Terapagos Dusknoir is a new deck in Stellar Crown Pokemon TCG meta that has been making waves in competitive tournaments. The Terapagos Dusknoir deck already performed in popular tournaments, going far into those tournaments and leaving its mark in the meta. This deck can be aggressive with Terapagos, dealing damage early into the game to knock out opponent’s Pokemon.
Decklist
Pokémon: 23
4 Terapagos ex SCR 128
3 Hoothoot SCR 114
3 Noctowl SCR 115
2 Duskull SFA 18
1 Dusclops SFA 19
2 Dusknoir SFA 20
2 Fan Rotom SCR 118
2 Bouffalant SCR 119
1 Pidgey OBF 162
1 Pidgeot ex OBF 164
1 Bloodmoon Ursaluna ex TWM 141
1 Fezandipiti ex SFA 38
Trainer: 33
2 Professor's Research SVI 189
2 Iono PAL 185
1 Boss's Orders PAL 172
1 Briar SCR 132
1 Professor Turo's Scenario PAR 171
1 Thorton LOR 167
4 Ultra Ball SVI 196
4 Nest Ball SVI 181
3 Buddy-Buddy Poffin TEF 144
3 Rare Candy SVI 191
3 Night Stretcher SFA 61
1 Hisuian Heavy Ball ASR 146
1 Feather Ball ASR 141
1 Counter Catcher PAR 160
1 Prime Catcher TEF 157
1 Pal Pad SVI 182
3 Area Zero Underdepths SCR 131
Energy: 4
4 Double Turbo Energy BRS 151How to Play
The Terapagos Dusknoir deck wants to go first to start an aggressive game plan with Terapagos ex, attacking immediately and threatening to knock out opponent’s Pokemon. Packing the Bench with Pokemon is essential to boost Terapagos ex’s damage.
The list is packed with multiple draw options to find the key cards you need to get your strategy online. This deck doesn’t solely rely on Terapagos ex to win games, it has Dusknoir and Bloodmoon Ursaluna ex as alternate damage dealers to win games.
Main Damage Dealer
This lists ignored Terapagos‘ Crown Opel attack and focuses only on activating Unified Beatdown as early as possible. Unified Beatdown needs two Colorless Basic Energy to activate, so Double Turbo Energy works perfectly here to attack with Terapagos as early as possible. The downside, you’ll lose 20 damage on your attack, so you might fall short to Knocking Out specific Pokemon.
Unified Beatdown’s damage is tied to the number of Pokemon on your Bench. Terapagos gains 30 damage for each Benched Pokemon, so with a full Bench, you’ll deal 150 damage. However, Double Turbo Energy lowers Terapagos‘s damage by 20, so you’ll be dealing 130 damage instead.
130 damage isn’t too frightening for the opponent when they have a high health Pokemon, so it’ll require two or even three attacks to knock out specific Pokemon. This is where Area Zero Underdepths comes into play, increasing the size of each player’s Bench to have up to 8 Pokemon. For Area Zero Underdepths ability to activate, you need to have Terapagos in play.
The extra three Pokemon on your bench will boost Unified Beatdown’s damage by 90, now dealing 220 damage, which puts higher health Pokemon in risk of getting knocked out on the spot.
Draw Pokemon
Fan Rotom‘s Fan Call ability can be activates only during your first turn, letting you search and draw three Pokemon with a 100 HP or less. This lets you find Pokemon like Hoothoot, Noctowl, Duskull, and Dusclops.
You want to hold off evolving Noctowl until you have a Tera Pokemon in play, so you need to have Terapagos in play to activate Jewel Seeker, allowing you to draw two Trainer cards of your choosing from the deck. If it’s a must, you could activate Noctowl‘s Speed Win attack by attacking one of your Double Turbo Energy to it.
Lastly, Fezandipti ex can sit on the bench and watch over your Active Pokémon, ready to use its Flip the Script ability when one of your Pokémon is knocked out, allowing you to draw three cards. Fezandipti ex doesn’t need to be on the bench when the knockout happens—you can play it from your hand afterward and still activate Flip the Script to draw cards.
Pidgeot ex is our strongest searcher, using Quick Search ability to search the deck and draw you any card you’re missing to get your strategy going. To play Pidgeot, you need to cheat him out through Rare Candy, evolving Pidgey immediatly into Pidgeot. Since Pidgeot has no Retreat cost, you can draw him through Feather Ball and get the Quick Search going to find the cards you’re missing.
Draw Cards
Professor’s Research discards your hand to draw 7 new cards, so it’s crucial to play the key cards before we discard our hand.
As for Iono, both players will shuffle their hand and draw cards equal to the number of Prize cards they have left. So you could ruin opponent’s plans if you shuffle important cards back into their deck. You’re also replenishing our hand, ideally, you want to play as many cards as possible before you use Iono.
Keep in mind that you can only play 1 Supporter card during your turn if you’re planning to play Professor’s Research or Iono.
Discard Value
Night Stretcher and Thorton can access your discard pile to bring back card into play. Night Stretcher lets you choose between either a Pokemon or a Basic Energy to put back in your hand from the discard Pile. Since you don’t have Basic Energy in this list, you’re can only bring back a Basic Pokemon like Terapagos to your hand.
Thorton though is stronger, allowing you to choose a Basic Pokemon (You’ll choose Terapagos) to switch it with one of your other Basic Pokemon in play. All attached cards, damage counters, Special Conditions, turns in play, and any other effects remain on Terapagos. This lets you put an attacker in the Active spot to damage the opponent’s Active Pokemon.
Alternate Damage
Dusknoir is in the list for his Cursed Blast ability, allowing you to put 13 damage counters on one of the opponent’s Pokemon. This lets you knock out a low-health Pokemon on the Bench or help you knock out an Active Pokemon with Terapagos‘ Unified Beatdown. However, activating Cursed Blast means you have to knock out Dusknoir in the process, giving your opponent a Prize card.
To get Dusknoir into play, you have to evolve Duskull to Dusclops and then evolve it to Dusknoir, or you can use Rare Candy to skip the Dusclops step and go directly from Duskull to Dusknoir.
Speaking of Dusclops, it has a weaker version of Cursed Blast ability, allowing you to put 5 damage counters on one of your opponent’s Pokemon before getting knocked out it self. This could come in useful if 50 damage is enough to knock out a target.
Bloodmoon Ursaluna ex is a late game attacker to set up the finishing play with Blood Moon’s 240 damage. 5 Basic Colorless Energy are tough to attach on Bloodmoon Ursaluna ex, however Seasoned Skill ability drops the cost Blood Moon by 1 Basic Colorless Energy for each Prize card your opponent has taken. so if you’re down to 1 Prize card, Blood Moon can be activated without any Basic Energy.
Protection
Since this deck’s strategy revolves around flooding your Bench with Pokemon to empower Terapagos‘ Unified Beatdown, playing two Bouffalant on the Bench will achieve two things for this deck’s strategy: More Unified Beatdown damage and activate Bouffalant‘s Curly Wall ability. Curly Wall activates when there’s two Bouffalant in play, giving your Basic Colorless Pokemon a shield from attacks. All Basic Colorless Pokemon will take 60 less damage from attacks from your opponent’s Pokemon, making it exceptionally difficult for them knock out Terapagos in the Active spot.
Briar can be a game finisher, played when your opponent has exactly 2 Prize cards remaining. If you Knock Out an opponent’s Pokemon using Terapagos, you get 1 more Prize card. This is useful when opponent has an Active Pokemon that gives only 1 Prize card, allowing you to win the game on the spot.
You can also use cards like Boss’s Order or Prime Catcher to move a low-health Pokemon to the Active spot, making it easier for you to get a Knock Out over a high-Pokemon, and although you’re only getting 1 Prize card, Briar ensures you get that extra Prize card to win the game.
Other Cards to Include
- Switch can be extremely useful in this deck since you might struggle to Retreat an Active Pokemon and get Terapagos into the Active spot.
- Vitality Band gives your attacks 10 more damage, which can find use against high-health Pokemon with 230 health.
- Since you’re reliant on Benched Pokemon, Manaphy is a consideration to protect them from any damage targeting your Bench.