It hasn’t been that long since the release of the Shining Revelry expansion on Pokémon TCG Pocket -sometimes referred to simply as Pokémon Pocket depending who you're talking to-.
Despite the fact that they haven't been available for long, the new pool of cards has already taken over the competitive metagame.
The Pokémon Pocket Best Deck
Strictly speaking, the main culprit of all the hubbub is this Pokémon, Giratina ex. In a vacuum, it doesn’t look so bad. In fact, some players would say, it ‘is’ bad because Giratina’s controlling player would have to give up the attack for the turn in order to claim that extra energy that Giratina ex provides.
Initial optics aren’t helped by the fact that Giratina ex’s only attack needs 4 energy (3 psychic, and 1 colorless) and hurts itself for 20 damage each time.
It doesn’t help that current rivals at the top of the competitive scene like Gyrados ex or Mewtwo ex are hitting for about 140 and 150 damage respectively.
In fact, after one use of its (Giratina’s) attack, any opposing Pokémon that hits for 130 damage can actually take out Giratina ex in one hit, like Meowscarada -another Shining Revelry release-.
Pokémon TCG Pocket Best Deck Breakdown
However, for all the negativity that surrounds Giratina ex in the greater scope of the Pokémon TCG Pocket game, it’s not alone. Thanks to the support of Druddigon, Darkrai ex and the host of support cards available in the game, Giratina ex evolved from potential laughingstock to credible threat.
The image above is a standard deck formation that Giratina ex is finding itself in more and more. Deck building is always unique to the player, but we’ve noticed a lot of commonalities between the decks that use this particular pokémon.
First of all are the partner pokémon, Druddigon and Darkrai ex. The former is basically the vanguard of this lineup.
Druddigon’s ability to tank blows while reflecting them back to the opposing active pokémon buys time for Giratina’s controlling player to ramp two energy a turn; one from normal energy attachment, and the second energy from Giratina’s own ability.
Speaking of normal energy attachment, Darkrai ex comes in as the additional damage without directly attacking. As Darkrai ex is being built up with darkness energy through standard player action, it is pinging the enemy active pokémon for 20 damage each time.
This prickly defense ensures that by the time enough energy is built up on either Giratina or Darkrai, the enemy active pokémon is already bloodied and more or less within lethal range for either pokémon.
With the staple support cards like Professor's Research, Red, Leaf, and Poké Ball -as all these Pokémon are actually Basic level-, this a very streamlined and cunning deck to fight against.