Unless you’ve been living under a Geodude for the last five years, you’ll have probably noticed that Pokémon cards are everywhere. Yet while fans are scrambling to collect full arts and crypto bros are inexplicably treating new sets like lucrative investments, many seem to have forgotten that these beloved bits of paper were actually made to be played with. The question is, then, how do you begin to build a deck?
While you may have memories of being humiliated by a chocolate-coated Charizard back in the school playground, Pokémon TCG has come a long way since the '00s. Boasting over 1 million dollar prize pools and attracting millions of viewers today, Pokémon cards have slowly become one of the deepest and most popular and best card games on the planet.
Yet, despite Pokémon’s cute and cuddly exterior, taking your first steps into the world of competitive 'mon can be surprisingly intimidating. So, to help you make the jump from crazed card collector to Pokémon master, we picked the brains of the greatest minds in competitive Pokémon TCG. Seeking advice from pro player Drew Stephenson (who finished second place in the 2026 Pokémon Europe International Championships) to esteemed Pokémon World Championship TCG commentators, Joe Bernard and Ross Gilbert, here’s a guide on how to build a super effective battle-ready deck that will set your local TCG night ablaze, getting your IRL Ash Ketchum journey fully underway.
All trainers want to be the very best, and in order to get this TCG train rolling you’ll need a good engine powering your deck.
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