Raging Bolt ex is currently in discussions for being the best Pokemon TCG deck. Whether or not that’s the case implies some subjectivity, but it is undeniable that it is one of the strongest decks in the game.

Below, let’s break down this powerful deck and uncover the mechanics that make it so powerful today.

*1st Place Champions League Tokyo - Haruto Fujita*

Pokémon: 12
4 Raging Bolt ex TEF 123
4 Teal Mask Ogerpon ex TWM 25
1 Sandy Shocks TEF 98
1 Squawkabilly ex PAL 169
1 Fezandipiti ex SFA 38
1 Radiant Greninja ASR 46
Trainer: 36
4 Professor Sada's Vitality PAR 170
1 Boss's Orders PAL 172
1 Briar SCR 132
1 Iono PAL 185
4 Nest Ball SVI 181
4 Earthen Vessel PAR 163
3 Pokégear 3.0 SVI 186
3 Trekking Shoes ASR 156
3 Night Stretcher SFA 61
3 Pokémon Catcher SVI 187
1 Energy Retrieval SVI 171
1 Superior Energy Retrieval PAL 189
1 Pal Pad SVI 182
1 Lost Vacuum LOR 162
1 Switch Cart ASR 154
1 Prime Catcher TEF 157
3 PokéStop PGO 68
Energy: 12
6 Grass Energy SVE 9
3 Fighting Energy SVE 14
3 Lightning Energy SVE 12

Buy on TCGPlayer

Raging Bolt ex deck overview

Raging Bolt ex has a very favorable competitive edge in the current meta that loves to dish out small amounts of damage across the board via abilities like Cursed Blast or attacks like Phantom Dive.

Raging Bolt ex’s full lineup of two prize ex Pokemon with sturdy HP make it less susceptible to those plays. Meanwhile, Raging Bolt ex itself boasts a high HP stat and vast amounts of damage output.

Combine all of these together and you have an almost unstoppable deck.

Raging Bolt ex plays highly aggressively

Given it is filled to the brim with powerful two-prize Basic Pokemon, Raging Bolt ex is capable of taking turn one KOs. For this reason, most Raging Bolt ex players opt to go second instead of first. All they need in order to get a turn one KO is a Sada’s Vitality, the right energy, and several Teal Mask Ogerpon ex on bench – scaled to meet the damage output required.

I think it’s this aggressive approach that largely makes Raging Bolt ex so popular today. It can get very strong attacks very reliably, making it the best of the current aggro options in the game.

Raging Bolt ex has unlimited damage potential

How hard does Raging Bolt ex hit? Well, that’s really up to you. Raging Bolt ex is one of those attackers who doesn’t have a set limit to how much damage it can do. Instead, Bellowing Thunder does 70 damage for each energy card you discard from any of your Pokemon. That means all you really need is about 5 energies in play and you can OHKO anything out there.

But how do you get those five energies into play? Well, this Raging Bolt ex deck has several options for you.

Sada’s Vitality is the backbone of this deck

Professor Sada’s Vitality

Shop on TCGplayer

Sada’s Vitality is going to be your strongest and most reliable way to accelerate energy onto your Pokemon. This card can attach two energy into your Ancient Pokemon and let you draw cards. What’s also great about Sada’s Vitality is that it acts as energy acceleration and draw engine all rolled into one – enabling you to cut out cards like Professor’s Research in favor of additional cards you will need to keep accelerating energies.

A reliance on Sada’s Vitality can also be something of a double-edged sword, however, as it means most turns you will be playing a Sada. This makes playing other supporters less likely, which is why you’ll notice you don’t run very many other supporters.

Pal Pad helps keep Sada in your deck

You also need a Pal Pad to ensure you have enough Sada in your deck to play throughout the course of the game. This is especially important if you were forced to discard a Sada or two on turn one with Squawk and Seize from Squawkabilly (more on that later).

Find Sada’s Vitality with Pokegear

If you needed more proof of how vital Sada is to this deck’s strategy, most decks are also running Poke Gear to make finding this supporter more likely. Of course, Poke Gear can be used to search out one of the other three supporters. However, it’s mostly there for the Sada.

A Note on PokeStop

Before moving onto how to get more energies into play beyond Sada, it’s worth highlighting how effective Poke Stop is in this deck. Theoretically it can help you get a Sada into your hand by helping you pull a Poke Gear. However, it is also great at finding any of the other items that you can then use to get the ball rolling.

It’s definitely a worthwhile inclusion in this deck list and helps increase your consistency to land those turn one KOs.

Build up energies on your board with these powerful cards

Your Raging Bolt ex is only as strong as the number of energies in play at any given time. This means that you will need to:

Get energies into your hand.
Accelerate them with Teal Mask Ogerpon ex.
Get them into your discard so you can use Sada’s Vitality.

Let’s look at how this works in the section below.

Teal Mask Ogerpon ex – attacker and energy accelerator

While Sada’s Vitality may be your strongest and most reliable card to use, Teal Mask Ogerpon ex is insanely helpful at getting additional energies into play. Released in Twilight Masquerade, Teal Mask Ogerpon ex lets you attach grass energies from your hand easily onto this Pokemon. As if that weren’t enough, you also get to draw a card whenever you attach an energy in this way.. Of course, once attached you can easily discard these energies to power up your Raging Bolt ex’s attack.

On its own, Teal Mask Ogerpon ex also does an impressive amount of damage, meaning you can use it in a pinch to take KOs, especially against popular attackers like Charizard ex who are weak against grass.

Get energies into your hand with these cards

The only potential issue with Teal Mask Ogerpon ex’s ability is that it relies on you having grass energies in your hand to get it off. But how do you get ahold of those grass energies? Well, this deck has many ways to make that easier for you.

Of course, there’s a card that every deck has access to now because it works for any energy type, and that is none other than Earthen Vessel. You can use Earthen Vessel to pull energies out of your deck in droves. Because this card is so handy in this deck, you’ll probably want to run four copies of it.

Discard energies and draw cards with Squawkabilly and Radiant Greninja

Once you get those energy into your hand, it’s helpful to get them into the discard. You can pretty much discard as many energy as you want because you have Sada’s Vitality and a bunch of energy retrieval options (more on that below). However, the Grass Energies are going to be best to save for Teal Mask Ogerpon ex if you can help it, taking advantage of additional draw support.

Once you get the other energies into your hand (or excess grass energies you can’t Teal Dance), you can discard them using Squawk and Sieze or Radiant Greninja’s Concealed Cards.

The best part about these abilities is that they massively bolster your ability to draw cards. And, of course, the more cards you see over the course of the game the more likely you are to win!

Bringing back energy cards from the discard

Because energies are so often discarded, however, you’ll want to bring those cards back into your hand once discarded. This means those energy cards you use to get Raging Bolt ex’s attack off can be brought back with Energy Retrieval or Superior Energy Retrieval.

Night Stretcher is also a great way to retrieve energies, while providing the extra benefit of letting you choose a Pokemon instead if that’s more vital. This could be helpful in bringing back an Ogerpon ex for more energy acceleration.

The Importance of Gust in Raging Bolt ex

Gust, or strategically switching Pokemon out from the bench, plays an important role in Raging Bolt ex as it enables you to ensure you get a two prize turn. Raging Bolt ex suffers immensely if it has to attack into a single prizer. In situations where your opponent is playing chicken with you while also running a two prize attacker (leaving a single prize attacker in the active spot and forcing you into an unfavorable prize trade), you have to gust a two-prize Pokemon out.

The only problem? Boss’s Orders doesn’t work so well in this deck. Most turns you will be playing Sada’s Vitality to power up your Pokemon, especially early on in the game.

That means you need another means to Gust out your opponent’s Pokemon. In this deck build, that means running plenty of items to gust with – namely Pokemon Catcher and Prime Catcher.

Of the two, Prime Catcher is of course the stronger. Pokemon Catcher has high odds of failing because it relies on a coin flip. Prime Catcher can help you take a strategic two prize knockout turn one and even dismantle your opponent’s strategy if done right.

The Briar/Ogerpon ex play

One of the reasons this particular deck was effective enough to win a massive tournament is that it included the powerful Briar Card, enabling it to come back from behind to win a game. Combine Briar with Ogerpon ex and a knockout and you are taking extra prizes.

Briar has has a big impact on the game and it’s a huge advantage to any deck that can work it into its perfect 60.

Play chicken with Sandy Shocks

Sandy Shocks is mostly used for a positive prize trade, dishing out considerable damage while being only a one prizer. You can use this in situations to take out smaller Pokemon or bigger ones without making it easy for your opponent to take two prizes the next turn.

This is vital against other aggro decks like Roaring Moon ex or Gouging Fire ex as who wins often comes down to whoever takes the first two-prize knockout in the game.

Raging Bolt ex matchups

Let’s take a look at the matchups you are likely to run into with Raging Bolt ex and how advantaged or disadvantaged you are.

Dragapult ex – Favorable

As previously mentioned, decks like Dragapult ex that rely on taking knockouts against weak HP Pokemon have trouble against Raging Bolt ex. None of your Pokemon have HP, with the weakest being Squawkabilly. Still, that’s well out of range of a Phantom Dive’s 60 damage to the bench.

Meanwhile, Raging Bolt ex can KO a big HP Dragapult ex with relative ease, which is part of the reason Raging Bolt ex is so deadly in the current meta.

Lugia VSTAR – Neutral

The Lugia VSTAR matchup is a relatively even matchup, with your main advantage being the consistency of your deck and ability to outmaneuver them early on. For example, if your opponent only manages to bench one Lugia V (a very likely scenario given Lugia V’s relative inconsistency), you can take it out with a pinch hit to secure the game.

You really need to watch out for the Cinccino in this matchup and save your Sandy Shocks to take it out if need be. You really don’t want to swing into it with a Raging Bolt ex and suffer the prize trade.

One handy play here as well is to use Ogerpon ex to take knockouts. This works well if the opposing Active Pokemon has a ton of energies attached via Archeops, as Teal Mask ex gains damage for each energy on both Pokemon. This can work well with Briar to snag you a late game win if you play your cards right.

Raging Bolt ex vs Charizard neutral

A lot of people like to favor Charizard ex in this matchup but I’m not one of those people. I think it’s a pretty even matchup that largely comes down to skill to win. A huge thing in favor of Raging Bolt ex is that it’s one of the few decks able to OHKO a Charizard ex, and that’s a huge thing in your favor. Charizard ex’s main advantage is in setting up a single prize board to force you into a bad prize trade.

That’s not always possible, however, as many times Charizard will need to field two prize Pokemon that you can take out with a well placed Pokemon Catcher or Prime Catcher.

Whatever way you spin it, Raging Bolt ex is a powerhouse deck and arguably the strongest or second strongest in the game right now. Learn how to pilot this deck well and you have a fair shot at your next big win!

1st Place Raging Bolt ex Deck List and Guide

Raging Bolt ex deck card list