Hello everyone! This is Elena from Gaia Storm TCG and welcome to another article at CCG Castle. Today we are getting back to regular deck profiles and covering one particular strategy that I consider to be one of the best budget decks to get into the game: Excadrill. It is good, straightforward and has the potential to easily beat the top decks in Standard. And plus, it is one of the last remaining one-prize decks we have on the format! Let’s dive into it.

Excadrill from Cosmic Eclipse is, on its own, a very powerful attacker. For just one fighting energy it can use two strong attacks. The idea of the deck is to start by using the second attack (called Drill Bazooka) to consistently deal 120 damage at the cost of discarding 4 cards from the top of the deck. But milling is not a bad thing as this enables the use of the other Excadrill’s attack in late game situations to swing for 180 damage. Now, the fact that you are continuously trading attacks for cards makes it crucial to run multiple recycling items like Ordinary Rod, Pal Pad and Brock’s Grit. This also ensures that you can always find copies to replace the fallen ones.

Now, one main issue of most of the single-prize decks is that the player really needs a consistent way to always find attackers after they are knocked out. That is where the Cinccino line comes in. As such, the idea is to have some slow first turns where you focus primarily in the set up and once you have 2 Drilbur and a couple of Minccino on the bench, you are ready to go.

Some of you might be wondering how is it that Excadrill can survive in a meta where ADP Zacian dominates. I am not going to lie, the match up is extremely difficult because there is no effective way of dealing with an Altered Creation in the second turn. One of the possible outs is to also run a thinner line of Altaria (Champion’s Path) and try to lock your opponent out of the game. But yes, this route of playing won’t probably work every time.

However, even is ADP Zacian is unfavorable, there are other top decks for whom Excadrill is a nightmare. Think about Eternatus VMAX and Pikachu & Zekrom, two of the great contenders in the format… that are precisely weak to fighting. In fact, with the help of Martial Arts Dojo, Excadrill can even get a one hit KO in some of these Tag Team Pokémon!

So, in conclusion, Excadrill is clearly a not expensive option for players that are starting in the TCG. It is relatively simple to build and has a pretty linear strategy, which is ideal for taking your first steps in the game. Don’t forget that you can get all your cards here at CCG!