Upgrading Starter Decks

As with any deck, it’s important to recognize the role of every card that’s included in starter deck—an ex Battle Deck or V Battle Deck—and to evaluate how effective that card is in its role. It's also important to realize that not all starter decks are created equal—some starter decks are better candidates for upgrading to Standard-format decks than others and will, as a result, require fewer changes to create a reasonably functional deck. Some starter decks simply do not have a main attacker adequately strong enough to transition to a deck that can compete outside battles with other starter decks. With that in mind, we’ll move through each step below to improve our starter deck, morphing it into something that’s more consistent, more powerful, and just plain better at being a deck.

In addition to using this guide for upgrading starter decks, you can also use it to help you evaluate your first beginner decks.

Identify the deck’s parts

Before we make any changes, let’s look at what the cards we already have in the deck do. As we identify each role a card in the deck has, we can better our deck by replacing cards that perform their roles poorly and can improve our deck’s consistency by removing cards that are unnecessary and increasing the counts of the most important cards in the deck. Use the Roles of a Card in a Deck chart as a quick reference when sorting the cards into their respective roles. If a card fits into more than one role on the chart, sort it into the role that is highest on the chart.

You can also visit the page for each role on the chart by clicking its name.

check for standard legality

The older a starter deck is, the more likely it is to contain cards that are no longer legal in the Standard format. Check the set symbol of each card in the deck against the list of sets in the section Standard Legality, Reprints, and Banned Cards on the page on Limits in this guide, ensuring that each card in the deck remains legal in the Standard format. Set aside any cards that aren’t Standard-legal, as we’ll need to replace these as we work on upgrading the deck. If the Pokémon you’ve identified as your main attacker is among these cards, you’ll need to choose a different starter deck to upgrade in order to create a Standard-legal deck.

If your starter deck is from a Sword & Shield series set, you can skip this step.

upgrade draw cards

Next, let’s assess the draw cards the deck has access to. Often, these will be underpowered Supporter cards that draw only 2 or 3 cards with no other beneficial effects or will be Pokémon that have an attack that will draw 1 to 3 cards. These cards can be removed and replaced with better cards with no hesitation. Drawing more cards means that we see more of our deck, and if we see more of our deck, we’re more likely to draw the cards necessary to execute our strategy.

normalize energy counts

Now that our deck can draw cards more effectively, we can reduce the number of energy cards in our deck. Our increased draw power means that, even with fewer energy cards in the deck, we should always have access to energy when we need it. With this we can cut down our energy count to just 10. For many starter decks, this effectively cuts the energy in half—but don’t worry! We’ll be fine, even with only ten energy. In the Standard format, very successful decks often get away with running less!

upgrade Pokémon Search

Many starter decks come with impressively poor Pokémon search capabilities. Often, Item-based Pokémon search cards are either non-existent or in very short supply and only a few Supporter-based cards are included. Sometimes, there’s a Pokémon or two that have the job instead, using attacks like Call for Family to bring other Pokémon into play. In upgrading our Pokémon search, we’ll start by completely removing any Supporter- and Pokémon-based Pokémon search cards.

To replace these cards, we can look at our available Item-based options on the page on Pokémon Search or we can choose instead to use the general search set of Item cards below.

Evaluate Secondary Attackers

Many starter decks fail in terms of secondary attackers—it’s not that they don’t have them, it’s that they simply have too many. Starter decks often include multiple lines of Pokémon intended to serve as secondary attackers in the deck, in addition to the main attacker. Multiple evolution lines in a deck is already a detriment to consistency, but adding in as many as starter decks do is often a recipe for disaster!

For each Pokémon you’ve identified as a secondary attacker, consider the criteria for what makes a good secondary attacker. If a Pokémon doesn’t fit those criteria, remove it and any cards from its evolution line from the deck. Then, consider what options are available to you to replace that Pokémon.

Bulk-Up Pokémon Lines

Now that we've chosen all of our attackers, we can thicken up their lines. As our main attacker is our most important Pokémon, we’ll start by thickening its lines first. In most cases, when the Pokémon acting as the main attacker is a single-prize Pokémon—not a Pokémon-GX, Pokémon V, or Pokémon VMAX, we want to run four copies of that Pokémon. If our main attacker is a multi-prize Pokémon, and we need to cut for space, we can sometimes decrease the count by 1. Having as many copies of our main attacker as possible helps us to ensure we always have one ready to attack when the time is right.

You’ll likely notice something a bit different about the Stage 2 line. We’re only running up to two copies of the Stage 1 Pokémon and we’re running 4 copies of an item card called Rare Candy. Rare Candy allows us to evolve directly into the Stage 2 Pokémon from the Basic Pokémon, saving us a turn of evolving up our attacker. Including a copy or two of the Stage 1 Pokémon can sometimes be helpful if the stage 1 Pokémon has an attack or ability that can be situationally useful.

As we add in the thicker lines of our main attacker, you’ll notice that the number of cards in our deck taken by Pokémon will start to climb up. With our secondary attackers, it’s not usually necessary to run a fully-filled out line of the Pokémon—one or two copies of a secondary attacker is usually enough—but secondary attackers that serve additional functions critical to the functioning of the deck, like energy acceleration, should also be maxed out like our main attacker.

Always remember that the more important a card is to your deck, the more important it is for you to include as many copies of that card as possible while still keeping the rules of deck building in mind. Cards that you aren’t using in most of your matches aren’t worth the space in your deck. Sixty cards goes fast!

Add or Improve Energy Acceleration

In addition to ensuring that your Pokémon can get into play quickly, it’s important to ensure that your Pokémon can get energy attached to them quickly. Some starter decks include some basic acceleration cards, but these are often less effective than available alternatives. If a good energy acceleration option is available for the energy type that corresponds to that of your main attacker, it may be worth including—especially if your main attacker’s most important attack requires more than 2 energies.

If there is no good energy acceleration option for the type that corresponds to that of your main attacker or if the attack cost of your primary attack is 2 or lower, skip this step.

Add in Consistency Cards

Now that we have draw supporters, our Pokémon, and our energy acceleration selected and have thickened up our most important Pokémon lines, it’s time to add in a little extra boost to our consistency. Each set below contains cards that will help our deck find what it needs to when it needs to. Bibarel helps decks that need to draw a little from time to time—especially if they’re tight on deck space—and Kirlia helps decks that that need to draw a lot—especially if they find themselves wanting cards in their discard pile.

Add or Upgrade Gusting

A critical component of any deck focused on an aggression strategy, gusting gives you the option to take out opponent’s benched utility Pokémon, damaged Pokémon, and other vulnerable benched Pokémon. Many starter decks come with either no gusting option whatsoever or with poor gusting options, like Pokémon Catcher. Any deck in search of gusting can make good use of the General Gusting Set below.

Cut the Clutter

Now, it’s time to assess the remaining cards from the starter deck. Often, these are random healing cards, like Potion or Pokémon Center Lady. Sometimes, these are random tools or stadium cards that aren’t as helpful as other options we now have included in our upgraded starter deck. These cards can be cut out completely—most decks won’t need these cards.

Consider Other Helpful Cards

Now, let’s look at the last two roles cards play in a deck—Recovery and Rebound and Damage Control. A card or two from these categories may prove helpful, but not every deck needs these cards—and many simply won’t have the space for them. If you’re uncertain about this category, it’s okay to skip it entirely or to choose include the cards in the General Helpful Set below. Once you’ve tried out your upgraded starter deck a few times, what cards will prove helpful to the deck will become more obvious.

Switch helps ensure that we can switch out our Pokémon when we need to—moving from one Pokémon to another. Klara can help us recycle our Pokémon and our Basic Energy cards—an especially helpful option for decks that include evolution Pokémon.

Check Against the Deck Skeleton

Now that we have a baseline for what we want in our deck, we've got just two things to do before our first game with it. First, if we are over the required 60 cards for our deck, we'll need to cut until we get back to 60 cards. Second, we need to compare our deck list with the general deck skeleton from earlier in this deck building guide and, perhaps, reconsider cards or the counts of cards that cause us to significantly differ from that deck skeleton. In the process of comparing our deck skeleton, we can make the cuts necessary to get us down to the required 60 cards.

Sometimes, cutting cards can be extremely tough. Every card feels like gold. When making decisions about cutting cards from your list, start by thinning counts of the least necessary cards for your deck. Perhaps for our initial testing, we can try just 3 of a certain card instead of the full 4. Perhaps two cards are serving the same purpose and one card’s count could be decreased slightly. Maybe a more aggressive card could be used in place of a safer, slower card. Perhaps the deck could still run well with one or two fewer energy.

Once our deck is exactly 60 cards and lines up relatively well with the general deck skeleton, we can move on to the best part of crafting any deck—playing it.