Lunar Snakes — A Roaring Moon / Dudunsparce Breakdown
Hey PokeBeach readers, I just finished a two-week trip to London, Montreal, and Orlando to play EUIC, go to a Pink Pantheress concert, and play Orlando Regionals. I got 73rd at EUIC and 46th at Orlando, both with Chien-Pao ex. The deck has felt great in this initial format, and I’ve been having a lot of fun with it. But today isn’t about Chien-Pao, it is about my other favourite deck in this format, Roaring Moon with Dudunsparce.
Not only is the deck super powerful, but it is one of the most fun decks to play in the format. Using Run Away Draw with a derpy Pokemon like Dudunsparce is one of the most satisfying feelings in the game. You can even chain multiple of them in a single turn to build up enormous hands!
The deck was flying under the radar in the early stages of the format, but it surprised the masses with a Top 8 at the European International Championships, and followed it up with another Top 8 at the Orlando Regional Championships. With these results the deck has seen a large rise in play, particularly in online tournaments.
If you were familiar with Roaring Moon in our pre-rotation format this deck might not look super similar to what you are used to. This iteration of the deck uses the single-Prize Roaring Moon as the main attacker and has Roaring Moon ex as a secondary attacker to help deal with larger HP threats such as Charizard ex. The reason this deck is so strong is that the combination of the single-Prize and two-Prize Roaring Moon allow you to control the Prize trade. You can answer any single Prize threats your opponent throws at you with the single-Prize Roaring Moon and then if your opponent tries to pivot to bulkier Pokemon ex / Pokemon VSTAR that can’t be Knocked Out with Vengeance Fletching you have an easy response with Frenzied Gouging from the Roaring Moon ex. While it might seem scary to damage yourself with Roaring Moon ex, it isn’t a big deal if it gets return Knocked Out. As long as it took two Prize cards it did its job. To summarize, as long as you can get a Prize lead to start the game you just need to continue to take Knock Outs to win the game. That’s where Dudunsparce comes in with its Run Away Draw Ability.
One problem the traditional Ancient Box decks run into is that they are very weak to disruption, an Iono or Roxanne late in the game would normally make it hard to pull off an attack, but with Dudunsparce ready to go the deck can usually draw outs to keep pumping out attacks. Dunsparce is also integral to the deck, as it acts as a pivot with its free Retreat Cost. After your opponent takes a Knock Out or you use Run Away Draw, you can promote Dunsparce and evaluate your plays for the turn after using cards such as Professor Sada's Vitality or Explorer's Guidance. It also lets you make good use of Dark Patch since you can only put Energy on to your Benched Pokemon.
The nice thing about Dudunsparce is you don’t have to use the Ability right away; you can pre-emptively set them up and decide when to use them. If you have what is necessary for your turn, then it is more than alright to save the draw for later turns. Managing your usage of Run Away Draw is pivotal to success with this deck. Another great thing about the card is that it shuffles itself back into the deck. It isn’t uncommon to use Run Away Draw five or six times in a game since you can keep recycling Dunsparce, especially if you have an Artazon in play.
This concludes the public portion of this article.
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