The Decks of Champions

The Pokémon TCG National Championships brought out some of the most effective and interesting decks we’ll probably see all year long. Some of the more popular decks that we reviewed in our Regional Championships and State/Province/Territory Championships articles were in heavy play, but there were also several decks, both new and tried-and-true, that caught our eye. One thing that these decks have in common is that they were winners: all three of these decks made the top 32 at the Nationals.

Gardevoir/Gallade deck

1 Gallade (Diamond & Pearl—Secret Wonders, 6/132) 3 Gardevoir (Secret Wonders, 7/132) 1 Gardevoir LV.X (Secret Wonders, 131/132) 2 Kirlia (Platinum, 51/127) 1 Kirlia (Secret Wonders, 53/132) 4 Ralts (Platinum, 89/127) 4 Spiritomb (Platinum—Arceus, 32/99) 1 Dusknoir (Diamond & Pearl, 2/130) 1 Duskull (Diamond & Pearl—Stormfront, SH2) 1 Baltoy (Diamond & Pearl—Great Encounters, 60/106) 1 Claydol (Great Encounters, 15/106) 1 Mewtwo (Diamond & Pearl—Majestic Dawn, 9/100) 1 Mewtwo LV.X (Diamond & Pearl—Legends Awakened, 144/146) 1 Azelf (Legends Awakened, 19/146) 1 Azelf LV.X (Legends Awakened, 140/146) 1 Uxie (Legends Awakened, 43/146) 1 Giratina (Platinum, 9/127) 1 Crobat (Platinum, 47/127) 1 Unown G (Great Encounters, 57/106) 1 Unown Q (Majestic Dawn, 49/100) 29 Pokémon

4 Roseanne’s Research 4 Bebe’s Search 3 Rare Candy 3 Expert Belt 2 Looker’s Investigation 1 Luxury Ball 1 Warp Point 1 Palmer’s Contribution 19 Trainers, Supporters, and Stadiums 5 Psychic Energy 4 Double Colorless Energy 3 Call Energy 12 Energy

One deck that disappeared from the tournament scene for a while made a comeback at the National Championships. The Gardevoir/Gallade deck features the two Pokémon in its name, plus a bunch of helper Pokémon for support. It bears a strong resemblance to the “Psychic Lock” deck that Jason Klaczynski used to become the 2008 Masters Division World Champion. And indeed, Gardevoir’s Psychic Lock attack is the linchpin of this powerful deck.

The first thing to note in this deck is that both of the featured Pokémon evolve from the same Pokémon, Kirlia, making it easy to choose divergent strategies while in the thick of battle. (This deck even uses two Kirlia, each with its own advantages, but we’ll stay focused on Kirlia’s Evolutions.) Let’s start by looking at Gardevoir. Its Psychic Lock attack not only hits for an impressive 60 damage, but it also prevents your opponent from using any Poké-Powers on his or her next turn. Many tournament decks feature Pokémon with Poké-Powers; this is an incredibly powerful tool to weaken popular cards such as Crobat and Luxray LV.X. Plus, Gardevoir’s Telepass Poké-Power lets you use the effect of a Supporter card from your opponent’s discard pile once per turn. As your game progresses, Telepass becomes more and more powerful as your opponent fills up his or her discard pile with used Supporter cards.

In addition to Gardevoir, this deck includes Gardevoir LV.X, which features a fantastic attack for Knocking Out less-powerful Pokémon. The Bring Down attack automatically Knocks Out the Pokémon with the fewest remaining HP (either yours or your opponent’s); if there are two Pokémon with the same remaining HP, you get to choose. Obviously, this attack won’t always work to your advantage, so it’s best to keep Gardevoir LV.X on your Bench until you can use the attack most successfully. And that’s where Gardevoir LV.X’s Teleportation Poké-Power comes into play—you can switch Gardevoir LV.X with another Pokémon during your turn, as long as Gardevoir LV.X isn’t affected by any Special Conditions. So, just let Gardevoir LV.X sit on your Bench until one of your opponent’s Pokémon is weak enough, then swap Gardevoir LV.X into play and Knock Out that vulnerable Pokémon instantly!

Moving on to the other central aspect of this deck, Gallade works hand in hand with Gardevoir LV.X. Gallade’s Sonic Blade attack does enough damage to bring the Defending Pokémon down to 50 HP. Then your opponent had to switch out that Defending Pokémon for a Benched Pokémon. Well, a Pokémon with 50 HP is likely to be the weakest in play, making it easy prey for Gardevoir LV.X. You can also use Gallade’s Psychic Cut attack to deal greater damage, plus it has a nifty side-effect. When you use the attack, you can choose to flip over as many of your Prize cards as you like, and for every Prize card you flip, you’ll do an extra 20 damage. The Prize cards stay flipped face up, so you can only gain this boost a certain number of times, but you’ll be able to choose precisely which Prize card you want when you get to draw one.

The lineup after Gardevoir and Gallade is fairly standard, with cards such as Mewtwo LV.X, Crobat , and Unown Q making their usual appearances. One interesting addition to this deck, however, is Call Energy. Call Energy is a Special Energy that provides 1 Colorless Energy, but when it’s played you get to pull two Basic Pokémon from your deck and play them straight onto your Bench. Not only does that help get out the Ralts cards necessary to start building Gardevoir and Gallade, but virtually all of the supporting Pokémon in this deck are Basic Pokémon. Call Energy drastically reduces the time it takes to set up this beast of a deck.

Sablelock deck

4 Sableye (Diamond & Pearl—Stormfront, 48/100) 2 Uxie (Diamond & Pearl—Legends Awakened, 43/146) 1 Uxie LV.X (Legends Awakened, 146/146) 2 Garchomp (Platinum—Supreme Victors, 60/147) 2 Garchomp LV.X (Supreme Victors, 145/147) 1 Unown Q (Diamond & Pearl—Majestic Dawn, 49/100) 1 Azelf (Legends Awakened, 19/146) 1 Murkrow (Diamond & Pearl—Secret Wonders, 95/132) 1 Honchkrow (Supreme Victors, 29/147) 1 Honchkrow (Platinum, 77/127) 1 Toxicroak (Platinum, 40/127) 2 Crobat (Platinum, 47/127) 29 Pokémon

4 Cyrus’s Conspiracy 2 Cyrus’s Initiative 2 Pokémon Collector 1 Bebe’s Search 1 Felicity’s Drawing 2 Judge 3 Team Galactic’s Invention G-101 Energy Gain 4 Team Galactic’s Invention G-103 Power Spray 4 Team Galactic’s Invention G-105 Poké Turn 3 Team Galactic’s Invention G-109 SP Radar 1 Aaron’s Collection 1 Premier Ball 1 VS. Seeker 19 Trainers, Supporters, and Stadiums 4 Double Colorless Energy 4 Darkness Special Energy 2 Darkness Energy 2 Psychic Energy 12 Energy

We saw a huge uptick in the number of people playing Sablelock decks at the State/Province/Territory Championships, and with decent effect. Then one of the top players at the National Championships showed just how powerful it can be.

The Sablelock deck gets its name from a specific Sableye (Stormfront, 48/100) that has the Impersonate attack. Impersonate is a no-cost attack that lets you search your deck from a Supporter card, use the power of that card as your attack, and then discard the card. In effect, you can play two Supporter cards per turn, and one of them doesn't even have to be in your hand for you to use.

But before getting into how Impersonate is so useful, it's also worth noting that this deck uses Darkness Special Energy. Sableye's Overconfident attack does 40 damage if the Defending Pokémon has fewer remaining HP than Sableye. Add the extra 10 damage you get from Darkness Special Energy, and you'll be able to Knock Out a Pokémon with 50 HP on the first turn. And as you'll always attack first on the first turn thanks to Sableye's Overeager Poké-Body, you can sometimes even sneak in a first-round victory over your opponent.

The "lock" part of the Sablelock name comes from the several ways this deck prevents your opponent from executing his or her planned course of action. First, the Judge Supporter card makes both players shuffle their hands into their decks and then draw four new cards; then the Cyrus's Initiative Supporter card lets you choose up to two cards (depending on coin flips) from your opponent's hand and stick them at the bottom of his or her deck. When played on the same turn (thanks to Sableye's Impersonate attack), your opponent may be left with only three cards to choose from (including the one he or she draws on the next turn)... and none of them are the cards your opponent was expecting to play the turn before! With powerful Supporter combinations like this, your opponent will often be ill-prepared to mount a suitable counterattack.

Honchkrow has a strong presence in this deck as well. Because the Sablelock deck uses a lot of Pokémon SP, which are all Basic Pokémon, Honchkrow (Supreme Victors, 29/147) makes good use of its Riot attack, which does 30 damage plus 10 damage for each unevolved Pokémon in play. In tournaments, you can expect to face quite a few decks with a handful of Pokémon SP, too, so Riot is never a bad option. Then there's Honchkrow (Platinum, 77/127), whose Honcho's Command attack lets you dig out of your deck a Stadium or Trainer card that has Team Galactic's Invention in the name. With Energy Gain, Power Spray, Poké Turn, and SP Radar in this deck (all of which are prefaced with "Team Galactic's Invention" in their names), Honcho's Command is nearly indispensible. And if Honcho's Command isn't enough to get Team Galactic's Invention cards into your hand, this deck also has four Cyrus's Conspiracy cards, which let you pull a Supporter card, an Energy card, and a Trainer card that has Team Galactic's Invention in its name from your deck to your hand, all in one turn! Despite the inconvenience that Judge might cause you as well as your opponent, it's easy for this deck to get the right Supporter and Trainer cards into your hand whenever you need them.

After that, it's relatively easy to see where the attack power comes from in this Sablelock deck. Garchomp LV.X makes its usual appearance, capable of doing 80 damage to any of your opponent's Pokémon with its Dragon Rush attack. And even Sableye can swoop in to finish the job easily if it has more HP than the Defending Pokémon. As you can see, the Sablelock deck strategy is simple and effective: get the cards you need while preventing your opponent from doing the same. Then wallop your opponent's Pokémon with powerful attacks whenever and wherever you can.

Steelix Prime deck

1 Skuntank (Platinum, 94/127) 3 Baltoy (Diamond & Pearl—Great Encounters, 60/106) 3 Claydol (Great Encounters, 15/106) 1 Uxie (Diamond & Pearl—Legends Awakened, 43/146) 1 Azelf (Legends Awakened, 19/146) 2 Chansey (Platinum, 69/127) 2 Blissey Prime (HeartGold & SoulSilver, 106/123) 4 Onix (HS—Unleashed, 56/95) 3 Steelix Prime (HS—Unleashed, 87/95) 20 Pokémon

4 Pokémon Communication 1 Palmer’s Contribution 3 Expert Belt 1 Luxury Ball 4 Poké Healer + 2 Moomoo Milk 4 Bebe’s Search 2 Broken Time-Space 2 Conductive Quarry 4 Pokémon Collector 27 Trainers, Supporters, and Stadiums 4 Double Colorless Energy 4 Metal Special Energy 5 Metal Energy 13 Energy

The focal card of the deck, Steelix Prime, is a Steel-type Pokémon with a hefty 140 HP. Steelix Prime gets points for being both a strong offensive Pokémon and one that’s tough to Knock Out. Defensively, its Perfect Metal Poké-Body prevents Steelix Prime from being affected by any Special Conditions. Plus, this deck runs 3 Expert Belts to give Steelix Prime an extra 20 HP. Then, a Metal Special Energy attached to Steelix Prime reduces the damage it takes from attacks by 10. The deck also sports a couple of Blissey, whose Nurse Call Poké-Power fits well into the deck (as you’ll soon see):  Nurse Call lets you discard a card from your hand to remove two damage counters from one of your Pokémon. This deck even runs 2 Moomoo Milk and 4 Poké Healer + cards to make it brutally difficult to Knock Out Steelix Prime.

Offensively, Steelix Prime’s hardest-hitting attack looks difficult to use: Gaia Crush requires 2 Metal Energy and 3 Colorless Energy to use. Thankfully, this deck employs a couple of methods for getting that attack up to speed. First, there are 4 Double Colorless Energy cards in the deck; with this, you can immediately attack with Steelix Prime’s Energy Stream attack, which does 30 damage and lets you search your discard pile to find an Energy card and attach it to Steelix. Remember Blissey’s Nurse Call Poké-Power? Use it to heal Steelix Prime, then attack with Energy Stream to attach the Energy card you just discarded back onto Steelix. Plus, there are two Conductive Quarry Stadium cards in play, which lets you search your discard pile for a Lightning or Metal Energy card and put it back in your hand (depending on a coin flip). Everything works in concert: Blissey sends Energy in the discard pile, then Conductive Quarry returns it to your hand, or Steelix Prime attacks to get an Energy attached directly to it.

With all of this Energy movement, powering up Gaia Crush takes no time at all: play Steelix Prime and attach a Double Colorless Energy card to it. Use Blissey’s Nurse Call Poké-Power to discard an Energy card. Then play Energy Stream to attach the discarded Energy to Steelix Prime. Do the same thing on the next turn. By the third turn, Gaia Crush, with its 100 damage (or more with an Expert Belt attached) is thumping your opponent every turn. Gaia Crush even lets you remove a Stadium card in play, possibly making it more difficult for your opponent to get going.

There’s one more fun aspect to this deck, and that’s Skuntank . Skuntank ’s Poison Structure Poké-Power lets you Poison both of the Active Pokémon if there is Stadium card in play, but it doesn’t affect Pokémon SP. Steelix Prime’s Perfect Metal Poké-Body makes it immune to Poison, meaning Poison Structure will affect only the Defending Pokémon! You’ll have to choose whether to keep a Stadium card in play and use Skuntank ’s Poké-Power or remove the Stadium card via Steelix Prime’s Gaia Crush, but that kind of flexibility can only help, not hurt.

Few decks are as singularly focused as the Steelix Prime deck. Everything is designed to keep Steelix Prime in play and then to give it enough Energy to never get Knocked Out. It’s bound to be a popular—and effective—deck at tournaments for some time to come.

Modern hits

In addition to Steelix Prime, several newer cards are making waves in tournaments. Check out some of the popular Pokémon the HS—Unleashed expansion.

Tyranitar Prime (HS—Unleashed, 88/96): With three tough attacks at its disposal, Tyranitar Prime is seeing some serious action at tournaments. You can see how it would fit well alongside the Sablelock deck—Tyranitar Prime's Darkness Howl attack would take down your opponent's Pokémon while your Sableye and Honchkrow sit on your Bench and enjoy the show. And commonly played defensive cards such as Mr. Mime (Diamond & Pearl—Mysterious Treasures, 30/123) can't prevent Tyranitar Prime's Power Claw attack, which drives through all Poké-Powers and Poké-Bodies on the Defending Pokémon.

Kingdra Prime (HS—Unleashed, 85/96): The highlight of Kingdra Prime is definitely its Spray Splash Poké-Power, which lets you put a damage counter on one of your opponent's Pokémon each turn. If you can line up a couple Kingdra Prime on your Bench, you can create some serious problems for your opponent. Don't overlook its Dragon Steam attack—for 1 Water Energy you can do an easy 60 damage. Decks based on Fire-type Pokémon aren't that common right now, so Dragon Steam's penalty for attacking Fire-type Pokémon seldom comes into play at tournaments.

Entei & Raikou LEGEND (HS—Unleashed, 90/96 & 91/96): Compared to many of the other Pokémon LEGEND pairs, the attacks of Entei & Raikou LEGEND are relatively inexpensive, Energy-wise. It costs only 2 Energy to do 90 damage with its Detonation Spin attack with the penalty of discarding 1 Fire Energy. But Thunder Fall is the attack that gets attention at tournaments: you can do 80 damage to every Pokémon in play that has a Poké-Power, no matter where they are. Given the number of tournament-played Pokémon that have Poké-Powers, this attack is devastating. Of course, Thunder Fall will hit your Pokémon, too, so you have to be careful when unleashing this powerful attack!

Be sure to follow all the action from the Pokémon World Championships, starting August 13th. And check back with Pokemon.com after the event for comprehensive coverage of the best decks from Hawaii.