Ultra Beasts are pretty good.
Celesteela has solidified itself as a meta defining force. The ability to pivot your pokemon in and out for free, while still being able to retreat manually on that same turn is really good. Buzzwole has become the most popular deck, yet Guzzlord’s popularity has been rising rapidly.
I’m a big fan of Guzzlord, for 2 main reasons. Reason number 1: His absurd HP stat of 170, this is a crazy amount of health for a basic, allowing Guzzlord to survive the vast majority of high end attacks in the game. Being able to tank our opponents ultimate attack and then swap out with Ultra Thrusters provides our deck with exceptional defensive capability. Reason number 2: Being a dark type, we get to pair Guzzlord with Nihilego. While Nihilego thrives in decks with dedicated poisoners, it turns out all this card needs is poison barb in order to function within an Ultra Beast shell. Being able to pivot Nihilego out for free not only ensures we can keep him in the bench behind a sturdier wall, but also allows us to send him in when ready to poison the opponent’s front liner, forcing it to switch out or have its HP stat go down fast.
If you’re looking for a deck to climb ranked with, this is the one I’ve been using recently.
Ultra Beasts, emo edition. We run a full set of Nihilego, Celesteela and Guzzlord in a deck that sacrifices immediate damage output in exchange for top tier resilience and maneuverability. Thanks to a full set of Lusamine, Nihilego often becomes our initial attacker, weakening our opponents key attacker with New Wave, we can apply serious pressure without losing momentum due to our low HP, as Lusamine can rally over our energy invested onto Nihilego back to Guzzlord to set up a Tyrannical Hole sweep.
One of the main reasons this pokemon combination is so efficient is that we’re only running basics. This provides us with a lot of deck space for key supporters, in my version I opt to go with 1 copy of 5 different supporters. The end result is a swiss knife of plays that help us adjust to all kinds of scenarios within a game.
Ultra Beasts may be popular, but that’s not always a bad thing. This archetype is very skill intensive, make the correct pivots, set up your key supporter plays so you can set up a Tyrannical Hole sweep to win the game.
