Darkened Grass, A look into Leafeon | PTCGO Store Blog

Hey PTCGO Store readers, this is Gabriel Smart! I hope everyone is having a good holiday season, and I am excited to be getting back to writing for you, peeps! With the release of Fusion Strike, it seems that Single Strike and Mew VMAX are winning every event. It has become imperative that we figure out how to beat these pokemon online decks with this happening. Below, I have constructed a deck that can do just that. If you are looking for any PTCGO codes for this deck or any other decks, PTCGO Store is the best place for you. They have probably the largest selection of the PTCGO codes and an instant e-mail delivery system of your PTCGL codes! Let's take a look at everything you need to know about Leafeon Moltres!

Leafeon has been a deck since originally released in Evolving Skies, which was a deck that has hovered around the tier two range. It has always been solid and consistent but has struggled to one of the big decks in the format, which has always kept it down for genuinely shining. I realized that the deck was too linear to be consistently successful, so this is where Moltres V comes in. Moltres adds other layers to the deck and makes some of its matchups like Mew VMAX, Shadow Rider, and Dragapult, all significantly stronger! Mew and Shadow Rider were two of this deck's most challenging matchups, contributing to the deck's struggles, and Moltres V handles those decks nicely! Here is the list I have constructed so far.

1 Crobat V SHF 44

2 Galarian Moltres V CRE 177

3 Leafeon V EVS 7

3 Leafeon VMAX EVS 8

4 Sobble CRE 41

4 Drizzile SHF 99

1 Inteleon SHF 100

2 Inteleon CRE 43

4 Level Ball BST 181

2 Boss's Orders RCL 154

3 Evolution Incense SSH 163

2 Switch SUM 160

2 Tool Jammer BST 136

1 Energy Search SSH 161

3 Galar Mine RCL 160

1 Energy Switch SSH 162

2 Marnie CPA 56

4 Quick Ball SSH 216

3 Professor's Research SSH 209

1 Scoop Up Net RCL 165

1 Raihan EVS 202

3 Capture Energy DAA 201

4 Grass Energy Energy 1

4 Darkness Energy Energy 7

A lot of the time, the basic form of a VMAX is completely out shadowed by the VMAX evolution. However, this is not the case with Leafeon V, as it shines almost just as brightly in this archetype. Leafeons Greening Cells allow us to attach grass energy to any of our Pokemon! This allows us to power up Leafeon or Moltres! Due to Moltres V (Chilling Reign) one colorless cost in “Aura Burn”, it is excellent to use greening cells to get Moltres one energy closer to attacking versus dark weak decks. As of right now, I have only three Leafeon V (Evolving Skies) in the deck. The reason behind this is, Moltres V (Chilling Reign) will be our main attacker against the most popular deck in the format being Mew VMAX (Fusion Strike), so Leafeon will often be a secondary attacker in many games.

Although the V of Leafeon is great, Leafeon VMAX (Evolving Skies) is just a little more robust! Leafeon clocks in at a respectable 310 HP, making it one of the most formidable Pokemon to knock out, and its fire weakness is a great weakness to have, as fire is not a very prominent type at this time. Leafeon VMAX’s first attack, Grass Knot, is what we will be utilizing the majority of the time. Grass Knot is a fantastic and efficient attack for 2 energy. Although powerful, its damage output is determined solely on the opponent's active Pokemon's retreat cost. Although Grass Knot has a flaw in that it solely relies on our opponent's retreat cost, we have some great trainer cards that will help fix that issue by increasing our Pokemons retreat! Leafeons second attack Max Leaf deals a respectable 170 damage and heals 30. This attack is excellent at two-shotting opponents Pokemon and handles decks like Dragapult and Jolteon, which don't deal a lot of damage very well!

These past 3 formats have seen psychic decks dominate the format. When Shadow Rider came out, it became the undisputed best deck in the format. Before Fusion Strike came out, Dragapult VMAXtook over the meta, and now we have the best psychic type printed in years: Mew VMAX! With that being said, Moltres V has always been around to serve as a counter to these dark weak Pokemon! Its attack, Aura Burn, deals a powerful 190 damage, and paired up with weakness, it can knock out any dark weak Pokemon in the game! Its ability, though, is what really makes it playable. Direflame Wings allows us to attach one dark energy per turn from our discard to our Moltres V! Paired up with Raihan (Evolving Skies), attachment for a turn, and Direflare Wings, you can power up a Moltres V out of nowhere!

The Inteleon seems to be played in almost every single deck in the format, that is, not Single Strike Urshifu VMAX and Mew VMAX. The Inteleon engine provides stability, consistency, and the extra damage that our deck desperately needs. Drizzle (Sword and Shield) allows us to search for 1 trainer card, Inteleon (Sword and Shield) allows us to search for two, and Inteleon (Chilling Reign) deals 20 damage a turn. These 3 cards will let our deck get crucial knockouts, on top of keeping the flow of the deck. Inteleon (Chilling Reign) also serves as a viable attacker against Victini VMAX. Fire typically does not see a play, but when it does, Victini is the main attacker. Victini VMAX’s “MaxVictory” does not one-shot an Inteleon (Chilling Reign), which allows them to get 2 attacks before they take one prize card. For all of these reasons stated above, the Inteleon engine is truly a marvelous addition to the deck!

As stated above, Leafeon VMAX’s attack Grass Knots damage output is reliant solely on opponents' retreat cost. Although being a very powerful attack, it does struggle against opponents that try and play around it. Air Balloon is a great counter to Grass Knot, as it reduces the retreat cost on the opponent's active Pokemon. With Air Balloon being so prevalent in the game, it is important to have a counter to it. On top of this, Tool Jammer is just a great card at shutting off tools like Elemental Badge, Scroll of Scorn, and more!

When released, Galar Mine (Rebel Clash) was sort of a lost card. Galar Mine did not really have a home in pokemon online decks, except for a couple of niche control archetypes, but it seems that it has finally found a spot in Leafeon! Galar Mine increases both active Pokemon's retreat costs by two! Our deck's entire goal is to focus on increasing our opponent's retreat cost as much as possible, and Galar Mine is going to be the main tool that we use to do this! Make sure to be careful though, and this stadium does increase your retreat cost as well, so it is critical to make sure that you have a way around the stadium if they try and use it against you! Typically Leafeon decks play four Galar Mine, but since our deck is more of a hybrid version of Leafeon, three has seen substantial.

Moving on, we have Raihan (Evolving Skies). As all of our attackers need multiple energy to attack, Raihan serves as a great card to accelerate our Pokemon! On top of this, this card pairs especially well with Moltres V. The threat of being able to Direflare Wings, attach for turn, and then Raihan, allows us to always threaten an attack no matter what! On top of this, Raihan pairs amazingly with the Inteleon engine as we can always search for it when needed. Currently, I have one on the list, but I am not opposed to two due to it being such an incredibly powerful card in this deck

These are my thoughts on Leafeon VMAX Moltres V! This deck has so many more options than typical Leafeon decks, and it has the tools to beat the 2 most popular pokemon online decks in the format! As the meta evolves, it will be critical to counter MewVMAX, and Single Strike Urshifu VMAX and this deck does just that! Thank you for reading my most recent article on PTCGO Store! If you are looking for any PTCGO codes for this deck, then PTCGO Store is the place to be for all your Pokemon Trading Card Game Online needs! I hope to speak with you again soon!

Gabriel Smart is a contributing article writer for PTCGO Store. Gabriel currently resides in the Sacramento, California area and has been playing the game casually since 2010 and competitively since 2018. He streams on Twitch under the name GabrielSmartTCG, creates competitive Pokemon content on Youtube under the name SmartTCG, and posts about his tournaments results and life on Twitter @SmartTCG. Outside the game, he is a huge baseball and basketball fan and loves everything to do with athletics