Raging Techs for San Antonio: Bolt is Still Busted

Hello everyone and happy new year! As we come up on San Antonio Regionals here in the US, the Surging Sparks format is still in place. Both North American tournaments in this format were completely dominated by Regidrago VSTAR, cementing it as the best deck in the format. Charizard ex still performs well and has a great matchup spread, but as always, struggles a bit against the prevalence of Regidrago. Raging Bolt ex  continues to slip under the radar since top players do not play it or talk about it. However, I think this deck is extremely strong in the current format, and I slightly regret not playing it at the last two Regionals. Raging Bolt has all of the same benefits as usual. It actually made Top 4 at the recent Toronto Regionals, as it can effectively prey upon Regidrago. Raging Bolt’s overall speed, power, and consistency allow it to keep an edge against the field, and its great Regidrago matchup is what really sets it apart. Regidrago is very difficult to counter, with its only real predator being Raging Bolt.

I covered Raging Bolt a few months ago, and my list has only changed a few cards since then. Most of my points and opinions on the deck remain the same, so I recommend checking out that article as well if you’re at all interested in Raging Bolt. In fact, right after writing that, my list won Louisville Regionals, although sadly I was not the one to do so. If I had to pick a deck for San Antonio right now, it would surely be Raging Bolt. My current list is a bit more teched out. I’m not completely sure if this is the best way to play the deck, but I think I like it for the time being.

Slither Wing has solidified itself as the best single-Prize attacking option in Raging Bolt because it can also one-shot a plethora of notable two-Prize Pokemon due to Fighting Weakness. Although you could probably get away without it, it is quite useful to offset the Prize trade when you’re losing, and gives you at least a chance of beating decks with Mimikyu. I think Slither Wing is the most mandatory of all the techs that Raging Bolt can play.

Spiritomb is a card that I have constantly gone back and forth on. Spiritomb’s usefulness obviously depends on the meta surrounding it. Since Charizard is a difficult matchup, Spiritomb helps against it significantly. There are a large number of games that Charizard cannot function without access to Lumineon V and Rotom V. Spiritomb is particularly devastating against the lists without Cleffa, though it’s still strong against the ones with it. Spiritomb is also very strong against Klawf decks, as they rely on Oranguru V and Lumineon V to set up. Unfortunately, reasons to play Spiritomb run out there. It’s decent against Lugia VSTAR, which isn’t quite as popular as before. Spiritomb used to be a game-changer against Snorlax stall decks. It completely flipped that matchup from bad to good due to their total reliance on Rotom V. However, many stall lists now play Boxed Order for consistency, so you would still have a rough time against those builds even with Spiritomb.

Lost Vacuum and Briar are two cards that I have been vehemently against in the past. Against the wider field, they are basically useless, and Raging Bolt would rather have consistency. However, the top tables at Regionals are often populated by Gardevoir ex. This combo turns Gardevoir from a terrible matchup into a very competitive one. It is difficult for Gardevoir to take KO’s without committing to a Bravery Charm play, so Lost Vacuum is usually good for a free Prize card. Briar also opens up some more ways to win. You can now feasibly take out Gardevoir ex whenever you want and then use Briar with Myriad Leaf Shower to take an additional two-Prize turn. It is very difficult and inconvenient for Gardevoir to play around Briar in this matchup. However, they do play lots of hand disruption, so finding the Briar play is not extremely consistent. It’s also worth noting that the combination of Spiritomb and Briar makes the Charizard matchup quite good, which is very valuable in the current meta. Here’s where I’m currently at for a tech-heavy approach to Raging Bolt:

This concludes the public portion of this article.

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