Hello everyone, this is Elena from Gaia Storm TCG and it is a pleasure to be here once again. Since the new season is about to start and become legal I wanted to take the opportunity and talk about one of the decks that I believe to have a lot of potential in this format: Passimian SPAS. Since it debuted in Sun and Moon, Passimian had been a very well-known deck in Pokémon although it never became exactly good. Some random tops from here and there in large tournaments were everything this strategy gathered in years... until now? What has changed that might make Passimian improve after so many time? Well, of course, Team Up happened. Let’s see how.

The first and more important addition the deck is getting is Jirachi, which should be no surprise at all being one of the best (if not the best) cards of the set. Passimian and other SPAS decks have traditionally struggled with consistency issues due to the limited draw capacity they had. Unless they were able to set something like Magcargo, drawing turn after turn got very difficult and as a consequence the deck tended to whiff crucial  energy attachments. Now with a single Jirachi in the field the scenario changes widely given that the player will have a lot of opportunities to get the resources it need. Besides Jirachi, I think SPAS decks will also benefit from the arrival of Erika’s Hospitality since it helps retaining important resources in the hand while at the same time drawing into the cards that Magcargo has selected.

Another big change that Team Up has brought is the rise of PikachuZekrom. If we analyze the deck objectively we can perfectly understand how it can be the perfect candidate for the format given the tools and support it has available. Now, Passimian is for sure the worst nightmare any PikachuZekrom player can have. It easily destroys every GX attacker getting tons of prizes in exchange thanks to the weakness factor. What is more, Passimian has also favourable match up against Lost March, another of the decks that are presumed to be largely played in this metagame. With the help of Tapu Koko and its capacity to spread damage across the board it is able to take multiple prizes in just one turn.

It is true however that Passimian is not going to be by any means the top deck of the format. It still has problems against bulky only prize attackers (Giratina) healing strategies (Venusaur GX) and energy removal. But overall it seems to be a consistent pick for the first moments of the Team Up meta so don’t sleep on this monkey gang. Thanks for reading!