The Easiest Broken Deck — Turbo Iron Hands ex

Several post-rotation decks performed well at the massive Fukuoka Champions League tournament in Japan. This tournament was the first to showcase the new Temporal Forces set as well as the post-rotation format. I wrote about this tournament a couple of weeks ago, and I covered most of the decks that made Top 16. The results seem to indicate a format just as diverse as the one we have now, and even after seeing the results, the meta remains unsolved and open-ended. New formats are always exciting, as there is a lot to explore, and I’ve been testing various decks for post-rotation which I like quite a lot.

Last time, I wrote about Charizard ex, which I believe to be the best overall deck, however, at the end of my Champions League review, I indicated that a new deck that quietly snuck into Top 16 has some real potential; turbo Iron Hands ex. Iron Hands ex has been popular both in Japan and in our format since its release in Paradox Rift thanks to that unique and powerful Amp You Very Much attack. With Temporal Forces, Iron Hands ex gains a ton of new cards and thus receives a massive power buff.

What has Iron Hands ex Gained?

First and foremost is Iron Crown ex . Iron Crown ex’s Ability buffs the damage of your Future Pokemon by +20 — if you have three Iron Crown ex on your Bench, Iron Hands ex’s Amp You Very Much now deals 180 damage. This is insane! I cannot understate how huge this is for Iron Hands ex. Previously, Amp You Very Much was a strong attack, but it could only one-shot weak single-Prize Pokemon. This made Iron Hands ex notorious as an option to counter single-Prize attackers, but its downside was its low damage output, which limited the card’s overall usefulness — that weakness is now completely negated. With four Iron Crown ex and a Future Booster Energy Capsule, Amp You Very Much deals 220 damage, enough to one-shot most two-Prize Pokemon as well as nearly all single-Prize Pokemon. This sounds like a lot of setup, but it’s relatively easy to find a swarm of Iron Crown ex thanks to Techno Radar.

Next is the new Miraidon . Miraidon’s attack deals 40 base damage and searches out two Basic Energy from the deck to directly attach to Iron Hands ex. This serves several purposes; Iron Hands ex requires four Energy to use Amp You Very Much… Even with access to Electric Generator, this is a very steep cost. Miraidon smooths out this process and offers a way to consistently charge up Iron Hands ex. Even after some unlucky whiffs from Electric Generator, Miraidon saves you. In short, it’s a consistent game plan — you are almost always attacking with Miraidon to start the game and set yourself up. Additionally, Miraidon applies pressure. Against any deck with single-Prize Pokemon like Charizard ex and Lost Zone box, Miraidon easily deals enough damage to take an early KO. Thanks to Iron Crown ex and Future Booster Energy Capsule, Miraidon’s attack KOs weak single-Prize Pokemon. This applies pressure and takes Prize cards, which gives you an easier Prize map along with Amp You Very Much. This level of synergy is crazy!


This concludes the public portion of this article.

If you'd like to continue reading, consider purchasing a PokeBeach premium membership! If you're not completely satisfied with your membership, you can request a full refund within 30 days.

Each week we post high-quality content from some of the game's top players. Our article program isn't a corporate operation, advertising front, or for-profit business. We set our prices so that we can pay the game's top players to write the best content for our subscribers. Each article topic is carefully selected, goes through multiple drafts, and is touched up by our editors. We take great pride in our program!

I like how we basically got a reincarnation of ADP (a card that "counters" 90% of printed cards), but there's so much already-ridiculous stuff in the format that it's not a cause for concern.
Also i like how, quote "The results seem to indicate a format just as diverse as the one we have now" does not mean it is diverse at all. Pretty subtle.
 
This may make me sound like a dick but I don't like when these articles hide the decklist. I understand you gotta have a reason for people to purchase the membership but can't we just have the decklist available for all at least? Hide the deck analysis and talk afterwards that's fine. But the decklist is what people are gonna want and finding it is paywalled I don't know just feels bad.
 
Nobody seems to believe in this deck. Bo1 or Bo3 I opt to go 2nd for 50 games on ptcgl and the amount of games my opponent was stuck with a lone active pokemon was high. FutureHands sets up turn one wins easily. I have a different approach with this archetype that is unsurprisingly similar to a list from Japan that has performed well.
 

Attachments

  • 20240319_180224.jpg
    20240319_180224.jpg
    3.1 MB · Views: 109
This may make me sound like a dick but I don't like when these articles hide the decklist. I understand you gotta have a reason for people to purchase the membership but can't we just have the decklist available for all at least? Hide the deck analysis and talk afterwards that's fine. But the decklist is what people are gonna want and finding it is paywalled I don't know just feels bad.
I understand your concern. I felt the same way, before I started working as an editor.

Your post validates our reasoning, though - what most people are here for is the writer's list, and encouraging people to subscribe helps us make sure our writers are properly paid for their expertise. As you mention, you also get access to the writer's analysis with your subscription, which isn't nothing.

Sometimes when a writer talks about a public list, I'll make a point to put it before the paywall. But as much as I'd like to make the articles free, that's not feasible unless I screw up when posting.

Also this deck is the truth. It will only get better as the format settles.
 
But as much as I'd like to make the articles free, that's not feasible unless I screw up when posting.
Gosh darn, I hate it when that happens and I get full access to the entire article and all 6 Chein-Pao decklists for free.
 
  • Like
Reactions: PMJ
But the decklist is what people are gonna want and finding it is paywalled I don't know just feels bad.
I think that's exactly the reason it's paywalled.
However, the issue here is the price. $15 is a ridiculous price for a month of membership. This is the same price as Netflix.
 
I think that's exactly the reason it's paywalled.
However, the issue here is the price. $15 is a ridiculous price for a month of membership. This is the same price as Netflix.
It's eye-wateringly steep, but I doubt the subscriber count would triple if the price dropped to 5 bucks. Even if it did, they'd still be making less money thanks to transaction fees.
 
Also i like how, quote "The results seem to indicate a format just as diverse as the one we have now" does not mean it is diverse at all. Pretty subtle.
It is a diverse format. There are plenty of viable decks and the decks play differently from each other. I understand you hate the power level of Standard, but some of the things you say just don't ring true at all, such as this or when you say Standard isn't skillful.
 
You are writing this under an article about a card that is considered a "counter" to 1957 out of 2569 Pokemon cards (76.1%) in Standard.
Really did the math there. Impressive! Out of curiosity, how did you count that?
 
It is a diverse format. There are plenty of viable decks and the decks play differently from each other. I understand you hate the power level of Standard, but some of the things you say just don't ring true at all, such as this or when you say Standard isn't skillful.

You are writing this under an article about a card that is considered a "counter" to 1957 out of 2569 Pokemon cards (76.1%) in Standard.

It is a comparatively diverse formats because several top decks are thriving. Even when the Pokémon Trading Card Game was at its most balanced, there wasn’t a case of 10% of the Pokémon in the format succeeding at the highest levels of competitive play. “Diverse” in the sense LightYearLiam and many others use it means “we have a dozen or more decks that make a serious case for winning the next tournament,” not “We have a format where most of the card pool is playable.”
 
This may make me sound like a dick but I don't like when these articles hide the decklist. I understand you gotta have a reason for people to purchase the membership but can't we just have the decklist available for all at least? Hide the deck analysis and talk afterwards that's fine. But the decklist is what people are gonna want and finding it is paywalled I don't know just feels bad.
You answered your own question. The decklist being what people want is what encourages people to subscribe to support the site & players.
 
I've been using (maybe not this exact) deck on PTCGL and had great success. Looking to build it IRL but the price of Iron Hands and Iron Crown is a little high for my liking at the moment, alongside Prime Catcher also setting me back £20.