How To Play The Magnezone Skarmory Deck In Pokemon TCG Pocket

The second major expansion for Pokemon TCG Pocket introduced Pokemon Tools, which, like held items in video games, you can give to a Pokemon for a bonus. Some Pokemon, like Skarmory, can take advantage of those tools to leverage cheap, reliable, high-damage attacks.

Pokémon TCG Pocket magnezone and skarmory

Pokemon TCG Pocket’s Most-Successful Deck Is Being Used By Less Than One Percent Of Players

You’re all sleeping on this one.

The Magnezone / Skarmory deck eschews coin-flipping mechanics of other low-cost, high-damage Pokemon’ like Kangaskhan and Exeggutor ex, and sticks to single-Prize Pokemon so you can trade your way to victory.

Sample Decklist

The Skarmory promo, from Pokemon TCG Pocket.

Magnezone / Skarmory

Magnemite (A2) x2	Magneton (A1) x2	Magnezone (A2) x2	Skarmory (A2) x2

Heatran (A2) x1	Professor’s Research x2	Sabrina x2	Cyrus x1

Poke Ball x2	Giant Cape x2	Rocky Helmet x2

For this deck, turn off Lightning Energy and only include Metal Energy in your Energy Zone, and use the Space-Time Smackdown Magnemite so that you can attack with colorless Energy if you have no other options. Magneton should get plenty of Lightning Energy on its own through Volt Charge.

This deck will function fine in 95 percent of games with any version of Magnemite since it won’t usually attack, but the Genetic Apex Magneton is vital. Volt Charge is the only source of Lightning Energy in this deck, so the entire Magnezone line is dead in the water if you substitute Space-Time Smackdown Magnetons.

Magnezone / Skarmory Deck Strategy

Skarmory Pokemon TCG Pocket Space Time Smackdown Card Art.

The Magnezone / Skarmory deck works in three phases; early, middle, and late-game. Early-game, your goal is to set Skarmory as your Active Pokemon, equip a Pokemon Tool, attach an Energy, and attack. Meanwhile, you need to find a Magnemite to put on your Bench.

What Pokemon Tool you should use depends on your opponent’s first Pokemon: If they set a Druddigon, you want a Giant Cape to mitigate Rough Skin. If they set something that will attack, like Articuno, a Rocky Helmet is better. Regardless, you should attach a Pokemon Tool to Skarmory immediately to get the damage bonus from Metal Arms.

On your Bench, you need to place a Magnemite and evolve it to Magneton as soon as possible. Meanwhile, you can attach extra Energy to Heatran or to Magnemite. The few turns of attaching Energy to Heatran and Magneton is your mid-game strategy.

Prioritize Energy on Heatran. It needs three turns worth of Energy to attack, while Magneton can get enough to work with in only two.

Magnezone Pokemon TCG Pocket Space Time Smackdown Card Art is shown.

It’s tempting to evolve Pokemon as soon as possible to get the extra HP but keep Magneton as long as possible, so you can use Volt Charge every turn. You want at least three Lightning Energy on it, but four or even five are much better.

Heatran is a backup attacker and Energy sink; prioritize attaching two Energy to Heatran to be able to attack as soon as it becomes Active, then you can put up to two Metal Energy on Magneton to use Thunder Blast more.

Once Magneton or Heatran has some Energy, you can retreat Skarmory, evolve Magneton into Magnezone, and start sweeping. You can also keep Skarmory up for another turn or two if you need to weaken a bulky threat like Charizard ex or if you can snag a KO from an already weakened Pokemon.

The Pokemon TCG Pocket card Sabrina by GIDORA.

Sabrina is most effective when used early, to bypass blockers like Druddigon or setup enablers like Moltres ex. This allows you to soften Pokemon that will be threats later, like Palkia ex and Charmander, and to score important early-game KOs on important game pieces like Manaphy and Magikarp.

If you don’t score a KO because of Sabrina, getting some damage on a big threat like Palkia ex will allow you to use Cyrus later to pull it up before your opponent is ready. Since the Magnezone/Skarmory deck only uses single-Prize Pokemon, you’re in a good position to trade KOs for double-Prize ex Pokemon.

Magnezone / Skarmory Matchups

Exeggutor ex / Celebi ex

The Celebi ex card from Mythical Island and Exeggutor ex card from Genetic Apex.

Exeggutor ex does what Skarmory does: It hits hard for one Energy while the real threat sets up in the back. Unfortunately, Exeggutor does it a little better, averaging 60 damage per turn while sitting on double Skarmory’s HP. This isn’t an insurmountable match: If you can take out Celebi ex before it gets a ridiculous amount of Energy and Exeggutor gets unlucky flips, you can still come out on top, just be sure to use your Sabrinas wisely.

Darkrai ex / Magnezone

The Darkrai ex and Magnezone cards, from Space-Time Smackdown.

Darkrai ex decks are one of the most common threats, and the Magnezone version is the most effective. Darkrai can bypass the Rocky Helmet on Skarmory while Druddigon chips away with Rough Skin, KO-ing your setup attacker without ever hitting it.

Like with Celebi ex decks, the key is to get past the blocking Active Pokemon to hit the key game pieces in the back. One hit from Skarmory and Magnezone or Heatran can finish off Darkrai ex, even with a Giant Cape. After that, you should be fine.

Charizard ex / Moltres ex

The Super Rare prints of Charizard ex and Moltres ex, from Genetic Apex.

The classic Charizard ex deck from Genetic Apex is still going strong, rounding out the Space-Time Smackdown meta. Charizard ex’s big advantage is the ability to OHKO every Pokemon in the game, but since you’re using single-Prize Pokemon you can afford to trade.

Generally, these decks focus on attaching a lot of Energy to a single Pokemon. If you can score a KO on Charmeleon with several Energy attached, your opponent will usually concede. If not, try to get the first hit on Charizard ex, weakening it enough that your next Pokemon can finish the job.