Ethan’s Ho-Oh ex Deck List and Guide
Who knew that Ethan’s Ho-Oh ex from the upcoming Destined Rivals set could actually be pretty solid? Using Ho-Oh’s powerful ability, you can easily accelerate energy onto your Ethan’s Pokemon, greatly powering up your Magcargo’s strongest attack.
Below, we’ll be looking at how Ethan’s Ho-Oh ex deck works in the post-Destined Rivals meta.
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Pokémon: 15
4 Ethan's Ho-Oh ex SV9a 20
3 Ethan's Slugma SV9a 18
3 Ethan's Magcargo SV9a 19
1 Ethan's Pinsir SV9a 1
1 Mew ex MEW 151
1 Latias ex SSP 76
1 Fezandipiti ex SFA 38
1 Squawkabilly ex PAL 169
Trainer: 34
4 Professor's Research JTG 155
3 Iono PAL 185
2 Ethan's Adventure SV9a 63
2 Boss's Orders PAL 172
4 Nest Ball SVI 181
4 Earthen Vessel PAR 163
4 Superior Energy Retrieval PAL 189
3 Ultra Ball SVI 196
2 Night Stretcher SFA 61
1 Prime Catcher TEF 157
1 Counter Catcher PAR 160
2 Bravery Charm PAL 173
2 Team Rocket's Watchtower SV10 96
Energy: 11
11 Fire Energy SVE 10
Ethan’s Ho-Oh ex is a powerful energy acceleration engine. It’s sort of like Baxcalibur only you don’t need to evolve it which makes it much more effective. You can attach two fire energy from your hand every turn using Golden Flame. You have multiple of these guys on your bench, you can accelerate insane numbers of energy onto your Pokemon.
How do you get these energies into your hand? You have two main ways to do this: Earthen Vessel and Ethan’ Adventure.
Once you’ve pulled these energies from your deck, use Golden Flame to get them onto your Ethan’s Pokemon, especially Magcargo.
Magcargo has a devastating attack
If you thought Ethan’s Typhlosion hit hard, you’ll love Ethan’s Magcargo and its powerful Lava Burst. Manage to get five energy onto this guy and you’re hitting for an insane 350 damage.
The downside? You’re clearing 5 energies to do this. However, given how easily Ethan’s Ho-Oh gets energy onto your Pokemon, I don’t see this being incredibly difficult to pull off.
To ensure you have enough energy in hand to add to your Pokemon, you’ll be recycling energy with Superior Energy Retrieval.
Ethan’s Pinsir is a solid backup attacker
Finally there’s this guy: Ethan’s Pinsir. Clearly this card was made to combo with Ethan’s Ho-Oh, as attaching enough energy to get One-Point Return off would be too difficult without a high enough payoff otherwise.
Via Golden Flame, you can easily power up this attack in a single turn. Assuming your Ethan’s Pokemon got knocked out last turn, you’re going to be swinging for 170 damage.
This attack helps you come back from behind, take knockouts against lighter HP double prize Pokemon, cleaning up already damaged Pokemon, or even hitting for double damage against those with grass type weakness.
Use these secondary Pokemon to help you
This particular list runs four different supporting Pokemon. While these Pokemon are essentially staples at this point, let’s talk about why they are included in brief.
Mew ex: I love Mew ex. With zero retreat cost, and an ability called Restart, you are able to draw up to three cards in your hand just by activating this ability.
Fezandipiti ex: this bird is just too strong, and should be in almost every deck, letting you draw three cards without any strings attached.
Squawkabilly ex: this is kind of an odd pick for this deck but it can help you find the cards you need quickly to get this deck set up and ready to dish out damage.
Latias ex: Grant your basic Pokemon free retreat. Although Magcargo is not a basic Pokemon, it also gains free retreat when it has no energy attached.
This deck looks like a lot of fun. Capable of attacking early via Ho-Oh ex, Magcargo dishing out powerful damage, Ethan’s Ho-Oh is a powerful deck. The only thing it’s missing is a powerful damage spread option or bench sniping attack. Regardless, this deck should be an incredibly fun deck to play on the Pokemon TCG Live ladder.
