Pokémon Pocket’s evil Giratina Darkrai deck is back, and worse than ever!

Oh god, no. Please no. Tell me there’s been a mistake. Tell me the Giratina and Darkrai deck hasn’t wormed its way back into the Pokémon Pocket meta! We haven’t had another big Ursiiday tournament yet to confirm it, but looking at the standings for smaller tournaments over the past week, it’s undeniable – this duo is back and more toxic than ever before.

In case you’re brand new to the game, Darkrai and Giratina is a deck that has terrorized the Pocket tournament scene and ranked ladder ever since Giratina ex came out in Shining Revelry. It pairs Darkrai’s ability to deal damage when you put energy onto it with Giratina’s ability to ramp super fast, to form a very consistent deck with two high HP ‘mons backed up by tons of trainer cards.

After a very short time out of the spotlight, the deck seems to be back for more, winning a 260 person tournament on June 30, and with a very high winrate across all the competitions of the past few days.

I should note this is not quite the same Darkrai and Giratina deck as before. No, now it’s even more horrible to face, thanks to the addition of poison.

The current meta version of this deck runs one other Pokémon, the ultra beast Nihilego. It doesn’t use it to fight, though, just to make the poisoned condition more unpleasant. Then it uses two Poison Barb Poké Tools to protect its heavy hitters, making attacking with anything less than a knockout blow a much more costly endeavour.

We’ll see next week whether this deck is a flash in the pan, but I’m concerned. My worry is that, despite all the cool new strategies cropping up, the meta is about to look similar to how it did three months ago, with a few minor tweaks. We’ve already seen how the current best-performing Sylveon deck is really just Giratina with his little buddies in tow. It’s starting to look like the newest Pokémon set has just given the existing best decks some accessories!

Come talk Pokémon Pocket and other tabletop games over at our Discord – I’m desperate to share my new deck with someone. And don’t miss our guides to the most costly rare Pokémon cards on the planet, or our list of every Pokémon TCG set in order.