With the release of Sword & Shield and the new supporter rule change, building decks in the standard format has become a little more expensive since most decks need to play Dedenne GX & Jirachi. Both of which are expensive cards, roughly 25$ each. There are some decks out there that do need to play Dedenne or Jirachi to win games, and these are four budget decks I chose: Nuzzle, Granbull, Blacephalon & Beheeyem. The decklists are included! 

Nuzzle 

Starting, we have Nuzzle, which is a very popular budget deck to play right now. Each of the main cards, Raichu, Pachirisu & Emolga, are all cheap and will cost you no less than 10$ to get four of each. The goal of the nuzzle deck is to use Pachirisu to get lightning energy on each Pokémon in play that has the "Nuzzle" attack, which Pikachu, Raichu, Emolga have! Emolga provides a Pokémon search engine for the deck. Once you build up some energy, you attack with Raichu's attack Powerful Spark, which does 20 damage for each lightning energy you have in play! You can boost its attack power with Tapu Koko Prism Star's Ability and Electro-Power! There is another part to this deck that involves a Tag Team GX card, and that is Reshiram & Zekrom GX, but that card is around 4$. In the late game, since you have so much lightning energy in play, you can use energy switch and a fire energy, combined with a Rosa to pull this off and attack with a Reshiram & Zekrom out of nowhere and take an easy KO! Here is the list:

Granbull 

Next up, we have Granbull. Granbull is a deck that tries to put your hand down to 0 cards using cards like Zebstrika & Duskull to help you achieve that! Once you get your hand down to 0 cards, Granbull then hits for 160 damage for 1 fairy energy! One of the best parts about Granbull is its fairy typing means it can one-hit ko an Arceus & Dialga & Palkia GX! This deck does require some brainpower to make sure you know what you are discarding from your hand to pull off an All Out, but it's not too bad, and this deck can hit hard! Here is the list:

Beheeyem

Next up is Beheeyem. Beheeyem has an attack that for 3 energy does 90 damage, and your opponent can't play any items from their hand during their next turn, effectively item locking them. But you have to shuffle Beheeyem and all cards attached to it back into your deck! But this is fine as it means Beheeyem will not get knocked out, and you can do this attack with a Triple Energy Acceleration and put the energy back into your deck! After you do this attack, you go into a "wall" Pokémon, which I got Lillie's Pokédoll in here & Alolan Ninetales & Persian. Ninetales is immune to GX Pokémon, and Alolan Persian is immune to Tag Teams, Ultra Beast & Pokémon with Special Energy attached, which happens to be most of the meta right now! Also, using Cinccino to draw 2 cards every turn to help reuse Beheeyem every single turn as Cinccino's ability draws through your deck! Here is the list: 

Blacephalon 

Lastly, we have Blacephalon. This build of Blacephalon uses a Green's Exploration engine alongside multiple Lucky Eggs to help you draw. While this Green's version of Blacephalon is not very popular, it is still a great budget deck to try out since Blacephalon is showing that it is a very powerful deck in our current standard format. The more popular version of Blacephalon uses Jirachi in it so it is more expensive. This deck aims to put fire energy in your hand to then do 50 damage for each one discarded, using cards like Fiery Flint and Fire Crystal to grab energy to discard. Blacephalon can easily One Hit KO a tag team Pokémon with this attack which is its appeal. This deck is weak to Reset Stamp and Marnie, but that is why there are 3 lucky eggs in the deck to help keep our hand size big. Another build of Blacephalon is using it with Pidgeotto. Still, that build would also be playing Jirachi, but it is possible to build that without Jirachi, so if you do not like this Green's version, building the Pidgey version can also be suitable for a budget deck! Out of all the Budget decks shown this deck will cost the most, but is the best one to play and is the best one to help you dip your toes into the competitive scene! Here is the list: 

Well, there you have it, 4 great Budget decks to play right now! If you're newer to the game, these decks are great ones to try out to get wins and get used to the competitive scene in Pokémon! 

Post By: LittleDarkFury