Flareon ex / Noctowl deck: the core, the flex slots, and what beats it

What this deck looks like when you open the box

Across the 20 lists we counted, this deck runs 21 to 24 Pokémon, 26 to 30 Trainers and 8 to 10 Energy. Its attacks are paid for in Fire, Water, Lightning and Grass.

Limitless files it under « flareon-noctowl », and that is the label you will see on results pages and on stream. Every card named in it turns up in the core below, which is what makes it a fair name for the deck.

Look at the Energy count first: 8 to 10 out of 60. No single number tells you more about how a deck breathes. A lot of Energy means it wants to load up one big Pokémon and swing hard. Very little means it lives on cheap attacks and on Trainers to dig out whatever it is missing.

It sets up fast. Flareon ex is a Stage 1 Pokémon: a Basic, one evolution on top, and you are attacking. Two cards instead of three. You lose fewer turns building, and you rebuild much more easily when an early knockout lands on you.

On the Trainer side: 7 to 10 Supporters, 12 to 18 Items, 1 to 2 Tools and 2 to 3 Stadiums. Worth saying out loud, because everyone forgets it once a tournament: you only get ONE Supporter a turn, while you can chain as many Items as you like. So a deck full of Items takes longer, louder turns than a deck full of Supporters.

How it actually wins

Flareon ex attacks with Carnelian for 280, and it costs 3 Energy (Fire, Water and Lightning). It has 270 HP to absorb the answer. Everything else in the list is built around getting that card online.

Do the arithmetic with us, because it decides your first few turns. You attach one Energy a turn by hand. Flareon ex wants 3. With no help, that means you swing on turn 3 at the earliest. Every card in this deck that accelerates Energy or fetches a Pokémon buys back a turn on that count, and at this level a turn is a game.

Here is the detail that quietly loses games: Flareon ex has a Retreat Cost of 2. Once it is in the Active spot you are not getting it back to the Bench cheaply. Think before you send it up.

5 of the core Pokémon carry the « ex » suffix. Those are the big ones: high HP, attacks that hurt, and the price tag to match. They also cost you more when they fall — an opponent takes extra Prize cards for knocking out an ex, so every trade you lose there walks you towards the loss faster than you think.

The attackers in the deck's core, with their best attack, its cost and their Weakness

Pokémon	HP	Attack	Damage	Cost	Weakness	Retreat
Flareon exStage 1	270	Carnelian	280	Fire + Water + Lightning	Water ×2	2
Leafeon exStage 1	270	Moss Agate	230	Grass + Fire + Water	Fire ×2	2
Eevee exBasic	200	Coruscating Quartz	200	Fire + Water + Lightning	Fighting ×2	1
Fan RotomBasic	70	Assault Landing	70	Colorless	Lightning ×2	1

The core: the 20 cards every list runs

These 20 cards appear in all 20 lists, without a single exception. That is 40 of the 60 slots. The other 20 are decided player by player.

This is the most useful table on the page, and nobody publishes it. Everywhere else you get one list, from one player, who won one tournament. Fine — but you have no way of telling which parts of it were the deck and which parts were that person's idea on the day. Counting 20 lists settles the question by itself: what 20 people put in their deck without talking to each other IS the deck.

A word on the count column. We give you the number that comes up most often, and where the lists disagree we give you the range instead. A card sitting at "3 to 4" is one everybody plays but whose fourth copy is up for debate. That is exactly the kind of slot you reclaim when you want to fit an idea of your own.

The code next to the name — "TWM 130" and the like — is the set and the collector number, printed at the bottom of the card. We show you the printing the lists use most often, because two cards can share a name and have completely different attacks. Check that number before you buy anything.

The cards present in every list counted, with the number of copies

Copies	Card	Printing	Kind	Rotation
3–4	Noctowl	SCR 115	Pokémon	leaves
1–3	Eevee ex	PRE 75	Pokémon	leaves
2	Fan Rotom	SCR 118	Pokémon	leaves
2	Flareon ex	PRE 14	Pokémon	leaves
1–2	Eevee	SSP 143	Pokémon	leaves
1	Fezandipiti ex	ASC 142	Pokémon	leaves
1–2	Leafeon ex	PRE 6	Pokémon	leaves
1	Lillie's Clefairy ex	JTG 56	Pokémon	stays
3–4	Poké Pad	POR 81	Trainer	stays
1–3	Crispin	SCR 133	Trainer	leaves
1–4	Ultra Ball	MEG 131	Trainer	stays
2–3	Area Zero Underdepths	SCR 131	Trainer	leaves
2–4	Buddy-Buddy Poffin	TEF 144	Trainer	leaves
1–2	Night Stretcher	ASC 196	Trainer	leaves
1	Sparkling Crystal	SCR 142	Trainer	leaves
2–3	Fire Energy	MEE 2	Energy	stays
1–2	Psychic Energy	MEE 5	Energy	stays
1–3	Water Energy	MEE 3	Energy	stays
1–2	Grass Energy	MEE 1	Energy	stays
1–2	Lightning Energy	MEE 4	Energy	stays

What changes from one list to the next

42 cards show up in some lists and not in others. The percentage tells you how many lists run each one: at 50%, half the players want it and the other half deliberately chose something else.

Do not read this table as a ranking from best to worst. A card sitting at 80% is one four players in five find useful and the fifth cut on purpose, usually because they were expecting a different field. That disagreement is worth something on its own.

Here is how to use it when you build. Take the whole core first, no arguing. Then walk down this list and stop on every card you do not understand: read its text, work out what it is answering. A card you cannot explain is a card you will misplay, even if the champion had it in their list.

And if this is your first time with the deck, build the boring version — the full core plus the most common cards from here. Understand the deck before you start tinkering with it. That order is the only one that works.

The cards some lists run and others don't, most common first

Lists running it	Card	Copies	Printing	Kind
95 %19/20	Hoothoot	3–4	SCR 114	Pokémon
95 %19/20	Boss's Orders	2	MEG 114	Trainer
90 %18/20	Tera Orb	1–3	SSP 189	Trainer
90 %18/20	Cyrano	1–3	SSP 170	Trainer
90 %18/20	Switch	1–2	MEG 130	Trainer
85 %17/20	Wellspring Mask Ogerpon ex	1–2	TWM 64	Pokémon
85 %17/20	Black Belt's Training	1	JTG 143	Trainer
80 %16/20	Glass Trumpet	1–2	SCR 135	Trainer
70 %14/20	Latias ex	1	SSP 76	Pokémon
65 %13/20	Briar	1	SCR 132	Trainer
60 %12/20	Chien-Pao	1	SSP 56	Pokémon
60 %12/20	Lillie's Determination	1–3	MEG 119	Trainer
55 %11/20	Espeon ex	1	PRE 34	Pokémon
50 %10/20	Energy Switch	1–2	MEG 115	Trainer
45 %9/20	Darkness Energy	1–4	MEE 7	Energy
35 %7/20	Sylveon ex	1–2	SSP 86	Pokémon
35 %7/20	Air Balloon	1	ASC 181	Trainer
30 %6/20	Special Red Card	1	CRI 82	Trainer
25 %5/20	Terapagos ex	1	SCR 128	Pokémon
25 %5/20	Hilda	1–2	WHT 84	Trainer
20 %4/20	Energy Search	1	POR 72	Trainer
15 %3/20	Hoothoot	1–3	PRE 77	Pokémon
15 %3/20	Jolteon ex	1	PRE 30	Pokémon
15 %3/20	Gravity Mountain	1	SSP 177	Trainer
15 %3/20	Judge	1	POR 76	Trainer
10 %2/20	N's Zoroark ex	2	JTG 98	Pokémon
10 %2/20	N's Zorua	2	JTG 97	Pokémon
10 %2/20	Eevee	1	SCR 113	Pokémon
10 %2/20	Eevee	1	TWM 135	Pokémon
10 %2/20	Eevee	1	SFA 50	Pokémon
10 %2/20	Meowth ex	1	POR 62	Pokémon
10 %2/20	Munkidori	1	TWM 95	Pokémon
10 %2/20	N's Zekrom	1	ASC 155	Pokémon
10 %2/20	N's Castle	1	JTG 152	Trainer
10 %2/20	N's PP Up	1	JTG 153	Trainer
10 %2/20	Xerosic's Machinations	1	SFA 64	Trainer
5 %1/20	Diancie	1	SCR 86	Pokémon
5 %1/20	Shaymin	1	DRI 10	Pokémon
5 %1/20	Sylveon	1	PRE 40	Pokémon
5 %1/20	Umbreon ex	1	PRE 60	Pokémon
5 %1/20	Battle Cage	1	PFL 85	Trainer
5 %1/20	Kieran	1	TWM 154	Trainer

What it costs to build, and how long it will last

You need 62 different cards to cover every version of this deck, 20 of which nobody argues about. We do not have card prices, so we are not going to put a number on it.

What we can tell you is where the money goes. 5 ex Pokémon in the core, and they are almost the whole bill. The Trainers and basic Energy are near enough free, or already in your box. Add Sparkling Crystal, which is an ACE SPEC — you are only allowed ONE ACE SPEC card in your whole deck, so a single copy is all you will ever need.

Now the question nobody asks you before you pay: how long will this deck stay legal? Of the 20 core cards, 12 carry the letter H in the bottom-left corner. That is the oldest letter still allowed in tournaments, which makes it the one that goes at the next rotation. Those 12 cards have an expiry date. We do not know what that date is — the publisher announces it and it appears in no card data — but we do know exactly which cards leave.

One last piece of old-player advice. Never build a deck card by card starting with the prettiest one. Start with the core Trainers: they are cheap, they carry over into other decks, and they are what makes the machine run. Buy the expensive Pokémon last, once you know you actually enjoy the deck.

What this deck struggles against

The attackers in this deck are Weak to Water, Fire, Fighting and Lightning. A card with a Weakness takes DOUBLE damage from an attacker of that type. Of the decks we track, 24 attack in exactly that type.

Here is how the table below is built. The Weakness is printed on your cards, the type of the attacker across the table is printed on theirs, and the fact that this particular deck really does play that attacker is counted off its own lists. You can check every line of it with the cards in your hand.

One limit, while we are here. Weakness alone does not decide a match. A deck can double your damage and still lose because it sets up too slowly, or crush you without ever touching your Weakness. This table tells you where to look first. What settles the game sits further along.

Going the other way, your attackers are Fire, Water, Lightning and Grass — and 26 of the decks we track have an attacker Weak to one of those. That is you doubling, for once. Second half of the table.

These pages are about the same corner of the game. If you came away from this one still wondering about something, start with one of them.