Discussion What decks should I look into getting for the new Standard format?

Gamer4000

Aspiring Trainer
Member
I'm wanting to get a Standard deck, and I'm wondering what decks look good for the next rotation. I'm mainly an expanded player, but I usually just play casual decks, and want to try some Standard.

Any deck ideas?

Also, to give you guys an idea of what decks I play now, I currently have a Tapu Koko GX/Raikou/Eelectrik deck that I'm using, but I also have a Garchomp/Garchomp EX/Altaria deck, plus a Golem EX/Regirock EX/Landorus deck. I also had a Yveltal/Archeops/Toad deck, but Archeops is now banned in expanded, so I took it apart.
 

JDA

Aspiring Trainer
Member
The current 3 standard decks I deem the best competitively speaking would be those based around Volcanion EX/Kaiwe, Gardevoir GX/Sylveon GX and Alolan Ninetales and GX variant. By large because these three decks have a very consistent starting set up, which in turn allows them to be ran with a viarity of deck builds that all will just work out well enough because they allow for such solid and consistent set ups. So if anything Fire based, Fairy based and Water based decks in my opinion are ready and set to go right now.

Upcomming standard season is still not there yet however and the next set might just turn things around aswell. I also expect Zoroark to make a return to the top competative standard once his GX is available to us, by large also because Hoopa from SM3+ is another nice tech wall which is ideal for such set up decks. Grass currently has a lot of good Stadium and Item cards, Im looking forward to see what they might gain. Shaymin with Flap is really good but you do need to be able to really use that new hand which in turn warrants good specific Trainers.

Laslty Psychic and Electric decks are looking better and better. Both Mewtwo GX and Raichu GX have a lot of potential. In many cases though decks soon will require regular basics that can compete with Eevee, Alolan Vulpix or Volcanion and that's a really high standard to have to compete with.
 

JDA

Aspiring Trainer
Member
What are the main pokemon for the ninetails deck? For the volcanion deck?

Ninetales:
4 Alolan Vulpix for set up
4 Alolan Ninetales/GX, the mix is really up to you and you can go 2-3 even if you feel like having Ninetales as your main attacker (GX) and defender (regular).

Volcanion:
4 Volcanion, regular Pokemon with great HP and good attacks, his inclusion makes the deck difficult to punish and not be countered by Safeguard
3 Volcanion EX, your engine
2/3 Turtonator GX, secondary attacker
1/2 Ho-Oh GX/others as a weakness policy

Most decks can also run a large number of tech Pokemon. Tapu Lele GX is the most common, additional options come from Starmie to Octillery to Oranguru. Tons of options really. What makes the Ninetales, Volcanion and Sylveon decks so different from the rest of the meta is that they all contain great basic Pokemon who allow for a consistent set up in return. Alolan Vulpix searches two Pokemon, Sylveon GX comes from Eevee and searches for three cards, Volcanion is a basic that has HP and attacks well beyond the norm of a basic and as a return allows to be set up extremely fast because it rarely contains any deep evolution lines.
It's evolution lines that cost time, that time is drastically reduced if you have Pokemon who search the cards you need to have.
 

Trainer Josh

Competitive TCG Player
Member
I wouldn't recommend running a Volcanion deck, that is depending on how competitive you want your deck to be. Even though Volcanion gets a great new supporter in Kiawe from Burning Shadows, there are far too many competitive water decks in the format. The big three being Alolan Ninetales, Greninja BREAK, and Lapras all of which you will see in tournament play throughout the year.

For the upcoming expanded format, I would recommend looking into a Toxapex-GX/Dragalge deck. Seems like a really fun deck with some competitive potential, might even try it myself sometime.
 

duxx369

Aspiring Trainer
Member
well as a help for water decks Volcanion has Altar of the Sunne stadium which negates weakness, which can ofc be "killed" with field blower, but as a better help there is Ho-Oh GX which has electric weakness so it's ideal attacker when you play against water decks

yesterday I've played 15 matches vs greninja or lapras or ninetails/gx - won 9 lost 6, and I don't have tapu lele in my deck so I could be even better
 
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