Best decks in Pokemon TCG Pocket Space-Time Smackdown ranked

With the release of the Space-Time Smackdown booster deck in Pokémon TCG Pocket, tryhards and serious players alike will want to know the best new decks.

If you’re spending all your hourglasses and Pack Points to get the best new stuff, here’s what to look out for.

Best new decks in Pokémon TCG Pocket Space-Time Smackdown

The following are the best new decks you can build from getting cards from the new Space-Time Smackdown booster packs in Pokémon TCG Pocket: 

Weavile EX / Darkrai EX

This new deck is going to be an expensive glass cannon build. It’ll require four Ex cards, which can take a while, depending on how much you play or how lucky you are. This is the setup needed:

• Sneasel x2
• Spiritomb x2
• Weavile EX x2
• Darkrai EX x2
• Cyrus x2
• Dawn x2
• Leaf x2*
• Pokémon Communications x2
• Poké Ball x2*
• Professor’s Research x2*

Anything marked with an asterisk(*) is obtained through another booster deck.

With this setup, you want to quickly evolve your Sneasels while doing early damage with their Double Scratch moves. Flipping heads will soften up your foes for confirmed KOs later in the match.

Spiritombs and Darkrais are basic Pokémon, so they do not require evolution. Ideally, you want your Spiritombs to take early damage as you ramp up energy for your Darkrais or Weaviles.

Spiritomb will be important for priming up your Weavile EX’s damage potential since it can damage every single one of your opponent’s Pokémon in play or on the bench. This brings your Weavile’s Scratching Nails move to do 70 damage per turn, being a potential early-game sweeper. 

This is then where you utilize your Cyrus cards to swap your opponent’s injured Pokémon to the front, which are most likely on the weaker side. A common strategy is to use throwaway Pokémon to deal early damage while you build a sweeper on your bench. This deck setup breaks that meta.

The best part is that Weavile EX only needs one energy to deal that much damage. With all the excess energy, feed them to your Darkrai EX. Specifically, you want to feed it Dark energy to deal more damage thanks to its Nightmare Aura ability.

In short, use Spiritomb to deal early-game priming while building up your Weavile(s). Then, switch to Weavile EX to sweep early game front Pokémon. With excess energies, give them to Darkrai EX to finish off tanky opponents.

The only weakness this deck has is grass attacks. With popular grass decks like Celebi EX, Exceggutor EX, and Venusaur EX, that can be an issue.

Palkia EX

The Palkia EX deck is a really strong Water-type deck that can be quite flexible. It’s essentially a way stronger Articuno EX but more energy-dependent. Here’s a list of cards needed for the deck:

• Palkia EX x2
• Manaphy x2
• Pokéball x2*
• Misty x2*
• Cyrus x2
• Professor’s Research x2*
• Leaf x2*

All cards denoted with an asterisk(*) are obtained in other decks.

Yes, there are only 14 cards in this setup, but this is where the flexibility starts. With the six remaining needed to make a legal deck, you can mix and match strong, basic, colorless Pokémon, or you can opt to use more Trainer and Item cards.

With this setup, you’re dealing with an easy buildup, preferably with Manaphy and Palkia EX in your starting hand. Use Manaphy to build up Palkia’s energy pool quickly so that it can use Dimensional Storm right away.

However, even if you don’t start with a Manaphy, your Palkia can still attack early on with its Slash. This is where cards like Leaf, Potions, or the Giant Capes are useful. 

Since Manaphy cannot attack, you want to preserve it as long as possible to keep feeding your Palkia(s) energy so that it’ll have more than enough to cast Dimensional Storm. Pair it with Misty and Dawn so you can have an effective early-game sweeper with some luck.

Don’t ignore the residual 20 damage per benched Pokémon, either. It’s a good means to soften up those with larger health pools so that when they are summoned by your opponent or by force with the Cyrus card, you can take those down more effectively.

However, while it would be easy to win with fewer cards in hand, that won’t be the case, so you need to fill in those last six slots.

These are some cards you can mix and match to fill in the remaining slots:

• Eevee x2*
• Vaporeon x2*
• Giovanni x2*
• Potion x2*
• Giant cape x2
• Pokémon Communication x2
• Dawn x2

If you go with the Eevee and Vaporeon combo, use the Vaporeon with the Wave Splash attack. This one has the Wash Out ability, where you can transfer water energy from benched Pokémon to your active hand, making it viable to transfer those left over from Manaphy over to Palkia EX.

If you go with the more item-heavy route, pick restoratives so your Manaphy won’t get knocked out early.

Lastly, the biggest weakness this deck has are against those like the Pikachu EX and Zapdos EX decks.

Gallade EX

This is a fighting-type deck that works quite well for energy-hungry decks that require a lot of buildup. It’ll also have a more classic setup that focuses on building Gallade while stalling using a Regirock, so use the following setup:

• Ralts x2
• Kirlia x2
• Gallade EX x2
• Regirock x2
• Giovanni x2*
• Leaf x2*
• Giant Cape x2
• Poké Ball x2*
• Professor’s Research x2*
• Cyrus x2

All cards denoted with an asterisk(*) are obtained in other decks.

As usual, you ideally want to stall with Regirock while evolving and building up your Ralts all the way into Gallade. This will work very similarly to using Druddigon as a passive damage dealer, except Regirock can take much more early-game damage. 

And since you’ll only have to deal with pulls from Psychic, Fighting, and Normal from your energy pool, you can get the two fighting energies equipped on your Ralts well before you evolve it into a Gallade. 

Since you only need two for Gallade to start attacking, you can throw excess energies into your Regirocks if needed for more damage (though that will be hard given their hungry energy requirements).

This Gallade EX build will work exceptionally well against late-game builds that utilize three energies or more for each turn to attack. Pair that with other offensive cards like Giovanni; this can deal good damage and foil the plans of late-game builds.

Some of the weaknesses in this build include Grass types that can get through your Regirock defenses before setting up your Gallade. You also do not have access to something like a Brock or Misty trainer card to build your energy up fast enough.

Bastiodon / Dialga EX 

This deck is a late-game buildup deck that can be really annoying for enemies to break through but would also require luck on your end. This is like a Melmetal deck, but stronger if you can consistently land Heads on each coin flip.

Use this setup:

• Farfetch’d x2*
• Shieldon x2
• Bastiodon x2
• Dialga EX x2
• Blue x2*
• Leaf x2*
• Giant Cape x2
• Potion x2*
• Poké Ball x2*
• Professor’s Research x2*

All cards denoted with an asterisk(*) are obtained in other decks. This is a more standard deck and will focus on survivability.

First, you’ll ideally want to have Farfetch’d as your starter for early damage. Alternatively, you’ll want Dialga EX built with two energies so it can use Metallic Turbo to feed these energies into your (hopefully) benched Shieldon/Bastiodon while doing some damage, too.

Once you have the necessary energy to attack with Bastiodon, you can then put it on the front, possibly mitigating 100 damage per enemy turn. Its ability, Guarded Grill, will be successful if you flip heads when attacked.

To ensure that you won’t take lethal damage if your flip fails, have the Giant Cape equipped and a Potion ready for your next turn.

80 damage does not seem like a lot, but being able to mitigate damage is huge and a way to slow down a sweep in late-game builds. 

This build is particularly weak to fire decks like Charizard EX, Arcanine EX, and Volcarona decks, which have become popular in the meta. If you do go against these, you really want to manage your damage mitigation and restoratives more aggressively.