If you like playing stall decks, then you are in luck. The stall strategy – slowing your opponent down to the point of decking them out – is strong right now in the current Pokemon TCG standard format. The strongest is the Snorlax Stall deck. It leverages Snorlax from Pokemon GO to prevent your opponent from retreating their Pokemon, while using a variety of cards to switch opposing Pokemon to the bench.

In this deck list and guide, we’ll be taking a look at one deck that one first out of over 200 players after the 2024 standard rotation by Austin Davis.

*Updated April 3, 2024

Pokémon: 9
4 Snorlax PGO 55
1 Pidgeot V LOR 137
1 Chi-Yu ex PAL 40
1 Rotom V CRZ 45
1 Mantine ASR 34
1 Mimikyu PAF 37
Trainer: 49
4 Arven OBF 186
3 Penny SVI 183
2 Erika's Invitation MEW 160
2 Eri TEF 146
2 Giacomo PAL 182
2 Miss Fortune Sisters LOR 164
2 Boss's Orders PAL 172
1 Iono PAF 80
1 Cyllene ASR 138
1 Team Yell's Cheer BRS 149
4 Counter Catcher PAR 160
4 Pokégear 3.0 SVI 186
4 Nest Ball PAF 84
2 Switch Cart ASR 154
2 Crushing Hammer SVI 168
2 Pal Pad SVI 182
1 Hisuian Heavy Ball ASR 146
1 Super Rod PAL 188
2 Bravery Charm PAL 173
1 Defiance Vest PAR 162
1 Hero's Cape TEF 152
1 Forest Seal Stone SIT 156
3 Temple of Sinnoh ASR 155
1 Artazon PAF 76
Energy: 2
2 Fire Energy 2

Card Types Breakdown

Snorlax Stall Deck Strategy Guide

This deck is pretty brutal, and pretty daring. It’s brutal because it forces your opponent to run out of cards in their deck, absolutely depleting them of resources. And it’s daring because there’s no recourse that you can take when playing this deck other than making your opponent run out of cards faster than you.

Snorlax from Pokemon GO is the backbone of this dcek

The Snorlax from Pokemon Go is pretty much a stall deck’s dream. It has 150 HP meaning it can certainly take a hit, while its ability blocks your opponent not only from retreating, but also reduces the power of well loved plays that rely on the likes of Jet Energy.

While Snorlax is the primary way you dismantle your opponent’s strategy, it’s not the only tool at your disposal to slow your opponent down. Against Pokemon ex decks that don’t run non two-prize attackers, Mimikyu can be just as deadly, totally eliminating their ability to do damage.

Play into Snorlax’s Block ability with a plethora of trainer cards

There’s a reason this deck runs a lot of trainers. Many of them are specifically inclued to work in tandem with Snorlax’s annoyingly effective “block” ability.

The moment your opponent manages to knock one of your Pokemon out, use Counter Catcher to start pulling out Pokemon that are hard to switch out.
This deck has several other card to achieve the same thing like Boss’s Orders and the powerful Erika’s Invitation.

Erika’s Invitation pairs particularly well with Snorlax’s block ability

Erika’s Invitation works similar as a strategy to the Counter Catcher/Boss’s Orders mentioned above. Except you can actually use this card to bring out a basic Pokemon from your opponent’s hand that is advantageous to you (although it might not be advantageous to them).

I love this play for its creativity and effectiveness, and it’s certainly worthwhile to try to pull off if you’re interested in playing this deck.

Snorlax Stall deck isn’t without its fair share of draw support and card search

Although the main goal here is to outlast your opponent, and force a victory condition via them decking out, this deck does run several cards that can help you draw the cards you need to get set up and “block” your opponent.

In terms of card search, your most effective card might just be Pokegear

Pokegear lets you search the top 7 cards of your deck and take a supporter you find there and add it into your hand. Because this deck runs 20 supporters (one-third of its total card count), it’s quite likely you’ll find at least one supporter.

Apart from Pokegear 3.0, your best draw support card is Rotom V.

Rotom V’s Instant Charge ability lets you draw three new cards. Although that ability does end your turn, you won’t be attacking with this deck anyways, so it’s sort of a freebie draw support move. This card works better than other similar draw support cards because it doesn’t require you to have no cards in your hand. And given the nature of this deck, it’s quite likely you’ll have a lot of cards in your hand at any given time.

Use Arven to pull a tool and any item

A really effective strategy to get the cards you need to get set up quickly is to use Pokegear, find an Arven, then use Arven to pull a vital item and Pokemon Tool. If that Pokemon Tool happens to be Forest Seal Stone, you can also search for an additional card. Only, that card can be any card in your entire deck.

Pidgeot V can be your check mate

Pidgeot V is a pretty essential card to this deck’s strategy. While you are going to want to whittle away your opponent’s deck first, Pidgeot V is your ace in the hole. As long as you have it on your bench, you can’t deck out ahead of your opponent. Simply shuffle it back into your deck, and you’ll always have a card to pull. Not to mention Pidgeot V can be pretty tanky to defend against attacks. When paired with a powerful Pokemon Tool like Hero’s Cape, Pidgeot V’s HP jumps to 310, putting it out of reach of most attackers. The best part is you can reshuffle Pidgeot V and any attached cards back into your deck – meaning you can recycle your Hero’s Cape onto other Pokemon while removing damage done to Pidgeot V.

Apart from Hero’s Cape, this deck runs several additional Pokemon Tools that make your Pokemon harder to knockout, thereby prolonging the battle. Tools like Defiance Vest and Bravery Charm both help keep your Pokemon around longer and your opponent frustrated in how challenging they are to KO.

Flex Pokemon to include

There are two additional cards that aren’t exactly vital to the deck’s strategy but that can certainly help. The first is more consistently helpful than the other, and that’s Chi-Yu ex. Chi-Yu is great for discarding cards from the top of your opponent’s deck, and can be paired with Pokemon Tools to either bolster its HP or reduce the damage it takes. Just be careful not to leave it out in situations where its likely to be knocked out as that will make the game go much faster.

This deck also runs a Mantine from Astral Radiance. Mantine is really a flex card as you won’t always need it or even want to play it – however it can be a quick way to stuff up your opponent’s bench with useless Pokemon that you can then switch in to further slow down your opponent.

Powerful Supporters discard your opponent’s cards

Finally, we’ll take a look at several of the supporters that you can use in this deck to help accelerate your opponent’s decking out. To start, Eri is a card from Temporal Forces that discards Item cards from your opponent’s hands. Most decks rely heavily on Items, so Eri can actually be quite crippling, especially against decks that rely on Rare Candy to get their attackers into play.

Apart from Eri, Missfortune Sisters is also a strong play, discarding Items from the top of your opponent’s deck. This also can be good at getting rid of vital cards to your opponent’s strategy but also helps speed up the decking process.

Last but not least, Team Yell’s Cheer helps you out by bringing your supporters back into play and into your deck. This helps keep your deck from running out ahead of your opponent while also bringing back vital supporters to keep attacking your opponent’s resources with.

Snorlax Stall is a pretty ingenious deck and a proven stall strategy that’s quite popular in the Pokemon TCG meta. It’s only gotten stronger after 2024 rotation thanks to powerful cards like Hero’s Cape and is likely to be a competitive archetype moving forward.

1st Place Snorlax Stall Deck (Post 2024 Rotation)

Snorlax Stall deck card list