Joe’s electrifying Pikarom list! | Omnipoke | PTCGO Rockstars

Hi all, I’m Joe Bernard, one of the OmniPoke Youtube Channel members, which is focused on producing competitive TCG content. I rediscovered pokemon in 2009 and have been playing and collecting ever since. I have also been involved in Commentating National and International Championships for TPCI since 2016.

My favorite deck to play right now is PikaRom. It’s been a powerful archetype since its inception in Team Up and has found a way to remain competitive in every meta, no matter what new cards have been thrown in its way or however many cards it lost to rotation!

PikaRom has performed exceptionally well in the Vivid Voltage format and has the highest number of 1st place finishes in online events, proving that it can go deep in events and overcome many matchups. Coalossal, Mad Party, and Decidueye, in particular, are the matchups you’d rather not play against, and there aren’t many easy fixes for these matchups in terms of tech cards. Fortunately, against the other highest performing decks, PikaRom can easily go toe-to-toe with them! Since the release of Shining Fates, Rusted Sword has thrown a spanner in the works, and PikaRom has seen notably less play over the last few weeks, but I’m still a huge fan of the deck overall.

In TEU-VIVmeta, it’s one of the most consistent decks available and has a good variety of attacking options with probably the best ‘comeback’ win condition in the TCG. The combination of Reset Stamp and Raichu & Alolan Raichu GX’s Tandem Shock attack, which paralyzes the opponent’s active pokemon, can be a great way to buy back a free turn and often traps Tag Team or VMAX pokemon for you to finish off on the following turn, this means that even if you have a poor start or can’t keep up with an archetype in a prize race, you can still find a route to victory.

The deck can also play well on the front foot, thanks to Full Blitz. Not only do you put meaningful damage into play, but you can be threatening Tag Bolt or can power up benched pokemon for future turns, meaning you rarely miss a beat.

Some key things to consider when playing this deck revolves around the use of Boltund V. It’s often your go-to early-game attacker, with Electrify being able to power up your Tag Teams more safely on the bench. Boltund V can also be a star player in the late-game if you’ve managed to avoid suffering KO’s and continued to flood your field of energy with the likes of Full Blitz. Bolt Storm deals 10 + 30 damage for each Lightning Energy in play, so it can easily surpass your Tag Team's damage output!

I think Mewtwo & Mew GX is becoming more and more of a focal point in PikaRom as the metagame develops, as we begin to see the importance of having that extra 30HP compared to PikaRom (especially since Shining Fates was released, Rusted Sword now allows Zacian to pick up easier KO’s on it!) Electrifying to Mewtwo also provides more options on that 2nd turn of the game. For example, against ADP decks, it can be far more important to attempt to paralyze after their Altered Creation than it would be to Full Blitz, so having different avenues open is never a bad thing for the deck.

Overall my lists are usually pretty plain, so there aren’t too many bells and whistles here because this fits my playstyle the best. Even the most consistent decks in the game can have awkward hands at times, so I prefer to commit as many spaces as possible to consistency cards rather than having many situational cards included. For example, we’ve recently seen a large uptick in a play of Team Yell Grunt in PikaRom. The theory is sound behind the card, and the energy removal is certainly helpful against many archetypes, especially the VMAX’s, but there will be a huge number of games where you aren’t able to weave it in at the right time. Instead of playing tech cards like this, I’m more so looking to maximize the counts of everything else in my deck.

The “greediest” decision with my list right now is the lack of Energy Switch, which is common in many PikaRom builds, often as 2 copies (or sometimes 1 copy of Tag Switch). While this can be punishing against Crushing Hammer, I once again am just more concerned about getting an ideal few turns to get the deck rolling, rather than pushing for wombo combo T1 Full Blitz or having bursty-Boltund plays later on in a game. The lack of Energy Switch can be a tad restrictive, and it puts extra emphasis on every energy drop being correct, so it may take a little getting used to!

Thanks for reading. Hopefully, this was an interesting read. You can check out decklist discussion and metagame analysis on the OmniPoke Youtube Channel and watch live gameplay on Twitch.tv/teamomnipoke. I’m excited to see how PikaRom fairs with the release of Battle Styes, but it may be finally a launching pad in favor of Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX, another exceptional sniper who has already entered into our format!