Armarouge Box

Intro + Notable Placings

• 32nd at World Championships 2025

• 25th at Regional Frankfurt

Armarouge Box is a deck with a low play rate and win rate, but it managed to spike a few events, so here I am talking about it. It has the same consistency problem as Marnie's Grimmsnarl ex in that you rely heavily on your Supporters to draw cards, and you might also be running Carmine as one of those draw Supporters, necessitating the high Night Stretcher count. Playing a wide variety of attackers to target Weakness sounds sweet, but they are all 1-ofs, and if you Prize any of them you'll have to fall back on your neutral attackers, which usually don't 1HKO.

Game Plan

Put down as many cards as you need from your hand onto the board, then play a draw Supporter to refill it. On the first turn of the game, you can use Squawkabilly ex as a pseudo-Carmine/Professor's Research, and on later turns, Mew ex can draw some extra cards.

Your goal is to set up the Energy acceleration engine of Ethan's Ho-Oh ex + Armarouge. Ethan's Ho-Oh ex acts like Teal Mask Ogerpon ex, minus the draw, but with the potential upside of attaching 2 Energy at once. Armarouge can then move the Fire Energy onto another attacker. Once you have all the pieces in play, it's just a matter of picking the right attacker for the situation and going to town.

The high Night Stretcher count is useful for getting back Pokémon or Fire Energy that you discarded to Squawkabilly ex, Professor's Research, or Carmine, or if you have to use the same attacker more than once.

Attackers

Every Pokémon in this deck can attack, no joke, due to Prism and Legacy Energy, though some attack far less frequently than others (you are probably not using Iron Bundle's Refrigerated Steam except in very rare scenarios, for example). A short summary of what each attacker is meant to target:

• Wellspring Mask Ogerpon ex, Fezandipiti ex: Evolving Basics/Stage 1s hiding on the Bench

• Iron Hands ex: Evolving Basics/Stage 1s stuck in the Active

• Terapagos ex, Reshiram ex: Anything, these are simply efficient attackers that don't require Prism/Legacy Energy for their attacks. Both of them can one-shot Cornerstone Mask Ogerpon ex.

• Chi-Yu: Gholdengo ex, Crustle, Mimikyu

• Durant ex: Charizard ex, Marnie's Grimmsnarl ex, N's Zoroark ex

• Lillie's Clefairy ex: Dragapult ex, Raging Bolt ex

• Mew ex: Flareon ex, Ceruledge ex. With Lillie's Clefairy ex, it can copy Dragapult ex's attack for a 1HKO and 60 to the Bench.

First or Second?

Carmine builds want to go first.

Carmine-less builds want to go second. You can take advantage of the ability to attack T1 going second by using Chi-Yu or Squawkabilly ex's attacks for Energy acceleration.

ACE SPEC

Legacy Energy. Most of the Pokémon in this deck are 2-Prizers, so this forces your opponent to have to KO 4 Pokémon to win. It also provides color fixing.

Variants

Some builds of this deck run Carmine, some don't. Carmine provides the deck with the highest draw Supporter count (10, compared to non-Carmine's 8), and an option that's usable going first. Carmine-less builds play Earthen Vessel and Energy Retrieval to improve the odds of finding 2 Fire Energy for maximum Golden Flame value.

Below are some sample Supporter/recovery card counts for both builds. Note that these represent the final counts, not the counts that are played in addition to what you already see in the core cards.

Other Options

• Munkidori ex, Roaring Moon ex: Options for 1HKOing Gardevoir ex, as well as being additional Darkness-types for Pecharunt ex. Note that these require 2 Prism/Legacy Energy for their attacks.

• Regigigas: 1-Prizer Tera killer. Its attack costs 4 Energy instead of the usual 3, but it is an out if you Prize Lillie's Clefairy ex against Dragapult ex or Durant ex against Charizard ex.

• Bloodmoon Ursaluna ex: Late-game attacker. Has the cheapest attack under the right circumstances.

• Pecharunt ex, Minior, Switch: Switch cards. They're an alternative if Latias ex is Prized, and the only ways to get Armarouge out of the Active Spot for free. Pecharunt ex and Minior are reusable, making them effective in breaking retreat locks.

Tips

• Armarouge is an Evolution Pokémon, so it doesn't get Latias ex's retreat reduction, and Prism Energy only provides Colorless when attached to it (so Fire Off can't move it). Refrain from attaching Prism Energy to Charcadet; though it seems like you can always move it later, once you evolve to Armarouge, it no longer counts as a Fire Energy! If you need to attack with Armarouge, try not to use Prism Energy to pay for its attack. If you had no choice but to use Prism Energy for an Armarouge attack earlier and need to retreat it now, spend the Prism Energy on its Retreat Cost, saving Fire Energy to Fire Off onto other attackers.

• Be aware of the possibility that your opponent might Boss/snipe Armarouge to shut off your Energy movement. To defend against that, try to get a Charcadet on the Bench so you can evolve into Armarouge again immediately if you topdeck Ultra Ball, Night Stretcher, or the second Armarouge itself.

• When you have one Ethan's Ho-Oh ex in play, one Fire Energy and one Professor's Research in hand, you have two routes of varying risk. The conservative play is to Golden Flame the one Fire Energy, then play Research. The risky play is to Research right away, gambling that it'll draw you into 2 Fire Energy or 1 Fire Energy + 1 Night Stretcher so you can Golden Flame for 2 Energy instead. Generally, if you're 1 Energy away from attacking (or 2 Energy away without having attached manually for the turn yet), you'll go for the conservative route, whereas if you're 2 Energy away from attacking, 1 Energy might as well be 0, so you'll want to press your luck and try to draw into both Energy off Research. If you take the conservative route and draw into more Fire Energy off Research, you may still be able to get those into play if you also drew the second Ethan's Ho-Oh ex (or Nest/Ultra Ball) alongside them. If you have to go for the risky route, Super Rod can get more Fire Energy into the deck to improve your odds of hitting 2 of them.

• Sometimes you may have to forgo using Golden Flame + Fire Off and use manual attachments instead to play around Armarouge getting Bossed/sniped. Example: suppose you have a fully powered attacker in the Active, Ethan's Ho-Oh ex and Armarouge Benched, no Charcadets, one other attacker 2 Colorless Energy away from attacking, and 2 Fire Energy in hand. Your opponent can KO your Active attacker on their turn, and might also have access to a Dusknoir activation. If you autopilot and use Golden Flame, you'll get blown out when they use Cursed Blast to KO your Armarouge, then attack and KO your Active — now the Fire Energy that you need is stuck on Ethan's Ho-Oh ex. Instead, what you should do is manually attach one Energy to the Benched attacker this turn, so even if they KO Armarouge, you can attach the other Energy next turn and attack back.

• Suppose your current Active Pokémon (A) has Legacy Energy attached to it, and one of your Benched attackers (B) has Prism Energy on it. You want to retreat A for B and also swap the Energy they have — Legacy Energy will be more valuable on B, who will be attacking, but you don't want Prism Energy to also be on B; you'd rather have it on a different Pokémon so you have more attacking options if B gets KOed. The steps to accomplish this are (keeping in mind Fire Off only moves Energy from Benched to Active and not the other way around):

1. Fire Off the Prism Energy from B to A.

2. Retreat A for B.

3. Fire Off the Legacy Energy from A to B.

• Durant ex has a milling Ability. This can randomly win you games if you play it and mill an important card like their ACE SPEC, or if they use Ciphermaniac's Codebreaking but don't draw the cards that they stacked immediately.