Ancient Box Makes a Comeback?!

By: Grant Manley · Posted Posted onNov 5, 2024 at 1:35 PM · 5 Comments

Hello everyone! There are still a few weeks left of the Stellar Crown format along with a couple of major tournaments, and the meta is starting to develop.

At this point in time, it seems as though Tier 1 comprises of Regidrago VSTAR, Raging Bolt ex , and Lugia VSTAR, as these are the three best decks that are seeing consistent results. It also just so happens that they are relatively unbothered by Dusknoir, and are therefore not as vulnerable to the shenanigans presented by the Tier 2 decks.

Tier 2 consists of Snorlax alongside the plethora of Dusknoir decks: Charizard ex, Dragapult ex, Terapagos ex, and Origin Form Palkia VSTAR. All of these decks are seeing strong results and are certainly capable contenders in the current format. There are a few other decks seeing a bit of fringe play, such as Lost Box and Banette ex, but there seems to be one that has been forgotten entirely.

I was reminded of its existence after randomly facing it on ladder, and that got me thinking. Is Ancient Box good in the current meta? Ancient Box has always been a matchup-based deck, most notably being weak to Charizard ex. However, Charizard has not done much in the Stellar Crown format in terms of major tournament results. In fact, it is competing for just a spot on the meta share graphic shown off at Regionals! With Charizard seemingly on the decline, one of the conditions for Ancient Box has been met.

Now we have to consider some other factors. Next is Dragapult ex, another atrocious matchup for Ancient Box. Dragapult has seen middling success and popularity in the current format. It’s certainly a concern, but taking a bad matchup to it isn’t the end of the world if we can beat everything else. Another interesting aspect here is that the Pidgeot ex version is worse for Ancient Box, but Dragapult lists are split between Pidgeot and non-Pidgeot. At the very least, it’s not as bad as if they were all Pidgeot. Nonetheless, Dragapult and Charizard are bad matchups, and that is a bitter pill to swallow.

As far as Tier 1 goes, Ancient Box does pretty well. Having an easy Raging Bolt ex matchup is fantastic, and the Regidrago VSTAR matchup is quite good as well. Lots of them are not playing Hisuian Goodra VSTAR anymore, which would be an annoying card for Ancient Box. The Lugia matchup is the sketchiest among them, but a single tech Enhanced Hammer goes a long way against them, and is probably worth including. Ancient Box also handles the other Tier 2 decks rather well. Terapagos, Palkia, and Snorlax are super manageable matchups. Of course they are losable too, but that’s fine.

Since Ancient Box has always been a deck with polarized matchups, it’s all about selecting the right metas in which to play it. With so many decks in the meta, along with Charizard and Dragapult being in the middle of the pack, it seems like a very reasonable time to play Ancient Box. Yes, it will feel bad to face against those decks, but by percents, Ancient Box has a good matchup spread right now and has potential to make a deep run. It’s also cool that Ancient Box stomps some of the random Tier 3 decks that you might run into, such as Lost Box and Quad Iron Thorns. Here’s my current list.

This concludes the public portion of this article.

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Exo said:
Would ancient box stick to running secret box or would they run the new mixer ace spec
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Secret box has allowed some extreme late game reversals in some games I've played, and finding necessary components earlier is extra helpful. I can't see Secret Box fading at least until Pokestop rotates, but even then Lively Stadium can assist in making the swarm of Roaring Moon even tougher to handle.

Edit: Another reason Blender and Ancient Box don't mix is that nearly all ancient cards are extremely useful and you'll want to keep them. Sada is needed for acceleration, Explorer helps you deep draw, and Earthen Vessel helps you discard, is freely discarded on use, and gets you energy. It's not like Ceruledge where you'll have more excess energy than you'll know what to do with and directly thinning them out is helpful, the versatility of Secret Box outstretches it by a mile because you can potentially discard even more using the cards you search.
 
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I was thinking that Ancient Box is really anti-meta right now too. 140 hp perfectly dodges Dusknoir in non-Dragapult matchups, it can consistently hit 240 damage on turn 3 (which is when you would want to start one-shotting after a two-shot), and it’s a single-prize deck tanky enough to be a problem that consistently sets up in a meta not prepared for that sort of single-prize consistency. I was thinking the same for Azumarill too, but that one is not only a stage 1 that requires vulnerable 70 hp basics, and not only at a very vulnerable 120 hp while hitting only 230, 10 short of Raging Bolt, but it’s also reliant on having a 2-prizer in play that can super easily be gusted in a format chock-full of gusting. If a single-prize deck is going to work, it needs to just have single-prizers in it; even Squawk isn’t good unless you have some way to consistently get rid of it in a non-clunky fashion, which doesn’t really exist. I think Ancient Box is probably the way to go
 
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