Best Incineroar Ex Deck for Pokémon Trading Card Game TCG

Today we will take an in-depth look at the Incineroar Ex Deck Guide for the Pokémon Trading Card Game TCG. Incineroar Ex is a new card launched with the Temporal Forces content for the Pokémon TCG.

The Incineroar Ex Deck unleashes chaos on the battlefield with its fast attack rate and high attack power. The deck also has a few tricks up its sleeve with the Relicanth and Litten combo. Late game we can also strike fast with Radiant Charizard to surprise the opponent.

Table of Contents:

• TLDR Summary
• Incineroar Ex Card List
• Card Gallery
• How to play
• Deck Variations
• Deck Import Code

TLDR Summary of the Incineroar Ex Deck

TLDR: The deck’s strength comes from the powerful attack power of Incineroar Ex TEF 034. He can deal 240 damage + 20 burning damage. Additionally, often opponents have their bench full so all you need is 1-2 fire energy to start attacking because of his Hustle Play ability that reduces the cost of the attack by 1 energy per Pokémon on the opponent’s bench. If the enemy has 3 Pokémon on the bench, the attack costs 2 fire energy; at four, you only pay 1 fire energy. That also means you can ready your attacker incredibly fast.

And that isn’t all; theoretically, you can deal a crazy 820 damage at once. With the Litten SIT 030 and Relicanth TEF 084 combo. Relicanth allows you to use attacks from your previous Evolutions. Litten’s attack does 20 damage for each damage counter on your Incineroar Ex. Often, players can’t one-shot you; they deal around 180-300 damage. That means if you have Relicanth on the bench and you have taken damage, you can easily do 400-500 damage and one-shot any other opponent’s Pokémon.

And of course as a failsafe, we have Radiant Charizard CRZ 020 as a backup for late game to deal 250 damage with 1 fire energy if the opponent only has two prize cards left.

How to play the Incineroar Ex Deck TCG

I will explain the most important cards of the Incineroar Ex Deck for the Pokémon card game. Let’s start with the deck’s main Pokémon cards. With our deck we always want to go second. Our deck won’t be able to attack on our first turn as second player. Therefore, it is important to go second to utilize our Supporters and tool cards! I will now explain the whole deck and how it plays.

Incineroar Ex

Incineroar Ex is the deck’s main attacker and is one of the new cards added with Temporal Forces. He has a high health pool of 320 and this can get boosted up to 420 with the Hero’s Cape. He deals 240 damage + 20 burning damage when Incineroar Ex attacks the opponent’s active Pokémon. At first it might not look that appealing because the Blaze Blast costs 5 energy. However, with his Hustle Play ability, this can be easily lowered to one or two energy. Most opponents always have three or four Pokémon on their bench.

The opponent is sort of buffing our Blaze Blast attack by having more benched Pokémon. And most decks have plenty of Pokémon on their bench!

This also often leads to us attacking on our second turn with Blaze Blast. If you placed Litten on your bench in your first turn, it is fairly often the case that you get a Rare Candy and the Incineroar Ex cards on your second turns, either by drawing them or via the Arven supporter. If you need the Rare Candy, get it with Arven. If you need Incineroar, use Arven to get an Ultra Ball.

Litten, Torracat and Relicanth

Litten is the basic Pokémon card we must evolve to get Incineroar Ex, either with a Rare Candy or via Torracat. But that isn’t all! Relicanth’s Memory Dive ability enables us to use Litten’s attack Reprisal while we are evolved as Incineroar Ex. Incineroar Ex with the Hero’s Cape has a total of 420 health. That means he can bulk 41 damage counters. Therefore we can deal a maximum amount of 820 damage. The opponent’s active Pokémon will usually deal around 180-300 damage. Even with that, we will easily deal 360-600 damage. We can one-shot any Pokémon with this tactic!

If possible, we try to evolve Incineroar Ex with a Rare Candy, this is faster, and we can attack quicker to pressure the opponent. However, sometimes you don’t manage to get a Rare Candy or you want to use Torracat’s Gritty Claws attack. If you know that the opponent will defeat your active Pokémon, it can make sense to evolve into Torracat and use the Gritty Claws attack. That way Torracat won’t be defeated but gets 7 damage markers instead. Now you bought yourself an extra turn to evolve into Incineroar Ex. This is a fairly niche move, since most of the time you will have a Rare Candy.

If you have Relicanth on the bench you can use Gritty Claws as Incineroar Ex to prevent him from getting defeated and then attack with Litten’s Reprisal to one-shot any enemy with 620 or 820 (with Hero’s Cape) damage.

One last trick on Relicanth, don’t place him too early if possible. It is best to surprise your enemy with the card and deal massive damage. I like to place him after Incineroar Ex has taken damage.

Bidoof and Bibarel

Bidoof evolves into Bibarel and that combo is very common among all meta decks. Bibarel’s Industrious Incisors ability allows you to draw cards until you have five in your hand. If you have Bibarel active it sometimes makes sense to get rid of as many cards as you can to redraw new cards with Bibarel. Bibarel also works great if you first use Ciphermaniac’s Codebreaking to place two cards on top of your deck. Once that is done, you can use Bibarel’s ability to draw the two cards you need instantly.

Pidgey and Pidgeot Ex

We only have one copy of Pidgey and Pidgeot Ex in your Incineroar Ex Pokémon Deck. Think of this as the cherry on top. In most cases you don’t really need it, but if you manage to get Pidgeot Ex on the bench, it will be easier to defeat the enemy in the late game. With Pidgeot Ex, you can use the Quick Search ability to search for any card in your deck. In most cases this is used to grab Boss’s Order to pick whatever you want to defeat next. But like I just said, this is the cherry on top, so it isn’t needed and of course, one of the cards can easily get stuck in the price cards. In that case, Bibarel will still do most of the heavy lifting (or drawing).

Radiant Charizard

Radiant Charizard is a late-game Pokémon card. It is only used after the opponent only has two prize cards left. Because then our Combustion Blast that deals 250 damage and only costs one fire energy. Radiant Charizard is also a basic Pokémon that doesn’t need to be evolved first. you can play it without much hustle around it. 250 damage is enough to finish off most other Pokémon. Therefore, if you both have taken plenty of Prize Cards but don’t have any Incineroar Ex ready, then you can make some big plays with Radiant Charizard.

Arven, Iono, Professor’s Research, Ciphermaniac’s Codebreaking, Boss’s Order

Arven is our main supporter in the Incineroar Ex Deck. He allows us to get great cards such as the Buddy-Buddy Poffin, Rare Candy, Hero’s Cape, Rescue Board, Technical Machine: Evolution and a few others. If you have him in the hand it is impossible to get stuck. Iono and Youngster allow you to get substantial drawing power if needed and you can interrupt the opponent’s hand or decide not to.

Ciphermaniac’s Codebreaking works great in combination with Bibarel. The supporter lets you place two cards on top of your deck. You can then use Bibarel’s ability to draw the two cards instantly given your hand is small enough. In late game I also like to use Ciphermaniac’s Codebreaking to place two Boss’s Order as my next draw to cherry-pick any Pokémon of the opponent I want, which often leads to a victory! Because we have such high attack power with 240 we can use Boss’s Order to pull forward any card of the opponent that has less than 240 health and rewards us with two prize cards. Alternatively, this is even easier when you have Pidgeot Ex on the bench and you can get whatever card you want. In the late-game you can cherry-pick the Boss’s Order card with it and that pretty much wins you any game.

Buddy-Buddy-Poffin, Hero’s Cape, Rare Candy and Ultra Ball

We don’t use any Nestball in this deck. The Buddy-Buddy Poffin is our main source of getting basic Pokémon out of the deck. Additionally, we also have the Ultra Ball to select more advanced Pokémon from our Incineroar Ex Deck.

The Hero’s Cape is easy to get through Arven and should be attached with care. You only have one copy of this in the deck because it is an Ace Rare card. However, this card boosts our Incineroar Ex to 420 health. That means opponents can’t one shot him. And once Incineroar Ex has damage, he will deal even more damage if you have the Relicanth and Litten combo ready. However, don’t use the Hero’s Cape too soon, it is often better to use it in late game  to surprise your opponent or even place it on a Litten so it can’t be one-shot by smaller Pokémons.

Lost Vacuum, Rescue Board, Switch and Super Rod

Lost Vacuum is only used to disrupt the opponent’s cards by either removing a Stadium or a Tool card. We have 4x Rare Candy to evolve Incineroar Ex or Pidgeot Ex. The Super Rod is used to restore Pokémon that we only have once in our deck. And lastly, the Rescue Board is another tool card that we can use to reduce the retreat cost of our Pokémon. We also have one Switch in the deck that can help you swap out Pokémon. These two cards are only needed if you get stuck with a non attacker Pokémon at the start of the game or the opponent tries to stall the game by placing a high retreat cost Pokémon in your active spot.

Counter Catcher, Magma Basin

The Counter Catcher can be useful in case you had a slow start to set things up. The card allows you to cherry-pick an important Pokémon of the opponent and get rid of it once you are ready with your attacker. Our deck is slow at attaching energies. But with the Magma Basin card it can be accelerated if needed. Remember that you can only attach Fire energy from your discard to one of your benched Pokémon.

Technical Machine: Evolution

The most underestimated card of all, the Technical Machine: Evolution tool. This is a game-changer in the early game. If you go second or can’t attack in our second turn because of a lack of energy then you are better off using at least the evolution tool because it only needs one energy to get going. Most commonly used to evolve one Bidoof into Bibarel and one Litten into Torracat.

Note: Always go second with our Incineroar Ex Deck. That way you can use Supporter cards and the Technical Machine: Evolution tool.

Example 1: I have one Bidoof, one Litten and Arven in our hand at the start. Now I place Litten in the active position. With Arven I get a Buddy-Buddy Poffin and the Technical Machine: Evolution tool. With the Poffin, I get two more Litten or one Litten and the Pidgey. Add one energy to Litten in the active spot and activate the evolution tool to evolve Bidoof into Bibarel and one Litten into Torracat on your bench. Now that you have a Bibarel ready you will have way more drawing power!

Example 2: I have Pidgey, the Technical Machine: Evolution and a Buddy-Buddy Poffin in our hand. Same thing here, I use the Poffin to get the needed Pokémon, attach one energy to Pidgey and evolve one Bidoof into Bibarel and one Litten into Torracat.

It can happen that you don’t have all the needed cards at the start, but in most cases you will have at least one Supporter card in your hand to setup your hand and bench to your advantage in your first or second turn.

Gift Energy

The Gift Energy can make a difference if you get stuck early in the game. If you have the card in your hand you can attach it to a Pokémon. If it gets defeated you get to draw cards until you have seven in your hand.

Where does the Deck struggle?

The downside of the Incineroar Ex Deck is that you can only add one fire energy card per turn. In most cases, that isn’t an issue because the opponent has their bench full anyway, so our attacks barely cost anything. However, sometimes, the opponent has bad draw luck too and only has one or two benched Pokemon. This will make our attack cost a lot more. But like I already said, this doesn’t happen often because players like a filled bench!

It can be painful not to get a Bibarel ready to draw more cards. Therefore, always ensure that when you use a Buddy-Buddy Poffin, you get one Litten and one Bidoof card instead of two Litten.

Incineroar Ex Deck Variations

Like most Pokémon card game decks, you can play this with various iterations. I will show you a few other useful cards that the Incineroar Ex Deck can greatly utilize.

With the normal setup our deck won’t have any bench protection. In my experience, it is also not needed because we have such strong attack power and don’t need to fill our bench to be effective.

However, you can always swap in one copy of  Rellor and Rabsca. Or the classic Jirachi and Manaphy combo. Rellor evolves into Rabsca. Rabsca has the Spherical Shield ability. This prevents all damage from and effects of attacks from your opponent’s Pokémon done to your benched Pokémon. Think of it as a fusion between Manaphy and Jirachi. You won’t need this against most builds.

Litleo and Pyroar are also two useful cards that can amp up your damage even more. When you apply burning, you will place four damage counters instead of two on the opponent’s Pokémon. However, I do not have this in the deck because I am more a fan of Relicanth’s Memory Dive ability that enables us to use Litten’s attack Reprisal.

Entei V can be a good card to to get some extra drawing power and he also packs a punch when there are plenty of benched Pokémon around. Lastly, we have Delphox V which can deal 120 damage to the opponent’s active Pokémon and 120 damage to one of his benched Pokémon. This can be good to take out a lower health supporter Pokémon on the bench but you will need three fire energy. Therefore this is only recommended if you have your Magma Basin ready to accelerate energy attachment.

If you feel like you never draw enough Fire Energy you can add one or two copies of the Earthen Vessel card.

Deck Import Code

Here is the Incineroar Ex Deck import code for the Pokémon online card game TCG. Copy the whole list below and it will automatically create the Incineroar Ex Deck in the online game.

Pokémon: 9
1 Pidgey MEW 16
2 Bibarel BRS 121
1 Radiant Charizard CRZ 20
1 Pidgeot ex OBF 164
4 Incineroar ex TEF 34
2 Torracat SIT 31
4 Litten SIT 30
1 Relicanth TEF 84
2 Bidoof CRZ 111

Trainer: 16
1 Counter Catcher PAR 160
2 Youngster SVI 198
1 Magma Basin BRS 144
1 Hero’s Cape TEF 152
4 Ultra Ball PAF 91
1 Rescue Board TEF 159
3 Boss’s Orders PAL 172
2 Iono PAL 185
4 Arven SVI 166
1 Technical Machine: Evolution PAR 178
1 Super Rod PAL 188
4 Rare Candy PAF 89
1 Lost Vacuum LOR 162
3 Buddy-Buddy Poffin TEF 144
2 Ciphermaniac’s Codebreaking TEF 145
1 Switch SVI 194

Energy: 2
9 Basic {R} Energy SVE 2
1 Gift Energy LOR 171

Total Cards: 60

I hope you enjoyed reading our Incineroar Ex Deck Guide for the Pokémon TCG card game.