This article is the first in a two-part analysis of Ancient Box for the upcoming Temporal Forces format. The second part will give an in-depth analysis of the deck’s expected matchups.
Hello, Cut or Tap readers, and welcome! My name is Tanner and I play competitively in central Iowa. I have spent a lot of time, both this season and last, testing, building, and bringing Lost Zone decks to tournaments of all levels. Beyond that, I have spent my fair share of time playing most other meta decks that we have seen throughout the last two seasons. As we approach the release of the new set, Temporal Forces, I have been spending less and less time testing the current format, and more time looking forward to the new cards we get to bring to EUIC come the start of April.
From the new Temporal Forces set, the most interesting and potentially meta-shaking card that caught my eye was the new single-prize Roaring Moon. Its Vengeance Fletching attack immediately reminded me of the old Vespiquen and its Bee Revenge attack that saw play in 2016 and 2017. The major difference from Vespiquen is that Roaring Moon scales with all Ancient cards in your discard pile, rather than just Pokemon. Alongside the other Ancient cards we have between Paradox Rift and Temporal Forces, it appears that The Pokemon Company is pushing for a playstyle of Ancient cards similar to Vespiquen, centered around Roaring Moon.
The biggest question looming for this deck, like for all new archetypes, is how to most efficiently build the deck. Since Dino Box is a new archetype for this set, it’s a complete blank slate when it comes to deck lists. While this challenge is very welcomed by myself, it can also be very daunting for many players. With no roadmap for creating a deck around this archetype, I set off on my journey to create the best version of this deck I could by taking a glimpse into the future, and looking at how the Japanese format had been developing. This is where we will start our journey towards preparing Dino Box for London.
After upgrading to Stage 2 you will see the rest of Tanner Drabek’s article and an audio recording of this article by Andy Hyun: 
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You must have a Stage 2 Membership or greater to see the rest of this post. If you don't have a Stage 2 account, you can Sign Up for one here.
Great article with good explanations!