Reshiram/Emboar

Reshiram/Emboar
Deck Founded: 2011 (HGSS-On)
Other Names: ReshiBoar
Top Performances: Autumn Battle Roads 2011 Wins

Skeleton List

Pokemon	T/S/S	Energy
4 Reshiram 4-2-2/2 Emboar (2 Ability, 2 Bad Boar) 1-1 Ninetales HS 1 Cleffa HS	4 Pokemon Collector 4 Pokemon Communication 4 Rare Candy 2 Junk Arm 1 PlusPower 2 Pokemon Catcher 6-8 Draw Supporters	10 Fire

Spaces Available: 8-10
 

Strategy:
The strategy behind this deck is similar to Reshiram/Typhlosion, but where Emboar is concerned, it is more focused on getting set up a lot faster without having to use the discard pile. Being able to attach as many Fire energy to any of your Pokemon you like per turn through Emboar’s ‘Inferno Fandango’ means that you will be able to attach the 3 Fire energy you need for Reshiram’s ‘Blue Flare’ in a single turn, without adding any damage like Typhlosion does. The additional support of Ninetales means that you can get going faster, meaning you can leave some space for less draw supporters in the list. The ‘Bad’ Emboar is also in here since it can hit for 150 in a single turn to deal with Pokemon such as Gothitelle and big Pokemon like opposing dragons and Legends. Overall, this deck has a lot more firepower than Reshiram/Typhlosion, but can be a bit trickier to play when it comes to Emboar’s hefty retreat cost.

Techs:
8-10 free spaces is actually quite good for this kind of ‘big Stage 2′ deck which means there are going to be some choices to be made to make up those extra cards. Below are some cards you can include to sway certain matchups or just add more raw power to this deck.

 

2-3 Fisherman: This card is possibly one of the best cards you could include in a Reshiram/Emboar list simply because the deck eats up energy fast and it doesn’t go to the Lost Zone, such in Magnezone/Emboar. Since all of your energy is going to be hitting the discard pile very quickly, you’re going to need a very effective way to get it back once Emboar hits the field. Since Fisherman can drag back up to 4 Basic Energy of your choosing, you will then be able to attach them all via Emboar’s ‘Inferno Fandango’, fuelling up a couple of Reshirams, a Bad Boar, or even using towards Rayquaza/Deoxys Legend’s attack, mentioned below. Either way, this card should probably be in the skeleton, but numbers of it do vary a lot to player choice, so I kept it down here in the ‘tech’ section. Definitely test this card out since you will find yourself running dry in the late game otherwise.

1-1 Rayquaza/Deoxys Legend: This Legend is another way of adding a lot more firepower to a deck that can take advantage of it pretty nicely. As you can just about see, RDL’s attack ‘Ozone Buster’ costs 2 Fire, a Colourless and Lightning energy to do 150 damage to the defending Pokemon. Now, if we turn that Colourless into another Fire energy, we then have 3/4 of the attack payed for via Emboar’s Inferno Fandango Ability with just a Lightning Energy to go to knock out any defending Pokemon in its path. 150 damage for a single attack really isn’t anything to shy away from, but to make this card even better, it has a PokeBody called ‘Space Virus’ which allows you to take 2 prizes instead of one for each prize taken with this Legend. This means that for whichever Pokemon you KO with Ozone Buster, you get to take 2 prizes and all of which can be done in just a single turn thanks to the abuse of Emboar’s Ability. Including this card does require you to put Lightning Energy into the deck, but that will be easy enough to squeeze in one the rest has been taken care of. Running this card makes your games into, effectively, into just a 5 prize race for you simply because you can use this to take your last two prizes and leave your opponent hanging. If you can afford it and have the space, then try this one out for more firepower.

1 Burned Tower: Burned Tower probably jumps out at you as a pretty strange choice simply because no one has really used the card before, but with the rise of trainer lock and use of Ninetales in this deck, it actually makes quite a bit of sense. Being a Stadium, it has the added benefit of staying in play until the end of the game, as long as your opponent doesn’t run Tropical Beach. What this card allows you to do is flip a coin at any time during your turn and, if heads, you can search your discard pile for a Basic Energy card and put it into the hand. This immediately shows us some synergy with Ninetales in the early game. If you’re lacking Fire Energy to use ‘Roast Reveal’ and have a pretty bad hand, you can attempt Burned Tower’s effect and have a 50% chance of getting that Roast Reveal for some extra help during your turn. Doing this also helps while under Trainer lock when you can’t use cards like Energy Retrieval in getting that energy back. Fair enough, it is on a flip and both players can use it, but it’s definitely worth trying out at least.

1 Flower Shop Lady: As mentioned above, your deck is going to run dry of energy pretty quickly since you will be discarding Fire energy for pretty much any attack you use on your attackers. Flower Shop Lady just adds to your options of being able to recover both energy and Pokemon if necessary to continue drawing into them during the mid-late game. This card is also quite useful for bringing back Tepigs and other Pokemon which have been Catchered up and KO’d early on, giving you another out when one of your Emboars hits the discard pile too early.

1-2 Switch: This could possibly be called a ‘no-brainer’ when it comes to using Emboar since its retreat cost is hitting the maximum at a massive 4, but some people don’t find a need for it when using Double Colourless Energy, as explained below. Switch just gives you that way of retreating a Catchered Emboar without discarding any energy when the situation arises and being able to reuse it with Junk Arm is really useful when your opponent continues to try and ‘stall’ this way. Emboar is without a doubt going to be your main concern when it comes to your opponent’s Catcher antics so be prepared with this card if it is happening to often for your liking and you don’t want to be manually retreating it all the time.

2-3 Double Colourless Energy: In such an energy hungry deck, you may need to conserve some of your Fire energy when retreating or covering costs for attacks and that is where this energy card comes in. ‘Bad’ Boar has an attack cost of 2 Fire and a Double Colourless with the side effect that you must discard all the Fire energy attached to fulfill the attack which could prove to be an annoyance when you’ve had to attach 4 Fire energy for the cost. What Double Colourless does is cover half of the attack’s cost meaning that you can either conserve the energy in your hand for later use or use Emboar’s Ability to put it on other attackers elsewhere. Double Colourless can also come in useful when a high retreater has been dragged up via Catcher and you don’t have access to Switch. You can attach Double Colourless and then only need 2 more Fire energy to retreat manually and possibly have enough energy left to then attack with Reshiram. Either way, it’s all about conserving Fire energy with this card.

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