Froslass Lock — Winning Slowly and Painfully
At the recent Atlanta Regionals, I played against a variety of weird and interesting decks, but one of them left a lasting impression. Froslass / Budew is a deck that I played with a little bit pre-rotation, but I had neglected to consider it in the new format. Frankly, I got very lucky to escape with a win against it at the Regional, as the matchup was quite unfavorable for me. That round got the gears turning, and I began to consider whether that deck could be a real contender in this format. As it turns out, the deck is actually pretty good. It is very slow and grindy to play, but usually does end up winning. I asked my opponent if there were any tough matchups, and he responded, "Gardevoir." After testing the deck a bit, I could not put it better myself. Froslass is easily capable of dismantling just about everything, but Gardevoir ex alone remains a difficult matchup. This is a little unfortunate for Froslass, but it's not the end of the world. There's still an outside shot of winning the matchup, and it improves exponentially against weaker players, as there are many opportunities to punish them hard for slight mistakes.
This deck is simple in concept but complicated in execution. Attack with Budew for almost the entire game. Set up two Froslass and two Munkidori, and use their Abilities to spread damage wherever you desire. Budew's Item lock combined with other disruption cards aims to slow down opponents enough for your damage to build up over time. This deck also takes advantage of a naturally slow metagame. Once enough damage is built up, close out the game with a combo play. Usually, this involves either Technical Machine: Devolution or Bloodmoon Ursaluna ex. These cards are both efficiency monsters that offer a lot of output for very little investment. They perfectly complement the deck. TM: Devo is the hard counter to any Evolution-based deck, while Ursaluna matches up well against decks oriented around Basic Pokemon ex. The goal is to take a few Prize cards with ping damage and then take the remaining ones in one fell swoop, so you're actually able to close out games seemingly out of nowhere. There may also be some situations where you can blitz Prize cards with something like back-to-back Ursaluna, or Devolution followed by Ursaluna. It's important to keep a careful eye on your opponent's board so that you know exactly what you can and should do with all of your options and damage counters. Every once in a while, you'll end up locking your opponent to the very end, winning via death by a thousand cuts and never having a prime opportunity to even use a finisher card.
Ursaluna is such an insane card. Even in games that seem hopeless, this deck has all the necessary components to pull off absurd comebacks. I've had some miraculous ones off the back of Ursaluna. It's especially terrifying that a slow lock deck can turn into an aggressive attacking deck on a dime. Your opponent has been doing their best to deal with a Froslass lock deck, and then all of a sudden, you hit them with Counter Catcher, Unfair Stamp, and Ursaluna. A very similar phenomenon would occur with Gholdengo ex / Dragapult ex, where you could suddenly go Iono, Counter Catcher, Phantom Dive with Dragapult ex, and the opponent was completely unprepared to deal with it.
One awkward part about this deck is the complete lack of a draw engine. However, it is basically the only deck that can get away with it for two reasons. For one, this deck naturally prolongs games in an already slow meta. As such, you can afford to dead-draw, and aren't required to play an explosive Supporter every turn. Second, the deck plays tons of Supporters due to being a slow, single-Prize deck. This compensates for the lack of on-board draw. The deck is pretty low-maintenance. While we do need to create a perfect board, we aren't in any particular rush. Once that's been done, we require very little from turn to turn. Even against an opponent's aggressive start, this deck's disruptive components can prevent you from getting run off the board. Here's my current list. It has already been tweaked and refined, but it's possible there's still room for improvement and optimization.
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