Xero's Gengar Gang

Set

ME03: Perfect Order

Number

048/088

Type

Darkness

HP

70

Stage

Basic

Weakness

Fighting ×2

Resistance

—

Retreat

1

Attack

Surprise Attack 30— Flip a coin. If tails, this attack does nothing.

Regulation

J

Evolution

gastly → haunter → gengar

General use

Gastly is a seed, not a fighter. Its entire job is to be sitting on your Bench on turn one so that something better can be placed on top of it later. You run the maximum four copies not because Gastly is good but because you cannot build a Gengar without one, and drawing zero Basic Pokémon means you have to mulligan.

Do not fall in love with Surprise Attack. A coin flip for 30 is a last resort — the attack you use when your board fell apart and you have nothing else. Treat it as a way to not waste a turn, never as a plan.

Pairing

• Buddy-Buddy Poffin — at 70 HP, Gastly is a legal target, and Poffin fetches two Basics at once straight onto the Bench.
• Rare Candy — Gastly is the Basic that Rare Candy jumps to Gengar.
• Dawn — grabs a Gastly and its whole family in one card.
• Gwynn — a spare Gastly in hand is worth 3 cards of draw.
• Shadowy Darkness Energy — makes a benched Gastly untouchable while it grows up.

Strategy

The Perfect Order print is specifically the one you want. 70 HP instead of 60 is not a rounding error: it is the difference between surviving a Charmander's opening poke and not, and — critically — 70 HP is exactly the ceiling for Buddy-Buddy Poffin. A 60 HP Gastly would still work; an 80 HP one would not.

The most common beginner mistake with this card is playing one Gastly and holding the rest. Play them. Two or three Gastly on the Bench early is not overcommitting — it is insurance, because your opponent can only knock out one thing per turn, and every Gastly you did not bench is a Gengar you cannot build later.

The one real cost of a wide Bench is that some decks draw more the more Pokémon you have in play. That is a price worth paying almost every time.

Set

ME02: Phantasmal Flames

Number

055/094

Type

Darkness

HP

100

Stage

Stage 1 (from Gastly)

Weakness

Fighting ×2

Resistance

—

Retreat

1

Attack

Spooky Shot 40

Regulation

I

Evolution

gastly → haunter → gengar

General use

Haunter is the slow road to Gengar. When you have Rare Candy you skip it entirely; when you do not, Haunter is how you get there anyway. Only two copies are in the deck because it is a backup route, not the main one.

Spooky Shot for a flat 40 with no coin flip is quietly useful — it is more reliable damage than Gastly's attack, and 40 is enough to finish off something the opponent left damaged.

Pairing

• Gengar — the only reason Haunter exists in this list.
• Dawn — the "Stage 1" slot on Dawn is almost always Haunter.
• Rare Candy — the card that lets you skip Haunter. When Candy is in hand, leave Haunter in the deck.

Strategy

Here is the timing rule that matters: Rare Candy cannot be used on your first turn, and cannot be used on a Basic you played that same turn. So the fastest possible Gengar is turn two — bench Gastly turn one, Candy it turn two. If you miss that window, Haunter becomes your path, and evolving Gastly → Haunter on turn two still lets you reach Gengar on turn three.

That means Haunter is rarely a wasted play even when you do draw Rare Candy later. A Haunter on the board on turn two is a Gengar on turn three. A Gastly on the board on turn two that is waiting for a Candy might be a Gengar on turn three, or might be a Gastly on turn five.

Set

ME03: Perfect Order

Number

050/088

Type

Darkness

HP

130

Stage

Stage 2 (from Haunter)

Weakness

Fighting ×2

Resistance

—

Retreat

1

Ability

Infinite Shadow — If this Pokémon is Knocked Out by damage from an attack from your opponent's Pokémon, put it into your hand instead of the discard pile. (Discard all attached cards.)

Attack

Mind Jack 10+— Does 30 more damage for each of your opponent's Benched Pokémon.

Regulation

J

Evolution

gastly → haunter → gengar

General use

Gengar is the closer, and it is a punisher. It costs one single Darkness Energy and its damage is decided entirely by how greedy your opponent has been with their Bench. Against a wide board it hits like a truck for one Energy. Against an empty board it does 10.

Learn this table. It is the most important arithmetic in the deck:

Opponent's Benched Pokémon

Mind Jack damage

0

10

1

40

2

70

3

100

4

130

5

160

Read that table against HP tiers rather than against one opponent. A four-Bench Mind Jack at 130 clears the entire single-prize tier — the 50 to 130 HP Basics and Stage 1s every deck is built out of. A five-Bench 160 adds most Stage 2 non-ex.

What it can never do is clear the ex tier. Mind Jack maxes at 160, and Pokémon ex start around 190 and run past 300. Gengar is the card that farms a board; it is not the card that kills their best thing. That job belongs to Weezing, and past that to Punk Helmet softening the target first.

Pairing

• Boss's Orders — drags the exact target you want into range. Read the warning in Strategy first.
• Rare Candy — the fast lane from Gastly, skipping Haunter.
• Dawn — assembles the entire line from your deck in one Supporter.
• Shadowy Darkness Energy — protects Gengar completely while it waits on the Bench.
• Risky Ruins — punishes the opponent for building the wide Bench that Mind Jack feeds on. They are trapped either way.
• Night Stretcher — brings a discarded Gengar back.
• Sableye — a Gengar on the Bench is what switches Cocky Claw on. The closer powers the opener.

Strategy

The Boss's Orders trap. Boss's Orders pulls one of your opponent's Benched Pokémon into the Active Spot — which removes it from their Bench and therefore lowers Mind Jack by 30. If they have five on the Bench and you Boss up a 70 HP Basic, you are now hitting for 130, not 160. That is still plenty to kill the Basic, but if you were counting on 160 to finish something wounded, you just talked yourself out of 30 damage. Count the Bench after the Boss, not before.

Infinite Shadow is recycling, not immortality. This is the single most misunderstood card in the deck, so be precise about it:

The right way to think about it: Infinite Shadow means you can play Gengar aggressively without fearing that a knockout ends your Gengar plan for the game. You will get it back. You just would rather not need to.

One Energy. Do not over-invest. Mind Jack costs exactly one and never wants a second. Every Energy past the first on a Gengar is an Energy that should have gone on a Weezing.

Set

SV09: Journey Together

Number

091/159

Type

Darkness

HP

60

Stage

Basic

Weakness

Fighting ×2

Resistance

—

Retreat

1

Attack 1

Tackle 10

Attack 2

Suffocating Gas 20

Regulation

I

Evolution

koffing → weezing

General use

Koffing is the other seed, and unlike Gastly it only needs one step to become a real threat. That makes it the Basic you most want in your opening hand. Bench it turn one, evolve it turn two, and you are attacking with a 130 HP Weezing while your Gengar is still growing.

Tackle for is worth knowing about: it is the only attack in the deck that does not require Darkness Energy, so a Koffing can attack off a Shadowy Darkness Energy or any Energy at all in a pinch.

Pairing

• Weezing — the whole point.
• Buddy-Buddy Poffin — 60 HP is comfortably under the 70 HP cap.
• Dawn — Koffing is a fine "Basic" slot on Dawn if you already have Gastly.
• Night Stretcher — recovers one Gwynn threw away.

Strategy

At 60 HP, Koffing is fragile, and every Pokémon in this deck is Weak to Fighting ×2, so any Fighting attacker erases it with a rounding error. Evolve promptly. A Koffing that sits on the Bench for three turns is a Koffing that gets sniped.

Three copies, not four, is deliberate. Weezing is the deck's workhorse, but you only ever need one Weezing in play at a time, and the extra slot buys you a Trainer that finds what you actually need.

Set

SV09: Journey Together

Number

092/159

Type

Darkness

HP

130

Stage

Stage 1 (from Koffing)

Weakness

Fighting ×2

Resistance

—

Retreat

2

Attack 1

Pervasive Gas 30 — Your opponent's Active Pokémon is now Confused.

Attack 2

Crazy Blast 50+ — If this Pokémon used Pervasive Gas during your last turn, this attack does 120 more damage.

Regulation

I

Evolution

koffing → weezing

(Koffing also evolves into Galarian Weezing, a separate card kept out of this deck — see the Casual Swaps section of gengar-weezing-deck.md.)

General use

Weezing is the engine of this deck and the card your son will hate the most. It is a two-turn combo on a single card:

Turn one — Pervasive Gas. 30 damage, and their Active is now Confused. Turn two — Crazy Blast. 50 + 120 = 170 damage.

170 is the biggest number this deck produces, and it is the only one that clears the whole single-prize tier in a single attack. Every non-ex Stage 2 Fox owns sits at or under it. It does that on the second turn of a combo that costs no Trainer cards at all.

Against a Pokémon ex it is a two-shot rather than a one-shot, with one loud exception: Darkness hits Psychic for double, so a 170 lands as 340 on his Team Rocket's Mewtwo ex.

Meanwhile the Confusion from step one means there is a 50% chance your opponent's turn in between simply does not happen.

Pairing

• Dark Bell — re-applies Confusion without spending your attack, so you can Crazy Blast and keep them Confused.
• Punk Helmet — Weezing wants to stay Active for two turns, which is exactly when a retaliation Tool pays off.
• Shadowy Darkness Energy — protects the next Weezing on the Bench while this one is working.
• Switch — Weezing's retreat cost of 2 is genuinely expensive; Switch is the escape hatch.
• Boss's Orders — a Confused Pokémon that gets swapped out loses its Confusion, but Boss's Orders lets you choose what comes up next.
• Toxtricity — Sinister Surge puts the second Energy on the Benched Weezing, so the fuse is lit the turn it steps forward.

Strategy

The combo is fragile in exactly one way, and you control it. Crazy Blast checks whether this Pokémon used Pervasive Gas during your last turn. That means:

• ❌ Do not retreat the Weezing in between.
• ❌ Do not Switch it out and back.
• ❌ Do not use Pervasive Gas with one Weezing and Crazy Blast with a different one.
• ✅ Do make sure it already has two Energy attached before you commit, so an unlucky draw cannot strand you. Sinister Surge is how: charge the Weezing on the Bench, then promote it loaded.

Confusion is much better than it looks. Under current rules, when a Confused Pokémon attacks, its controller flips a coin. On tails the attack does nothing, 3 damage counters (30 damage) go on the Confused Pokémon, and their turn is over. So Pervasive Gas is not "30 damage and an annoyance" — it is 30 damage plus a coin flip where heads means they attack and tails means they take another 30 and waste a turn.

And Confusion only clears when the Pokémon leaves the Active Spot. Against anything with a retreat cost of 2 or 3 that is brutal: a Confused attacker is more or less stuck there unless they spend a Switch on it.

The Weezing / Gengar handoff. These two cards want opposite boards. Weezing does a flat 170 regardless of what the opponent has benched. Gengar scales with their Bench. So: lead with Weezing while your opponent's board is thin, and close with Gengar once it has filled out. That is the whole rhythm of the deck.

Set

ME02: Phantasmal Flames

Number

059/094

Type

Darkness

HP

80

Stage

Basic

Weakness

Grass ×2

Resistance

—

Retreat

1

Attack

Cocky Claw 20+— If you have any Stage 2 Darkness Pokémon on your Bench, this attack does 70 more damage.

Regulation

I

Evolution

sableye — does not evolve. It fights as it is.

General use

Ninety damage for one Energy, as a Basic, worth one Prize. The condition is a board this deck builds anyway: a Stage 2 Darkness Pokémon on your Bench, and Gengar is a Stage 2 Darkness Pokémon that spends most of the game exactly there. Sableye is the attacker for the turns Weezing is charging and the turns Gengar is waiting, which used to be the turns this deck did nothing.

Pairing

• Gengar — the switch that turns Cocky Claw on. Build the Gengar, park it on the Bench, and every Sableye in play hits for 90.
• Toxel — Call for Family is how Sableye reaches the Bench, because Buddy-Buddy Poffin cannot fetch it.
• Toxtricity — Sinister Surge loads a benched Sableye so it attacks the turn it steps forward.
• Gwynn — a spare Sableye in hand late is three cards of draw.

Strategy

Read the condition twice: "on your Bench." A Gengar sitting in the Active Spot turns Cocky Claw off. When Gengar steps forward to close with Mind Jack, know that your Sableyes drop back to 20 until it returns.

Ninety kills most of the single-prize tier on the nose, for one Energy, from a body Fox feels silly spending a big attack on. Against a deck of Pokémon ex the math is humbler, but a one-Prize 90-per-turn body is exactly the trade a two-Prize deck hates making.

The Grass Weakness is irrelevant against Fire, but his Team Rocket's Tarountula and Spidops are Grass. If Spidops is fighting, keep Sableye home.

Set

ME02: Phantasmal Flames

Number

067/094

Type

Darkness

HP

70

Stage

Basic

Weakness

Fighting ×2

Resistance

—

Retreat

1

Attack 1

Call for Family — Search your deck for up to 2 Basic Pokémon and put them onto your Bench. Then, shuffle your deck.

Attack 2

Playful Kick 20

Regulation

I

Evolution

toxel → toxtricity

General use

The third seed, and the deck's best going-second play. Going second you may attack on turn one, and Call for Family is an attack that puts two more Basic Pokémon on your Bench — any Basics, no HP cap. Two extra bodies on turn one beats 10 damage every single time.

Pairing

• Toxtricity — the whole point. Evolve on turn two and the Energy engine starts.
• Sableye — the Basic Poffin cannot fetch, delivered by the attack that can.
• Buddy-Buddy Poffin — at 70 HP, Toxel itself is a legal Poffin target.

Strategy

Going second, lead Toxel. Poffin plus Call for Family on turn one is four Basics from one opening hand; the board is built before Fox finishes his second turn. Going first you cannot attack, so Toxel is just a benched seed like Gastly, and that is fine too.

Toxel is fragile at 70 HP with a Fighting Weakness, and unlike Gastly it matters if it dies, because only two are in the deck. Bench it, use it, evolve it.

Set

ME02: Phantasmal Flames

Number

068/094

Type

Darkness

HP

140

Stage

Stage 1 (from Toxel)

Weakness

Fighting ×2

Resistance

—

Retreat

2

Ability

Sinister Surge — Once during your turn, you may search your deck for a Basic Darkness Energy card and attach it to 1 of your Benched Darkness Pokémon. Then, shuffle your deck. If you attached Energy to a Pokémon in this way, place 2 damage counters on that Pokémon.

Attack

Gentle Slap 100

Regulation

I

Evolution

toxel → toxtricity

General use

The card the first build was missing. The old list attached one Energy per turn, had nothing that accelerated, and ran dry by game three; that was the loss condition more often than any attack was. Sinister Surge attaches a second Basic Darkness every turn, from the deck, to your Bench, for free. Weezings now arrive in the Active Spot already loaded.

The price is two damage counters on whatever it feeds. Read that as rent, not damage: a Weezing at 110 still does everything a Weezing at 130 does, and a Gengar that dies comes back through Infinite Shadow anyway.

Pairing

• Weezing — the main customer. Charge the next Weezing on the Bench while this one fights, and the Two-Turn Fuse never waits on a draw.
• Gengar — Mind Jack costs one Energy, and Surge pays it without spending your hand attachment.
• Basic Darkness Energy — eight in the deck so the search never whiffs. Surge cannot fetch Shadowy Darkness Energy; Basic only.
• Night Stretcher — returns a Basic Darkness to your hand, and Surge puts it back to work from the deck side.

Strategy

Benched Darkness Pokémon only. Surge cannot feed the Active, and it cannot feed itself a target that is fighting. The rhythm is: hand attachment to the front, Surge to the back.

Choose the counter-catcher deliberately. The 2 counters go on whoever received the Energy. Good targets: a Gengar (recycles itself), a Weezing about to trade anyway, a Sableye that expects to die in one hit regardless. Bad target: a Weezing at 130 that you need to survive one more hit — two Surges put it 20 HP inside a range it was outside of.

Gentle Slap is a real attack. When both Weezings are down and Gengar is not ready, 100 flat from a 140 HP body holds the fort.

Set

ME02: Phantasmal Flames

Number

087/094

Type

Trainer — Supporter

Regulation

I

General use

Dawn is the card that makes a Stage 2 deck possible. In one Supporter it hands you an entire Gengar line — Gastly, Haunter, Gengar — from the deck to your hand. Without a card like this, a three-stage evolution line is a fantasy you draw one third of.

Note the wording: it takes one of each stage. You cannot use it to grab three Gastly. That is fine, because one of each is precisely what you want.

Pairing

• Gastly / Haunter / Gengar — the three slots, filled perfectly.
• Rare Candy — Dawn gets you the Gastly and the Gengar; Candy connects them. This is the deck's best two-card sequence.
• Weezing — Weezing is a valid Stage 1 target if you already have a Haunter and would rather have the Weezing.

Strategy

Dawn is at its very best on turn one, and this is worth being deliberate about. Turn one you cannot Rare Candy anyway, so spending your Supporter to load your hand with the entire line costs you nothing and sets up a turn-two Gengar.

Compare that to spending turn one on Lillie's Determination: you draw eight random cards and hope. Dawn guarantees.

The flexible slot is the Stage 1. If your Koffing is already down and you would rather have the Weezing than the Haunter, take Weezing — you can always Rare Candy past Haunter later. Dawn does not care which Stage 1 you name.

Three copies in this build, and it is now the deck's main tutor. Ultra Ball is gone, so Dawn is how a specific Pokémon gets found. One card that hands you a Basic, a Stage 1, and a Stage 2 does Ultra Ball's job better anyway, and it never asks you to discard two cards to do it.

Set

ME01: Mega Evolution

Number

119/132

Type

Trainer — Supporter

Regulation

I

General use

This is your reset button. Bad hand? Shuffle it away and draw six new cards. Because it shuffles rather than discards, nothing is lost — the cards you did not want go back into the deck where you can find them later.

The bonus condition is the interesting part: if you still have all six Prize cards, you draw eight instead of six. That is a straightforward "play me early" bonus, and eight cards is an enormous hand.

Pairing

• Every card in the deck. This is generic draw; its partner is whatever you are missing.
• Dawn — the two most common turn-one plays. Choose between them, never both (one Supporter per turn).
• Night Stretcher — Lillie's shuffles cards back in, so unlike Gwynn it never needs recovery.

Strategy

The eight-card window closes the moment you take a Prize. Once you knock something out, you are at five Prizes and Lillie's is a six-card draw forever after. So there is real tension: the 8-card mode is only available while you are still behind or even.

The clean answer for this deck: if your opening hand is genuinely bad, use Lillie's on turn one for eight cards. If your opening hand is workable, use Dawn instead and save Lillie's for when things go wrong.

Watch what you shuffle away. Lillie's shuffles your entire hand, including that Rare Candy and that Gengar you were saving. Before you play it, ask whether you are trading three good cards for six random ones. If your hand has two cards you actively need, Lillie's is usually wrong.

Set

ME05: Pitch Black

Number

078/084

Type

Trainer — Supporter

Regulation

J

General use

Gwynn turns dead Pokémon into cards. Discard up to two Pokémon from your hand, draw three each — so up to six cards for two cards you did not want anyway.

Every single Pokémon in this deck has no Rule Box, so every one of them is a legal discard. That is not an accident; it is one of the quiet payoffs for building an all-non-ex deck.

Pairing

• Night Stretcher — the other half of the card. Gwynn throws a Gengar away; Night Stretcher takes it back. Together they are "draw 3, no cost."
• Gastly / Koffing — the surplus Basics you inevitably accumulate are Gwynn's best fuel.

Strategy

Gwynn is a late-game card. Early on, every Pokémon in your hand is something you want to play. By the middle of the game you are holding a fourth Gastly and a spare Koffing that will never see the board — that is when Gwynn is a six-card draw with no real cost.

The advanced line is deliberate discarding. If you are holding a Gengar you cannot build this turn, discarding it to Gwynn for three cards and retrieving it later with Night Stretcher is card advantage, not a loss. You paid one Item to convert a stuck card into three fresh ones.

Two copies in this build. Gwynn is conditional — it needs Pokémon in hand to do anything at all — so one copy showed up too rarely to be the draw the deck was counting on. With 21 Pokémon the fuel is plentiful, and with Lillie's down to two, Gwynn is now half of how this deck refills its hand.

Set

ME01: Mega Evolution

Number

114/132

Type

Trainer — Supporter

Regulation

I

General use

This is how you decide who you fight. Your opponent puts their strong Pokémon in front and hides the wounded ones on the Bench; Boss's Orders reaches past the wall and drags out whatever you want to kill.

It is the classic finisher. In the last turns of a game, "I take my sixth Prize" is usually spelled Boss's Orders.

Pairing

• Gengar — pull up something Mind Jack can kill. But read the warning below.
• Weezing — Crazy Blast for 170 into a target of your choosing.
• Risky Ruins — Ruins chips their Basics as they bench them; Boss's Orders collects the ones already softened up.

Strategy

Target by retreat cost, not just by HP. Something at retreat 2 or 3 that you drag up wounded cannot easily be hidden again; they either attack with it and stay in range, or they burn a Switch. Learn the retreat costs on their side the way you already count their Bench.

Then target by Weakness. Every Pokémon in this deck is Weak to Fighting ×2, so any Fighting attacker they play is the card that genuinely threatens you and the one worth spending a Boss's Orders on early. In the other direction, Darkness doubles into Psychic, so a benched Psychic ex is a Boss's Orders away from a one-shot.

Three copies, and still not a card to waste. Boss's Orders is not a draw card and not a setup card. If playing it does not take a Prize this turn or prevent one next turn, play a different Supporter.

Set

SV05: Temporal Forces

Number

144/162

Type

Trainer — Item

Regulation

H

General use

The best Item in the deck, and it is not close. One card, no cost, and two Basic Pokémon go directly onto your Bench — not into your hand, straight into play. It builds your whole board in a single card.

The deck was built around its restriction. Gastly and Toxel are 70 HP and Koffing is 60, all legal targets. Sableye at 80 HP is the one exception — Poffin cannot fetch it. Toxel's Call for Family has no HP cap and covers that gap.

Pairing

• Gastly — 70 HP, right at the cap.
• Koffing — 60 HP, comfortably under.
• Rare Candy — careful: a Basic put down by Poffin this turn cannot be Rare Candied until next turn.
• Shadowy Darkness Energy — Poffin puts two fragile Basics on the Bench; Shadowy makes one of them untouchable.

Strategy

Turn one, play Poffin before anything else. Gastly and Koffing on the Bench turn one means Weezing on turn two and Gengar on turn two or three. Nothing else in the deck accelerates you that much.

The classic mistake is fetching two Gastly. Fetch one Gastly and one Koffing — they are the front halves of your two different attackers, and having both means you are not hostage to one line.

Four copies, always. This is the card that makes the deck function.

Set

ME01: Mega Evolution

Number

125/132

Type

Trainer — Item

Regulation

I

General use

Rare Candy is a time machine. Gastly goes straight to Gengar, and the Haunter step never happens. It turns a three-turn project into a one-turn play.

Two hard restrictions, both easy to forget:

1. Not during your first turn, ever.
2. Not on a Basic that was put into play this turn — whether you played it from hand, or Poffin/Nest Ball put it there.

Pairing

• Gastly → Gengar — the only line it works on in this deck.
• Dawn — Dawn hands you Gastly and Gengar in one card; Candy welds them together.
• Buddy-Buddy Poffin — sets up the Gastly a turn early, so the Candy is legal when you want it.

Strategy

The fastest legal Gengar in this deck is turn two: bench Gastly on turn one, Rare Candy on turn two. Internalize that sequence — it is the deck's best possible opening, and it exists precisely because you benched the Gastly a turn before you needed it.

Do not Rare Candy a Gastly that is Active and about to die. Putting your Gengar onto a Gastly that is one hit from a knockout hands your opponent a Prize and your Stage 2 in the same turn. Candy the Gastly on your Bench, and bring Gengar Active on a turn of your choosing.

Three copies for one Stage 2 line, backed by two Haunters and Dawn. Rare Candy is only good when you also have the Gengar in hand, so it needs to be common enough that the two line up, and no commoner.

Set

SV: Shrouded Fable

Number

061/064

Type

Trainer — Item

Regulation

H

General use

Undo. Anything that ended up in the discard pile — a knocked-out Gengar, a Koffing you fed to Gwynn, a Basic Darkness Energy that went away with a knockout — comes back to your hand.

Because it is an Item and not a Supporter, it costs you nothing but a card slot.

Pairing

• Gwynn — the intended partnership. Gwynn's discard becomes temporary.
• Gengar — the backup plan for a Gengar that got knocked out without Infinite Shadow applying.
• Basic Darkness Energy — Energy recovery matters more than it seems in a 12-Energy deck.

Strategy

Only Basic Energy. Note the exact wording: a Pokémon or a Basic Energy card. Shadowy Darkness Energy is a Special Energy and cannot be retrieved with Night Stretcher. Once one of those is discarded it is gone for good. That is a real reason to be thoughtful about where you attach them.

Energy recovery matters less than it did, and differently. The first build ran dry because knockouts drained twelve Energy with nothing refilling the board; Toxtricity now refills it from the deck every turn. What Night Stretcher does in this build is feed the deck side of that loop — a Basic Darkness pulled back from the discard is a card Sinister Surge can find again.

Four copies in this build, up from two. With only two Shadowy Darkness left, most of your Energy is now Basic and therefore recoverable, and Night Stretcher is what recovers it. It is also the reason Gwynn can discard freely. Still worth holding one back: the turn you most need it is the turn after your Gengar dies.

Set

ME01: Mega Evolution

Number

130/132

Type

Trainer — Item

Regulation

I

General use

Free retreat. Move your Active Pokémon to the Bench and bring up whoever you like, without paying any Energy cost.

In a deck where Weezing has a retreat cost of 2, that is a meaningful amount of Energy saved.

Pairing

• Weezing — retreat 2 is the deck's heaviest, and Switch is how you get out for free.
• Gengar — bring the closer up on exactly the turn you want it.
• Punk Helmet — Punk Helmet only works while its Pokémon is Active, so Switch is how you get the helmeted Pokémon into position.

Strategy

The Confusion catch. Switching a Pokémon out clears its Special Conditions — so if you get Confused (which you cannot be by your own cards, but can be by theirs), Switch cures it. Conversely, remember that your opponent's Switch cures the Confusion you worked for with Pervasive Gas. There are only so many Switches in their deck; make them use one.

Do not Switch mid-combo. The single most expensive misplay available to you is Switching a Weezing out between Pervasive Gas and Crazy Blast. Crazy Blast checks whether this Pokémon used Pervasive Gas last turn, and a Weezing that went to the Bench and came back has still not lost that history — but a different Weezing has no history at all. Keep track of which one is which.

One copy now, because Scramble Switch is the second one and it also rescues the Energy. Between them you get two repositions a game, so save both for a stranded attacker rather than for convenience.

Set

SV08: Surging Sparks

Number

186/191

Type

Trainer — Item, ACE SPEC

Regulation

H

General use

A Switch that carries the Energy with it. Move your Active to the Bench, bring up whoever you like, and take any amount of Energy off the retreating Pokémon and put it on the new one. It is an Item, so it costs you nothing but the card.

This is the deck's one ACE SPEC, and you may play exactly one ACE SPEC card of any kind in a deck.

Pairing

• Weezing — a Weezing that has finished its fuse is holding two Energy and about to be knocked out. This is how those two Energy survive.
• Toxtricity — Sinister Surge can only feed the Bench, so Energy piles up in the back. Scramble Switch is how it reaches the front.
• Gengar — brings the closer up already powered, using Energy that was going to be discarded anyway.
• Boss's Orders — an Item, so both happen on the same turn.

Strategy

This is the answer to the deck's real Energy problem. Sinister Surge attaches only to Benched Pokémon, and your hand gives one attachment a turn to the front. So the Active is always the Pokémon that is hardest to fuel, and any Energy on a Pokémon that dies goes to the discard with it. Scramble Switch fixes both halves at once: it moves stranded Energy forward, and it rescues Energy from a body that is about to be knocked out.

Time it one turn early. The instinct is to save it until something is about to die. The better habit is to use it the turn before, when you can still choose which attacker comes up. A Weezing at 30 HP is a Weezing your opponent has already decided to kill.

It is not a second Switch. There is one copy and no replacing it, so a plain retreat or the Switch should cover ordinary repositioning. Spend this one only when the Energy transfer is the point.

Set

ME05: Pitch Black

Number

075/084

Type

Trainer — Item

Regulation

J

General use

Read it carefully: both Active non-Darkness Pokémon. It is written as a symmetrical card, and it is completely one-sided in your favour — because every Pokémon in this deck is Darkness, yours can never be affected.

Almost everything Fox plays is Colorless, Fire, Psychic, Grass, or Water. All of it gets Confused, for free, as an Item, without using your attack.

The exception is his Team Rocket's deck, which is half Darkness. Crobat ex, Weezing, Golbat, Zubat, and Koffing all share your immunity and Dark Bell simply does nothing to them.

Pairing

• Weezing — the crucial one. Dark Bell applies Confusion so Crazy Blast does not have to.
• Gengar — Gengar has no way to Confuse anything on its own; Dark Bell gives it one.
• Risky Ruins — the other "hurts only non-Darkness" card. Same design trick, same payoff.

Strategy

This is the card that unlocks the deck's best turn. Normally Weezing's combo alternates: Confuse, then hit hard, then Confuse again, then hit hard. Dark Bell breaks the alternation. You Dark Bell for the Confusion and then attack with Crazy Blast for 170 on the same turn — Confusion and maximum damage, together.

Confusion is worth more than it looks. On tails: the attack does nothing, 30 damage goes onto the Confused Pokémon, and the turn ends. So Dark Bell is a coin flip that says "your opponent might just skip this turn and take 30." And Confusion clears only when the Pokémon leaves the Active Spot — against anything at retreat 2 or 3, that is a genuine cage.

Save them. Two copies. The right moment is when their best attacker is Active and fully powered up, not on a turn-one Basic.

Set

ME02: Phantasmal Flames

Number

092/094

Type

Trainer — Pokémon Tool

Regulation

I

General use

Spiky armour. Attach it to a Darkness Pokémon, and any opponent who attacks that Pokémon while it is Active takes 40 damage back — even if the attack knocks your Pokémon out.

It is a Pokémon Tool, so it stays attached and keeps working every turn. One Tool per Pokémon.

Pairing

• Weezing — the ideal holder. Weezing wants to sit Active for two turns anyway, so it will get attacked.
• Gengar — also fine, though the Tool is discarded by Infinite Shadow along with everything else attached.
• Switch — the Tool does nothing on the Bench, so Switch is how you get it where it matters.

Strategy

It only works in the Active Spot. A Punk Helmet on a Benched Pokémon is a dead card. Attach it to whoever is about to fight, or to whoever you are about to bring up.

The math is what makes it good. 40 damage is more than half of most Basics, and it stacks turn over turn. Two attacks into a helmeted Weezing is 80 free damage on whatever hit it, and 80 is usually the difference between a target being a two-shot and a one-shot.

That is the real combo. Mind Jack stops at 160 and their best attacker is usually above it. Punk Helmet is the card that closes the gap: let them chew through a helmeted Weezing, collect 40 or 80 for free, and then the target is inside range.

Two copies in this build. A single Tool turns up in about one game in eight, which is not often enough for a card whose whole job is making your opponent hesitate before attacking. At two it shows up in roughly a quarter of openings and the threat becomes real.

Set

ME01: Mega Evolution

Number

127/132

Type

Trainer — Stadium

Regulation

I

General use

A Stadium stays in play for both players until someone replaces it. This one taxes every Basic Pokémon your opponent benches — 20 damage, every time — and because all of your Pokémon are Darkness, it never touches you.

It is a slow, grinding card. It does nothing dramatic on any single turn and quietly wins games.

Pairing

• Gengar — the vice grip. Gengar punishes a wide Bench; Risky Ruins punishes building a wide Bench. Your opponent cannot avoid both.
• Dark Bell — same "non-Darkness only" trick.
• Boss's Orders — collects the Pokémon that Ruins already softened.

Strategy

It taxes the thing every deck has to do. Any deck built on evolution lines needs several Basics down early, and each one costs 20 HP under Risky Ruins. Over a game that is 60 to 100 free damage.

Two details make it better than it reads. The counters stay on the card when it evolves, so a 20 you charged a Basic is still there on the Stage 2 later. And because these are damage counters rather than attack damage, they go straight through Tera and every other "prevent all damage from attacks" effect on his Bench.

The Stadium war. His Team Rocket's deck runs three Team Rocket's Factory. Only one Stadium can be in play at a time, and playing a new one discards the old, which is why you run two Risky Ruins.

You will lose the last placement to three copies, and that is fine. Ruins only triggers when a Basic is benched, which is almost entirely a turn one to four event. He needs his Stadium up all game; you only need yours up early.

Set

ME05: Pitch Black

Number

083/084

Type

Energy — Special

Regulation

J

General use

Two cards in one. It is a Darkness Energy — it pays for Mind Jack, Pervasive Gas, everything — and while the Pokémon holding it sits on your Bench, that Pokémon takes zero damage from attacks. Not reduced. Zero.

Because it counts as Energy, attaching it is never a wasted turn. You get protection now and firepower later.

Pairing

• Gengar — the headline pairing. Gengar spends two or three turns growing up on the Bench, which is exactly when it is most vulnerable.
• Gastly — protect the Gastly before it becomes Gengar, and the Energy is already there when it evolves.
• Weezing — a spare Weezing on the Bench is your backup plan; make it untouchable.
• Buddy-Buddy Poffin — Poffin puts two fragile Basics down; Shadowy shields one of them immediately.

Strategy

Attach it to your Bench, not your Active. This is the whole trick and it is worth saying plainly: the protection only applies while the Pokémon is on your Bench. The moment it becomes Active, the shield is off and it is just a Darkness Energy. That is fine — it still pays for attacks — but it means you attach it early, to something in the back, and it protects that thing right up until the turn it steps forward to fight.

It stops damage from attacks only. It does not stop damage counters placed by card effects, and it does not stop Special Conditions. Against most of what Fox plays, attacks are essentially the whole threat, so it is close to absolute.

Two, down from four. Four is the legal cap, because the four-copy limit applies to Special Energy and only Basic Energy is exempt. But two of the four became Basic Darkness on purpose: Special Energy cannot be recovered, and Sinister Surge cannot find it either, so every Shadowy in the deck is one fewer card the engine can search for. Two is enough to protect the Gastly that becomes your first Gengar, which is the only job that ever really mattered.

Set

MEE: Mega Evolution Energies (or any print 2007 or later)

Number

007

Type

Energy — Basic

Regulation

— (Basic Energy never rotates)

General use

The fuel. Every attack in this deck costs Darkness Energy, and every one of these pays for it. One attachment per turn, no exceptions.

Basic Energy is exempt from the four-copy rule — you may run as many as you want.

Pairing

• Everything. Gengar needs one. Weezing needs two.
• Night Stretcher — Basic Energy can be retrieved from the discard, unlike Shadowy.

Strategy

Ten Energy total, and the deck attaches twice a turn. Your hand attachment is no longer the speed limit. Toxtricity's Sinister Surge attaches a second Basic Darkness from the deck to your Bench every turn, free.

Eight Basics is a floor, not a target. Sinister Surge searches the deck, and Night Stretcher only returns Energy to your hand, so nothing ever refills what Surge is hunting for. Cut much below eight and the Ability starts whiffing around turn six, which is exactly when you need it most.

The practical consequence: the hand attachment goes to the front, Surge feeds the back. The Weezing that is fighting gets your attachment; the Weezing, Sableye, or Gengar waiting behind it gets the Surge. Nobody arrives in the Active Spot empty anymore.

Attach ahead of the play. Put Energy on Benched Pokémon before you need them Active. A Weezing that comes up with two Energy already attached can Crazy Blast the turn after it arrives; one that comes up empty is two turns from doing anything.