Team Rocket's Nidoking ex deck: the core, the flex slots, and what beats it

What Team Rocket's Nidoking ex looks like when you open the box

Across the 20 lists we counted, this deck runs 14 to 24 Pokémon, 26 to 38 Trainers and 8 to 15 Energy. Its attacks are paid for in Darkness.

On results pages and on stream you will see it written « rocket-nidoking-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: 8 to 15 out of 60, when half the 72 decks we track run 10 or fewer. This one carries more than most, and you feel it at the table — it wants to load up a big Pokémon and swing hard, even if that means drawing a spare Energy now and then.

It takes a while to set up. Team Rocket's Nidoking ex 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 14 Supporters, 9 to 24 Items, 0 to 3 Tools and 2 to 5 Stadiums, out of 26 to 38 — the median across the 72 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 5 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.

How Team Rocket's Nidoking ex actually wins

Team Rocket's Nidoking ex attacks with Kingly Impact for 240, and it costs 4 Energy (Darkness, Darkness, Darkness and Colorless), with 330 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, 4 to pay for Kingly Impact: with no help you swing on turn 4, and every card that accelerates Energy buys one of those turns back.

Here is the detail that quietly loses games: Team Rocket's Nidoking ex has a Retreat Cost of 3, which is a whole turn to get it back to the Bench.

Team Rocket's Nidoking ex carries the "ex" suffix, and your opponent takes TWO Prize cards instead of one when Team Rocket's Nidoking ex falls. They need six to win: three well-placed knockouts on that card 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
Team Rocket's Nidoking exStage 2	330	Kingly Impact	240	Darkness + Darkness + Darkness + Colorless	Fighting ×2	3
Team Rocket's Nidoran♂Basic	70	Hammer In	30	Darkness + Colorless	Fighting ×2	1

The core: the 3 cards every list runs

These 3 cards appear in all 20 lists, without a single exception. That is 10 of the 60 slots. The other 50 are decided player by player.

Look at how those 10 slots break down: 0 Trainers, 4 Pokémon, 6 Energy. Pokémon dominate, which is unusual: this deck needs bodies on the board, and it depends on any single attacker less than it looks.

3 of those 3 cards do not sit at the same count from list to list: Team Rocket's Nidoking ex (2 to 3), Team Rocket's Nidoran♂ (2 to 4) and Darkness Energy (4 to 9). 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
2–3	Team Rocket's Nidoking ex	DRI 119	Pokémon
2–4	Team Rocket's Nidoran♂	DRI 117	Pokémon
4–9	Darkness Energy	MEE 7	Energy

The 84 cards that change from list to list

84 cards fight over the 50 slots that are left: 13 above three lists in four, 50 below one in four, and the percentage on each row says how many players took it.

The most agreed on first: Team Rocket's Nidorino at 95 %, Poké Pad at 95 % and Rare Candy at 95 %, plus 10 more above 75 %. Add those to the core and you have the common build.

The dividing line runs through Secret Box, at 50 %: 10 of 20 players took it, 10 put something else there. Read its text before you decide. Right at the bottom, Team Rocket's Wobbuffet at 25 % and Janine's Secret Art 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
95 %19/20	Team Rocket's Nidorino	1–3	DRI 118	Pokémon
95 %19/20	Poké Pad	1–4	POR 81	Trainer
95 %19/20	Rare Candy	1–3	MEG 125	Trainer
95 %19/20	Team Rocket's Petrel	1–3	DRI 176	Trainer
95 %19/20	Team Rocket's Energy	4	DRI 182	Energy
90 %18/20	Team Rocket's Giovanni	1–3	DRI 174	Trainer
85 %17/20	Night Stretcher	1–3	ASC 196	Trainer
85 %17/20	Team Rocket's Factory	2–3	DRI 173	Trainer
85 %17/20	Ultra Ball	1–4	MEG 131	Trainer
80 %16/20	Team Rocket's Transceiver	2–4	DRI 178	Trainer
80 %16/20	Lillie's Determination	2–4	MEG 119	Trainer
75 %15/20	Team Rocket's Ariana	2–4	DRI 171	Trainer
75 %15/20	Team Rocket's Proton	1–3	DRI 177	Trainer
65 %13/20	Air Balloon	1–2	ASC 181	Trainer
65 %13/20	Perilous Jungle	1–3	TEF 156	Trainer
55 %11/20	Team Rocket's Arbok	2–3	DRI 113	Pokémon
55 %11/20	Team Rocket's Ekans	2–3	DRI 112	Pokémon
55 %11/20	Team Rocket's Mimikyu	1–2	DRI 87	Pokémon
55 %11/20	Energy Switch	1–2	MEG 115	Trainer
50 %10/20	Secret Box	1	TWM 163	Trainer
45 %9/20	Team Rocket's Articuno	1	DRI 51	Pokémon
45 %9/20	Lucky Helmet	1	TWM 158	Trainer
40 %8/20	Team Rocket's Spidops	2	DRI 20	Pokémon
40 %8/20	Team Rocket's Tarountula	2	DRI 19	Pokémon
40 %8/20	Team Rocket's Mewtwo ex	1	DRI 81	Pokémon
40 %8/20	Energy Search	1	POR 72	Trainer
40 %8/20	Gravity Gemstone	1	SCR 137	Trainer
40 %8/20	Team Rocket's Archer	1–2	DRI 170	Trainer
40 %8/20	Mist Energy	1–3	TEF 161	Energy
40 %8/20	Grass Energy	2	MEE 1	Energy
35 %7/20	Team Rocket's Nidoran♀	1–3	DRI 114	Pokémon
35 %7/20	Team Rocket's Nidoqueen	1–3	DRI 116	Pokémon
35 %7/20	Team Rocket's Nidorina	1–3	DRI 115	Pokémon
35 %7/20	Buddy-Buddy Poffin	1–4	TEF 144	Trainer
25 %5/20	Team Rocket's Wobbuffet	1–2	DRI 82	Pokémon
25 %5/20	Janine's Secret Art	1–4	PRE 112	Trainer
20 %4/20	Boss's Orders	2–3	MEG 114	Trainer
20 %4/20	Switch	1–3	MEG 130	Trainer
15 %3/20	Pecharunt ex	1–2	SFA 39	Pokémon
15 %3/20	Team Rocket's Diglett	1–2	ASC 100	Pokémon
15 %3/20	Team Rocket's Dugtrio	1–2	ASC 101	Pokémon
15 %3/20	Hilda	1–2	WHT 84	Trainer
15 %3/20	Special Red Card	1	CRI 82	Trainer
10 %2/20	Munkidori	1–2	TWM 95	Pokémon
10 %2/20	N's Zoroark ex	2	JTG 98	Pokémon
10 %2/20	N's Zorua	2	JTG 97	Pokémon
10 %2/20	Team Rocket's Blipbug	2	DRI 15	Pokémon
10 %2/20	Team Rocket's Orbeetle	2	DRI 89	Pokémon
10 %2/20	Toxel	2	PFL 67	Pokémon
10 %2/20	Toxtricity	2	PFL 68	Pokémon
10 %2/20	Fezandipiti ex	1	ASC 142	Pokémon
10 %2/20	N's Zekrom	1	ASC 155	Pokémon
10 %2/20	Pecharunt	1	SVP 149	Pokémon
10 %2/20	Team Rocket's Dottler	1	DRI 88	Pokémon
10 %2/20	Binding Mochi	2	PRE 95	Trainer
10 %2/20	Colress's Tenacity	2	SFA 57	Trainer
10 %2/20	Dark Bell	2	PBL 75	Trainer
10 %2/20	Punk Helmet	1–2	PFL 92	Trainer
10 %2/20	Team Rocket's Great Ball	2	DRI 175	Trainer
10 %2/20	Dawn	1	PFL 87	Trainer
10 %2/20	Enhanced Hammer	1	TWM 148	Trainer
10 %2/20	Grand Tree	1	SCR 136	Trainer
10 %2/20	Hero's Cape	1	TEF 152	Trainer
10 %2/20	Maximum Belt	1	TEF 154	Trainer
10 %2/20	N's PP Up	1	JTG 153	Trainer
10 %2/20	Team Rocket's Watchtower	1	DRI 180	Trainer
10 %2/20	Unfair Stamp	1	TWM 165	Trainer
5 %1/20	Dudunsparce	4	TEF 129	Pokémon
5 %1/20	Team Rocket's Golbat	3	DRI 121	Pokémon
5 %1/20	Team Rocket's Zubat	3	DRI 120	Pokémon
5 %1/20	Dunsparce	2	TEF 128	Pokémon
5 %1/20	Dunsparce	2	JTG 120	Pokémon
5 %1/20	Mega Darkrai ex	2	PBL 48	Pokémon
5 %1/20	Team Rocket's Crobat ex	2	DRI 122	Pokémon
5 %1/20	Fan Rotom	1	SCR 118	Pokémon
5 %1/20	Team Rocket's Chingling	1	DRI 85	Pokémon
5 %1/20	Team Rocket's Sneasel	1	DRI 128	Pokémon
5 %1/20	Dusk Ball	3	SSP 175	Trainer
5 %1/20	Pokégear 3.0	3	SVI 186	Trainer
5 %1/20	Risky Ruins	2	MEG 127	Trainer
5 %1/20	Roxie's Performance	2	CRI 81	Trainer
5 %1/20	Black Belt's Training	1	JTG 143	Trainer
5 %1/20	Deluxe Bomb	1	SCR 134	Trainer
5 %1/20	Jumbo Ice Cream	1	PFL 91	Trainer

The most common Team Rocket's Nidoking ex list, all 60 cards

Here they are in full, ready to build. 10 slots come from the core, the cards all 20 lists run. The remaining 50 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 20 lists actually showed. It comes to 17 Pokémon, 30 Trainers and 13 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: 17
2 Team Rocket's Nidoking ex DRI 119
2 Team Rocket's Nidoran♂ DRI 117
1 Team Rocket's Nidorino DRI 118
2 Team Rocket's Arbok DRI 113
2 Team Rocket's Ekans DRI 112
1 Team Rocket's Mimikyu DRI 87
1 Team Rocket's Articuno DRI 51
2 Team Rocket's Spidops DRI 20
2 Team Rocket's Tarountula DRI 19
1 Team Rocket's Mewtwo ex DRI 81
1 Team Rocket's Nidoran♀ DRI 114

Trainer: 30
1 Poké Pad POR 81
1 Rare Candy MEG 125
1 Team Rocket's Petrel DRI 176
3 Team Rocket's Giovanni DRI 174
2 Night Stretcher ASC 196
2 Team Rocket's Factory DRI 173
1 Ultra Ball MEG 131
4 Team Rocket's Transceiver DRI 178
2 Lillie's Determination MEG 119
2 Team Rocket's Ariana DRI 171
2 Team Rocket's Proton DRI 177
1 Air Balloon ASC 181
1 Perilous Jungle TEF 156
2 Energy Switch MEG 115
1 Secret Box TWM 163
1 Lucky Helmet TWM 158
1 Energy Search POR 72
1 Gravity Gemstone SCR 137
1 Team Rocket's Archer DRI 170

Energy: 13
6 Darkness Energy MEE 7
4 Team Rocket's Energy DRI 182
3 Mist Energy TEF 161

Total Cards: 60

What Team Rocket's Nidoking ex costs to build, and how long it will last

You need 87 different cards to cover every version of this deck, 3 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 Team Rocket's Nidoking ex, by a distance. The 0 Trainer slots in the core cost next to nothing, and you probably own some already. 19 of these 20 lists bring an ACE SPEC, and that is where they part ways: 10 took Secret Box, 2 took Grand Tree and 2 took Hero's Cape. The flex table shows you all 6. 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 Secret Box and watch what the others do with theirs before you switch.

Then there is time, and the answer is a good one: not one of the 3 core cards carries the letter H, the one that goes at the next rotation. This deck walks through the change whole.

What Team Rocket's Nidoking ex struggles against

The attackers in this deck are Weak to Fighting, so they take DOUBLE damage from that type. 9 of the 72 decks we track attack in exactly that type.

Concretely, here is what is waiting for you: Mega Lucario ex, Mega Lucario ex / Hariyama and Cynthia's Garchomp ex, plus 6 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 Team Rocket's Nidoking ex 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 22 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 Team Rocket's Nidoking ex deck list?

There isn't one, and that is the whole point. Across 20 tournament lists harvested on 16 August 2026, 3 cards turn up in every single one — 10 slots out of 60. The remaining 50 change from player to player, with 84 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 16 August 2026 from play.limitlesstcg.com. All 20 were read card by card, and every card recognised.

Where do I start if I want to build Team Rocket's Nidoking ex?

With the whole core: 3 cards, 10 slots. Inside it, buy the 0 Trainer slots and the 6 Energy first — they are cheap and they carry over into your next deck. Leave Team Rocket's Nidoking 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 Team Rocket's Nidorino at 95 % and Poké Pad at 95 %.

What beats Team Rocket's Nidoking ex?

Its attackers are Weak to Fighting, so they take double damage from an attacker of that type. 9 of the 72 decks we track play an attacker of that type: Mega Lucario ex, Mega Lucario ex / Hariyama, Cynthia's Garchomp ex and Ceruledge ex, among others.

Will Team Rocket's Nidoking ex survive the next rotation?

Yes, whole: not one of the 3 core cards carries the letter H. At equal price, that is the argument that should settle where your money goes.

Are a lot of people playing Team Rocket's Nidoking ex?

We have read 20 lists of it, which puts it 67th of the 72 decks we track by lists read. The platform those tournaments run on counts 21 entries for it, 0.08 % 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.