Hello everyone! This is  Elena  from Gaia Storm and  welcome to another article here at CCG Castle. Today I wanted to talk  about the  comeback of one of the most powerful decks in the recent history of Pokémon TCG: Buzzwole Lycanroc.

In a metagme where Malamar has taken one step ahead and Rayquaza seemed at the peak of its power, it was bit surprising to see some players betting to play a fighting deck once again.  However, with every new tournament that was held, Buzzwole’s popularity kept increasing. Eventually, at the end of Memphis regionals, Buzzwole decks filled the top 8. Has something changed in the metagame to explain this sudden rise?

There are two main reasons for Buzz’s new placement in the game: the deck is still strong enough and the rest of the contenders in the game are not expecting fighting attackers to do well. To put everything in perspective let’s not forget that Buzzroc was one of the most damaged strategies with the 2018 rotation. It lost so many good cards, irreplaceable at first sight, like Strong energy, Max elixir or Octillery to name a few. However, it turns  out that  some of the new additions for the deck help to balance those losses. Magcargo is not Octillery but is an incredible Pokémon that lets you search exactly your missing piece. With a Magcargo on the field, gaining access to one or more Beast Rings (one of the most broken cards of the game) is incredibly easy. In addition both Mew and Mewtwo, efficient generic Buzzwole counters, have also rotated and barely any deck  is including a psych attacker nowadays in order to deal with  Buzzwole GX.

The thing is that  Buzzwole still has a lot of raw power even if it no longer has all the support it used to: it trades prices very nicely with an army of mini Buzzwole, has consistency thanks to Brooklet Hill, can KO big GX Pokémon with a full powered Buzzwole GX and Lycanroc is a determining  factor with its Guzma-like ability. As far as the pairings go, I would say that outside Malamar and its psychic attackers, Buzzwole have some favourable match ups. Those GX based in GX attackers such as Rayquaza are hurt by the prize trade of mini Buzzwole and Zoroark can’t handle easily the pressure of the fighting type.

It is true that Lost Thunder will have a tremendous  impact  and change everything regarding the state of the game but, from the time on, Buzzwole is an amazing option to play in sanctioned tournaments.