Ancient Box Decks – Best Cards, How To Play

In a blast from the past, the Pokemon TCG introduced Ancient and Future Pokemon in the Temporal Forces expansion, giving trainers incredibly powerful Pokemon to add to their decks. Ancient Pokemon in particular stand out, supporting each other with remarkable synergies that make each one stronger in the presence of others.

The Ancient Box archetype capitalizes on these synergies to make a powerful deck that can also be built on a budget and still compete at the highest levels of play. Built on dual engines that reward you for both playing and discarding Ancient cards, and packed to the gills with exactly those cards, the Ancient Box deck is not easy to pilot, but can be extremely rewarding with a little effort.

Ancient Box Deck List

Here’s a deck list for Ancient Box, organized by card type.

Deck lists vary. The list provided is based on Jake Ewart’s deck from the Orlando Regional Championship 2024. Other builds may trade a Flutter Mane for Slither Wing (PAR 107), include Dark Patch and Switch Cart, and replace Fire Energy with a second Fighting Energy.

Ancient Box Deck Best Cards

The Ancient Box deck is straightforward, but that doesn’t mean that it’s simple to play. You’ll need to be aware of the order in which you play your cards and use your Radiant Greninja’s Concealed Cards ability in order to maximize your Energy use and power up your attackers. Discarding your only Energy without drawing into Professor Sada’s Vitality may spell disaster!

There are several options for customizing this deck to match your playgroup. If nobody you play with uses Pokemon Tools, you can cut Lost Vacuum, and many players include Roaring Moon ex to make matchups against Charizard ex a little more favorable. Ultimately it’s up to you to customize the deck to your needs, but there are a few cards that are necessary to make the deck work.

Roaring Moon

Roaring Moon is the ace Pokemon in the Ancient Box deck, and almost the entire deck is built around powering it up. It will get stronger as Koraidon gets weaker, and should be able to start swinging for Prize cards as early as turn two.

The attack you should focus on is Vengeance Fletching, which requires two Darkness Energy and deals 70 damage, plus ten damage for every Ancient-stamped card in your discard pile. This deck includes 29 Ancient cards, which means that this attack maxxes out at 350 damage. That may be extreme, but you should be able to hit 200 damage reliably, for only two energy and on a single-Prize Pokemon.

Speed Wing costs four Energy and deals a flat 120 damage. This is nothing to sneeze at, but you should only use it if you’re way behind on building up your discard pile.

Koraidon

While not quite your ace Pokemon, Koraidon does two things for Ancient Box decks: first, it’s a great backup attacker that can Knock Out most non-ex threats, and second it’s an Ancient pokemon, which makes itself stronger while in play and Roaring Moon stronger while in the discard pile.

Every Pokemon in this deck is a Basic Pokemon, and 12/13 are Ancient, so you’re likely to get several on your bench right out of the gate. Using Professor Sada’s Vitality to attach a second Energy, Koraidon should Knock Out smaller Pokemon immediately with Primordial Beatdown. And if your opponent knocks Koraidon out, you get to celebrate having another Ancient Pokemon in your discard pile.

Most variants of Ancient Box use two Fighting Energy cards instead of including a Fire Energy, making it impossible to use Shred but much easier to use Primordial Beatdown

Professor Sada’s Vitality

In order to build up Roaring Moon’s attack, you’ll be throwing a lot of cards into your discard pile. Often that will include your limited Energy cards, so you’ll need a couple of ways to return them to your hand. Professor Sada’s Vitality attaches a Basic Energy to up to two of your Ancient Pokemon, and then draws three cards.

The draw efect only works if you’ve got Ancient Pokemon in play and Energy cards in your discard pile. The first part is easy, because every Pokemon except Radiant Greninja is Ancient.

Getting Energy into your discard pile takes a little work, but between Earthen Vessel, Explorer’s Guidance, and other Trainer cards that require you to discard, you should have no problem as long as you aren’t squeamish about throwing away your Energy.

Earthen Vessel

Decks that only include a handful of Energy need ways to find those Energy cards, and Earthen Vessel does that nicely. At the cost of discarding one card you can search for up to two Basic Energy cards and add them to your hand.

Not only does Earthen Vessel find your Energy cards, it can also put one into your discard pile for Professor Sada’s Vitality to find afterwards, or it can put another Ancient card into the discard pile, powering up Roaring Moon.

Ancient Box Deck Strategy

One big advantage that Ancient Box has is that it doesn’t use any Evolution Pokemon, allowing you to start attacking with your biggest threats immediately. Ideally, you want to go second, but Ancient Box can play efficiently if you play first, as well.

Depending on your starting hand, you should focus on powering up either Roaring Moon or Koraidon. Roaring Moon is your ace, but if you can put at least four Ancient Pokemon into play you might be able to score an early Knock Out with Koraidon. Otherwise, play Roaring Moon in your Active slot and start filling your discard pile with Ancient cards.

PokéStop, Explorer’s Guidance, and Ultra Ball will all help you to search for more Ancient Pokemon and Professor Sada’s Vitality while throwing Ancient cards and Energy into your discard pile. Be sure to keep at least one Energy in your hand to attach to your Active Pokemon, then use Professor Sada’s Vitality to attach a second one from your Discard pile after throwing it away to pay for another Trainer card.

Your first turn (if you’re playing second) should end with five or six Ancient Pokemon in play and five or more Ancient cards in your discard pile, so you can attack with Primordial Beatdown for 150-180 or Vengeance Fletching for at least 120.

Be generous about putting cards in your discard pile, especially Energy! You have a lot of ways to get them back, with Professor Sada’s Vitality, Super Rod, and Superior Energy Retrieval all readily available.

Later turns will play much the same way, with Roaring Moon’s Vengeance Fletching growing stronger with each Ancient card that you add to your discard pile. The deck doesn’t have room for much disruption, so your goal is to outrun your opponent and collect all of your prize cards as quickly as possible.

It helps that every Pokemon you have is worth a single Prize, while you’re likely to earn two with each Knock Out since ex Pokemon are incredibly common.

If your opponent is trying to build up a counter, or if you see an opportunity for a Knock Out, use Boss’s Orders and Counter Catcher to Gust out their vulnerable Pokemon. The list also includes a Lost Vacuum to deal with problematic Tools, such as Future Booster Energy Capsule or Ancient Booster Energy Capsule. But if your opponent isn’t using Tools, Lost Vacuum is an easy choice to discard.

Flutter Mane is mostly useful as a cleanup sweeper, able to place 10-20 damage on Benched Pokemon. This allows you to potentially secure three Prizes at once. However, the main purpose of Flutter Mane is to power up Koraidon and Roaring Moon in the discard pile or Bench, respectively.

Great Tusk offers an alternate win condition: if your opponent’s deck gets low, you can play Great Tusk, attach two Energy with a little help from Professor Sada’s Vitality, and start using Land Collapse to move their last few cards into their discard pile. Even if it doesn’t get their deck down to zero cards, it puts them on a tight timer to collect the rest of their Prizes.

Ancient Box Deck Common Threats

While Ancient Box is a strong deck capable of taking prize cards early and minimize losses by relying on single-Prize Pokemon, it struggles against Charizard ex, which is one of the most dominant decks in modern Pokemon.

While it’s technically possible to Knock Out Charizard ex with a single attack, in practice you’ll almost always need two or three. Meanwhile Charizard ex can Knock Out the beefiest Pokemon in Ancient Box with a single attack, even with an Ancient Booster Energy Capsule attached once you’ve taken a Prize card.

The best way to deal with Charizard ex is to prevent your opponent from evolving their Charmander in the first place, pressing for early Knock Outs of their Basic Pokemon. Alternatively, some variants include a single Roaring Moon ex as a potential counter, relying on Frenzied Gouging to automatically Knock Out your opponent’s Active Pokemon.