Gaming Intro

Prodigy Strats

Jul 16

7 min read

Updated: Jul 16

Hey Friends!

I'm an avid gamer, whether it's board games, card games, or videogames. I actually held a world record in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe on Bowser Castle 3 200cc with Peachette in the Biddybuggy with azure rollers and the paper glider! Today I'm going to share a new Pokémon TCG deck I enjoy! A version of this deck made the finals of the recent 2026 Japan Championships played by Kabu Fukase, who won the 2025 Japan Championships with Raging Bolt.

COOK Dragapult ex with Hide 'N' Sneak

Hello and welcome to this guide on the brand new Hide 'N' Sneak deck from Pitch Black (the new set that just released)! I will be going over the deck list and explaining the cards and why they are in the deck. With that all out of the way, let’s begin!

Note that this guide is for more seasoned Pokémon TCG players, but I do hope to make some beginner Pokémon TCG tutorials in the future on my blog.

One more note: the three letters after each Pokémon card name is the set where you can find it. Here are all of them in the current rotation:

TEF – Temporal Forces

TWM – Twilight Masquerade

SFA – Shrouded Fable

SCR – Stellar Crown

SSP – Surging Sparks

PRE – Prismatic Evolutions

JTG – Journey Together

DRI – Destined Rivals

MEG – Mega Evolution

PFL – Phantasmal Flames

ASC – Ascended Heroes

POR – Perfect Order

CRI – Chaos Rising

PBL – Pitch Black

Deck List

4 Shuppet PBL

This one is just a basic evolution, so there’s not much to say about it, but it does have a pretty cool Ability called Hide ‘n’ Sneak. It prevents all effects of your Opponent’s Pokémon’s attacks and Abilities done to this Pokémon. So this ability essentially stops Dragapult ex’s Phantom Dive from doing bench damage. Also, the ability name, Hide ‘N’ Sneak is going to be very important to remember.

4 Banette PBL

This is the evolution of Shuppet! This is going to be one of our attackers. It has the same Hide ‘N’ Sneak Ability, and its attack costs one (Psychic) Energy and does 80 damage while getting to search your deck for a card and put it in your hand, then shuffling your deck. I mean hey, getting any card you want out of your deck is pretty nice, right? And 80 damage is not at all bad.

4 Poltchageist PBL

This one also has the Hide ‘n’ Sneak ability, but its attack we will rarely use as its evolution has a better one.

4 Sinistcha PBL

This one also has the Hide ‘n’ Sneak ability, and its attack is quite powerful. If you have 6 or more Pokémon equipped with the Hide ‘n’ Sneak ability in your discard pile (which is VERY doable knowing we have 16 of them) , we can place 4 damage counters on each of our opponent’s Pokémon. This is a nice spread attack, and we will use it often.

3 Dhelmise PBL

This one is going to be our main attacker I think in this deck. Its attack’s base damage is 30 but if you have 4 or more Pokémon that have the Hide ‘n’ Sneak ability in the discards, it does 140 more damage, and 170 damage is enough to knock out something like a Meowth ex or 2-shot most things in the meta, and works very well with Sinistcha with the same objective of discarding Hide ‘n’ Sneak Pokémon.

1 Spiritomb CRI

This card combos with Sinistcha really well. The attack on it is crazy! If you have 13 or more Hide ‘n’ Sneak Pokémon in your discard pile, you can QUADRUPLE the number of damage counters on two opponent Pokémon! If you use Sinistcha twice putting 80 damage on each opponent Pokemon, then Spiritomb can increase the damage on two of those up to 320! That’s enough damage to knock out things like Dragapult ex, N’s Zoroark ex, Rocket’s Mewtwo Ex, Marnie’s Grimmsnarl Ex and so much more!

2 Lillie’s Clefairy ex JTG

Kicking off our support Pokémon, Lillie’s Clefairy is a great support card in almost any deck, especially with its Ability making Dragon-type Pokémon weak to Psychic. We won’t really be using its attack that much, mostly its Ability, which can allow things like Dhelmise to OHKO (One hit knockout) Dragapult ex, Raging Bolt ex and more!

1 Latias ex SSP

Another great support in almost any deck, this card allows Basic Pokémon to retreat for free, which is very helpful because we play a low energy count and if one of our basic Support Pokémon is stuck in the Active, we can retreat it into something better.

1 Shaymin DRI

This one is for its Ability, preventing damage to our Benched Rule Box Pokémon, and since our deck is one prize mostly this helps because lots of our one-prize Pokémon have very low HP.

1 Patrat CRI

Another one in here for the Ability, which states ‘Damage counters on each Pokémon cannot be moved to other Pokémon. This basically stops Munkidori, and as said before, our Hide ‘n’ Sneak Pokémon have very low HP, and Munki can KO a Poltchageist with its Ability.

1 Meowth ex POR

Here for its Ability also, Meowth is like the new Lumineon V. When you put it down onto your Bench, you can search for a Supporter and put it into your hand. This helps immensely if you don’t have much in your hand.

1 Fezandipiti ex SFA

Here for its Ability again, Fezandipiti is a very helpful draw engine by drawing 3 when your opponent knocks one of your Pokémon out by damage. Since our Pokémon have low HP and are quite easy to knock out, Fez helps a lot to easily cycle through your deck better and faster.

4 Lillie’s Determination MEG

Kicking off the Supporters, this lets you shuffle your hand into your deck and draw 6, but draw 8 if you have all Prizes remaining. This is probably the most BUSTED supporter in the current format, as you can get a fresh hand of 8 cards at the start of the game.

3 Gwynn PBL

This brand-new Supporter works absolutely PERFECT with this deck. You can discard up to 2 non-Rule Box Pokémon and for each one you discard, you draw 3 cards. We want to discard our Hide ‘n’ Sneak Pokémon , and this does that for us and helps our draw!

2 Boss’s Orders ASC

This one doesn’t need much explanation, it switches out an opponent’s Benched Pokémon to the Active. Great card in any deck, if you know, you know.

1 Lana’s Aid TWM

This helps with our recovery as we can put up to 3 in any combination of non-Rule Box Pokémon and Basic Energy cards from our discard to our hand. Pretty good!

4 Ultra Ball ASC

This Item card doesn’t need much explanation, discard 2 cards from hand, search for a Pokémon, put it in hand. This helps us with board setup as well as discarding our Hide ‘n’ Sneak Pokémon.

3 Poke Pad ASC

Another helpful search card, searching for one non-Rule Box Pokémon and add it to our hand.

3 Night Stretcher SFA

This one puts one Basic Energy or Pokémon from our discard into our hand. Like Lana’s Aid, we need recovery cards in case we discard valuable resources that we need.

1 Enhanced Hammer TWM

There’s this really annoying card right now called Mist Energy, preventing all effects from opponent’s attacks done to that Pokémon. This is annoying because it stops Sinistcha from doing damage to it. So we play this card because it lets us discard an opponent’s Special Energy, and Mist Energy is one of them.

1 Brilliant Blender (ACE SPEC) SSP

I was debating between this and Secret Box for the ace spec, but I went for this one because it lets you discard 5 cards from your deck which you get to choose, helping aggressively discard Hide ‘n’ Sneak Pokémon. If you don’t have a Brilliant Blender on hand, use Secret Box, it’s a perfectly fine alternative.

2 Lucky Helmet TWM

This Tool card helps with our draw. It states If the Pokémon this card is attached to is damaged by an attack (even if it’s knocked out), you get to draw 2 cards.

3 Prism Tower CRI

Our Stadium of choice is Prism Tower, letting each player discard 2 cards from their hand to draw 1 once per turn. This helps with our strategy of aggressively discarding Hide ‘n’ Sneak Pokémon, and is a solid draw engine.

2 Telepathic Psychic Energy POR

This card acts as a normal Psychic Energy but when you attach it to a Psychic Pokémon, you may search your deck for up to 2 Psychic Basic Pokémon and put them on your bench. This made Psychic decks BROKEN and is very helpful in the early-game.

4 Basic Psychic Energy MEE

These are normal Basic Energies, pretty self-explanatory.

We usually want to go second with this deck because we want to play Supporters and try to attack turn 1 with Dhelmise, hitting for 170 damage. We usually want to set up 2 Dhelmise early then maybe a Shuppet or Poltchageist, and support Pokémon depending on our matchup.

A very useful website to keep up with the current professional meta and build decks and play PTCGL tournaments is: Limitlesstcg.com

Labs.Limitlesstcg.com (Tourney full results)

Play.Limitlesstcg.com (Online tourneys)

My.Limitlesstcg.com (Deck builder/Play tester)

If you want to play it yourself on Pokémon TCG Live, copy and paste the entire decklist below:

Pokémon: 12

1 Meowth ex POR 62

4 Poltchageist PBL 5

4 Sinistcha PBL 6

1 Shaymin DRI 10

4 Banette PBL 34

1 Latias ex SSP 76