Best decks in Pokemon TCG Pocket
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Best Decks in Pokemon TCG Pocket: what is the current meta?

Some luck with a lot of cheese.

The Pokémon TCG Pocket meta is sure to keep transforming as new sets are added. Some decks in the game are already taking over, so if you want to burn through the offline battles and beat people online, here’s what you need to know.

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What is the current meta in Pokemon TCG Pocket?

The current meta of this game is to stock up primarily with Support and Item cards with only a few slots for your Pokémon. To make a deck usable, you must follow the game’s rules for having a complete deck. These are the following requirements:

  • Have 20 cards in your deck.
  • Your deck must have at least one Basic Pokémon.
  • Your deck cannot have more than two of the same card (ie. 3 Mewtwos, 3 Potions, 3 Giovannis).
  • Your deck must have Energy selected that allows at least one Pokémon to use its attacks.
  • Your deck must be built using owned cards. No rentals.

Following these parameters, you want to stock up the majority of your deck with doubles of Trainer or Item cards.

The reason we’re using so many Item and Support cards to take up a majority of your deck’s space is that it will more likely guarantee you to pick the Pokémon you want to play without relying too much on chance to win.

With that set in place, building your deck around the current EX cards and matching their type with a basic evolution tree will massively increase your damage output and expedite card setup. So far, these are the best cards to use as your lead or basic starter:

  • Articuno EX (Water)
  • Moltres EX (Fire)
  • Zapdos EX / Pikachu EX (Electric)
  • Mewtwo EX (Psychic)
  • Vaporeon + Water Pokémon (Water)
  • Celebi EX (Grass)
  • Darktai EX / Weavil EX (Dark)
  • Palkia EX (Water)
  • Dialga EX / Bastiodon (Metal)
  • Golem (Fighting)
Pokemon TCG Pocket meta cards
Screenshot by Destructoid

Best decks in Pokemon TCG Pocket

The best decks in Pokémon TCG Pocket will revolve around the aforementioned EX legendaries because they are considered basic cards.

Pokemon TCGP best Articuno deck
Screenshot by Destructoid

Best Articuno deck build

So, let’s start with Articuno EX. This is the setup you’ll want:

  • Articuno EX (starter) x2
  • Squirtle x2
  • Wartortle x2
  • Blastoise (EX preferred) x2
  • Giovanni x2
  • Misty x2
  • Poke Ball x2
  • Potion x2
  • Professor’s Research x2
  • X Speed x2

With this setup, you have a 50% chance of getting Articuno as your starter. Squirtle isn’t a bad basic starter either, dealing decent opening damage. The gimmick of this build is to quickly ramp up Energy using the Misty support cards. 

While you do need to rely on luck a bit, the possible Energy gain will quickly ramp up your damage output and can even make your next match a quick sweep. With Misty in the deck, your chances of getting Energy will increase. It’ll be even more devastating if you can quickly get at least five points of Energy onto your Squirtle. 

If you have EX Blastoise with the five points, you can deal 160 HP worth of damage which basically one-shots most of the roster. Just know that this build is weak to Electric.

Pokemon TCGP best Moltres build
Screenshot by Destructoid

Best Moltres build

With Moltres EX, it’ll work similarly to the Articuno one, just with Fire-types. To get started, use this setup:

  • Moltres EX x2
  • Charmander x2
  • Charmeleon x2
  • Charizard (EX preferred) x2
  • Giovanni x2
  • Poke Ball x2
  • Potion x2
  • Professor’s Research x2
  • Red Card x1
  • Sabrina x1
  • X Speed x2

If Moltres is not your starter, do not worry. You’ll either get ramping up starter damage with Charmander and its evolution tree, or a chance at getting early energy gain with coin flips as a Moltres.

Without Misty in your deck, you’re relying mostly on the luck of Moltres’ Inferno Dance to ramp up damage. It’s still very effective and can easily devastate your opponents. Other than that, you mostly have to watch out for Water types.

Pokemon TCGP best Zapdos deck
Screenshot by Destructoid

Best Zapdos build

Finally a bit different from the other two, the Zapdos build relies heavily on ramping up in the early game to deal some incredible damage into the mid and endgame. To start, use this deck setup:

  • Zapdos EX x2
  • Pikachu EX x2
  • Old Amber, Dome Fossil, or Helix Fossil x4
  • Giovanni x2
  • Poke Ball x2
  • Potion x2
  • Professor’s Research x2
  • Red Card x1
  • Sabrina x1
  • X Speed x2

This will work more like a standard deck without many early-game coin flip gimmicks. However, the strengths lie in your basic EX cards. Pikachu and Zapdos will take some time to get to really high damage potential, so soak up early-game damage with the fossil cards.

Make sure to toss them before your opponent destroys them, giving them a point. If you have a Pikachu on hand, start feeding it Energy and retreat using the X Speed if it’s available on hand. 

Once you have a charged-up Pikachu, make sure to play any Pokemon on your bench to maximize its damage. Switch to Zapdos when it can start casting Thundering Hurricane and when your Pikachu’s HP gets low. It’s all about switching and Energy upkeep here.

Pokemon TCGP Mewtwo deck
Screenshot by Destructoid

Best Mewtwo deck

Lastly, the Mewtwo deck is also a more standard type of deck. You’ll rely on early Energy gain, but once that gets going, you’ll easily destroy your opponent’s cards. Let’s start with the setup:

  • Mewtwo EX x2
  • Ralts / Gastly x2
  • Kirlia / Haunter x2
  • Gardevoir EX / Gengar EX x2
  • Giovanni x2
  • Poke Ball x2
  • Potion x2
  • Professor’s Research x2
  • X Speed x2
  • Red Card x1
  • Sabrina x1

In this deck, you can either go with the evolution tree for Gardevoir or Gengar. Their EX abilities are fairly strong and have some slight variation in terms of gameplay. Gengar prevents the use of Support items while in play while Gardevoir is used for Energy gain on the bench. 

Both Gengar and Gardevoir’s early games are weak, so ideally, you’d want to swap out or even use Mewtwo when you can as a tank and ramp up your deck’s abilities. Just know this setup is weak against Dark types.

All in all, these builds can be considered cheap or cheesy, but they can deal a lot of damage with some luck and manipulation of the game’s rules. If any of these strategies get patched for nearly guaranteeing an evolution tree or if damage numbers get reduced, it wouldn’t be a shocker.

Pokemon TCG Pocket Best Vaporeon deck
Image via The Pokémon Company, assembled by Destructoid

Vaporeon and Any Water-type

With the addition of the Mythical Island set, a new Vaporeon came out with the Wash Out ability. Pairing that with Misty can quickly push out late-game attackers like EX Pokémon and other hard-hitters.

Use this setup:

  • Eevee x2
  • Vaporeon (Mythical Island) x2
  • Misty x2
  • Leaf x2
  • Poké Ball x2
  • Professor’s Research x2
  • Blue x2

With the remaining six slots, you can insert the whole evolution tree for a Blastoise, Starmie, Gyarados, Greninja, Empoleon, and more. You can also use these for EX Pokémon like Palkia, Starmie, or Blastoise.

If you still have remaining spots due to shorter evolution trees, add in additional Trainer cards like Giant Cape, Cyrus, or Rocky Helmet.

Misty will help put more energy onto your Pokémon while Vaporeon can distribute them to others to either prop up a strong sweeper or distribute power.

Everything else is more standard and there’s flexibility, with the only weakness being electric types and a small reliance on coin flips for early energy gain.

Pokemon TCG Pocket best EX Celebi deck
Image via The Pokémon Company, assembled by Destructoid

Celebi EX

This deck became very popular, especially when paired with other strong grass types like Venusaur EX or Serperior. With that said, here’s the card setup to use for this deck:

  • Celebi EX x2
  • Snivy x2
  • Servine x2
  • Serperior x2
  • Erika x2
  • Poké Ball x2
  • Professor’s Research x2
  • Leaf x2
  • Potion x2
  • Pokémon Communication x2

A lot of players consider this deck to be overpowered due to Celebi being able to be drawn as a basic card with decent early-game damage. 

Ideally, you’ll want to evolve your Snivy to Serperior as fast as possible so it can use its Jungle Totem ability to add more energy to your Celebis. With excess energies equipped, you can flip multiple times, with each head adding more damage to the Powerful Bloom attack.

Having Erika is vital to keeping your Celebi alive since it is on the weaker side, especially if you’re up against fire-type decks, tanky sweepers, or other meta decks that ramp up faster.

Alternatives for the Serperior evolution tree include Exeggutor EX or the aforementioned Venusaur EX lineages. 

Exeggutor EX requires one energy but does rely on coin flips for big damage. It can still take a few early hits in time for Celebi to really shine.

Venusaur EX, while being energy-dependent, can stand on its own once evolved and with four energy to cast Giant Bloom every turn.

Pokemon TCG Pocket Weavile EX deck
Images via The Pokemon Company, assembled by Destructoid

Darkrai EX and Weavile EX

This deck has become rather popular for being one of the faster ones to get going to deal damage with. Focusing on dark-types and EX cards, here’s what you’ll need:

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

This deck revolves around using Spiritomb to damage all of your opponent’s Pokémon while using Weavile to deal even more damage. It’s an early-game sweeping deck thanks to the low energy consumption for Sneasel, Weavile EX, and Spiritomb. 

With excess energy, you’ll want to feed them to your Darkrai EXs so they can deal with the tanky stuff in the later parts of the match. 

You can end a game early if your opponent lays out a lot of Pokémon early on. Spiritomb can paint them with small damage while Weavile can go in and take down most second-level evolutions in one hit. It’ll take two or maybe three hits on level 3 evolutions and basic legendaries.

However, with little need for energy, you do have a big advantage against decks that require three or more energy to get big attack setups going, being effective against decks like Celebi, Palkia, Golem, and more.

Pokemon TCG Pocket Palkia EX deck
Images via The Pokemon Company, assembled by Destructoid

Palkia EX

The Palkia EX deck is quite strong and has a slight edge over Articuno decks. It’s definitely more energy-dependent, but the damage output is dangerous. If you want to use this deck, use the following cards:

  • Palkia EX x2
  • Manaphy x2
  • Poké Ball x2
  • Misty x2
  • Cyrus x2
  • Professor’s Research x2
  • Leaf x2

As mentioned in our best decks in the Space-Time Showdown booster set, you’ll have some flexibility here. 

You can use colorless or other water-type Pokémon to complement the strengths of the Palkia deck, with Vaporeon from Mythical Island being a more consistent pick. 

If you want to focus specifically on Palkia, you can fill the rest of the slots with Trainer cards like Giovanni, Potions, Pokémon Communications, and more.

As a Basic and EX, Palkia has a one-energy requirement for early damage, being able to ramp up for a Dimensional Storm attack. 

With cards like Misty and Manaphy, you can build up to that quicker without relying on good draws for evolution. Because of that as well, you can take out decks that do need to do that to get going. 

If you anticipate your opponent doing that, place down a Cyrus to foil those plans or make those Pokémon weaker when fully ready to attack.

Pokemon TCG Pocket Dialga EX deck
Images via The Pokemon Company, assembled by Destructoid

Dialga EX and Bastiodon

This is a more defensive deck with decent offensive output, but it does have a high cost to get going.

  • 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

Like a lot of vanilla deck starters, you’d ideally want to use your Farfetch’d to inflict early damage while you set up your premier attackers like Bastiodon and Dialga EX with energy. 

In order, you should bring Dialga first once you can put a second energy onto it and use Metallic Turbo. Doing so will bring your Shieldons up to snuff to mitigate attacks and deal decent damage against your foes’ Pokémon.

If you need just a bit more offensive output, you can use Dialga as your main attacker instead. Just be careful since it’s an EX and counts as two KO’s if you reach zero HP.

You can always substitute the Bastiodon evolution tree for a Lickitung/Lickylicky or a Melmetal setup.

Pokemon TCG Pocket Golem deck
Image via The Pokemon Company, assembled by Destructoid

Golem

With the release of Mythical Island, many decks have utilized Druddigon as a basic starter and active Pokémon to stall or deal decent reversal damage. It’s as if it’s wearing a permanent Rocky Helmet.

That being said, it’s a star in the Golem deck that excels in a strong defense with incredible offense.

  • Druddigon x2
  • Geodude x2
  • Graveler x2
  • Golem (Mythical Island) x2
  • Brock x2
  • Leaf x2
  • Poké Ball x2
  • Professor’s Research x2
  • Giovanni x2
  • Potion x2

The trick to this deck is to leave your Druddigon in the front while you evolve your Geodude all the way to Golem, feeding it energy along the way. 

Since this isn’t an EX-based deck, you don’t have to worry about losing two points if one of your Pokémon gets KO’d. It also doesn’t rely on coin flips to get going, so you’re only really battling the opponent and the sequence of cards you receive like Brock, the Golem evolution tree, and some healing potions if you need them.

Unless faced against a really ramped-up deck like Celebi EX, this Golem Guard Press deck can withstand one-shots after using its move.


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Author
Image of Elliott Gatica
Elliott Gatica
Contributing Writer - Elliott has been writing about video games since he was in high school. Carrying that momentum forward, he has now appeared in outlets such as App Trigger, Attack of the Fanboy, and now Destructoid. He focuses heavily on Warframe, but he is also an avid fan of fighting games and shooters. When he isn't here, he's probably getting salty in Mortal Kombat 1 or climbing the competitive ranks with his friends on Overwatch 2.