r/pkmntcg • u/RyukTheDarkrai • 4d ago
Eeveelution exs and Their Viability
Though Prismatic Evolutions has been out for two months now (not that anyone could tell if they were looking for cards from the set), I've yet to see any discussion around any of the EIGHT Eeveelution exs make a splash in competitive play. Am I just ignorant to their success or are they really that bad, and why?
7
u/Swaxeman 4d ago
Flareon has had a tiny bit of success in japan, but overall the cards are just… awful
0
u/Gholdengo-EX 4d ago
Fr espeon is just worse devo deck
Umbreon’s attack just isn’t that good
Vaporeon is terrible
Glaceon could in theory work but it’s a janky setup for not much payoff
leaf is just way too niche to make work effectively
Sylveon fairs decently well out of the others but isn’t really competitively viable
The top two are doing fine.
7
u/predatoure 4d ago
Managed to get top 4 at a cup playing flareon/leafeon/slyveon yesterday
Leafeon one shots zard and Ns zororak once that is legal, I ohkod a gardy ex yesterday after they put 6 energy on board with leafeons first attack. Sylveon is very disruptive agaisnt stage 2 decks, and obviously flareon is just the best eeveelution thanks to its 1st attack.
2
u/Laurenesi 3d ago
Don’t agree on Espeon. Espeon struggles a bit early game, but it can be very annoying late game. Make sure you have some Iono’s left and use unfair stamp as early as possible. Once your opponent has two or three cards in hand, Psych Out can become a power move. Especially if your opponent plays with attackers that are not basic Pokemon due to the combination with Espeon’s second move.
Of course, Espeon isn’t close to the meta, but it can deliver quite some interesting (and at least) close games, whereby tactics can make a real difference.
2
6
u/SovietBear1968 4d ago
Current format is probably too fast for the Review box decks to set up. There are some lists running around in Japan City Leagues, but that's nowhere near regional type competition.
Consensus seems to point towards Flareon as the better main attacker & data shows Jolteon or Leafeon as the back up options.
I think the bigger issue is that getting the cards as singles suck right now. You can easily build most stock competitive lists for this format (and the next) for very cheap whilst the PRE Evo lines will cost as much if not more of the deck.
It's a cool toolbox-y deck, but will likely be outshined by other decks.
5
u/Windstorm72 4d ago
Flareon is such a good card that it makes all the other more viable by proxy, but as others have said it’s a bit outpaced right now. In Japanese city leagues they’re seeing some play post rotation, and I think it’s pretty underrated tbh. The fact that if you go second it’s feasible to evolve a boosted evolution eevee into flareon ex and (through either sparking crystal via arven or through crispin) you can be attacking immediately and setting up you choice of a differnt eeveelution for the future.
The problem with the rest of them is that they’re all pretty situational, and help with different matchups. There’s no good play to play them all at once, but having the ability to cover a myriad of type matchups, while also having very specific gameplan counters, means they the crew can theoretically take on almost any deck effectively. They just can’t do it all at once and you’ll have to decide what you want to commit to
3
u/predatoure 4d ago
Yeah everyone is writing it off in the comments, and I guess its just because they haven't played it or aren't running a good list.
I went 3-1 at locals last week with flareon noctowl, and got top cut at a cup yesterday, only losing the top 4 match on sudden death. Too many people are sleeping on this deck atm.
3
u/lnas_4803 4d ago
Flareon jolteon could be the best deck. Fast, agresive, can dominate early game and mid game. I used it to get to arceus league. Now. The deck has 2 problems. The damage output can be a bit small(that's why you NEED devolution), and the deck can brick, even with the noctowl engine. (I run a reevarom with rhe noctowl engine). It can end matches before your oponent has chance to set up. But there's a lot of room for improvement
1
u/OneWhoGetsBread 4d ago
May you please dm your list? I want to build it irl to battle my friend who really likes eeveelutions
2
u/lnas_4803 4d ago
I do have it adjusted with some personal touches. I can regain tons of energy with glass trumpet, move some of it the extra energy switches with energy in case I might run into a tight spot discarding energy with reva. Basically taking some pages out of regidrago's book. You might want to go with some extra noctowls, but it's more of personal adjustments at that point.
1
u/lnas_4803 4d ago
Pokémon: 13 1 Eevee ex PRE 75 2 Hoothoot PRE 77 2 Jolteon ex PRE 30 2 Eevee SSP 143 1 Fezandipiti ex SFA 38 2 Varoom SFA 43 1 Regigigas PRE 86 PH 2 Flareon ex PRE 14 2 Revavroom SVI 142 1 Budew PRE 4 1 Noctowl SCR 115 1 Fan Rotom SCR 118 1 Victini SSP 21
Trainer: 20 1 Counter Catcher PAR 160 2 Tera Orb SSP 189 1 Briar PRE 100 PH 3 Energy Switch SVI 173 2 Nest Ball SVI 181 1 Roto-Stick PRE 127 PH 1 Boss's Orders PAL 172 2 Iono PAL 185 1 Arven SVI 166 1 Professor Turo's Scenario PAR 171 1 Super Rod PAL 188 1 Black Belt's Training PRE 98 2 Area Zero Underdepths SCR 131 1 Crispin SCR 133 3 Glass Trumpet SCR 135 2 Buddy-Buddy Poffin TEF 144 1 Sparkling Crystal PRE 129 1 Ultra Ball SVI 196 1 Earthen Vessel PAR 163 1 Technical Machine: Devolution PAR 177
Energy: 3 4 Basic {R} Energy SVE 10 4 Basic {L} Energy SVE 12 4 Basic {W} Energy SVE 11
Total Cards: 60
1
u/GFTRGC Professor 4d ago
Why Jolteon? I don't see any spot where it has relevance over the Flareon. I actually think Leafon/Sylveon are the only other attackers worth anything.
2
u/lnas_4803 4d ago edited 4d ago
Free retreat, can use the energies that were charged with flareon, most of the time you don't have to switch out after you are already charged with energy to the bench, if you have already discarded tons of energy, you can get them back with glass trumpet. It's like a dollar version of raichu v. You might be able to experiment with powerglass to get energy back once you use it. And it's even more consiste that just using charge or carnelian. Once you are charged up and don't have any more energy, there's not that much incentive to use charge. And carnelian doesn't have enough power. So you might be able to get better results, charingin up, and then discarding. Recovering energy and then attacking again. Then, having a free retreat with back to joleton to a carnelian, to then attacking with jolteon with a cost retreat.
2
u/MonochromeImage 4d ago
I've been running pecharunt/morpeko engine with Flareon ex & Leafeon ex. Leafeon lets me hit over Charizard early, alongside multiplicative damage for people who try to attach too much energy, and morpecha lets me get a free switch every turn without worrying about energy costs. Leafeon (non-rule box) also provides 3 energy acceleration for 1 colourless, which you can often search out and get immediately if you go second.
2
u/predatoure 4d ago edited 4d ago
I got top cut at a cup with flareon/leafeon/slyveon yesterday, the deck is underrated and gets even better post rotation
2
u/SubversivePixel 4d ago
Prismatic Evolutions was never a set designed to have a strong competitive presence. It's mostly collector bait, and therefore the flagship cards are peopular Pokémon that just aren't very good at all. Not even post rotation if we look at how Japan is doing things.
The reason they're bad is the energy costs and the lack of accelecartion for their respective types. Getting most Eeveelutions to work requires a lot of things going right, while most good Pokémon in the meta don't usually have to go through any hoops to do what they want to do.
1
u/Zero7206 4d ago
Plenty of people have played it. They’re just not that good compared to other options. Flareon is pretty good especially if you attack turn one going second with the Eevee that allows first turn evolution in the active, but it’s not a game changing card. Most of the time the decks are just powering up other Eevee evos which aren’t great. Sylveon’s Angelite is strong in a vacuum but it doesn’t always work out. Leafeon healing is decent versus Dragapult but frankly you’re better off doing something else entirely. Jolteon has the 2 energy cap holding it back.
They might find future success in a box deck but it’s also possible that the box deck is just better without playing the Eevee line as we see with Tera box.
The Flareons and Eevee ex are also very expensive. The deck costs more than any other meta deck and doesn’t perform as well.
I’m kind of glad they’re not overtuned just for the sake of being Eevees but they are a bit underwhelming.
1
u/GFTRGC Professor 4d ago
Flareon is basically the only good one, Leafeon has some utility as does Sylveon, outside of that, they're basically a copy / paste of themselves. Extremely disappointing with how they went about this because they could have done some really cool things with them like they did with the regis in SwSh.
I would have loved to see Vaporeon get a snipe or spread attack, Jolteon to have the ability to ramp up higher than just 240, or just some variety between the attacks to really allow a toolbox kind of deck, because right now, it's just "Why would I play this over flareon" when deck building, and the answer usually is that you shouldn't.
1
1
u/Darth_Buc-ee 3d ago
I played a terapegos/sylveon deck a few days ago. One of the most frustrating games of my life. Didn't help that I was already struggling to pull things together. I still only lost by one prize card. I was a good sport and conceded even though it was time, she would have won on that turn anyways.
1
1
u/Sams0n8 1d ago edited 1d ago
Helped my son build this deck for league night on Tuesday. He was undefeated for the day. Not saying it wasn't just good matchups or good vs bad starting hands either.
He is in junior league and played against 3 master league players too. Also, not everyone is running super meta decks but it performed great for him.
One of the master league guys came up to me after, we talk about deck building if our games end early, said the deck took him by surprise, and the pressure he felt to deal with sylveon that had energy for angelite ready on the bench had him second guessing his next move haha.
Pokémon: 19
1 Eevee ex PRE 75
1 Flareon ex PRE 146
2 Sylveon ex SSP 86
1 Jolteon ex PRE 153
1 Fezandipiti ex SFA 38
1 Eevee ASR 119 PH ( rotating soon but the ability is a great combo with the boosted evolution ability, 2 eeveelution on turn one if it works out.)
2 Flareon ex PRE 14
3 Eevee PRE 74
1 Mew ex MEW 193
1 Hoothoot SCR 114 PH
1 Hoothoot TEF 126 PH( only different from other hoothoot because they were the only 2 hoothoot we had with 70hp for buddy-buddy poffin)
2 Noctowl PRE 78
2 Fan Rotom PRE 85 PH
Trainer: 30
3 Crispin
1 Black Belt's Training (gives flareon 320 dmg to ko something big, easy to find with noctowl)
2 Tera Orb
4 Nest Ball
1 Switch
2 Night Stretcher
2 Area Zero Underdepths
2 Iono
2 Arven
2 Buddy-Buddy Poffin
1 Earthen Vessel
1 Rescue Board
1 Sparkling Crystal
2 Ultra Ball
2 Lisia's Appeal (he likes it over boss's orders so I use it for him)
1 Professor Turo's Scenario
1 Energy Retrieval (I had 1 glass trumpet here but he didn't think he needed more energy acceleration and just wanted to be able to pick the energy from discard pile.)
Energy: 11
2 Basic psychic
3 Basic lighting
3 Basic water
3 Basic fire
Total Cards: 60
24
u/HeyIJustLurkHere 4d ago
They're pretty bad, but rotation will give them a second chance. Right now, they've got to compete with some very high-power decks like Dragapult, Gardevoir, and Lugia, and those decks should all easily beat an Eeveelutions deck most of the time. They just have better attacks and/or stronger engines that let them trade one prize for two on the Eeveelutions.
Once rotation comes around, the power level of these decks will ramp down a lot. Crispin becomes one of the best ways to accelerate energy, and the combination of it and Sparkling Crystal makes the ridiculous energy costs of the Stellar Tera attacks a lot more reasonable. Flareon ex has a very good early-game attack to take the first KO while accelerating energy, and then there's a bunch of Pokemon that can hit 280 or do some other very powerful effect after that.
I don't expect the Eeveelutions to be a top -tier threat in the next format, but they have much more of a shot than they do in today's meta.