Exploring the Sword and Shield Metagame

What's poppin’ PoTown Store readers? Are you getting bored of Standard? Are you looking forward to the rotation? Do you hate Tag Team Pokemon like Mewtwo & Mew-GX (Unified Minds) and Pikachu & Zekrom-GX (Team Up)? Even if you don’t care about any of those things, I want to share with you a format that a few players have been trying out already, the Sword and Shield - on the format. That’s right, some players have been peeking into the future, and there is already a metagame that has formed. The goal of this article is to share a handful of decks that I’ve seen from various SwSh-on tournaments and get y’all excited. Let’s check out some of these TCG awesome decks.

Coming in hot with a recent top-four finish is Mike Fouchet (@mikefouchet) with Single Strike Urshifu VMAX (Battle Styles), and this list looks better than our current format iteration. This is a deck that often gets overlooked by Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX (Battle Styles), and that's based on results alone in our current Team Up - Battle Styles Standard format. So what changes when all Sun and Moon sets are rotated? Well, this deck loses much less than other decks in comparison because the whole archetype was created in Battle Styles, which makes it a great choice. I like how Single Strike Blow can hit through Zamazenta V (Sword and Shield) and Decidueye (Shining Fates), how the deck accelerates Energy quickly, and it’s plain fun. I’m slightly worried this deck’s success might be short-lived with the upcoming Shadow Rider Calyrex VMAX (Chilling Reign), but only time will tell.

This deck focuses on using Houndoom (Battle Styles) to accelerate Single Strike Energy (Battle Styles) to Single Strike Urshifu V. Once you’re all powered up, you can choose from a handful of attacks, including the bonus attack from Single Strike Scroll of Scorn (Battle Styles), and prepare your path to victory. This deck is simple at its core, but it is incredibly potent! Give it a try!

At the same event that Fouchet made the top four in, Ju, a great player from France, played this exact Turbo Zacian TCG deck to a top-eight finish. I like plenty of the inclusions in this list, such as Aegislash V (Vivid Voltage) to get around Decidueye (Darkness Ablaze), and the Rotom Phone (Champions Path) engine is quite synergistic. This is a simple concept of having a bunch of Pokemon that all utilize Metal Saucer (Sword and Shield) to get powered up and focusing on the individual attributes of each one to point your way to getting a win. Let’s look at the list.

The strategy of this TCG deck is to use Metal Saucer to power up either Zacian V (Sword and Shield), Zamazenta V, or Aegislash V. Zacian V can do a lot of damage, Zamazenta is great at walling VMAX Pokemon, and Aegislash V counters anything that might be a threat for you. Rotom Phone allows you to control your deck for Intrepid Sword hits, and you can use it with Oranguru (Sword and Shield) if you need a card right away. This deck is simple at its core, but there's enough space to effectively tech for most poor matchups, which makes this an amazing deck.

Another deck and another top finish, Alexander Calder placed within the top four players at a recent event with this exact list. I like the idea behind using Cinccino (Sword and Shield) as a draw engine to help you draw into Boss’s Orders (Rebel Clash) when you need to. You might be wondering why anyone would play a Fire-type deck after Welder (Unbroken Bonds) has rotated, but this deck gets a pass because Victini VMAX (Battle Styles) only takes two Energy to use Max Victory. Let’s look at this list.

The strategy in this deck is to take advantage of all GX Pokemon rotating so that Max Victory is hitting the most powerful Pokemon for 220 damage over and over again! It's a simple strategy: attach an Energy, pass, Evolve, attach an Energy, attack, but that doesn’t make it ineffective. So you have your attacker, you have Cinccino as a draw engine, and you have a bunch of support to help you get there! After playing around with this format for a few hours now, this deck screams best deck in format until at least Chilling Reign comes out!

These TCG decks are refreshing to play, and it’s a great time to start playing Pokemon if you are new or returning to the game. I’m personally excited about the potential changes Chilling Reign will make to this metagame as I anticipate the results of our upcoming rotation. Even though I find ways to love all formats, I like seeing new combinations and strategies emerge as cards get sent to the Expanded format. If you’re missing any cards to build these decks or you want some extra online packs to trade around, pick up some PTCGO codes from PoTown Store.

Zach Lesage is a contributing writer for PoTown Store. As a Toronto local, he has been playing the Pokemon Trading Card Game since 2005 and creates Pokemon content as his full-time career. He creates YouTube content, coaches players to become better in-game, and provides hot takes on his Twitter. With multiple prestigious accomplishments in the game, such as the 2020 Players Cup 2 Champion and 2020 Oceania International Championships Finalist, he has proven his success in the game. Outside of the game, he travels the world, enjoys the culture of designer streetwear, and is a professionally trained chef. You can catch him at most Pokemon events and follow him on Twitter @ZachLesagePTCG.