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Prismatic Evolutions Metagame Breakdown - What Should You Play at EUIC 2025?

The Pokémon Europe International Championships are returning to London this February! With the onset of Prismatic Evolutions and EUIC approaching quickly, we have a lot to work with and talk about before EUIC 2025. 

Not sure what the International Championships are? Route 5 has all the information you need to know.

Picture of Alex Kivitz

Alex Kivitz

Picture of Alex Kivitz

Alex Kivitz

A New Pokémon In the Pokédex

The biggest impact of Prismatic Evolutions has been the addition of two new yet familiar faces. The main new threat comes in inconspicuous Budew. This new Budew attacks with Itchy Pollen which can be used without any energy attached. Don’t let the 10 damage fool you, it has one of the strongest effects in the game, reading “during your opponent’s next turn, they can’t play any Item cards from their hand”. This slows down opponents and gives slower decks a chance to get their engines online more quickly. 

Budew mainly targets decks that require Rare Candy to evolve basic Pokémon into Stage 2s and Pokémon search cards like Ultra Ball and Buddy-Buddy Poffin.

The second big metagame tech is Regigigas with Jewel Breaker. Costing a whopping four energy, this attack deals 100 damage but deals an additional 230 damage if the opponent’s active Pokémon is a Tera Pokémon. 

Almost every mainstay metagame deck runs at least one Tera Pokémon, and Prismatic Evolutions is a set that gives every Eeveelution a Tera form. We predict these two new tech Pokémon to shift the balance of some of the top contending decks and to be a worthwhile consideration for some of the newer decks.

1. Gardevoir EX

Gardevoir EX makes great use of Budew due to it needing those couple extra turns to really get the engine online. Gardevoir EX utilizes the stage 1 evolution Kirlia to cycle through cards and fill the discard pile with energy while keeping your hand full of Item and Trainer cards. 

The biggest strength is that Gardevoir EX can often play through the effects of an opponent’s Budew because it runs all four copies of Kirlia, skipping out on needing cards like Rare Candy to evolve Ralts into Gardevoir EX.

Gardevoir EX is a great utility deck that packs a lot of answers for different matchups, while using single Prize card Pokémon to eliminate threats. The deck can easily cycle cards with Kirlia and Radiant Greninja and then use Gardevoir EX’s ability to attach energy from the discard zone. At the same time, cards like Munkidori can move damage counters around the opponent’s bench to stifle the opponent’s general gameplay engine. 

If you’re unable to remove the Gardevoir EX, you’ll want to take out their Kirlias to stop their card draw. Gardevoir EX does need a couple turns to really set up their board, so early knockouts on their key Pokémon can really stunt their gameplan. Gardevoir EX will definitely be including a copy of Budew to slow down their opponents so you may want to pack in more consistency if you’re playing a stage 2 deck.

2. Lugia VSTAR

Lugia VSTAR is a consistent powerhouse deck that hits hard and comes online fast. Utilising Lugia’s VSTAR Power, Summoning Star, you may put up to two normal type Pokémon that don’t have a Rule Box from your discard pile onto your bench once per game. This is used to ideally pull two Archeops. These can then use their Primal Turbo ability to accelerate energy onto heavy hitters like Cinccino, Bloodmoon Ursaluna EX, and Iron Hands.

The addition of Regigigas makes it a great tech card to quickly and efficiently deal with Pokémon like Charizard EX and Dragapult EX in one hit while also being a single Prize Pokémon. 

The key here is to quickly remove Archeops because once they use Lugia’s VSTAR ability, they can no longer put any more Archeops on board. Removing their key energy accelerants makes it difficult to pay for the plethora of high energy cost attacks their Pokémon have.

3. Charizard EX

Charizard EX is one of the main decks that really has to adapt its gameplay with the onset of Budew, and maybe Regigigas as well to an extent. Historically, the deck sought to utilize Rare Candy to quickly develop a Stage 2 like Pidgeot EX and the eponymous Charizard EX.

The addition of Budew forces the deck to start running extra copies of Pidgeotto and Charmeleon to play under item lock. Additionally, the Grand Tree Ace Spec will likely start seeing more play as another way to get Charizard EX out faster, though it will prevent Charizard EX’s Infernal Reign ability from activating.

The best way to beat this deck is to stop it from getting started. Budew is a very real threat as it may slow down how fast Charizard EX hits the field and it gives you time to clear the Pidgeot EX before they can simply start finding whatever key card they need in their deck.

4. Dragapult EX

Very similar to Charizard EX, this deck has a similar game plan of quickly evolving into Dragapult EX. The main draw of Dragapult EX is that behind its massive 320 health pool is the Phantom Dive attack. While 200 may not seem like a heavy hitter, it has the bonus ability that lets you place 6 damage counters, or 60 damage, spread across your opponent’s benched Pokémon in any way you like. 

The first thing you’ll want to be careful of is to not put any low health basic Pokémon onto the field while Dragapult is around, and be very careful of potential chained knockouts from its ability.

The benefit Dragapult EX has over Charizard EX is that it often runs all four copies of Drakloak as part of its card draw engine. The deck still runs a good number of Rare Candies and Ultra Balls, but the number of stage one Pokémon helps it play around Budew.

Dragapult EX is still a Tera Pokémon which makes it susceptible to a one-hit kill from Regigigas. Dragapult can still take quite a while to evolve as while it does sometimes run Rare Candy, it often likes to manually evolve into Drakloak first. You’ll want to be aggressive and evolve quickly to prevent knockouts from Phantom Dive.

5. Palkia Terapagos

Palkia VSTAR has been a prominent deck in the metagame for a long time now, and EUIC will be a great place to see the deck live in action before Palkia itself rotates out of the format on April 11th. 

One half of the deck comes in the form of Palkia but, more importantly, Palkia VSTAR. Palkia VSTAR’s VSTAR Ability, Star Portal, allows you to attach up to three water energy cards from your discard pile to your water Pokémon in any way you like. As with all VSTAR abilities, you may only use one per game.

The second half comes in the form of the absolute tank that is Terapagos EX. Crown Opal prevents all damage done by attacks from basic non-colorless Pokémon during your opponent’s next turn. 

Many decks use a few general basics that hit hard and trade up into double Prize card Pokémon. For example, Raging Bolt, Miraidon, and Radiant Charizard will need to be swapped out to deal with a Terapagos.

Unfortunately for Terapagos, it is still a Tera type and Regigigas is a colorless Pokémon, making it a very good tech included in decks that can accelerate energy quickly. The benefit of this deck, however, is that one of its primary energy accelerators comes in the form of a VSTAR ability that can’t be shut down under Budew. 

The deck is quite strong and consistent, however, it lacks the big firepower that some of the other decks have. You’ll be able to take your time, maybe feed some weaker Pokémon in the early game, while you set up one big Pokémon to sweep the rest of the opponent’s team.

Conclusion

One of the more interesting things about Prismatic Evolutions is that while it did not give a ton of metagame staples, it provided us with two new cards that are likely to see inclusions across many decks. Budew and Regigigas both force the top performing decks in the meta to shift their game plans and force players to adapt to relying less on Item cards as well as protecting their Tera Pokémon. Some of the slower decks now have the tools required to buy themselves time and some of the more explosive decks need to pack in some measure of counter play.

If you’re interested in seeing all these decks in action at the 2025 Pokémon Europe International Championships in London, you can watch the events live on our Twitch or Youtube!

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