Pokémon TCG – Cynthia’s Babies

Hello guys, I am back for this week’s column and today we are exploring Pokémon TCG. I have been looking into the game since the release of their latest set Sun & Moon: Forbidden Light. It is a very interesting set with new combos and new way to play certain Pokémon cards.

The most interesting card in the set is the boost that Fighting Types receive with the Pokémon card Diance Prism Star (74/131). Diance provides a free +20 damage boost to all your Fighting type Pokémon when dealing damage to the opponent’s active Pokémon while Diance is on your bench. Although Diance is a strong support Pokémon, being on the bench she suffers with her weak attack and retreat cost. With that being said, she is a great addition to Fighting type decks.

Today, that is exactly what we will be delving into, a Fighting type Deck. Don’t worry though as we won’t be talking about Buzzwole-GX (57/1110) or even Lucario-GX (SM100) as we will be building and discussing on a budget deck instead.

You can find the deck below:-

As you can see the whole deck consists of mostly Sun & Moon cards which avoids the imminent rotation coming in August. There are cards that can be added from X&Y to better the deck like Professor Sycamore, Skylar and Birdgette but I tried building the deck with budget in mind and to avoid rotation cards. This deck is very cheap as the most expensive card in the deck is Cynthia and Lycanroc-GX which even then, isn’t wallet breaking. You can improve the deck even more by adding 1 Tapu Lele-GX to help search out that Lillie on the first turn but its not needed.

The objective of the deck is to setup a Garchomp, play a Cynthia and one-hit K.O your opponent’s active Pokémon. With Diance on the bench and a Choice Band equipped on Garchomp, you can one-hit K.O any Pokémon-GX at 250 health on your opponent’s side. Even without Cynthia, Garchomp can hit a whopping 120 damage without discarding any energies which can one-hit K.O most non-GX Pokémon.

The important piece of the deck that you need to have is either Brooklet Hill or Pokémon Fan Club since they will set up your bench and search out Alolan Vulpix if it is not your starting active Pokémon. Alolan Vulpix and Timer Balls will help out to search for the Evolve forms of your Pokémon to set up and ready to knock out your opponent’s active Pokémon. Even Gabite can help with the evolution with its Ascension attack which only requires one Fighting Energy to search out a Garchomp and evolve your active Gabite.

The other piece of the deck is the Lucario which works in tandem with Garchomp. While you have a Garchomp in play, Lucario has the ability to search your deck for any card and put it into your hand. A single Lucario set up with a Garchomp active Pokémon can help you chain Cynthia to keep one-hit K.O.

Since the deck needs to play Cynthia constantly, not being able to pull out your opponent’s Pokémon with Guzma can be a problem, but there is where Lycanroc-GX can help by pulling out your opponent’s key Pokémon on the bench. Moreover, Lycanroc-GX attack, Dangerous Rogue GX, can knock out any Pokémon if your opponent isn’t careful and fill up his/her bench.

Furthermore, since Lycanroc-GX is the only 2 GX Pokémon you have, most of the time your opponent will only collect 1 prize at a time while you will be able to collect 2 prizes by knocking out their GX Pokémon. Still, the deck is not without its problem as you will need two turns to setup the energy of all of your Pokemon to attack and Garchomp only has 150 health.

And that is the whole deck which is cheap and can still constantly one-hit K.O any Pokémon your opponent plays. I hope you will be able to build it and have fun with it.