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Join our panel of Pokémon TCG experts as they share strategies for decks that focus on Trainer’s Pokémon.
Alex Schemanske
Hello, readers! It’s Chef Schemanske here to teach everyone how to make a 60-card sandwich with some of the new cards from Scarlet & Violet—Destined Rivals. There are plenty of great cards to play around with, and in the spirit of fun, we’ll be making a deck featuring the new Arven’s Pokémon cards.
When it comes to Arven, anyone who has played Pokémon Scarlet or Pokémon Violet knows that if he’s around, there’s probably a sandwich coming soon. So, what better way to build a deck than by constructing it like a sandwich? What could go wrong?
Arven
Pokémon (18)
- 3Arven’s Mabosstiff ex 139/182
- 4Arven’s Maschiff 138/182
- 3Munkidori 95/167
- 2Blissey ex 134/167
- 2Chansey 113/165
- 1Arven’s Greedent 159/182
- 1Arven’s Skwovet 158/182
- 1Arven’s Toedscruel 110/182
- 1Arven’s Toedscool 109/182
Energy Cards (8)
- 5Basic Darkness Energy
- 2Medical Energy
- 1Reversal Energy
Trainer Cards (34)
- 4Professor’s Research
- 3Iono
- 2Arven
- 2Boss’s Orders (Ghetsis)
- 2Professor Turo’s Scenario
- 2Artazon
- 4Arven’s Sandwich
- 4Ultra Ball
- 3Buddy-Buddy Poffin
- 2Earthen Vessel
- 2Night Stretcher
- 1Nest Ball
- 1Switch
- 1Technical Machine: Evolution
- 1Technical Machine: Turbo Energize
Any good sandwich has a solid base, and in this case the bread of this deck is going to be Arven’s Mabosstiff ex. Unlike many other Pokémon ex cards, the Energy requirement for this card is rather low: a single Energy if there are no damage counters on the Pokémon. This will leave us a lot of room to play cool combinations of cards to make sure we keep those pesky damage counters away.
I’m sure some people like dry sandwiches, but we’re not in the business of boring today. Our spicy sauce comes in the form of Blissey ex and Munkidori. Chances are that if you are keeping track of the Pokémon TCG, you know that Munkidori is one of the most powerful cards in the game currently. To give this deck a fighting chance, we need to draw on that power a bit. Since our goal is to remove damage counters from our Arven’s Mabosstiff ex, Munkidori has a clear role to play. However, without a strong way to get multiple Energy into play, we need to make use of Blissey ex’s Happy Switch Ability to move our Darkness Energy around.
Arven’s Toedscruel is an unassuming card. However, what it does provide us with is a way to hit for Weakness against anything vulnerable to Fighting-type Pokémon. Pokémon like Terapagos ex don’t like to see this guy coming!
Finally, our last Pokémon we’ll feature is Arven’s Greedent. While this greedy Pokémon may not be able to do much damage, it plays a vital role in our deck’s main strategy of healing our Pokémon. This card’s Greedy Order Ability allows you to put up to two Arven’s Sandwich cards from your discard pile into your hand whenever you evolve it.
For the Trainer cards featured in this deck, Professor Turo lends us a hand in our sandwich-making activities with two copies of Professor Turo’s Scenario. This card provides a lot of healing, as well as a good way to get a Pokémon that might be stuck in the Active Spot out of that position.
When it comes to surprise ingredients in a sandwich, an extra sandwich or four probably ranks pretty high on the list. We have four copies of Arven’s Sandwich in this deck, as it allows us to heal 100 damage from one of our Arven’s Pokémon. Between these four copies and Arven’s Greedent, that’s healing for up to 600 damage!
Pokémon TCG players know that a good deck needs to have ways to find their Pokémon, and we have quite a few different ways to do so. First, we have the Artazon Stadium card, which will allow us to consistently find an additional Basic Pokémon every turn. We also have a few copies of Buddy-Buddy Poffin, but with high-HP Basics like Chansey and Munkidori, we need some ways to search them out as well. Finally, we have the ever-present copies of Ultra Ball. When it comes to searching out whatever Pokémon we might need at the time, Ultra Ball is sure to help.
Naturally, we play Darkness Energy, since we want to make use of Munkidori. However, we have some unique Special Energy choices in Reversal Energy and Medical Energy. Medical Energy is pretty self-explanatory, in that when you attach it, you heal 30 damage from that Pokémon. A little extra healing never hurts when you don’t particularly care what type the Energy is. Reversal Energy is here to make sure that we can attack with Arven’s Toedscruel if needed, and even if it doesn’t activate, it still covers the single Colorless Energy cost of Arven’s Mabosstiff.
There’s a lot going on with this deck, and it’s understandable that you might not know where to start! When it comes to any given game, you want to make sure you’re getting at least two Arven’s Maschiff or Arven’s Mabosstiff ex into play, at least one Blissey ex, at least two Munkidori, and then play around whatever you might need. Whether that extra Benched Pokémon is a third Munkidori for extra healing and damage or Arven’s Greedent to recover Arven’s Sandwiches, it’ll be a powerful addition to your board.
It’s also important to remember that Blissey ex can do more than just move your Energy around with Happy Switch. It also has a moderately powerful attack that does 180 damage and allows you to refresh your hand with some new cards. However, it’s important to be mindful of the fact that once Blissey ex is in the Active Spot, it’s probably not moving unless you find Switch or Professor Turo’s Scenario.
That’s all for today’s sandwich-making session! I hope everyone enjoys the new Scarlet & Violet—Destined Rivals expansion and has fun cooking up new ideas with the many different Trainer’s Pokémon featured in the set.
Ross Cawthon
Let’s go on an adventure with this deck featuring Ethan’s Pokémon! I really like the Ethan’s Pokémon in the new Destined Rivals expansion: Ethan’s Typhlosion, Ethan’s Ho-Oh ex, and Ethan’s Magcargo in particular have powerful attacks or Abilities. For a deck featuring all these Pokémon together, check out the free Ethan’s Ho-Oh ex deck you can get on Pokémon TCG Live! However, I decided to take a different route with Ethan’s Pokémon: a deck solely focused on Ethan’s Typhlosion. With four Ethan’s Adventure in the discard pile, Ethan’s Typhlosion can do 280 damage with Buddy Blast. Of course, 280 damage is great, but the fact that this comes from a single-Prize (non-ex) Pokémon, and for 1 Energy is incredible!
Normally, finding all four copies of a single Supporter in your deck and then discarding all of them would be a long journey. Thankfully, you have a great partner in Ethan’s Quilava. With its Bonded by the Journey Ability, you can find Ethan’s Adventure from your deck and add it to your hand. Use Ethan’s Adventure to get more Ethan’s Quilava, and you can quickly complete this journey and start doing major damage!
Here is the deck list I’ve put together:
Ethan
Pokémon (19)
- 4Ethan’s Typhlosion 34/182
- 4Ethan’s Quilava 33/182
- 4Ethan’s Cyndaquil 32/182
- 2Drakloak 129/167
- 2Dreepy 128/167
- 2Victini 21/191
- 1Shaymin 10/182
Energy Cards (6)
- 6Basic Fire Energy
Trainer Cards (35)
- 4Arven
- 4Ethan’s Adventure
- 2Boss’s Orders (Ghetsis)
- 2Iono
- 3Gravity Mountain
- 4Buddy-Buddy Poffin
- 4Ultra Ball
- 2Nest Ball
- 2Technical Machine: Evolution
- 1Counter Catcher
- 1Defiance Band
- 1Earthen Vessel
- 1Night Stretcher
- 1Rare Candy
- 1Redeemable Ticket
- 1Secret Box
- 1Super Rod
For additional Pokémon in this deck, I turned to Drakloak from Scarlet & Violet—Twilight Masquerade. As you see, there’s no Dragapult ex or Psychic Energy. Drakloak is here just for its powerful Recon Directive Ability, which lets you look at the top 2 cards in your deck and add 1 to your hand. I’ve intentionally avoided Pokémon like Fezandipiti ex, Pidgeot ex, or N’s Zoroark ex. I don’t want any Pokémon ex in this deck, as letting your opponent take two Prizes allows them to speed up the game. What I’ve noticed playing this Ethan’s Typhlosion deck is that it is very consistent but can be slow.
Against fast Pokémon ex decks, you will likely give up a couple Prizes before you can attack for Knock Outs. Having one Pokémon ex down yourself when you’re already starting slowly can be the difference between winning and losing. Of the non-Pokémon ex support for this deck, I think Drakloak is the best. You can find Dreepy (and Ethan’s Cyndaquil) with Buddy-Buddy Poffin and evolve to Drakloak with Technical Machine: Evolution.
Victini also plays an important role in this deck. Ethan’s Typhlosion’s maximum damage, 280, is incredible, but we need to level up even higher to complete our journey. Many Pokémon ex have 300 or more HP. Victini (along with the Stadium Gravity Mountain) can effectively let Typhlosion one-hit Knock Out many popular Pokémon like Dragapult ex, Charizard ex, Marnie’s Grimmsnarl ex, Archaludon ex, and Blissey ex, among others.
Finally, I have the new Shaymin from Scarlet & Violet—Destined Rivals with its Flower Curtain Ability, which protects all of our Benched Pokémon from damage. Players from the past few years will remember how important Manaphy from Sword & Shield—Brilliant Stars was thanks to a similar Ability. Flower Curtain will protect us from popular Pokémon like Wellspring Mask Ogerpon ex and Scream Tail.
For Trainers, my main Supporters are Ethan’s Adventure and Arven. A turn-1 Arven can effectively get four Pokémon into play when you use Buddy-Buddy Poffin for 2 Basic Pokémon and then evolve both with Technical Machine: Evolution. Arven also allows you to speed up discarding Ethan’s Adventure, specifically by finding Secret Box. You can find a couple Ethan’s Adventure from your Ethan’s Quilava, discard them with Secret Box and even find another Ethan’s Adventure to either play next turn, or perhaps discard it as well with an Ultra Ball you can find with Secret Box. This is a very common play to get this deck attacking for the full 280-plus damage. Like most decks in the Standard format, I have Iono and Boss’s Orders. Iono gives you a chance to see 6 new cards and disrupt your opponent, and Boss’s Orders lets you target whichever Pokémon you’d like.
Most of the Item cards are there to find your Pokémon, either from the deck or the discard pile. I also want to highlight a vital card for this deck, Redeemable Ticket. This is a unique card in the history of the Pokémon Trading Card Game. I can’t remember another card that changed all your Prize cards, allowing you access in the early game to cards that would normally be off-limits to you. In this deck, Redeemable Ticket is essential, as you need all four Ethan’s Adventure cards in the discard pile against nearly every matchup.
The big risk of Redeemable Ticket (and why it hasn’t seen more play) is that you might end up putting some other important cards into your Prizes that previously were available. This downside has been relatively easy to mitigate: Let’s say you have one Ethan’s Adventure Prized. It’s then important to take all the other three Ethan’s Adventures out of the deck with Ethan’s Quilava before playing Redeemable Ticket to ensure that you won’t accidentally Prize a different Ethan’s Adventure. Usually at this point in the game, you’ve found many of your Pokémon and Energy in the deck, and what you put back as the new Prize cards will be less essential Trainer cards. Don’t risk your Redeemable Ticket too early in the game before you’ve found these key cards—we may be going on an adventure, but we shouldn’t be reckless!
My Stadium card of choice is Gravity Mountain, which makes all Stage 2 Pokémon have 30 less HP. This may seem like a strange choice in this deck, as it makes Ethan’s Typhlosion have 30 less HP! However, most Pokémon decks can easily Knock Out Typhlosion in one attack anyway, whether it has 170 HP or 140 HP. As mentioned previously, many popular Pokémon can only be Knocked Out by Typhlosion in one attack with Gravity Mountain in play (and sometimes Victini as well). It was important in so many games that I bumped up to having three copies in the deck.
Ethan’s Typhlosion is a fun Pokémon to build around. It’s not the fastest deck, but you steadily progress on your journey to discard all four Ethan’s Adventures with Ethan’s Quilava and can often make big comebacks against Pokémon ex decks. Form a powerful bond with Ethan’s Pokémon and you can take on anyone!
Tord Reklev
Cynthia, one of the most feared Pokémon Champions in all the games, finally gets to showcase some of her impressive Pokémon. There is obvious, but very powerful synergy featured on her cards in the expansion. This deck revolves around Cynthia’s Garchomp ex and its two strong attacks. To further boost the already high damage output, Cynthia’s Roserade is helping Cynthia’s Garchomp ex out from the Bench.
Cynthia’s Garchomp ex
Pokémon (21)
- 4Cynthia’s Garchomp ex 104/182
- 4Cynthia’s Gabite 103/182
- 4Cynthia’s Gible 102/182
- 3Cynthia’s Roserade 8/182
- 3Cynthia’s Roselia 7/182
- 1Budew 4/131
- 1Cleffa 80/227
- 1Cynthia’s Spiritomb 129/182
Energy Cards (9)
- 9Basic Fighting Energy
Trainer Cards (30)
- 4Boss’s Orders (Ghetsis)
- 4Iono
- 4Professor’s Research
- 1Professor Turo’s Scenario
- 2Artazon
- 4Buddy-Buddy Poffin
- 4Cynthia’s Power Weight
- 4Ultra Ball
- 2Night Stretcher
- 1Secret Box
Cynthia’s Garchomp ex’s Corkscrew Dive does a base 100 damage for only a single Fighting Energy and also lets the player draw until they have six cards in hand. This is an excellent attack that makes sure the player is never stuck with a lackluster hand without Supporter cards while also allowing them to do heavy damage. Remember, should this attack Knock Out a Pokémon, the player gets to draw cards first and then take the Prize Card after, which can result in a plentiful hand on the following turn.
Its second attack Draconic Buster hits for 260 damage. While it is a lot of damage, it is not quite enough to reach the most popular Pokémon in the format, like Dragapult ex and Marnie’s Grimmsnarl ex. This is where Cynthia’s Roserade’s Cheer On to Glory Ability makes all the difference, as these Abilities add up quickly to deliver a one-hit Knock Out on even the strongest Pokémon in the format.
Setting up all these Pokémon might seem like a tall order at first glance, but luckily, Cynthia already figured out a genius plan to make it all happen. Cynthia’s Gabite’s Champion’s Call Ability lets the player search out any Cynthia’s Pokémon and add it to their hand. There are also no restrictions on this Ability, meaning if the player has multiple Cynthia’s Gabite in play, they can search for multiple of Cynthia’s Pokémon each turn. With just a few of Cynthia’s Gible on board, this can create a fun chain reaction. Just evolve into a Cynthia’s Gabite, which can search for another Cynthia’s Gabite, which can search for another Cynthia’s Gabite, which can search for… I think you understand where I am going with this.
The last Cynthia’s Pokémon included is Cynthia’s Spiritomb. The current format has a lot of decks trying to spread damage counters across the opponent’s board, and its Raging Curse attack is a great way to punish this type of strategy. Of course, this attack is further boosted by Cheer On to Glory, making it a huge threat for the entire game.
Taking clean Knock Outs on these high-HP Pokémon is already difficult, but Cynthia has one final ace up her sleeve: Cynthia’s Power Weight is a new Tool card that adds 70 HP when attached to one of Cynthia’s Pokémon. One of the strongest ACE SPEC cards, Hero’s Cape, is barely any better! This takes Cynthia’s Garchomp ex up to a staggering 400 HP—almost surely too much to Knock Out the Pokémon ex in a single attack. In the early game, this Pokémon Tool is great for protecting the lower-HP Pokémon before they evolve, which is especially important against all the different spread and snipe decks.
Budew and Cleffa are not branded as Cynthia’s Pokémon, but Budew is technically a stage under Roselia, which I found funny for this deck list. But don’t be fooled—both Budew and Cynthia’s Roselia will both be played as Basic Pokémon and with very different purposes.
Budew is great for slowing down the opponent, and Cleffa can be a lifesaver before the deck has access to Corkscrew Dive in the first couple of turns of the game.
As for the rest of the list, I tried to make it simple and to the point. The format currently features a lot of Budew, so I wanted the Trainer lineup not to rely too much on Item cards to set up.
A heavy count of the arguably strongest Supporter cards available in the format is included. Iono and Professor’s Research for disruption and draw, with Boss’s Orders to hunt down the most important Pokémon on the opponent’s side. I also added Professor Turo’s Scenario, a card that can have a major impact by potentially returning a heavily damaged Cynthia’s Garchomp ex back to the hand. Since this deck is not running any Rare Candy, it’s easy enough to put the full Evolution chain back in play and manually evolve again. As a bonus, Cynthia’s Gabite’s Ability can be accessed once again during the following turn.
I think almost any ACE SPEC would work great in this deck, but I ultimately decided on Secret Box. Just like the old Computer Search, this is a perfect card at almost any point in the game: whenever it’s drawn into, the player will be happy to see it. Secret Box also discards cards, which makes it synergize with Corkscrew Dive and gives it an additional out to Professor Turo’s Scenario and all the other Supporters, Items, and Pokémon Tool cards in the deck.
Buddy-Buddy Poffin, Ultra Ball, Night Stretcher, and Artazon are all here to ensure a steady flow of Pokémon during setup.
- With multiple copies of Cynthia’s Roserade in play, even Cynthia’s Gible could threaten huge attacks. You might come across a game where you can Knock Out the popular Fezandipiti ex with Rock Hurl, granted you have all three copies of Cynthia’s Roserade in play. And 20 damage plus 90 damage total adds up to 110 damage before Weakness kicks in.
- Don’t reveal Cynthia’s Spiritomb early. As this is a new and less played deck, Cynthia’s Spiritomb is a card that can catch the opponent by surprise and swing a game completely if not accounted for.
- Remember that Cynthia’s Spiritomb is a Darkness-type Pokémon! Popular Psychic-type Pokémon, like Gardevoir ex, often have resistance to Fighting types, but also often have Weakness to Darkness-type Pokémon. Use this to your advantage.
If I were to summarize this deck’s strength in just one phrase, I would say “high numbers.” The HP is ridiculous, and so is the damage output. I also find it especially powerful that reaching those numbers, except in the case of Cynthia’s Spiritomb, doesn’t require any specific condition to be met—Cynthia’s cards are always hard at work. I’ve had a lot of fun experimenting with Cynthia’s Pokémon. I hope you will too!
Alex Schemanske
Alex Schemanske is a contributing writer for Pokemon.com. He has been playing since 2010, with experience across all three age divisions. Over that time, he has earned an invitation to every World Championships event since 2012. A many-time Regional finalist and a 2023 Europe International Championship Champion, Alex has had success at all levels and continues to enjoy playing the game. He has a degree in education and is currently studying accounting, but he still takes the time to attend many events with friends and family.
Ross Cawthon
Ross Cawthon is a longtime player, starting to play tournaments in 2000. He is the only player to compete in all 20 Pokémon TCG World Championships, finishing as a finalist in 2005 and 2011, and a semifinalist in 2016. He is known for creating many new “rogue” decks over the years. Ross has a Ph.D. in astrophysics and studies dark energy (not to be confused with Darkness Energy cards).
Tord Reklev
Tord Reklev is a contributing writer for Pokemon.com. He is a longtime player from Norway, playing the game since he was 6 years old. In becoming Champion at the 2022 Latin America International Championships, Tord is the first player to win all four International Championships and complete the Grand Slam. Outside of the game, he is a student and enjoys playing tennis. You can find him at most big events and can follow him on X at @TordReklev.
Source: Pokemon.com
Source: Pokemon
