Hi everyone, this is Nick Moffitt bringing you another article for Cut or Tap! I just finished in 3rd place at the largest Regional ever in Orlando with Rayquaza/Raikou Lost Box! This is by far my favorite deck to play in the current Standard format and I believe it is the strongest deck behind Lugia VSTAR. I am excited to share my thoughts on the deck I played in Orlando and give a run down of how my tournament went.

The List:

Card Choices

Raikou Amazing Rare

I certainly undervalued the power of this card going into San Diego. Being able to deal 120 to the active and 120 to the bench is insanely powerful, especially when you are hitting for weakness on the most popular deck in the room. In San Diego I played three basic Water energies to utilize Greninja’s Moonlight Shuriken, but the extra 30 damage on each target, plus being able to hit Lugia and Archeops for weakness make playing Amazing Rare Raikou entirely worth it. I even found myself sometimes using Ordinary Rod just to reuse my one-of Raikou. This card is amazing (pun intended) and I would have loved to have a second one in my deck for Orlando, but I was generally able to get by with just the one.

2 Manaphy

The main reason for this inclusion is the Lugia matchup. I was expecting many Lugia players to play Irida, Canceling Cologne and Raikou Amazing Rare, following the list Raz Wolpe used to finish in the Top 4 of Liverpool Regionals. Normally, the Lugia player can use Lumineon V to search out Irida for Canceling Cologne and a second Lumineon, and use Aqua Return to shuffle back in their Lumineon on board, freeing up bench space. On the next turn, they can use the second Lumineon to search out Boss’s Orders, bring up the Lost Box player’s Manaphy and use Raikou Amazing Rare + Canceling Cologne to take two Prizes. This, along with using Stoutland V to take two prizes at the end of the game, makes it almost impossible for the Lost Zone player to win the prize race. However, with two Manaphy, if your Lugia opponent ever searches out Canceling Cologne, you can simply bench your second Manaphy, nullifying their strategy.

Even if the Lugia player does not have Canceling Cologne, they will often try to target down Manaphy, enabling their own Amazing Rare Raikou and forcing you to have Ordinary Rod plus a way to find Manaphy in the next turn. If you have two in your deck, you can simply find your second Manaphy to secure your bench from Raikou’s Amazing Shot.

Two Manaphy is also very strong in the Lost Zone Box mirror match. The goal is to always target down the opponent’s Manaphy with Sableye, and find an opening to use Amazing Rare Raikou if they are not able to constantly recover it. Your opponent will most likely do the same against you, so having a second Manaphy makes it far easier for you to constantly have one in play at all times.

Eiscue + Wash Energy

Going into this event, I was expecting a lot of different all-Basic Lost Zone decks to see play. With the release of Sky Seal Stone and Zamazenta from CRZ, there were many new ways to play LZB decks that would not have any way to counter a lone Eiscue.

I was also expecting to see some Regigigas decks as well, but certainly fewer than I did in San Diego. Without Eiscue, this matchup is certainly still winnable, but not favorable by any means.

Assuming that these decks do not play any counters, Eiscue turns these matchups into essentially auto-wins, which can make your day a lot easier if you play against a lot of those decks.

Because of the prevalence of Echoing Horn in other Lost Zone decks, Eiscue ended up only winning me a single game, so in hindsight it probably was not worth the deck space. If I had to play the tournament again, I think these two deck slots would have served better as a second Raikou Amazing Rare and a third Grass Energy. If I were to do this, I would also consider swapping Heavy Ball for a fourth Quick Ball, as you would have the redundancy of having two of all your attackers.

2 Switch Cart, 2 Escape Rope

After Pablo Meza got Top 8 in San Diego with four Escape Rope and zero Switch Cart, a lot of players switched to play this count. There are many merits to playing four Escape Rope, especially with two Amazing Rare Raikou, but I personally prefer the flexibility of having both Switch Cart and Escape Rope in my deck. There are many cases where you simply want to KO the opponent’s active Pokemon with Rayquaza, and Switch Cart better allows you to use some Flower Selectings and then attack into the active. If you only have Escape Rope, you can often be found in situations where you need to KO the active this turn (in response to Stoutland V, for example), but struggle to do so because you cannot move your active Comfey.

3 Raihan, No Training Court

I believe the third Raihan serves a better purpose than Training Court, as in addition to allowing you to get back an Energy, it also accelerates an additional one, and lets you search your deck for any card. The energy acceleration from Raihan is massive, as it allows you to get to four energy on Rayquaza to deal 320 damage with only using one Mirage Gate. Searching your deck for any card is also incredible as it allows you to get whatever missing piece you need to pull off your combo for the turn. Having a third Raihan gives you a lot more flexibility to send one to the Lost Zone in order to keep another important card. I generally find myself using two Raihan in a game, so having three is very nice for redundancy, which is especially important in Lost Zone decks. Having an extra Raihan also makes you significantly more resilient to hand disruption, as it makes you more likely to be able to pull off the combo you need in the following turn when you get hit with Judge, Marnie or Roxanne.

I feel that there is no real need for a counter stadium in this deck. Lugia generally does not run any stadium cards so there is no need to counter their stadium. Goodra generally plays a high count of the Temple of Sinnoh, but this does nothing against you. The only matchup where a counter stadium would be useful is against Mew, as both Lost City and Path to the Peak can be annoyances. Even then, Radiant Greninja is our only Rule Box Pokemon which gets shut off by Path to the Peak, and Mew will likely bump your Training Court immediately, so you are not likely to get recurring value out of it.

No Boss’s Orders

Without Lumineon to search it out, there is no reliable way to search out a 1-of Boss’s Orders. Therefore you need to either find it off of Greninja and Comfey, or search it out with Raihan, in which case you cannot use it in the same turn. Therefore, the only way to guarantee having Boss when you need it is to search it out with Raihan and stack it on top of your deck with Primate Wisdom to prepare it for the next turn. Boss is obviously strong in the Goodra matchup, but you can win without it, and I went 6-0 in games against Goodra this weekend.

At the time of writing my last article, I was pretty nervous about Pikachu VMAX decks having a place in the meta, and thus thought Boss’s Orders would be a necessary inclusion. This turned out not to be the case, however, as Radiant Eternatus seems to have flopped completely.  Boss’s Orders is obviously still a very good card, but I didn’t think it warranted the deck space this time around.

No Sky Seal Stone Package

As you could probably tell from my previous article, I was very enthusiastic about the prospects of the new Sky Seal Stone in the weeks leading up to Orlando. However, as the tournament grew closer and I tested the Lugia matchup more, I realized that if the Lugia player plays properly, they can easily avoid  the Sky Seal Stone + Raikou V combo. If they simply get down Dunsparce early, they can avoid their Lugia getting OHKO’d by Raikou V for three prizes. If you poke with Cramorant for 110 to soften up the Lugia, for example, they can simply retreat it to the bench and avoid attacking with it for the rest of the game. This means if you want to take out that Lugia VSTAR to take three prize cards, you will need to find Raikou V, Boss’s Orders, Sky Seal Stone, and a Mirage Gate, all in the same turn. This proves very difficult when the Lugia player is disrupting your hand with well-timed Marnies. Even if you pull all of this off, it is more or less an even trade, as you used a Cramorant to soften the Lugia, and Raikou V to finish it, this means you are effectively trading three prize cards for three prize cards, as they can easily respond to Raikou V with Radiant Charizard. Therefore, unless you are using this combo to close out the game for the last three prizes, it does not actually help your prize trade all that much.

I just found that I was not pulling off the combo consistently enough, and I wanted to go with something more reliable for this tournament.

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