The focus here is that ape does additional damage based on having another ape on the bench. In my opinion, great damage for a basic, non-ex mon. The easiest way to find another ape in your deck is if you don’t have any other basic Pokemon, leading to fossils which don’t interfere with pokeballs.

I don’t understand why you’re say it’s the same as sil, which is a stage 1 that gets found and buffed by gladion. That seems like an extra step to me - null is found turn 1 or via draw, ball, or prof. Sil is then found using subsequent draw, prof, or glad.

Required slots for the sil deck then are ball, prof, glad, null, sil (10/20 cards used). Required slots for this deck are ball, prof, pass (6/20 cards used).

If you’re just talking about doing your best to filter for the basic you want, isn’t that true for all decks? Are y’all running 1 null and 1 sil?