It can be tricky to put together a stellar Pokémon TCG deck if you haven’t already built a large collection of cards. If you’re looking for a powerful deck without many cards from older expansions—or just a fun deck with powerful combos—be sure to try out this one built around Garchomp, Lucario, and Cynthia.
The Pokémon in this deck can evolve quickly, search out important cards with ease, and dish out massive hits. You may be surprised to find its key performers aren’t Pokémon-GX or Pokémon-EX! Almost all of the cards in the deck below can be found in the Mach Strike or Imperial Command theme decks from Sun & Moon—Ultra Prism, and we’ll show you how to evolve the deck as your collection grows.
Deck Strategy
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Starter List
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10Fighting Energy
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4Double Colorless Energy
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4Cynthia
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2Hau
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2Lillie
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2Pokémon Fan Club
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2Sophocles
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3Nest Ball
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3Timer Ball
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2Pal Pad
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2Ultra Ball
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2Rescue Stretcher
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1Escape Board
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1Escape Rope
Your main goal with this deck is getting Garchomp and Lucario into play as quickly as possible, giving you access to any card in your deck and your highest-damage attack. Your Pokémon will give up only one Prize card when they’re Knocked Out, so you’ll be shooting to get four Garchomp into battle each game.
Garchomp’s Royal Blades attack does a respectable 100 damage by default, but it dishes out an incredible 200 damage if you play Cynthia from your hand during the same turn. You’ll probably run out of Cynthia before you’ve taken all your Prize cards, so plan to put some back in your deck with Pal Pad. You can even bring back Gible, Gabite, or Garchomp (or all three) with Rescue Stretcher.
Lucario’s Precognitive Aura Ability is the key to pulling this strategy off consistently.
Each of your Lucario can search for any card in your deck once per turn,
helping you find key cards like Cynthia and Double Colorless Energy
to keep the attacks rolling. This Ability can only be used if you have a Garchomp in play, so make sure to keep setting
up more Garchomp on your Bench.
The early turns, before you can get Lucario and Garchomp into play, are the trickiest part of the game for this deck, so we’ve included several cards to help. Alolan Vulpix’s no-cost Beacon attack can search out any two Pokémon from your deck. The Supporter card Pokémon Fan Club is a great way to find Basic Pokémon early on, while Nest Ball, Timer Ball, and Ultra Ball can search out more Pokémon whenever you have the chance. Gible and Gabite can use their Ascension attack to evolve if you don’t have the right cards in hand.
If you don’t have enough Double Colorless Energy, you can swap them out for Fighting Energy, but be warned that you’ll need an extra turn to attach enough Energy for Garchomp’s Royal Blades.
Aspirational Deck
Once you’re ready to Bite Off a little bit more, try working toward this altered version of the deck.
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Advanced List
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4Double Colorless Energy
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4Fighting Energy
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2Strong Energy
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4Cynthia
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3N
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2Brigette
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1Guzma
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4Puzzle of Time
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4Rare Candy
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4Ultra Ball
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3Choice Band
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2Field Blower
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1Counter Catcher
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1Escape Board
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1Pal Pad
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1Rescue Stretcher
This version trades out several cards to gain speed and power. Brigette helps you get more Basic Pokémon than Pokémon Fan Club does, and you’ll be able to use it on your opening turn more often thanks to Tapu Lele-GX’s Wonder Tag.
Rare Candy further accelerates your setup by allowing you to evolve Gible into Garchomp in a single turn without having to use Ascension, so you can still attack after you evolve. Many popular decks can do 100 or more damage as early as turn two or three, so it’s important to evolve more quickly when faced with such dangerous competition. Choice Band further helps you keep up with the top decks, as several Pokémon-GX can survive even a 200-damage Royal Blades without it.
The biggest change to the
flow of this deck is the Garchomp from XY—BREAKpoint, the returning star of one of our previous decks (Basic Strategies Ready for
Battle).
This Garchomp is a Fighting type, which gives it a type advantage against the
ubiquitous Zoroark-GX and
allows it to use Strong Energy, which increases its attack damage.
This Garchomp also gives you a way to retrieve Energy cards from the discard
pile, helping you to power up more Garchomp throughout the game.
The addition of some new Trainer cards opens up new avenues of attack for this deck. Guzma can target Pokémon on your opponent’s Bench, while N can disrupt your foe’s hand or refresh yours without having to discard a valuable Cynthia. Puzzle of Time gives you an additional option for bringing cards back from the discard pile, which can be a lifesaver in matches where you need to recycle key Trainer cards like Cynthia, Field Blower, Guzma, N, or Rare Candy.
This deck isn’t stocked with Pokémon-GX or Pokémon-EX, but we think you’ll find it can hang tough against just about any opponent out there. Have fun creating your own version of this deck, and check back at Pokemon.com/Strategy for more Pokémon TCG and video game strategy.
