Ranking League Battle Decks From Worst to Best! (Pokemon TCG Pre-Made Deck Buying Guide)
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- čas přidán 8. 09. 2024
- With so many different Pokemon Trading Card Game League Battle Decks to choose from, which one(s) should you invest in? I rank them all from worst-to-best in terms of how strong it is out-of-the-box, its potential ceiling, and how much it will be impacted by rotation! Hope this helps you in your pre-made deck shopping adventure!
VMax CalyS has been reigning top 3 in expanded for a while now. If you plan on playing expanded as well, grabbing the CalyS set gives you a handful of the cards you'd need to switch out your deck for expanded play if you want a deck that can be adjusted for both formats.
No it just makes more sense to buy the cards as singles because the majority of the league battle deck cards in it aren't even used in the deck, so it's a massive waste of money.
Thank you! I'm just getting started, and this is just what I was looking for.
Great video, I kinda wish Pokémon put out a second deck with the Mew deck cuz my brother and I are just learning to play together but we have a lot of TCG experience so it woulda been sick to have 2 powerful decks.
I just got the icerider deck the other day, and I’ll get the mew deck when it comes out. They seem like they’d be fun to throw at eachother haha. Thanks again for the vid!
Very informative video especially for F2P players on PTGO and live.
I bought the shadow rider and I played it without any edits. It’s a very good deck for people who want to get into the competitive format.
Also solid in expanded too.
Very helpful, thanks! I'm a bit surprised to see Single Strike Urshifu so low. I know its not too strong, but tbh after some changes (3rd vmax, +1 houndour and Houndoom , crobat v and with some better supporters) I was able to win few matches against the Ice rider deck and had a close game against the shadow rider.
A fully tricked-out version of Single Strike Urshifu with Umbreon VMAX was one of the best decks during the Evolving Skies era, and to a somewhat lesser extent, the Fusion Strike era. Single Strike Urshifu would still fare well against other VMAX-centric decks.
However, against VSTAR Pokemon or the current crop of single prize decks, its clunkiness and 3-prize liability get exposed when you need to attach 4 energy just to take 2 Prizes off a VSTAR and now have to figure out how to attach 4 energy two more times to knock out two more VSTAR Pokemon. Even if you hit Arceus VSTAR for weakness, Arceus would likely still out-tempo Single Strike Urshifu as it doesn't have to worry nearly as much about its energy. You may not have to discard and reattach to take down single prize attackers, but decks like Solrock Lunatone, Regigigas, Clefairy, or the current Lost Zone box deck would simply out-pace Single Strike Urshifu.
While more of the Single Strike deck is rotation safe than the Rapid Strike deck, Rapid Strike Urshifu has always found a way to adapt to the meta. I don't know if it will regain its status as the best deck ever again, but there are already multiple archetypes where Urshifu can still be a problem. As such, there's no way I could rank Single Strike Urshifu over Rapid Strike Urshifu.
I have the pairs of Urshifu and Calyrex. Ice Rider is a fantastic deck. Dominates my house whoever plays it and I’ve even won an Event with it in PTCGO
Very nice and informative video!
10:42 I just baught the mew vmax battle deck, I would like to try it out in a game of some sort.
I mix cards from all generations
Ice rider v 2
Ice rider vmax 2
Go blastoise engine 2
Quick shooting engine 2
Palkia v 2
Palkia vstar 2
Rare candy for drizzile and wartortle. Give it a shot and let me know what you think.
Quick shooting to take it up to a possible 320 damage per turn
Go blastoise to ramp 6 energy to the vmax.
Palkia to pull energy from discard
First off, kudos for experimenting with cards to see what works for you. Regardless of what I’m going to say next, never stop noodling with cards to find the next great deck.
Ice Rider Palkia is an archetype that has seen some competitive play. It’s actually one of the 2022 World Championship decks that will be released later this year.
www.tcgplayer.com/product/475658/pokemon-world-championship-decks-2022-world-championship-deck-rikuto-ohashi-ice-rider-palkia
However, none of the players using this archetype in tournament play include Blastoise. Blastoise’s ability is certainly tantalizing, but it has a few fatal flaws that make it a bad fit in almost every deck:
1. Blastoise is a stage 2 Pokemon. Even with Shady Dealings, it’s not realistic to get this set up fast enough to matter.
2. At best, you’re firing off the Blastoise ability on turn 2. Which then ends your turn. Sure, attaching 6 energy from the deck sounds cool, but now you’re not attacking on turn 2. Instead of swinging 250+ with Ice Rider or up to 260 with Palkia and probably taking 1-2 prizes, you’re leaving yourself open for your opponent to land a massive first hit. This is even worse if Ice Rider takes that hit, as your opponent only needs 4 hits on 2 Ice Riders to win and they’re now 25% of the way to victory.
3. Ice Rider Palkia really doesn’t need the acceleration of Blastoise to function. Between Melony, Palkia’s VSTAR Power, and maybe Raihan, while grabbing all of those acceleration cards with Shady Dealings, you can attach all the energy you need to the right Pokemon as you need them.
If you’re looking to build an Ice Rider Palkia deck, would recommend using the championship deck as a starting point (screenshot of the back of the box shows the deck list).
Also, during the time of the World Championships was the time when Ice Rider Palkia was most popular. You may want to check deck lists from Limitless from that time. Here’s an example:
play.limitlesstcg.com/tournament/62b203cde14de769ce78bb0a/player/dragonitehoarder/decklist
I wish I could’ve gotten the Inteleon league battle deck back then because rotation is in less than 2 months, I do wanna try the urshifu decks since I have the calyrex ones
The Inteleon was great for its time, but the Calyrex and Mew decks are way stronger and more complete decks.
A sizeable portion of the Urshifu decks are rotating soon, but it looks like Rapid Strike Urshifu is making a comeback post-rotation. That one miiiight be worth picking up these days?
I am planning on buying one of these to start getting into the game, what deck would be the best after the rotation, or which one will leave with more useful cards? Shadow Rider Calyrex? And how often are league battle decks being released?
I answer the question regarding which deck is best pre-and-post rotation question in the video.
Shadow Rider will have more "rotation-safe" cards than Ice Rider, but the overall usefulness of those cards will depend on whether you want to build a post-rotation Shadow Rider deck or use those cards to build something else.
League Battle Decks for the last few years have been released twice per year. This year, we're got the Calyrex decks and the Mew deck is coming later this year. Last year were the Urshifu decks and Inteleon deck. After Mew, I would expect a drop of 1 or 2 League Battle Decks in the spring/summer of 2023.
Honestly leave week battle decks are meant to go up against each just like how the theme decks are meant to go up against each other.
While you’re free to put limitations on yourself for how these products are to be used, League Battle Decks are designed with competitive play in mind beyond other League Battle Decks. Even Pokemon says so. Every product description for each League Battle Deck says they’re for use in Pokemon League tournaments and online competitive play.
A few examples, but they all state they’re for use in League and online play:
Mew (www.pokemoncenter.com/en-ca/product/290-85112/pokemon-tcg-mew-vmax-league-battle-deck)
Team up with the adorable Mew VMAX and finish opponents with the force of Fusion Strike firepower! This Pokémon VMAX is yours in this powerful, League-ready deck for skilled Trainers and Pokémon TCG players. With a slew of cards including premium foil cards, sought-after power cards, and a well-tuned set of Pokémon and Trainer cards, the Mew VMAX League Battle Deck does more than feature one of the most popular Pokémon of the Kanto region: it puts together all the elements to support you in your next match against friends and neighbors, in person or online!
Ice Rider (www.pokemoncenter.com/product/699-17173/pokemon-tcg-ice-rider-calyrex-vmax-league-battle-deck)
Take the reins of destiny and battle your way to victory with Ice Rider Calyrex, the High King Pokémon! This Pokémon VMAX is yours in this powerful, League-ready deck for skilled Trainers and Pokémon TCG players. With a slew of cards including premium foil cards, sought-after power cards, and a well-tuned set of Pokémon and Trainer cards, the Ice Rider Calyrex VMAX League Battle Deck does more than feature a Legendary Pokémon of the Galar region: it puts together all the elements to support you in your next match against friends and neighbors, in person or online!
They’re intentionally built to be 70-90% of a competitive deck so that they’re playable as is while also being a few tweaks away from being fully upgraded. The Inteleon League Battle Deck was my gateway into competitive play, first as is and then fully-upgraded. The Mew League Battle Deck is only a few cards away from matching the Mew deck that got top 8 at the 2022 world championships. Many others comment on my videos or tell me on stream that League Battle Decks were also their gateway into competitive play. Some have even told me they’ve won IRL local tournaments with their League Battle Decks!
If you’re limiting yourself to just playing other League Battle Decks, you’re really missing out on how much farther these decks can take you.
@@InThirdPerson that is false. They are not competitive. You can try them out and quite frankly it's a rare W to get. Remember they are for use in tournaments thus against others as well. It's hella easy to get knocked out by personal constructed decks cause of how fast they move. Yeah Pokémon lied or committed a Half Truth Fallacy because it's like I said these detrimental go up against each other. Just like the V Decks.
Because last time I checked when you take up the Deoxys and Zeraura VStar and VMax premium upgrade collection you do not see anywhere being for uses of tournaments despite being level 2 decks now(which the level is based on the amount of Vs are in the deck).
However what you can say is these decks are meant to be competitive in principle to teach the player about competitive play.
Mew VMAX has been literally one of the strongest and most popular deck archetypes in the past year.
#1 deck in Fusion Strike era play.limitlesstcg.com/decks?rotation=2022&set=FST
#1 Deck in Brilliant Stars era play.limitlesstcg.com/decks?rotation=2022&set=BRS
#3 Deck in Astral Radiance Era play.limitlesstcg.com/decks?rotation=2022&set=ASR
#4 in Lost Origin play.limitlesstcg.com/decks?rotation=2022&set=ASR
#2 in Silver Tempest play.limitlesstcg.com/decks?rotation=2022&set=SIT
The League Battle Deck gets you most of the cards in any of these “personal” builds, while only needing a few tweaks to be as strong as any of these personal builds. What’s bad about that? It’s not like every person who ever buys these decks will never buy more cards to upgrade them however they want.
This is dated now, but here’s an example of how to turn the Mew League Battle Deck into a competitive personal build for under $20
czcams.com/video/iep80jzMgC4/video.html
When the Ice Rider Calyrex deck came out, Ice Rider was the #6 deck in Limitless data. Sure, the League Battle deck could be tweaked, but it was basically 2 Choice Belts short of a “personal” constructed deck.
play.limitlesstcg.com/decks?rotation=2022&set=ASR
You seem to be completely ignoring the fact that it doesn’t take much for a player to add the cards to a League Battle Deck to make it as good as a personal build as you would call it, and even less effort in PTCGO or PTCGL. They’re not at all like theme decks or V battle decks that are so far removed from being viable that they’re not worth upgrading at all.
Your Zeraora and Deoxys example is a horrible false equivalence. You’re comparing a 3-card collector set with 60-card deck meant for competitive play. Decks using popular competitive deck archetypes, including Mew, the Calyrexes, Urshifus, all the way back to Arceus Dialga Palkia Zacian. You have to find 57 cards to make Deoxys or Zeraora work, regardless of how competitive they are, vs. a few tweaks of a fully-constructed deck using a proven archetype as the basis.
You can say all you want about their strength, but it won’t stop countless players from buying them, enjoying them at their current build, and upgrading them to be even stronger. You can look at my own channel and see all of the League Battle Deck videos I’ve made, the thousands of views they’ve generated from interested players, and happy comments from players who have started or continued their Pokemon TCG journeys thanks to a League Battle Deck.
Hi, very useful video thank you! I'm very new to this game and I'm looking for a good way to get started with it. At this point, would you recommend the Ice Rider or the Shadow rider deck? Which is better for a beginner and how much will it cost to upgrade the ice rider deck post rotation? Would you still recommend getting it 2 months before rotation?
Glad you enjoyed the video! Lots of questions packed in one paragraph. Let's see what we can do.
- Shadow Rider is a strong deck with lots of different ways to upgrade it. It's also not affected by rotation as much as Ice Rider. However, its ceiling is generally lower than Ice Rider, though some recent innovations with Mewtwo, Mimikyu, or Deoxys might change that a bit (or at least give it more flexibility in how you customize it). If you're starting with nothing, this is an easy one to recommend grabbing right now.
- Ice Rider is the stronger of the two decks while also being backed by the strongest support engine in the game with the Shady Dealings Inteleon line. However, a lot of that deck is rotating in a few months and its value does deteriorate over time (or at least as long as its post-rotation status is in question). However, it's still worth it if you check off any of the below:
a) You're going to play it a lot for the next few months
b) You want the best starting deck right now
c) You want to build other decks that leverage Shady Dealings (Arceus, Palkia, etc.)
d) You plan on playing in tournaments (IRL or online)
e) You're not too concerned with the upfront cost of the deck. Relative to building a custom meta deck, it's a very strong deck at a low price.
It's not hard to see an outcome where you get more than your money's worth in a few solid months where you win a lot of games, earn a lot of packs through PTCGO, learn a lot more about the game through a strong deck, and even use it as the foundation of other decks. If you're going to grab Ice Rider, get it quick and put a lot of time into it now.
- In terms of difficulty, they're pretty similar as is. The skill ceiling for Shady Dealings is much higher, but on the low end, you can still hit for 250 damage on turn 2 without too much fuss. Shadow Rider's Underworld Door ability is fairly straightforward, but doing enough damage on turn 2 is tricky. Neither of them as is are too tough for a newcomer to pick up.
- Yes, cards for both decks will be lost as part of rotation. However, we don't know what these decks could possibly gain in rotation. We can't rule out the possibility that these decks morph into something different (or even better) post-rotation. This is especially true for this rotation cycle, as we're moving into a new era of the game with new mechanics. Until we have a better understanding of what's ahead, it's not really worth putting too much thought into rotation.
@@InThirdPerson wow, thank you so much for your detailed answer❤ I just ordered the Ice Rider Deck and I'm really looking forward to playing a lot with it in the next months. Thank you for your help, subscribed🤝
@@dirkdiedie Congrats on the pickup! Stack those wins and I hope it serves you well in your Pokemon TCG journey!
I still can't tell which to choose tho, i recently just got into it bc my uni hold a ptcg event & they gave out free vbattle deck Mewtwo vs Melmetal Bundle to try & play. Its our first time playing this tcg & we're start to liking it! Since we all have same basic, what do u recommend to buy if we want to jump straight to Level 3 The league Deck? Im Looking at either Mew, Calyrex or shadow. We like to play as in Casual & competitive.
Welcome to the Pokemon TCG community!
If you have any desire to play decks that are stronger than V Battle Decks, League abattoe Decks are definitely the way to go. Just note that League decks are notably stronger than V Battle decks, making battles between the two a squash most of the time.
Of the 3 decks you’ve listed, Mew is the clear frontrunner. Incredibly strong deck out-of-the-box with a ceiling as high as a top 3 competitive deck if you add the missing pieces. It’s also the most rotation-safe meta deck and is likely to be the best deck again after rotation destroys Lugia. The fully tricked-out Mew deck is still my all-time fave deck, and the League Battle Deck gets you most of the way there.
Ice Rider Calyrex is weird at this point. I think it is the most complete League Battle Deck, as it’s basically the meta version of the deck with virtually no changes required outside of Choice Belts. At the time of its release, this was the best League Battle Deck ever made. However, its core support engine and many of its trainer cards are rotating out, making it ineligible for Standard play. I would put this lower on the priority list now unless you don’t care about Standard format, or you’re willing to heavily modify the deck post-rotation, or you really want to grind out Shady Dealings decks between now and rotation.
Shadow Rider is still one of the stronger League Battle Decks ever made, but it is generally weaker than Ice Rider and notably weaker than Mew. However, it is more rotation safe than Ice Rider, has seen some play in a number of rogue-tier decks, and could potentially be great with Gardevoir ex post-rotation.
@@InThirdPerson Alright Thank you for the info! i'll get the Mew deck
i just baught the shadow calyrider deck for my 7 year old daughter. what extra cards should i get for her and what should i get post rotation.
Congrats! That’s an awesome deck to get into the Pokemon TCG with.
No need to rush on upgrades. It’s very strong deck to begin with and it’s okay to take time to get familiar with the deck as is.
Once you’re ready to upgrade, I’ve made a few upgrade videos you may want to check out:
Upgrade Your Shadow Rider Calyrex League Battle Deck With This Surprise Tech!
czcams.com/video/G1EN2MNcufI/video.html
Upgrade Your Shadow Rider Calyrex VMAX League Battle Deck with Mewtwo VSTAR!
czcams.com/video/nxxCGCdVaAs/video.html
Shadow Rider Calyrex w/ Arceus and Espeon is Ready for the Meta! (Pokemon TCG Deck List + Matches)
czcams.com/video/-jIjwn5P7Y0/video.html
Upgrade Your Shadow Rider Calyrex VMAX League Battle Deck with Deoxys VSTAR! (Pokemon TCG)
czcams.com/video/DD-Hncnpjis/video.html
I know post-rotation is a hot topic for those concerned about how to adapt their decks for the future. However, until we know what new cards will be coming as part of Scarlet and Violet, there isn’t much point in theory-crafting what any of existing decks will look like in the future. Once we know what the card pool will look like post-rotation, we’ll deep dive into what existing decks will look like.
disagree with the intelion i think it should be 3rd worst
I Will take the ghost calyrex
I'm kinda curious, if u see this. I've been playing with both calyrex decks, and on the ladder I have found a bit more success and consistency with shadow rider, what am I doing wrong?
Without seeing you play, I can't say why you're having more success with Shadow Rider. But if you like playing the deck and it's working for you, don't sweat it!
@@InThirdPerson k. Thanks. I'll run some more games with ice rider and see if I can figure it out. Your vids have been a huge help overall
@@abrogaming5976 i play a lot of ice rider and all i can say is dont give up, it really puts in work once you figure out how to maximize your potential.
@@meow4meplsdiscord yep yep, while I prefer my Mew VMax deck, and tryna use lost box, I have gotten way better with ice rider
Is Ice rider deck still useable next rotation? Also when is the next rotation?
jan 2023, ice rider will probably be weaker but still viable
@@xXbabyblazingXx I meant if it is competitive legal like are the cards in rotation
Ice Rider Calyrex V and VMAX will still be legal after the upcoming rotation. All cards marked as "D" will go away in this upcoming rotation, while Ice Rider is marked "E".
The entirety of Shady Dealings goes away, but there are already ways of making it work without Shady Dealings, such as some of the builds featuring Palkia and Bibarel, not to mention what could be coming later on. If nothing else came out to support Ice Rider, I think the Palkia Bibarel variants would do alright going forward.
RIP when u said Inteleon because I was just about to make an Inteleon deck.
If you understand all of the pros and cons and still want to do it, go for it!
you talk to roger tips watch him