One deck that’s coming out in Surging Sparks that really caught my eye is the Ceruledge ex deck. This deck’s all about power – using vast energy reserves to dish out a ton of damage and take otherwise impossible knockouts.

Ceruledge ex also pairs well with the upcoming ACE SPEC called Brilliant Blender. I’m always excited to see a deck that fits so well with an off-the-wall ACE SPEC so that’s exciting as well.

Pokémon: 14
4 Charcadet SVLS 5
3 Ceruledge ex SVLS 6
1 Hoothoot SCR 114
1 Noctowl SCR 115
1 Squawkabilly ex PAL 169
1 Fezandipiti ex SFA 38
1 Chatot TEF 132
1 Fan Rotom SCR 118
1 Radiant Greninja ASR 46
Trainer: 27
4 Carmine TWM 145
1 Professor's Research SVI 189
1 Serena SIT 164
1 Boss's Orders PAL 172
1 Briar SCR 132
4 Ultra Ball SVI 196
4 Nest Ball SVI 181
3 Night Stretcher SFA 61
2 Earthen Vessel PAR 163
1 Pal Pad SVI 182
1 Counter Catcher PAR 160
1 Perfect Mixer SVLS 14
1 Rigid Band MEW 165
2 PokéStop PGO 68
Energy: 19
13 Fire Energy SVE 10
4 Jet Energy PAL 190
2 Mist Energy TEF 161

Ceruledge ex deck — *1st Place City League Kanagawa 11/04 - 小波川*

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Ceruledge ex – card breakdown

Ceruledge ex is actually a pretty broken card. He’s this deck’s main and only attacker because…well…he’s all you need! The goal here is to get as many energy as possible into your discard to power up his Abyssal Flames attack. You aren’t even going to be bothering with Raging Amethyst, so don’t worry about that attack.

Otherwise, Ceruledge ex is a very easy attacker to get off. It’s only a Stage 1 Pokemon, meaning evolving it is easy to do. Meanwhile, if you have 15 energy in your discard, you can hit for a whopping 330. That might sound like a tall order but thanks to this powerful ACE SPEC it’s actually relatively straightforward to achieve.

Brilliant Blender massively ramps up Ceruledge’s attack

While you have plenty of options to get energy cards into your hand and then discard them, Brilliant Blender massively speeds up the process, letting you send five fire energy from your deck to your discard. That equates to 100 added damage to your Abyssal Flames attack, meaning that playing this card alone gets your Ceruledge up to 130 damage.

Turn one – Earthen Vessel, Squawk and Seize and Carmine

Thanks to the cards included in this deck, you have the opportunity to unlock a powerful opening turn combo. Ideally – given this is an evolve deck – you’re going to go first. Then you’ll take these steps to set yourself up for success:

Load up your bench with two Charcadet, Squawkabilly and Radiant Greninja if you can.
Earthen Vessel for a full hand of energy. Attach one of those energies to Characadet.
Squawk and Seize into Carmine (if not in hand). If in hand, Carmine first then Squawk and Seize.

This deck list only runs three copies of Earthen Vessel but I would consider even running four. You need to get as many energies into your discard as possible – that’s the way you are going to maximize your damage output. Running Earthen Vessel makes it much easier to achieve this early in the game so you can start taking KOs as early as possible.

Situational cards

How successful this deck is going to be for you is how well you are going to be able to set it up. Luckily, you have plenty of cards to help you get set up, including Nest Ball, Buddy-Buddy Poffin, Ultra Ball, Fan Rotom and even the interesting tech in the form of Chatot.

Otherwise, your success is going to largely depend on how many energies you manage to get into your deck early on so you can start OHKOing anything on the field.

To help with a few outlying situations, this deck has a few situational cards to help out.

PokeStop

You could run this deck without PokeStop but actually PokeStop works well when paired with Ceruledge ex. You can use PokeStop to dig for helpful items like Earthen Vessel. On the plus side, given how many energies you have in this deck, odds are fairly good some of the cards that get discarded with this effect will end up in your discard.

In turn, that’s going to power up Abyssal Flames, making your Ceruledge ex even strong.

Rigid Band

Ceruledge ex is strong enough from an HP standpoint that you won’t need Rigid Band in most scenarios. But sometimes it could save your life. For example, against Raging Bolt ex, your opponent would be forced to add more energy into the fire that they may simply not have.

The Pokemon Catcher play

Weirdly enough, Counter Catcher works well in this deck. Although it takes being behind in the prize raise to get off, if you land it you could pull ahead from behind.

Ceruledge ex is a deck that can’t really afford to get behind. However, you might not always have the exact energy you need to take a KO against the Pokemon you are facing. To that end, why not switch out a more advantageous matchup?

That’s why Counter Catcher is here – simply to ensure you always get that two-prize knockout to stay ahead in the prize race.

Supporting cards that help

While these cards aren’t as core to this deck’s strategy, they can certainly help you pull ahead against the competition. Let’s look over each one in more detail.

Pal Pad

You’re going to be discarding a lot of cards in your aim to get as many energy into your discard as possible. There might be some collateral damage along the way in the form of Supporters you don’t really want in your discard. Pal Pad lets you bring them back. It’s not critical to have this card but including it could be helpful to find that Boss’s Orders to finish a game that’s just out of reach, or to restock your hand with a Professor’s Research.

Night Stretcher

Whether you need to bring back a Pokemon or an energy you discarded, Night Stretcher is your multipurpose tool making it easy to access the many cards you’ll be discarding throughout the game.

Jet Energy

Jet Energy may sound like a weird choice for this deck but including it actually makes sense. You can discard it via Brilliant Blender if you need. Meanwhile, you can use it to get out of sticky situations as a switch card. The benefit here is that it counts as added damage for Abyssal Flames, making it more useful in this deck than just running a basic Switch.

Briar

Briar is definitely a situational card and not one you will be able to take advantage of every single game. But she’s such a strong comeback/finishing strategy that she should be included in virtually each and every deck that features a Tera-type primary attacker.

Additional cards to add consistency

Although this deck runs plenty of cards to help you find what you need to get things rocking-and-rolling, you have a few additional cards that can help you get the edge on your opponent.

Fezandipiti

First is – of course – Fezandipiti. It’s pretty much a staple at this point in most decks, and running it will help you draw a three additional cards after your Pokemon is knocked out. It’s pretty much a no-brainer to included this card in your deck.

Noctowl

I can see why this deck only runs a one/one line with Noctowl and Hoothoot. This deck runs a lot like an aggro deck which makes it a little tough to be too focused on Noctowl. You’ll need some setup to take advantage of more Noctowl’s. However, given you will need to evolve Ceruledge ex to attack and that means evolving it, there’s some chance you could get Noctowl off.

Jewel Seeker is such a strong ability that even getting it off just once in a game could help you pull quickly ahead.

Ceruledge ex looks like a fun deck to play. It’s consistent, and powerful, and not a deck a lot of people are going to see coming, making it pretty ideal if you are looking to take your opponent by surprise at your next tournament or even just climbing the ranked ladder on Pokemon TCG Live!

Ceruledge ex Deck List and Guide