Darkrai EX

[PidgeyCornerFTW]

Darkrai EX is an amazing deck on its own. I'm not kidding, I tested a deck with only 8 Pokemon - 4 Darkrai, 3 Smeargle and 1 Absol Prime. With Smeargle/Juniper burning your deck away quickly, you almost always can get an insane t1/t2 Night Spear for 110-120 damage and a 30 snipe. The deck outsped, and won against, Zekrom/Eelektrik 6 out of 6 games I played. I also went 5-1 against a CMT/Terrakion deck, outspeeding it nearly every game while getting "bonus" prizes sniping Celebi on the bench.

Darkrai EX is an all-round amazing card. People just haven't tested enough.

 

[ajhawk]

Zoroark/Weavile is not a great deck. It is a very good deck, but it is too fragile. Yes, in that deck Darkrai EX is a support Pokemon. Tornadus EX wrecks Zoroark a little bit too much, and it can prove to be difficult to keep your entire bench full.

Darkrai EX by itself or with Tornadus EX is a great deck. It is easily one of the three best deck out there right now.

@Pidgey: Those are some interesting results. Darkrai EX is very good, but a properly built Zeels will not get blanked 6 games in a row. Also, CMT/Terrakion is a bad idea, and I think people will eventually realize this. CMT with a heavy (2) count of Tornadus EX is the way to go to bring up the Darkrai match-up. It is fast (if not faster than Darkrai) and it trades extremely well. In addition to Tornadus EX, M2EX is not a dead attacker, it only needs 3 energy on it to score a 2HKO against a powered up Darkrai EX, and that is not that difficult. Finally, eventually CMT players will figure out how to stop giving up the "bonus" prizes. If you are taking a "bonus" prize every other Night Spear attack, I wouldn't put a ton of stock in those play-testing results. Players will learn to 1) stop benching Celebis, 2) put an Eviolite on Celebi, or 3) play Potion/Max Potion. All three of those options eliminate the "bonus prize" pretty effectively.

 

[Slev]

Darkrai EX is an amazing deck on its own. I'm not kidding, I tested a deck with only 8 Pokemon - 4 Darkrai, 3 Smeargle and 1 Absol Prime. With Smeargle/Juniper burning your deck away quickly, you almost always can get an insane t1/t2 Night Spear for 110-120 damage and a 30 snipe. The deck outsped, and won against, Zekrom/Eelektrik 6 out of 6 games I played. I also went 5-1 against a CMT/Terrakion deck, outspeeding it nearly every game while getting "bonus" prizes sniping Celebi on the bench.

Darkrai EX is an all-round amazing card. People just haven't tested enough.

I have playtested with and against this deck. It is good, but whoever was playing/building that zekeels deck is doing it wrong. Zekeels still has a 50/50 against that deck if built correctly.

Regardless I think we will see some high finishes for the dargle? smearai? decks in battle roads.(I would hope so considering how people are going to have to drop $240 at least to get 4 darkrai).

 

[Otaku]

Zoroark/Weavile is not a great deck. It is a very good deck, but it is too fragile. Yes, in that deck Darkrai EX is a support Pokemon. Tornadus EX wrecks Zoroark a little bit too much, and it can prove to be difficult to keep your entire bench full.

Darkrai EX by itself or with Tornadus EX is a great deck. It is easily one of the three best deck out there right now.

@Pidgey: M2EX is not a dead attacker, it only needs 3 energy on it to score a 2HKO against a powered up Darkrai EX, and that is not that difficult.

To be fair, Darkrai EX only needs three Energy to score a 2HKO on Mewtwo EX while dropping 30 damage twice on the opponent's Bench. I realize Eviolite will be a factor but... Darkrai EX can use Eviolite or Dark Claw, provided the deck can make room for both.

With Dark Claw, an Eviolite on the Defending Pokemon is effectively neutralized, and anything without Eviolite goes down that much quicker... which mostly matters since Night Spear has that Bench hit bonus. With an Eviolite, Darkrai EX may not be able to 2HKO stuff... but in the right match-up (like against Mewtwo EX, Tornadus EX, and Raikou EX) Darkrai EX now holds on for three turns as well. Plus the third hit, instead of over killing the Active Pokemon EX, they can burn a Pokemon Catcher, force up something else and use the Bench damage from Night Spear to seal the deal.

Now... I've got zero deck testing in still. If you're already factoring that in, fine. If you just pointing out the situation is far from hopeless in the Darkrai EX versus CMT department, okay just wanted to be certain. :lol:

 

[PidgeyCornerFTW]

Zoroark/Weavile is not a great deck. It is a very good deck, but it is too fragile. Yes, in that deck Darkrai EX is a support Pokemon. Tornadus EX wrecks Zoroark a little bit too much, and it can prove to be difficult to keep your entire bench full.

Darkrai EX by itself or with Tornadus EX is a great deck. It is easily one of the three best deck out there right now.

@Pidgey: Those are some interesting results. Darkrai EX is very good, but a properly built Zeels will not get blanked 6 games in a row. Also, CMT/Terrakion is a bad idea, and I think people will eventually realize this. CMT with a heavy (2) count of Tornadus EX is the way to go to bring up the Darkrai match-up. It is fast (if not faster than Darkrai) and it trades extremely well. In addition to Tornadus EX, M2EX is not a dead attacker, it only needs 3 energy on it to score a 2HKO against a powered up Darkrai EX, and that is not that difficult. Finally, eventually CMT players will figure out how to stop giving up the "bonus" prizes. If you are taking a "bonus" prize every other Night Spear attack, I wouldn't put a ton of stock in those play-testing results. Players will learn to 1) stop benching Celebis, 2) put an Eviolite on Celebi, or 3) play Potion/Max Potion. All three of those options eliminate the "bonus prize" pretty effectively.

Thanks for your insight. :thumb:

The thing that I believe people overlook most about Darkrai EX is its speed. You are almost guaranteed a Night Spear by turn 3 latest, as compared to Zekeel which has a slower set-up speed because they run Stage 1's. It is really not difficult to lay down 30 damage on Tynamos early on then proceed to take out eel after eel until they cannot recover. Besides, nothing in their deck can one-shot Darkrai EX other than Terrakion, which will likely get revenge Night-speared anyway.

As for the CMT matchup, you've brought up some interesting ideas which I like (eviolite on Celebi, Potion etc), and I'll test them out in my CMT deck. I'm looking forward to see how testing turns out.
Posted with Mobile style...

 

[ajhawk]

To be fair, Darkrai EX only needs three Energy to score a 2HKO on Mewtwo EX while dropping 30 damage twice on the opponent's Bench. I realize Eviolite will be a factor but... Darkrai EX can use Eviolite or Dark Claw, provided the deck can make room for both.

With Dark Claw, an Eviolite on the Defending Pokemon is effectively neutralized, and anything without Eviolite goes down that much quicker... which mostly matters since Night Spear has that Bench hit bonus. With an Eviolite, Darkrai EX may not be able to 2HKO stuff... but in the right match-up (like against Mewtwo EX, Tornadus EX, and Raikou EX) Darkrai EX now holds on for three turns as well. Plus the third hit, instead of over killing the Active Pokemon EX, they can burn a Pokemon Catcher, force up something else and use the Bench damage from Night Spear to seal the deal.

Now... I've got zero deck testing in still. If you're already factoring that in, fine. If you just pointing out the situation is far from hopeless in the Darkrai EX versus CMT department, okay just wanted to be certain. :lol:

Yeah, but when Darkrai EX has three energy on it, M2EX two shots Darkrai EX for only 3 energy. That is an even trade at worst. Also, when there are Eviolites on the actives, Mewtwo EX can simply move up to 4 energy to achieve the 2HKO. Darkrai will need Dark Claw, SP Darks, or PP to keep up the 2HKOs on M2EX. Simply adding another energy is much easier than getting to those other types of cards.

But, I was mainly talking about using Eviolite on CMT's benched Pokemon. That means Night Spear will only be hitting for 10 per turn on the Eviolited benched Pokemon. So you would need like 11 turns of the snipe on an Eviolited M2EX before he can catcher and finish that M2EX in one hit.

 

[psychup2034]

And the Darkrai EX/Tornadus EX deck can't run it's own Mewtwo EX because...?

 

[ajhawk]

And the Darkrai EX/Tornadus EX deck can't run it's own Mewtwo EX because...?

It can, but most wont. It is too easy of a prize for the other decks. Also, Darkrai decks need to have a very dedicated focus, Night Spear until the cows come home. Unless, it is a fighting deck, then use Tornadus EX.

 

[psychup2034]

It can, but most wont. It is too easy of a prize for the other decks. Also, Darkrai decks need to have a very dedicated focus, Night Spear until the cows come home. Unless, it is a fighting deck, then use Tornadus EX.

And you know that most won't because...? I've tested the deck extensively. It needs Mewtwo EX.

 

[Ignatious]

It can, but most wont. It is too easy of a prize for the other decks. Also, Darkrai decks need to have a very dedicated focus, Night Spear until the cows come home. Unless, it is a fighting deck, then use Tornadus EX.

Night Spear until the cows come home. Unless they Xball, then use Mewtwo. Your logic here doesn't make sense. You claim that Mewtwo won't be ran because it's a weakness, then make a strategy to beat the deck that is nullified by Mewtwo. Seems like Mewtwo wouldn't be so bad to me.

 

[darck467]

I have also had some very bad results against the current Darkrai deck. I have played zeels for a very long time, I can come up with the most logical decisions to make in the matchup however darkrai is too fast. How does zeels counter against a deck that accelerates with a trainer. Zeels has been such a slow setup compared even. What is the most effective counter against Darkrai EX?

 

[psychup2034]

I have also had some very bad results against the current Darkrai deck. I have played zeels for a very long time, I can come up with the most logical decisions to make in the matchup however darkrai is too fast. How does zeels counter against a deck that accelerates with a trainer. Zeels has been such a slow setup compared even. What is the most effective counter against Darkrai EX?

Playing Zekeels? 2 Terrakion. Eviolited Zekroms 2HKO as well.