Alakazam deck: the core, the flex slots, and what beats it

What Alakazam looks like when you open the box

Across the 6 lists we counted, this deck runs 19 to 25 Pokémon, 26 to 34 Trainers and 6 to 9 Energy. Its attacks are paid for in Psychic.

On results pages and on stream you will see it written « alakazam-meg ». Every card named in that label turns up in the tables below, which is what makes it a fair name for the deck.

The bit they tack on the end, « MEG », is a set code: Mega Evolution. They spell it out because several cards share that name, and this deck plays that particular printing.

Look at the Energy: 6 to 9 out of 60, when half the 91 decks we track run 10 or more. This one is lean. It lives on cheap attacks and leans on Trainers to find the right Energy at the right moment rather than stockpiling it.

It takes a while to set up. Alakazam is a Stage 2 Pokémon: you put down the baby, you evolve it, and then you evolve it again. Three cards stacked before anything attacks. That is what the hardest-hitting decks cost you, and it is also where they crack — a fast opponent can bury you before the line is standing.

On the Trainer side: 8 to 11 Supporters, 14 to 19 Items, 0 to 3 Tools and 1 to 3 Stadiums, out of 26 to 34 — the median across the 91 decks we track being 31. Items dominate, so expect long turns where you chain five or six before you swing. And it runs up to 3 Stadiums, which is no accident: it plans on bumping the one across the table.

What those four families of Trainer actually do, and why the Energy count says so much: how to read a deck list.

What the card in this deck's name actually does

Alakazam gives this deck its name. Here is what is written on it.

Alakazam is in all 6 lists, 3 copies of it. Its Ability is called Psychic Draw, and here is what is printed on it, word for word: « Once during your turn, when you play this Pokémon from your hand to evolve 1 of your Pokémon, you may use this Ability. Draw 3 cards. » Its attack Powerful Hand costs 1 Energy (Psychic) and has no damage number printed next to it. That is why you will not find it in the attacker table lower down, which sorts by printed damage. Everything it does lives in its text: « Place 2 damage counters on your opponent's Active Pokémon for each card in your hand. » Do the arithmetic with us, it is worth it. A damage counter is 10 damage. 2 counters per card means 20 damage for every card you are holding when you swing. Five cards in hand, 100. Eight cards in hand, 160. In this deck your hand is your damage gauge.

How Alakazam actually wins

Alakazam attacks with Powerful Hand, and it costs 1 Energy (Psychic). It has 140 HP to absorb the answer. Its damage box is empty, so the table below, which sorts by printed damage, cannot rank it: its printed text above is where the counting happens.

One Energy to attack is enormous, and it means the attack cost will never be what slows you down. What slows you down here is getting Alakazam up. Once the line is standing you swing every turn with nothing to recharge, and you can start again immediately when your attacker falls.

Good news on mobility: Alakazam retreats for 1 Energy. You can pull it out of the Active spot without throwing away your turn, and that matters enormously when your opponent lands something nasty on it.

Not one ex Pokémon in the core, and only 18 of the 91 decks we track are in that position. It is a hidden advantage: every knockout your opponent takes is worth a single Prize, so they need six, where three would do against a deck stuffed with ex cards.

The attackers in the deck's core, with their best attack, its cost and their Weakness

Pokémon	HP	Attack	Damage	Cost	Weakness	Retreat
AlakazamStage 2	140	Powerful HandPlace 2 damage counters on your opponent's Active Pokémon for each card in your hand.	—	Psychic	Darkness ×2	1
KadabraStage 1	80	Super Psy Bolt	30	Psychic	Darkness ×2	1
AbraBasic	50	Teleportation Attack	10	Psychic	Darkness ×2	1

The core: the 10 cards every list runs

These 10 cards appear in all 6 lists, without a single exception. That is 29 of the 60 slots. The other 31 are decided player by player.

Look at how those 29 slots break down: 17 Trainers, 11 Pokémon, 1 Energy. Trainers outweigh everything else put together, which is the mark of a deck that goes and fetches its cards rather than waiting to draw them.

9 of those 10 cards do not sit at the same count from list to list: Abra (2 to 4), Kadabra (3 to 4) and Buddy-Buddy Poffin (3 to 4), plus 6 more. Everybody runs them, the last copy is arguable.

What "3 to 4" means in the copies column, what the "TWM 130" code under each name is for, and why we count dozens of lists instead of one: how to read a deck list.

The cards present in every list counted, with the number of copies

Copies	Card	Printing	Kind	Rotation
2–4	Abra	MEG 54	Pokémon	stays
3–4	Kadabra	MEG 55	Pokémon	stays
3	Alakazam	MEG 56	Pokémon	stays
3–4	Buddy-Buddy Poffin	TEF 144	Trainer	leaves
3–4	Rare Candy	MEG 125	Trainer	stays
2–3	Hilda	WHT 84	Trainer	stays
1–3	Battle Cage	PFL 85	Trainer	stays
2–3	Boss's Orders	MEG 114	Trainer	stays
1–2	Night Stretcher	ASC 196	Trainer	leaves
1–2	Psychic Energy	MEE 5	Energy	stays

The 56 cards that change from list to list

56 cards fight over the 31 slots that are left: 1 above three lists in four, 25 below one in four, and the percentage on each row says how many players took it.

The most agreed on first: Telepathic Psychic Energy at 83 %. Add those to the core and you have the common build.

The dividing line runs through Genesect, at 50 %: 3 of 6 players took it, 3 put something else there. Read its text before you decide. Right at the bottom, Blaziken ex at 17 % and Chimchar at 17 %: personal ideas, only worth copying if you know why.

Why a card at 45 % is not a bad card, and what order to buy all this in: how to read a deck list.

The cards some lists run and others don't, most common first

Lists running it	Card	Copies	Printing	Kind
83 %5/6	Telepathic Psychic Energy	1–4	POR 88	Energy
67 %4/6	Pikipek	2	PBL 66	Pokémon
67 %4/6	Toucannon	2	PBL 68	Pokémon
67 %4/6	Fezandipiti ex	1	ASC 142	Pokémon
67 %4/6	Shaymin	1	DRI 10	Pokémon
67 %4/6	Trumbeak	1	PBL 67	Pokémon
67 %4/6	Lillie's Determination	2–4	MEG 119	Trainer
67 %4/6	Poké Pad	3–4	POR 81	Trainer
67 %4/6	Dawn	1–4	PFL 87	Trainer
67 %4/6	Enriching Energy	1	SSP 191	Energy
50 %3/6	Genesect	1	SFA 40	Pokémon
50 %3/6	Ultra Ball	1–4	MEG 131	Trainer
50 %3/6	Enhanced Hammer	1–2	TWM 148	Trainer
50 %3/6	Air Balloon	1–2	ASC 181	Trainer
50 %3/6	Lana's Aid	1	TWM 155	Trainer
50 %3/6	Sacred Ash	1	DRI 168	Trainer
50 %3/6	Special Red Card	1	CRI 82	Trainer
33 %2/6	Swinub	4	JTG 77	Pokémon
33 %2/6	Mamoswine ex	3	JTG 79	Pokémon
33 %2/6	Abra	1	TWM 80	Pokémon
33 %2/6	Dudunsparce	1	TEF 129	Pokémon
33 %2/6	Klinklang	1	SCR 101	Pokémon
33 %2/6	Psyduck	1	ASC 39	Pokémon
33 %2/6	Crushing Hammer	1–2	POR 71	Trainer
33 %2/6	Lucky Helmet	2	TWM 158	Trainer
33 %2/6	Crispin	1	SCR 133	Trainer
33 %2/6	Switch	1	MEG 130	Trainer
33 %2/6	Wondrous Patch	1	PFL 94	Trainer
33 %2/6	Fighting Energy	3–5	MEE 6	Energy
33 %2/6	Rocky Fighting Energy	1–2	POR 87	Energy
33 %2/6	Fire Energy	1	MEE 2	Energy
17 %1/6	Blaziken ex	2	JTG 24	Pokémon
17 %1/6	Chimchar	2	TWM 31	Pokémon
17 %1/6	Dunsparce	2	TEF 128	Pokémon
17 %1/6	Dunsparce	2	JTG 120	Pokémon
17 %1/6	Infernape	2	TWM 33	Pokémon
17 %1/6	Piloswine	2	PFL 24	Pokémon
17 %1/6	Piloswine	2	JTG 78	Pokémon
17 %1/6	Togekiss	2	SSP 72	Pokémon
17 %1/6	Togepi	2	SSP 70	Pokémon
17 %1/6	Torchic	2	DRI 40	Pokémon
17 %1/6	Combusken	1	DRI 41	Pokémon
17 %1/6	Dedenne	1	SSP 87	Pokémon
17 %1/6	Elgyem	1	BLK 40	Pokémon
17 %1/6	Monferno	1	TWM 32	Pokémon
17 %1/6	Patrat	1	CRI 70	Pokémon
17 %1/6	Gwynn	2	PBL 78	Trainer
17 %1/6	Black Belt's Training	1	JTG 143	Trainer
17 %1/6	Energy Retrieval	1	SVI 171	Trainer
17 %1/6	Kieran	1	TWM 154	Trainer
17 %1/6	Nighttime Mine	1	ASC 197	Trainer
17 %1/6	Secret Box	1	TWM 163	Trainer
17 %1/6	Tool Scrapper	1	ASC 212	Trainer
17 %1/6	Unfair Stamp	1	TWM 165	Trainer
17 %1/6	Ignition Energy	2	WHT 86	Energy
17 %1/6	Legacy Energy	1	TWM 167	Energy

What Alakazam costs to build, and how long it will last

You need 66 different cards to cover every version of this deck, 10 of which nobody argues about. We do not have card prices, so we are not going to put a number on it.

Nothing here really weighs on the bill. There is no ex Pokémon in this core at all, which is very good news for your wallet, because the expensive cards in a deck are almost always the ex ones. All 6 lists bring an ACE SPEC, and that is where they part ways: 4 took Enriching Energy, 1 took Legacy Energy and 1 took Secret Box. The flex table shows you all 4. You are allowed ONE ACE SPEC card in your whole deck, so a single copy covers it whatever it costs. New to this deck? Take Enriching Energy and watch what the others do with theirs before you switch.

Then there is time. 2 of the 10 core cards carry the letter H, the one that goes at the next rotation: Buddy-Buddy Poffin and Night Stretcher. The core table marks each of them. The date belongs to the publisher, and we do not have it.

What Alakazam struggles against

The attackers in this deck are Weak to Darkness, so they take DOUBLE damage from that type. 13 of the 91 decks we track attack in exactly that type.

Concretely, here is what is waiting for you: N's Zoroark ex, Marnie's Grimmsnarl ex / Froslass and Team Rocket's Honchkrow, plus 10 more decks. The table below takes them one at a time, and those are the lists you practise against first before an event.

Do not stop at this table, though. This deck spends three cards getting Alakazam standing, and the deck that hurts you most this season may simply be the one that swings before your line is up, without ever touching your Weakness.

Going the other way, your attackers are Psychic, and 6 of the decks we track have an attacker Weak to one of those: Mega Lucario ex, Mega Lucario ex / Hariyama and Greninja ex, among others. That is you doubling, for once. Second half of the table.

When an attack does nothing at all

There are two ways to hurt the Pokémon across the table, and the game does not treat them the same. An attack with a number printed next to it deals damage. An attack with no number, whose text just says "place 2 damage counters", does what the rules call an effect. That matters, because a handful of Pokémon have an Ability that prevents the effects of your opponent's attacks, and their card spells it out in brackets: damage is not an effect.

The other way round, this deck attacks with counters too: Alakazam with Powerful Hand. Those attacks have no damage number printed next to them at all. In front of a Pokémon that shuts off effects, they place nothing. Zero.

Of the decks we track, 5 play a Pokémon like that, and they are in the table below. The day you see one come across the table, stop counting on your counters. You need an attack with a real number written on it. You have one: Powerful Hand, on Alakazam, for —.

Questions people ask

What is the Alakazam deck list?

There isn't one, and that is the whole point. Across 6 tournament lists harvested on 16 August 2026, 10 cards turn up in every single one — 29 slots out of 60. The remaining 31 change from player to player, with 56 different cards competing for them. Both tables are above.

How many lists is this counted on, and where do they come from?

6 lists, played across 6 different tournaments, harvested on 16 August 2026 from play.limitlesstcg.com. All 6 were read card by card, and every card recognised.

Where do I start if I want to build Alakazam?

With the whole core: 10 cards, 29 slots. Inside it, buy the 17 Trainer slots and the 1 Energy first — they are cheap and they carry over into your next deck. Leave the 11 Pokémon slots for last. Only then work down the flex table and add the cards the most lists agree on, starting with Telepathic Psychic Energy at 83 %.

What beats Alakazam?

Its attackers are Weak to Darkness, so they take double damage from an attacker of that type. 13 of the 91 decks we track play an attacker of that type: N's Zoroark ex, Marnie's Grimmsnarl ex / Froslass, Team Rocket's Honchkrow and Mega Absol ex, among others.

Will Alakazam survive the next rotation?

Not intact: 2 core cards out of 10 carry the letter H, starting with Buddy-Buddy Poffin and Night Stretcher.

Are a lot of people playing Alakazam?

We have read 6 lists of it, which puts it 90th of the 91 decks we track by lists read. The platform those tournaments run on counts 6 entries for it, 0.02 % of the field, across all its players. That figure is theirs.

These pages are about the same corner of the game. If you came away from this one still wondering about something, start with one of them.