opponent has already taken 4 or 5 cards requires only one, Raihan will greatly help.

- Avery CRE 130 is a "control" card type that if your opponent has more than 3 Benched Pokémon, you force them to discard some until they only have 3, and you still draw 3 cards in the process.

- Ultra Ball BRS 150 is the Pokémon filter in the deck, with the cost of having to discard two cards in your hand to search for a Pokémon, and of course, the priority is to discard fire energies to create synergy with Magma Basin.

- Quick Ball FST 237 has the same purpose as Ultra Ball, but you need to discard a card from your hand to search for a basic Pokémon, which in this case, the good thing is always to prepare a Moltres, Entei-V and the Radiant Charizard itself. The same reasoning of paying the cost of searching a basic Pokémon by discarding an energy card already makes filtering the deck faster (which is recommended).

- Hisuian Heavy Ball ASR 146 is here to look for some basic Pokémon that are in the prize cards, which can compromise your game if it is not in the deck.

In this case, the biggest concern is if the Radiant Charizard PGO 11 is in the prizesas we can have only one Radiant Pokémon of that type in the deck.

- As the only Stadium-type card in the deck, Magma Basin BRS 144 has a quick power-up function, at the cost of a Fire Pokémon on your bench can receive this benefit, taking a fire energy from the discard pile for it, but it receives 2 damage counters — useful for Entei-V and Radiant Charizard to secure their fire energies.

- Trekking Shoes ASR 156 is the deck filter and draw acceleration, where its effect is you can look at the top card of the deck and choose whether you want that card or not. If you want it, it goes to your hand, but if not, you discard and take another card. It's a simple type of Draw Power, but it speeds something up.

- The Ordinary Rod SSH 171 is the management and recycling of discard pile resources, being able to choose one of the two options or both, which are:

1) Recover two Pokémon from the discard pile and put them in the deck.

2) Recover two basic energies from discard pile and put them in the deck.

- Echoing Horn CRE 136 is to summon a Pokémon from the opponent's discard pile to their bench, and with that, get a precise knockout.

Let's assume a situation where their V-cards are in the discard, maybe a support Pokémon-V like a Crobat V DAA 104. Then using Radiant Charizard PGO 11 with its 250 damage Combustion Blast attack, pulling Crobat forward with a Boss's Orders BRS 132 closing the knockout, you win the match. Simple and objective!

- Air Balloon SSH 156 is what guarantees the retreat of two colorless less on the Pokémon that has it on, and as most of these Pokémon are cheap, their retreat cost are for free.

- And of course, the priceless Choice Belt BRS 135 for closing damage against V-Type Pokémon in the general format (whether they are V, VMax, VStar or VUnion, it doesn't matter), with 30 more damage.

- Switch Cart ASR 154 is the “Switch” that heals your basic Pokémon for 30 HP. Quite useful for preserving some Entei-V and even the Radiant Charizard for retreating at an opportune moment.

- Escape Rope BST 125 forces your opponent to switch a Pokémon from the bench to active position, as well as yours. They can put a weak Pokémon on the bluff, so it doesn't get a precise knockout with their Pokemon-V and surprise it with a "Boss's Orders" too, as a shrewd move.

- Cape of Toughness DAA 160 is used to increase 50 more HP to non-V-type Pokémon, usually to equip a Moltres PGO 12 or Radiant Charizard PGO 11 itself to last more time in the game.

Special Energy

Now let's talk about the deck's only special energy:

- The Capture Energy RCL 171 only serves to speed up the number of Pokémon on the bench, that is, if any Pokémon is linked with this energy, you can search your deck for a Pokémon and put it on the bench automatically, thus being more dynamic to fill your game.

Advantages

It is a deck with high destruction power and can take many good decks from the format with massive damage, which is the genre I love. It is simple and objective, as well as very practical to play.

Disadvantages

And as said, in the same way that the Reshiram SHF 17 deck was a Glass Cannon, as much as it has enormous destructive power, it is not exempt from being destroyed easily, and speaking of Radiant Charizard PGO 11 that has only one copy in the deck, which is very risky in depending on Hisuian Heavy Ball ASR 146 if it comes in the prizes, since it is the main damage engine of the deck.

If by chance your opponent has too many Boss's Orders RCL 154 to throw at you, precisely destroying your Radiant Charizard PGO 11 at the right time, your game situation is critical considering that Entei V BRS 22 won't be able to close some damages at once, and may have to take at least two turns, where a lot can happen.

Pokémon with spread sniper damage like Inteleon V FST 78, Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX BST 88, Jolteon VMAX EVS 51, Blastoise VMAX PR-SW SWSH103, the Sobble/Drizzle/Inteleon baby line (mainly Inteleon CRE 43), Radiant Blastoise PGO 18 are the problems of this deck, since it doesn't have a “Bench Protector” like Manaphy BRS 41. In this sense, it is a major weakness to your Radiant Charizard PGO 11 deck.

Indirect damage deck, which uses damage counters, such as Mimikyu VMAX BRS 69, the Mewtwo-VUnion parts (Mewtwo V-UNION PR-SW SWSH159, Mewtwo V-UNION PR-SW SWSH160, Mewtwo V-UNION PR-SW SWSH161, Mewtwo V-UNION PR-SW SWSH162) can destroy your deck, without the chance of progressiing your game, and it will get worse if it's the Mewtwo-VUnion's control deck!

Decks that have some composition with Flying Pikachu VMAX CEL 7 that have immunity to attacks by basic Pokémon also break our deck, making our game progression impossible.

It's an interesting deck with high destructive power, similar to the Reshiram Amazing Rare deck, but lacking consistency in defending benched Pokémon and ensuring at risk of "endgame" for Radiant Charizard to grow with greater damage for low energy might also be too risky.