I am always excited by the release of a new set, and Call of Legends is no exception. There are good cards in it (mostly reprints though), cool art, and several money cards. Despite being mostly a reprints/energies set, the release of new cards means one thing: rogue deck possibilities.
Gengar Prime, Palkia G LV.X/Lucario, Seviper, etc are all interesting and well-known ideas that I think merits further discussion. Along with the cards needed, the rogue deck must also find its place in the current metagame, which I’ll touch on briefly as well.
The Metagame
Most people seem to think that the best decks are something between Luxchomp, Gengar Prime, Gyarados, Sableye/Garchomp, Vileplume/Gengar, and (hopefully) Chenlock. There’s no telling what people will decide to play after the release of Call of Legends, but I doubt many things will change.
Vileplume/Gengar and Gyarados may lose power because of its vulnerability to Gengar Prime. However, this wide variety of decks causes a problem for the rogue deckbuilder.
Cards like Dark Tyranitar, Gardevoir RS, Blaziken RS, etc always seem to antagonize the Pokemon community. Inevitably, people will yell “ban this card! It kills all creativity!” “The game is dying! I’ll quit if you don’t ban it!” on the message boards. I like to look at it differently, however.
When there is only one good deck, it is easy to build rogues because there are only a few things to worry about. Contrast that with today’s environment. Your deck can’t be too slow that it is outspeeded by Luxchomp. It can’t require too much setup or it will be crippled by Sablelock and Chenlock.
It can’t be too reliant on Trainers or it will lose to Vileplume/Gengar. And now, it must play low Pokemon counts or have some way to get rid of cards in hand to prevent getting destroyed by Gengar Prime. There are many powerful, underplayed cards, but (aside from disruption), no single strategy is enough to address all of these issues. That severely limits the breadth of rogue decks that are viable.
Given my grim warning, there are cards in the new set that I think could fit well into this diverse metagame. I want to review some of the most interesting ones, and hopefully it gives you some new deck ideas, or something to think about at least!
