Ready to put the pedal to the metal? Dialga ex is one of the most anticipated Pokémon ex making its debut in the latest Pokémon TCG Pocket expansion, Space-Time Smackdown. With its high HP and Energy-accelerating Metallic Turbo attack, it brings a whole new dimension to Pokémon for Trainers to experiment with in battle. If you’ve been lucky enough to pull a Dialga ex or two, learn about how you can start taking the Temporal Pokémon into the fray with this deck list and strategy!

Game plan: You’ll want Dialga ex in the Active Spot during the game’s early turns so it can tank damage and set your other Pokémon up for success. Its Metallic Turbo attack deals only 30 damage, but it also attaches two Energy from your Energy Zone to one of your Benched Pokémon. You can try this method with a variety of Pokémon, but we’re putting an emphasis on tougher Pokémon for this strategy, such as Melmetal or another Dialga ex. We’ve kept the number of Basic Pokémon low to increase the chances of starting with Dialga ex, while all other starting Pokémon have a Retreat Cost of only one .

Once your primary attacker is set up, you can use Leaf to negate the needed to shift Dialga ex out of the Active Spot—or you can keep Dialga ex as your Active Pokémon and use Dawn to move Energy from your Benched Pokémon back to it!

To make our Pokémon more resilient, we’ve included the newly released Giant Cape, a handy Pokémon Tool that increases the holder’s HP by 20. Attaching it to Dialga ex or Melmetal (whose Hard Coat Ability reduces the damage it takes by 20) gives them a total of 170 HP, making them capable of tanking just about any attack that currently exists in Pokémon TCG Pocket. Skarmory can rock the Giant Cape too, granting it a total of 100 HP and boosting its Metal Arms attack’s damage to 50 damage for only one .

Our cast of Pokémon might be bulky, but they don’t quite deliver one-hit KO levels of damage against some of the more powerful Pokémon ex in the game—and that’s where Mew ex comes in. The New Species Pokémon’s Genome Hacking attack can copy the attack of your opponent’s Active Pokémon for , making it a solid option for dealing with Pokémon that deal a lot of damage, too. After you’ve launched an attack with Mew ex, you can recall it with Budding Expeditioner to remove any damage taken and then put Dialga ex back into the Active Spot for even more Energy acceleration. Here’s a fun fact: if Mew ex has a Giant Cape attached to it when you use Budding Expeditioner, both cards will be returned safely to your hand!

Enjoy testing your mettle with Dialga ex!