Pokémon TCG Pocket’s latest expansion, Triumphant Light, came out last Thursday and it has led to yet another fresh batch of top-performing decks. While several of the existing strongest lineups are still contenders, this weekend saw a new formidable card emerge in the tournament scene: Arceus ex. In some ways, this isn’t exactly a surprise. Arceus is the poster child for Triumphant Light, and many of the new cards have abilities explicitly tied to this Pokémon being in play. But beyond this somewhat predictable turn, quite a few surprises found their way into some of the strongest teams.
To create this round-up of the best new decks, we used data on tournament win rates and usage percentages from the website Limitless. While the meta will continue to shift in the coming weeks as players find ways to adapt to these top performers, it’s clear that there will be a lot of Arceus ex in our future.
Honorable Mentions: Garchomp ex and Aerodacytl ex, Garchomp and Garchomp ex, Palkia and Glaceon ex
Arceus ex and Dialga ex
Deck List Example: retrouve’s third-place finish (out of 1487) at Ursiiday’s Pocket Weekly #18
Tournament Win Rate: 59.05%
Tournament Share: 11.23%
Energy: Metal
Deck Overview: The Arceus ex and Dialga ex shell was the clear standout from the first weekend after Triumphant Light’s release, accomplishing the difficult task of being the most played deck in tournaments AND the deck with the highest win percentage. The basic game plan here is to lead with Dialga ex in the Active Spot and use their Metallic Turbo to place two energy on your Arceus ex on the bench. Then, you switch to Arceus and start attacking for a maximum of 130 every turn. Shaymin (A2-22) is included in this sample deck because it has a strong ability that can be used from the sidelines, and we ideally want at least six Basics in this deck to maximize the odds of our bench being full so Arceus can deal more damage (its attack deals an additional 20 for each Benched Pokémon). Meanwhile, including a single Mew Ex adds flexibility, as its Genome Hacking can copy opponent attacks, helping fight back against heavy hitters like Palkia ex or Charizard ex. Overall, one of the deck’s biggest strengths is consistency: since you only run Basic Pokémon, you don’t have to worry about getting stuck because you didn’t draw a specific evolution.
As for Trainers, Leaf serves to mitigate one of the deck’s big weaknesses in that both Arceus and Dialga have a retreat cost of two. It’s a good idea to run two Giant Capes because this puts Arceus and Dialga out of range of getting one shot by Pokémon like Palkia ex and helps Dialga avoid getting one shot by Infernape ex. Cryus and Sabrina are there to switch out your opponent’s attackers as usual. Giovanni lets Arceus reach a 140 damage breakpoint, one-shotting other Arceus exs. Finally, Dawn is there because it allows Dialga ex to use Heavy Impact attack sooner; you can Metallic Turbo once it gets two energy, and then the following turn, Dawn and move one of the energy you previously placed on your bench Pokémon back on Dialga to attack with Heavy Impact.
Alternate Builds: Mew ex is optional but is a potentially powerful attacker, depending on what your opponent has in play. If you don’t run Mew ex, the new Shaymin (A2a-69) from Triumphant Light is an excellent alternative, as its ability to reduce the retreat cost of Basic Pokémon lets you get around Arceus Ex and Dialga Ex’s relatively sizable retreat cost of two.
Lucario, Rampardos, and Sudowoodo
Deck List Example: yuriisle’s first place finish (out of 1487) at Ursiiday’s Pocket Weekly #18
Tournament Win Rate: 56.34%
Tournament Share: 2.03%
Energy: Fighting
Deck Overview: While the Dialga and Arceus deck is undisputably strong, thankfully, there is already a counter in this new spin on a Rampardos and Lucario pairing. In fact, this deck took home first and second at the biggest weekly tournament, Ursiiday’s Pocket Weekly, after beating up on this set’s star player. For this deck, you want to get a Lucario onto your bench to take advantage of its +20 damage buff to other fighting type ‘Mons, making it so that Rampardos can deal a whopping 150 damage for a single energy. This deck has the added benefit of running no ex Pokémon, meaning that your foe has to fight through a whole bunch of guys only worth one point, each of which can attack for minimal energy. Meanwhile, Marshadow is waiting in the wings for one of your single-point Pokémon to go down so that it can follow up with its Revenge attack, which deals 100 damage if one of your critters went down last turn.
Beyond this, the deck has one big addition from the new set: Sudowoodo. For one fighting energy, Sudowoodo deals 20 damage on top of another 30 if they’re up against an ex. This low-cost, potentially solid damage attack becomes even better when paired with Lucario’s fighting damage boost. And really makes Sudowoodo so important right now is that they’re a perfect counter to Arceus ex, dealing 70 damage when you factor in type advantage (Arceus ex is weak to fighting attacks): with an unevolved one-point attacker, you can two-shot Pokémon God for the cost of a single energy. On top of this, if you have a Lucario, you can two-shot Arceus Ex even if they’re wearing a Giant Cape.
Beyond the attackers, this deck runs two Pokémon Communications to help trade out Pokémon in your hand for evolutions you need, like the Rampardos line or Lucario line. Sabrina and Cyrus are there to help pull in the enemy attackers you want match-ups with, like pulling in an injured Arceus ex to finish them off. All of this said, if there’s one big caveat with this deck, it’s that its impressive performance is based on a small sample size: it only made up 2.02% of tournament decks. Still, considering its great win rate and clear advantage against Arceus ex, it seems like it could very well be a new standby going forward.
Alternate Builds: Instead of running one Sudowoodo and one Marshadow, you can run two Sudowoodos like Atomiix did in their second-place finish at Ursiiday Pocket Weekly.
Leafeon ex and Celebi ex
Deck List Example: Faramiglio’s 17th place finish finish (out of 1487) at Ursiiday’s Pocket Weekly #18
Tournament Win Rate: 50.83%
Tournament Share: 7.21%
Energy: Grass
Deck Overview: While Leafeon ex and Celebi ex didn’t have quite as high a win rate as the two previous decks, it did manage to win over 50% of its matches while being one of the most played decks at the moment. It works similarly to the previous anti-Darkrai ex pair, Exeggutor ex and Celebi ex, in that it also runs a sparse five Pokémon cards. The game plan is to lead with Eevee and evolve it into Leafeon so you can use its powerful ability that lets you add one Grass energy to a Grass-type Pokémon once per turn. Energy acceleration is generally quite strong in this game, and that is very much the case here as well. This ability can get Leafeon attacking quicker and then stock up Grass energies for your Celebi, which will act as a finisher.
And because the deck only runs five Pokémon, it can run a whopping 15 trainers. Erika, Potions, and Giant Capes are used to keep Leafeon alive as it pumps out energy. Pokémon communication lets us find our Celebi faster or locate one of the cards we need for the Eevee to Leafeon evolution. All that said, this deck’s biggest downside is that Celebi can be unreliable since it requires successful coin flips to deal damage.
Alternate Builds: While most of the current Leafeon ex and Celebi ex tournament decks run the same five Pokémon, there’s a lot of variance when it comes to Trainers. For instance, some opt to use Irida, the new Supporter card that lets you heal 40 health on any Pokémon with a Water energy attached. Because Leafeon can generate Grass energy, and both Celebi and Leafeon only need one Grass energy to attack, we can run Grass and Water as our energy types to open up Irida and grant even more survivability. Another option is to run Rocky Helmet instead of Giant Cape for more damage, although this can be a problem for Celebi when facing off against Pokémon like Arceus ex, which can one-shot it.
Infernape ex and Arceus ex
Deck List Example: Brokkolo’s 56th place finish finish (out of 1487) at Ursiiday’s Pocket Weekly #18
Tournament Win Rate: 52.49%
Tournament Share: 1.22%
Energy: Fire
Deck Overview: While Infernape ex has always seemed to have potential, it hasn’t had a partner able to take advantage of its zero retreat cost. However, that seems to have changed with the new Heatran (A2a-13), which can retreat for free through its Power Link ability if you have an Arceus or Arceus ex in play. Basically, you can use Heatran as a tank to block damage until you’ve evolved an Infernape ex on the bench. At this point, as long as your Arceus ex is in play, you can switch back and forth between the two, dealing 140 damage with Infernape ex before switching into Heatran for its 40-80 damage a turn. Arceus ex is mostly there to enable Heatran’s ability, but it acts as a backup plan if you’re having difficulty finding the cards to evolve into Infernape ex.
Beyond this, Dawn is incredibly powerful in this deck, as it allows us to attack with Infernape for two turns in a row: after attacking and discarding all energy on Infernape, use Dawn to grab one energy from the bench and place that turn’s energy on the monkey. Beyond this, we run Pokémon Communication to help us get Infernape ex online more consistently, Rocky Helmets so that Heatran’s main attack deals 80 damage more often, and a Sabrina to control what’s in the opponent’s active spot. Overall, this deck seems quite strong against the popular Grass deck variants, and while we only have a very small sample size to gauge its performance, it’s promising so far.
Alternate Builds: ShangHigh’s variant of this deck, which placed 18th out of 609 at the most recent BEC Exeggutive Series, opts to utilize the new Rotom (A2a-35) in combination with Cyrus to damage an opponent’s Bench Pokémon so you can use Cyrus to drag them onto the battlefield and take them out with Infernape ex or Heatran.
Arceus ex and Crobat
Deck List Example: Whizzy’s 35th place finish at Ursiiday’s Pocket Weekly #18
Tournament Win Rate: 50.34%
Tournament Share: 2.25%
Energy: Fire
Deck Overview: Are you sick of Arceus ex yet? This variant centers around Crobat, which has an ability that lets you deal 30 damage to your opponent’s active Pokémon if you have Arceus ex in play. We then combine this with the new Heatran (A2a-13), which normally deals 40 damage but then deals an additional 40 if your opponent is damaged for 80 total. Crobat sits on the bench and uses its ability to deal 30 damage to the opposing Pokémon in the active spot, and then we swing with Heatran, who now deals 80 damage because Crobat has already chipped them. While doing this, you build up Arceus ex on the bench with energy to act as a finisher if needed. It’s important to note that despite Crobat being a Dark type, you should edit the deck’s energy zone so you only get Fire energy. While this means we won’t be able to attack with Crobat directly, we can do so with its previous evolutions, Zubat and Golbat, because they use colorless energy. Besides, Crobat belongs on the bench for maximum effectiveness, as your other Pokémon deal more damage in the Active Spot. Another benefit of this deck is that it is very mobile: as long as you have Arceus ex in play, Heatran can retreat for free, and Crobat has no retreat cost.
Even with this mobility, this deck still runs Leaf so you can remove Arceus ex from the active spot in the early game. Dawn is generally used so that you can retreat Heatran into Arceus ex and move energy from the former to the latter to attack with Arceus earlier.
Alternate Builds: Rocky Helmet is another excellent option that can be traded out for Giant Cape to make activating Heatran’s max damage attack more consistent. You can also run a different build altogether by opting for the new Carnivine (A2a-9) instead of Heatran like iRReckless did in the latest Ursiiday’s Pocket Weekly. For one energy, Carnivine deals 20 base damage and an additional 30 if an Arceus is in play. This is cheaper energy-wise than Heatran but with the tradeoff of being less bulky and less damaging on average.
Elijah Gonzalez is an assistant Games and TV Editor for Paste Magazine. In addition to playing and watching the latest on the small screen, he also loves film, creating large lists of media he’ll probably never actually get to, and dreaming of the day he finally gets through all the Like a Dragon games. You can follow him on Bluesky @elijahgonzalez.bsky.social.