It feels like this card is being slept on.

120 damage for 2 energies on a stage 1, single-prized pokemon is seriously good.

The “discard 2 cards from your hand” side effect may seem bad, but it’s possible to play around (and even make use of) it.

Here’s a Mega Altaria - Cofagrigas deck that I’ve been playing:

Mega Altaria + Cofagrigas

deck:

  • 2x Yamask
  • 1x Jirachi
  • 2x Chingling
  • 2x Cofagrigas
  • 2x Swablu
  • 2x Mega Altaria
  • 2x Pokeball
  • 1x Red Card
  • 2x Professor’s Research
  • 1x Cyrus
  • 1x Red
  • 2x Copycat

There are 2 ways this deck plays out: either Mega Altaria carries the game (like most other Mega Altaria decks), or Cofagrigas carries.

Naturally, this deck runs 2 copies of Yamask + Cofagrigas and Swablu + Mega Altaria for draw consistency. Likewise, 2 copies of Pokeball and Professor’s Research for card draw.

2 copies of Chingling are included because they are that strong, stalling the first 1-2 turns while allowing you to store energies towards Cofagrigas and Mega Altaria.

Cyrus is there as a win condition in case Cofagrigas or Mega Altaria fail to KO the opponent’s key pokemon.

Red is another major win condition, since Cofagrigas’ 120 damage and Mega Altaria’s 130 damage falls short of key breakpoints like Suicune’s 140 hp.

Copycat is one of the main reasons for this deck being so strong. You can discard dead cards with Cofagrigas, then immediately draw a whole bunch using Copycat.

Red Card is there to punish opponents with too many cards in their hand, plus it pairs well with Copycat.

Jirachi is the one card I am most unsure of. I am still undecided on whether to replace it with Indeedee or even something else. Both are strong.

In this deck, the discard effect is turned into a strength instead of a weakness. I am sure y’all have experienced a number of games in the current meta where your opponent just shuffles your cards into your deck over and over.

The thing is, most cards can become a dead card depending on the situation.

  • Chingling tend to be useless beyond the first few turns
  • Jirachi is only situationally useful in late game through bench-sniping or Cyrus plays
  • If you draw them way too late into the game, Pokeball and Prof are dead cards
  • If your opponent plays a deck that uses up their hand quickly (e.g. Hydreigon), Copycat and Red Card are useless

Heck, even Yamask + Cofagrigas and Swablu + Mega Altaria can turn into dead cards. You likely won’t need to put both copies of Cofagrigas into play, and (depending on the game) usually 1 Mega Altaria is enough. And sometimes, your Yamask or Swablu gets knocked out early. Any of these cases mean the remaining cards become dead.

By discarding these dead cards, you prevent your opponent from shuffling them back into your deck, which means lower chances of bad draws in subsequent turns.

Edit: Forgot to mention: reducing your hand size also means reduced effectiveness of your opponent’s Copycat.

Note that this strategy benefits from the current metagame of multiple hand-shufflings. If the meta changes, this deck may not do as well.

Notable exclusions:

May - I noticed that May did not help me much in this deck, likely because this deck doesn’t run any stage 2 pokemon. Finding the basic pokemons and evolving them is not difficult using the existing cards in the deck.

Lisia - There are 5 pokemons with 50 hp or lower, so it feels like a good inclusion. However, it may ruin Copycat if your bench is full and Cofagrigas isn’t up by then. Also, none of the other cards feel right to replace. If we replace Jirachi with Lisia, that is one less draw target for Lisia. If we replace Copycat with Lisia, it reduces the consistency of the Cofagrigas discard + Copycat combo. I haven’t tried replacing Prof with Lisia, but I suspect it makes drawing into the evolution pokemons - Cofagrigas and Mega Altaria - less consistent.

Indeedee - This and Jirachi are my most undecided cards for this deck. I can see the strength of Indeedee’s heal and damage potential. However, Jirachi’s global 30 damage is so good against babies. I’d say this is a flex pick depending on how the meta evolves. Either way, if they end up being a dead card, just discard them with Cofagrigas lol

Anything I missed? Tried the deck out? Let me know in the comments below!