Pokemon Pocket has quickly become one of the most-played mobile card games out there, bringing players from across the world to collect their favorite Pokemon cards, build decks, and battle it out against one another.
However, to have a chance against the competitive players out there, you must build the top meta decks, which can be tough if you’re out there relying on the two daily packs. F2P players often struggle to catch up early into the meta, especially if they try to build EX-type decks. Luckily, Pokemon Pocket has many competitive budget decks that don’t rely on EX Pokemon, that can keep up with the top meta decks and have gone far in tournaments.
Magnezone Skarmory
The Metal version of Magnezone, this one uses Skarmory as an early attacker, but you must attach a Tool to it to get the most out of its attack. If you have a Rocky Helmet or Giant Cape attached to Skarmory, its Metal Arms attacks will deal 50 damage to the opponent’s Active Pokemon.
Magnezone is the Stage 2 carry Pokemon, which will require us to have 1 Lightning and 2 Colorless type Energies to attack with it. Fortunately, Magnetone’s Volt Charge ramps Lightning Energy, which means we can have at least 2 Lightning Energy on Magnezone, ensuring we attack twice with Thunder Blast.
Magnezone Hitmonlee
The Fighting/Lightning deck! Magnezone joins forces with fighting-type Pokemon Hitmonlee, Marshadow, and Hitmonchan to wreak havoc in competitive Pokemon Pocket! This deck has quickly become one of the most-played choices and is capable of going head-to-head with the top EX decks out there.
Hitmonlee and Jab are the early attackers, needing only 1 Fighting Energy to start pushing damage. Since we need Fighting Energy to attack with them, we’re only going to add Fighting Energy to our deck, despite having Lightning Energy Pokemon. Marshadow can move to the Active spot when one of your Pokemon was just knocked out, enabling its Revenge attack to deal 60 extra damage, becoming a 100-damage attack.
Magnezone is the Stage 2 carry Pokemon, which will require us to have 1 Lightning and 2 Colorless type Energies to attack with it. Fortunately, Magnetone’s Volt Charge ramps Lightning Energy, which means we can have at least 2 Lightning Energy on Magnezone, ensuring we attack twice with Thunder Blast.
Rampadros Lucario
The Fighting-type deck Ramdapdros Lucario is a popular off-meta choice in Pokemon Pocket, using Lucario’s Fighting Coach to push your Fighting Pokemon to deal extra 20 damage. Once we’ve evolved Riolu into Lucario, the Fighting Coach ability will give +20 damage to our Fighting-type Pokemon’s attacks.
Lucario will now deal 60 damage with its attack. Hitmonchan’s Jab can deal 50 damage, becoming a massive attack low-cost attack. Marshadow can join in for a heavy blow, dealing 100 damage if your Pokemon was knocked out on the previous turn. With Fighting Coach, it’s a 120-damage attack.
As for our Stage 2 Pokemon, Rampadros is the late-game carry, dealing 130 damage with Head Smash, but if it gets a knockout, Rampadros will self-damage by 50. With Fighting Coach’s damage boost, Rampadros will deal 150 damage with its attack, capable of one-shotting most of the opponent’s Pokemon.
Luxray Electivire
This deck has Electivire and Luxray as win conditions. We’ll evolve Electabuzz into Electivire and start attacking as early as possible with Exciting Voltage, dealing 40 damage to the opponent’s Active Pokemon. However, if Electivire has 2 extra Lightning Energy, Electivire’s attack deals 80 damage instead.
As for Luxray, Volt Bolt deals 120 damage to one of the opponent’s Pokemon for 3 Lightning Energy. So you can strike a Pokemon on the Bench and knock it out, getting you a Match Point or Two to win the game. However, activating Volt Bolt forces you to discard 3 Lightning Energy from Luxray, which means you won’t be able to activate it a second time.
This is where Volkner comes into play, letting us pick Electivire or Luxray and attach 2 Lightning Energy from the discard, enabling us to attack with them immediately, and even go for the Electivire’s 80 damage attack.
Bastiodon Skarmor
The Metal-type deck uses Skarmory as an early attacker to deal 30 damage with Metal arms but becomes a 50-damage attack if you attach a tool like Giant Cape or Rocky Helmet to Skarmory.
As Skarmory is dealing early damage, we’re working on getting Bastiodon in play. Since it’s a Stage 2 Pokemon, we’ll need to evolve Armor Fossil into Shieldon, and then we can play Bastiodon to carry the late game.
Bastiodon’s attack only deals 80 damage, so it’s not too threatening, however, its Guarded Grill is what makes Bastiodon a strong Pokemon that can be difficult to knock out. Its a 160 HP Pokemon that every time it’s attacked, Guarded Grill activates, tossing a Coin, and if it’s heads, Bastiodon will take -100 damage from the opponent’s attack. So you can nullify most attacks, and if it’s a high-damage attack, it won’t be enough to knock out Bastiodon.
Garchomp
This Dragon deck runs Druddigon as an early Pokemon as you evolve into your Stage 2 Grachomp carry. Druddigon is a great early tank, having Rough Skin to dish out damage to the opponent’s attackers. Usually, decks that run Druddigon don’t use it for its attack, however, with this deck, we can attack with Dragon Claw since we have access to both Water and Fire Energy.
We want to have Gible in play as early as possible, evolve it into Gabite, and then get Garchomp into play. Garchomp’s ability, Reckless Shearing, lets you discard a card from your hand to draw a card, basically filtering your hand for better cards.
Garchomp’s Dragon Claw is easier to set up and deals 100 damage, so it’s a better attack than Druddigon’s. On top of that, we can use Cynthia to boost Garchomp’s attack, dealing 150 damage to get an easier knockout on high HP Pokemon.
Magnezone Electivire
This deck has Electivire and Magnezone as win conditions. We’ll evolve Electabuzz into Electivire and start attacking as early as possible with Exciting Voltage, dealing 40 damage to the opponent’s Active Pokemon. However, if Electivire has 2 extra Lightning Energy, Electivire’s attack deals 80 damage instead.
As for Magnezone, it’s a Stage 2 Pokemon, that heavily relies on Magneton’s Volt Charge ramp to get extra Lightning Energy on your Pokemon. Thunder Blast deals 110 damage and discards 1 Lightning Energy. We aren’t too upset at discarding Energy since we can use Volkner to attach two Energy from our discard pile to Electivire, making it easier to get the extra 2 Energy on it and deal 80 damage.
