Make your way to the top even if you're in a budget.

Most of the time, in trading card games (TCG), the expensive cards tend to be the most powerful cards when compared to those with a lower value. Of course, a card’s value becomes higher when its effect is useful, helping to dictate the meta.

But sometimes, some budget decks can make their way to the top. And in the Pokémon TCG, you don’t always have to have the most expensive deck to win matches. A handful of budget decks can keep up with expensive decks.

Here are five of the best Pokémon TCG standard format budget decks.

The Pokémon Go collaboration booster pack brought along two cards which then became an effective deck engine in the current standard meta, namely Lunatone and Solrock. Both cards are not Pokémon VMAX or VSTAR, but their effects are viable enough to be called cheap meta decks.

Lunatone’s Moon Kinesis can deal 30 plus 30 more damage for each Psychic Energy attached to it. This alone is already a great effect, since the total damage output it can deliver may go as high as 180 if six Energy cards are attached to it. And this is what Solrock does, thanks to its Sun Energy ability which allows players to attach a Psychic Energy from the discard pile to Lunatone once per turn for free.

Filling up the bench with up to four Solrock could easily scoop up to four Psychic Energies to Lunatone.

Players can also use the stadium card PokéStop to consistently drop three cards from their deck to the discard pile. This sets up Solrock’s ability easily, bolstering Lunatone with multiple Energy cards at once.

One of the most popular standard budget decks today is the Blissey V engine, which takes advantage of the card’s Happy Blast move. Using it will allow players to deal 10 plus 30 more damage for each Energy attached to Blissey V, making it a potential massive damage dealer.

What makes the Blissey V engine effective is its flexibility, thanks to the Pokémon being a Normal-type. Regardless of the type, Blissey V can use any Energy card to reach its Happy Blast’s full potential.

The move can also attach up to three Energy cards from the discard pile to Bliissey V when used, filling its requirements easier to achieve.

Some other pieces that can make the deck more effective and consistent include Radiant Greninja, Professor’s Research, and Zinnia’s Resolve to discard Energy cards, Blastoise to search Energies from the deck, Charizard to multiply Blissey V’s damage output, and Milktank to potentially prevent attacks from Pokémon V, giving ample time to set up Blissey V.

The Regigigas deck could be considered an anti-meta deck that could disrupt decks centering around the more powerful Pokémon VMAX. Regigigas’ Gigaton Break is already a great damage dealer, thanks to its 150 damage. But it could go as high as 300 when it attacks a Pokémon VMAX.

But that’s not all. What makes the deck more effective and consistent is Regigigas’ Ancient Wisdom ability to attach three Energy cards from the discard pile to Regigigas itself, as long as you have all the other Regis in play (namely Regice, Regirock, Registeel, Regieleki, and Regidrago). Use all the other Regis as attackers to provide additional damage while setting up Regigigas to do a massive blow with Gigaton Break.

Trainer cards such as Quick Ball, Ultra Ball, and Scoop Up Net can help bring out the missing Regis to fulfill Regigigas’ Ancient Wisdom condition.

Professor’s Research can also be a great Supporter card to fill your discard pile.

One of the earliest stall decks to exist in the Pokémon TCG pro scene is the Wailord-EX engine, which finished second during the U.S. National finals in 2015. The goal of the deck is just to stall the opponent with Wailord-EX while preventing the opponent from knocking out the Pokémon to get a prize card.

Trainer cards that heal damage on Wailord-EX were also used, all to achieve the win condition of decking out the opponent, or just to make them concede.

Fast forward to today, the Wailord-EX engine is somewhat the engine used by Stonjourner VMAX. This card’s Stone Gift move allows players to attach a Fighting Energy to it while healing 120 damage. Stonjourner VMAX’s HP is 330, making it a much better wall than Wailord-EX.

In case of emergency, Stonjourner VMAX’s Max Rockfall can deal 200 damage to the opposing Pokémon, though it may rarely happen thanks to the stalling that can be done with this deck.

Use cards such as Max Potion, Lucky Ice Pop, Team Yell Towel, and Pokémon Center Lady to consistently heal damage from Stonjourner VMAX.

Last not but not least is the deck that has started to make waves in the current standard meta. The Origin Forme Dialga VSTAR is the cover card for the latest expansion, Astral Radiance. The deck’s winning engine is simple, which is to take advantage of Origin Forme Dialga VSTAR’s attacks to single-handedly blow out the opponent.

Both Origin Forme Dialga VSTAR could potentially deal massive damage to the opponent’s Active Pokémon. Its Metal Blast attack deals 40 plus 40 more damage for each Metal Energy attached to Origin Forme Dialga VSTAR, costing just a minimum of one colorless energy to be used. Its VSTAR Power, Star Chronos, could be game-changing.

Aside from the massive 220 damage it can deal, the user of Origin Forme Dialga VSTAR can take another turn after using it. This alone allows it to potentially use Metal Blast again and could deal 280 damage this time.

Fill in the deck with Magnezone and Metal Saucer to help you attach Metal Energy cards to Origin Forme Dialga VSTAR, setting up two massive attacks faster.