How to read a Pokémon deck list: the core, the percentages, and what we count

The core of a deck, and why we read dozens of lists

The core of a deck is the set of cards present in every list of that deck we have read. Not most of them. Every one.

Everywhere else you get ONE list, from ONE player, who won ONE tournament. That is interesting, and it does not answer your question. Inside that list you cannot tell what was the deck and what was that person's idea on the day, against the field they expected. Maybe they ran two odd cards because their practice partner plays an odd deck. You have no way of knowing.

Read dozens of lists of the same deck, built by people who never spoke to each other, and the question answers itself. What all of them put in is the deck. What they disagree about is the playground.

So a deck page does not open until there is enough to count: at least six lists, from at least three different tournaments. Below that, "every list" means three or four people, and one person's taste would read like a rule. Three tournaments is the minimum for the word "every" to cover players who never met.

Core size varies enormously, and that is already information about the deck. Today the tightest is Mega Kangaskhan ex / Bouffalant, with only 4 cards everybody agrees on. The most settled is Blaziken / N's Zoroark ex, at 26. A small core means players are still fighting over a lot of slots, so the deck is being tuned. A big core means the argument is over.

The copies column: what "3 to 4" is telling you

In the tables on a deck page, the copies column carries the count that comes up most often. When the lists disagree it carries the range instead: "3 to 4" means some players run three and some run four.

That small gap says a lot. A card at a flat "4" is one everybody wants to see as often as possible: you jam four and stop thinking about it. A card at "3 to 4" is one everybody plays but whose fourth copy is genuinely arguable. That is the slot a player reclaims when they want to fit an idea of their own.

A rules reminder, because it decides everything you read in that column: you are allowed four copies of any one card, except basic Energy, where you can run as many as you like. That is why a table sometimes shows nine basic Fire Energy on a single line.

The code next to the name: "TWM 130"

Under a card's name you will see a code and a number, something like "TWM 130". That is the set the card comes from and the collector number printed on the card itself. We show you the printing the lists cite most often.

Getting this wrong costs real money. Two cards can carry exactly the same Pokémon name and share nothing else: different attacks, different HP, a different Ability. Order "the Pikachu from that deck" without checking the code and you can easily end up with a Pikachu that does none of what the page described.

On deck pages, a card name is a link whenever we know the exact printing. It takes you to that card's own page, with its printed text and what it actually does. When the code cell is empty, the printing the lists cite sits outside what we can read, and an empty cell beats sending you to the wrong card.

A percentage is not a score

In the flex table, every card carries a percentage. It says how many lists run that card. At 50 %, half the players want it and the other half deliberately chose something else.

This is the misreading that trips up almost everyone, so it gets a sentence of its own: the table is not a ranking from best to worst. A card 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 more than the card itself.

Here is how to use it when you build. Take the whole core first, no arguing. Then work down the flex table and stop on every card you do not understand: read its text, work out what it answers. 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 deck of this kind, build the boring version — the full core plus the most common cards from the table. Understand the deck before you start tinkering. Everyone who tried the other order will tell you the same thing.

Counting Trainers: one Supporter a turn, as many Items as you like

Every deck page breaks its Trainers down: how many Supporters, how many Items, how many Tools, how many Stadiums. Those four numbers do not read the same way, because the rules do not treat them the same way.

You get ONE Supporter a turn. Items you can chain as many as you like. That is the whole difference between a deck with steady turns and a deck that goes off: lots of Items means long turns where you play six cards and dig out exactly what you need. Lots of Supporters means quieter turns where one big card a turn resets your hand.

Energy count reads differently again, and 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 leans on Trainers to find what it is missing. Each deck page also tells you where that deck sits against the rest of the field, because a number on its own means nothing.

A Tool is a card you attach to a Pokémon and leave there. A Stadium sits in the middle of the table and changes the game for both players, and only one can be in play at a time. A deck running three or four Stadiums is not doing it by accident: it is counting on bumping the one across the table.

ex Pokémon, and why they cost you twice

A Pokémon whose name ends in "ex" is a big card: high HP, attacks that hurt. The price tag matches, and so does the rule — when an ex Pokémon is knocked out, your opponent takes TWO Prize cards instead of one.

That rule decides more games than any attack. You win by taking six Prizes. Against a deck that only attacks with ex Pokémon, your opponent needs three knockouts to beat you, where they would need six against a deck with none. Every trade you lose on an ex costs you double.

Which is why a deck with no ex Pokémon in its core is worth a proper look. It usually hits softer, it is almost always cheaper to build, and it forces the opponent to find six knockouts. That is a real strategy, not a beginner's deck.

On deck pages we name the ex cards in the core: they are what carries the bill, and they are what you buy last if you are building the deck piece by piece.

ACE SPEC: one card in your entire deck

A card marked ACE SPEC is a powerful card the rules restrict in an unusual way: you are allowed ONE ACE SPEC card in your whole deck. Not one per name. One, full stop.

That is why an ACE SPEC always shows up as a single copy on a deck page, and why you never see two different ones in a core. Which one to run is among the most argued decisions in a list, and when players disagree you will see them split across the flex table.

Good news for your wallet: since you only ever need one, an expensive ACE SPEC is a one-off purchase.

Weakness tells you where to look, not who wins

Every Pokémon carries a Weakness printed on the card. An attacker of that type deals DOUBLE damage to it. On deck pages we tell you which other decks in the current field attack in exactly that type.

Here is how those tables are built. The Weakness is printed on your cards. The type of the attacker across the table is printed on theirs. And the fact that the other deck really does play that attacker is counted off its own tournament lists. You can check every line with the cards in your hand.

Now the limit, and it matters. Weakness on its own does not decide a match. A deck can double its damage against you and still lose because it sets up too slowly. Another can crush you without ever touching your Weakness. These tables tell you where to look first when you prepare for an event. What settles the game sits further along, mostly in your hands.

Where to start when you build the deck

With the core, all of it, and inside the core with the Trainers. That is the cheapest and the most useful order, and it is the one players who have built several decks already take.

One piece of old-player advice: never build a deck card by card starting with the prettiest one. The core Trainers are cheap, they carry over into almost every future deck you will build, and they are what makes this one run. Expensive cards last, once you know you actually enjoy the deck.

Once the core is there, work down the flex table and add the most common cards first. That gives you the version most players are running, which is the best possible starting point for understanding why the others chose differently.

Before you spend, check one more thing: the letter printed in the bottom-left corner of each card. Letter H is the oldest one still legal in tournaments, so it is the one that goes at the next rotation. A deck that loses half its core in a few months is not a cheap deck. Every deck page tells you how many of its cards carry that letter.

Where all these numbers come from

The lists come from play.limitlesstcg.com, which publishes the decks played at official tournaments. Card names and printed text come from poko's own catalogue, built from TCGdex, a public card database. Prices, where they appear, come from Cardmarket.

The harvest runs every night. Every new tournament list joins the count, so the percentages move on their own as the format moves. Our latest reading is from 14 August 2026. When a card crosses from the flex table into the core, the players moved first and the count followed them.

A list containing a card our catalogue cannot name yet gets set aside, and every deck page tells you how many were set aside that way. The reason is not tidiness: one unrecognised card would skew every percentage. If a card is in twelve lists out of twelve but one of those lists went unread, we would print "eleven out of twelve", which reads as "not quite core" about a card that is core.

Prices shown are the seven-day sales average on Cardmarket, with the date of the reading printed right next to the figure. A price attaches only to the exact printing the lists cite, because two printings of the same card do not sell for the same money. A card with no fresh enough reading keeps an empty cell.

What you will not find anywhere on these pages is a win rate. We can make two lists play each other, and we also count the cards whose text we cannot read yet. On tournament lists that count is never zero. Printing "this deck wins 54 % of the time" next to "we could not play six of its sixty cards" would be a number you would believe and that would not deserve it.

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.