The King of The Sky is Back!

Hello Pokemon lovers! Right on time for the holidays, we have a very special article written about one of my favorite Pokemon! But before we get into that, I wanted to take a moment to talk about PTCG Live! PTCG Live is the newest successor to PTCGO, and at the time of writing this article, it still hasn’t launched. It was supposed to launch a couple of weeks ago, however, due to bug fixes and the engineering team at TPCi, I’d like to think they’re taking extra time to add some extra magic to the software. I can’t wait to see what it’s going to look like and how it is going to go toe-to-toe with other similar competing software (i.e. Hearthstone). In the meantime, PTCGO is still alive and running, but I just wanted to let people know that PTCG Live will also utilize codes, and those codes can be bought here on the PTCGO store! Since we’re now in December, I wanted to take this opportunity to write about some of the more fun decks in an effort to bring some joy to all the readers. Rayquaza VMAX is the deck we’re going to chat about today - I chose this deck because I don’t think it’s necessarily Tier 1, however it still can beat many decks that are at the top, and it’s one of the most fun decks to pilot in the format. Let’s jump into one of the coolest decks that have been starting to see a play, Rayquaza 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 Rayquaza VMAX!

The main strategy with this deck is mostly based around our setup - we want to get as many Flaaffy into play as possible, and start attaching extra energy to our Rayquaza VMAX ASAP! If we can get enough energy onto a Rayquaza quick enough, then we can begin to blow our opponent’s VMAX Pokemon out of the water in one hit!

4 Rayquaza V EVS 110

4 Rayquaza VMAX EVS 111

4 Mareep CRE 47

4 Flaaffy EVS 55

1 Crobat V SHF 44

1 Boltund V RCL 67

4 Rose DAA 168

3 Peony CRE 150

2 Boss's Orders SHF 58

1 Professor's Research CEL 23

4 Quick Ball FST 237

4 Evolution Incense SSH 163

3 Escape Rope BST 125

1 Energy Search SSH 161

1 Pal Pad SSH 172

1 Ordinary Rod SSH 171

3 Air Balloon SSH 156

3 Stormy Mountains EVS 161

1 Training Court RCL 169

8 Lightning Energy 4

3 Fire Energy 2

4 Rayquaza VMAX - This is one of the nicest looking VMAX Pokemon to ever be printed (check out the alternate art when you get a chance) and the all-star poster boy for the Evolving Skies expansion. Rayquaza comes in at 320 HP, which is a really good number for a Pokemon VMAX. Dragon-typing means that it won’t be hitting for weakness, however it also has no weakness, which is a valuable trait in this current meta game. Rayquaza VMAX is a Rapid Strike Pokemon, meaning it can abuse the Rapid Strike tools, however we don’t play any in this deck; important to note is that if the opponent has a card that can potentially benefit both players, like Tower of Waters, Rayquaza VMAX will have free retreat. Rayquaza’s ability,Azure Pulse, will allow you to aggressively draw more cards than most other pokemon online decks, which can allow you to dig for powerful Supporter cards like Rose or Peony. This ability is perfect for setting up your board, but that’s not even the best part of this card. Max Burst is the name of the game here, with a basically unlimited damage cap to burn down any towering VMAX Pokemon in its path. With Flaaffy, Boltund, and Rose by your side, you’ll get a ton of energy into play within the first few turns of the game. Important to note is that with Max Burst you can only choose to discard Fire or Lightning Energy Cards, but not both in combination. You also don’t have to discard all of them - you can choose to only discard two Fire Energy if you have three attached, for example. This celebrity of a Pokemon will max an excellent main attacker for our deck.

4 Rayquaza V - Rayquaza V is able to use an attack similar to its VMAX counterpart, however it does have a damage cap of 180 damage. This is perfect for knocking out lower-HP Pokemon V, such as Crobat V. 210 HP is pretty solid, and being a Rapid Strike Pokemon is a nice bonus.

1 Boltund V - This Pokémon might be one of the best Pokémon V to ever be a pre-evolution of a VMAX. This is our ideal starter because it can accelerate energy onto our board using Electrify. You can really offput the Prize Trade by using two VMAXs and a V in order to force your opponent to take eight Prize Cards total! That’s the goal, anyway. 200HP on a Pokémon V isn’t too shabby, and Fighting weakness is going to be decent going into this new Fusion Strike meta - I suspect with the rise of Mew VMAX that Fighting-types will see less play by the minute. Two retreat cost isn’t the best, but the rest of this card is immaculate! Chef’s kiss.

4-4 Flaaffy - Flaaffy is thebackbone of this entire deck as it keeps the stream of Lightning Energy going throughout the duration of the game. Flaaffy is very reminiscent of Eelectrik from NVI; Eels was a very common term around that point of the game! The successor, Flaaffy, has seen much less play until know where we’ll see it find a home in Rayquaza VMAX decks. Each additional Lightning Energy in play is an extra 80 damage, so you can imagine how much damage will pile up throughout the lifespan of each Flaaffy. Flaaffy has a decent attack that can help finish off Pokémon as well.

4 Rose - Rose is a very unique Supportercard that is going to aid us in getting some massive KOs with Rayquaza. Being able to throw an additional two energy onto one of our VMAX is something we just can’t overlook, and it has perfect synergy with our deck: since we’re already going to discard our hand with Rayquaza VMAX’s ability, why not discard it with this Supporter instead and then refill our hand? That’s the beauty of this card, and hence why we play four copies!

3 Peony - Similar to the caveat that Rose has, Peony also requires you to discard your hand (but for a very powerful effect). You can search your deck for any two Trainer cards, meaning you can choose the perfect combination of cards to counteract whatever the opponent has done on their previous turns. This can be really good for searching out cards that are difficult to find, such as cards we only play one copy of. Then, refill your hand back again with Rayquaza!

3 Escape Rope - This is an interesting inclusion here, however one that I really like. Being able to checkmate your opponent effectively with this card by forcing them to pivot a Pokemon from their bench to the active makes Escape Rope a surprise your opponent won’t forget. A lot of our Pokemon have a decently high retreat cost, so we want to be sure we can move them at various points of the game if we don’t have access to Air Balloon.

1 Pal Pad - This card is honestly just played to recover Rose and Boss’ Orders back into our deck. Since we discard cards all the time with this deck, playing recovery cards can be useful.

1 Energy Search - We play an Item-based form of “energy” so that we can search for it off of Peony. This is basically a fourth Fire Energy and also a ninth Lightning Energy.

1 Ordinary Rod - Played for a similar purpose to Pal Pad, sometimes we need to get back key Pokemon or Energy Cards since we’re awfully aggressive with discarding our hand from time to time.

3 Stormy Mountains - This Stadium card reminds me of Brooklet Hill, a Stadium card within the expanded format. It has the unique capability of searching out Lightning-type Pokémon or Dragon-type Pokémon. In our deck, we only have the capability of searching out Lightning-type Pokémon, but that’s perfectly fine! Grabbing a Boltund V or a Mareep is highly advantageous for us in the early turns. Considering that for each Flaaffy we get into play is an extra ability per turn, we applaud the usage of this Stadium. When there are no more basics to grab, this card can be useful to shuffle the cards on the bottom of your deck after a Marnie as well.

1 Training Court - Sometimes with this deck we’ll end up with a lot of Fire Energy and Rose in the discard pile. It can be nice at times to get additional energy form the discard pile, and this Stadium card does a great job at that. If this card sticks in play, it can sometimes end up being an infinite version of Energy Retrieval! It’s also a neutral Stadium in general and shouldn’t be underestimated within this list: sometimes when you need energy, you just need to dig for a Training Court!

3 Air Balloon - These are vital to our strategy for a few important reasons. Firstly, we want to make sure that we can get our attacker into the active slot as soon as possible. We can only attach energy to benched Pokémon using Flaaffy, so having an Air Balloon to retreat our active Pokemon with is key. Lastly, we want to rotate between our Rayquaza VMAXs in order to get energy in the right places on the board, so Air Balloons are a must in this situation as well!

This deck is one of the most fun and explosive decks to play in standard format because it has so many abilities to use each turn, and the ability to OHKO VMAXs. That being said, if you like Pokemon online decks that can just pop-off and blow up your opponent’s active Pokemon, then this is the deck for you! This deck doesn’t require too many PTCGO codes because it only needs a few cards from the new expansion, so it’s perfect for beginners and veterans alike. I’d suggest nabbing some PTCGL codes and building this deck online, because this deck will only get stronger. Until next time, have fun!

 

If you’re looking for codes for Pokemon TCG online play, feel free to pick some up in our shop. We offer Pokemon codes at a very competitive price, and ensure instant delivery of your PTCGO codes directly to your email. Thank you for reading this article today on PTCGO store! Have a great day.