Ice Rider Calyrex Makes a Comeback!

What is going on Pokémon Trainers? In 2022 we can look forward to better things: the pandemic improving, Pokémon tournaments returning back to normal, and of course new Pokémon expansions! That of course means you’re going to need to buy some PTCGO codes (or potentially PTCG Live codes) whenever those expansions get released. Just know that our website has you covered with some of the best deals! In an effort to fit today’s theme of winter festivities, I’ve opted to write about one of the coldest VMAX Pokémon online decks in the format, Ice Rider Calyrex! This deck has posted up some impressive results that I think are worth chatting about, and the lists I’ve seen have improved significantly since this card was first released. That being said, let’s prance our way over to this strategy, and talk about Ice Rider Calyrex VMAX!

I booted up my Pokemon Trading Card Game Online app, loaded up some PTCGO codes, and then traded those Pokemon online codes to trade for this deck. I was very excited, and it honestly didn’t take that many PTCGO codes to make the deck. If you’re looking to buy some codes, we sell them here on PTCGO Store, and I highly urge you to check out our competitive pricing and swift delivery! Let’s talk about the newest way to play Ice Rider Calyrex VMAX!

This deck is mostly a beatdown-style deck - it has so much versatility to it though that makes it one of the best neutral choices right now. You’re probably curious what I mean by “neutral”, but look at it this way - this format is dominated by Pokémon that hit for certain weaknesses. Mew VMAX? Countered by Moltres V, Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX? Everything kind of gets countered so an important strat on its own is to pick a Pokémon that has a weakness to a deck that isn’t popular. Our deck doesn’t really hit any popular deck for weakness, however, our weakness is to Metal-type, however, the primary Metal deck is Zacian V/ Zamazenta V, which we can actually beat! Since our bases are covered, we can hit hard against Pokémon and not get hit back for weakness; this means we can pull ahead of our opponents in grindy matchups. A lot of our matchups are close, but we’ll never lose a game immediately based on matchup. Let’s get into the deck list!

4 Ice Rider Calyrex V CRE 45

3 Ice Rider Calyrex VMAX CRE 46

4 Sobble CRE 41

4 Drizzile SSH 56

2 Inteleon CRE 43

1 Inteleon SSH 58

1 Suicune V EVS 31

4 Melony CRE 146

2 Marnie CPA 56

1 Boss's Orders SHF 58

2 Professor's Research CEL 23

4 Evolution Incense SSH 163

4 Cross Switcher FST 230

4 Quick Ball FST 237

4 Level Ball BST 129

3 Capacious Bucket RCL 156

2 Scoop Up Net RCL 165

1 Fan of Waves BST 127

1 Air Balloon SSH 156

2 Path to the Peak CRE 148

7 Water Energy 3

3 Ice Rider Calyrex VMAX - Coming in at 320HP (much like its Psychic counterpart), this Pokemon is weak to Metal-types (which means it will naturally struggle against Zacian V decks). That being said, it will do extremely well against everything else! It can really abuse Path to the Peak because this deck doesn’t rely on too much to hit high numbers on the second turn; it doesn’t need Crobat V in order to hit the resources required to attack at all. The most important stuff you'll need is two energy (which we can get off of a single Capacious Bucket), the Calyrex V, and lastly, the VMAX. Max Lance for two energy threatens a 250 damage slug on any Pokemon and threatens many Pokemon V. Ride of the High King (for two energy also) does a great job of providing an efficient way to OHKO a Crobat V (provided the opponent has a full bench + one Quick Shooting), or to potentially soften up a VMAX for a Max Lance KO. This Pokemon is a powerhouse! Two retreats are a little hefty, but we can use Air Balloon to lick that up. The biggest thing this Pokemon can abuse is Melony, which we’ll talk about later. Melony can help this deck stream attacks back-to-back and pump up the consistency of Water-types. This deck does a great job of OHKOing V Pokemon and 2HKOing VMAXs. I don’t have much else to say about the card because it is pretty simple, but the rest of the deck is what elevates such an easy concept to life.

4 Ice Rider Calyrex V – Something you’ll learn quickly when playing this deck is that there are no bad starting Pokemon, but we’ll get into that later. We play four of the V because it is a must-have on the first turn of the game! We need to attach energy onto something, and ideally that something is an Ice Rider Calyrex V. 210HP is pretty decent for a Pokemon V, but I really just want to talk about how efficient Pierce is. 40 damage for single energy isn’t a common attack, and it’s great for softening things up! 40 + 250 from Max Lance + Quick Shootings spells doom for many Three Prizers, so be sure to use this attack accordingly!

1 Suicune V - This is one of the most powerful Pokémon V ever printed! Starting off with 210HP, this Pokémon’s Water-typing isn’t overly powerful right now besides being able to hit cards such as Victini VMAX for weakness. Suicune does have access to strong Water support cards such as Capacious Bucket and Melony, which is great in terms of having assets within your applicable card pool. This Pokémon has Lightning-type weakness which gives it a difficult time against Pokémon like Jolteon VMAX, however, if you can overlook that weakness there’s a lot to love about this card, especially since it has a different weakness than Ice Rider. The ability, Fleet Footed, lets you draw a card if this Pokémon is active. The extra push is great for improving your options and boosting the odds of drawing certain cards. Lastly, Blizzard Rondo is an amazing attack that can forcefully limit your opponent’s bench while doing tons of damage. It also only requires two energy meaning you can power it up in one turn with Melony! It’s a good card to switch up the Prize Trade against your opponent and hit for big damage out of nowhere.

4 Melony - Water Energy acceleration for our main attacker! This Supporter allows us to stream back-to-back Max Lances. That being said, it does mean we can’t play Boss’ Orders, however, our deck does a ton of damage so we make up for it. We do play Item-based gust effects in our deck though, so the “No Boss” caveat doesn’t apply like it once does in previous lists.

4 Cross Switcher - This is arguably my favorite part about this deck, and quite frankly I’m very surprised that more Ice Rider VMAX lists aren’t adopting this card! Cross Switcher is a gusting effect that allows you to bring up one of your opponent’s benched Pokemon but there’s a catch: you need to play two copies!Drizzile and Inteleon make it very easy to search out both copies, meaning we can pull this card off quite easily. Our deck doesn’t discard many cards since we rely on Melony (and not Professor’s Research) so we can reserve these four copies for key moments. The existence of this card allows us to play a Melony on an Ice Rider and gust something simultaneously in the same turn, which is a huge win for our deck! It also acts as a switching card for rare situations, so remember that.

1 Air Balloon - A great pivot option to search off of Drizzile, especially as a retreat option after a Cross Switcher.

1 Fan of Waves - There are so many Special Energy running around in our format right now: Capture Energy, Fusion Strike Energy, Speed Lightning Energy, and the list goes on. This card can punish our opponent for including those in their deck, and potentially buy us a turn when we might need it most. Fan of Waves alongside Path to the Peak can be a very crippling combo, sometimes putting our opponent into awkward spots. I’ve won countless games from this card, mainly because it can be searchable at any moment with Drizzile. This versatility means we can find the best timing to play this card, and maximize our efficiency with it!

2 Path to the Peak - I’ve included a couple of copies of Path to the Peak in this deck in an effort to get around annoying abilities like Dark Signal on Umbreon VMAX or perhaps to shutoff the occasional Crobat V. We don’t have any Rule Box abilities in our deck beside a single copy of Suicune V. This card can shutoff MewVMAX in its tracks because they rely so much on Genesect V’s ability. Many Mew lists are cutting Stadium cards altogether, meaning sometimes your first Path to the Peak might stick for the whole game!

3 Capacious Bucket - This Item is very key in order for us to setup because it lets us search out multiple copies of Water Energy. This means we can toss one of the two energy into the discard pile for Melony, and attach the other one as our energy for the turn. Capacious Bucket can also be searched out by Drizzile similar to how people play Energy Search in their Inteleon engines. For all these reasons, Capacious Bucket is better than playing three more Water Energy.

7 Water Energy - This may seem very low, but since we can search them out aggressively with Capacious Bucket and recycle these energies with Melony, we don’t need a lot to get this deck going!

This deck is one of the best answers to Mew VMAX right now in the metagame, and it really stands a chance most things provided there isn’t a ton of Metal-type pokemon online decks like Zacian V / Zamazenta V around. If you like flexibility each turn and the ability to lock your opponent out of games with Path to the Peak then I highly urge you to try out this deck. This deck requires a decent bit of new stuff from the newest expansion Fusion Strike, so you should check out our shop for your PTCGO codes needs. I’d suggest nabbing some PTCGL codes and building this deck online because this deck seems like it will stick around for a while. Until next time, have fun!

 

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