Guide To Garchomp Ex Deck For Pokemon TCG

The Ancient and Future Pokemon took the spotlight in Pokemon TCG, but there are cards from Paradox Rift that can shine with their own light: the teracrystallized Ex cards. One of these cards is Garchomp Ex, which is bulky, strong, and has an interesting type as it is Water.

At first sight, Garchomp Ex looks like a decent card that can deal damage to benched Pokemon but doesn’t have enough damage to one-hit-KO other stronger cards. But as strength comes from unity, Garchomp finds great company in Lucario, Radiant Greninja, and the Earthen Vessel. The final result is a powerful and easy-to-play deck.

Garchomp Ex Decklist

This is the full list of cards you’ll use on this deck:

Garchomp Ex Deck Key Cards

Let’s take a look at the core cards of this deck.

Garchomp Ex

Garchomp Ex is the protagonist of this deck. It has a more-than-decent 320 HP and two attacks. The first one is Hydro Lander, which deals 160 damage and lets you attach up to three Fighting Energy Cards in your benched Pokemon as you wish.

The important thing about this attack is the secondary effect, as 160 damage is not good damage output.

The second attack is Sonic Dive. It costs two Energy Cards, deals 120 damage, and forces you to discard two Energy Cards from Garchomp. The good thing about this attack is that you can attack your opponent’s bench with it, but the format of this deck won’t use this attack at all.

As this is a Teracrystallized card, Garchomp has a special buff that protects it from damage when it’s on the bench.

Lucario

This Lucario is a special card as it’ll be your main attacker alongside Garchomp and will put use to Garchomp’s Hydro Lander. It has 120 HP, an attack, and an ability.

The ability is Roaring Resolve, which you can use to search for a Fighting Energy Card. If you do, you’ll have to put a damage counter on Lucario. In other words, you must deal ten damage to it.

Meanwhile, its attack is Aura Sphere Volley; it forces you to discard all Energy Cards and, as an exchange, deals ten damage plus 60 for each card you discard.

Bidoof, Bibarel And Professor’s Research

These two pretty cards are in charge of being the engine of the deck. Without them, you can’t draw cards from the deck. Bidoof can’t do much; it’s only here to be evolved into Bibarel, which has an ability named Industrious Incisors. With it, you can draw cards until you have five in your hand.

The Professor’s Research is on this deck for the same reason as Bibarel; you need tools to keep drawing cards. In this case, Professor’s Research lets you discard your hand and draw seven cards. It works wonders with decks that usually have short hands, like this one.

You can discard Energy Cards with Professor’s Research. Take this into consideration when you want to send Energy Cards to the discard pile.

Manaphy

Manaphy is also a utility card, as it has an ability named Wave Veil. With this one, all your Pokemon on the bench will be immune to damage.

Radiant Greninja

Radiant Greninja is a usual card in these kinds of decks as it’s useful for drawing cards and discarding Energy Cards. It can do this all with Concealed Cards, its ability, which lets you draw two cards, but only if you discard an Energy Card.

Radiant Greninja is a helping hand that will be there in case you can’t completely supply Lucario with all the Energy Cards necessary to One-Hit-KO the target.

Irida

Irida is a great card to start the match as it lets you search in your deck for a Water-type Pokemon and an item card. You must use it whenever you don’t find a Garchomp Ex during the early stages of the match.

Ideally, if you are using Irida on your first turn, you can try to search for a Battle VIP Pass. After that, it’ll depend on how the match develops and your needs, but you’ll usually be drawing Earthen Vessel or Rare Candy cards.

Battle VIP Pass

The Battle VIP Pass is extremely necessary on this deck as it has limited drawing options, and you can get stuck without it. With this card, you can search for two Basic Pokemon cards in your deck. But be careful, as it only works in your first turn.

You can’t search for Lucario or Garchomp with this card; it only works to start setting yourself up.

Earthen Vessel

To discard Energy Cards, you must first have them in your hand. To do this, you have the Earthen Vessel, which lets you draw two Energy Cards but only if you discard a card. Again, you can use this card to discard an Energy Card if you need them in the discard pile.

Path To The Peak

If you want to have some extra advantage after setting everything up, you can use Path To The Peak, which, if it’s in play, both players can’t use their Pokemon Cards’ abilities. The attacking core of this deck (Garchomp & Lucario) doesn’t use abilities, so you must not worry about them.

Be careful when playing this card, as you can stick yourself by canceling Bibarel’s Industrious Incisors. Be sure you use this card when you set everything up. If you need to draw, use Professor’s Research.

Rare Candy

As you can see in the Decklist, this deck doesn’t have a Gabite, it jumps from Gible to Garchomp. This is because you can evolve Gible into Garchomp by using the Rare Candy. Nonetheless, it has some rules.

If you want to evolve a basic Pokemon (Gible) with this card, you must have the stage 2 Pokemon (Garchomp) in your hand. Also, you can’t use this card during your first turn or use it on Pokemon you put into play in the same turn you are playing this card.

You can also evolve Riolu into Lucario with this card.

Garchomp Ex Deck Strategy

Your aim with this deck is to attack with Garchomp first, then with Lucario. This is because Garchomp will use Hydro Lander’s secondary effect of setting Fighting Energy Cards from the discard pile to your benched Pokemon.

All these Energy Cards will go to all the Lucario cards you are setting on your bench. Preferably, you must set at least two Lucario cards to attack.

But before attacking with Garchomp, you need to send the Energy Cards to the discard pile. You have plenty of options: Radiant Greninja, Earthen Vessel, Professor’s Research, and the Ultra Ball are cards that let you discard cards.

So, set the very first Energy Card you have to your potential Garchomp, and the rest of them will be sent to the Discard Pile via these cards.

Remember to use the Earthen Vessel to get more Energy Cards quickly.

As you have several Energy Cards in the discard pile, the rest is calculating how many Energy Cards Lucario needs to discard to defeat your opponent’s strongest Pokemon with one hit. Then, keep attaching Energy Cards to Lucario until you have enough. Switch Garchomp for Lucario, and attack with it.

If your opponent switches their strongest Pokemon, bring it back to the field with Boss’s Orders.

Then, you can repeat the process by sending Garchomp back to the field with the Escape Rope to reattach Energy Cards to Lucario so it’s ready to attack again.

Garchomp Ex Deck Common Threats

Garchomp is a pillar of this deck. If it falls, then you can’t set Lucario up to attack. So, it’s natural that Miraidon, the best Electric-type deck in the meta, is a big problem for this deck. Thankfully, Lucario isn’t weak to Miraidon, so if you manage to set yourself up quickly, you can defuse Miraidon’s strategy. It’s a hard match-up; luck will define everything.

The same goes for Chien-Pao, which uses Iron Hands Ex, an Electric-type Card. Iron Hands is not this deck’s main attacker, yet it’s a worrying one, as it can deal enough damage to defeat Garchomp and take an extra Prize Card in the process.

Again, if you manage to set up quickly, you can have the upper hand. Just don’t leave Garchomp next to Iron Hands.