Blaziken ex / N's Zoroark ex

What Blaziken ex / N's Zoroark ex looks like when you open the box

Across the 39 lists we counted, this deck runs 17 to 22 Pokémon, 30 to 35 Trainers and 7 to 9 Energy. Its attacks are paid for in Darkness and Fire.

On results pages and on stream you will see it written « blaziken-zoroark ». Every card named in that label turns up in the tables below, which is what makes it a fair name for the deck.

Look at the Energy: 7 to 9 out of 60, when half the 125 decks we track run 11 or more. This one is lean. It lives on cheap attacks and leans on Trainers to find the right Energy at the right moment rather than stockpiling it.

It takes a while to set up. Blaziken ex is a Stage 2 Pokémon: you put down the baby, you evolve it, and then you evolve it again. Three cards stacked before anything attacks. That is what the hardest-hitting decks cost you, and it is also where they crack — a fast opponent can bury you before the line is standing.

Look at the Trainers: 30 to 35 cards out of 60, against a median of 31 across the 125 decks we track. Inside that, 9 to 13 Supporters, and the rule there is strict — one a turn, even if you are holding three. The 16 to 19 Items you can play all of in the same turn.

What Tools and Stadiums do — the two Trainer families we skipped here — and why the Energy count says so much: how to read a deck list.

What the cards in this deck's name actually do

Blaziken ex and N's Zoroark ex give this deck its name. Here is what is written on them.

Blaziken ex is in all 39 lists, 3 copies of it. Its Ability is called Seething Spirit, and here is what is printed on it, word for word: « Once during your turn, you may attach a Basic Energy card from your discard pile to 1 of your Pokémon. »

N's Zoroark ex is in all 39 lists, 2 copies of it. Its Ability is called Trade, and here is what is printed on it, word for word: « You must discard a card from your hand in order to use this Ability. Once during your turn, you may draw 2 cards. » Its attack Night Joker costs 2 Energy (Darkness and Darkness) and has no damage number printed next to it. That is why you will not find it in the attacker table lower down, which sorts by printed damage. Everything it does lives in its text: « Choose 1 of your Benched N's Pokémon's attacks and use it as this attack. »

How Blaziken ex / N's Zoroark ex actually wins

N's Zoroark ex attacks with Night Joker, and it needs 2 Darkness Energy attached. It has 280 HP. Its damage box is empty, so the table below, which sorts by printed damage, cannot rank it: its printed text above is where the counting happens.

The cost of Night Joker decides your first few turns. You only get to attach one Energy a turn, and that attack asks for 2. On your own attachments alone, your first real swing lands on turn 2. Except you are not on your own. Blaziken ex, which the list runs 3 of, has an Ability called Seething Spirit: it digs Energy out of your discard pile and puts it back on one of your Pokémon. An Ability costs you nothing: not your attack, not your card for the turn. That is where this deck buys its turns, and it is the first thing to look for in your opening hand.

Energy is not your only clock. Torchic has to climb two steps before it becomes Blaziken ex, and an evolution asleep at the bottom of your deck does you no good at all. The list has that covered. Hilda, which the list runs 2 of, goes into your deck for an evolution. Careful, though: only 38 of the 39 lists bring it, so it is a choice, and players are still arguing about it.

Here is the detail that quietly loses games. To pull N's Zoroark ex back to the Bench you have to discard 2 Energy attached to it. Retreating does not cost you your turn, you can step back and still swing right after. What it costs you is the 2 Energy you spent 2 turns attaching, and you start that climb again from nothing. Pack a card that moves it for free, or send it up knowing it stays up.

Blaziken ex and N's Zoroark ex carry the "ex" suffix, and your opponent takes 2 Prize cards instead of one when one of them falls. They need 6 to win: 3 well-placed knockouts on those cards beat you, where it would take 6 anywhere else on your Bench.

The attackers in the deck's core, with their best attack, its cost and their Weakness

Pokémon	HP	Attack	Damage	Cost	Weakness	Retreat
Close N's Zoroark exStage 1	280	Night JokerChoose 1 of your Benched N's Pokémon's attacks and use it as this attack.	—		Grass ×2	2
Close Blaziken exStage 2	320	Smolder-sault	200		Water ×2	2
Close CombuskenStage 1	100	Double Kick	40×		Water ×2	2
Close N's ZoruaBasic	70	Scratch	20		Grass ×2	1

The core: the 16 cards every list runs

These 16 cards appear in all 39 lists, without a single exception. That is 45 of the 60 slots. The other 15 are decided player by player.

Look at how those 45 slots break down: 26 Trainers, 12 Pokémon, 7 Energy. Trainers outweigh everything else put together, which is the mark of a deck that goes and fetches its cards rather than waiting to draw them.

10 of those 16 cards do not sit at the same count from list to list: Blaziken ex (2 to 3), N's Zorua (2 to 3) and Boss's Orders (3 to 4), plus 7 more. Add those spreads up and you get 13 copies the 39 lists do not agree on, inside the core itself.

What "3 to 4" means in the copies column, what the "TWM 130" code under each name is for, and why we count dozens of lists instead of one: how to read a deck list.

The cards present in every list counted, with the number of copies

Copies	Card	Printing	Kind	Rotation
2–3	Close Blaziken ex	JTG 24	Pokémon	leaves
3	Close Torchic	DRI 40	Pokémon	stays
2	Close Combusken	DRI 41	Pokémon	stays
2	Close N's Zoroark ex	JTG 98	Pokémon	stays
2–3	Close N's Zorua	JTG 97	Pokémon	stays
3–4	Close Boss's Orders	MEG 114	Trainer	stays
3–4	Close Buddy-Buddy Poffin	TEF 144	Trainer	leaves
4	Close Lillie's Determination	MEG 119	Trainer	stays
2–4	Close Poké Pad	POR 81	Trainer	stays
2–3	Close Rare Candy	MEG 125	Trainer	stays
3–4	Close Ultra Ball	MEG 131	Trainer	stays
2	Close Night Stretcher	ASC 196	Trainer	leaves
1–2	Close Team Rocket's Watchtower	DRI 180	Trainer	stays
1	Close Switch	MEG 130	Trainer	stays
2–5	Darkness Energy	MEE 7	Energy	stays
3–4	Fire Energy	MEE 2	Energy	stays

The 39 cards that change from list to list

39 cards fight over the 15 slots that are left: 12 above three lists in four, 26 below one in four, and the percentage on each row says how many players took it.

The most agreed on first: Fezandipiti ex at 97 %, Hilda at 97 % and Air Balloon at 97 %, plus 9 more above 75 %. Add those to the core and you have the common build.

The dividing line runs through Moltres, at 74 %: 29 of 39 players took it, 10 put something else there. The ones who run it bring 1 copy. Right at the bottom of the table, Dawn (9 lists out of 39) and Chi-Yu (8 lists out of 39).

Why a card at 45 % is not a bad card, and what order to buy all this in: how to read a deck list.

The cards some lists run and others don't, most common first

Lists running it	Card	Copies	Printing	Kind
97 %38/39	Close Fezandipiti ex	1	ASC 142	Pokémon
97 %38/39	Close Hilda	1–2	WHT 84	Trainer
97 %38/39	Close Air Balloon	1–2	ASC 181	Trainer
92 %36/39	Close Lillie's Clefairy ex	1–2	JTG 56	Pokémon
92 %36/39	Close Unfair Stamp	1	TWM 165	Trainer
92 %36/39	Psychic Energy	1–2	MEE 5	Energy
90 %35/39	Close Blaziken	1	DRI 42	Pokémon
87 %34/39	Close Tatsugiri	1–2	TWM 131	Pokémon
87 %34/39	Close Munkidori	1–2	TWM 95	Pokémon
82 %32/39	Close Special Red Card	1	CRI 82	Trainer
79 %31/39	Close N's Reshiram	1	JTG 116	Pokémon
77 %30/39	Close Pecharunt	1	SVP 149	Pokémon
74 %29/39	Close Moltres	1	PFL 14	Pokémon
23 %9/39	Close Dawn	1	PFL 87	Trainer
21 %8/39	Close Chi-Yu	1	MEG 31	Pokémon
18 %7/39	Close Crispin	1–2	SCR 133	Trainer
15 %6/39	Close Budew	1	ASC 16	Pokémon
15 %6/39	Close N's Zekrom	1	ASC 155	Pokémon
13 %5/39	Close Shaymin	1	DRI 10	Pokémon
13 %5/39	Close Cyrano	1	SSP 170	Trainer
13 %5/39	Close Team Rocket's Petrel	1	DRI 176	Trainer
10 %4/39	Close Yveltal	1	MEG 88	Pokémon
8 %3/39	Close Meowth ex	1	POR 62	Pokémon
8 %3/39	Close Battle Cage	1	PFL 85	Trainer
5 %2/39	Close Eternatus	1	SSP 141	Pokémon
5 %2/39	Close Mew ex	1	30C 66	Pokémon
5 %2/39	Close Pecharunt ex	1	SFA 39	Pokémon
5 %2/39	Close Secret Box	1	TWM 163	Trainer
3 %1/39	Close Scraggy	2	30C 94	Pokémon
3 %1/39	Close Dudunsparce	1	TEF 129	Pokémon
3 %1/39	Close Dunsparce	1	TEF 128	Pokémon
3 %1/39	Close Flutter Mane	1	TEF 78	Pokémon
3 %1/39	Close Mega Scrafty ex	1	ASC 135	Pokémon
3 %1/39	Close Psyduck	1	ASC 39	Pokémon
3 %1/39	Close Carmine	1	TWM 145	Trainer
3 %1/39	Close Hero's Cape	1	TEF 152	Trainer
3 %1/39	Close Judge	1	POR 76	Trainer
3 %1/39	Close Nighttime Mine	1	ASC 197	Trainer
3 %1/39	Close Xerosic's Machinations	1	SFA 64	Trainer

The most common Blaziken ex / N's Zoroark ex list, all 60 cards

Here they are in full, ready to build. 45 slots come from the core, the cards all 39 lists run. The remaining 15 come from the table just above, working down it: the cards the most players chose, each at its most common copy count, until the total lands on 60.

This list is nobody's list in particular. It takes, slot by slot, what the most people played, under the guardrails a judge would hold you to: never more than four copies of a card, and one ACE SPEC. Behind the core it took 13 more cards to reach 60. The whole thing comes to 21 Pokémon, 31 Trainers and 8 Energy.

One thing to know before you build it: the 39 lists we counted are all from players who came in the top twenty of their tournament. Nobody publishes the lists of the players who lost. So what you have in front of you is what the players finishing near the top bring most often.

The text under the table is the one the game expects: copy it, paste it into the deck manager, and the list builds itself.

Why we only read lists from players who came in the top twenty of their tournament, and what that changes about every percentage on this page: how to read a deck list.

Pokémon: 21
3 Blaziken ex JTG 24
3 Torchic DRI 40
2 Combusken DRI 41
2 N's Zoroark ex JTG 98
2 N's Zorua JTG 97
1 Fezandipiti ex ASC 142
1 Lillie's Clefairy ex JTG 56
1 Blaziken DRI 42
2 Tatsugiri TWM 131
1 Munkidori TWM 95
1 N's Reshiram JTG 116
1 Pecharunt SVP 149
1 Moltres PFL 14

Trainer: 31
4 Boss's Orders MEG 114
4 Buddy-Buddy Poffin TEF 144
4 Lillie's Determination MEG 119
3 Poké Pad POR 81
3 Rare Candy MEG 125
3 Ultra Ball MEG 131
2 Night Stretcher ASC 196
2 Team Rocket's Watchtower DRI 180
1 Switch MEG 130
2 Hilda WHT 84
1 Air Balloon ASC 181
1 Unfair Stamp TWM 165
1 Special Red Card CRI 82

Energy: 8
4 Darkness Energy MEE 7
3 Fire Energy MEE 2
1 Psychic Energy MEE 5

Total Cards: 60

How many different cards Blaziken ex / N's Zoroark ex needs, and how long it will last

You need 55 different cards to cover every version of this deck, 16 of which nobody argues about. The rest is where lists differ from one another, and that is where you have room to choose.

All 39 lists bring an ACE SPEC, and that is where they part ways: 36 took Unfair Stamp, 2 took Secret Box and 1 took Hero's Cape. You are allowed ONE ACE SPEC card in your whole deck, so a single copy covers it whatever it costs. New to this deck? Take Unfair Stamp and watch what the others do with theirs before you switch.

Then there is time. 3 of the 16 core cards carry the letter H, the one that goes at the next rotation: Blaziken ex, Buddy-Buddy Poffin and Night Stretcher. The core table marks every one of them. In copies, that is 9 of the 45 slots the core fills. Which day it lands, we do not know yet.

What Blaziken ex / N's Zoroark ex struggles against

The attackers in this deck are Weak to Grass and Water, so they take DOUBLE damage from those types. 39 of the 125 decks we track attack in exactly those types.

Concretely, here is what is waiting for you: Latias ex / Mega Kangaskhan ex (Wellspring Mask Ogerpon ex), Teal Mask Ogerpon ex / Meganium / Hydrapple ex and Festival Lead (Thwackey), plus 36 more decks. The table below takes them one at a time, and those are the lists you practise against first before an event.

This table counts one thing, Weakness, and that comes to 39 decks out of the 125 we track. The other 86 do not attack into yours, and this table says nothing about them. You will still run into them.

Going the other way, your attackers are Darkness and Fire, and 51 of the decks we track have an attacker Weak to one of those: N's Zoroark ex, Latias ex / Mega Kangaskhan ex and Slowking, among others. That is you doubling, for once. Second half of the table.