Best Pokemon TCG Pocket Mega Absol ex and Hydreigon deck

Pokemon TCG Pocket best decks — (Image credit: The Pokemon Company)

Mega Absol ex and Hydreigon in Pokemon TCG Pocket have been two of the most powerful Dark type cards in the meta since they were added, both for different reasons. Absol does moderate damage, but has a lot of health and causes opponents to discard Supporter cards with every attack, while Hydreigon is a self-damaging energy generator who can do 130 damage per turn, and it's not even an ex Pokemon! Between them they make up one of the most powerful decks in PTCGP, as I'll lay out below.

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Best Mega Absol ex and Hydreigon deck build in Pokemon TCGP

The best Mega Absol ex deck in Pokemon TCG Pocket — (Image credit: The Pokemon Company)

Several variants of the Mega Absol deck have been going around, but this variant is Hydreigon and a secondary poison effect.

Mega Absol ex x1
Nihilego x1
Deino x2
Hydreigon x2
Cyrus x1
Rare Candy x2
Poison Barb x2
Copycat x2
Pokemon Center Lady x1
Lucky Ice Pop x1
Hiking Trail x1
Poke Ball x2
Professor's Research x2

Energy: Dark

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This pure dark deck is highly aggressive, using cheap energy attacks and poison to go in hard from the outset, as well as using the Fantastical Parade's Lucky Ice Pop item to help alleviate the damage done to Hydreigon by itself, or just to keep Mega Absol from being KO'd and losing you the game. This is a deck where you can't let up on the offence for a moment, and it works because it can tear through opponent's strategies before they have a chance to set up combos or counters to what you're doing.

Put simply, the strategy is to get Absol or Deino out there early, softening up the opponent with whatever cards you have in the active zone before building up to Hydreigon and unleashing its full power. You don't even have to be particularly protective over it, as Hydreigon's absurd damage output somehow doesn't make it a Pokemon ex, so even if it falls you don't give your opponents many points.

Pros
- A strong early game
- Good at disrupting opponents' strategies
- Versatile with a decent draw rate
Cons
- Not hugely tanky, especially with Hydreigon's self destructive tendencies
- Poison won't do much to survival-orientated decks or those with cheap retreats

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Joel Franey is a writer, journalist, podcaster and Very Tired Man with a BA from Brunel University, a Masters from Sussex University and a decade working in games journalism, often focused on guides coverage but also in reviews, features and news. His love of games is strongest when it comes to groundbreaking narratives like Disco Elysium, UnderTale and Baldur's Gate 3, as well as innovative or refined gameplay experiences like XCOM, Sifu, Arkham Asylum or Slay the Spire. He is a firm believer that the vast majority of games would be improved by adding a grappling hook, and if they already have one, they should probably add another just to be safe. You can find old work of his at Eurogamer, Gfinity, USgamer, SFX Magazine, RPS, Dicebreaker, VG247, and more.