Ceruledge ex — A Great New Deck for Beginners and Veterans

Hello everyone! We’re at a time of a lot of new things. We have a new set release with Surging Sparks, and with it, a slightly newer format.

And, of course, Pokemon is seeing a large influx of folks thanks to its newest game, Pokemon TCG Pocket. The simplified take on the TCG seems to have been a hit on the initial release, with over ten million downloads in just the first day. While the numbers may not be quite as insanely high as they were for the Pokemon GO release, the fact that Pokemon Pocket more directly ties to the TCG may mean that we see a similar influx of players as we did following 2016. It isn’t hard to imagine Pocket players trying out the game for the first time, enjoying it, and wanting to subsequently see what the main Pokemon Trading Card Game is all about — and at these numbers, even a small fraction of players making that jump would mean a lot more players at our local leagues. I’ve personally been enjoying Pokemon Pocket for its speed and simplicity — shout out to all of my fellow Wigglytuff ex players — but I certainly hope that many players do find their way to the TCG to try out its more complex gameplay.

One of the most common questions that we would get at our Pokemon League is “What’s a good deck for a new player?” I imagine this has to be a rather common question universally — after all, be they younger division players or older folks jumping into the Pokemon TCG for the first time, you do need some special consideration. You need a deck that isn’t overly complex, lest they get overwhelmed right off the bat, but you do want to have a deck that is capable of competing with the other good decks in the format. A problem with many of the preconstructed decks such as Theme Decks or even the Battle Decks is that they fail at that second part, and while Pokemon has certainly improved quite a bit in that regard, you still aren’t going to have a successful time at a tournament playing with one of those out-of-the-box options.

For any player, continually losing is bad for morale, and it’s easy enough to just decide to do something else, as opposed to continuing to play and lose every week. For those who do decide to persevere through, that’s when the real question comes up: “What’s a good competitive deck for a new player?” With the potential influx of a bunch of first-time Pokemon TCG competitors, having an answer to that question is as important as ever.

The deck I’ll be writing about in this article, Ceruledge ex, is one of the best answers to that question I’ve seen yet. The deck is rather straightforward in its gameplay, and further plays in such a way that helps to develop good foundational skills for playing the Pokemon TCG, such as card sequencing and resource management. It is very important to note though, just because I say that Ceruledge ex is a good deck for beginners, does not mean that it isn’t a strong deck. This is not a Theme Deck-tier archetype; on the contrary, despite its simpleness, Ceruledge ex is capable of competing with the top decks in the meta. It will beat opponents. If you aren’t careful, it’ll beat you as well. So, regardless of your skill level, Ceruledge ex is one deck that you’ll want to keep on your radar, and it may be worth picking up and using yourself.

I will have two lists in this article. The first will be my list for newer players, a simplified version that can introduce them to this game and new concepts while still being competitive right off the bat. The second list is a more teched out list, suitable for players who have a more solidified grasp of the game. If you yourself are newer, I recommend trying out the simpler version first, then once you get the hang of it, start swapping over to the more complex version, in piecemeal fashion if you don’t feel comfortable (or are missing the cards) to try out all the new stuff all at once.

To start things off, let me share the simpler decklist here, and then go over how the Ceruledge ex deck works. Here’s the list:

This concludes the public portion of this article.

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