Crustle deck: the core, the flex slots, and what beats it
We took 20 lists of this deck and counted every card in every one of them. They come from 18 different tournaments, built by 20 people who never talked to each other. What all of them run is the core of the deck: 10 cards, 30 slots out of 60. The rest — 51 cards fighting over what is left — is where players disagree, and that is usually where a game is won.
- 10 cards show up in all 20 lists we counted. No exceptions. That is 30 of your 60 slots. If you are building this deck, start there — nobody argues about those.
- Your big card is Crustle, 150 HP. Superb Scissors hits for 120, and it costs you 3 Energy (Grass, Colorless and Colorless).
- 51 cards change from list to list. That is exactly where a good player tunes the deck for what they expect to face, and the table below tells you how many lists run each one.
- This deck has a Weakness printed right on its cards: Fire. 7 of the decks we track attack in exactly that type. They are listed at the bottom, with the card that does the damage.
What this deck looks like when you open the box
Across the 20 lists we counted, this deck runs 9 to 15 Pokémon, 30 to 39 Trainers and 11 to 17 Energy. Its attacks are paid for in Grass.
Limitless files it under « crustle-dri », and that is the label you will see on results pages and on stream. Every card named in it turns up in the core below, which is what makes it a fair name for the deck.
The bit they tack on the end, « DRI », is a set code: Destined Rivals. They spell it out because several cards share that name, and this deck plays that particular printing.
Look at the Energy count first: 11 to 17 out of 60. No single number tells you more about how a deck breathes. A lot of Energy means it wants to load up one big Pokémon and swing hard. Very little means it lives on cheap attacks and on Trainers to dig out whatever it is missing.
It sets up fast. Crustle is a Stage 1 Pokémon: a Basic, one evolution on top, and you are attacking. Two cards instead of three. You lose fewer turns building, and you rebuild much more easily when an early knockout lands on you.
On the Trainer side: 15 to 20 Supporters, 10 to 17 Items, 1 to 4 Tools and 0 to 3 Stadiums. Worth saying out loud, because everyone forgets it once a tournament: you only get ONE Supporter a turn, while you can chain as many Items as you like. So a deck full of Items takes longer, louder turns than a deck full of Supporters.
What fills the 60 slots
- Pokémon
- 9–15
- Trainers
- 30–39
- Energy
- 11–17
- Supporters
- 15–20
- Items
- 10–17
- Tools
- 1–4
- Stadiums
- 0–3
A range means the lists disagree with each other.
How it actually wins
Crustle attacks with Superb Scissors for 120, and it costs 3 Energy (Grass, Colorless and Colorless). It has 150 HP to absorb the answer. Everything else in the list is built around getting that card online.
Do the arithmetic with us, because it decides your first few turns. You attach one Energy a turn by hand. Crustle wants 3. With no help, that means you swing on turn 3 at the earliest. Every card in this deck that accelerates Energy or fetches a Pokémon buys back a turn on that count, and at this level a turn is a game.
Here is the detail that quietly loses games: Crustle has a Retreat Cost of 3. Once it is in the Active spot you are not getting it back to the Bench cheaply. Think before you send it up.
Not one ex Pokémon in the core. That is unusual, and it is a hidden advantage: every time your opponent knocks something of yours out, they take a single Prize card. Six knockouts to beat you, where a deck stuffed with ex cards can be beaten in three.
| Pokémon | HP | Attack | Damage | Cost | Weakness | Retreat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CrustleStage 1 | 150 | Superb Scissors | 120 | Grass + Colorless + Colorless | Fire ×2 | 3 |
The core: the 10 cards every list runs
These 10 cards appear in all 20 lists, without a single exception. That is 30 of the 60 slots. The other 30 are decided player by player.
This is the most useful table on the page, and nobody publishes it. Everywhere else you get one list, from one player, who won one tournament. Fine — but you have no way of telling which parts of it were the deck and which parts were that person's idea on the day. Counting 20 lists settles the question by itself: what 20 people put in their deck without talking to each other IS the deck.
A word on the count column. We give you the number that comes up most often, and where the lists disagree we give you the range instead. A card sitting at "3 to 4" is one everybody plays but whose fourth copy is up for debate. That is exactly the kind of slot you reclaim when you want to fit an idea of your own.
The code next to the name — "TWM 130" and the like — is the set and the collector number, printed at the bottom of the card. We show you the printing the lists use most often, because two cards can share a name and have completely different attacks. Check that number before you buy anything.
| Copies | Card | Printing | Kind | Rotation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2–3 | Crustle | DRI 12 | Pokémon | stays |
| 2–4 | Dwebble | DRI 11 | Pokémon | stays |
| 3–4 | Boss's Orders | MEG 114 | Trainer | stays |
| 4 | Jumbo Ice Cream | PFL 91 | Trainer | stays |
| 3–4 | Lillie's Determination | MEG 119 | Trainer | stays |
| 3–4 | Team Rocket's Petrel | DRI 176 | Trainer | stays |
| 2–4 | Pokégear 3.0 | SVI 186 | Trainer | stays |
| 1–3 | Buddy-Buddy Poffin | TEF 144 | Trainer | leaves |
| 1–3 | Hilda | WHT 84 | Trainer | stays |
| 1 | Hero's Cape | TEF 152 | Trainer | leaves |
What changes from one list to the next
51 cards show up in some lists and not in others. The percentage tells you how many lists run each one: at 50%, half the players want it and the other half deliberately chose something else.
Do not read this table as a ranking from best to worst. A card sitting at 80% is one four players in five find useful and the fifth cut on purpose, usually because they were expecting a different field. That disagreement is worth something on its own.
Here is how to use it when you build. Take the whole core first, no arguing. Then walk down this list and stop on every card you do not understand: read its text, work out what it is answering. A card you cannot explain is a card you will misplay, even if the champion had it in their list.
And if this is your first time with the deck, build the boring version — the full core plus the most common cards from here. Understand the deck before you start tinkering with it. That order is the only one that works.
| Lists running it | Card | Copies | Printing | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 95 %19/20 | Mega Kangaskhan ex | 1–4 | MEG 104 | Pokémon |
| 95 %19/20 | Growing Grass Energy | 3–4 | POR 86 | Energy |
| 95 %19/20 | Mist Energy | 3–4 | TEF 161 | Energy |
| 95 %19/20 | Spiky Energy | 2–4 | JTG 159 | Energy |
| 90 %18/20 | Eri | 1–2 | TEF 146 | Trainer |
| 90 %18/20 | Team Rocket's Factory | 1–2 | DRI 173 | Trainer |
| 85 %17/20 | Switch | 1–2 | MEG 130 | Trainer |
| 85 %17/20 | Xerosic's Machinations | 1 | SFA 64 | Trainer |
| 75 %15/20 | Bianca's Devotion | 1 | TEF 142 | Trainer |
| 75 %15/20 | Ultra Ball | 1 | MEG 131 | Trainer |
| 60 %12/20 | Pokémon Center Lady | 1 | MEG 123 | Trainer |
| 50 %10/20 | Community Center | 1 | TWM 146 | Trainer |
| 50 %10/20 | Handheld Fan | 1–2 | TWM 150 | Trainer |
| 50 %10/20 | Grass Energy | 1–2 | MEE 1 | Energy |
| 40 %8/20 | Manectric | 1–2 | PBL 24 | Pokémon |
| 40 %8/20 | Mega Manectric ex | 1 | MEG 50 | Pokémon |
| 40 %8/20 | Hand Trimmer | 1 | TEF 150 | Trainer |
| 40 %8/20 | Lisia's Appeal | 1 | SSP 179 | Trainer |
| 40 %8/20 | Voltaic Lightning Energy | 2–4 | PBL 84 | Energy |
| 35 %7/20 | Festival Grounds | 1 | TWM 149 | Trainer |
| 35 %7/20 | Lightning Energy | 1–3 | MEE 4 | Energy |
| 30 %6/20 | Electrike | 2–3 | PBL 23 | Pokémon |
| 25 %5/20 | Cornerstone Mask Ogerpon ex | 1 | TWM 112 | Pokémon |
| 25 %5/20 | Lumiose City | 1 | POR 77 | Trainer |
| 20 %4/20 | Poké Pad | 1–3 | POR 81 | Trainer |
| 20 %4/20 | Fighting Energy | 1 | MEE 6 | Energy |
| 15 %3/20 | Psyduck | 1 | ASC 39 | Pokémon |
| 15 %3/20 | Crispin | 2 | SCR 133 | Trainer |
| 10 %2/20 | Electrike | 2–3 | MEG 49 | Pokémon |
| 10 %2/20 | Munkidori | 1–2 | TWM 95 | Pokémon |
| 10 %2/20 | Crushing Hammer | 4 | POR 71 | Trainer |
| 10 %2/20 | Night Stretcher | 2 | ASC 196 | Trainer |
| 10 %2/20 | Air Balloon | 1 | ASC 181 | Trainer |
| 10 %2/20 | Colress's Tenacity | 1 | SFA 57 | Trainer |
| 10 %2/20 | Lumiose Galette | 1 | POR 78 | Trainer |
| 10 %2/20 | Darkness Energy | 2–3 | MEE 7 | Energy |
| 10 %2/20 | Water Energy | 1–2 | MEE 3 | Energy |
| 5 %1/20 | Dudunsparce | 3 | TEF 129 | Pokémon |
| 5 %1/20 | Dunsparce | 3 | JTG 120 | Pokémon |
| 5 %1/20 | Feebas | 2 | SSP 41 | Pokémon |
| 5 %1/20 | Milotic ex | 2 | SSP 42 | Pokémon |
| 5 %1/20 | Team Rocket's Articuno | 1 | DRI 51 | Pokémon |
| 5 %1/20 | Team Rocket's Kangaskhan ex | 1 | ASC 162 | Pokémon |
| 5 %1/20 | Battle Cage | 2 | PFL 85 | Trainer |
| 5 %1/20 | Team Rocket's Transceiver | 2 | DRI 178 | Trainer |
| 5 %1/20 | Forest of Vitality | 1 | MEG 117 | Trainer |
| 5 %1/20 | Lana's Aid | 1 | TWM 155 | Trainer |
| 5 %1/20 | Morty's Conviction | 1 | TEF 155 | Trainer |
| 5 %1/20 | Tool Scrapper | 1 | ASC 212 | Trainer |
| 5 %1/20 | Prism Energy | 2 | ASC 216 | Energy |
| 5 %1/20 | Bubbly Water Energy | 1 | CRI 84 | Energy |
What it costs to build, and how long it will last
You need 61 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.
What we can tell you is where the money goes. No ex Pokémon in the core at all, which is very good news for your wallet: the expensive cards in a deck are almost always the ex ones. Add Hero's Cape, which is an ACE SPEC — you are only allowed ONE ACE SPEC card in your whole deck, so a single copy is all you will ever need.
Now the question nobody asks you before you pay: how long will this deck stay legal? Of the 10 core cards, 2 carry the letter H in the bottom-left corner. That is the oldest letter still allowed in tournaments, which makes it the one that goes at the next rotation. Those 2 cards have an expiry date. We do not know what that date is — the publisher announces it and it appears in no card data — but we do know exactly which cards leave.
One last piece of old-player advice. Never build a deck card by card starting with the prettiest one. Start with the core Trainers: they are cheap, they carry over into other decks, and they are what makes the machine run. Buy the expensive Pokémon last, once you know you actually enjoy the deck.
What this deck struggles against
The attackers in this deck are Weak to Fire. A card with a Weakness takes DOUBLE damage from an attacker of that type. Of the decks we track, 7 attack in exactly that type.
Here is how the table below is built. The Weakness is printed on your cards, the type of the attacker across the table is printed on theirs, and the fact that this particular deck really does play that attacker is counted off its own lists. You can check every line of it with the cards in your hand.
One limit, while we are here. Weakness alone does not decide a match. A deck can double your damage and still lose because it sets up too slowly, or crush you without ever touching your Weakness. This table tells you where to look first. What settles the game sits further along.
Going the other way, your attackers are Grass — and 12 of the decks we track have an attacker Weak to one of those. That is you doubling, for once. Second half of the table.
They double the damage they put on you
| Deck | Their card | Type |
|---|---|---|
| Blaziken / N's Zoroark ex | Blaziken ex | Fire |
| Ceruledge ex | Ceruledge ex | Fire |
| Dragapult ex / Blaziken ex | Blaziken ex | Fire |
| Flareon ex / Noctowl | Flareon ex | Fire |
| Mega Chandelure ex | Chandelure | Fire |
| Mega Charizard X ex | Mega Charizard X ex | Fire |
| Ethan's Typhlosion | Ethan's Typhlosion | Fire |
You double the damage you put on them
| Deck | Their card | Type |
|---|---|---|
| Ceruledge ex | Solrock | Grass |
| Marnie's Grimmsnarl ex / Froslass | Marnie's Grimmsnarl ex | Grass |
| Mega Lucario ex / Hariyama | Solrock | Grass |
| Marnie's Grimmsnarl ex | Marnie's Grimmsnarl ex | Grass |
| Mega Absol ex | Mega Absol ex | Grass |
| Mega Lucario ex | Solrock | Grass |
| N's Zoroark ex | N's Zorua | Grass |
| Mega Sharpedo ex / Toxtricity | Mega Sharpedo ex | Grass |
| Toxtricity | Mega Absol ex | Grass |
| Mega Zygarde ex / Barbaracle | Mega Zygarde ex | Grass |
| Cynthia's Garchomp ex | Cynthia's Garchomp ex | Grass |
| Okidogi / Barbaracle | Bloodmoon Ursaluna | Grass |
Questions people ask
- What is the Crustle deck list?
- There isn't one, and that is the whole point. Across 20 tournament lists harvested on 11 August 2026, 10 cards turn up in every single one — 30 slots out of 60. The remaining 30 change from player to player, with 51 different cards competing for them. Both tables are above.
- How many lists is this counted on, and where do they come from?
- 20 lists, played across 18 different tournaments, harvested on 11 August 2026 from play.limitlesstcg.com. Every one of them was read card by card, and every card was recognised.
- Where do I start if I want to build this deck?
- With the whole core: 10 cards, 30 slots. Inside that core, buy the Trainers and Energy first — they are cheap and they carry over into other decks — and leave the Pokémon for last. Only then work down the flex table and add the cards the most lists agree on.
- What beats this deck?
- Its attackers are Weak to Fire, so they take double damage from an attacker of that type. Of the decks we track, 7 play an attacker of that type: Blaziken / N's Zoroark ex, Ceruledge ex, Dragapult ex / Blaziken ex and Flareon ex / Noctowl, among others. One caveat. Weakness tells you where to look first. What settles the game sits further along.
- Will this deck survive the next rotation?
- Not intact. 2 of the 10 core cards carry the letter H in the bottom-left corner — the oldest letter still legal, and therefore the one that goes. We do not know the date of that rotation: the publisher announces it and it appears in no card data. We do know which cards leave, and they are marked in the core table.
- Are these numbers current?
- The lists were harvested on 11 August 2026, and the harvest runs every night. Every new list joins the count, so the percentages on this page move on their own as the format moves. When a card crosses over from the flex table into the core, that is the players moving first and the count following them.
Where all of this comes from
The 20 lists come from play.limitlesstcg.com, which publishes the decks played at official tournaments. They were harvested on 11 August 2026 across 18 different events, then read card by card against poko's own card catalogue (built from the public TCGdex API) to recover what each card actually does. Card prices appear nowhere on this page: we do not have them, and nothing here links to a shop.
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