A lot of you really wanna see Araquanid. Sun and Moon is one of the few pokemon games I haven’t played. But god dayum this thing looks cool. For 3 energy, Dangerous Claws will deal 60 damage, unless its target is a basic pokemon, then we up that to 120. It’s pretty clear, pokemon that don’t evolve… piss Araquanid off. There are some evident downsides to Araquanid though, its attack requires 3 energy, and for a high end attacker, 110 HP ain’t all that much. Investing 3 energy onto Araquanid to end up having it face off against an evolution… let’s just say things won’t end up great for spoder. In a vacuum, there are better options within water for you to invest 3 energy onto, except none of them work with Lana. This is the reason to play Araquanid, Lana is like Cyrus and Sabrina, but better. As long as Araquanid is on the board, you’ll be able to drag any pokemon from the opponent’s bench onto the active slot.

While there are many potential builds around Araquanid, this is one that worked out really well for me.

Today’s deck is a new take on an established classic. We ramp onto our heavy hitters with Manaphy and punish our enemies for playing basics. I found Palkia to be an excellent team mate for Araquanid, because of Lana. Palkia’s Dimensional Storm is an incredible attack for a basic to have. 150 damage alongside 20 damage to the bench has always been downright terrifying, this is balanced by the fact that Dimensional Storm will consume 3 energy in the process, severely limiting your ability to fire off more than one in a game. With Lana, we can force out our opponent’s EX win condition, and one shot it with Dimensional Storm. We can also use Lana to bring out a Basic EX, smack it hard with Dangerous Claws and leave Palkia in the back for the finish.

Due to how expensive Araquanid’s attack is, I went with the Manaphy approach, for the same reason Gyarados decks do when running Palkia Origin Form. With Manaphy’s ramp we get to build up Araquanid and another heavy hitter to back it up, for the matchups which our Water Spider can’t quite crack.

I believe there are more ways to build around Araquanid, but so far this is the one that has performed best for me.