Tera Box

Intro + Notable Placings

• 31st at World Championships 2025

• 7th, 8th at Regional Frankfurt

• 3rd, 5th at Regional Monterrey

Tera Box didn't see much play at Worlds 2025, but started picking up steam at the Regionals following it. The deck relies heavily on an early Wellspring Mask Ogerpon ex taking out 2 of the opponent's Basics to gain a lead, playing 2 copies of it while other decks using it as a tech attacker only play 1, and including Iron Bundle to force bad targets out of the Active Spot.

Shaymin is the card to play if you need a Tera Box counter, though it has the issue of not being searchable with Buddy-Buddy Poffin.

Game Plan

Get Fan Rotom down and use Fan Call to search for Hoothoots, Noctowls, and/or Ditto. Assuming you have Fan Rotom or a way to search for it in your starting hand (Nest Ball, Ultra Ball, Buddy-Buddy Poffin), plus a way to retreat your starter (any Energy or Earthen Vessel, Air Balloon, Latias ex or Nest Ball for it, Crispin or Professor Turo's Scenario going second), what you'll usually do is play Fan Rotom, Fan Call for Hoothoot, Noctowl and Ditto, retreat your starter for Ditto, and Transformative Start Ditto into your Tera attacker. This gets you set up for next turn with a Tera in play for the Noctowl in your hand. If you've already naturally drawn into some of the pieces, you can spend some of your searches on other stuff. You might have to improvise if a 1-of (Ditto, Latias ex) is Prized.

Noctowl into Crispin + Sparkling Crystal + manual attachment effectively accelerates you from 0 to 3 Energy, allowing you to use powerful attacks on your Tera Pokémon very early in the game. Notably, this sequence does not involve using any Items, making it Budew-proof. If Sparkling Crystal is Prized, another way to hit the 3rd Energy is with Teal Dance + Energy Switch.

Throughout the rest of the game, you'll be using Noctowl, Mew ex, and Fezandipiti ex to keep your hand full. There is also a 1-of Professor's Research, which most other decks using the Noctowl engine don't play.

Crispin is a very important card to keep your offense going, hence it's a 4-of. Wellspring Mask Ogerpon ex and Pikachu ex both lose attached Energy after they attack, and Crispin helps accelerate Energy onto them again.

Attackers

Wellspring Mask Ogerpon ex is your first attacker. If you can land Torrential Pump early, KOing one of your opponent's evolving Basics on the Bench plus their Active Basic, you are in a very good position to win the game. Sparkling Crystal lets you cheat on Torrential Pump's additional cost: if you have Crystal + 2 Energy attached, you can get the 120 Bench damage by shuffling only the 2 Energy in. If you hit Crispin next turn, you can Pump again. Don't forget about Sob locking either; if you have to take a turn off because you whiffed Crispin or your opponent has a Pokémon with >100 HP Active, Sob them (using Boss to bring in a vulnerable target if necessary) to buy time.

Pikachu ex is your next attacker. Instead of hitting two targets for low damage, it does a huge 300 damage to the opponent's Active. Like Wellspring Mask Ogerpon ex, Sparkling Crystal lets you cheat on the additional cost and attack next turn if you can find Crispin.

Terapagos ex is the middle-of-the-road attacker. It maxes out at 240 damage, which is not a lot, and you need a full Bench with Area Zero Underdepths to reach that amount. Unified Beatdown costs less Energy than Torrential Pump or Topaz Bolt, though.

Teal Mask Ogerpon ex and Lillie's Clefairy ex are Stage 2 assassins. Teal Mask Ogerpon ex primarily generates value out of Grass Energy, attaching it for free (whereupon it can be moved to another attacker with Energy Switch) and drawing a card, but it can also 1HKO Charizard ex, Marnie's Grimmsnarl ex, and N's Zoroark ex with 2 Energy attached to them. Lillie's Clefairy ex hits Raging Bolt ex and Dragapult ex for Weakness, and for only 2 Energy. It can hit Terapagos ex-like damage numbers, which might just be what you need for a KO even without Weakness, but it relies on your opponent also having a large Bench.

Bloodmoon Ursaluna ex is the late-game cleaner. If both players are down to 2 Prizes, Boss's Orders + Nest/Ultra Ball (for Bloodmoon Ursaluna ex) + Energy is a win if your opponent has any 2-Prize liabilities on their Bench. If you have any 1 of those 3 cards, Noctowl can search for the remaining 2 (Earthen Vessel can turn into Energy).

First or Second?

This deck wants to go first, as it's a Noctowl deck. Going first also lets you score KOs on your opponent's Basics with Wellspring Mask Ogerpon ex before they can evolve.

ACE SPEC

Sparkling Crystal. It acts as color fixing and acceleration, and lets you cheat on Torrential Pump's and Topaz Bolt's effects. It lets the deck get away with only 1 Water Energy — if it's attached to Wellspring Mask Ogerpon ex, any 2 Energy at all will do for Torrential Pump.

Other Options

• Iron Leaves ex: Additional switch card to beat retreat locks, and Grass-type attacker for opposing Darkness-type decks.

• Judge: Alternative to Iono.

• Counter Catcher + Briar: For the comeback potential. This combo wins you the game when you're down 3-2.

• N's Plan + Glass Trumpet: Replaces Crispin + Super Rod. Glass Trumpet can charge Terapagos ex or Bloodmoon Ursaluna ex directly, comboing with Energy Switch instead of N's Plan if they need the other Energy. Disadvantages are that it only works late-game when there's Energy in your discard pile, and you might not have two Colorless Pokémon to attach to if they bump Area Zero Underdepths.

• Tool Scrapper, Jamming Tower: Pokémon Tool removal. Mainly beats Bravery Charm, sending your opponent's Basic Pokémon back into KO range. Note that Jamming Tower blanks your Tools (importantly, Sparkling Crystal) as well.

• Vitality Band: Small damage mod. Some KOs it enables are Wellspring Mask Ogerpon ex on an Active Munkidori, or Pikachu ex on Gardevoir ex. Note that attaching Vitality Band precludes Sparkling Crystal.

• Gravity Mountain: Lets Pikachu ex 1HKO Stage 2 ex's.

• 3-2 Grass-Lightning Energy split (instead of 4-1): This configuration is better for Crispin and Pikachu ex, but worse for Teal Mask Ogerpon ex. If you use it, you'll want to include Iron Leaves ex as a less color-intensive Grass-type attacker.

Tips

• Shuffling Energy back in with Torrential Pump is optional. Against Dragapult ex for example, that deck usually doesn't play Rare Candy, and the Stage 1s have less than 120 HP, so if their board is full of unevolved Basics, you can Pump their Active only and wait for them to commit more before going after their Bench.

• Torrential Pump can be useful for softening up the opponent's Active so Terapagos ex or Bloodmoon Ursaluna ex can finish it off next turn. The Bench snipe is useful for taking out Munkidori so they can't take advantage of the fact that you didn't 1HKO to Adrena-Brain damage back at you.

• Speaking of Munkidori, it has 110 HP, and opponents might put it in the Active Spot to tank one Torrential Pump hit. Iron Bundle beats this by sending it to the Bench, where it's 1HKOed by the stronger Bench hit (Torrential Pump does 100 to the Active, and 120 to the Benched).

• If you're attacking with a Sparkling Crystal-equipped Pikachu ex, try to use {G}{L} or {G}{M} as the other two Energy. Since this deck plays multiple Grass Energy, but only 1 each of Lightning and Metal, if you discard {G}{L} one turn, you can Crispin for {G}{M} next turn and vice versa.

• Nest/Ultra Ball (for Teal Mask Ogerpon ex) + Earthen Vessel + Energy Switch accelerates 2 Energy onto an attacker without using a Supporter, leaving you free to use Boss's Orders that turn, or Professor Turo's Scenario if you needed that to reuse a Noctowl to search for the pieces in the first place.

• Don't use Teal Dance too aggressively. If you aren't attacking with Teal Mask Ogerpon ex, the Energy is only going to be useful while you still have Energy Switches in your deck/hand. Keeping 1 Grass Energy on Ogerpon is fine so you threaten Energy Switch + Crispin to power up your other attackers in 1 turn, but more than that is not advised.