Reshiram/Typhlosion Deck Analysis w/Matchups

Yo guys, LucarioAdventure1 here. For those mass amounts of people who don’t know who I am my name is Oliver Barnett (Oli for short) and I started playing the Pokémon Trading Card Game back in March earlier this year. I decided to play the TCG a week after I quit the game Yu-Gi-Oh for many reasons, (mostly to do with the metagame and community) and I placed pretty well in the two events I went to. States and Nationals: 5^th place States and 13^th place Nationals, which to me was pretty good. But I digress you aren’t here to hear my Pokémon TCG life; you are here to see an article.

So I’m going to put the subject of today’s article as Reshiram/Typhlosion. As anyone who knows me would know I have tested very long with the deck, trying to perfect it to the best of my ability. I will show you two different takes on the deck. The version with Ninetales and the version without it.

So here is my first decklist with Ninetales included.

Reshiram/Typhlosion w/Ninetales

Pokemon – 15	T/S/S – 30	Energy – 15
3 Reshiram BW 3-1-3 Typhlosion Prime 2-2 Ninetales HS/CL 1 Cleffa	4 Professor Oak’s New Theory 4 Professor Juniper 4 Pokemon Collector 4 Pokemon Communication 4 Junk Arm 3 PlusPower 3 Pokemon Catcher 2 Rare Candy 1 Revive 1 Engineer’s Adjustments	2 Rescue Energy 13 Fire Energy

This list is mostly based upon consistency running 13 Fire Energy for ‘Roast Reveal’ and using Revive and Rescue Energy to recover Reshirams when they get Knocked Out. I’m also using a heavy Supporter line to draw through the deck if you can’t get Ninetales out by the Mid Game.

The pros of running Ninetales are:

1. It adds a little bit of consistency to the deck giving you constant draw every turn.
2. It’s the easiest way to go about playing the deck, as you need little skill to play this version.
3. It’s the second most linear deck (in my opinion) in the game right now, first being Zekrom/Pachirisu/Shaymin/Tornadus.

But running Ninetales has some cons as well being:

1. You can have your moves be predicted by your opponent as running Ninetales is the most common way of playing this deck.
2. Ninetales is a very easy Pokémon Catcher target only having 90HP, as usually your opponent will target Ninetales unless they use Magnezone, in which case Typhlosion will be the target.
3. It also requires a really large set up for the deck to get going as it needs; 1 Reshiram, 1 Ninetales, 2 Typhlosion Prime that’s pretty difficult if I’m honest.

Overall, my thoughts on playing Ninetales are that you should play it if you are a new player or new to the deck in general, but be aware that Pokémon Catcher hurts your setup a lot of the time.

Now I am going to go into my favourite way of playing this deck, without Ninetales and running draw based Supporters to thin through your deck. This idea was used by our Senior Division World Champion Christopher Kan, and when I first played this version I fell in love (not literally) with the deck because it worked so well and it got me Top 4 in my first Battle Road of the season.

So here it is:

Reshiram/Typhlosion

Pokemon – 14	T/S/S – 34	Energy – 12
3 Reshiram BW 4-2-4 Typhlosion Prime 1 Cleffa	4 Pokemon Collector 4 Professor Juniper 3 Pokemon Communication 3 Junk Arm 3 PlusPower 3 Pokemon Catcher 3 Professor Oak’s New Theory 3 Rare Candy 4 Sage’s Training 2 PokeGear 3.0 1 Switch 1 Revive	2 Rescue Energy 10 Fire Energy

The deck is based more aggressively than the first list I put up and this is because this version runs; maxed Junipers, Sage’s, 3 Oaks and 2 PokeGear for a heavy amount of draw. (I usually get to around 5 or less cards in my deck by the end of the game with enough draw cards) It also runs only 8 Basic Pokémon being: 3 Reshiram, 4 Cyndaquil and 1 Cleffa so it has a maximum amount of space for draw in the deck.

The Pros of running the deck without Ninetales are:

1. It’s more aggressive, usually keeping up with the speed of Zekrom/Pachirisu/Shaymin/Tornadus going for around half the Basics of the deck on turn 1 or 2.
2. It requires less set up than the deck without Ninetales, only needing 1 Reshiram and 2 Typhlosion Prime because of the mass amount of draw cards in the deck, allowing for much smoother games vs. Pokémon Catcher.
3. It has a much better response to an early game Judge from a Yanmega player, as the version with Ninetales is severely crippled for a while as a result of one Judge without any form of set up, without losing too many resources in the process.
4. For me, games run more smoothly and as I’ve said above, running 15 Supporter cards and 2 Pokegear 3.0 allows me to draw through the deck as easily as the version with Ninetales if not faster.
5. Finally for me, the Supporter version works a little better under Trainer lock as you don’t run so many Trainers in this build as you rely on Supporters for draw.

To me there are very few cons that I haven’t already explained:

1. The set up is still not exactly easy, needing 2 Stage Two Pokémon, which is not easy by any means.
2. It’s not an easy deck to get all the right decisions correct if it’s your first time playing with this deck.

To finish this article off I will explain how I think the matchups for Reshiram/Typhlosion go against the rest of the top decks.

Zekrom/Pachirisu/Shaymin/Tornadus: I believe this matchup is 60/40 in your favour and this is because Reshiram can ‘Outrage’ to return KO’s on Zekroms using ‘Bolt Strike’ or ‘Blue Flare’ + PlusPower to one hit KO a Zekrom or plain Blue Flare to one shot Tornadus.

Magnezone/Emboar: I believe this matchup is 65/35 in your favour for as long as you set up faster than your opponent. Then you can constantly one or two shot opposing Magnezones and Reshirams which can’t overpower you.

Gothitelle/Reuniclus: I believe this matchup is 30/70 in your opponent’s favour as once they put up Gothitelle and Reuniclus, you no longer have any ways of one shotting Gothitelles for the entire game due to Gothitelle Trainer-locking your Plus Power.

Stage 1s: I believe this matchup is either 60/40 or 40/60 depending on which Stage 1 Pokémon they use. Donphan Prime, Lanturn Prime and Zoroark all give you problems due to either their bulk or they can one shot you. If you get rid of basics early with Pokémon Catcher you should be fine.

Yanmega/Magnezone: This matchup I believe is 50/50 as both players usually set up at the same speed as each other, although the Magnezone player will have a pretty big advantage with Magnetic Draw. However, Magnezone will be their main attacker vs. you so if you can constantly Blue Flare with quite a few Plus Powers on hand you should be fine.

The Mirror Match: This matchup is 50/50 due to the fact that both players set up at the same speed. It usually becomes like Chess whoever has the better mindset will usually do better than the other. It also depends on which variants you and your opponent are playing.

I hope you like this article comment down below what you would like to see next.

Thanks from Oli.