Salamence ex

As a Pokemon, Salamence ex has a lot going for it. Minus a weakness to Lillie’s Clefairy ex (a noticeable weakness given the popularity of that card), Salamence is immune to double damage against most decks and attackers, making that 320 HP stat highly useful at avoiding being knocked out without at least two or more attacks. 

Meanwhile, Salamence ex has some pretty insane attacks. While the most eye catching one is its Dragon Impact attack for 300, Wide Blast is also impressive,

As a Pokemon, Salamence ex has a lot going for it. Minus a weakness to Lillie’s Clefairy ex (a noticeable weakness given the popularity of that card), Salamence is immune to double damage against most decks and attackers, making that 320 HP stat highly useful at avoiding being knocked out without at least two or more attacks. 

Meanwhile, Salamence ex has some pretty insane attacks. While the most eye catching one is its Dragon Impact attack for 300, Wide Blast is also impressive, dealing 50 damage to each Pokemon on the bench. In many scenarios, getting this attack off more than once equates to multiple knockouts. 

If you find yourself a little behind in the fight, Counter Gain is a great tool to attach to Salamence ex. Use it to make up some of the difference in energy to help you strike with your most deadly attack.

As you build up to being able to use Salamence’s stronger attacks, it helps to have an attacker that can take knockouts as well as soften up your opponent’s defenses. Smolder-Sault is surprisingly strong, despite only hitting for 200. The thing is, it’s an extremely easy attack to power up, given you can accelerate an energy from your discard via Seething Spirit.

Additionally it hits for weakness against the likes of Teal Mask Ogerpon ex, Zacian ex, and can be powered up with Vitality band to take knockouts against many two-prize Pokemon including Fezandipiti ex.

Grand Tree is consistently one of my favorite ACE SPEC cards to use in Stage 2 decks. It gives you yet another reliable means by which to evolve your Pokemon. It’s a particularly relevant card in the current meta where the likes of Budew runs rampant. If your opponent has used Budew on you, you aren’t going to be able to evolve Pokemon the next turn via Rare Candy. Grand Tree gets around that by letting you evolve by getting the cards from your deck. Because it is a stadium card, it can’t be shut off via Itchy Pollen

Additionally, it can easily be searched out via Colress’s Tenacity – a supporter and not an item.

While you can use Crispin in a variety of scenarios, the most effective use case is to use it to add additional energy to Salamence ex. This can be handy to reach that one additional energy you need to get an attack off. Because you run two different type of energy in this deck, you can get what you need attached to your Pokemon fairly easily. 

Curious about how Salamence ex fairs against the post 2025 Pokemon TCG meta?

Let’st talk about its matchups into certain decks that are popular right now.

Versus Tera Box, you have a few advantages. For starters, you can take out weak Pokemon on the bench in a few hits with Wide Blast. Pokemon like Noctowl and Rotom Fan are very easily hit this way, and can make for multiple KOs in a turn. 

Earlier on, you can do significant damage via attacking Blaziken ex into Teal Mask Ogerpon.

Tera Box’s main advantage against you is the Lillie’s Clefairy play. However, if you manage your prize mapping well, this isn’t a huge deal as the most they can do is get two prizes off of you into your Salamence ex.

Hop’s Zacian ex

Hop’s Zacian ex is a very popular deck on the ladder right now. Against Salamence ex, however, it’s fairly weak. All you have to do is keep hitting with Blaziken ex and there’s not much they can do to stop you.

N’s Zoroark

This is a fairly even matchup. If using the poison build, N’s Zoroark can take some pretty big KOs against you but typically will need to do so in a few hits. Darmanitan can be an issue if you let Night Joker use its attack which can take out two small bodies in a single hit. 

Wild Blast can be particularly effective against it, however. If you manage to wipe the bench clear of N’s Pokemon, Night Joker won’t have much to attack with.

Dragapult ex

Dragapult ex is your worst matchup. Phantom Dive absolutely destroys you and there’s not a lot you can do to stop it.

Hope you enjoy this short guide!