1st Place Lost Zone Box Deck Ft. Pikachu ex
Looking for the best way to play the formidable Lost Zone Box deck?
For a while, the Kyurem released in Shrouded Fable was enough to scare even the most hardeneed Lost Box players away. However, that seems to have all changed now, and Lost Box is showing up in droves at the competitive scene.
Today it has a more powerful lineup of attackers than ever, bolstered by the insanely powerful Pikachu ex. With this Pikachu you don’t need to worry about confusing hacks to get its insane 300 damage attack off. Simply hit seven cards in your Lost Zone and you can start Mirage Gating energy onto your Pikachu with ease.
In this guide we’ll be breaking down one of the best Pokemon decks in recent memory and how to play it in the current standard format.
Clefa98 1st of 97 – Mouji’s Dojo
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Pokémon: 12
4 Comfey LOR 79
1 Bloodmoon Ursaluna ex TWM 141
1 Sableye LOR 70
1 Cramorant LOR 50
1 Terapagos ex SCR 128
1 Iron Thorns ex TWM 77
1 Pikachu ex SSP 57
1 Radiant Greninja ASR 46
1 Manaphy BRS 41
Trainer: 37
4 Colress's Experiment LOR 155
1 Boss's Orders PAL 172
1 Roxanne ASR 150
4 Switch Cart ASR 154
4 Mirage Gate LOR 163
4 Nest Ball SVI 181
4 Super Rod PAL 188
3 Buddy-Buddy Poffin TEF 144
3 Switch SVI 194
2 Lost Vacuum LOR 162
1 Hisuian Heavy Ball ASR 146
1 Prime Catcher TEF 157
1 Pal Pad SVI 182
1 Canceling Cologne ASR 136
1 Rescue Board TEF 159
2 PokéStop PGO 68
Energy: 11
3 Water Energy SVE 11
2 Lightning Energy SVE 12
2 Grass Energy SVE 9
2 Psychic Energy SVE 13
2 Metal Energy SVE 16
Card Types
Lost Zone Box – Basic Strategy
Like any box deck, Lost Zone Box can be a bit tricky to use. This is largely due to the fact that it has an answer to any situation in the current meta. This means that unlike other decks which you can setup and play virtually the same way no matter who you face, how you play Lost Zone Box will vary each and every game, depending on the matchup.
That being said, there are a few things that should remain consistent.
Quickly set up your board with Buddy-Buddy Poffin and Nest Ball.
Comfey is your draw engine – play Comfey right away to start drawing extra cards and putting additional cards into the Lost Zone.
Use your many switch cards to use as many Comfey “Flower Selecting” abilities as possible in a turn.
Colress’s Experiment is the card you’re going to want to play ASAP as it allows you to draw five and put two in the Lost Zone. This is going to come in handy later when you need to take advantage of attacks like Lost Mine or Spit Innocently.
Accelerate energies with Mirage Gate onto your various toolbox attackers.
Look for easy potshots you can take late game with Radiant Greninja and strategic damage counter placements with Sableye.
Take out high HP Pokemon with Pikachu ex while benefiting from its high survival odds via Resolute Heart.
Lost Zone Box Deck – Core Cards
Colress’s Experiment
Colress’s Experiment is the key card to any deck that leverages the Lost Zone Engine. It is your primary draw supporter, adds vital resources to your hand when you need them, and adds two cards to your Lost Zone with each play.
Comfey Flower Selecting
Comfey is one of the best draw support Pokemon in the game right now. Beyond adding new cards to your hand, of course, it also helps quickly bulk up your Lost Zone numbers thanks to the indispensable Flower Selecting ability.
Radiant Greninja
Radiant Greninja doubles as an excellent draw support Pokemon and sharpshooter, taking out two of your opponent’s Pokemon with Moonlight Shuriken.
Sableye – Lost Origin
While Lost Zone Box boasts a variety of main attackers, Sableye is your most effective. Using Lost Mine, you can strategically place damage counters wherever you wish – doing enough damage to theoretically win you an entire game in one attack!
Mirage Gate
Last but not least, Mirage Gate is one of the strongest cards in this deck, and really what makes the whole thing. Using it, you can power up your powerful Pokemon like Terapagos ex, Pikachu ex, and even Iron Thorns depending on the situation.
Lost Zone Box’s strongest attackers
Alongside the core cards that make Lost Zone Box great like Cramorant, Comfey, and Sableye, part of what’s made Lost Zone box strong from the start is the fact that you can use it to power up just about any attacker you want with relative ease.
While the attackers that are paired with Lost Zone’s powerful engine have changed through the years, they’ve usually included some of the most powerful basic attackers in the game. Today, that means Terapagos ex, Pikachu ex, Ursaluna ex, Iron Thorns ex.
Pikachu ex
Pikachu ex is one heck of a basic Pokemon. It has the strongest base attack in the game at 300 damage out the door. The only problem? It requires three different energy to get off. The thing is, that’s not exactly an issue for Lost Box. Pop a Mirage gate and you are good to go.
As if the attack damage weren’t enough, Resolute Heart is a pretty insane ability – one that prevents Pikachu ex from being taken out in a single shot. That’s pretty crazy!
Terapagos ex
While the main Terapagos ex decks right now focus on using only Unified Beatdown, this deck has the advantage of being able to use the very powerful Crown Opal attack, keeping Terapagos ex safe against opposing basic Pokemon. That’s a pretty effective ability in a meta with the likes of Raging Bolt ex running wild out there.
Ursaluna ex
I really like playing Ursaluna in Lost Zone decks partly because if you run out of energy (which happens) you can stack your deck pretty well with Ursaluna ex. One play I like to do is thin my deck out enough at the end of the road to pull up a Ursaluna ex and take a strategic two-prize KO with it.
Iron Thorns ex
The final attacker this deck is leveraging is Iron Thorns ex. I think this is a pretty solid play as you can pretty severely shut down your opponent’s momentum with its Initialization ability. Volt Cyclone can also be an effective ay to move energies onto other attackers on the bench. Use it as long as helpful and then promote the next best attacker.
Lost Zone Deck Biggest Weaknesses
Lost Zone works really, really well against some decks, and pretty poorly against others. If your strategy relies on having a bunch of low HP Pokemon on your bench (the way Charizard ex does), then it can be pretty tough to win against Lost Zone Box. On the other hand, if your strategy relies solely on high HP Pokemon, it can be pretty hard for Lost Zone Box to beat you.
Apart from the pros and cons of the matchup, here are additional weaknesses in the Lost Box deck to either look to exploit or defend against depending on what you are playing.
Lost City Hinders Lost Zone Box
Being a deck that runs one copy (or max two) of its main attackers, if you can get those attackers out of play early on with Lost City, you can really hurt Lost Box’s chance of winning.
Ability shut down
This deck may run Iron Thorns ex, but abilities that shut off abilities can really stump you in the mud. Most decks don’t run the likes of Flutter Mane but if you run into these sorts of scenarios, you may find yourself struggling to pull off a win.
Low Supporter Versatility
Lastly, any deck that runs on the Lost Zone engine has a real challenge in that it cannot leverage any supporter early game and hope to play well other than Colress. And as a supporter, that’s kind of a problem. Colress isn’t a very strong supporter. It doesn’t draw as many cards as other supporters like Professor’s Research, or disrupt your opponent’s hand like Iono. Also, if you happen not to draw Colress, you can find yourself quickly behind in your Lost Zone count.
That being said, having Prime Catcher makes relying on Colress less of a big deal because at least you can gust out a Pokemon early on to take a KO instead of having to play a Boss’s Orders like you used to have to before ACE SPEC cards came around.
Jirachi and Mist Energy
Lastly, Jirachi and Mist Energy can complicate your strategy. Before these cards came around, there wasn’t a solid way to stop Sableye from tearing through your benched Pokemon with its “Lost Mine Attack.” However, Jirachi is relatively commonly played now, and that card is capable of blocking Lost Mine from damaging benched Pokemon. Likewise, Mist Energy blocks damage done from the effects of attacks, totally protecting against Lost Mine.
All-in-all, Lost Zone Box is easily one of the strongest decks around, with proven results that show it isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
