Luxray Oricorio has been getting a lot of heat from the community, mainly because of Oricorio‘s ability to shut down ex Pokémon from damaging it. This has made the deck one of the best no-Ex Pokémon in the meta to combat the top Ex-type decks.
This lightning deck uses Luxray and Oricorio as damage dealers, shining best against Ex-type decks but struggles against the archetypes that don’t rely on ex Pokémon. It’s a huge meta call when bringing this deck to ranked ladder or tournament settings, so it’s important to understand what most players are planning to play before picking up this deck!
Luxray Oricorio Decklist
How to Play
Oricorio Early
Oricorio will be the early attacker, dealing 50 damage with Zzzap attack. It’s not the strongest attack, and Oricorio being 70 HP doesn’t make it durable to most attacks. However, Oricorio‘s Safeguard is the main reason why this Pokémon is a strong choice in lightning decks. Its ability to prevent damage dealt to it by Pokémon ex will make things challenging for the opposing player.
Against decks with only ex Pokemon, you’re pretty much winning the game on the spot, dealing 50 damage each turn as your opponent watches you helplessly, unable to retaliate to your attacks.
However, if you’re up against a no-ex Pokemon, then Oricorio will be at a disadvantage, and most of the time, it will end up losing the fight.
Luxray Carry
Luxray is the carry in this deck, but it’s a Stage 2 Pokémon, so we’ll need to have Shinx in play + a Rare Candy to skip the Stage 1 evolution and have Luxray in play a turn earlier.
Luxray‘s Voltbolt requires 3 Energy to activate, but will also discard all Energy on Luxray to deal 120 damage to one of the opponent’s Pokémon. You are not forced to target the opponent’s Active Pokémon, instead, you can snipe a Pokémon on the Bench that’s more of a threat to you or can give you 2 Match Points to win the game.
Volkner is a key card in this list to enable your Luxray. You can attach 2 Lightning Energy from your discard Pile to Luxray, allowing you to attack with it at once and get a knockout. If you’ve attacked with Luxray once and discarded your Energy, Volkner is great to get those Lightning Energy back and go for a second attack.
You can also use Volkner after Oricorio gets knocked out to get back the Energy that got discarded.
Draw Cards
Poke Ball can draw Shinx, ensuring you can evolve your Pokémon as early as possible.
Professor’s Research is a Supporter card that draws 2 cards. Since it’s a Supporter card, you want to play it early in the game, since you’ll want to play your other Supporters in the late game.
Since we’re heavily reliant on finding Rare Candy, Iono makes sense to shuffle back the cards in our hand and draw that many cards, helping us fix our hand and find Rare Candy.
Tools
Giant Cape gives +20 HP to your Pokémon, which can be attached to your Pokémon to make them harder targets for the opponent to knock out.
Healing
Potion and Pokémon Center Lady can heal your Pokémon and keep them from getting knocked out easily. If Oricorio is in the Active spot, your opponent will have to rely on their non-ex Pokémon to damage Oricorio, which means they’ll be dealing less overall damage. Potion and Pokémon Center Lady will keep Oricorio longer in the Active spot until you win the game.
