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Standard Dark/Fighting deck

eucasafari

Aspiring Trainer
Member
Hello. My name is Chris and I am trying to help my 9 year old daughter build up her first Pokemon TCG deck for use at the local gaming place. They hold tournaments each week and she loves going and wanted to make her own deck. The idea was to make a fighting and dark type deck and this is what she has come up with so far. She's been trading up a storm trying to get the cards she thinks she needs to make this deck work and we were wondering what alternatives she might want to consider to improve on what she's got so far. Were super super noobs to all of this, me mostly, so don't feel bad saying we need to nearly start over, I just want some guidance on what direction to take her with on this deck. Thanks.



Pokemon: 22
4 Machop
3 Machoke
2 Machamp
1 Machamp EX
1 Umbreon EX
2 Umbreon
3 Eevee
2 Pancham
1 Pangoro
1 Lucario EX
1 M Lucario EX
1 Darkrai EX

Trainers: 18
2 Professor's Letter
2 Professor Kukui
2 Hau
2 Timer Ball
1 Misty's determination
1 Ultra Ball
1 Float Stone
1 Pokeball
1 Shauna
1 Ninja boy
1 Here comes Team Rocket!
1 N

Energy: 19
10 Fighting energy
9 dark energy
1 Strong Energy


The strategy is to try and win a round once in a while. =)
 
Turbo Darkrai and Darkrai / Giratina are 2 really powerful Dark decks in the meta right now. In the most recent regionals they made up 4 of the decks in the top 8. Considering you have 1 Darkrai in your deck already you may want to look at a deck like that. Turbo Darkrai especially requires very few Pokémon. Just Darkrai EX, Yveltal, and Hoopa EX. Here is a link with what the decks look like:
http://www.pokemon.com/us/play-pokemon/salt-lake-city-regionals-2017/tcg-masters/
Shaymin is almost certainly overkill. It's very powerful, but unless you plan on trying to win an upcoming Regional tournament, it isn't worth the rather absurd cost. Replacing those with a couple cheap draw supporters or extra Pokémon should do the trick just fine. With that in mind I will try to suggest changes for the deck as it is.

You really want your lines to be even with all your Pokémon. So I would change the Machamp line from 4-3-2 to 3-3-3. The main reason for this is you don't really need the 4th Machop if your 2 Machamp are already out and you have no Super Rods to get them back. If you are only running 2 Machamp, 1 of them being prized will hurt massively. Same thing goes for Pangoro and Umbreon. Also Lucario is Expanded. Idk the rules of your local place so it might mot matter, but considering you labeled the deck as Standard I will point it out just in case. In general I'm not much of a fan of 1 of Megas. It's usually very inconsistent and considering you aren't running any links I don't think there will be many times where giving up a turn will be worth it. Either make it more of the focus by upping the number to 2 and put in 2 links or remove it altogether.

Another thing would be to condense the amount of Pokémon. 22 Pokémon is a lot and having as many 1 ofs as you do will make the deck very inconsistent. Personally I would cut either the Machamp, Umbreon, or Pangoro lines. If you cut the Machamp line you would probably be best off going to Dark only. This is the direction I would personally go in since I find the fighting cards to be rather weak and Machamp to not be powerful enough to warrant 9 cards in your deck. Also adding a second Darkrai and Umbreon would help a lot with consistency.

Other cards to consider adding:
Yveltal XY / Steam Siege: Energy acceleration is really powerful. The Break evolution is also fairly powerful and worth considering.
Yveltal EX: Not as powerful of a card as Darkrai, but it is also much cheaper. Good for filling in the gaps if you want to run Turbo Dark but can't get the 4 Darkrai needed.
Hoopa EX: Gets you any 3 EXs that you want. Incredibly powerful if you are going in an EX heavy direction.
Oranguru / Octillery: Cheap versions of Shaymin. Each have their own flaws, but they can fill Shaymin's role decently.
Carbink: Blocks all attacks from EXs, which is a fairly powerful effect.

In the end the Pokémon I would run would look something like this:
2 Darkrai EX (if you can get 3 or 4 then just run Turbo Darkrai)
3 Yveltal EX
3-2 Yveltal Break Line (this is one situation where you can abandon the even line because Yveltal is powerful enough on its own that it doesn't matter if you don't have the Break, alternatively you could run no Breaks)
2 Umbreon EX (optional, you could run a 3rd Break instead)
1 Hoopa EX

The trainers is another place where you really want more consistency and better cards, especially draw supporters as Hau and Kukui are very weak at that task. Here is more or less what I would run for trainers.
4 Ultra Ball
2 Nest Ball
4 Trainer's Mail (helps with consistency a ton)
4 Max Elixir (amount depends on how many basics you run)
2 Fighting Fury Belt (again the amount depends on number of basics)
3 Switch or Escape Rope
2 Professor's Letter
2 Super Rod (good for reusing Darkrai)
4 VS Seeker (a rather expensive card, but it is incredibly powerful. If you can't get these then just increase the number of each supporter you are running)

3 Sycamore
3 N
2 Lysandre
1 Hex Maniac
1 Pokémon Ranger

3 Parallel City, Reverse Valley, Chaos Tower, or Silent Lab

12 Energy should be more than enough. You will find having good draw supporters like Sycamore and N will make finding Energy much easier.

Hope this helps.
 
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Thank you for the tips. We did a little trial run with as much of that deck as we could assemble last night and it went pretty well.
It seemed like we needed an energy retrieval in there with so few energy options in the deck, once a few pokemon were defeated.

A card to kill any stadium card in play would have been really useful as well, but that could be depending entirely on who you are facing so im not sure it would be worth taking out one of these suggested for a 'Delinquent' (i think that's the one that kills the stadium card.)

We may end up trying to just pick up the additional darkrai ex cards for this one. we had a second that wasn't being used as is and have now swapped that in, as well as ditching the 4th machop.
 
Energy Retrieval is very helpful if you dont have any Yveltal XY. The fact that Yveltal gets energy from the discard was the main reason I didn't suggest it and though Letter was better. You also have Super Rod to get energy back into the deck. Adding 2 might be beneficial. As for what to cut, Maniac / Ranger aren't very necessary unless you run into a lot of decks based around abilities / effects (Volcanion, Jolteon EX, Decidueye / Plume, etc.). You could also cut the Super Rods if you find the Pokémon retrieval to be underwhelming.

Honestly I don't think stadium removal is important when you can just remove a stadium by playing your own. You could opt to run cards like Delinquent, Paint Roller, or Field Blower (once it comes out) instead of the stadiums if you feel they aren't very beneficial. Anything more than 4 stadiums / stadium removal is overkill IMO.
 
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