The New Kid on the Block — The Impact of Ceruledge ex

Hello PokeBeach readers! Isaiah here, and I am happy to be writing another article for you all.

Last time, I discussed one of my new favorite decks from the Surging Sparks expansion, Lost Zone box with Pikachu ex. In the time since that article, there have not been any in-person events, but as I am writing this, the Sacramento Regional Championship is on the horizon. I expect this event to tell us a ton about how the future of the Surging Sparks format is going to look, or mostly if the format is going to change at all.

The last three major events have been dominated by Regidrago VSTAR, notably culminating in its victory at the Latin America International Championship. With such an unbelievable streak of three events for Regidrago VSTAR, many players have started to wonder if the deck will continue to be the best in the format, or if some deck will come out of Surging Sparks to take that title, or at least change the format in a way so that something else can claim the title of the best deck.

If I am being completely realistic, I find it highly unlikely that any new deck will usurp Regidrago VSTAR’s status as the best deck in Standard, at least, of the decks that we already know about, however, as always, it’s possible that a group comes up with something unexpected in the first few events of the format. With that being said, I think that there are several new good decks, even if they are probably not the best decks in the format by any stretch. Decks like Lost Zone Pikachu ex and Hydreigon ex show a lot of promise, and even the weirder stuff like Gholdengo ex with Togekiss seem like they could be viable.

One deck that has been particularly popular has been Ceruledge ex; at first, I was extremely underwhelmed by the deck, but as I have continued to test new ideas, I have been impressed. In fact, I think that this deck almost certainly has a place at the top of this format, even if it is not going to be the best deck in the game. Before we get into the list, how about we take a deep dive at the possibilities for this deck?

How Can We Approach Ceruledge ex?

The most important core pieces of Ceruledge ex decks are of course going to be the Ceruledge ex themselves and a lot of ways to discard cards. Fortunately, Professor's Research is a card that exists and makes rapidly discarding Energy extremely easy, especially with the assistance of Earthen Vessel to find Basic Energy to fill up a hand and dump the Energy. Squawkabilly ex also finds a natural fit in this deck acting as one way we can effectively discard Energy cards on the first turn of the game to start ramping up damage.

Speaking of first-turn ramp, we also may want to consider a few copies of Carmine since it is, effectively, a Professor’s Research that we can play on the first turn, even though drawing five cards is considerably worse than drawing seven. Radiant Greninja is of course also the staple Radiant Pokemon in this deck since it discards Energy and draws cards at the same time, a perfect fit for the deck. Like any other deck in the format, Ultra Ball is a great card for this deck to find its Pokemon, but it also has the bonus of being a useful way to discard Energy from our hand. Finally, one of the most critical common ways that Ceruledge ex decks discard cards is with PokéStop. Some players put this card on the back burner in Ceruledge ex deck lists, only playing two copies, but as I will discuss later, this card is critical to this deck’s success, offering a way to both see more cards and thin out Energy cards. Additionally, if you increase the number of PokeStop in the deck, you can take advantage of Night Stretcher turning Pokemon discards off of PokeStop into ways to search Pokemon and gain value overall.

As you may expect, most of the space in this deck is taken up by the core engine. The next thing that is an important discussion is going to be the ACE SPEC, as the ACE SPEC you choose may dictate some of the other deck-building decisions that you make.

This concludes the public portion of this article.

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