Igglybuff

What Igglybuff looks like when you open the box

Across the 8 lists we counted, this deck runs 14 to 26 Pokémon, 34 to 44 Trainers and 0 to 4 Energy. Its attacks do not ask for any particular type of Energy.

On results pages and on stream you will see it written « igglybuff-30c ». Every card named in that label turns up in the tables below, which is what makes it a fair name for the deck.

The bit they tack on the end, « 30C », is a set code: 30th Celebration. They spell it out because several cards share that name, and this deck plays that particular printing.

Look at the Energy: 0 to 4 out of 60, when half the 131 decks we track run 11 or more. This one is lean. It lives on cheap attacks and leans on Trainers to find the right Energy at the right moment rather than stockpiling it.

Nothing here needs evolving — everything that attacks is a Basic Pokémon. Put it down, charge it, swing. That is as fast as the game gets, and it makes those turns where you draw nothing far less painful.

Look at the Trainers: 34 to 44 cards out of 60, against a median of 31 across the 131 decks we track. Inside that, 12 to 16 Supporters, and the rule there is strict — one a turn, even if you are holding three. The 14 to 23 Items you can play all of in the same turn. It also brings up to 6 Stadiums, and 6 of the 131 decks we track bring that many or more. Only one Stadium sits on the table at a time: the one you play sends the one already there to the discard pile.

What Tools and Stadiums do — the two Trainer families we skipped here — and why the Energy count says so much: how to read a deck list.

How Igglybuff actually wins

Igglybuff attacks with Bouncy Circle. It attacks with nothing attached at all, and it has 30 HP. Watch the damage box: "30×" is not a total. Here is what the card prints, word for word: "This attack does 30 damage for each of your Benched Pokémon that has a maximum HP of 30."

One Energy to attack is enormous. You can swing the turn after you set up, and you can do it again straight away when your attacker falls. Decks like that forgive a lot of bad draws.

Good news on mobility: Igglybuff retreats for free. You get it back to the Bench without discarding a single Energy, and you can still attack in the same turn. An attacker that comes and goes like that walks out of almost any mess.

Not one ex Pokémon in the core, and only 29 of the 131 decks we track are in that position. It is a hidden advantage: every knockout your opponent takes is worth a single Prize, so they need 6, where 3 would do against a deck stuffed with ex cards.

The attackers in the deck's core, with their best attack, its cost and their Weakness

Pokémon	HP	Attack	Damage	Cost	Weakness	Retreat
Close IgglybuffBasic	30	Bouncy Circle	30×	—	Fighting ×2	0

The core: the 6 cards every list runs

These 6 cards appear in all 8 lists, without a single exception. That is 24 of the 60 slots. The other 36 are decided player by player.

Look at how those 24 slots break down: 16 Trainers, 8 Pokémon, 0 Energy. Trainers outweigh everything else put together, which is the mark of a deck that goes and fetches its cards rather than waiting to draw them.

3 of those 6 cards do not sit at the same count from list to list: Boss's Orders (2 to 4), Lillie's Determination (3 to 4) and Night Stretcher (2 to 4). Add those spreads up and you get 5 copies the 8 lists do not agree on, inside the core itself.

What "3 to 4" means in the copies column, what the "TWM 130" code under each name is for, and why we count dozens of lists instead of one: how to read a deck list.

The cards present in every list counted, with the number of copies

Copies	Card	Printing	Kind	Rotation
4	Close Igglybuff	30C 120	Pokémon	stays
4	Close Poltchageist	PBL 5	Pokémon	stays
2–4	Close Boss's Orders	MEG 114	Trainer	stays
4	Close Buddy-Buddy Poffin	TEF 144	Trainer	leaves
3–4	Close Lillie's Determination	MEG 119	Trainer	stays
2–4	Close Night Stretcher	ASC 196	Trainer	leaves

The 44 cards that change from list to list

44 cards fight over the 36 slots that are left: 6 above three lists in four, 21 below one in four, and the percentage on each row says how many players took it.

The most agreed on first: Budew at 88 %, Ethan's Pichu at 88 % and Tyrogue at 88 %, plus 3 more above 75 %. Add those to the core and you have the common build.

The dividing line runs through Patrat, at 50 %: 4 of 8 players took it, 4 put something else there. The ones who run it bring 1 copy. Right at the bottom of the table, Cornerstone Mask Ogerpon ex (2 lists out of 8) and Air Balloon (2 lists out of 8).

Why a card at 45 % is not a bad card, and what order to buy all this in: how to read a deck list.

The cards some lists run and others don't, most common first

Lists running it	Card	Copies	Printing	Kind
88 %7/8	Close Budew	1–4	ASC 16	Pokémon
88 %7/8	Close Ethan's Pichu	1–4	DRI 71	Pokémon
88 %7/8	Close Tyrogue	1–4	MEG 71	Pokémon
88 %7/8	Close Brave Bangle	2–4	WHT 80	Trainer
88 %7/8	Close Poké Pad	3–4	POR 81	Trainer
75 %6/8	Close Battle Cage	2–4	PFL 85	Trainer
63 %5/8	Close Sacred Ash	1–2	DRI 168	Trainer
50 %4/8	Close Patrat	1–2	CRI 70	Pokémon
50 %4/8	Close Pokégear 3.0	3–4	SVI 186	Trainer
50 %4/8	Close Black Belt's Training	1–2	JTG 143	Trainer
50 %4/8	Close Brock's Scouting	2	JTG 146	Trainer
50 %4/8	Close Gwynn	2–4	PBL 78	Trainer
38 %3/8	Close Misty's Magikarp	2–4	DRI 48	Pokémon
38 %3/8	Close Shaymin	1	DRI 10	Pokémon
38 %3/8	Close Area Zero Underdepths	2–4	SCR 131	Trainer
38 %3/8	Close Team Rocket's Petrel	2–4	DRI 176	Trainer
38 %3/8	Close Hassel	2	TWM 151	Trainer
38 %3/8	Close Judge	2–4	POR 76	Trainer
38 %3/8	Close Pokémon Catcher	2–3	POR 82	Trainer
38 %3/8	Close Lana's Aid	1	TWM 155	Trainer
38 %3/8	Close Special Red Card	1	CRI 82	Trainer
38 %3/8	Close Tool Scrapper	1–2	ASC 212	Trainer
38 %3/8	Close Mist Energy	3–4	TEF 161	Energy
25 %2/8	Close Cornerstone Mask Ogerpon ex	1–2	TWM 112	Pokémon
25 %2/8	Close Air Balloon	1–2	ASC 181	Trainer
25 %2/8	Close Rescue Board	1–2	TEF 159	Trainer
25 %2/8	Close Neutralization Zone	1	SFA 60	Trainer
25 %2/8	Close Unfair Stamp	1	TWM 165	Trainer
13 %1/8	Close Team Rocket's Chingling	4	DRI 85	Pokémon
13 %1/8	Close Pikachu ex	1	SSP 57	Pokémon
13 %1/8	Close Psyduck	1	ASC 39	Pokémon
13 %1/8	Close Teal Mask Ogerpon ex	1	TWM 25	Pokémon
13 %1/8	Close Crushing Hammer	4	POR 71	Trainer
13 %1/8	Close Dark Bell	4	PBL 75	Trainer
13 %1/8	Close Ultra Ball	4	MEG 131	Trainer
13 %1/8	Close Morty's Conviction	3	TEF 155	Trainer
13 %1/8	Close Fighting Gong	2	MEG 116	Trainer
13 %1/8	Close Nighttime Mine	2	ASC 197	Trainer
13 %1/8	Close Maximum Belt	1	TEF 154	Trainer
13 %1/8	Close Perrin	1	TWM 160	Trainer
13 %1/8	Close Precious Trolley	1	SSP 185	Trainer
13 %1/8	Close Prime Catcher	1	TEF 157	Trainer
13 %1/8	Close Redeemable Ticket	1	JTG 156	Trainer
13 %1/8	Close Legacy Energy	1	TWM 167	Energy

The most common Igglybuff list, all 60 cards

Here they are in full, ready to build. 24 slots come from the core, the cards all 8 lists run. The remaining 36 come from the table just above, working down it: the cards the most players chose, each at its most common copy count, until the total lands on 60.

This list is nobody's list in particular. It takes, slot by slot, what the most people played, under the guardrails a judge would hold you to: never more than four copies of a card, and one ACE SPEC. Behind the core it took 13 more cards to reach 60. The whole thing comes to 21 Pokémon, 39 Trainers and 0 Energy.

One thing to know before you build it: the 8 lists we counted are all from players who came in the top twenty of their tournament. Nobody publishes the lists of the players who lost. So what you have in front of you is what the players finishing near the top bring most often.

One thing to fix before you play: there is no ACE SPEC card in these 60. Players split that slot so many ways that none of their cards climbed high enough to get in, and 8 of the 8 lists carry one. Take Neutralization Zone, the most chosen, and drop a card from the bottom of the table to make room.

The text under the table is the one the game expects: copy it, paste it into the deck manager, and the list builds itself.

Why we only read lists from players who came in the top twenty of their tournament, and what that changes about every percentage on this page: how to read a deck list.

Pokémon: 21
4 Igglybuff 30C 120
4 Poltchageist PBL 5
4 Budew ASC 16
4 Ethan's Pichu DRI 71
2 Tyrogue MEG 71
1 Patrat CRI 70
2 Misty's Magikarp DRI 48

Trainer: 39
4 Boss's Orders MEG 114
4 Buddy-Buddy Poffin TEF 144
4 Lillie's Determination MEG 119
4 Night Stretcher ASC 196
4 Brave Bangle WHT 80
4 Poké Pad POR 81
4 Battle Cage PFL 85
1 Sacred Ash DRI 168
4 Pokégear 3.0 SVI 186
2 Black Belt's Training JTG 143
2 Brock's Scouting JTG 146
2 Gwynn PBL 78

Total Cards: 60

How many different cards Igglybuff needs, and how long it will last

You need 50 different cards to cover every version of this deck, 6 of which nobody argues about. The rest is where lists differ from one another, and that is where you have room to choose.

All 8 lists bring an ACE SPEC, and that is where they part ways: 2 took Neutralization Zone, 2 took Unfair Stamp and 1 took Legacy Energy. The flex table shows you all 6. You are allowed ONE ACE SPEC card in your whole deck, so a single copy covers it whatever it costs. New to this deck? Take Neutralization Zone and watch what the others do with theirs before you switch.

Then there is time. 2 of the 6 core cards carry the letter H, the one that goes at the next rotation: Buddy-Buddy Poffin and Night Stretcher. The core table marks every one of them. In copies, that is 8 of the 24 slots the core fills. Which day it lands, we do not know yet.

What Igglybuff struggles against

The attackers in this deck are Weak to Fighting, so they take DOUBLE damage from that type. 13 of the 131 decks we track attack in exactly that type.

Concretely, here is what is waiting for you: Mega Lucario ex / Hariyama, Cynthia's Garchomp ex and Mega Lucario ex, plus 10 more decks. The table below takes them one at a time, and those are the lists you practise against first before an event.

This table counts one thing, Weakness, and that comes to 13 decks out of the 131 we track. The other 118 do not attack into yours, and this table says nothing about them. You will still run into them.

Going the other way, none of the 131 decks we track have an attacker Weak to your types. So you are not going to win trades on Weakness — you will have to win them on raw damage.

When an attack does nothing at all

There are two ways to hurt the Pokémon across the table, and the game does not treat them the same. An attack with a number printed next to it deals damage. An attack with no number, whose text just says "place 2 damage counters", does what the rules call an effect. That matters, because a handful of Pokémon have an Ability that prevents the effects of your opponent's attacks, and their card spells it out in brackets: damage is not an effect.

This deck has an answer to that. Poltchageist has Hide 'n' Sneak, and 8 lists out of 8 play it. Against an attack that only places counters, that Pokémon takes nothing at all. Not one counter. An attack with a number printed next to it still puts its damage on it, mind you. Careful, though: the Ability protects the card that has it, and only that card. The rest of your bench takes everything.

Of the decks we track right now, 8 play an attack like that. They are in the table below, with the Pokémon carrying it. When you run into one, put that Pokémon in the Active Spot: the marker attack can no longer touch it. Your opponent will have to reach for printed-damage attacks — most of these decks carry some too. The wall buys you turns, it does not win the game for you.

The other way round, this deck attacks with counters too: Poltchageist with Furtive Drop. Those attacks have no damage number printed next to them at all. In front of a Pokémon that shuts off effects, they place nothing. Zero.

Of the decks we track, 8 play a Pokémon like that, and they are in the table below. The day you see one come across the table, stop counting on your counters. You need an attack with a real number written on it. You have one: Bouncy Circle, on Igglybuff, for 30×.