Building a Rainbow Road

Hey PTCGO Store readers! I hope you all are enjoying your time on this fabulous website. I am super stoked to be writing again for all of you! Today I am going to be going over everything you need to know about Sylveon. This deck has taken the online tournament scene by storm recently. Sylveons versatility is really what takes it to another level! As always, feel free to pick up some PTCGL codes from the PTCGO store to boost your collection today! That is being said, now let's look into the deck!

To call this deck Sylveon Urshifu Moltres Blaziken is quite a mouthful, isn't it? With that being said, I think it's best that we refer to this deck as “Sylveon Box”, Sylveon VMAX, or “Rainbow Road”. Here is the current list that I have built:

1 Oranguru VIV 199

1 Crobat V DAA 182

2 Galarian Moltres V CRE 177

2 Rapid Strike Urshifu V BST 87

2 Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX BST 88

1 Blaziken V CRE 20

1 Blaziken VMAX CRE 21

3 Sylveon V EVS 74

2 Sylveon VMAX EVS 75

2 Remoraid BST 36

2 オクタン BST 37

1 Energy Switch ROS 109

4 Great Ball BCR 129

3 Evolution Incense SSH 163　

3 Boss's Orders RCL 200

2 Tower of Waters BST 138

1 Escape Rope BUS 163

1 Tool Jammer BST 136

4 Quick Ball SSH 216　

4 Professor's Research SSH 209

3 Marnie SSH 208

2 Korrina's Focus BST 128

2 Air Balloon SSH 213　

1 Energy Search BLW 93

6 Darkness Energy Energy 7　

4 Rapid Strike Energy BST 140

With the release of Evolving Skies, we gained a plethora of new Eeveelution Cards to be used. Sylveon V is one of the new Eeveelutions that was released. Its ability “Dream Gift” allows us to search for an item, put it in our hand. Although strong, this ability does have a drawback. Its drawback is that your turn ends when you use “Dream Gift ''. Although this is the case, being able to search for any item is incredibly strong, and makes it one of the best abilities in the game.

At the beginning of Sylveon's life span in the standard format, people were really not sure if it was going to be viable. There was a lot of talk of it being strong, but the incredibly inconsistent deck, that just couldn't finish games. With this being said, it's much better than we thought it would be. Sylveon VMAX’s attack “Max Harmony” is able to pack quite a punch, being able to knock out most V Pokemon. Although its second attack is strong, its first is no slouch either. Precious Touch is able to heal your bench Pokemon, along with attaching energy, this will serve great against Rapid Strike Urshfu VMAX (Battle Styles) decks, along with Dragapult VMAX (Rebel Clash). Although Sylveon is the core attacker of this deck, it does have a ton of assistance to cover all of its weaknesses! Let's take a look at the rest of the deck.

Blaziken VMAX (Chilling Reign) is another card that was left under-appreciated for quite some time. Its first attack “Clutch” only dealt a minuscule 60 damage. Its second attack was what caught people's eyes though. “Max Blaze '' dealing 120 damage, along with being able to attach Rapid Strikeenergies from the discard was always believed to be a solid attack. Although strong, it just did not have the partner to make it viable until now! Having Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX, along with Sylveon VMAX to pair with it, it finally is able to unlock its true potential. I really think that this deck takes a lot of misfit types of cards, that were not loved enough in the past, and really allows them to shine in the spotlight of a tier-one deck.

The final VMAX in this deck is going to be Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX (Battle Styles). Everyone has seen Rapid Strike Urshifu as the star of decks, but now, it has taken a back seat. Although in the backseat, it still remains incredibly viable and a potent attacker. Jolteon VMAX(Evolving Skies) has been running around the metagame for the past couple of weeks. Although powerful, its biggest crux is fighting-type Pokemon. With a quick Gale Thrust, you will be able to render Jolteon VMAX’s useless. GMAX Rapid Flow is also a phenomenal attack as well. With there being a generous amount of lower HP Pokemon in the game right now, including the likes of Sobble, Lotad, Houndoor, and more, GMAX Rapid Flow will allow for us to wipe the board of our opponents supports Pokemon.

Last but not least, we have our final attacker in this deck being Moltres V (Chilling Reign). Moltres has been around for quite some time, being paired in all types of decks like Eternatus VMAX (Darkness Ablaze), Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX, and Arceus & Dialga & Palkia-GX (Cosmic Eclipse). Moltres’s versatility is really what makes the card viable, and using it in this deck is no exception. Psychic-type decks like Shadow Rider Calyrex (Chilling Reign) and Dragapult VMAX (Rebel Clash) have been all over the metagame recently, so it is nice to have an attacker that is efficient and can one-shot some of the most popular cards in the format with Aura Burn.

Currently, almost every top-performing deck needs a support Pokemon, to be able to achieve its strategy game after game. This deck is no exception to those rules. オクタン (Battle Styles) provides a much-needed consistency boost with its “Rapid Strike Search” ability, which searches for one Rapid Strike card per turn. This will allow the deck to be able to consistently find the cards it needs, which will allow it to achieve all of its complex strategies!

Need another switch out? Tower of Waters (Battle Styles) has got you covered! With there being so many moving parts, and different attackers in this deck, there will be many scenarios where having as many switching outs as possible will be a necessity to complete games. Another great reason for playing Tower of Waters is the fact that Path to the Peak is the most popular stadium in the game. With having so many Pokemon with abilities, it becomes crucial that Path to the Peak does not stick for more than one turn.

You might think that since this deck already plays 7 draw supporters, that playing more than the standard 8 is overkill. This is not the case, one of this deck's biggest flaws is that it cannot accelerate quickly through itself, and does not have cards like Shadow Rider Calyrex(Chilling Reign), Cinccino(SWSH), or the Inteleon engine to accelerate through the deck quickly. Another important reason to play Korrina’s Focus is for resource conservation. Due to this deck playing so many thin lines of important attackers, there will be many situations, where it is better to play Korrina’s Focus, than to Professors Research (SWSH)

Just wanted to put this list towards the bottom of the article. This is another version of Sylveon that I am currently working on, but I have not done enough testing to come to the conclusion if it is better than the moltres version. The difference with this deck, is that it plays Leafeon, captures, and grass energy, over the dark version, that plays Moltres V. I think that this version, has a lot of potentials as well, It just still needs work.

1 Oranguru VIV 199

1 Crobat V DAA 182

2 Rapid Strike Urshifu V BST 87

2 Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX BST 88

1 Blaziken V CRE 20

1 Blaziken VMAX CRE 21

2 Leafeon V EVS 7

3 Sylveon V EVS 74

2 Sylveon VMAX EVS 75

2 Remoraid BST 36

2 オクタン BST 37

1 Energy Switch ROS 109

4 Great Ball BCR 129

3 Evolution Incense SSH 163　

3 Boss's Orders RCL 200

2 Tower of Waters BST 138

1 Escape Rope BUS 163

1 Tool Jammer BST 136

4 Quick Ball SSH 216　

4 Professor's Research SSH 209

3 Marnie SSH 208

2 Korrina's Focus BST 128

2 Air Balloon SSH 213　

1 Energy Search BLW 93

2 Grass Energy HS 115

4 Rapid Strike Energy BST 140

4 Capture Energy RCL 171

From the new set Evolving Skies, Leafeon V has appeared. Leafeons attack will not be useful for this deck, but its ability will be game-changing. Its ability, Greening Cells, will allow Grass energy to be attached to any Pokemon on our field with the return of ending our turn. With Crushing Hammer, and other energy removal cards becoming more and more prominent in the game, having a counter to disruption will serve useful. The one problem with this is that there will be scenarios, where you will want to use Sylveon V’s ability Dream Gift, and Greening Cells.

Sylveon VMAX is a deck that has caught us off guard these past couple of weeks. This deck's versatility and strength have really allowed the deck to flourish, and when it gets set up, it can beat anything in the format. Currently, the Moltres V version is my favorite version of the deck. I am excited to see how Sylveon adapts because I can almost guarantee, this deck still has so much growth and potential, that is it waiting to unlock. Thank you everyone for reading my most recent article, on PTCGO Store. Make sure if you are looking for codes, or any PTCGO codes, to check out all of the other amenities that this site has to offer. That's all for me today, I hope to speak with you again soon. Cheers

Gabriel Smart is a contributing article writer for PTCGO Store. Gabriel currently resides in the Sacramento, California area and has been playing the game casually since 2010 and competitively since 2018. He streams on Twitch under the name GabrielSmartTCG, creates competitive Pokemon content on Youtube under the name SmartTCG, and posts about his tournaments results and life on Twitter @GabrielSmartTCG. Outside the game, he is a huge baseball and basketball fan and loves everything to do with athletics.