Joltik Box

Intro + Notable Placings

• 50th at World Championships 2025

• 1st at World Championships 2025, Senior Division (Gholdengo build)

• 5th at Regional Frankfurt

• 7th at Malaysia Premier Ball League

Joltik Box has a reputation for being an easy deck to play. It's quite similar to Burn in Magic or Face Hunter in Hearthstone, in that you can avoid combat with your opponent's creatures and go after their life total instead ("life total" in this case meaning your Prizes). It doesn't matter how many cards they have in their hand or how tattered your board state is, as long as you take that 6th Prize before your opponent. Whenever you hear someone complaining about Boss's Orders, chances are it's because they lost to Joltik Box Bossing aside their meatshields or attackers multiple times in one game.

Joltik Box doesn't have many high finishes, though that only applies to the "pure" build. The "JoltDengo" build, combining the Miraidon ex toolbox with Gholdengo ex for draw power and an alternative attacker, won Senior Division at the 2025 World Championships.

Game Plan

Get Miraidon ex into play and use Tandem Unit to search for Joltik and an attacker. Switch to Joltik and use Jolting Charge to power up the attacker. Next turn, switch to the attacker and start swinging.

Generally you'll want to start attacking with Iron Hands ex, using your Gust effects (Boss's Orders or Pokégear for it, Prime Catcher or Arven for it) to drag out their weak evolving Basics/Stage 1s and KO them with Amp You Very Much for 2 Prizes. Most of your other attackers have difficulty attacking consecutively (Miraidon ex, Iron Leaves ex, and Bloodmoon Ursaluna ex all put "can't attack" effects on themselves, and Pikachu ex discards its Energy), so the more early Prizes you take with Iron Hands ex, the easier it'll be to clean up the game later with these one-shot attackers. If you've taken 4 Prizes with Iron Hands ex before it gets rendered ineffective, you only need 1 one-shot attack to win, which is of course easier than if you had only taken 2 Prizes with Iron Hands ex and needed 2 one-shot attacks.

Attackers

Iron Hands ex is your first attacker. It's meant to go after evolving Basics/Stage 1s, which almost every deck plays, taking 2 Prizes for the KO with Amp You Very Much and denying the evolution. Late-game, its attacks will not KO any ex that isn't Lightning-weak, so that's when you'd have to switch to your other attackers.

Pikachu ex is your next attacker. Topaz Bolt does a huge amount of damage, enough to KO most ex's that aren't Stage 2s. Topaz Bolt discards 3 Energy from Pikachu ex, but you can rebuild with Crispin and/or Powerglass. Pikachu ex also has a very useful built-in Survival Brace (or Focus Sash, if you play the video games) — if your opponent doesn't have a way to put damage on Pikachu ex outside of attacks (e.g. Munkidori, Dusclops), it will survive the swing back and potentially get another attack off.

Lillie's Clefairy ex, Iron Leaves ex, and Galvantula are your silver bullets against Stage 2s. These target the Weaknesses of meta Stage 2 ex's to 1HKO them. Lillie's Clefairy ex can 1HKO Dragapult ex or Raging Bolt ex. Iron Leaves ex and Galvantula 1HKO Charizard ex, Marnie's Grimmsnarl ex, and N's Zoroark ex. Note that Gardevoir ex is absent from the hit list, but there are ways of nabbing the 1HKO on it that we'll see in Other Options.

Miraidon ex is an easily overlooked attacker. If your opponent puts a 210 HP Basic ex in the Active to wall Iron Hands ex, you can power up Miraidon ex to 1HKO it.

Bloodmoon Ursaluna ex is the last attacker. If you have less than 3 Energy left in your deck and can't possibly power up any of your other attackers, it's your out.

First or Second?

This deck wants to go second, as it wants to attack with a Basic Pokémon (Joltik) AND play Supporters (Crispin, or Arven → Nest Ball → Miraidon ex) as soon as possible.

ACE SPEC

Prime Catcher. This deck wants Gusts, and Prime Catcher is basically Boss's Orders as an Item. Arven can search for it.

Other Options

• Genesect: Stops opposing ACE SPECs. Arven can search for Nest Ball for Genesect, as well as a Pokémon Tool to turn ACE Nullifier on.

• Galvantula ex: Beats Cornerstone Mask Ogerpon ex, and KOs the same targets as Miraidon ex for one less Energy. Note that you already have Mew ex and Iron Hands ex to damage Cornerpon, but Galvantula ex gets the job done in 1 hit, and for only 2 Energy.

• Super Rod, Night Stretcher: Recovers Energy for your color-intensive attacks. Night Stretcher lets you attach manually from hand, Super Rod puts Energy back into the deck for Crispin.

• Vitality Band, Gravity Mountain: These let you 1HKO Gardevoir ex with Pikachu ex's Topaz Bolt. Vitality Band is easier to search for as you have Arven, but it means forgoing Powerglass on Pikachu ex. If you play Gravity Mountain, you might want Team Rocket's Petrel to search for it (which doubles as a bad Arven otherwise).

• Future Booster Energy Capsule: Grants free retreat to Iron Hands ex (but NOT Miraidon ex!), in case Latias ex is Prized. It can also help hit higher damage numbers on Amp You Very Much so you can 1HKO a 130-140 HP non-ex attacker for 2 Prizes, or Pidgeot ex for 3 Prizes.

• Brave Bangle: Lets Galvantula KO most of Miraidon ex's targets.

Tips

• If you go first, you should not put Joltik on your Bench with Tandem Unit right away. If the other Joltik is Prized and they Boss/snipe your only Joltik before you get Jolting Charge off, it's game over. Even if you have both Joltiks in the deck, if they Boss/snipe the first, they will surely do the same to the second while you use Jolting Charge, and start the Prize race ahead 4-6. However, it can be correct to Bench Joltik immediately if you suspect the odd Ability lock (Klefki/Iron Thorns ex).

• Grass Energy is the safest option for powering up Jolting Charge. Metal and Psychic are low in count and might be needed for other attackers, or as a second Energy type for Crispin. Lightning might be needed if you're attacking with Miraidon ex — if, say, you Prize 1 Lightning Energy, attach the second to Joltik for Jolting Charge, and attach the third and fourth to Iron Hands ex with said Jolting Charge, you now have only 1 Lightning Energy left in your hand/deck, which eliminates Miraidon ex as an attacker since it needs 2 Lightning Energy. The one thing you could have done to avoid this was to attach a different type of Energy for Jolting Charge.

• If you're most likely attacking with Iron Hands ex next turn, your main choices with Jolting Charge are to attach all 4 Energy onto it, or attach 3 Energy onto it and the remaining 1 on a backup attacker like Pikachu ex or Miraidon ex. (If it's Miraidon ex, attach 1 Lightning Energy to it, since you can't get double Lightning with Crispin.) More often you'll have Boss or Arven for Prime Catcher for the next turn, so you'd go all-in on Iron Hands ex, then Boss out their most threatening 1-Prizer and Amp it. If you have Crispin for the next turn instead, you can split 3-1; although you won't be able to choose your targets, you can still stay ahead in the Prize race by attaching Energy with Crispin to whichever attacker can get the KO on the opponent's Active: Iron Hands ex if it's a weak 1-Prizer, Pikachu ex or Miraidon ex if it's a 2-Prizer.

• Tandem Unit can be used to check the contents of your deck, even if you have no intention of Benching anything with it.

• Pay attention to what Energy cards you have left in your deck before using Topaz Bolt, as it'll determine what type of Energy you get back with Powerglass. If Pikachu ex survives and you hit Crispin, you can Topaz Bolt again next turn, so the question is which Energy types you still have left in your deck for Crispin to grab. If you're missing any one of them (most likely Metal), get that back with Powerglass. Otherwise, get Grass or Lightning. Nothing else in the deck needs Metal, so next turn Crispin can get the last Metal Energy from the deck, leaving the other types free for your other attackers.

• If you know your opponent cannot break Resolute Heart, you can preemptively attach extra Energy to Pikachu ex for back-to-back Topaz Bolts through hand disruption.

• Topaz Bolt doesn't have restrictions on what type of Energy has to be discarded (unlike Elemental Blast on old Lugia cards, which also costs 3 different types of Energy, but discards those same types). If you were able to overcharge Pikachu ex with a useless Psychic Energy, you can discard that when you attack.

• Bravery Charm is useful for keeping your Pokémon out of 1HKO range. If you're tearing through your opponent's evolving Basics with Iron Hands ex, their last-ditch effort to make a comeback might be revenge killing Iron Hands ex with Bloodmoon Ursaluna ex, but if you stick a Bravery Charm on Iron Hands ex, it'll survive the Blood Moon.

• Do not put Bravery Charm on Pikachu ex. This gives your opponent the opportunity to put your Pikachu ex down to 10 HP remaining with a strong attack, then play Jamming Tower or Tool Scrapper to reduce Pikachu ex's maximum HP and take the KO on it without using up another attack.