Gengar ex deck: the core, the flex slots, and what beats it

What Gengar ex looks like when you open the box

Across the 16 lists we counted, this deck runs 16 to 19 Pokémon, 34 to 37 Trainers and 6 to 8 Energy. Its attacks are paid for in Darkness and Metal.

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

Look at the Energy: 6 to 8 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. Bastiodon 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: 10 to 13 Supporters, 15 to 22 Items, 1 to 3 Tools and 2 to 4 Stadiums, out of 34 to 37 — 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 4 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

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

Gengar ex is in all 16 lists, 3 copies of it. Its Ability is called Gnawing Curse, and here is what is printed on it, word for word: « Whenever your opponent attaches an Energy card from their hand to 1 of their Pokémon, put 2 damage counters on that Pokémon. »

How Gengar ex actually wins

Gengar ex attacks with Tricky Steps for 160, and it costs 2 Energy (Darkness and Darkness), with 310 HP to absorb the answer. The whole list exists to get it online fast.

Do the arithmetic, it decides your first few turns. One Energy attached a turn, 2 to pay for Tricky Steps: with no help you swing on turn 2, and every card that accelerates Energy buys one of those turns back.

Here is the detail that quietly loses games: Gengar ex has a Retreat Cost of 2, which is a whole turn to get it back to the Bench.

Gengar ex, Fezandipiti ex and Pecharunt ex carry the "ex" suffix, and your opponent takes TWO Prize cards instead of one when one of them falls. They need six to win: three well-placed knockouts on those cards beat you, where it would take six anywhere else on your Bench.

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

Pokémon	HP	Attack	Damage	Cost	Weakness	Retreat
Gengar exStage 2	310	Tricky Steps	160	Darkness + Darkness	Fighting ×2	2
BastiodonStage 2	160	Hammer In	160	Metal + Metal + Colorless	Fire ×2	4
Pecharunt exBasic	190	Irritated Outburst	60×	Darkness + Darkness	Fighting ×2	1
ShieldonStage 1	100	Smithereen Smash	50	Metal + Colorless	Fire ×2	3

The core: the 14 cards every list runs

These 14 cards appear in all 16 lists, without a single exception. That is 37 of the 60 slots. The other 23 are decided player by player.

Look at how those 37 slots break down: 21 Trainers, 10 Pokémon, 6 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.

10 of those 14 cards do not sit at the same count from list to list: Bastiodon (2 to 3), Pecharunt ex (1 to 2) and Buddy-Buddy Poffin (3 to 4), plus 7 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
2–3	Bastiodon	PBL 62	Pokémon	stays
3	Gengar ex	TEF 104	Pokémon	leaves
2	Shieldon	PBL 61	Pokémon	stays
1	Fezandipiti ex	ASC 142	Pokémon	leaves
1–2	Pecharunt ex	SFA 39	Pokémon	leaves
3–4	Buddy-Buddy Poffin	TEF 144	Trainer	leaves
3–4	Lillie's Determination	MEG 119	Trainer	stays
3	Antique Armor Fossil	PBL 72	Trainer	stays
2–3	Boss's Orders	MEG 114	Trainer	stays
2–3	Fossil Quarry	PBL 76	Trainer	stays
1–3	Handheld Fan	TWM 150	Trainer	leaves
2–4	Rare Candy	MEG 125	Trainer	stays
2–3	Ultra Ball	MEG 131	Trainer	stays
2–8	Darkness Energy	MEE 7	Energy	stays

The 32 cards that change from list to list

32 cards fight over the 23 slots that are left: 9 above three lists in four, 18 below one in four, and the percentage on each row says how many players took it.

The most agreed on first: Budew at 94 %, Colress's Tenacity at 94 % and Poké Pad at 94 %, plus 6 more above 75 %. Add those to the core and you have the common build.

The dividing line runs through Dark Bell, at 50 %: 8 of 16 players took it, 8 put something else there. Read its text before you decide. Right at the bottom, Haunter at 25 % and Morty's Conviction at 25 %: 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
94 %15/16	Budew	1	ASC 16	Pokémon
94 %15/16	Colress's Tenacity	2–3	SFA 57	Trainer
94 %15/16	Poké Pad	3–4	POR 81	Trainer
94 %15/16	Night Stretcher	2	ASC 196	Trainer
94 %15/16	Grand Tree	1	SCR 136	Trainer
88 %14/16	Munkidori	1–2	TWM 95	Pokémon
81 %13/16	Haunter	1–2	PFL 55	Pokémon
81 %13/16	Dawn	1–3	PFL 87	Trainer
75 %12/16	Yveltal	1	MEG 88	Pokémon
63 %10/16	Gastly	3	POR 48	Pokémon
50 %8/16	Dark Bell	1–2	PBL 75	Trainer
44 %7/16	Magnetic Metal Energy	1	CRI 85	Energy
38 %6/16	Gastly	3	PFL 54	Pokémon
31 %5/16	Crushing Hammer	2–4	POR 71	Trainer
25 %4/16	Haunter	1–2	POR 49	Pokémon
25 %4/16	Morty's Conviction	1	TEF 155	Trainer
19 %3/16	Hilda	1–3	WHT 84	Trainer
19 %3/16	Shadowy Darkness Energy	1–4	PBL 83	Energy
13 %2/16	Mega Gengar ex	1	PFL 56	Pokémon
13 %2/16	Meowth ex	1	POR 62	Pokémon
13 %2/16	Psyduck	1	ASC 39	Pokémon
13 %2/16	Team Rocket's Petrel	1–3	DRI 176	Trainer
13 %2/16	Janine's Secret Art	1–2	PRE 112	Trainer
13 %2/16	Battle Cage	1	PFL 85	Trainer
13 %2/16	Special Red Card	1	CRI 82	Trainer
6 %1/16	Haunter	1	TEF 103	Pokémon
6 %1/16	Binding Mochi	1	PRE 95	Trainer
6 %1/16	Gravity Gemstone	1	SCR 137	Trainer
6 %1/16	Lana's Aid	1	TWM 155	Trainer
6 %1/16	Pokégear 3.0	1	SVI 186	Trainer
6 %1/16	Secret Box	1	TWM 163	Trainer
6 %1/16	Xerosic's Machinations	1	SFA 64	Trainer

The most common Gengar ex list, all 60 cards

Here they are in full, ready to build. 37 slots come from the core, the cards all 16 lists run. The remaining 23 come from the table just above, working down it: the cards the most players chose, each at its most common copy count, until the total lands on 60.

This list is nobody's list in particular. It takes, slot by slot, what the most people played, under the same guardrails a judge would hold you to: four copies of a card at most, one ACE SPEC, and a split that stays inside what these 16 lists actually showed. It comes to 19 Pokémon, 34 Trainers and 7 Energy.

A word on what it measures, because it changes what you can expect from it. The lists we read are the ones from players who came in the top twenty of their tournament. So there is no losing list to hold up against them, and "the cards that win" is not a sentence this count knows how to write. What you have in front of you is what the players finishing near the top bring most often. Start there.

The text under the table is the one the game expects. Copy it, open the deck manager, paste, and the list builds itself. Names in there are in English, with the set code and collector number right beside them: that pair points at one card and one only, whatever language you play in.

There is no price total on this page. The readings we have are Cardmarket's, in euros, and the shop link further down sends you to TCGplayer, which quotes in dollars. Putting a euro figure next to a dollar shop would be one currency too many. The French and German pages carry the total.

How to read the percentages in the table above, and what order to buy all this in: how to read a deck list.

Pokémon: 19
3 Bastiodon PBL 62
3 Gengar ex TEF 104
2 Shieldon PBL 61
1 Fezandipiti ex ASC 142
1 Pecharunt ex SFA 39
1 Budew ASC 16
1 Munkidori TWM 95
2 Haunter PFL 55
1 Yveltal MEG 88
3 Gastly POR 48
1 Haunter POR 49

Trainer: 34
4 Buddy-Buddy Poffin TEF 144
4 Lillie's Determination MEG 119
3 Antique Armor Fossil PBL 72
2 Boss's Orders MEG 114
2 Fossil Quarry PBL 76
2 Handheld Fan TWM 150
2 Rare Candy MEG 125
2 Ultra Ball MEG 131
3 Colress's Tenacity SFA 57
3 Poké Pad POR 81
2 Night Stretcher ASC 196
1 Grand Tree SCR 136
2 Dawn PFL 87
2 Dark Bell PBL 75

Energy: 7
6 Darkness Energy MEE 7
1 Magnetic Metal Energy CRI 85

Total Cards: 60

What Gengar ex costs to build, and how long it will last

You need 46 different cards to cover every version of this deck, 14 of which nobody argues about. We do not have card prices, so we are not going to put a number on it.

Where the money goes, though, we can name: it is Gengar ex, Fezandipiti ex and Pecharunt ex, by a distance. The 21 Trainer slots in the core cost next to nothing, and you probably own some already. All 16 lists bring an ACE SPEC, and that is where they part ways: 15 took Grand Tree and 1 took Secret Box. 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 Grand Tree and watch what the others do with theirs before you switch.

Then there is time. 5 of the 14 core cards carry the letter H, the one that goes at the next rotation: Gengar ex, Fezandipiti ex, Pecharunt ex and Buddy-Buddy Poffin, plus 1 more. The core table marks each of them. The date belongs to the publisher, and we do not have it.

What Gengar ex struggles against

The attackers in this deck are Weak to Fighting and Fire, so they take DOUBLE damage from those types. 19 of the 91 decks we track attack in exactly those types.

Concretely, here is what is waiting for you: Dragapult ex / Blaziken ex, Mega Lucario ex and Mega Lucario ex / Hariyama, plus 16 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 Bastiodon 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 Darkness and Metal, and 31 of the decks we track have an attacker Weak to one of those: Dragapult ex, Dragapult ex / Dusknoir and Slowking, among others. That is you doubling, for once. Second half of the table.

Questions people ask

What is the Gengar ex deck list?

There isn't one, and that is the whole point. Across 16 tournament lists harvested between 16 August 2026 and 17 August 2026, 14 cards turn up in every single one — 37 slots out of 60. The remaining 23 change from player to player, with 32 different cards competing for them. Both tables are above.

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

16 lists, played across 16 different tournaments, harvested between 16 August 2026 and 17 August 2026 from play.limitlesstcg.com. All 16 were read card by card, and every card recognised.

Where do I start if I want to build Gengar ex?

With the whole core: 14 cards, 37 slots. Inside it, buy the 21 Trainer slots and the 6 Energy first — they are cheap and they carry over into your next deck. Leave Gengar ex, Fezandipiti ex and Pecharunt ex for last, because that is the bill. Only then work down the flex table and add the cards the most lists agree on, starting with Budew at 94 % and Colress's Tenacity at 94 %.

What beats Gengar ex?

Its attackers are Weak to Fighting and Fire, so they take double damage from an attacker of that type. 19 of the 91 decks we track play an attacker of that type: Dragapult ex / Blaziken ex, Mega Lucario ex, Mega Lucario ex / Hariyama and Cynthia's Garchomp ex, among others.

Will Gengar ex survive the next rotation?

Not intact: 5 core cards out of 14 carry the letter H, starting with Gengar ex, Fezandipiti ex, Pecharunt ex and Buddy-Buddy Poffin, plus 1 more.

Are a lot of people playing Gengar ex?

We have read 16 lists of it, which puts it 73th of the 91 decks we track by lists read. The platform those tournaments run on counts 16 entries for it, 0.06 % 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.