Time for another fun deck friday! I know we have looked at Noivern before (in this article), but I believe this deck can be made even more fun now with Gengar from Breakthrough.
The point of this deck is to get one or two Noivern set up and then use Gengar to sweep your opponent.
How it works
The point of this deck is to get off a few of Noivern's Boom Burst and then use Gengar's Creep Show to knock out everything. If your opponent is playing a deck where all the Pokemon have low HP, then you can continue to use Noivern to knock out everything or if they're running a deck where everything has a lot of health, use boom burst once to get 30 damage on everything and then send out Gengar and one-hit everything. If they're using a deck with high HP Pokemon, it's likely that some of these are EX's, so even if a couple of your Gengars get knocked out, you'll still be taking 2 prize cards for every 1 your opponent takes.
If your opponent is using a deck that relies on evolving, you can also run an Espeon EX, which devolves their Pokemon. This may mean that you're able to boom burst 3 times so each of their pokemon has 90 damage on it, then use Espeon EX to devolve them and their lower evolution may not have that much health, so you can knock out a bunch of Pokemon at once with that attack! Use Espeon as a finishing Pokemon, try not to put it down until you have to otherwise your opponent may be able to get it to the active position and knock it out for 2 easy prizes.
You can also run cards like Dimension Valley so Gengar and Espeon's attack costs are reduced by 
, meaning Gengar only needs one energy to retreat and Espeon can use the Miraculous Shine without any energy at all!
Why is it good?
- Low energy costs for Gengar and Espeon EX means you may be able to cut down how many energies you need and increase your draw supporters and trainers so you can get cards faster
- Spreading damage can be hugely helpful and in certain situations, you may only need to use Noivern
- Noivern's ability can mean you can slow down your opponent
- Attacking mainly with non-EXs means your opponent only takes 1 prize each time they knock something out
- You can use Espeon's Miraculous Shine to knock out a bunch of pokemon at once after you have some energy spread around the board
- Dimension Valley means you can run less energies in your deck, leaving more space for other cards you may want
- All the main cards in this deck have different weaknesses, so you can choose which pokemon to use based on the match.
What are the weaknesses?
- You can't do a lot of damage at once. You have to rely on getting 2 attacks to knock anything out
- As with any deck that runs a stage 2, it can be difficult to get these out, you'll need to run lots of cards to help you draw what you need
- Neither Gengar or Noivern have very high HP, so they will get knocked out relatively easily
- You don't have a lot of potential to recycle cards. Once cards are gone, they're pretty much gone, this means you'll have to learn when to use your resources or you'll need to run plenty of Super Rod / Sacred Ash / Energy Recycler.
- If your opponent doesn't bench many pokemon at once, you'll need to switch lots between Noivern and Gengar to make sure you can use Gengar efficiently.
What other cards should I use?
- Double Dragon Energy: This is for Noivern so it can be powered up quicker
- Deoxys: Especially if you're running dimension valley as you can use this even on your first turn to draw some extra cards and if you have Dimension Valley out, it costs no energy to attack
- Target Whistle: You can use this to get back Shaymin EX or other support Pokemon (especially EXs) from their discard. This not only helps to fill their bench so they can't put down the Pokemon they want to, but it also means that Noivern can do 30 damage to it, ready for Gengar to be able to knock out later, for an easy 2 prizes.
- Rare Candy: you don't want to have to manually evolve into Gengar, so make sure you remember to put in some rare candy.
- Lysandre: you may want to run more of these than you typically would. After you've got 30 damage on a few of your opponents Pokemon, you'll want to be using lysandre most turns to attack with Gengar to get rid of the biggest threats
- Switch: you'll need a few of these. Gengar has free retreat, but you'll need to be able to move your Noivern and Espeon around quite a lot.
- Meowstic: This isn't necessary, but if you find you're frequently able to spread a lot of damage, but not quite enough to knock things out, you may want to consider running Meowstic, I would generally advise against using this as it will take up a lot of room in the deck, but it is an option. You can use its first attack to move around their damage.
- Enhanced Hammer / Crushing Hammer: Use whichever of these you prefer, depending on whether the people you usually play against run special energies or not.
- Evosoda / Wally: If you find you're having trouble evolving, you may want to consider these cards to help speed you up. Remember to run plenty of Ultra Ball too.
Sounds great, where can I get the cards?
This deck contains a little bit of everything and chances are, you'll already have a lot of the trainers and supporters you need. Of the main cards, Gengar comes from Breakthrough, Espeon comes from Breakpoint and Noivern comes from Furious Fists. Most of the cards are fairly easy to find, so if you get a few packs or trade with some friends, you should be able to find everything pretty easily.
Remember that this is a fun deck so it may not win all the time, but it will be something a little different to try out with your mates or at a hobby league.
Don't know what some of these words mean? Check out our glossary here! Every card is linked to a copy of the card the first time it is mentioned, so if you're not sure what a card does, click the name in orange to find out.
Let us know what you think of the deck in the comments section below!
