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Powerful Pokémon Pairings Pump Up Your Deck

By Frank Berendsen

Great Encounters

Test-drive some great teamwork options in Diamond & Pearl—Great Encounters.


Experienced Pokémon TCG players will tell you that the secret to success lies in combining cards that work well together. Let's take a look at some of the great combinations available in Pokémon TCG: Diamond & Pearl—Great Encounters.

Solrock Solrock (Great Encounters, 85/106) is a Basic Pokémon with a Poké-Body that works when Lunatone (Great Encounters, 76/106) is in play. Its Sunlight Poké-Body allows all of your Fighting- and Psychic-type Pokémon to attack without being affected by Resistance. Since a lot of Pokémon have Resistance to these types, this effect is certainly a nice bonus.

To make the most out of Solrock’s Poké-Body, look for strong Fighting- or Psychic-type Pokémon to add to your deck, such as Hariyama (Great Encounters, 41/106), Primeape (Great Encounters, 27/106), or Hypno (Great Encounters, 19/106).

Lunatone does not need Solrock to be in play for its Gravity Change Poké-Power to work, but it's certainly more effective when Solrock is in play. Gravity Change states that you may discard a card during each turn. What benefit does this bring? If you have Solrock in play, you can draw a new card to replace the one that you discarded. Now that's refreshing!

Illumise While on the subject of teamwork, it's impossible to ignore the firefly duo Volbeat (Great Encounters, 92/106) and Illumise (Great Encounters, 71/106). If you have both Pokémon in play, Volbeat’s Light Conduct Poké-Power activates. Light Conduct allows you to pull a critical Supporter card from your discard pile and put it on top of your deck. Consider using the Pokédex HANDY910is Trainer card (Diamond & Pearl, 111/130) to immediately transfer this Supporter card from the top of your deck to your hand.

Illumise, on the other hand, doesn’t even need Volbeat to be in play to perform its attacks. Illumise's Scent Conduct Poké-Power lets you flip a coin each turn. If the result is heads, you can search your deck for a Grass-type Basic Pokémon and put it on your Bench. This can help you to set up many great evolution chains leading to powerful Stage 1 and Stage 2 Pokémon such as Sceptile (Great Encounters, 8/106), Tangrowth (Great Encounters, 10/106), and Beedrill (Great Encounters, 13/106).

Beedrill Beedrill is a Pokémon that takes the teamwork concept and transforms it into hive mentality. Beedrill’s Band Attack costs only 1 Energy and does 30 damage times the number of Beedrill you have in play. Talk about getting the most bang for your bee!

Sometimes finding Pokémon that work well together is easy, and other times it's not so obvious. A perfect example of an unusual pairing is Darkrai (Great Encounters, 4/106) and Wigglytuff (Great Encounters, 32/106). At first glance, these Pokémon have nothing in common. Take a closer look, though, and you'll find some surprising similarities. Most notably, both Pokémon can cause the opposing Pokémon to take a snooze.

Wigglytuff Wigglytuff’s Good Night Melody Poké-Power causes both your Active Pokémon and your opponent’s Active Pokémon to be Asleep. If Darkrai is your Active Pokémon, it can inflict 40 damage on top of the 40 it already does when the Defending Pokémon is Asleep. But as the Active Pokémon, Darkrai becomes Asleep when Wigglytuff uses Good Night Melody. How does it attack? Don't let it go to sleep at all! Play Sidney's Stadium (EX Power Keepers, 82/108) to prevent Darkrai (a Darkness-type Pokémon) from being affected by Wigglytuff’s Poké-Power. Or, try using Xatu's (Secret Wonders, 44/132) Psychic Shift Poké-Power to remove the Asleep condition from Darkrai.

These options are just the beginning. If you take a closer look at the attacks and Poké-Powers of the Pokémon in Great Encounters, you're sure to find many more crafty combinations, each of them more menacing than the next.  Get the most out of teamwork and deal yourself a victory!