Maybe They Aren’t Dead? — Single-Prize Decks Post-LAIC
Hello PokeBeach readers! Isaiah here, and I am happy to be writing another article for you all! Last time, I talked a bit about one of my favorite decks in Standard, Gholdengo ex. Unfortunately, the deck failed to produce anything remotely close to a good finish at the Latin America International Championship, despite my generally high praise for it. I think a big part of why the deck failed to do well was a shift in perception of the meta shortly before the event. In the week leading up to the Latin America International Championship, people suddenly realized that Gardevoir ex is still very, very good despite the assumption that Iron Hands ex and Iron Valiant ex were going to kill it off. As such, Gholdengo ex’s worst matchup went from a relatively uncommon deck to the most played deck at the event.
Funnily enough, the newfound Gardevoir ex hype turned the format into a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy, and the finals of the event found Juho Kallama and his Miraidon ex deck defeating Noah Sawyer and his Entei V / Iron Valiant ex deck. The results of this event have left me quite puzzled: pretty much every deck in the format that was expected to succeed put up at least a decent result, so there’s no clear dominant deck going forward. In a lot of ways, I am a big fan of formats where there is a clear best deck in format, such as the Silver Tempest format last year with Lugia VSTAR, but this format feels like the exact opposite. Still, I do think that there is a lot of room for metagaming for specific strategies, especially for the first few Regionals post-LAIC. Naturally, most people’s immediate reactions to the top decks from the Latin America International Championship is going to be one of two things:
- Play the top decks.
- Counter the top decks.
Personally, I like to do the latter, and that is going to be largely the focus of this article. I think that, despite Iron Hands ex, single-Prize Pokemon are in a really good spot right now. Being fast and efficiently trading with Gardevoir ex decks or being bulky enough to withstand an onslaught of Tachyon Bits are both very strong strategies for these first couple Regional Championships. As a result, I have started to re-examine some classic single-Prize strategies, and I think that I have found some super strong options that could put up great results at some point in this extremely long Paradox Rift format.
Lunatone / Solrock
I honestly cannot believe that I have found myself writing about this deck in 2023, but due to a meta shift and the introduction of Counter Catcher, I think the deck may be legitimately good now (a theme that will prove to be a common one throughout this article). The deck has never really had an issue with consistency, but introducing Earthen Vessel as a way to filter Energy out of the deck has been quite helpful. Now the deck is extremely good at getting its turn-one attack, which is momentum that it can use throughout a long game.
Despite the simple game plan, it can be difficult at times to make sure that you map out your attachments correctly, as sometimes a wrong move can result in you not being able to put enough Energy in play for a critical Knock Out later in the game. This comes up especially often against decks that play Iron Hands ex, which typically are matchups where you are required to make massive Energy commitments for a one-hit Knock Out on Iron Hands ex while also prepping for follow-up threats.
This deck is extremely consistent, surprisingly powerful, and incredibly fun, and I really cannot recommend it enough for at least League Cups or League Challenges if you are too scared to play it for a Regional Championship.
This concludes the public portion of this article.
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