Leafeon Lv. X Cherrim (2009)

Everybody loves Eevee and at least some Eeveelutions right? Well, maybe some exceptional rare pokemon fans don’t but the majority of us do. Otherwise Nintendo and The Pokemon Company wouldn’t be giving them that extra attentive treatment. All you have to do is look at all the Eeveelution cards, how frequently they come out and all the other tcg and non tcg merchandize surrounding them. A good number of OG veteran players may tell you that Eeveelutions weren’t all that powerful in the Diamond and Pearl era; even if you factor in the whole of gen 4 with the HGSS sets included. That’s not entirely false if you just want to consider the most top tier decks (many of them SP) but not entirely true either. Being the passionate fan and researcher of the Diamond and Pearl tcg era, I’ve come up with one Eeveelution deck that shouldn’t be underestimated. It is based on what was one of the 2 new evolutions of Eevee in this era, Leafeon. It is my belief that a deck based on Leafeon is the strongest and easiest to pull off out of all the other Eeveelutions in the era. Below is the deck list I thoughtfully tested along with my usual comprehensive explanations:

Leafeon Lv. X x1 Leafeon x3 Espeon x1 Eevee x4 Cherrim x3 Cherubi x3 Claydol x2 Baltoy x2 Uxie x1 Spiritomb x4

Dawn Stadium x2 Broken Time Space x1 Roseanne’s Research x4 Felicity's Drawing x4 Professor Oak's Visit x1 Cynthia’s Feelings x1 Bebe's Search x3 Luxury Ball x1 Pokemon Rescue x1 Night Maintenance x1 Switch x1

Grass Energy x12 Psychic Energy x2 Call Energy x2

Frankly put, Leafeon Lv. X is a fantastic Lv. X and the main attraction in trying to use a Leafeon deck in the era in at all. Some examples of Lv. X cards don’t improve by too much when you level up and most of them always have a default downgrade with a x2 weakness on the new pokemon. None of this applies to Leafeon Lv. X as it gets a whole package of improvement and its weakness only bumps up to +30 instead of the common x2 on Lv. X cards. Some of the most popular decks in the era are based around strong water pokemon so the water resistance here is very handy further aiding Leafeon as a solid deck counter against those meta decks. Energy Forcing allows you to attach an extra energy per turn with this effect and this includes any special energy too.

Obviously this can help you power up any pokemon much quicker but it combos with Leafeon’s Verdant Dance here doing more damage the more total energies you have on your field. Just meeting the base cost allows Leafeon to hit for 50 for 2; a solid start considering this attack can only grow stronger. With only a couple of extra energies on your other pokemon Leafeon can get into the 70-80 range ensuring 2 hit KOs on all pokemon and with some extra add on boosts even get in the range to OHKO SP Lv. Xs in the 110 HP range. A key card doesn’t get more key in this case than what Leafeon Lv. X is to this deck.

Majestic Dawn Espeon is an important inclusion in the deck as its poke-body boosting HP is too good to pass up and adds to our tanking and healing theme here. With Sunlight Veil all your eeveelutions including Espeon get a +20 HP boost. By including a few psychic energies Espeon can also serve as a back up attacker too granting our deck some useful psychic coverage. 60 for 3 is okay considering Leafeon Lv. X helps us power up our attacks faster and it also lets you conserve an energy after the attack which is a good plus, again synergizing with Verdant Dance.

Being the Diamond Pearl native that it is, Leafeon got a couple of different prints in its debuting era. All 3 of them have their merits but the way our deck is built and which best combos with the Lv. X is in my opinion the Rising Rivals print here. Both its poke-body and attack combo with the Lv. X in healing damage while we’re attaching energies and getting even more energy acceleration to boost Verdant Dance even further. Ironically Soothing Scent is the weakest aspect on this card, not because it’s that terrible but because the original Leafeon from Majestic Dawn can block 20 damage with its 3 for 60 attack and that can combo well with our healing and it’s just a more reliable effect in general. Auto sleep is obviously gonna be perfect if your opponent doesn’t wake up and can’t play around it. Overall, fully favouring this print is the way to go.

A cool part about grass decks in the DP era is how you can make your deck more offensive or defensive by utilizing Stormfront or Arceus Cherrim. In the past I only owned 2 Stormfront Cherrims so I had to use a blend of 2-1 but all directions have their benefits. By favouring the Stormfront Cherrim fully you increase your chances of getting into OHKO range with Verdant Dance and that is of course, very good. On the other hand some pokemon will just always be able to tank a hit so making sure your Leafeons can’t be 1 hit or even 2 hit KOed is going to be huge. And, as I mentioned you can always run a blend and have a balance of overall aid.

The choice for what Cherubi to run doesn’t really matter much since they all have 50 HP and don’t do anything as useful as Majestic Dawn Eevee we looked above. But for technicality’s sake the Stormfront print should be the best choice for the potential lucky damage flipping 4 coins. The Supreme Victors one would have been great if it could attach energies to other pokemon beside itself but that’s not the case. An argument could be made that the original one from the first set might be the best choice inflicting auto sleep for 1 but I’d rather go for damage.

This is definitely the Eevee you want to favour in any Eeveelution deck in the DP era. Perhaps if the rules and format were different the Rising Rivals one would be a great option to, seeing as it can grab you Eeveelutions instead of Eevees but that's only a "what if". Running 4 of this Eevee is the best choice as it's a basic pokemon fetcher on the same league as Pachirisu from Great Encounters. The main difference is that you can only grab other Eevees but that's hardly a condition to pass up on such a useful effect at the start of the game. We want to get our Eevees on the bench anyway to evolve into Leafeon and Espeon and Call for Family doesn't only ensure consistency but safety as well against turbo decks that may go off playing second.

Now for sure, if you're unlucky enough to open with multiple Eevee at the start of the game then this attack won't be as good but it is still the best choice no question. Even if you would grab 2 or even 1 Eevee from your deck it's worth it.

However, what’s possibly most optimal is to favour Stormfront Cherrim at least in a 2-1 line if not going all out with 3. This is because Stormfront Cherrim can attack with no energy and will deal a respectable damage once you factor its poke-body softening up your foes and even give you some healing. In the mid to late game Solarbeam may also become an option thanks to Leafeon Lv. X. There’s a good chance you will evolve into Cherrim first in your games before you’ve set up any Leafeon or Espeon so you might as well be putting pressure in the meantime. A key benefit to having at least one Arceus Cherrim though is to allow your Cherrims to tank a snipe from Garchomp C Lv. X so keep that in mind.

Naturally you could forsake Dawn Stadium and run more of this card for potential speedier evolutions but seeing as I’m running 2 and 1 here you know where I stand. Broken Time-Space is obviously broken and will put in a work in a stage 1 deck like this with lots of evolution pokemon. At the same time, as I’ve always said this is the most popular stadium in the era and your opponent will likely be dropping it for us so I’d rather let them help us instead of other other way around. At the end of the day, we will need a few turns to build up energies on the field regardless if we’re going to make the best use of Verdant Dance. There’s a reason this deck works best setting up slowly through Spiritomb so don’t forget that.

While being featured in the artwork isn’t always an indication of obvious synergy, it really is almost a given that this stadium was made to work with Leafeon and Glaceon as the theme pokemon form Majestic Dawn. Dawn Stadium is nice because a lot of decks probably won’t be using it so it makes for a good counter stadium choice. Of course, we wouldn’t be running it for just this bland reason its effect actually adds up to our healing with other effects. While it’s true that water decks will be able to exploit it too Gyarados and Kingdra don’t particularly attach energies that much anyway so they probably won’t make as much use of it compared to us. Healing special conditions may also come up to which is nice.

This card is standard for pokemon and energy recovery, possibly only for pokemon recovery here given out high energy count but the option is still there. The most important pokemon to recover are usually going to be Leafeons with the Lv. X card as our primary target.

Evolving into Claydol quickly is obvious, but for our deck to gain its real merits we need to get Leafeon Lv. X quickly too. The quicker you get this card the quicker you can build up energies on your field. After the Leafeons the next most important evolution is Espeon and then the Cherrims but it all depends on your game situation at the end of the day.

Claydol is a standard choice in this deck only made easier since we have the space. Since Leafeon and Cherrim are only stage 1s Claydol is easy to include and we can evolve to it quickly enough through Spiritomb. The 1 Uxie should also be pretty self explanatory; good draw without the need to evolve and if we get a great enough set up at the start without it then we don’t need to play it for the rest of the game unless it’s for a specific play.

Without the bonus draw Cynthia’s Feelings is a very average supporter, but with the bonus she becomes the best supporter in the era. Shuffling your hand to draw 8 cards is amazing, but the condition also makes it a bad supporter to have in the set up process. Some pokemon are really aggressive, but realistically you don’t want to be in a position where you’re losing prizes so easily, especially at the start of the game so you won’t be getting her full effect. For this reason I’d rather not favour her so much.

Despite its ugly mug, Spiritomb is a very necessary card to max out here as our hopeful opener and a pokemon that gives set up decks like this one a shot at keeping up with the fastest meta decks. With so many different evolution pokemon here you’re always going to have something to evolve into with its attack making it a real no brainer. As usual, we can discard the extra copies with Felicity or simple just bottom deck them with Oak or Claydol.

Switch can be helpful in many general situations since it’s Switch, but in our deck it can be a key way for conserving energies if we were attacking with a pokemon that wasn’t Leafeon Lv. X. Regular Leafeon has a double retreat so if we were using it and then wanted to retreat before it got killed losing those 2 energies is the equivalent of losing attack power once we promote a new Leafeon and level up to the Lv. X. Of course, you won’t always have the Switch luxury and it’s one card here at the end of the day but it’s handy to have around.

Felicity and Oak provide us that straight draw with not too big of a draw back as we’ll usually have at least 1 card we don’t mind getting rid of or bottom decking. Extra Spiritombs are pointless after the start of the game and the same could be said about extra supporters or even Broken Time-Space.

This deck will be at its best when a lot of your evolution pokemon are out at the same time so collecting their basic forms quickly is important. Making sure we always have extra energies for Energy Forcing and Plus Energy is for the best as well and Roseanne can help with that too.

Leafeon Lv. X is only 1 card at the end of the day and the best way to reuse a pokemon like this quickly is with Pokemon Rescue or Premier Ball. As I only have 1 Lv. X in this deck burning up space for Premier Ball isn’t that ideal but Pokemon Rescue is definitely worth it, as we can use to recover any missing piece we just lost in a pinch. Whether it’s Espeon, a regular Leafeon or even a Cherrim we can get them back and make use of Night Maintenance late game when we’re more comfortable.

Leafeon Lv. X is a pretty cool rogue deck in the DP era because it has a natural tank advantage against water pokemon in the era. The price for being grass type is that fire pokemon will give us more trouble and this deck isn't really teched out to deal with them either. Arceus Glalie could easily partner up with Leafeon if you're willing to sacrifice the Cherrim line and if you do a 2-2 line you even gain 2 more spots for additional tech or consistency cards. Realistically though unless you run into Typhlosion enthusiasts like myself the most popular fire pokemon in the era is Blaziken FB Lv. X. It will give you trouble though as combined with Lucario GL it will always kill any Leafeon in one shot. Another option would be to swap the Cherrim line and partner Leafeon with a 2-2-2 Great Encounters Sceptile line. It won't help you against fire pokemon but it does compliment Leafeon Lv. X. The obvious difference is this is a stage 2 line and will make your deck less consistent. Same idea with Shaymin Lv. X. It can make for a great defensive option but it can be tricky to include needing to be active in order to level up. Not receiving the HP boost is also a turn off for me. Gengar can always be a pain but at the same time our deck is built around Spiritomb and to be resistant to trainer lock so Poltergeist won't be that good when our hand is mostly filled with grass energies. Dialga G Lv. X can also be a problem shutting down our Cherrims but as a slower deck they also give us the chance to build up a lot of energies on the field with our Leafeons. If you can get into a position to finish off Dialga before it can heal then the game should sway in your favour.

Running a whopping 12 grass energies in addition to our other energies here might seem excessive but it’s actually just right. We need to make sure we have spare energies for Plus Energy and Energy Forcing every turn otherwise we’re missing out on getting the most out of our cards. The only form of energy recovery here is Night Maintenance and having a lot of energies make it more comfortable for us to use that to recover Leafeons which we can’t run more than 4 anyway.

Having 2 psychic energies around allows Espeon to be a potential attacker as well especially if our opponent is using any psychic weak pokemon. Leafeon Lv. X as well as the regular Leafeon are very flexible with energies so even if we don't use Espeon to attack we won't really mind having a few non grass energies in the deck. The same goes for both Cherrims. Choosing Multi Energy over a basic psychic doesn't really provide any utility benefit here and it's actually a worse choice. Leafeon can still attack a basic psychic with Plus Energy and they are also searchable with Roseanne.

If you don't want to bother with psychic energies for Espeon you could always drop them for a full set of Call Energy maximizing consistency to the fullest. There isn't much need for that extreme however, 2 Call Energy should be good enough seeing as we have Call for Family Eevee, Spiritomb and enough basic pokemon to avoid a potential cheap loss against turbo decks. Like I said just above, our pokemon are very flexible with energies and won't mind a Call Energy attachment at all. Special energies don't subtract from Verdant Dance's damage and we can also attach them with Energy Forcing too. The only downside is they can't be attached with Plus Energy but that's about it.

Keeping Leafeon Lv. X alive or just around is paramount, as Verdant Dance is the best and really only powerful attack we have at our disposal mid to late game. If they have the means, a clever player will try to get rid of Leafeon Lv. X as soon as possible, cutting off our extra energy acceleration and not worrying about Verdant Dance. This is why timing that Pokemon Rescue on the Lv. X can make a big difference; never forget your main win condition here is Leafeon Lv. X. Because of this, unfortunately our deck is also very vulnerable to Flygon Lv. X. Tanking 150 damage from Extreme Attack is pretty much impossible unless you have Espeon and a bunch of Arceus Cherrims around. It's one of your hardest match ups especially when paired up with Nidoqueen. LuxChomp is dangerous against any deck if they don't evolve their basic pokemon in time and the constant healing will also be trouble if we can't get in the range for OHKOs. This will apply to most SP decks. Despite all the potential weaknesses I listed it doesn't mean it's going to be a sweet ride for our opponent either as quick pressure from our pokemon and bad luck with sleep could be enough for us to gain the advantage we need to win. Thanks to Stormfront Cherrim, Leafeon is able to 2HKO many pokemon even without Leafeon Lv. X and can be self sufficient on its own thanks to Plus Energy. Spiritomb will slow down numerous decks including SP giving you time to build up at least some set up before your opponent can put up up some real pressure. Ultimately, it's obvious for this deck to have shortcomings as a rogue deck but you also have your advantages as I pointed out throughout this deck article. Hope you guys enjoyed reading about this deck and I'll see you on the next post.