Darkness Approaches — Banette ex Emerges from the Shadows

By: Isaiah Cheville · Posted Posted onMar 7, 2024 at 2:03 PM · 8 Comments

Hello PokeBeach readers! Isaiah here, and I am happy to be writing another article for you all! Last time, I talked a lot about Iron Hands ex and its position in the metagame across a variety of archetypes, making special note of specifically Owyn Kamerman’s big win at the Dortmund Regional Championships a few weeks ago with Chien-Pao ex.

This weekend at the Utrecht Special Event, we saw a few weird things happen, with one of the stand-out decks being Tord Reklev’s bizarre Charizard ex / Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX deck, but another stand-out aspect of the event was the repeat champion. Unfortunately for the legacy of Iron Hands ex, Owyn Kamerman decided to switch to the Fusion Strike Energy variant of Mew VMAX, further padding the resume for an archetype that is certainly in the conversation for being the greatest archetype of all time. Chien-Pao ex was not nonexistent at the top tables, though, finishing in the Top 4 of the event, falling victim to Roaring Moon ex. Other than these decks, a Snorlax and a few Charizard ex decks round out the Top 8 of the event, allowing Europe to leave the Paradox Rift format with relatively few genuine surprises.

With the Goiânia Regional Championship in Brazil on the horizon, I imagine much of the format will continue in the same direction it has been. Considering that Charizard ex is historically popular with some of Brazil’s best players, I would certainly expect to see the deck make multiple deep runs in the event, which will certainly affect the Vancouver Regional Championships at the end of the month.

Following the conclusion of the Knoxville Regional Championships a while back, I felt kind of lost. I am not a huge fan of this format, or, rather, it has gotten a bit stale after playing the same format for around five months now. Unfortunately, I cannot start testing post-rotation much because I have the Vancouver Regional Championships left to prepare for, and I am not even going to the Europe International Championships anyway, so preparing for a format that is going to change so dramatically before I get the chance to play it at tournaments feels pointless anyway. As such, I have started to look at more fun and interesting strategies, as I realistically expect to fall back onto a deck that I am already comfortable with, such as Charizard ex, if I cannot find anything else that I want to try.

In doing this, I stumbled upon one new deck that has caught my attention, and that is Banette ex. First piloted by Mateusz Łaszkiewicz way back in October before Paradox Rift even released, the deck caught my attention even back then, and Nathaniel Kaplan’s run with the deck at the Toronto Regional Championships, while underwhelming, started to make me think that the archetype had some potential. I also knew that I had no more events to play until early 2024 when that happened, so I did not play as much Pokemon for the months following Toronto while I finished school. Mateusz’s Top 32 finish at the Dortmund Regional Championship last month, however, reminded me that the deck existed again and I decided that I would start trying it out. To my surprise, the deck was much better than I expected, and I think that the deck might be one of this format’s hidden gems that could be a fun, solid play before rotation, especially if the Vancouver Regional Championship is an all-or-nothing event for you. Currently, I have made a few changes to Mateusz’s initial decklist, so I will start with that before going into why I think the deck is so strong.

Without further ado, here is my updated Banette ex deck list.

This concludes the public portion of this article.

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View thread (8 replies)
I knew Banette ex could be useful for something, I almost made a deck around it to try it out but then decided to move to Alakazam ex because I wasn't to sure what the Bannette could work well with, now I cant see the decklist but I have a feeling its pretty good
 
Thoughts on Chatot from BRS(I think) as a replacement for dreepy once rotation hits?
 
I have made a Banette ex deck for last Halloween and it worked great I have been messing around with it ever since
 
My eyes are on venomoth more than bannette. My venomoth/clodsire deck is getting new toys
 
Dabfamlet said:
Do you think Salvatore will be good in the deck post rotation?
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It could be! You'd have to restructure the deck a bit, including the addition of a Lumineon V probably. I definitely plan on trying it out, but my first impression is that it also may just be unnecessary, as it only matters when you go second.
 
Icycubed said:
Thoughts on Chatot from BRS(I think) as a replacement for dreepy once rotation hits?
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I honestly do not know if a corner-style effect is even necessary, but I think I would just play Mawile instead. Being a Psychic type is valuable because of Gardevoir ex and infinitely trapping something is more important than the damage. You could play a Pidgeot V to have an infinite deck instead of damage being the win condition too. Alternatively, Espathra SVI does 20 and corners the defending Pokemon, but it's a Stage 1. However, the two card spots it takes up are equivalent to the two spots that Mawile Pidgeot would take up so maybe it is worth considering.
 
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