Hello again! The last article I put out was on October 3rd of 2023, just over a year ago. I am back with some insights and ideas related to Charizard ex!

Terapagos is the new interesting deck and some may be interested in the recent success of Raging Bolt and Lost Box, but Charizard still deserves respect. People are pushing Charizard aside and trying other archetypes rather than trying to rework the deck to fit into the current meta. Terapagos is, in my experience, basically a free matchup, given that I went 5-0 against it earlier this week. Raging Bolt is not bad either, once you fit in a couple techs, which by the way have a lot of utility in other matchups.

In this piece, I go over many different techs, lists, and ideas that I have worked through over the past few weeks.

Thoughts on the coming meta

The primary deck to be concerned about is Raging Bolt. Bolt was already the most popular deck, and after winning it should become even more popular. Any deck we consider playing should have at least a 50/50 matchup to it. Lost Box should go up in play because Lost Box had many fans in the past and people are excited about the prospect of playing it again after it almost won the Louisville Regionals. It is possible that Regidrago goes up in play because it slaughters Lost Box, though it does take a rough Raging Bolt matchup, which should blunt its playability.

According to play.limitless.com, the only popular deck that actually has a favorable matchup into Raging Bolt is Gardevoir. Snorlax Stall also beats it, but doesn’t see much play in IRL events. Terapagos supposedly goes about 50/50 into Raging Bolt and does fairly well across the board, however the deck is rather hard to pilot and that should lead less experienced players away from it.

The way I see it, the three most important decks to beat right now in order are: Raging Bolt, Terapagos, and Regidrago.

Build #1: Klefki Rabsca

We can take a page from Gardy’s book and play a Klefki, which really slows down Raging Bolt decks. They will not be able to Squawk and Seize, Concealed Cards, Teal Dance, or Luminous Sign. If we are going to have Klefki active, slowing things down, we can use that time to take advantage of TM:Evolution.

The other reason TM:Evo came back into the list is that I have added Rabsca, which is here to make a difference against Dragapult, Lost Box, and Regidrago. Manaphy is nice, but stopping Kyurem’s attack and Dragapult’s attack simultaneously for one bench spot is what really matters to me, given that Regidrago is normally a tougher matchup without some techs. Rabsca is also a Stage 1 Pokemon, where Manaphy is a Basic, which means you won’t be shutting off your own bench barrier with Klefki active. I see less Cologne in Regidrago lately, which is why Rabsca is feeling like a better play to me.

However, Rotom V cannot be used while Klefki is active, which is very annoying. You might think that Instant Charge is less needed in this sort of a build because we have the TM:Evolution/Klefki combo to be used early on rather than drawing the three cards. Not so. Anytime we go first, we will want to be utilizing Rotom, and even when we play second, we won’t always push Key into the active.

Long story short: Klefki is fantastic against the decks that I think are important to beat. No Ogerpon ex, Squawkabilly ex, Radiant Greninja, Fan Rotom, or Lumineon V. If you can go first and put Klefki in the active, your opponent might just brick right off the bat.

Night Stretcher, Energy Search & Energy count

I found myself getting a lot of utility out of Night Stretcher in the late game, especially after getting Iono’d to a small hand size. However, playing a Night Stretcher rather than the second Super Rod can make it easier to run out of energy, which is part of why the 7th Energy was added to the deck. The 7th Energy is also there to make it easier to use TM:Evolution on Turn 1 or 2.

I actually wanted to play an Energy Search instead of the extra energy just because Arven can search it out along with the TM Evo, but for now I have decided against it. I did give it a try, but I haven’t tested it for enough games to say which is better. If you want to give it a shot, just play two Rod instead of the Night Stretcher and swap either the Double Turbo or 6th Fire for Energy Search.

You probably do not want to play Earthen Vessel because it can be hard to find a good card to discard in the early game and there is not usually going to be a benefit to getting more than one Energy out of the deck. One extra Energy simply means we are able to put Klefki in the active on Turn 1 a little more often.

The stuff that’s missing

This list lacks Pal Pad, Professor Turo’s Scenario, a Dusknoir line, Cancelling Cologne, Temple of Sinnoh, and Cleffa. I feel that Klefki is taking the active spot early on too often to warrant Cleffa, and Dusknoir likely does not fit in the same list with Rabsca. Cologne has been less of a priority for me because Iron Thorns is not very popular and frankly I see no other reason to play it. Something has to give in order to fit these meta techs.

Build #2 Entei Area Zero

After upgrading to Stage 2 you will see the rest of Phinn Lynch’s article and an audio recording of this article narrated by Andy Hyun:

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