Upgrading your Inteleon VMAX League Battle Deck

Posted by Elena from Gaia Storm on 6/4/2021 to Deck Lists

Hello everyone! This is Elena from Gaia Storm TCG, and welcome to another article here at PoTown Store, one that really has me excited as I think it will help a lot of newcomers to the game. You see, it seems that lately, new players are getting a lot of support with amazing products that come with many good cards to start building a competitive deck from the very first minute. One of the latest releases of this line is the highly anticipated Inteleon VMAX League Battle Deck, a ready-to-use collection that is a great improvement compared to old-school theme decks. In terms of quality to price ratio, this is by far the best investment you can make if you want to have a solid base to compete in Pokémon Trading Card Game Online.

In this article, we are going to be analyzing how to upgrade the deck with very few touches and take Inteleon to the highest level. Let’s go!

Inteleon VMAX Battle League Content

The first thing I want to highlight about the Inteleon VMAX League Battle deck is that it is good, really good. In contrast with the old theme decks that only used to include a couple of playable cards, every single thing we find here is almost tournament-level.

Of course, this is great because that means that with very few additions and tweaks, we can immediately build an excellent strategy that will work most of the time. You can see below a picture of the content that you will receive once you redeem the code at Pokémon TCG Online.

Pokémon Trading Card Game Deck List

Pokémon (19)	Trainers (31)	Energy (10)
2x Galarian Zigzagoon SSH 117	2x Evolution Incense SSH 163	10x Water Energy SWSH Energy
2x Inteleon V RCL 49	1x Training Court RCL 169
3x Snom SSH 63	1x Ordinary Rod SSH 171
3x Sobble SSH 55	2x Bird Keeper DAA 159
1x Suicune DAA 37	4x Quick Ball SSH 179
2x Drizzile SSH 56	3x Air Balloon SSH 156
2x Frosmoth SSH 64	2x Scoop Up Net RCL 165
2x Inteleon SSH 58	4x Professor's Research SSH 178
2x Inteleon VMAX RCL 50	4x Great Ball SSH 164
	3x Marnie SSH 169
	2x Capacious Bucket RCL 156
	3x Boss's Orders RCL 154

Inteleon and Galarian Zigzagoon Deck List

Two copies of Inteleon VMAX, a solid drawing engine, and just the precise amount of energy. We have all the ingredients ready to cook something big!

The first steps towards a tournament-ready deck

We need to start this rebuild by asking ourselves: “What does the deck truly need to be even more consistent?”. Our goal is going to be to power up Inteleon VMAX by the second turn of the game with the help of a benched Frosmoth, so we need to make sure that we get all the combo pieces as soon as possible. With this idea in mind, there are some clear improvements we can make.

Bear in mind that the following will be just an initial layer of changes, trying to recycle as much of the original deck as possible with the objective of increasing the consistency of our game:

2 Inteleon V RLC 49& + 1 Inteleon VMAX RLC 50: Intelon is your main weapon, and you truly want to play it in your very first turn. A more robust Inteleon line will increase the odds of drawing into it and reduce the risk of pricing your valuable attackers. You could even stretch it and only use a 3/3 (three Inteleon V and three VMAX), but I am a big fan of running a 4/3 line.
4 Level Ball: I can’t stress how good this card is in this type of strategy. Not only it gives you access to your Snom and Frosmoth, the energy accelerator of the deck, but it also helps set up the non-V Inteleon line. Since the deck requires access to a certain combination of cards, the Level Ball provides you with all the puzzle pieces you need, especially key ones during the first turns of the game.
2 Pokémon Communication: Pokémon Communication is great here because it will give you the Pokémon you are looking for. A couple of copies fits in practically every deck in the format.
1 Crobat V PR SWSH 098: Undoubtedly, Crobat is one of the best support Pokémon we have currently in Standard. It is effortless to search and can get you out of difficult situations by refreshing your hand with new cards. There is absolutely no reason not to include one copy of this card.
1 Drizzle SWSH 65: The non-V Inteleon line is one of the strongest cards I’ve seen in a while since it basically will allow you to search everything when one Pokémon evolves. The more copies we run, the easier it will be to set up what we need.

And how do I make room for all these additions? Personally, I will get rid of the following:

2 Zigzagoon - 2 Nets. Sure, putting damage counters is great, but this damage output won’t be relevant to make a significant difference against the most popular Pokémon in the format.
4 Great Ball: Since we are running Level Ball and Pokémon Communication, there is no need to play a card that won’t always guarantee us the Pokémon we are looking for.
2 Bird Keeper: The Level Ball engine should be enough to give you access to all your switching cards, and, honestly, most of your Pokémon have a low retreat cost anyways. You are always going to prefer using Marnie or Professor Research over Bird Keeper to draw.
1 Water Energy: Running recycling cards and Training Court, 9 basic water energies will be more than enough to attack without problems during the games.

This will be the final result:

Pokémon Trading Card Game Deck List

Pokémon (22)	Trainers (29)	Energy (9)
1x Crobat V DAA 182	2x Pokémon Communication TEU 152	9x Water Energy
4x Inteleon V RCL 49	2x Evolution Incense SSH 163
3x Snom SSH 63	1x Training Court RCL 169
3x Sobble SSH 55	1x Ordinary Rod SSH 171
1x Suicune DAA 37	4x Quick Ball SSH 179
3x Drizzile SSH 56	3x Air Balloon SSH 213
2x Frosmoth SHF 30	4x Level Ball BST 129
2x Inteleon SSH 58	4x Professor's Research SSH 178
3x Inteleon VMAX RCL 50	3x Marnie CPA 56
	2x Capacious Bucket RCL 156
	3x Boss's Orders RCL 189

With these initial changes, we will have already built a very solid Pokémon deck that will give you results from the very first game. And something great about this is that all the cards listed above are relatively easy and cheap to get. For example, you can get Crobat V by directly purchasing the Shiny Crobat Collection, and Inteleon V can be easily obtained by redeeming the Promo Inteleon Tin code.

Of course, from here, there are different ways in which you can evolve your deck, adapting it to your personal style of play. I want to share my very own current Inteleon build with you, the one that I really feel comfortable with. There are some one-offs that you might not want to run, but, in my experience, they have been very helpful: Team Yell Grunt, for example, provides some early-game energy control, and Rose is a great way to power up your Inteleon VMAX out of the blue.

Pokémon Trading Card Game Deck List

Pokémon (23)	Trainers (28)	Energy (9)
1x Crobat V DAA 182	4x Level Ball BST 129	8x Water Energy Energy 3
1x Kricketune V BST 6	1x Team Yell Grunt SSH 184	1x Capture Energy RCL 171
1x Mew UNB 76	2x Marnie CPA 56
1x Mimikyu CEC 97	2x Capacious Bucket RCL 156
4x Inteleon V RCL 49	4x Professor's Research SSH 178
2x Snom SHF 29	1x Pokémon Communication TEU 152
3x Sobble SSH 55	3x Boss's Orders RCL 189
3x Drizzile SSH 56	4x Quick Ball SSH 179
2x Frosmoth SHF 30	2x Evolution Incense SSH 163
2x Inteleon SSH 58	1x Reset Stamp UNM 206
3x Inteleon VMAX RCL 50	3x Air Balloon SSH 213
	1x Rose DAA 189

Finally, you can consider some of the following cards to include in the deck depending on your style of play and the decks you’d like to have a good answer against:

Mew UNB 076 from Unbroken Bonds to keep your bench safe
Mimikyu CEC 097 from Cosmic Eclipse helps to negate Mew & Mewtwo Tag Team effect
Kricketune V BST 006 can be a good alternative to draw cards through the game without needing to bench Crobat.
Escape Rope or Switch are other great switching options apart from Air Ballon.
Crushing Hammers can be interesting if you want to orient the deck towards a more energy-control version.
Nessa is also a great recycling option and, on certain occasions, more flexible than Ordinary Rod.
One copy of Capture Energy can help you set up during the first turns of the game.

The future: Looking past Battle Styles

Lastly, one thing I wanted to mention is that in the upcoming set, Chilling Reing, there will come some very interesting cards that could potentially help Inteleon VMAX even more. It is still a bit soon to tell without having tested it in real life, but I would bet that the new Sobble and the new Inteleon (the Rapid Strike ones) will be amazing additions to the deck.

All you will need to do once this set is legal is probably swap your Sword and Shield copies of Sobble for the Chilling Reign ones and include at least one or two copies of the new Inteleon that puts damage counters every time. And guess what? You don’t need to worry about the rotation that is coming next August because most of the cards that Intelon uses will remain in the format. Truly a long-term investment!

Conclusion

All in all, I really think Inteleon is a solid play and probably the best option for newcomers right now. I have been testing and using the deck for quite some time because I think it is just so funny and consistent, so it really makes me happy that now we have an official product with this water type as the protagonist. As we have seen in this article, with only a very few tweaks, the deck can be used to climb the Pokémon Online ladder or participate in competitive events. Then, it will be up to you to decide which additions and final changes you want to make, so the deck becomes your own.

It is great that Pokémon continues releasing these types of products that come with so many good items. Remember that you can always pick code cards here at PoTown Store for the best price and then use these to trade for the cards that your Inteleon deck is missing. I hope this article was of use! If you have any questions related to how to start in Pokémon TCG, I am always eager to help. You can find me on Youtube, and other channels (@gaiastorm), so drop and say hi! Thanks for reading!