5 best Pokemon TCG decks from 2024 World Championships

With the 2024 Pokemon World Championships coming to a close, many fans of the Pocket Monster TCG are interested in knowing how the best players at the event build their decks. This information is readily available for interested players who want to use it in their own games. Many of the decks used in the tournament follow a similar format, usually playing around the same ex cards.

Rather than focusing on the decks used by the top players, this article centers around the five archetypes present during the finals of the 2024 Pokemon World Championships.

Note: This list is subjective and solely reflects the opinions of the writer

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5 of the best Pokemon TCG decks used during the 2024 World Championships

1) Raging Bolt ex

Raging Bolt decks rely on recycling energy to keep firing off heavy damage (Image via Game Freak)

This Pokemon TCG structure type revolves around using Raging Bolt ex to do a majority of the damage. The main strategy of this deck is to constantly recycle energy cards to put on Raging Bolt, allowing it to fire off heavy damage with Bellowing Roar.

This was done with a variety of supporting Pokemon with abilities that put energy cards into the discard pile. These energies could then be recovered with Professor Sada's Vitality, a supporter card that allows the user to place a basic energy from the discard pile on an ancient critter, with the two in the deck being Sandy Shocks and Raging Bolt. The supporter then allows the player to draw three cards.

2) Regidraco VSTAR

Regidraco was the most commonly-used deck architype during the Pokemon TCG World Championships for 2024 (Image via The Pokemon Company)

Regidraco VSTAR decks use the namesake card for the unique strategy that comes with its only attack, Apex Dragon. This move costs two grass energies and one fire energy. It allows Regidraco to use an attack from another Dragon-type Pokemon in the discard pile.

The bread-and-butter of this deck is the use of Apex Dragon to copy Kyurem's Trifrost attack, which discards all energy cards attached to the user but deals 110 damage to three of the opponent's critters. This deck is built around Dragon-type Pokemon and damaging the opponent's bench.

3) Miraidon ex

Miraidon decks revolve around stacking the bench with powerful Electric-types (Image via Game Freak)

This deck uses Miraidon's Tandem Unit ability to its maximum potential. Once per turn, Miraidon can activate Tandem Unit to add two basic Electric-type Pokemon to the bench. This synergizes well with other cards in the deck like Raikou V, which allows the player to draw an extra card if it is in the active spot.

This deck relies on heavy damage from picks like Bllodmon Ursaluna and Iron Hands, with the latter being able to take an extra Prize Card if it defeats an opponent with its Amp You Very Much attack. The deck also utilizes various supporters that allow free switches like Rescue Board.

4) Roaring Moon ex

This Roaring Moon deck works by snowballing opponents with instant K.O.s (Image via Game Freak)

Roaring Moon ex was the base for a deck that placed second in the Pokemon TCG World Championships.

This deck stacks four Roaring Moon ex cards, with them being the damage dealers. This is thanks to the card's incredibly good Frenzied Gouging attack, which only costs two dark energies and a colorless. The move knocks out the opponent's active card, with the downside of dealing 200 damage to Roaring Moon.

The attack can be used twice in succession if the opponent has yet to establish a creature on the bench that can deal the last 30 damage to knock out Roaring Moon. If this move is used on the right target, it can be devastating for opponents, having the potential to end games incredibly fast with good draws.

5) Iron Thorns ex

The World Champion's Iron Thorns deck is one of the most unique decks of 2024 (Image via Game Freak)

This new Iron Thorns deck was used by the new World Champion of the Pokemon TCG. It works as a perfect counter to most of the metagame.

Iron Thorns' Initialization disables the abilities of all creatures with a rule box, except those distinctly marked as Future cards. This includes ex, VMAX, and VSTAR cards.

With most of the meta decks using Ancient Pokemon, and the top Miraidon deck using a version of the creature without the Future tag, Iron Thorns can shut down a lot of top cards. It does have the downside of only having four Iron Thorns and no other Pokemon, but this allows the rest of the deck to be occupied by energy cards and helpful support.

For more information on the Pokemon World Championships, check out our other articles:

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Edited by Rachel Syiemlieh