Images courtesy of The Pokémon Company

The Pokémon Trading Card Game (or TCG)‘s latest expansion, Journey Together, is finally in full swing!

This set marks the rotation of F-block cards, which has caused massive meta shifts due to the loss of powerful archetypes, and more importantly, the removal of powerful draw and tutor options in the metagame.

While many decks have started to show promise in the early days of the format, these archetypes have shown staying power through the course of Japan’s time with Battle Partners, their equivalent to the Journey Together set. Let’s look at these decks so we can better prepare for them!

Dragapult ex

Another week where we talk about Dragapult ex! When will it stop? That might come next expansion, but at the moment, Dragapult ex still stands at the top by virtue of having a fantastic draw engine in Drakloak, while denying Fezandipiti ex value through Phantom Dive.

Make sure to set up for multi-prize turns against aggressive decks off the back of an Iono.

Tera Box

Due to the release of Lillie’s Clefairy ex, Tera Toolbox has become one of the hottest archetypes to come out of Journey Together. The deck aims to answer most metagame threats through its varied attack options and score a quick 2-2-2 prize map for the win. The lynchpin of the deck is the interaction between Wellspring Mask Ogerpon ex, Sparkling Crystal, and Crispin, which enables us to set up most multi-energy attackers in just a single turn.

For a more in-depth breakdown of the deck, check out our dedicated article on Tera Box.

Raging Bolt ex

Despite losing its key draw pieces, Raging Bolt ex has once again reared its head to take down a metagame that’s still struggling to optimize their card counts – as most aggro decks historically do at the start of a new format.

With its new pal Noctowl, the deck now utilizes the Tera engine to search for Professor Sada’s Vitality to generate enough energy attachments for the turn. While the deck can still fold to late-game disruption, it now has more outs due to the owl providing targeted tutors to close out the game.

Walls

A constant worry for most players is their matchup against the dreaded Walls deck – an archetype that just invalidates your entire deck using a variety of walling Pokémon.

Due to the loss of Pokémon V, Farigiraf ex has propped itself up as a surefire way to lock Tera Box and Raging Bolt ex out of the game, while Milotic ex seems to give Dragapult ex a hard time.

Cornerstone Mask Ogerpon ex seems to be the choice stallbreaker of the format, while also walling off ability-heavy decks such as Charizard ex, or even the Wall deck itself.

Feraligatr

It’s great to see a single-prize deck become a major metagame contender, and the alligator seems to have the tools to stay in the running!

The deck’s main engine relies on Relicanth giving access to Croconaw and Totodile‘s attacks to Feraligatr. All the while, the gator can place damage counters on itself through its Torrential Heart ability to fling across the board through Munkidori. This was best showcased by Hiromu Sasaki in the finals of Champions League Fukuoka, which garnered 5,000 players.

This results in a deck with multiple outs, such as trapping the opposing Pokémon while we pick off key pieces on the bench, retreating to our choice of wall, either Milotic ex or Mimikyu, or just straight up KO-ing the opponent’s two-prizer with our single prizer.

This list isn’t exhaustive, as there are several other decks that may show up at tournaments now that Journey Together has finally released in the west. With the loss of Kirlia, Gardevoir ex now has to fall back on Brilliant Blender to pitch energies to the discard pile, Gholdengo ex has partnered up with Dragapult ex to answer all metagame threats, and the uber-tanky Blissey ex looms in the background, ready to take down decks that can’t one-shot it.

Meanwhile, Owner’s Pokémon have had a disappointing showing, with N’s Zoroark ex being the most viable among the bunch by keeping evolution decks at bay, and Hop’s Zacian ex trailing behind.

For more Pokémon TCG content, check out our Top 5 Journey Together cards, some of the most important cards for the post-rotation metagame, or our breakdown of Tord Reklev’s Tera Box deck.