Card of the Week #1 Zoroark GX

Trade

Trade is a very strong ability, it gives you a lot of consistency by allowing you to constantly draw more cards on your turn. Trade also allows you to discard cards from your hand that you don't need anymore or that you want in the discard pile like a Brigette when you have a full bench or a Water Energy when you play Aqua Patch.

Riotous Beating

Riotous beating is a decent attack in the standard format and an excellent attack in the expanded format. In the standard format the attack maxes out at 150 damage with a Choice Band, this isn't going to be taking a one hit knockout on anything but it will be taking a knockout in two hits on almost everything and will put some pressure on your opponent. In expanded the attack maxes out at 210 damage with a Choice Band and a Sky Field which allows you to have up to eight benched Pokemon; this is a great number, for 210 damage you are knocking out almost every popular attacker in the expanded format except for Gardevoir GX. The best thing about this attack though is that it can be used for just one double colorless energy which means that you can survive a hit from your opponent then heal your Zoroark GX with something like an Acerola, then just reattach the energy and attack again.

Trickster-GX

Unfortunately Trickster-GX isn't a very strong GX attack on Zoroark. In decks based around Zoroark you will want to be basing your strategy around Riotous beating and its ability to deal a strong amount of damage for a low energy cost. However, Trickster GX requires two separate attachments of Dark, Rainbow, or Blend Energy and that just doesn't promote the same values. But if you are playing any of those types of energy in your Zoroark deck, it is good to keep Trickster GX in mind as if you can ever spare a turn of energy attachment then Trickster can be a very strong attack to copy something like Turtonator GX's Bright Flame.

Weakness, Resistance, and Type

Zoroark GX's weakness to fighting Pokemon is a really painful one because it means that it can be easily knocked out by Pokemon like Gallade in the popular Gardevoir-GX deck or Buzzwole GX in the up and coming Buzzwole Lycanroc deck.

Zoroark's resistance on the other hand is a very strong one. Although Garbodor Drampa did not see the results the community expected at the recent European International Championships, it is certainly still a deck to be reckoned with. 20 less damage from attacks from Espeon GX and Trashalanche Garbodor means good things for Zoroark GX going into that matchup. In expanded the resistance to psychic is even more relevant, resisting Trevenant's tree slam attack and resisting damage against Garbodor Necrozma's psychic type attackers like Mew from Fates Collide or Garbodor from Guardians Rising.

Zoroark's dark type doesn't really hit any popular attackers for weakness in standard, however in expanded Zoroark GX will do times two damage against Trevenant and Trevenant BREAK making that a highly positive matchup for it.

Decks that could utilize Zoroark-GX

Standard

Gardevoir-GX

Golisopod-GX/Zoroark-GX

Silvally-GX/Metals

Buzzwole-GX/Lycanroc-GX

Decidueye-GX/Zoroark-GX

Drampa-GX/Zoroark-GX

Silvally-GX/Buzzwole-GX

Zoroark-GX/Lycanroc-GX

Zoroark-GX

Metagross-GX

Expanded

Night March

Zoroark-GX/Lycanroc-GX

Zoroark-GX/Zoroark-BREAK

Zoroark-GX

Golisopod-GX/Zoroark-GX

Gardevoir-GX

Yveltal-EX/Darkrai-EX/GX

Silvally-GX/Metals

Competition

Some cards that serve similar uses to Zoroark-GX are Octillery and Oranguru, both of these Pokemon provide a steady stream of draw power to your deck throughout the game with their respective abilities. In attackers some Pokemon that compete with Zoroark-GX are Golisopod GX, in that it does the same amount of damage for just one basic energy although the attack is more conditional; MRayquaza-EX which can do more damage than Zoroark-GX but needs to play more cards in succession to do so; and finally Joltik and Pumpkaboo from phantom forces which can do about the same amount of damage as Zoroark GX but are much faster and can be countered by things such as Seismitoad-EX, Karen, and Oricorio.

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