A Better Miraidon ex — Palkia Box from Gdansk Regionals

Hello to all PokeBeach readers! This is Gabriel Semedo again with another Pokémon TCG article, and this time, I’m going to talk about Origin Forme Palkia VSTAR Box, particularly the list used by Luke Kirkham at the recent Gdańsk Regional Championships.

I confess that I was hoping that Paradox Rift would change the metagame enough to see new decks standing out and previously established decks losing space, but after the Latin America International Championships, we only saw a metagame very similar to the previous format’s. Gardevoir ex remains the strongest deck, but it is a bad deck to use in tournaments since it struggles to finish a best-of-three in the allotted time. Charizard ex is not quite as good as Gardevoir ex, but it has faster gameplay, which makes it one of the best choices for a best-of-three tournament. Miraidon ex gained a lot with the arrival of Iron Hands ex, and Mew VMAX simply refuses to leave the format, meaning you are still forced to think about countering it with Drapion V or Spiritomb. Snorlax Control surprised the competitive scene, but as people have become more aware of it, it has become easier to counter it. Entei V / Iron Valiant ex reached the LAIC finals, and could still consolidate a new archetype in the metagame, but it hasn’t seen so many good results since then.

Although the metagame hasn’t changed that much, I really like the moment we’re living in today. Still, I wanted a new deck to play at League Challenges and League Cups in Brazil. It was then that I saw Luke Kirkham’s Palkia Box list, which won him Top 4 in Gdańsk. In addition to being the new archetype I was looking for, I adapted to the deck right from the start, because its gameplay reminds me a lot of some decks I’ve created and used in the past. It’s like the deck has my style of play. It is not correct to choose a deck just for reasons such as taste or comfort, but if you are in doubt between two equally good decks, choose the one that you feel better playing. It ultimately has an impact on your performance, whether you like it or not.

In today’s article, I will take a deeper look at the Palkia Box list, which has several Water-type tech Pokémon to solve the various problems the metagame presents. They all attack, and their attacks must be planned according to the needs of the matchup. Let’s look at the list.

This concludes the public portion of this article.

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