Finest decks in Pokemon TCG Pocket House-Time Smackdown ranked – Destructoid Players Area

With the discharge of the House-Time Smackdown booster deck in Pokémon TCG Pocket, tryhards and severe gamers alike will need to know the very best new decks.

In the event you’re spending all of your hourglasses and Pack Factors to get the very best new stuff, right here’s what to look out for.

Finest new decks in Pokémon TCG Pocket House-Time Smackdown

The next are the very best new decks you may construct from getting playing cards from the brand new House-Time Smackdown booster packs in Pokémon TCG Pocket: 

Weavile EX / Darkrai EX

This new deck goes to be an costly glass cannon construct. It’ll require 4 Ex playing cards, which might take some time, relying on how a lot you play or how fortunate you might be. That is the setup wanted:

• Sneasel x2
• Spiritomb x2
• Weavile EX x2
• Darkrai EX x2
• Cyrus x2
• Daybreak x2
• Leaf x2*
• Pokémon Communications x2
• Poké Ball x2*
• Professor’s Analysis x2*

Something marked with an asterisk(*) is obtained by means of one other booster deck.

With this setup, you need to shortly evolve your Sneasels whereas doing early harm with their Double Scratch strikes. Flipping heads will soften up your foes for confirmed KOs later within the match.

Spiritombs and Darkrais are primary Pokémon, so they don’t require evolution. Ideally, you need your Spiritombs to take early harm as you ramp up vitality on your Darkrais or Weaviles.

Spiritomb will likely be vital for priming up your Weavile EX’s harm potential since it might harm each single one in all your opponent’s Pokémon in play or on the bench. This brings your Weavile’s Scratching Nails transfer to do 70 harm per flip, being a possible early-game sweeper. 

That is then the place you make the most of your Cyrus playing cards to swap your opponent’s injured Pokémon to the entrance, that are most probably on the weaker aspect. A standard technique is to make use of throwaway Pokémon to deal early harm when you construct a sweeper in your bench. This deck setup breaks that meta.

The most effective half is that Weavile EX solely wants one vitality to deal that a lot harm. With all the surplus vitality, feed them to your Darkrai EX. Particularly, you need to feed it Darkish vitality to deal extra harm due to its Nightmare Aura capability.

In brief, use Spiritomb to deal early-game priming whereas build up your Weavile(s). Then, swap to Weavile EX to comb early sport entrance Pokémon. With extra energies, give them to Darkrai EX to complete off tanky opponents.

The one weak point this deck has is grass assaults. With standard grass decks like Celebi EX, Exceggutor EX, and Venusaur EX, that may be a problem.

Palkia EX

The Palkia EX deck is a very sturdy Water-type deck that may be fairly versatile. It’s primarily a approach stronger Articuno EX however extra energy-dependent. Right here’s an inventory of playing cards wanted for the deck:

• Palkia EX x2
• Manaphy x2
• Pokéball x2*
• Misty x2*
• Cyrus x2
• Professor’s Analysis x2*
• Leaf x2*

All playing cards denoted with an asterisk(*) are obtained in different decks.

Sure, there are solely 14 playing cards on this setup, however that is the place the pliability begins. With the six remaining wanted to make a authorized deck, you may combine and match sturdy, primary, colorless Pokémon, or you may decide to make use of extra Coach and Merchandise playing cards.

With this setup, you’re coping with a straightforward buildup, ideally with Manaphy and Palkia EX in your beginning hand. Use Manaphy to construct up Palkia’s vitality pool shortly in order that it might use Dimensional Storm instantly.

Nevertheless, even in the event you don’t begin with a Manaphy, your Palkia can nonetheless assault early on with its Slash. That is the place playing cards like Leaf, Potions, or the Big Capes are helpful. 

Since Manaphy can not assault, you need to protect it so long as potential to maintain feeding your Palkia(s) vitality in order that it’ll have greater than sufficient to forged Dimensional Storm. Pair it with Misty and Daybreak so you may have an efficient early-game sweeper with some luck.

Don’t ignore the residual 20 harm per benched Pokémon, both. It’s a superb means to melt up these with bigger well being swimming pools in order that when they’re summoned by your opponent or by pressure with the Cyrus card, you may take these down extra successfully.

Nevertheless, whereas it might be straightforward to win with fewer playing cards in hand, that received’t be the case, so it is advisable to fill in these final six slots.

These are some playing cards you may combine and match to fill within the remaining slots:

• Eevee x2*
• Vaporeon x2*
• Giovanni x2*
• Potion x2*
• Big cape x2
• Pokémon Communication x2
• Daybreak x2

In the event you go along with the Eevee and Vaporeon combo, use the Vaporeon with the Wave Splash assault. This one has the Wash Out capability, the place you may switch water vitality from benched Pokémon to your energetic hand, making it viable to switch these left over from Manaphy over to Palkia EX.

In the event you go along with the extra item-heavy route, decide restoratives so your Manaphy received’t get knocked out early.

Lastly, the largest weak point this deck has are towards these just like the Pikachu EX and Zapdos EX decks.

Gallade EX

This can be a fighting-type deck that works fairly nicely for energy-hungry decks that require numerous buildup. It’ll even have a extra traditional setup that focuses on constructing Gallade whereas stalling utilizing a Regirock, so use the next setup:

• Ralts x2
• Kirlia x2
• Gallade EX x2
• Regirock x2
• Giovanni x2*
• Leaf x2*
• Big Cape x2
• Poké Ball x2*
• Professor’s Analysis x2*
• Cyrus x2

All playing cards denoted with an asterisk(*) are obtained in different decks.

As typical, you ideally need to stall with Regirock whereas evolving and build up your Ralts all the way in which into Gallade. This can work very equally to utilizing Druddigon as a passive harm seller, besides Regirock can take far more early-game harm. 

And because you’ll solely should cope with pulls from Psychic, Combating, and Regular out of your vitality pool, you may get the 2 preventing energies geared up in your Ralts nicely earlier than you evolve it right into a Gallade. 

Because you solely want two for Gallade to begin attacking, you may throw extra energies into your Regirocks if wanted for extra harm (although that will likely be onerous given their hungry vitality necessities).

This Gallade EX construct will work exceptionally nicely towards late-game builds that make the most of three energies or extra for every flip to assault. Pair that with different offensive playing cards like Giovanni; this may deal good harm and foil the plans of late-game builds.

Among the weaknesses on this construct embody Grass varieties that may get by means of your Regirock defenses earlier than organising your Gallade. You additionally would not have entry to one thing like a Brock or Misty coach card to construct your vitality up quick sufficient.

Bastiodon / Dialga EX 

This deck is a late-game buildup deck that may be actually annoying for enemies to interrupt by means of however would additionally require luck in your finish. This is sort of a Melmetal deck, however stronger in the event you can persistently land Heads on every coin flip.

Use this setup:

• Farfetch’d x2*
• Shieldon x2
• Bastiodon x2
• Dialga EX x2
• Blue x2*
• Leaf x2*
• Big Cape x2
• Potion x2*
• Poké Ball x2*
• Professor’s Analysis x2*

All playing cards denoted with an asterisk(*) are obtained in different decks. This can be a extra customary deck and can deal with survivability.

First, you’ll ideally need to have Farfetch’d as your starter for early harm. Alternatively, you’ll need Dialga EX constructed with two energies so it might use Metallic Turbo to feed these energies into your (hopefully) benched Shieldon/Bastiodon whereas performing some harm, too.

After getting the required vitality to assault with Bastiodon, you may then put it on the entrance, probably mitigating 100 harm per enemy flip. Its capability, Guarded Grill, will likely be profitable in the event you flip heads when attacked.

To make sure that you received’t take deadly harm in case your flip fails, have the Big Cape geared up and a Potion prepared on your subsequent flip.

80 harm doesn’t appear to be quite a bit, however with the ability to mitigate harm is big and a solution to decelerate a sweep in late-game builds. 

This construct is especially weak to fireside decks like Charizard EX, Arcanine EX, and Volcarona decks, which have turn out to be standard within the meta. In the event you do go towards these, you actually need to handle your harm mitigation and restoratives extra aggressively.