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

What Scizor ex looks like when you open the box

Across the 9 lists we counted, this deck runs 15 to 18 Pokémon, 30 to 31 Trainers and 12 to 14 Energy. Its attacks are paid for in Metal.

On results pages and on stream you will see it written « scizor-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: 12 to 14 out of 60, when half the 91 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 sets up fast. Metang 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: 9 to 11 Supporters, 15 to 17 Items, 1 to 3 Tools and 2 to 3 Stadiums, out of 30 to 31 — 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.

How Scizor ex actually wins

Genesect ex attacks with Protect Charge for 150, and it costs 3 Energy (Metal, Metal and Colorless), with 220 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, 3 to pay for Protect Charge: with no help you swing on turn 3, and every card that accelerates Energy buys one of those turns back.

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

Scizor ex and Genesect 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
Genesect exBasic	220	Protect Charge	150	Metal + Metal + Colorless	none	2
Scizor exStage 1	270	Cross Breaker	120×	Metal + Metal	Fire ×2	2
MetangStage 1	100	Beam	60	Metal + Colorless + Colorless	Fire ×2	2
ScytherBasic	90	Slashing Strike	60	Colorless + Colorless	Fire ×2	1

The core: the 14 cards every list runs

These 14 cards appear in all 9 lists, without a single exception. That is 47 of the 60 slots. The other 13 are decided player by player.

Look at how those 47 slots break down: 23 Trainers, 10 Pokémon, 14 Energy. The balance is a normal one, so it is the cards themselves, more than the split, that give this deck its character.

8 of those 14 cards do not sit at the same count from list to list: Genesect ex (1 to 2), Poké Pad (3 to 4) and Energy Recycler (2 to 3), plus 5 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
3	Metang	TEF 114	Pokémon	leaves
3	Scizor ex	TEF 111	Pokémon	leaves
3	Scyther	TEF 1	Pokémon	leaves
1–2	Genesect ex	BLK 67	Pokémon	stays
4	Lillie's Determination	MEG 119	Trainer	stays
3–4	Poké Pad	POR 81	Trainer	stays
2–3	Energy Recycler	DRI 164	Trainer	stays
2–3	Full Metal Lab	TEF 148	Trainer	leaves
1–3	Ultra Ball	MEG 131	Trainer	stays
2	Boss's Orders	MEG 114	Trainer	stays
2–3	Pokégear 3.0	SVI 186	Trainer	stays
1–2	Energy Retrieval	SVI 171	Trainer	stays
1	Maximum Belt	TEF 154	Trainer	leaves
12–14	Metal Energy	MEE 8	Energy	stays

The 16 cards that change from list to list

16 cards fight over the 13 slots that are left: 0 above three lists in four, 0 below one in four, and the percentage on each row says how many players took it.

Not one of these cards reaches three quarters of the lists. The 13 free slots in this deck are genuinely open, and two players can build it very differently without either being wrong.

The dividing line runs through Beldum, at 56 %: 5 of 9 players took it, 4 put something else there. Read its text before you decide.

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
67 %6/9	Metagross	1–2	CRI 61	Pokémon
56 %5/9	Beldum	3	TEF 113	Pokémon
56 %5/9	Mega Skarmory ex	1	POR 55	Pokémon
56 %5/9	Iron Defender	4	MEG 118	Trainer
56 %5/9	Judge	2	POR 76	Trainer
56 %5/9	Lacey	2	SCR 139	Trainer
44 %4/9	Beldum	4	CRI 59	Pokémon
44 %4/9	Meowth ex	1	POR 62	Pokémon
44 %4/9	Air Balloon	2	ASC 181	Trainer
44 %4/9	Buddy-Buddy Poffin	2	TEF 144	Trainer
44 %4/9	Philippe	2	CRI 79	Trainer
44 %4/9	Switch	2	MEG 130	Trainer
44 %4/9	Kieran	1	TWM 154	Trainer
33 %3/9	Fezandipiti ex	1	ASC 142	Pokémon
33 %3/9	Harlequin	1	WHT 83	Trainer
33 %3/9	Xerosic's Machinations	1	SFA 64	Trainer

The most common Scizor ex list, all 60 cards

Here they are in full, ready to build. 47 slots come from the core, the cards all 9 lists run. The remaining 13 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 9 lists actually showed. It comes to 15 Pokémon, 31 Trainers and 14 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: 15
3 Metang TEF 114
3 Scizor ex TEF 111
3 Scyther TEF 1
1 Genesect ex BLK 67
1 Metagross CRI 61
3 Beldum TEF 113
1 Mega Skarmory ex POR 55

Trainer: 31
4 Lillie's Determination MEG 119
4 Poké Pad POR 81
3 Energy Recycler DRI 164
3 Full Metal Lab TEF 148
3 Ultra Ball MEG 131
2 Boss's Orders MEG 114
2 Pokégear 3.0 BLK 084
1 Energy Retrieval
1 Maximum Belt TEF 154
4 Iron Defender MEG 118
2 Judge POR 76
2 Lacey SCR 139

Energy: 14
14 Metal Energy MEE 8

Total Cards: 60

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

You need 30 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 Scizor ex and Genesect ex, by a distance. The 23 Trainer slots in the core cost next to nothing, and you probably own some already. Add Maximum Belt: all 9 players picked the same one. You are allowed ONE ACE SPEC card in your whole deck, so a single copy covers it whatever it costs.

Then there is time. 5 of the 14 core cards carry the letter H, the one that goes at the next rotation: Metang, Scizor ex, Scyther and Full Metal Lab, plus 1 more. The core table marks each of them. The date belongs to the publisher, and we do not have it.

What Scizor ex struggles against

The attackers in this deck are Weak to Fire, so they take DOUBLE damage from that type. 9 of the 91 decks we track attack in exactly that type.

Concretely, here is what is waiting for you: Dragapult ex / Blaziken ex, Ethan's Typhlosion and Ceruledge 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 sets up fast, so what troubles it looks less like a Weakness and more like an opponent who absorbs your first hits and answers harder.

Going the other way, your attackers are Metal, and 27 of the decks we track have an attacker Weak to one of those: N's Zoroark ex, Marnie's Grimmsnarl ex / Froslass and Dhelmise, among others. That is you doubling, for once. Second half of the table.

Questions people ask

What is the Scizor ex deck list?

There isn't one, and that is the whole point. Across 9 tournament lists harvested on 16 August 2026, 14 cards turn up in every single one — 47 slots out of 60. The remaining 13 change from player to player, with 16 different cards competing for them. Both tables are above.

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

9 lists, played across 9 different tournaments, harvested on 16 August 2026 from play.limitlesstcg.com. All 9 were read card by card, and every card recognised.

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

With the whole core: 14 cards, 47 slots. Inside it, buy the 23 Trainer slots and the 14 Energy first — they are cheap and they carry over into your next deck. Leave Scizor ex and Genesect ex for last, because that is the bill. Only then work down the flex table and add the cards the most lists agree on.

What beats Scizor ex?

Its attackers are Weak to Fire, so they take double damage from an attacker of that type. 9 of the 91 decks we track play an attacker of that type: Dragapult ex / Blaziken ex, Ethan's Typhlosion, Ceruledge ex and Blaziken / N's Zoroark ex, among others.

Will Scizor ex survive the next rotation?

Not intact: 5 core cards out of 14 carry the letter H, starting with Metang, Scizor ex, Scyther and Full Metal Lab, plus 1 more.

Are a lot of people playing Scizor ex?

We have read 9 lists of it, which puts it 88th of the 91 decks we track by lists read. The platform those tournaments run on counts 9 entries for it, 0.03 % 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.