Players across the world are finally able explore the wonders of the Mythical Island expansion, discovering new cards to battle with and add to their collection. Among the new cards is none other than Celebi ex, and it’s a powerhouse ready to challenge a field of both old and new archetypes. If you’ve been fortunate enough to add Celebi ex to your collection and are itching to put its powers to the test, check out this pocket-sized strategy guide, complete with a starting deck list!

Deck List

Celebi ex is a Pokémon ex with a simple strategy: attach Energy to attack with Powerful Bloom and flip tons of coins—the more heads you flip, the more damage Powerful Bloom does. With that strategy in mind, a highly capable support for Celebi ex is fellow newcomer Serperior, a Stage 2 Pokémon with the Jungle Totem Ability, which doubles the effectiveness of all attached to Pokémon (one Energy counts as two, two Energy counts as four, and so forth). With this powerful combination of Pokémon, you’ll have no trouble gaining more coin flips (and hopefully damage) for Powerful Bloom.

Getting Stage 2 Pokémon into play can be challenging, though, so we’re trying out Meowth as an early-game Pokémon that can help you draw the cards you need while peppering light damage with its Pay Day attack. Dhelmise rounds out the Pokémon lineup as a secondary attacker with Energy Whip, which does 90 damage for just two Energy if Serperior’s Jungle Totem is in play. You might even find yourself anchoring your strategy around this efficient attack!

Game plan: Draw cards using Professor’s Research and Meowth’s Pay Day attack, set up Serperior, and swing for big damage numbers with Celebi ex and Dhelmise.

Alternate cards: If you’re missing copies of Serperior or Dhelmise, you can always sub in Exeggutor ex as an efficient attacker that doesn’t require a lot of Energy to start attacking. This will allow you to safely attach Energy to Celebi ex while it’s on the Bench before moving it into the Active Spot. The two deck slots for Meowth can also be flexed to include Erika, Potion, or Farfetch’d with this strategy.

Good luck growing your damage numbers with Celebi ex, Trainers!