The Pokémon TCG City Championships are coming to a close, and players came up with a lot of innovative strategies to use at these events. The Pokémon TCG metagame is incredibly strong and unpredictable right now, with all kinds of great decks capable of winning lots of matches. With events being played in both the Standard and Expanded formats, the gameplay diversity is better than any time in recent memory. And with so many City Championships being played across the United States, we get to see firsthand which decks are finding success and earning Trainers those important Championship Points to qualify for the 2016 World Championships.
We’ve already covered some of the most successful decks in our last City Championships article, so let’s go over some other winning strategies.
-
Ahmed Ali: Entei/Charizard (Standard Format)
-
Josh McMullen: Mega Mewtwo (Standard Format)
-
Michael Drolet: Tyrantrum/Bronzong (Standard Format)
-
Frank Diaz: Raichu/Crobat (Standard Format)
-
Grady Thomas: Yveltal/Archeops (Expanded Format)
-
Justin Crossley: Sableye/Garbodor (Expanded Format)
-
Josh Marking: Seismitoad/Crobat (Expanded Format)
-
9Fire Energy
-
4Double Colorless Energy
-
4Blacksmith
-
1Lysandre
-
1Professor Sycamore
-
4Muscle Band
-
4Scorched Earth
-
4Trainers' Mail
-
4Ultra Ball
-
4VS Seeker
-
3Acro Bike
-
3Assault Vest
-
3Battle Compressor Team Flare Gear
-
1Eco Arm
-
1Professor's Letter
-
6Darkness Energy
-
4Double Colorless Energy
-
4Professor Sycamore
-
2Lysandre
-
2Professor Birch's Observations
-
1Hex Maniac
-
1Judge
-
4Ultra Ball
-
4VS Seeker
-
3Mega Turbo
-
3Mewtwo Spirit Link
-
2Battle Compressor Team Flare Gear
-
2Float Stone
-
1Professor's Letter
-
1Super Rod
-
1Trainers' Mail
-
7Metal Energy
-
4Double Dragon Energy
-
1Fighting Energy
-
4Professor Sycamore
-
2Professor Birch's Observations
-
1AZ
-
1Judge
-
1Lysandre
-
4Ultra Ball
-
4VS Seeker
-
3Battle Compressor Team Flare Gear
-
3Float Stone
-
3Switch
-
2Muscle Band
-
2Sky Field
-
1Super Rod
-
4Double Colorless Energy
-
3Darkness Energy
-
4Professor Sycamore
-
2AZ
-
2Lysandre
-
1Judge
-
4Trainers' Mail
-
4Ultra Ball
-
4VS Seeker
-
3Muscle Band
-
3Sky Field
-
2Level Ball
-
1Escape Rope
-
1Super Rod
-
1Town Map
-
6Darkness Energy
-
4Double Colorless Energy
-
2Maxie's Hidden Ball Trick
-
1Colress
-
1Hex Maniac
-
1Lysandre
-
1N
-
1Professor Sycamore
-
4Battle Compressor Team Flare Gear
-
4Hypnotoxic Laser
-
4Trainers' Mail
-
4Ultra Ball
-
4VS Seeker
-
3Dark Patch
-
2Muscle Band
-
2Virbank City Gym
-
1Float Stone
-
1Computer Search
-
6Darkness Energy
-
4Professor Sycamore
-
3Team Flare Grunt
-
2Lysandre
-
2N
-
1AZ
-
1Ghetsis
-
1Xerosic
-
4Crushing Hammer
-
4Ultra Ball
-
3Float Stone
-
3Trainers' Mail
-
3VS Seeker
-
2Head Ringer Team Flare Hyper Gear
-
2Hypnotoxic Laser
-
2Super Rod
-
1Enhanced Hammer
-
1Silver Mirror
-
1Tool Scrapper
-
1Trick Shovel
-
1Life Dew
-
4Double Colorless Energy
-
3Water Energy
-
4Professor Sycamore
-
3N
-
1AZ
-
1Colress
-
1Ghetsis
-
1Lysandre
-
1Xerosic
-
4Hypnotoxic Laser
-
4Super Scoop Up
-
4Ultra Ball
-
4VS Seeker
-
2Muscle Band
-
2Silent Lab
-
2Virbank City Gym
-
1Super Rod
-
1Computer Search
Let’s start off by analyzing some decks from the Standard format.
Entei and Charizard on Fire
A new strategy using Entei has been lighting
up City Championships from coast to coast. Entei isn’t the biggest or strongest
Pokémon out there, but it has a unique set of attributes that allows it to
adapt to many different situations. The θ Double Ancient Trait opens up many
possibilities for Pokémon Tool combinations, but most players opt to double up
on Assault Vest to boost defense or Muscle Band to
boost offense. If an opposing Pokémon is using Double Colorless Energy or other Special Energy cards, attaching 2 Assault Vest cards to Entei
will prevent 80 damage from that Pokémon’s attacks. If Entei uses the Flame
Screen attack, the damage is reduced even further, making it an extremely
difficult Pokémon to deal with. On the other hand, 2 Muscle Band cards can add
a total of 40 damage to Entei’s attacks, meaning Heat Tackle can hit for 170
damage—enough to take down even many Pokémon-EX in one hit. 
With the
power of two Pokémon Tool cards at once, Entei gains the muscle to stand
toe-to-toe with some of the strongest Pokémon out there. When a regular Pokémon
can take down a Pokémon-EX, it’s usually a winning strategy.
Take a look at Ahmed Ali’s Entei deck above.
The major downside to Entei is that two Colorless and two Fire Energy is a lot to pay for Heat Tackle. With Blacksmith and Double Colorless Energy, it is possible to power up Entei in one turn. However, Entei can damage itself with this attack, making it easier for your opponent to take it down. For a sturdier option, Charizard-EX can fill in with its 180 HP and big Combustion Blast attack. Even though it gives up two Prize cards, it’s more likely to withstand an opposing attack, so it removes some of the pressure of having to use Blacksmith as your Supporter card every turn: sometimes you’ll need to use Professor Sycamore to draw extra cards or Lysandre to target a specific Pokémon. It’s always fun to see Charizard in action, and alongside Entei, it’s been able to rack up plenty of wins at the City Championships.
Mewtwo Strikes Back
Just a few years ago, Mewtwo-EX was dominating the Pokémon TCG with its devastating X Ball attack. Now Mega Mewtwo-EX is starting to make its own mark with an even more powerful attack, Psychic Infinity. With the help of Mega Turbo and Double Colorless Energy, the attack can start doing incredible amounts of damage right away. Mega Mewtwo-EX is one of the strongest Pokémon out there, and it can take down just about any Pokémon that stands in its way.
Check out Josh McMullen’s Mega Mewtwo deck above.
Mega Mewtwo-EX tends
to fare well against other Pokémon-EX, but it can have a hard time against
Pokémon that do enough damage to take it down in one attack. Since it has
Weakness to Psychic-type Pokémon, the Pumpkaboo used in the
popular Night March deck poses a huge problem. As we can see in Josh McMullen’s
winning deck, a common solution is to include plenty of Yveltal.
Pumpkaboo’s Weakness to Darkness-type Pokémon means that a single cheap
Oblivion Wing attack is enough to take it out.
Tyrantrum-EX also gives Mega Mewtwo-EX a hard time since its Dragon Impact attack can do enough damage for a Knock Out if it has a Muscle Band attached. Using that attack requires discarding 3 attached Energy, which reduces the damage from a Psychic Infinity counterattack. Zoroark BREAK can help out by using Foul Play to copy the Dragon Impact attack, which does enough damage to take down Tyrantrum-EX. Against an opponent with a full Bench, Zoroark's Mind Jack attack can dish out a lot of damage as well.
The Psychic Infinity attack doesn’t require any specific type of Energy to use, so there are many different combinations of Pokémon to use with Mega Mewtwo-EX. Other players have paired it with Aromatisse, Bronzong, or even the other Mega Mewtwo-EX. No matter what it’s played with, Mega Mewtwo-EX has the potential to be a big force in the Pokémon TCG.
Raichu Returns
Raichu was struggling at City Championships early on, but now it’s back to its winning ways. Although it doesn’t have a lot of HP, this mighty Mouse Pokémon can do a lot of damage with its Circle Circuit attack, especially when the Sky Field Stadium card increases the size of your Bench. With eight Benched Pokémon and a Muscle Band attached, Raichu is doing 180 damage per attack, which is enough to take down most Pokémon-EX. For Pokémon with even higher HP, Golbat and Crobat can chip in some extra damage with their Sneaky Bite and Surprise Bite Abilities. The strategy here is one that’s becoming more and more common: use a regular Pokémon to take down Pokémon-EX in one attack so you take two Prize cards while your opponent only gets one.
You can see Frank Diaz’s Raichu deck above.
As great as Raichu is on its own, Crobat’s role is nearly as
crucial against certain popular decks. Its Surprise Bite can Knock Out an
opposing Joltik without even attacking, making it a great choice
for combating Night March decks. This can lead to taking multiple Prize cards
in a single turn, which can turn the tide of a game. It also covers Raichu’s
Weakness to Fighting-type Pokémon and is particularly good against Lucario-EX, with its Weakness to
Psychic-type Pokémon. Crobat is so important that Frank Diaz included two
copies of AZ to return it to his hand and reuse Surprise Bite
later. Some players even use Super Scoop Up for more
opportunities to use Golbat and Crobat.
Double Colorless Energy is the main way to power up Raichu’s Circle Circuit, but running out of them can ruin your game plan. Most players have built their deck to work around this. In the example deck, Yveltal’s Oblivion Wing is a way to charge up Raichu while attacking for damage. Another option is using Milotic's Sparkling Ripples Ability to simply recover a Double Colorless Energy from the discard pile. Bronzong’s Metal Links Ability can also power up Raichu using Metal Energy from the discard pile. In many ways, a Raichu deck can feel similar to a Night March deck, but it has a more flexible strategy and attackers with higher HP at the cost of being a little slower.
Dragon Rage
Tyrantrum-EX trampled onto the tournament scene during the Autumn Regional Championships, and it’s been a solid choice for players ever since. Its massive 190-damage Dragon Impact attack is a force to be reckoned with, and Bronzong’s Metal Links Ability can make sure it gets powered up every turn. Throw in Giratina-EX's Chaos Wheel attack to disrupt strategies that rely on Special Energy, Stadium, or Pokémon Tool cards, and you have a pretty powerful deck on your hands. The general concept is that Tyrantrum-EX can deal with the big Pokémon-EX, and Giratina-EX can shut down a lot of regular Pokémon since they typically rely on Double Colorless Energy or other Special Energy. However, this deck is slower to get going than other successful decks.
Michael Drolet’s Tyrantrum-EX deck can be seen above.
The deck list shown is the one that Michael Drolet used to
win a City Championship in the Standard format, but this strategy works in the
Expanded format too. The major difference is that the Expanded format version
of this deck includes Keldeo-EX. Since Bronzong’s Metal Links only works on Benched Pokémon, it can be
difficult to recharge Tyrantrum-EX after
it uses Dragon Impact. In the Standard format, players have to use
Switch to move the Pokémon to the Bench first. But Keldeo-EX can use its Rush In Ability to become
the Active Pokémon, and then it can retreat for free with a Float Stone after Tyrantrum-EX gets the
Energy it needs from Bronzong. A similar effect can be used in the Standard
format with Zoroark and its Stand In Ability, but it’s more of a hassle to use
a Stage 1 Pokémon than a Basic Pokémon.
The upcoming Winter Regional Championships will use the Expanded format, so let’s look at some decks that had success at City Championships using that format. The decks we mentioned in our previous article are still doing well, but here are some others that have emerged during the second half of City Championships.
Yveltal Rises Up
Yveltal-EX didn’t have a lot of success in the Expanded format early on at City Championships. But as they went on, it became one of the most popular and successful decks. As we saw during the Autumn Regional Championships, the extra Energy support from Dark Patch makes Yveltal-EX a powerhouse in the Expanded format. With Darkrai-EX and Seismitoad-EX as backup, this well-rounded deck has the options to defeat any strategy.
Grady Thomas’s City Championship-winning deck list can be seen above.
Recently, players have started to add Archeops
and Maxie’s Hidden Ball Trick to their decks as an attempt to
counter evolved Pokémon such as Vespiquen or Crobat. As we see in
Grady Thomas’s winning deck, players have also started using Gallade—if you’re already using Maxie’s, why not throw in another powerful
Fighting-type Pokémon? Gallade is a powerful non-EX Pokémon that can attack for two Energy of any type, but it’s
especially great against Mega Manectric-EX, which tends to give Yveltal-EX trouble. These kinds of small adaptations are what make the
Darkness-type decks so versatile and well-equipped to deal with whatever the
opponent is using.
Sableye Hammers Away
In an environment with super powerful Pokémon-EX and strategies that can do massive amounts of damage on the first turn of a game, a small and seemingly harmless Pokémon has emerged as a surprise contender: Sableye. Most strategies try to win by taking all six Prize cards as quickly as possible, but this disruptive strategy goes for an unusual win condition: running out the opponent’s deck. The main focus is to get rid of the opponent’s Energy cards by using Crushing Hammer, Enhanced Hammer, Team Flare Grunt, and Xerosic. With VS Seeker to recover Supporter cards, Sableye’s Junk Hunt attack can effectively recycle these Energy-denial cards repeatedly to exhaust the opponent’s resources. From there, a barrage of Trick Shovel and Bunnelby’s Burrow attack can discard cards from the opponent’s deck until there are none left.
Check out Justin Crossley’s Sableye deck above to get an idea of what it looks like.
Sableye’s low HP makes it easy to take down, so you’d expect
that an opponent could take all six Prize cards before their deck runs out. The
difference maker is the ACE SPEC card Life Dew, which gives your opponent one less Prize card for a
Knock Out. Since Junk Hunt can recover Life Dew each time the Sableye it’s
attached to goes down, the opponent can’t count on easy Knock Outs to win. And
as we see in Justin Crossley’s winning deck, Super Rod in
conjunction with Junk Hunt can provide an endless army of Sableye.
The last piece of the puzzle for this deck is Garbodor and its Garbotoxin Ability. Any Ability that can put extra Energy cards into play, such as Bronzong’s Metal Links, picks apart this Energy-denial strategy. But Garbotoxin shuts down those Abilities, allowing you to continue your strategy without worry. This is a very frustrating deck to play against, and that has translated to success at the City Championships.
Seismitoad Staying on Top
In our previous article, we mentioned that Seismitoad-EX’s success was continuing in the Expanded format, and that hasn’t changed. Giratina-EX was its main partner before, but players are starting to shift back toward Crobat. The added damage from Golbat and Crobat’s Abilities improve the low damage output of Seismitoad-EX’’s Quaking Punch attack, putting a lot of pressure on the opponent while preventing any Item cards from being played. As we see in Josh Marking’s championship deck list, players are also using Dedenne and Mewtwo-EX to combat popular Pokémon that require a lot of Energy to attack, such as Yveltal-EX and Keldeo-EX. With the power to disrupt opponents while still being able to react to popular strategies, Seismitoad-EX will continue to be a force in the Expanded format.
You can see Josh Marking’s Seismitoad deck list above.
Congratulations to all the players who had success at this season’s City Championships! Be sure to check back at Pokemon.com/strategy for more updates on the latest strategies, including what to expect at the upcoming Winter Regional Championships!
