When it comes to favourite starters in general there’s no question the Swampert line is always going to be my all time favourite but in terms of cards Blaziken has my heart. This is largely thanks to this awesome deck we’re going to be showcasing here from the ever beloved original ex era (2003-2007 formats). If you ever wondered what was the original foundation of direct energy acceleration from the discard pile without any gimmicks using a poke-power or ability, this is it. The original holographic Blaziken from the first gen 3 set ex Ruby and Sapphire came with this effect, Firestarter and with it an effective way to accelerate fire energies that were already discarded. While obviously you can power up any pokemon that makes use of fire energies a few key ones make for the strongest candidates. The original Blaziken ex is one of these pokemon and this card is the other reason why I hold Blaziken cards in such high regard. The other is the original Rayquaza ex that came out even before Blaziken got its first ex. This deck focuses around these pokemon. The following list is one of my versions of this deck and an explanation of all my card choices:
Pokemon Cards | 18
3x Blaziken
1x Combusken
4x Torchic
2x Rayquaza ex
1x Electabuzz
2x Porygon 2
2x Porygon
2x Jirachi
Trainer Cards | 30
1x High Pressure System
4x Rare Candy
1x Master Ball
2x Energy Search
1x Pokemon Retriever
2x Windstorm
1x Warp Point
2x Switch
1x Fluffy Berry
4x Holon Transceiver
2x Holon Mentor
1x Holon Adventurer
1x Holon Scientist
2x Steven’s Advice
3x Rocket’s Admin
2x Celio’s Network
Energy Cards | 12
2x Lightning Energy
2x Multi Energy
Deck analysis
The face of this deck you could say, the main appeal of Blaziken ex is Volcanic Ash, dealing an impressive 100 damage for 4 energies and even more impressive having the option to snipe with it; meaning we can target any pokemon on the bench as well. Popular support pokemon like Pidgeot will easily be taken care of from this attack and this also means your opponent can’t guarantee saving a damaged active pokemon by retreating it. Being a Blaziken card is a double edged sword in our deck as on one hand we can easily fit it in since we’re using a Blaziken line anyway with Firestarter Blaziken; on the other we max out at 4 Torchics to evolve from so getting multiple Blaziken ex out means getting fewer Firestarter Blaziken out, a tough trade-off seeing as that’s our energy acceleration pokemon and our central component of this strategy. For this reason I only choose to run one in this deck while being aware that many other lists would run 2. The drawback is if one copy is prized from the beginning it’s going to be a hassle if we need it and don’t have it but the upside is it won’t be a stuck card while we’re trying to set up multiple Firestarter Blazikens.
This Blaziken is more important than Blaziken ex in the sense that every main attacker in this deck needs it, including Blaziken ex. This is way making sure we get all three of our copies out is optimal. It’s going to power up our attackers (including itself if need be) so they can keep attacking. It also gives you an effective answer against certain wall pokemon that are immune to damage from pokemon ex so it’s not just fuel for other attackers. On the left is the original print from ex Ruby and Sapphire but you can also use the reprint from ex Power Keepers if you want to build this deck.
Torchic from ex Power Keepers is the best one from the era so I recommend you use this one over the others. Other prints have 50 HP too but this card’s attack does damage and gives you the chance to inflict status which can potentially be helpful in shutting down an opponent’s poke-power temporarily.
A brutal attacker taking full advantage of Firestarter Blaziken’s poke-power. Rayquaza ex is capable of getting a OHKO on any pokemon in the format as long as you have enough fire or lightning energies to discard. Since we can reclaim fire energies and re-attach them thanks to Blaziken this card secures its place as the main attacker here. Be mindful how you use it though, as a pokemon that’s gonna give out 2 prizes with only 100 HP you have to make sure you get at least 2 prizes yourself out of it; either through 2 big OHKOs on regular pokemon or getting a OHKO on an opponent’s pokemon ex.
Electabuzz is another attacker here that can deal high damage and is perfectly compatible with Blaziken. Seeing as we’re running lightning and multi energies anyway this card gives us additional coverage in terms of hitting other pokemon for weakness; water types in particular since Blaziken is weak to them. Its poke-body doesn’t matter since we can’t afford the space to run Elekid, but this is the point, it’s a basic pokemon that doesn’t carry the same risk as Rayquaza ex while providing different coverage.
One look at the Backup poke-power and you’ll easily know why this card is included in the deck. A good majority of players would prefer to use Pidgeot or even Delcatty ahead of Porygon2 for this deck, but seeing as you’re reading this you know what my preference is. The point is a poke-power that’s going to give you additional cards every turn is important. While it’s possible to try to rely more on supporters and include more supporters for consistency poke-power draw is very handy.
There’re only a handful of Porygon in this era to choose from but nevertheless this print from ex Fired and Leafgreen is the best one to use since its Data Retrieval attack could help you draw cards if you open with it.
Your hopeful opener, players familiar with the ex formats will know why this card is so amazing. Its Wishing Star poke-power will help us in the early stage of setting up and it is even possible to take advantage of the Metallic Blow attack on some uncommon situations dealing an impressive 50 damage for 2 energies on a pokemon that has a poke-body. Pretty good for just a basic pokemon.
Having an easier time switching is important for this deck as Firestarter Blaziken does have the small limitation of only attaching energies with its poke-power to benched pokemon. High Pressure System is not the perfect solution, hence why we only run one, but it can still offer some useful utility giving free retreat to our Torchics and Combusken and softening the retreat cost of all Blazikens from 2 to 1. It can also serve as a method to get rid of an opponent’s hindering stadium, particularly Battle Frontier.
A phenomenal card every evolution pokemon worships, Rare Candy will allow us to evolve into our stage 2 and stage 1 pokemon faster than normal and will allow us to skip the stage 1 form in the case of Blaziken. Primarily used to get any Blaziken out faster but you can definitely use it to get a Porygon2 immediately if you want to be hasty.
An easy method to attempt to grab an evolution pokemon without playing a supporter for that task. You could even grab a basic pokemon and worst case scenario you can just thin your hand to draw more cards with Porygon2 if you don’t reveal anything. With 18 pokemon total our pokemon skeleton is thick enough in that it won’t usually fail you.
The function of this card is in the name; Energy Search will fetch us fire energies to combo with our discard outlets, namely the Holon supporters. This ensures we can get a few fire energies in the discard pile early game as opposed to discarding something else with them. It can also help us grab a lightning energy for Rayquaza ex or Electabuzz. You wouldn’t’ want to miss a turn of attacking because you didn’t have a lightning or multi energy.
An excellent card giving us the option to recover any pokemon from the discard pile back in our hand or recover 3 of them back in the deck. Blaziken ex will probably be the most common pokemon you’ll want to recover with this card along with a Torchic to evolve into it again but depending on the game state you could recover any pokemon you need.
This card is necessary to remove troublesome tools and stadiums primarily Battle Frontier, which will shut down our key poke-powers.
As mentioned previously the option for easy switching is important for this deck and Warp Point is a great outlet to do that while forcing your opponent to switch as well.
While it can certainly be handy to force your opponent to switch their pokemon it’s my preference to not usually give your foe the option to do anything, hence why I favour the original Switch more than Warp Point.
It wouldn’t be wrong to say this card is a prototype Float Stone as it’s very similar. Fluffy Berry is our last switching outlet for this deck. This card is a tool that will give free retreat to the pokemon it’s attached to but it isn’t compatible with pokemon ex, that’s why we only run one copy. As a tool it also has other disadvantages over Switch and Warp Point but it also has its perks too, such as giving you more than one use out of it for as long as it’s around. You will usually want to attach this card to a Firestarter Blaziken and promote it when your opponent takes a KO. This way you can freely power up your next attacker then retreat freely thanks to Fluffy Berry.
To say this is a great card would be an understatement; Holon Transceiver is the central foundation of what’s known as the “Holon engine” allowing us to grab any such supporter card from the deck drastically boosting consistency and if that wasn’t great enough already it can also be used as a recover card too, letting you grab a Holon supporter card from your discard pile too. Quick access to our supporters doesn’t only ensure consistency; in our particular deck it ensures access to our only discard outlets helping us getting a few fire energies in the discard pile.
Possibly the most important supporter at the start of the game as he covers the task of collecting our much needed basic pokemon. Remember, the quicker you get your Firestarter Blazikens out the quicker you can start grabbing more energies and start making strong attacks. Ideally, you also want to take the chance to discard a fire energy to pay his play cost.
Holon Adventurer provides simple, yet reliable draw. No hand limit conditions or other requirements other than the standard discard cost of every Holon supporter card. This is usually the Holon supporter you’ll be recovering most from the discard pile with Holon Transceiver. Of course you want to aim to discard fire energies if you use it early game.
A more high risk-high reward Holon supporter compared to Holon Adventurer, Holon Scientist will reap you a lot of benefit if your opponent’s hand is much bigger than yours, and this is where this card will shine. Since we can freely grab and recover a corresponding Holon supporter that will best meet our needs thanks to Holon Transceiver, a copy of this card is still included. It is another card that enables us to discard fire energies.
It might be my favourite supporter card of all time but Steven’s Advice is an extremely strong straight draw supporter, if not the strongest. The hand limit condition to play this card is very easily met unlike Holon Scientist and he will usually net you 4-5 cards of straight draw without any card advantage cost.
This supporter defines any format they’re in (I say this because N got the same effect) because of all its functions. At the start of the game it acts as a very good shuffle and draw supporter letting you draw 6 cards and during the tensest stages of the match, where your opponent is close to winning it acts as an amazing hand disruption card.
It can even act as a method to prevent you from decking out. All these great traits come with the drawbacks of giving your opponent extra cards depending on when you play it and becoming a less effective supporter for your benefit the more prize cards you have taken. Try to use it at the right time if you can, but nevertheless don’t undermine yourself by not running any copies at all, as the great Jason Klaczynski once said. The print on the left is the original version from ex Team Rocket Returns, an extremely expensive uncommon card considering it’s just that but luckily, it received a reprint in the Celebrations 25th anniversary set that’s dirt cheap by comparison so it makes for the best alterative if you don’t want to spend all that extra money for the original card.
Even though this supporter only gives you one card it’s a guaranteed way to get any pokemon as long as it’s not an ex. It’s our best way to get a Firestarter Blaziken or a Porygon2. Since it only gives you one card though I don’t want him to be my main supporter but that’s just my philosophy.
8-10 fire energies is enough for this deck, you’ll want to discard a few at the start of the game to accelerate them with Blaziken. After you do that your attackers discard them when they attack so you don’t have to worry about discarding more from your hand.
2 lightning energies are included here instead of maxing out Multi Energy because as a basic energy we can access it with Energy Search, and as a basic energy you can recover it more easily if you want to run some different cards which we’ll talk about later.
The only reason this card is included, at least in this deck for the potential chance of Jirachi attacking. Otherwise all of our other pokemon would get by with just lightning energies.
Now that I covered my card choices for this deck list I want to mention some other options to consider if you don’t want to copy paste the deck card for card. Obviously you can tweak the amount of cards that I already mentioned like running a second Blaziken ex, running more fire energies etc. but the original ex era is wondrously vast; (I wish it was even bigger actually) and there are many other tech cards or engines you can utilize.
Delcatty was the original draw assistant to Blaziken, actually killing two birds with one stone. This is because you have to discard an energy to draw 3 cards with Delcatty, so you can get those fire energies in the discard pile early without relying solely on the Holon supporters to dump them. Unlike Porygon2 it could actually act as a potent attacker too if given the chance which is also a nice plus.
Obviously there are benefits and drawbacks to its poke-power compared to Porygon2 but other than that their stats and type are actually the same and they are both stage 1 pokemon. If you want to run Delcatty instead of Porygon2 you will need to make your deck more energy focused; run more energies and even run some cards that recover energies back in your hand. Appearing in the first ex set with Blaziken, Delcatty followed its boss even in its reprint set; just like Blaziken got an alternate art reprint in ex Power Keepers Delcatty got the same with the print on the right.
Pidgeot is regarded as the most efficient pokemon when it comes to consistency from a poke-power in the amazing ex era. This is because with Quick Search you can grab any card you want from your deck and add it to your hand. While I do think it is a bit overrated since it’s only gonna fetch you one card, I cannot deny the freedom to grab absolutely anything you need is very powerful and balances the fact that it only grants you one card. As a stage 2 pokemon it’s going to be slightly more difficult to get out compared to Porygon2 or Delcatty meaning you’ll have to burn a Rare Candy, or get to it slower evolving through a Pidgeotto.
As I explained with Delcatty there’re advantages and disadvantages between Pidgeot, Porygon 2 and Delcatty in terms of their poke-power but a key merit Pidgeot has over the other two is the free retreat. This means you have a natural pivot to promote when your opponent takes a knockout without relying on Fluffy Berry or even High Pressure System.
If money isn’t an issue, Entei gold star is a great fire attacker to consider for this deck. For starters, you’re allowed to use one gold star in every deck, and while you don’t necessarily need to run one since we have that open slot it would be a disservice for me not to mention the best candidate here. The merits of this card are simple. It’s a basic pokemon with 80 HP and Detonation does an excellent 70 for three fire energies. Another additional perk is that it only has one retreat making it perfectly compatible with High Pressure System making it have free retreat essentially.
The only downside is that you’ll need to be mindful when to use it since Detonation will discard a whopping 10 cards from the top of your deck if you use it when you’re ahead in prizes. Even so, it’s definitely a condition you can plan and play around and if you use it to get a last KO the drawback doesn’t even matter. If you’d run this card it would probably be in place of Electabuzz as a strong additional attacker that doesn’t need an evolution line or carries the risk of an ex pokemon like Rayquaza ex.
Latias ex is probably a lesser fire tech option than Entei gold star but it’s an option worth mentioning. At the start of the game when you’re not in a position to attack you can get a free energy attachment with her poke-power making her less needy than your other attackers that will absolutely need Firestarter Blaziken to ready their big attacks. You’ll only discard 2 energies with Power Crush if you get a knock out and her damage output is 10 damage higher than Rayquaza ex when it discards 2 energies for its attack. HP and retreat is the same as Rayquaza ex the only other differences is the weakness, no handy resistances like Rayquaza and as a delta species pokemon you get additional perks and drawbacks respectively.
If you don’t factor the bonus draw you can potentially get with Holon Adventurer, TV Reporter is nearly the exact same card. A small merit is letting you draw first before you discard, making a big difference sometimes but Holon Adventurer is still the handier card only because being searchable and recoverable with Holon Transceiver is huge. Still, if you want more options for discard outlets it is definitely worth considering.
It got a few different prints in the original ex era but I decided to include the full art remake from Celestial Storm for those that want to look at something fancier and more colourful. The effect is exactly the same so indeed you could use this copy if you want to have something sexier to look at.
If you’d rather have some more heavy duty card recovery, Holon Farmer is another card you might want to look at. This card allows you to recover 3 pokemon and 3 basic energies back in your deck giving you much bigger recovery than Pokemon Retriever but it is also a supporter card. Being a Holon supporter card though, it has all the advantages of the other Holon supporters being instantly accessible through Holon Transceiver and even recyclable from the discard pile. It doesn’t give you the quicker option though to grab a single pokemon back to your hand like Retriever does.
Crystal Beach is a stadium that won’t affect this deck in any way but can potentially be a big thorn to an opponent favouring Scramble Energy, Double Rainbow Energy, Boost Energy or any other special energy that provides more than 1 energy. A lot of strong decks and pokemon rely on these broken special energies so trying to keep them a bit in check with Crystal Beach isn’t a bad option. The other use for this card is countering Battle Frontier or any other unwanted stadium your opponent is playing.
Holon Legacy is another stadium that isn’t going to give you any benefit (at least with the pokemon from the main deck list) but can potentially cause big problems to your opponent’s deck. It’s going to negate poke-powers on all delta species pokemon and also remove their weakness. While clearing your opponent’s weakness will be unfavourable when they have pokemon weak against your own, shutting down poke-powers is a very strong effect. Quite a situational card which is why I’m only mentioning it here but it’s something to think about.
And this brings us to the end of this very analytical deck profile! The ability to get a OHKO on just about any pokemon, even sniping some of those on the bench through Blaziken ex is the main appeal and advantage this deck can give you. Obviously as it’s very reliant on poke-powers to accomplish this goal a lot of cards and tactics in this era will give this deck some difficulty. Taking the chance to snipe-off your opponent’s Pidgeot or other card advantage enabler will usually give you the advantage if you still have your Porygon2 or other support pokemon to keep you ahead in card advantage. Since you have the ability to do so it’s also a good idea to aim for OHKOs with Rayquaza ex as this way you prevent your opponent from countering your damage with healing or removing your damage through other means. This won’t always be ideal but be mindful of attacking pointlessly and putting Rayquaza ex in harm’s way. Once you start getting those OHKOs you’ll realize what a fun deck this can be! Thank you for reading and I hope you found this deck analysis insightful.
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