Hydrapple ex is my favorite new deck archetype in Pokemon TCG Stellar Crown. However, figuring out how to optimize a deck list for it has been anything but easy. As it turns out, this deck works well because of how versatile it can be, especially if you combine it with the Festival Grounds mechanic released in Twilight Masquerade.

Let’s take a look below at the deck that’s been carrying me through the Master’s League on Pokemon TCG Live this season, and how a deck that focuses on enabling you a favorable prize trade can be a game changer in the current Pokemon TCG meta.

Pokémon: 13
1 Rabsca TEF 24
2 Hydrapple ex SCR 14
2 Thwackey TWM 15
2 Teal Mask Ogerpon ex TWM 211
2 Dipplin TWM 18
1 Fezandipiti ex SFA 38
1 Rellor TEF 23
2 Grookey TWM 14
1 Cleffa OBF 80
1 Teal Mask Ogerpon ex TWM 190
4 Applin TWM 17
1 Dipplin TWM 170
1 Rillaboom TWM
Trainer: 12
4 Buddy-Buddy Poffin TEF 144
1 Energy Retrieval SVI 171
1 Counter Catcher PAR 160
1 Grand Tree SCR 136
1 Lacey SCR 139
1 Lana's Aid TWM 219
1 Vitality Band SSH 185
3 Iono PAF 80
4 Ultra Ball CRZ 146
4 Bug Catching Set TWM 143
2 Boss's Orders PAL 172
3 Festival Grounds TWM 149
Energy: 1
13 Basic {G} Energy Energy 1

Hydrapple ex is one of the more challenging decks to play and master I’ve played to date. But if you put in the time to learn how to play this powerful deck, it can be really strong, particularly in the current format.

Let’s go over everything from how to set up your bench to how to handle specific matchups with this particular deck.

Hydrapple ex board set up

Gettin an ideal board set up is the way to win with Hydrapple ex. Because it is an evolve deck, how you set things up is going to have a huge impact on whether or not you can get the plays in that you want to when you need to get them in.

So how do you set this deck up?

Applin and Grookey turn one

Your first turn set up is the most important. You are looking for at least two Applin on the board, and one or two Grookey. If you can manage just two Applin and a Grookey, you open up a lot of consistency options turn two where you can evolve into a Dipplin and a Thwackey, and start searching for things you need to start taking KOs.

Two Applin and two Grookey is even better, leaving space for two Ogerpon ex or other situational Pokemon.

Situational board set up with Cleffa

Cleffa is in here mostly just for going second. If you are going second, go ahead and bring out a Cleffa with your Buddy-Buddy Poffin. It’s very easy to attach an energy and retreat into your Cleffa, and one of my favorite ways to do this is if I started with Teal Mask Ogerpon ex in the starting position, use a Teal Dance to attach an energy, retreat, attach another energy to Dipplin, and then use Grasping Draw to refill my hand.

Rellor against damage spread decks

If you are playing against Dragapult ex, Regidrago VSTAR, or any deck that can attack with Radiant Greninja, you need to get Rellor onto your bench turn one. This works best if you go first, but it’s still worth trying to get set up if you have room for it if you go second against those decks. If you are playing against a Charizard ex, Raging Bolt ex, or Ancient Box, or Terapagos ex, don’t bench Rellor if you can avoid it. You’ll need your bench space ultimately in order to win.

Key consistency cards to help set up your board

Luckily, getting your board set up right is relatively easy to do given the wide range of search cards at your disposal in this deck. In summary, these are:

Bug Catching Set: arguably your strongest card is Bug Catching Set, enabling you to search out the vast majority of your Pokemon or energy cards depending on your need.
Buddy-Buddy Poffin: playing just one of these in your first turn is usually enough to ensure a favorable set up.
Ultra Ball: usually best for finding evolution Pokemon to get the machine rolling.
Thwackey: Boom Boom Groove is incredibly strong. You’ll want to get this set up as early as turn two so you can get whatever you need to get two prize turns.

Attacking with Festival Lead

The majority of Hydrapple ex decks are not bothering with the Festival Lead attack found on the Dipplin in Twilight Masquerade. That’s a mistake, I think, as Festival Lead is a massively handy attack. While it’s not strong enough to make up a competitive level deck on its own, when you combine it with the power of Teal Mask Ogerpon ex and Hydrapple ex, amazing things can happen.

Let’s break down the Festival Lead attack and how you can use it practically to take multiple knockouts in a turn, or even to take down basic Pokemon ex and V.

Have Festival Grounds in Play

In order to take full advantage of Festival Lead, you need to have Festival Grounds in play. Luckily, if you set up your Thwackey, searching out this stadium card is relatively easy. Thwackey lets you search your deck for any card you want, assuming your Pokemon in the active spot has Festival Lead.

Once you have Festival Grounds in play, there are two effective attacks you can use depending on the Pokemon you are facing down.

Take multiple KOs in a turn

Take multiple knockouts: one really exciting thing you can do with Festival Grounds is to take more than one knockout in a turn. Of course, there needs to be a situation that allows this, meaning your opponent has only Pokemon with 110 HP or under in play. Or, maybe they forget that Festival Lead is a thing and they accidentally send out a Pokemon with HP low enough to knockout.

If your opponent only has Pokemon in play that are 110 HP or less (assuming you have Vitality Band attached), you really need to prioritize this attack.

Taking a two prize KO

However, Dipplin isn’t only good for taking multiple KOs. It can also take knockouts against bulkier two prize Pokemon, as long as their HP is 200 or less (or 220 with Vitality Band attached). You can easily take out a Squawkabilly or many basic Pokemon V and ex with two hits from Dipplin.

Remember, regardless of how you attack, Dipplin’s “Do the Wave” attack is only as strong as the number of benched Pokemon you have. Priortize getting a full bench set up early in order to maximize your damage output.

Attacking with Hydrapple ex

Both Hydrapple ex and Dipplin are your main attackers in this deck, and you’ll want to choose the attacker who best suits your needs. Early on in the game, attacking with Dipplin is usually the preferred thing to do. You’ll need Festival Lead in play to leverage Thwackey’s powerful Boom Boom Groove to search out the cards you need to succeed.

An additional advantage of using Dipplin is to unlock a favorable prize trade. Using Dipplin to take two prize turns and forcing your opponent to only take a one prize turn knockout against it is one of the surest ways to ensure you win the prize race with this deck. It’s also an option that Hydrapple ex decks that don’t run Dipplin as an attacker simply don’t have.

Setting up with Teal Mask Ogerpon ex

One of this deck’s strongest Pokemon that we have yet to talk about is Teal Mask Ogerpon ex. While it’s not the primary focus of this deck, having one or two Teal Masks in play early on will make getting stronger attacks with Hydrapple ex later on easier. Hydrapple ex does additional damage for each grass energy in play. Scaling that damage output without an Ogerpon ex is very hard to do with just Hydrapple’s ability alone (letting you attach one grass energy and healing damage when you do).

I typically will set up a Teal Mask turn one and usually prefer it as my starting active Pokemon.

Evolving Hydrapple ex manually

Of course, being a Stage 2 makes Hydrapple ex relatively difficult to get into play. Luckily, you have two ways to go about playing Hydrapple ex: manually evolving it and using Grand Tree.

Although manually evolving a Stage 2 Pokemon isn’t usually feasible, because you will typically have one or two Dipplin in play early on anyways because it is your other main attacker, you can then drop a Hydrapple ex down and close things out that way.

Evolving Hydrapple ex with Grand Tree

The other way to evolve Hydrapple ex is with Grand Tree. While you also have Festival Grounds in this deck, by the time you want to start making moves with Hydrapple ex, you don’t really need Festival Grounds. It’s safe to get rid of at that point to start accelerating the pace of the game.

Grand Tree only works, however, if you have a basic Pokemon in play (for a turn) and the stuff to evolve it in your deck. Before making this move, just make sure you have all the necessary pieces in your deck and not in your hand, discard or Lost Zone.

If you have a bunch of the pieces you need in your hand, a handy play to get it back into your deck is just by playing Grand Tree, and then Iono.

Hydrapple ex affords you a powerful strategic advantage

While not the most straightforward attacker, Hydrapple ex is still a powerful strategic advantage at your disposal. It affords you powerful energy acceleration, can theoretically KO anything out there, and has a massive HP stat that keeps it alive for (usually) mutliple turns. It’s the beefyness of this Pokemon in the current meta that most often comes into play, enabling you to trade favorably with your opponent.

Ultimately, this deck’s main advantage is all in enabling a favorable prize trade in the long run. Doing so, of course, requires you to pay close attention at where you and your opponent are in the prize race to ensure you have the steam it takes to get to victory.

A note on Rillaboom

Before moving onto this deck’s attack strategy, let’s talk about the Rillaboom tech I’ve included in my list. I’ve found this Rillaboom helpful in many occasions. First of all, while the stage 1 in its evolution line is core to this deck’s strategy, there usually comes a time in the game where you are attacking with Hydrapple ex and no longer using Thwackey’s Boom Boom Groove ability. Once that happens, it’s helpful to have Rillaboom around to evolve it. This is helpful for several reasons.

Good against Cornerstone Mask Ogerpon ex

Cornerstone Mask Ogerpon ex is not a staple in every deck but you will still run into it when you play. Without Rillaboom, this deck has no other way to deal with Cornerstone Mask. Rillaboom, however, takes it out in one hit.

Capable of taking two prize knockouts

While the 180 damage Rillaboom does isn’t capable of taking KOs against everything, it is good enough to knockout several supporting two prize Pokemon. This can be a powerful move to close out a game or – once again – enable a favorable prize trade.

Protecting your bench

While Thwackey isn’t massively vulnerable to bench sniping, Rillaboom is very hard to take out with Phantom Dive or similar attacks. Evolving your Thwackey when you no longer need its ability is a great way to protect your bench if you don’t have Rabsca in play.

Pivoting

One glaring issue with this deck lis is the fact it doesn’t have switch cards. Your opponent will exploit this weakness if they are smart and try to gust out your benched Thwackey and try to stall you out. Thwackey is the obvious choice here because its got two retreat cost. While you can attach multiple energy in a turn to retreat it via Hydrapple ex, you can also simply evolve it and start attacking into Rillaboom.

Key supporters

First, this deck runs Iono and Boss’s Orders like plenty of decks do. Iono is specifically used in this deck to force your opponent out of resources later in the game. This is especially strong if you manage to take out their draw support/card search line, often leaving them without the resources to rebound for a successful end game.

Boss’s Orders and Counter Catcher are your only gust options, and are actually quite vital in this deck strategy, letting you bring out a Pokemon within your attack range depending on the situation. Most often, I use them on supporting two prize Pokemon with lower HP like Squawkabilly, Fezandipiti or Teal Mask Ogerpon ex. These Pokemon are usually easily within reach of my attackers, while it can be difficult to KO multiple high HP Pokemon given Hydrapple ex’s reliance on energy.

Lana’s Aid

I find Lana to be pretty integral to this deck’s strategy, and she wins me a lot of games. Typically I just use this supporter to pull three energies into my hand which can then be easily accelerated via Teal Mask Ogerpon ex and Hydrapple ex. In some situations you will also need a Pokemon in your discard. But more commonly you use Lana for the energies.

I find Lana more helpful than Super Rod because she guarantees the energies are in my hand, removing the need to search them out from the deck.

I also pulled this SIR Lana from a Twilight Masquerade booster pack so I have a special attachment to the card.

Lacey

I’ve been delightfully surprised by how good this deck is in my Hydrapple ex list. Originally I tried running just four copies of Iono, but found in the later game I really needed a supporter capable of replenishing my hand without forcing me to discard cards. This deck’s list is very exact without a lot of wiggle room, making discarding any card an absolute pain.

Lacey seemed to be the perfect option, and I haven’t been disappointed. She has single handedly won me many games so far.

What makes her so good is that (unlike similar cards like Roxanne), you can use Lacey whenever. She just gets a lot stronger if you can save her for the later game. When you and your opponent are down to the wire with a few prize cards remaining, you can play Lacey and fully replenish your hand with an incredible eight cards.

While not every deck will run a Lacey, decks that really hate to discard (like this one) will find her a welcome addition.

Hydrapple ex matchup guide

Lastly, let’s look at some of the matchups you are likely to play when climbing the ladder on Pokemon TCG Live or at your local tournament.

Charizard ex is your best matchup

It’s really nice to have a favorable matchup against this deck because otherwise it is really powerful and hard to beat for most decks. While it’s not guaranteed you win, as long as you play your cards right, this is a very manageable matchup. The main threat you will face is if your opponent sneaks a Briar win out of you. Learn the win condition of that card and try to avoid situations where your opponent has three prizes remaining and you have only two.

Much of the time I wont’ even bother playing my Hydrapple ex in this matchup, as both Rillaboom and Dipplin are more than capable of taking KOs against Charizard, as is Teal Mask Ogerpon ex.

Dragapult ex is tough

I would not be discouraged in this matchup but definitely be wary. Having Rabsca in play will go a long way in ensuring victory here, and elimnate the main weakness this deck has against Dragapult ex. Otherwise, Phantom Dive can absolutely wreck havoc on your set up.

If you can’t get Rabsca out because of bad luck or its prized, focus on evolving your Pokemon as early as possible to get them out of range of Phantom Dive. Also, Hydrapple’s ability can be great for clearing damage and denying multiple prize turns.

Regidrago VSTAR

The same here applies to Regidrago ex who has both Phantom Dive and Kyruem at its disposal. Although given Regidrago’s reliance on supporter Pokemon, I find Regidrago easier to beat as long as I get the Rabsca out.

Raging Bolt ex is relatively favorable

In the Raging Bolt ex matchup, I would give favorability to Hydrapple ex but it’s not by a lot. Raging Bolt ex can one-hit-knock-out your Hydrapple ex which removes that strategic advantage. However, it’s not guaranteed and you can easily eliminate Raging Bolt ex’s early game advantage given the favorable prize trade. Additionally, Raging Bolt ex doesn’t have anything to take multiple KOs in a turn which is Hydrapple ex’s biggest obstacle to deal with.

Terapagos ex decks

Terapagos ex decks are relatively neutral, although that varies depending on the build. Against straight Terapagos ex builds that don’t run Bouffalant, it’s pretty easy to win. You have stronger attack and Terapagos ex can’t KO your Hydrapple ex. Bouffalant, however, makes taking KOs much harder, but even then it’s just a matter of being smart about how you accelerate enough energies to win.

The Palkia VSTAR build is much more difficult. They have the ability to take out your little Pokemon turn two if you don’t have a Rabsca set up, and Palkia VSTAR is hard to KO early on.

That being said, if you survive long enough to defeat Palkia, you can deplete them of energies.

Regardless, running four stadiums really helps whittle away their advantage as you can move through their Area Zero Underdepths with reliance.

Hydrapple ex Deck List and Guide