Pokemon Pocket occasionally has events where players can acquire promotional cards by prevailing in battles against the AI. These ‘Drop’ events feature a certain selection of Pokemon that are either mechanically unique inclusions or have unique artwork available only through the event. The current event, at the time of writing, offers five different promotional cards, highlighted by a full-art Alolan Ninetails.
The promo cards are the main prize for these Drop events, but players can acquire additional prizes by clearing certain conditions. Generally, the enemy Pokemon in these events will have a common weakness, promoting players to build new decks, as well as granting an easier way for players to clear the more difficult variants of this event.
Currently, not only do players gain additional rewards for using Metal decks in the Alolan Ninetails Pokemon Pocket event, but it’s also the easiest way to beat the AI’s deck. Here are some of the best Pokemon Pocket Metal deck to consider.
Solgaleo ex
All of the best Pokemon Pocket Metal decks use Solgaleo ex. While the partner Pokemon differs, Skarmory is widely considered to be the best partner to Solgaleo. For reference, this combo recently finished in the top 16 of a massive 2000+ player Pokemon Pocket tournament.
At the beginning of the Celestial Guardians metagame, Solgeleo ex and Skarmory were the deck to beat, but Oricorio’s Electric variant has since become an incredibly popular hard counter to Solgeleo ex. Skarmory can take care of Oricorio, but it’s still a disadvantageous exchange.
If you’re not interested in running Skarmory alongside all of the Pokemon Tools you need to enable it, there are a few other choices for partner Pokemon to run alongside Solgaleo ex. Excadrill can serve as a fine replacement for Skarmory, but if you have the cards, Skarmory is superior in almost every way to Excadrill. The only slight upside to running Excadrill is you get a bit more room in your deck for trainer cards.
A better alternative to Excadrill is Escavalier. This Pokemon is worse at combating Oricorio, but it enables Cyrus, an incredibly powerful Trainer card, to force other Pokemon off the bench. Since Escavalier can poke benched Pokemon with its attack, Cyrus will be able to force them into the active spot.
If you don’t have the cards to run Solgaleo ex yet, good news! There’s an upcoming Pokemon Pocket Metal breakout event that offers Solgaleo ex as a rare Wonder Pick.
Unfortunately, this event starts the day after the Alolan Ninetails event ends, but you should be able to build the strongest Metal deck in Pokemon Pocket rather easily soon. No matter what partner Pokemon you choose to run with Solgaleo ex, this deck should be able to take down even the Expert level Alolan Ninetails deck with ease.
Dialga ex
Solgaleo ex is the best Pokemon Pocket Metal deck by a strong margin, but if you don’t have the cards to build it, you can try Dialga ex variants. This card is perhaps best partnered with Arceus ex, but you can also use Goldhengo from Shining Revelry as a strong partner.
Goldhengo and Dialga ex will play similarly to a Celebi ex deck since Goldhengo is basically a metal version of that card. Just charge up your Goldhengo with metal energy and deal obscene amounts of damage.
These decks should both be able to clear the Alolan Ninetails event with ease. Climbing with these decks in ranked, however, might not be the best idea.
Skarmory X Magnezone
This deck was a rather popular metagame contender in past Pokemon Pocket metas. This isn’t a full metal deck, but depending on your collection, this might be your best bet for completing the metal quests in the Alolan Ninetails event. Just make sure you knock out the event Pokemon with Skarmory to complete your achievements.
Magnezone makes routine appearances throughout various Pokemon Pocket metagames. Thanks to Apex Pikachu Magneton’s ability to charge Electric Energy on its own, Magnezone can appear as a splash option in any Pokemon Pocket decks, regardless of the energy they use.
Those are your best bets to complete the harder Metal type related challenges in the current Alolan Ninetails event, depending on your collection.