I love to think outside the box when it comes to deck building, and I encourage you to do the same. Here in “The Lab,” I will cover a few deck concepts, pointing out both the obvious and not-so-obvious combos and synergies that exist in this format. This opens the opportunity to discuss techs—cards that can help you in specific matchups or situations. Depending on your meta or the matchups you feel are unfavorable, you will determine the techs you want to include in your list. I’ll also go over different engines, which are ways to draw or search cards to get your board set up quickly and consistently.
While you won’t find complete deck lists in this section, perhaps it can inspire you to brew up something and earn your place in the “Hall of Fame”!
Festival Lead
An apple a day… Convert your Twilight Masquerade Build & Battle deck into a Silver Series powerhouse! Festival Lead has been the most popular deck among new players, and for good reason! Dipplin’s “Do the Wave” attack hits for up to 100 damage, and “Festival Lead” can allow it to attack twice, potentially taking more than one KO each turn. Thwackey’s “Boom Boom Groove” can be used once per turn to search for any card in your deck if you have a Pokémon with “Festival Lead” Active. So, if you have multiple Thwackey, you can get multiple cards!
Techs: Goldeen is your insurance for activating “Boom Boom Groove” without having to rely solely on a Stage 1 Dipplin. Rillaboom can prevent a KO against Froslass decks by removing an ability from play when you evolve your Thwackey. Rabsca is your protection against spread decks, which is one of this deck’s biggest weaknesses since you need multiple Pokémon in play for your combo to work. Tatsugiri can provide that extra early-game consistency to ensure you get out all of your Stage 1 Pokémon so you can “Do the Wave” as soon as possible.
The strongest deck in the Silver Series Format, which was also a powerhouse in Standard, winning the Juniors division and also earning a top 4 finish in Seniors. An apple a day… Convert your Twilight Masquerade Build & Battle deck into a Silver Series powerhouse! Festival Lead has been the most popular deck among new players, and for good reason! Dipplin’s “Do the Wave” attack hits for up to 100 damage, and “Festival Lead” can allow it to attack twice, potentially taking more than one KO each turn. Thwackey’s “Boom Boom Groove” can be used once per turn to search for any card in your deck if you have a Pokémon with “Festival Lead” Active. So, if you have multiple Thwackey, you can get multiple cards!
Techs: Goldeen is your insurance for activating “Boom Boom Groove” without having to rely solely on a Stage 1 Dipplin. Rillaboom can prevent a KO against Froslass decks by removing an ability from play when you evolve your Thwackey. Rabsca is your protection against spread decks, which is one of this deck’s biggest weaknesses since you need multiple Pokémon in play for your combo to work. Tatsugiri can provide that extra early-game consistency to ensure you get out all of your Stage 1 Pokémon so you can “Do the Wave” as soon as possible.
Ancient Box
An apple a day… Convert your Twilight Masquerade Build & Battle deck into a Silver Series powerhouse! Festival Lead has been the most popular deck among new players, and for good reason! Dipplin’s “Do the Wave” attack hits for up to 100 damage, and “Festival Lead” can allow it to attack twice, potentially taking more than one KO each turn. Thwackey’s “Boom Boom Groove” can be used once per turn to search for any card in your deck if you have a Pokémon with “Festival Lead” Active. So, if you have multiple Thwackey, you can get multiple cards!
Techs: Goldeen is your insurance for activating “Boom Boom Groove” without having to rely solely on a Stage 1 Dipplin. Rillaboom can prevent a KO against Froslass decks by removing an ability from play when you evolve your Thwackey. Rabsca is your protection against spread decks, which is one of this deck’s biggest weaknesses since you need multiple Pokémon in play for your combo to work. Tatsugiri can provide that extra early-game consistency to ensure you get out all of your Stage 1 Pokémon so you can “Do the Wave” as soon as possible.