We’re try-harding a bit today. Last season Arceus reigned supreme. Despite them releasing a bunch of pokemon directly synergizing with Arceus, the combination with Dialga ended up being the most popular deck. It’s undeniable Pokemon Pocket is a game where legendary Basic EX cards dominate, as they provide you with both consistency and more deck space to work with. And with the new season the meta shifted from one EX Basic pile to another, Giratina Darkrai is the top dog now, there’s no denying it, this pokemon combination is currently the most powerful in Pokemon Pocket.

Arceus never stopped being great though, and being a normal type, he’s got seemingly countless potential combinations to work with. Today I’m gonna share the best Arceus deck to climb ranked with this season.

Today’s deck brings in link synergies. In a lineup of basics with highly efficient one energy attackers with free pivoting, as long as Arceus is on the board. Carnivine is incredible in this environment. This pokemon mirrors Skarmory, who is easily the best non EX Basic in the game. Except Carnivine is arguably even better now, as it deals super effective damage to Darkrai, allowing us to threaten it with a 2 hit KO with just one energy. While Carnivine provides us with a way to immediately threaten the front line, Rotom enables us to target the bench. This way we can punish strategies attempting to build up an end game sweeper in the back, while also making full use of our 2 copies of Cyrus. So we can hit them hard with Arceus first. Rotom’s Speed Link ability is amazing here, giving us a free pivot we can use to send in the appropriate pokemon after we’ve seen our opponent’s play. Our seventh basic pokemon is Shaymin, while this one may seem a bit redundant due to Rotom, Shaymin is a perfect fit for this lineup as it allows us to retreat Arceus from the front for just one energy, without having to resort to trainer cards like X Speed or Leaf. Assigning this role to a pokemon leads to us running 7 total basics which really enhances our chances of being able to dish out a maxed out Ultimate force.

The strength of this deck lies within the fact that we’re running a lineup of basic pokemon which offer both great power and utility, while still having abundant space for trainer cards to enhance our offense. One copy of Sabrina and a full set of Cyrus enables us to hunt down the matchups we desire. While both Giovanni and Red boost our attacks to meet key HP thresholds for all kinds of meta relevant pokemon. Rotom applying pressure to the bench may compel our opponent’s to keep more cards in hand, we’ll make them regret this decision by playing Mars, who can also shut down their supporter plays in the end game.

All in all, this deck is exceptional for climbing ranked. Providing us with a solid counter to Darkrai without sacrificing other matchups. Carnivine and Rotom make up for one of the strongest decks in the meta, and definitely the best way to play Arceus as of now.