Hello everyone! This is Elena from Gaia Storm TCG and welcome to another article here at CCG. As you all know, the Sun and Moon era is finally here and during this few weeks, the metagame has shaped itself into a very interesting format. Due to the strong rise of Rayquaza and Malamar decks, players have been exploring different anti-meta strategies and as a result, Shrine of Punishment variants have taken the competitive scene by surprise. Let’s see how those decks works and the potential they have!

In the image above you can see a typical build of the Shrine strategy, a cheap option for those who want to counter the metagame and do well at tournaments. The idea is pretty straight forward and has little variation but it becomes incredibly effective. The deck uses a combination of one prize attackers, heavy lines of Shrine of Punishment and an army of mini Buzzwole in order to slowly take down every GX on the field.

One of the greatest advantages of the deck relies on the fact that it doesn’t play a single GX Pokémon, which means that the opponents are forced to play a tiresome 6 prizes games again and again. In addition to this, Shrine of Punishment is a tremendous card in today’s format given that many top decks right now rely almost exclusively on GX attackers (Rayquaza, Malamar and Zoroark). With Field Blower no longer as popular as it used to be and limited access to stadium removal, a single Shrine of Memories has the potential to deal massive amounts of damage through the duration of game.

Then, moving to analyze the Pokémon of the deck, we see that it is basically a combination of the best one prize attackers of the game. Even with the loss of strong energy, Buzzwole is still an awesome Pokémon capable of doing lots of damage in early game. When the opponent has finally been able to take two prizes, it is the time to go for the big 120 Sledgehammer! Now, there are multiples teammates available for Buzzwole like Garbodor and Weavile. Garbodor punishes speedy decks for setting up and using items whereas Weavile is able to 1HKO everything when the opponent has abilities on the field. Both of those options fit very well with the Shrine strategy and the choice of one over another is a matter of the expected metagame. It is true, however, that the deck can have a difficult time progressing in the game because of its slow nature which is why it runs such a high supporter count.

All in all, Buzzwole Shrine variants are a powerful metacall worth trying for this format, especially if you want to play something quite cheap and effective in every circumstance. Thanks for reading!