When Regidrago is Away, The Comfey Will Play — Lost Box’s Epic Return

At my recent League Cup, one of my friends told me that he was playing Lost Box. I laughed in his face and said: “Have fun when your opponents announce Itchy Pollen.” He won the League Cup, while I did not even make Top 8. I suppose that’s what you call karmic justice.

In my defense, I quickly admitted my wrongdoing and played Lost Box at another League Cup the very next day. My friend unfortunately bricked one too many times, but I did make Top 8 this time. At this point, you may be wondering what sort of abominable alterations we have to make to our beloved Lost Box in order to make it work in this format. The answer is as pleasing as it is surprising; you don’t have to change much.

In case anyone has forgotten, Lost Box’s core is very strong, consistent, and versatile, as it always has been. Cramorant is perhaps the most efficient attacker in the game’s history, and it gets going on turn 1. Radiant Greninja is possibly the best card ever printed and can destroy the opponent’s board with Moonlight Shuriken. Sableye is also disgustingly good in a meta with lots of evolving Pokemon. Mirage Gate provides unparalleled flexibility as it scales in power with the available Pokemon in the meta. Finally, Comfey and Colress's Experiment provide consistent and convenient draw power, while also organically thinning out the deck.

Lost Box is perhaps the biggest beneficiary of the new format, and it seems to be a sleeper one at that. The primary reason for this is the colossal glow-down of Regidrago VSTAR. Regidrago has seen a massive drop-off in popularity due to Budew, and with it went that disgusting Kyurem. Should you happen to run into Regidrago, you’ll almost certainly lose, but this is extremely unlikely compared to the previous format. Lost Box now enjoys a pretty great matchup spread.

Now what about Budew? Budew can certainly be annoying since Lost Box plays tons of Item cards, but it’s not a huge deal. We can simply KO it right away with Cramorant, which is what we’re going to do during the early-game anyway, so as long as we get the Cramorant attack, it doesn’t result in any loss of tempo. We also incorporate some slower cards like Artazon and Jet Energy to help circumvent the Item lock. These cards were already occasionally played in Lost Box, so there’s no real loss in functionality. We just don’t have the option of going super turbo with PokéStop , which is completely fine. It’s quite easy to get four cards into the Lost Zone, especially with one turn of Items guaranteed.

Another new benefit that Lost Box enjoys is the new Regigigas. Regigigas is very strong now with the rise of Dragapult ex, and it perfectly slots into Lost Box. Previously, Dragapult was a big struggle since Lost Box had no reliable answer to it. Not only that, but we can power up Regigigas without too much trouble. It does take two copies of Mirage Gate to get it out of nowhere, but occasionally we will have an extra Energy attachment preemptively, which makes the Regigigas only require one Mirage Gate play. If you put down Regigigas preemptively, watch out for gust plus Budew, as we don’t want the Regigigas to get stuck. If you have Jet Energy in hand, this is slightly less of a worry, although you could theoretically get hit with Iono plus Counter Catcher.

There are also situations where you don’t necessarily care if Regigigas gets stuck for a few turns. Whether you put down Regigigas preemptively or not depends entirely on the situation. If you KO their first Budew, there’s also a decreased risk of them getting the trap combo. Using two copies of Mirage Gate for Regigigas is often fine, but again, it just depends. Regigigas is of course very helpful against the likes of Charizard ex and Ceruledge ex as well. Notably, Miraidon ex has no means of taking two Prizes on Regigigas, so it can provide Iron Bundle protection when you’re attacking with Pikachu ex.

Lost Box can perfectly prey upon the different types of decks in the meta. Against evolving decks like Dragapult, Gardevoir ex, and Charizard, Lost Box can collect easy Prize cards by using all three of its hallmark attackers. Excluding Gardevoir, you can use also Regigigas for a big hit in the middle of the game, and there’s even the option to easily close things out with Bloodmoon Ursaluna ex if they have a stray Fezandipiti ex or Lumineon V on the board. Against the two-Prize decks, such as Miraidon and Lugia VSTAR, Pikachu ex goes absolutely feral on them. Many tempo-based Prize-trade decks do not match up well against Pikachu ex, and in many cases, they do not play much hand disruption either. Here’s my current list:

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!