Jewel Seekers and Cursed Blasts — Terapagos ex Is Actually Broken
Hello everyone! After playing a bit with the new set, I’ve been working mostly on my list for Terapagos ex. Many results from online tournaments have started to narrow down the right way to play Terapagos, with many lists featuring Pidgeot ex, Dusknoir, or both. Terapagos is clearly a good card. Even though it cannot attack on turn one, its first attack is extremely efficient. As long as you have a full Bench with Area Zero Underdepths, Terapagos deals 220 damage for just one Double Turbo Energy! This would be a bit of an ask if your Benched Pokemon were only there for Terapagos, but this format is chock-full of support Pokemon that do a lot on their own. Terapagos just rewards you for playing Pokemon that are already good, such as Pidgeot ex, Noctowl, and Fezandipiti ex.
The main question Terapagos poses is whether you should bother with its second attack. Crown Opal is no joke. It deals 180 and makes Terapagos invincible to all Basic Pokemon (aside from Colorless Pokemon like other Terapagos). This is definitely a solid attack. Although its Energy cost is egregious, new cards like Glass Trumpet and Crispin make it very reasonable to attain. If you wanted to build a deck that could consistently power up Crown Opal, it would be doable. With such a good first attack, though, it might not even be necessary to bother with that second attack. The Terapagos variant I’ll be discussing today ignores Crown Opal entirely.
Terapagos utilizes Noctowl and Fan Rotom to accelerate the early game and make ridiculous combos appear out of thin air. Noctowl does everything you could ever want. Not only is it easy to fill up all eight Bench spaces with cards like Fan Rotom and Buddy-Buddy Poffin , but Noctowl keeps your Bench full throughout the game, sets up various Stage 2 Pokemon, grabs gust cards at the right time, and more. I can’t think of a better use for your board than filling it with Noctowl. The final piece that completes the deck is Dusknoir . Dusknoir’s Ability is just obscene, and setting it up at the right time is trivially easy for this deck.
Dusknoir does a few things. As Terapagos caps out at 220 damage, Dusknoir’s 130 on top lets you one-shot anything. In the early game, Dusknoir enables double-KO turns, crippling the setup from decks like Charizard ex if you KO two Charmander or two Pidgey at once. In the late game, Dusknoir closes things out, and enables comebacks by forcibly activating Briar. If your opponent tries to play around Briar by going to three Prize cards instead of two, Dusknoir forces them to two. Double Dusknoir can outright KO most two-Prize Pokemon even without an attack. If you need a three- or even four-Prize turn to close out the game, Dusknoir and Briar make it happen. Finally, if you don’t have Area Zero or enough Pokemon, Dusknoir can also come in clutch then.
This concludes the public portion of this article.
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