With every expansion, there’s always a new legendary EX that takes the meta by storm. The new king is Solgaleo. As we’ve already mentioned, this card is pretty much the full package. With an excellent combination of stats, it’s no surprise to see Solgaleo stand at the top. Everybody talks about the sun, but what about the moon? Lunala EX has not managed to garner such attention. Why is that? Lunala’s bulk is as impressive as Solgaleo’s, yet her attack leaves a bit to be desired. Lunar Blast will deal 100 damage for 3 energy, for a stage 2 evolution this damage output falls into what I refer to as the Gengar EX tier. It’s not awful, but it ain’t great either. Like Gengar, Lunala sacrifices power for its ability. Psychic Connect allows Lunala to transfer all psychic energy from one of your benched pokemon onto your front liner. In a vacuum this is essentially a more limited version of Vaporeon’s Wash Out. Because of this, my first impression regarding Lunala was that she’s unfortunately a very mid card. It turns out context matters.

Unlike Vaporeon, Lunala has a retreat cost of one. This is very relevant when you consider how high her HP stat is. Lunala also belongs to the psychic typing, while water may offer more tools for energy ramp, psychic offers a combination of pokemon that allow you to maximize Lunala’s strength. What would that be?

Lunala allows you to constantly pivot in new attackers without losing momentum.

This is one of my favourite decks this expansion so far.

Today, we’re the bad guys. We combine Lunala with both versions of Giratina, in a deck that uses our high HP titans to pivot around our opponent’s offense, to then retaliate with our own. Giratina’s Levitate ability enables you to retreat her for free as long as there’s at least one energy attached onto her. As we all know, Giratina EX can ramp psychic energy onto itself once per turn. Combining both versions of Giratina with Lunala leads to some pokemon pocket magic. Once we’ve managed to generate 3 energy onto our board, the fun begins. With Psychic Connect, we can transfer energy onto our front liner and attack, we then tank our opponents hit, and swap out, rallying over our energy onto the next attacker. By doing this we’re able to maximize value out of our HP stats, as we aim to always leave a healthy attacker on the front so that we can survive our opponent’s counter attack. Lunala may not be the heaviest hitter out there, but 100 damage is enough to threaten a 2 hit KO on the entire metagame.

This is definitely one of the most skill intensive decks I’ve ever piloted, as you have to constantly think 2 or 3 turns ahead. Energy placement is key here, as enabling Giratina EX to come in and Chaotic Impact requires 4 energy, and Psychic Connect will only transfer all energy from one pokemon onto another. You’ll have to be methodical in your energy placement to make sure you’re ready to send in a fresh attacker every single turn.

Because I know someone is going to ask, what about Oricorio? In case you haven’t already noticed, Giratina’s Spooky Shot attack deals 70 damage. Which allows you to one shot this goofy ass bird.

This is the best way to play Lunala EX as of now, while the archetype may not be very popular as of now, make no mistake, Lunala is a serious contender that can take on the Sun Lord himself and have night prevail.