In a word...
Maybe. Everyone keeps telling me how all they saw were BAR decks (something that was foreign to my "circle", both local and on-line, until a few weeks ago). ANyway, here's an astonishing observation, if we break decks down into three types: BAR, Gex, and then everything else, and say they are all equal, guess what happens when only one out of 10 people run something in the "everything else" catagory? SImply put, show me what happens when we have only one or two BAR and Gex decks amongst 18 other strong decks and all things being equal. THen do it more so that we can more or less eliminate the annoying "fluke" victories. I have played Gex shortly, and have played against it some. I played RaNdOm's Gex deck, he didn't beat me, but he won. I beat me: like most Gex decks, his set-up is key. He's running the deck more or less "turbo", with a minimum of Pokemon. I have one Ffet up blcoking his only Pokemon, and early Gardevoir ex. I ahve another Ffet benched with two Energy. I have drawn 5 of my decks 20 energy, and probably 10 of my Pokemon and 10 of my Trainers. I ahve a Warp point in hand and he has no bench. So... I just need one more Energy, and I can get up there and start hammering on him. I draw a Metal Energy, so I play it on my Steelix, figuring that hey, oddsd are he'd get a basic anyway before I could deliver the death blow, so I better have a back up. The odds of him not drawing a basic Pokemon for two turns were about the same as him not drawing a basic for two turns so... long story short, I don't draw another energy for about 10 turns, and after the first 5 turns he got a Kirlia up and swinging, slaughtering my Ffets to make room for Gardevoir ex to finish of the rest of my Pokemon. Had I just played a Metal on Ffet I'd have one... but now I am getting off track. Most of my deck's are Pokemon-exless.
As for BAR, I really have a hard time believing it's so good. Two Stage 1s are needed for it to be more than just an early one-shot opener. You need Blazikens on the bench. You need an Amphy from Expediion there too. TecH is increddibly important right now, and people seem to be neglecting it. How do I handle Ray ex? Ffet + Crystal Shard = OHKO. A lone Ffet means you gotta bring up your own Ffet to KO mine. Of course, this is where more TecH comes in: Weakness Guard. Sure, Ray ex can use it too, but then the BAR player's Ffets are at a disadvantage.
I have not played against BAR. I will try to play it when I can, but my schedule has been tight with college and all. Spring Break, I can hoepfully get several matches in against this deck.
For those who aren't familiar with how I play, lately I ahve been on my "Gojira" kick. That means I run a deck that features one large monster that hits the active bench with SS Xatu to provide repeated healing. The original deck used T-tar (and if you want to be picky, AQ Espeon with Potion Energy and Healing Fields), hence the name "Gojira", more commonly known as Godzilla. If these decks set up, they are quick potent, as Eon players ahve gotten used to safe benched. For the Steelix version, if it is not OHKO'd, I also have the option of Raging...
Long story short-decks may be too Pokemon-ex dependent, but its still too early to tell. To be fair, I usually am one who defends the Pokemon game perhaps too much, and as of late, Prime is often very pessimistic. As such, the truth is probably as likely between our views. In reality, I have seen few successful ex heavy decks outside of Gex, so I honestly don't think they are a problem at all. Ex's big thing is a savings on energy-most Pokemon ex are really "two" smaller Pokemon. As such, only the Energy savings really matters.
