The metagame in Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket (Pokémon Pocket) is shaking up as players battle it out in ranked matches. At the center of it all are the decks players have painstakingly built to arm themselves in their fights for glory.
Sometimes the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, but each part plays a vital role in creating the full picture. Today, we’ll look at some of the best staple Pokémon cards that players, regardless of their experience level, may want to look at when building their decks in Pokémon Pocket.
As a general disclaimer, this list isn’t exhaustive, and Pokémon themselves can fill a variety of roles. As players grow and develop their own playstyles, they'll know what’s best for their deck or not. The cards found on this list are just some resources that may help fill in the gaps in a deck or at least give some ideas on what else to add.
Energy Accelerants
First on our list are Manaphy, Moltres ex, and Dialga ex. These Pokémon are prime examples of energy accelerants that many players use to get their match-winning Pokémon online faster.
Energy accelerants tend to play best with Pokémon sharing the same energy type, but you could take advantage of Pokémon like Magnezone that make use of a lot of colorless energy as potential recipients.
As you can probably notice, Manaphy and Moltres ex are a little bit faster on the spectrum as they only need one energy to start their engine. Dialga ex, on the other hand, needs two energy but does have the caveat of being slightly bulkier than the previous two, and can deal some damage while ramping energy. Of course, you also need something to put your ramped energy onto. Gyarados EX and Charizard EX both end the game once you manage to satisfy their greedy energy costs.
Bridging the gap from zero to attack activation is key to a lot of winning strategies in Pokémon Pocket or the physical card game and is generally considered to be a cornerstone when creating a roster.
Low Energy Constraint Damage
This will probably be the most confusing aspect when it comes to staple Pokémon cards, as damage is the game-winning condition and is normally reserved for your ace Pokémon.
Players are more than likely to double down on consistency rather than branch out their roster. But no plan survives first contact with the enemy. And sometimes a player needs to eke out much damage in as little time as possible to get the win.
It's this mindset that gave rise to decks like the Magnezone and Meowscarada. Running two stage 2 evolutionary lines may sound risky given the limitations of only being able to evolve one Pokémon at a time. But Meowscarada only needs two energy get going, making it a threat as early as turn 3.
Meowscarada can even get a bonus against ex Pokémon, keeping any deck that runs ex Pokémon in check.
The Magnezone line on the other hand has access to Magneton and its Volt Charge ability, allowing self-energy acceleration for the eventual Magnezone to keep pace with Meowscarada for any non-ex Pokémon in the active zone. You don't even need to generate electric energy manually, which allows Magnezone to play with a ton of different cards.
No matter which evolutionary line is chosen as the vanguard, the opponent has to find a way to deal with oncoming damage as soon as one them gets to stage 2.
We also have one of the current terrors in ranked battles in the form of Darkrai ex and Giratina ex.
The latter may look slow and lumbering but that can't be further from the truth as Giratina can easily start swinging by the 3rd turn it's on the board. While this is a little slower than the previous line-up, Giratina holds a pretty bulky body at 150 health on a basic Pokémon.
With Darkrai on the bench strengthening the damage threshold Giratina can reach, any Pokémon with 150 health or less will soon be knocked out before they can mount a reprisal.
Both of these decks demonstrate that swinging in hard and fast with as little dependancy on the energy pool's randomness as possible can help players win their games more often than not.
And that’s our list of staple Pokémon cards in Pokémon Pocket. Deck building is always an evolving science when it comes to card games, and while someone may be intrepid enough to push the boundaries of what their tools can do and the combinations they can come up with, sometimes refreshing on the basics can lead to a spark of inspiration.