Since the Shining Revelry expansion for Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket has been released, several powerful cards have been appearing more frequently in competitive battles. Two of these fresh, strong cards are Beedrill ex and Meowscarada, both of which have interesting applications in an aggressive Grass-type deck. Though this deck may be slightly slower than other offensive strategies, the massive damage output it can generate often gives you the upper hand in longer battles.

When approaching ranked or event battles, it’s smart to rotate between several deck types across different match-ups, especially when the stakes are high, and rewards are tied to consistent wins. Not only does this keep the gameplay fresh, but it also helps you discover the strategy that suits you best. However, since I started using this Beedrill ex and Meowscarada deck, I haven’t looked back. The deck’s ease of use and consistency have outperformed even my previous go-to decks like Celebi ex and Mewtwo ex.

Why Beedrill Ex Deserves More Attention

Crushing Spear Does Massive Damage & Stops The Opponent

Beedrill ex is easily one of the best cards in the game right now. Disappointingly, though, it hasn’t received the same recognition as many of the more popular meta ex cards, such as the widely used Celebi ex. This is potentially due to its only drawback, the fact that it is a Stage 2 card. This means it takes a significant amount of time to get online, needing to evolve twice. Though other factors mean that this is easy to dismiss, the first being its massive 170 HP means that it is nearly unstoppable.

Its greatest feature lies within its attack, called Crushing Spear. This does a strong 80 damage for only two Grass-type energy, making it an incredibly quick attack to charge. As well as this, it discards a random energy from your opponent’s Active Pokémon. On several occasions, this attack has stopped my opponent from knocking out Beedrill ex, taking away an energy that they needed for an attack to take the ex card out. The second 80 damage would then be enough to beat the opponent and win the battle.

Key Cards You’ll Need For This Deck

Meowscarada & Erika Are Essential To This Deck

Meowscarada is almost as integral as Beedrill ex for this deck. The Grass-type card has the ability to completely mitigate any meta deck, making it an underrated card which every player should be using. Its attack, Fighting Claws, does 60 damage for just two Grass-type energy. However, when attacking an ex card, this attack does an additional 70 damage. This totals 130 damage, which has been massive for me when facing the majority of decks in ranked battles.

This deck makes use of the Genetic Apex Weedle rather than the Shining Revelry version. This is because the Genetic Apex version has a better damage output, doing 20 damage with Sting.

The Erika er card is also very important for the longevity of this deck. Erika heals 50 damage from one of your Grass-type Pokémon. When playing Weedle or Sprigatito (two low-HP Basic cards) in the Active Spot from the first turn, they will often sustain significant damage. In order for this deck to work, these cards need to survive the early rounds and be evolved. The healing power of Erika has frequently saved my Weedle and Sprigatito from being easily knocked out, especially as this deck doesn’t use potions.

The Best Strategy For This Deck

This Deck Is Slow But Highly Effective

For an optimal start in a Pokémon TCG Pocket battle, you should place Sprigatito in the Active Spot. It is also necessary to use the Giant Cape er card on Sprigatito to give it an additional 20 HP, rising its base HP from 60 to 80. This will give you a better chance of eventually evolving it to Meowscarada later in the battle. As well as this, you should place a Weedle on the bench to start the Beedrill ex evolution line. Dedicate your first energy to Sprigatito and use Cry for Help to pull the cards you need.

The Giant Cape tool card can also help keep Weedle and Sprigatito alive in the early turns of the battles. This is because it increases the card's HP by 20.

You can now start evolving your first Basic cards to their Stage 1 cards. You can use Professor’s Research in order to speed up this process and further pull the necessary cards that you need. Erika may come in useful now, making sure you keep any cards from being knocked out. You can use Floragato’s attack, Slash, to deal a useful 40 damage. Finally, you will now be able to evolve both Kakuna and Floragato into their Stage 2 cards, Beedrill ex and Meowscarada.

Finally, you can use Meowscarada’s Fighting Claws or Beedrill ex’s Crushing Spear in order to deal enough damage to knock out the opponent’s Active Pokémon. This will give you the victory in a Pokémon TCG Pocket battle.