Pikachu-EX Deck Help

[rhoodhomie]

Hey guys,

 

Just put together this Pikachu-ex deck and am having a little trouble making it consistent. I seem to lose early (first 3 turns) a lot due to not getting my bench set up quick enough or not getting a pikachu-ex on the bench at all. Please help me out because this is a really fun deck and I would love to continue to use it. 

 

POKEMON: 15

 

3-1-3 Magnezone line BT

2-2 Octillery BT

3 Pika-EX

1 Zekrom Promo XY76

 

TRAINER: 31

 

3 Prof. Birch

3 Lysandre

2 Sycamore

2 Skyla

4 Level Ball

4 Prof. Letter

3 Ultra Ball

2 Roller Skates

2 Energy Recycler

2 Rare Candy

 

ENERGY: 14

 

14 Lightning

 

The one thing I want to keep 100% is the 2-2 Octillery line, it may seem unnecessary but not only does it guarantee that i get an Octillery in play fast, but if you can get the second one in as well, it makes this deck unstoppable. Other than that, I am up for any changes. Remember the problem is getting it set up fast. 

 

Thanks for the help!!

[00dragonite00]

You'll want Battle Compressors, Fisherman, and VS Seekers

[mikoto24]

Yeah and add some raikou and hex maniac if you want to kill pyroar. I think you just need about 10 lightning energies and 2 fisherman to get back your energy. Add 1 shaymin also for draw power and some switches or float stone for switching purposes

[alexmiller]

with pikachu ex, which is kinda low hp and weak unless you can hit 4 lightning every turn (150 fails to ohko a lot of things, even with muscle band theres a lot of 180 hp EXs) i would honestly just go all in on the theme and fill my deck with as much basic search/retrieval as possible. i would also run Raikou which also benefits greatly from stacking lightning energy, while having a bit of a stall element to take reduced damage while you're setting up.

 

if youre having trouble getting pika ex you could use hoopa ex, but i wouldnt do this unless you have some other tech to search for (such as shaymin) because it's frightening how often you end up with only hoopa as your basic, getting no effect and having CC retreat. >____>

[rhoodhomie]

Anyone with a good Pika-EX deck please post a deck list so I can try it out and compare!!

[Cymantex]

This deck is very similar to old Emboar lists in particular.

It's worth noting that those decks often featured Electrode PLF which is a downgraded version of Octillery.

Certainly a very good tool in a slow resource hungry deck.

 

Edit:

Got the luxury try a Raikou Magnezone Pikachu EX deck out. 

As the deck was still lacking early consistency and problems with bench space I added a Shaymin + Skyfield + Trainers' Mail engine which made things run a lot smoother.

 

 

Pokémon (19):

3-1-3x Magnezone

2x Pikachu EX

4x Raikou

2-2x Octillery

2x Shaymin EX

1x Jirachi XY67 (MVP)

 

Trainers (30):

1x Energy Retrieval

1x Professor's Letter

2x Level Ball

4x Ultra Ball

3x Rare Candy

1x Switch

2x Trainers' Mail

4x VS Seeker

2x Fisherman

1x Lysandre

4x Sycamore

3x Skyla

2x Skyfield

 

Energy (10):

10x Lightning

[mikoto24]

i would probably focus more on raikou than pikachu ex. Maybe 2 pikachu-ex will suffice the deck and 4 raikou as the main attacker in this deck

[alexmiller]

i would probably focus more on raikou than pikachu ex. Maybe 2 pikachu-ex will suffice the deck and 4 raikou as the main attacker in this deck

 

eh at that point you might as well not bother including pikachu ex tbh

[mikoto24]

eh at that point you might as well not bother including pikachu ex tbh

eh at that point you might as well not bother including pikachu ex tbh

Well pikachu ex is still important maybe as a back up attacker with 4 lightning energy you'll be able to K.O. most basic ex pokemon

[Cymantex]

i would probably focus more on raikou than pikachu ex. Maybe 2 pikachu-ex will suffice the deck and 4 raikou as the main attacker in this deck

 

I agree that this is probably a more competitive way to play.

Pikachu EX likely works better as a sidekick.

[rgp151]

Pikachu-EX is just not good, period. Better off using Raikou.

 

In addition to that in order to speed the deck up the main thing you want to do is, as someone else said, use Battle Compressor. This is really one of the most important cards in any good deck these days. You NEED battle Compressor.

 

Once you add Battle Compressor then you drop most of your supporters down to a single copy and run 4 VS Seeker. Go down to 1 Lysander,  1 Sycamore, 1 Skyla, or really, just get rid of Sycamore altogether. 

 

With 2 Octillery, 2 Roller Skates, and 3 Birch you have enough draw IMO and Sycamore is bad with the Stage 2 Evolution line. Maybe replace the Sycamore with a Tierno, but really probably just drop it for a Fisherman.

 

IMO Birch and Roller Skates work really well together with Octillery because if you get tails on Birch you can still Octillery for more. Also with Roller Skates if you get tails at least you opened a spot so you can draw more with Octillery. I just made a deck that runs 2X2 Octillery, 3 Roller Skates  and Giovanni's Scheme as the ONLY draw supporters, and it works great actually!

 

I was skeptical of Octillery, but in fact Octillery is awesome, I'm loving it.

 

So, Battle Compress (2 or 3), 4 VS Seeker, and 1 of Supporters except your main draw supporter. Also, as stated, add a Fisherman (you might consider adding 2 Fisherman since its really important to get).

[Cymantex]

Pikachu-EX is just not good, period. Better off using Raikou.

 

In addition to that in order to speed the deck up the main thing you want to do is, as someone else said, use Battle Compressor. This is really one of the most important cards in any good deck these days. You NEED battle Compressor.

 

Once you add Battle Compressor then you drop most of your supporters down to a single copy and run 4 VS Seeker. Go down to 1 Lysander,  1 Sycamore, 1 Skyla, or really, just get rid of Sycamore altogether. 

 

With 2 Octillery, 2 Roller Skates, and 3 Birch you have enough draw IMO and Sycamore is bad with the Stage 2 Evolution line. Maybe replace the Sycamore with a Tierno, but really probably just drop it for a Fisherman.

 

IMO Birch and Roller Skates work really well together with Octillery because if you get tails on Birch you can still Octillery for more. Also with Roller Skates if you get tails at least you opened a spot so you can draw more with Octillery. I just made a deck that runs 2X2 Octillery, 3 Roller Skates  and Giovanni's Scheme as the ONLY draw supporters, and it works great actually!

 

I was skeptical of Octillery, but in fact Octillery is awesome, I'm loving it.

 

So, Battle Compress (2 or 3), 4 VS Seeker, and 1 of Supporters except your main draw supporter. Also, as stated, add a Fisherman (you might consider adding 2 Fisherman since its really important to get).

 

Pikachu EX is a rather underwhelming card but it's unfortunately the best card available to deal with EXs and Mega Evolutions. 

 

Battle Compressor is certainly not a necessity. It's rather mediocre consistency card in this kind of deck. 

That doesn't mean it's not worth considering though.

The main problem with relying on the Battle Compressor + VS Seeker engine is that it's inconsistent early game as you need both cards in your hand for this to work.

While you don't generally have time to first evolve into an Octillery to draw into ways of getting Magnemites and Magnezone into play.

Since it takes a couple of turns until you actually need to have lightning energy in the discard pile you will often already have accumulated a bunch through Ultra Ball and Sycamore by the time you need it.

 

Sycamore is considered here because it provides the safest available consistency in the early game where the deck needs it the most.

Discarding is not generally a big issue in this type of deck as you only need 1 Magnezone to actually stick on the board. Which means having to discard one of them early is not a big deal. It's often a big problem for decks that runs multiple stage 2 or uses them as main attackers.

It is of course possible to get a hand with for example Sycamore and 2+ Magnezones or all your Rare Candy.

Something that's a lot less likely than flipping tails on Roller Skates for example.

[rgp151]

How is Pikachu-EX the best card for dealing with EXs and Megas? I mean, I'd consider tons of cards better than Pikachu-EX, like even Joltik is better then Pikachu-EX

 

130 HP EX is just horrible.

 

As for Sycamore, yeah I can see how it could be good with a deck like this. But if I were running Sycamore I'd also run Buddy Buddy Rescue, and I probably wouldn't run Octillery. IMO Sycamore and Octillery don't work well together, you should commit to either one or the other approaches.

 

If you are going to run Sycamore because you want to ensure you have a good supporter on turn 1, then you probably need to run 4 Sycamore + 2 Battle Compressor + 4 VS Seeker + 2 Buddy Buddy Rescue. If you are running that, then IMO you shouldn't run Octillery.

 

For me, Octillery works best with Birch and Roller Skates.

 

But that's just my 2 cents...

[Cymantex]

How is Pikachu-EX the best card for dealing with EXs and Megas? I mean, I'd consider tons of cards better than Pikachu-EX, like even Joltik is better then Pikachu-EX

 

130 HP EX is just horrible.

 

As for Sycamore, yeah I can see how it could be good with a deck like this. But if I were running Sycamore I'd also run Buddy Buddy Rescue, and I probably wouldn't run Octillery. IMO Sycamore and Octillery don't work well together, you should commit to either one or the other approaches.

 

If you are going to run Sycamore because you want to ensure you have a good supporter on turn 1, then you probably need to run 4 Sycamore + 2 Battle Compressor + 4 VS Seeker + 2 Buddy Buddy Rescue. If you are running that, then IMO you shouldn't run Octillery.

 

For me, Octillery works best with Birch and Roller Skates.

 

But that's just my 2 cents...

 

What other Pokémon fits into this deck that can deal with 180-240 hp pokémon better than Pikachu EX?

You obviously can't use Joltik as an example here.

 

Even though Octillery have some negative synergy with Sycamore in some specific cases it's rather minor and still good enough to warrant a spot. You really need draw power to keep pumping out energy in particular.

Not playing Sycamore is more risky but it can definitely pay off after you get going.

 

Playing 1x Sacred Ash or 1x Buddy-Buddy Rescue is all reasonable ideas.

The plus is that it gives more freedom with using Sycamore in particular when you get one of those rare unfortunate hands. However on the other hand in most games the card will usually not have an impact and in which case many questions if it's actually worth playing

 

I should probably mention that this is already a rather tested way to construct a deck as old Blastoise and in particular Emboar lists with Electrode PLF are rather similar. The question about running Sacred Ash/Super Rod for example have been asked many times. 

[rgp151]

So here is my thought on Pikachu-EX with Magenzone.

 

 

 

If I were gong to run it I'd probably run it as follows:

 

 

3-1-2 Magnezone line BT

 

2-2 Octillery BT

 

1 Pika-EX

 

1 Lugia-EX

 

3 Raikou

 

 

Run AZ, Battle Compressor, and Revive (or Buddy Buddy Rescue).

 

 

 

The way to use Pikachu is to Battle Compressor him into the discard pile, then when you want to use him use Revive or Buddy Buddy Rescue to ******* and attack with him all in the same turn, then AZ him up on the next turn. He's just a massive liability. If he gets KOed, then you'll be ready to Revive him again if needed.

 

 

 

Using this approach it would be fine to run Sycamore as well, but again, if I were using Sycamore I wouldn't use Octillery. To me they just don't synergize well. I also don't think that Sycamore and Fisherman synergize too well together either, so if it were me I'd stick with Octillery.

 

 

 

By using Buddy Buddy Rescue you can pretty safely go down to only 2 Magnezone IMO.

 

 

 

Honestly, I'm really liking the Octillery / Roller Skates combo, but it is true that it is a little more risk on your early turns. If you do run AZ, then you may as well run Shaymin as well as another draw supporter, which makes it less risky.

 

 

 

So it seems to me that if you run 4 Ultra Ball, plus 4 VS Seeker, plus 2 Battle Compressor, plus 2 Shaymin-EX plus 2X2 Octillery, plus something like 1 or 2 Birch, plus Roller Skates, then you should be fine on draw without Sycamore. But I haven't tested that exact setup so I dunno.

 

 

 

But it seems to me that a Pikachu-EX sitting on the bench is just a big giant target. I'd Lysander that thing ASAP if I saw it, cause you know its both dangerous and an easy 2 prizes. That's why if I were playing Pikachi-EX I'd try and do it in a way that I can bring him out and attack all in the same turn, and then ******* off the field.

[fr33land]

Wow.  RGP is full of awesome ideas.  

Thanks, much.  I read many posts recently that agree / disagree contain a buffet of food for thought.  I love the idea of 'Sneak Attack Pikachu'  I doubt I could pull it off myself, but it's brilliant.  Revive + Fisherman = Overspark for KO.  I highly doubt you would escape the following turn, mind you. 

I'm thinking maybe one copy for a Raichu Break / Magnezone deck, which may not be too feasible in itself.  Use in case of Megas.  At least Raichu can free retreat and the Break's attack runs on the same mechanic.  Seems like they might work better together, I suppose having a Raikou or two wouldn't hurt.  That's my issue, I don't think so many pokemon can comfortable share all the resources.

3-1-3 Magnezone

2-2-2 Raichu Break

2 Raikou

1 Pikachu-EX

But I'd really rather have a more robust Raichu line, that's already 16 pokemon, 18 or 19? Maybe a couple Shaymin EX too? That's 20-21, with 10-12 energies I have only room for 27 Trainer cards.

Is Raichu Break worth it?  Or would it be better alongside M Manectric EX?  That could be a mean combo, they can retreat to each other and take out the big Megas one two punch style.  The other issue though is total fighting weakness and I don't think flash energy is a reliable way to combat that, risky in two ways. 

[pokemonrocks987]

I'd like to mention that while this deck doesn't currently have a large presence as a competitive deck, in XY9 we will receive Fighting Spirit Belt, something that will really help this deck. It is a tool for basic pokemon only that increases HP by 40, and increases damage by 10. This can make Raikour and Pikachu EX have 160 and 170 HP respectively. It also allows Pikachu to knock out 210 HP megas for 4 energies, and with rough seas, he can last considerably longer. 

[Elizore]

I have been fiddling with Pikachu EX since it came out trying to find a good competitive deck to play with. I read this thread and tried a lot of the ideas listed in it, but none of them really worked out well. I have probably changed this deck more than any other I have played with because I have loved Pikachu since I was kid and I really want a good deck with him being the star. So far, the closest to a good competitive deck that I have made with him was a Mega Manectric/Pikachu EX deck. Fairly standard Manectric variation. For obvious reasons, it isn't nearly as good as other Manectric decks, but it does work and is playable. I deleted that deck though because I wanted my deck to have Pikachu as the only EX pokemon. I tried the Octillerys, skates, Raikous. Pretty much everything mentioned above I fiddled with. Finally I decided I was trying to do to much and I needed to break it down to a more basic deck. I also decided at that point that I don't want Raikou anymore. He's a better choice probably, but the point of this deck for me is to be all about Pikachu. I chose to go with Raichu/Break as the other attacker. My biggest problem with this deck list at the moment is that its still a bit to slow. There are some other problems, like the serious lack of HPS on my pokemon. However, the deck does work and I play it a lot in VS matches just because I love Pikachu. I do agree with Pokémonrocks above though that the next expansion could help this deck a lot. The new fighting spirit will be great, and also max potions will be back in standard legal.

 

****** Pokémon Trading Card Game Deck List ******

Pokémon - 17

2 Shaymin-EX ROS 106
2 Magnemite BKT 51
1 Magneton BKT 53
2 Magnezone BKT 54
2 Raichu BREAK BKT 50
1 Pikachu BKT 48
1 Pikachu FFI 27
1 Pikachu ROS 20
2 Raichu BKT 49
3 Pikachu-EX PR-XY XY84

Trainer Cards - 33

4 Professor Birch's Observations PRC 159
1 Giovanni's Scheme BKT 162
2 Professor's Letter XY 123
2 Buddy-Buddy Rescue BKT 135
2 Rare Candy PRC 135
1 AZ PHF 117
2 Battle Compressor Team Flare Gear PHF 92
4 Ultra Ball FLF 99
2 Fisherman BKT 136
3 Muscle Band XY 121
1 Pokémon Center Lady FLF 105
4 VS Seeker ROS 110
3 Trainers' Mail ROS 92
2 Lysandre FLF 104

Energy - 10

3 Flash Energy AOR 83

10 Lightning Energy

Total Cards - 60

****** Deck List Generated by Pokémon TCG Online www.pokemon.com/TCGO ******

 

I have played with rough seas, super potions, and various other setups. As it stands, Pikachu and Raichu are to weak to not be 0HKO most of the time anyways, so the single Pokémon Center Lady is all I feel is necessary for healing anymore.

 

The Flash energys are to attempt to counter fighting decks. Doesn't work to well given that they are discarded with almost every attack. They have come in useful on the Raichu's though a few times, and even Pikachu once I believe.

 

The Giovanni's scheme is there to turn a 4 energy 200 attack from Pikachu into a 220 on some megas, or 240 with a muscle band. Also, you'll notice I don't have nearly enough draw in this deck. So it can be used for that as well.

 

I think everything else is pretty self explanatory. I am open to any suggestions on improving this deck. The only thing I am not open to changing in the deck is the Pokémon in it. This deck is supposed to be all about Pikachu. If any of you have any good ideas, please let me know! It's not good for tournaments, but I do win a fair amount of VS battles with it.

[fr33land]

Seems like if you can resist the temptation to bench a Pikachu-EX until you've got Magnezone and you have a reliable way to switch it in, you can drop a bomb on the enemy.

what about

3-2-3 Magnezone

3 Raikou

1 Pikachu EX

1-1 Octillery?

Would have been nicer if it wasn't an EX, only 'Ash's Pikachu' or something.

[Chroniton]

All that's needed for PikachuEX  and Magnezone to function is consistency, there's a lot of things that would be nice to run but in this kind of deck you need to keep it simple. I've been running recently and it works very well, Raikou is only a 1 off tech to deal with Regice, PikachuEX is the focus as the idea is to ohko, Raikou needs too much energy to do this. There's still a lot of personal choices to be made with the deck but as long as you keep the overall core of the deck simple and consistent it works extremely well.