Pokémon TCG Pocket

Hi all, just sharing a deck I cooked up recently for fun. This is not a new concept: have at most one of each card in your deck. However, it is more viable now thanks to a couple of new cards from the latest set.

Here's the deck list in bullet points:

• "Boosted Evolution" Eevee (standard)
• "Boosted Evolution" Eevee (promo)
• Sylveon ex
• Espeon ex
• Giratina ex
• Chingling
• Meloetta
• "Sing" Swablu
• Mega Altaria ex
• Indeedee ex
• Pokeball
• Rocky Helmet
• Giant Cape
• Professor's Research
• Sabrina
• Cyrus
• Red
• Copycat
• Lisia
• Perculiar Plaza

Yeah, I kinda cheated by using two "Boosted Evolution" Eevees, but these are technically two different cards. If it bothers you too much, feel free to swap one of them out for "Find-a-friend" Eevee or something.

The only new cards are Meloetta and Peculiar Plaza. The others are strong cards that have been around for a while, so I guess you won't need much card-specific explanation for their inclusion.

Still, there's a core idea when it comes to building this deck (besides the Highlander theme).

There's one thing I noticed about many of the strong decks in the previous (and possibly current) meta: they do well even when going first. Traditionally, going second gives you an advantage because you would gain an energy first, which means being able to get the first hit in.

These decks circumvent the going-first disadvantage in their own ways:

• Mega Altaria ex would use Chingling to lock the opponent's items away.
• Suicune draws one more card for you, making it easier to find your Froakies and Greninjas. With some luck, you get to evolve on the next turn too.
• Hydreigon has a high likelihood of evolving and attacking on the next turn.
• Magnezone has a good chance of evolving Magnemite into Magneton on the next turn, generating one extra energy before the opponent.
• Similar idea with Mega Venusaur ex and Mega Charizard ex, although these two decks weren't as meta.

Drawing from this lesson, this deck is chock full of basic pokemons that thrive when going first:

• Chingling allows for item-lock
• Meloetta draws an extra card for you at the start of your turn
• Giratina ex generates an extra energy
• with some luck, the "Boosted Evolution" Eevees have a chance of evolving into Sylveon ex right away, drawing you two cards at the very start

Indeedee may be a bad start but there's still hope in the form of Peculiar Plaza, allowing you to retreat for free into a more suitable pokemon.

That means the only real bad start is Swablu, but even then it's all good if you have Giratina ex on the bench.

You would think that with one less Professor's Research, this deck's consistency would take a hit. Despite that, it actually performed surprisingly well.

It's not as hardcore as ranked, but I managed to get 7 wins out of 9 games in the emblem event so far, giving this deck a 78% win rate. I went up against mostly Mega Altaria ex decks; in fact the only two losses are to Mega Altarias, though one involved a misplay on my part.

Edit:

Heck, this deck can even hold its own against Suicune-Greninja (they concede shortly after this screenshot was taken):

The thing is, even with only one Oak, this deck has plenty of draw power: Meloetta, Sylveon ex, Lisia and Copycat. I hardly brick in my games, and can even keep up with the likes of Suicune.

It is also very energy efficient, requiring you to charge only two energies to any of your primary attackers (Giratina would usually generate two energies for itself). Having Peculiar Plaza on the board also means you can pivot your pokemons around without burning energies.

The heals from Espeon ex and Indeedee ex are the icing on the cake, keeping your pokemons alive for that much longer.

It turned out to be a very well-rounded deck.

There are some cards I would love to include in this deck, but there's simply no space. These can be tech cards to substitute into the deck depending on the situation / meta.

• Jirachi - This deck lacks bench damage. Jirachi fixes this issue, at the expense of increased likelihood of bad starts when going first.
• Klefki - The champion of last week's PocketMads tournament (the biggest Pokemon TCG Pocket tournament) used a deck that featured Klefki heavily, reminding us of its viability and how so many have overlooked this card. The problem with using Klefki here is that there are already too many pokemons in this deck to even play it; there's simply no space even on the bench.
• Mars - Hand-disruption can be pretty good, especially when many of these pokemons are prone to getting knocked out. Again, the problem is a lack of deck space. Maybe replace Red with Mars if HP breakpoints isn't a big deal in the meta.

I have talked at length about how this deck works - now here are the real reasons for why you should play it.

There are two big upsides to this deck.

The first is how varied the gameplay can be depending on your starting hand and card draws. Starting with Giratina ex? Time to build up a heavy attacker on your bench. Starting with Chingling? Take control of the early game before going aggressive with Mega Altaria ex. With so many combinations of how things could play out, each game feels different, such that you won't grow bored of it - at the very least not as quickly as other decks. After all, the point is to have fun when playing a game.

The second is that this deck allows you to show off your cards better than any other deck. With one of each card, you can flex on your opponent to the max with all the different full-art supporters, rainbow rares and immersive exs, and crown rare items . Your opponents would be in awe at your wealth and/or luck. Even if you lose the game / battle, you know that you have won the war.

(Unfortunately I'm not rich or lucky to have a fully blinged-out deck 😔)

Edit: bonus point:

This deck is relatively easy to build if you are a poor collector. If you fit this persona, I'd imagine you would try to get at least one of each basic card from every set - duplicates can come later. Unfortunately, most decks require two copies of cards for draw consistency. This deck clearly deviates from this rule, which means you can build it even if you are lacking cards.

What are your thoughts? Let me know in the comments below!