Hey there Pokemon Pocket players! We’re taking a look at an off-meta Pokemon, Nidoking, and seeing how this Pokemon works! This is a Darkness-type Pokemon, and since it needs 2 Darkness Energy to activate its attack, we can’t afford to include other types of Pokemon outside of colorless. Luckily, Darkness has Weezing, a tanky Pokemon to help us in the game’s early stages as we work on the Nidoking win condition. Nidoking Weezing is using Poison to its advantage, slowly bleeding the opponent’s Pokemon’s HP, making it easier to knock them out.
The Nidoking Weezing deck is budget-friendly, as it doesn’t have any Ex Pokemon. This also means that opponents have to knock out 3 of your Pokemon to get the win. Let’s see how this deck operates!
Nidoking Decklist
Pokémon: 10
2 Koffing A1 176
2 Weezing A1 177
2 Nidoran♂ A1 169
2 Nidorino A1 170
2 Nidoking A1 171
Trainer: 10
2 Professor's Research P-A 7
1 Koga A1 222
1 Sabrina A1 225
1 Giovanni A1 223
2 Poké Ball P-A 5
2 Potion P-A 1
1 Red Card P-A 6How to Play Nidoking
Early Turns
Your starting hand will always have either Koffing or Nidoran. The Ideal play is having Koffing in the Active spot and then evolving it into Weezing. Weezing is a 110 HP Pokemon, so he’s a bit tanky and will buy us time to set up the Nikoding win condition.
Weezing only needs 1 Darkness Energy to attack with Tackle, dealing 30 damage to the opponent’s Active Pokemon. This isn’t much damage, but combined with Gas Leak ability, he can manage a knockout. Gas Leak doesn’t need any Energy to activate, making your opponent’s Active Pokemon Poisoned, and slowly damaging them until they either faint or are forced to retreat.
Since Weezing has a 3 Energy retreat cost, it’s not ideal to commit 2 extra Energy on him to retreat. Instead, we’ll use Koga to put him back in our hand and prevent the opposing player from getting an easy knock out.
Nidoking Win Condition
Nidoking is a Stage 2 Pokemon, so we need to have Nidoran in play as early as possible and start the evolving. It’s best if we have it on the Bench, but if we’re forced to play in the Active spot it can go for 20 damage with Peck.
Evolving it into Nidorino bumps our damage to 40 with Horn Attack, still not a huge threat but we’re getting there once Nidoking joins in.
Nidoking is where things start changing in your favor. Nidoking is a 150 HP Pokemon with a Poison Horn attack that deals 90 damage to the opponent’s Pokemon. This doesn’t seem as strong as most Stage 2 Pokemon attacks, but Nidoking will also Poison the opponent’s Pokemon, slowly damaging and putting it at risk of getting knocked out if it doesn’t retreat.
Battle Cards
Giovanni gives an extra 10 damage to your attack, perfect if you’re missing 10 damage to knock out a Pokemon.
Sabrina forces the opponent to switch one of their Benched Pokemon to the Active spot. This can be annoying when played at the right time, especially if the opponent can’t easily switch back the Pokemon they want to the Active spot or have a valuable Pokemon on the Bench.
Both Giovanni and Sabrina are Supporter cards so you can play only one of them a turn.
Koga is a must in this list to remove Weezing from the Active spot and get Nidoking in its place. It’s also preventing opponents from getting an easy Match Point, forcing more attacks from them.
Potion can keep your Pokemon from getting knocked out, buying you an extra turn with it to either attack or retreat it to the safety of the bench.
Draw Value
Play Professor’s Research, a Supporter card that allows you to draw two cards, early in the game when you don’t need to play other Supporter cards like Sabrina or Giovanni.
Pokeball draws you a Basic Pokemon, helping you find Koffing or Nidoran to start evolving.