GLC Colorless Deck - Turbo Energize Snorlax

The overwhelming speed of Colorless is one of its greatest strengths. Classic Archeops Colorless lists are so powerful mostly due to the fact that Twin Energy, Double Colorless Energy, and Double Turbo are basically just Double Dragon Energies for this type. Two energy attachments onto Snorlax to attack for 180 on the second turn of the game with a 150 HP Pokemon is too much pressure for many decks to deal with.

So, why not cut the middle man out of the equation and just play the most consistent, powerful Colorless list without relying on an inconsistent fossil stage two such as Archeops?

Different variations of Turbo Colorless just went undefeated in 3 recent online tournaments back-to-back, beating several other Colorless decks of various archetypes. A variation of Turbo Colorless also came in second in a recent 24 player in-person tournament in a very close finals against Tinkaton Psychic.

After seeing both this archetype and Porygon-Z/Archeops lists in action and comparing them, I honestly think that Turbo Colorless is the new best Colorless deck and a major contender for the best deck in the format right now.

Let’s take a look at why the deck is so powerful

The deck is built to be as consistent as possible Turn 1, with many outs to Battle VIP Pass and the Turbo Energize TM. With VIP Pass you can grab Oranguru and Skwovet out of the deck, put unplayable cards in your starting hand on the bottom of your deck, and keep drawing cards to dig for more setup pieces like energies and basic Pokemon.

With Skwovet, Bibarel, and Oranguru, you can see a lot of cards to find powerful aggressive supporters every turn. With careful card sequencing, you can thin the deck aggressively with Battle Compressor, see extra cards with Pokegear, Trainers’ Mail, and Rotom Phone, and draw 5-9 new cards every turn using just your abilities! Oranguru is great for drawing cards early game and Bibarel mid-late game once you can draw into it with cards like Rotom Phone or search for it with Ultra Ball or Mallow.

Turbo Colorless leans into the type’s natural aggressiveness even further with the Turbo Energize TM. You can attach an energy to an active attacker such as Snorlax or Lugia and use the TM to set up a benched attacker in the same turn. Next turn, you can attach another energy to the active attacker and start swinging, with a backup attacker already set up on the bench.

It's very easy to continue streaming attackers with the extra energy accelerated by Raihan and the new Mela supporter. No need for Archeops or Porygon-Z to keep those attackers going.

With no Archeops, no Porygon-Z, and no evolutions and evolution search cards other than Bibarel and Ultra Ball, that frees up a ton of deck space for consistency options and powerful healing cards such as Scoop Up Net, Penny, and Mallow & Lana. Deny knockouts with Luxurious Cape giving Snorlax 250 HP and scoop him up to do it all over again!

Imagine a 250 HP Snorlax swinging for 180 damage every turn while playing Guzma + Hex + VS Seeker for Hex, and then healing itself with Mallow & Lana and Penny when it does take damage. I’ve found that this is a very likely possibility from my extensive testing with this deck. Several tournament games recorded on Bcevasco’s twitch stream can attest to the consistency of early game Lysandre and Guzma plays on crucial support Pokemon.

Turbo Colorless plays similarly in style to standard decks like Mew VMAX, drawing a ton of cards, taking aggressive gust knockouts, and locking the opponent out of abilities while attacking with big, hard to knock out Pokemon. Except in this case, there’s no easy tech card like Spiritomb or Drapion V to take down Snorlax.

This Colorless archetype is quite flexible, feel free to change it to fit your preferences and your local metagame. More disruption, more healing cards, more recovery cards, more HP boosting tools, etc. Part of the fun of this archetype is that it’s very customizable and there’s a lot of creativity that can be expressed with different list variations and spicy tech cards.

Other great cards to consider

The difference between playing this Cyclizar and the one that hits for 140 ultimately comes down to personal preference. I like having an extra attacker that can hit for big damage for only three energies, Kangaskhan caps at 120 damage and Lugia takes four for 160. The 140 damage Cyclizar has one retreat, so U-Turn Board works great for it and Skwovet. With most decks playing Field Blower now, having extra resilience against it is great.

This Cyclizar does only hit for 100 damage, but it has free retreat. This means that you can play Float Stone, which is able to work on Bibarel and Oranguru as well as Skwovet. If that gets discarded by Field Blower, no worries, you have the free retreat Cyclizar. Play whichever one you like, depending on the local metagame each is better in different ways.

Reset Stamp is an amazing comeback card that is very underutilized in GLC, especially when used together with powerful disruption like Hex Maniac or using Guzma to target down support Pokemon. By modifying the list a little by removing something like Penny, you can have absolutely devastating late game disruption. Reset Stamp your opponent to 1 card, Hex Maniac to turn off their draw and energy acceleration abilities, and then knock out their active with a huge 250 HP Snorlax! Good luck responding to that!

With Skwovet, it’s a lot easier to conserve resources like Reset Stamp and Hex Maniac and keep them on the bottom of the deck until the late game when they are the most powerful. Try using Stamp with healing like Mallow & Lana, aggressive plays like Guzma, and with tempo supporters such as Raihan and Mela. It’s like playing N and another supporter in the same turn!

Cyllene is a great recovery card, it’s very flexible in that it can get back anything from the discard pile to use again. Tools like Luxurious Cape, double energies, Field Blower, Reset Stamp, VS Seeker, you name it. Great card if you don’t flip too many double tails.

If you want even more tankiness, try playing Bravery Charm or Lana’s Fishing Rod to recover tools such as Fighting Fury Belt and Luxurious Cape. Shuffling the tool into the deck with Lana’s Fishing Rod isn’t as much of a downside as it usually is, with all of the draw and search this deck has you can probably draw right back into the tool in the same turn that it got discarded.

Parallel City is just a great card. Recently I’ve taken out Parallel City in favor of Chaotic Swell as a tech against opposing Parallel Cities, Dimension Valleys, Silent Labs, and other disruptive stadiums. Feel free to swap this back into the list if you deal with a lot of Water and Grass in your local metagame and would like even more disruption against that type.

Gameplay Tips

1. Avoid narrowing your focus too much on the Turbo Energize TM play. If you can take a turn 2 knockout and have a relatively stable board, or your opponent definitely does not have a stable board, go for the knockout. The Turbo Energize TM is a very powerful part of the deck, but not necessary for the deck to function well. The most important part of the game plan is streaming tanky attackers with lots of disruption and energy efficiency.

2. Don’t be afraid to attach Therapeutic Energy to Pokemon other than Snorlax if necessary. It’s totally fine to attach this energy to other attackers if there is no other good option. There are several other ways and a lot of draw power to find these ways to make sure that Snorlax stays awake to keep attacking each turn, including Escape Rope, Mallow & Lana, Guzma, and Scoop Up Net. Also, keep in mind that Snorlax does have about a 44% chance to wake up before it gets back to your turn, it’s not that unlikely. Don’t be afraid to start swinging with Snorlax even if you don’t have a Therapeutic Energy available, often he just gets return KO’d and you don’t have to worry about waking him up anyways.

3. The aggressive draw in Oranguru and Skwovet is somewhat weak to ability lock like Galarian Weezing, Wobbuffet, and Silent Lab. If you’re worried about ability lock in your local metagame, try playing some extra draw supporters like Professor’s Research to help you find the energies to start swinging regardless of the ability lock. You could also consider other tech cards like Repel and Lost Vacuum to help get around ability lock stadiums and Pokemon.

4. Oranguru is actually a great attacker in a pinch. With a damage modifier its Psychic attack can knock out most basic attackers, including Necrozma, Drampa, Regidrago, Amazing Raikou, Lugia, Mimikyu, Zarude, and more. Psychic can even get up to 150 to knock out Guzzlord and Snorlax! Don’t underestimate the monkey.

5. Try to avoid putting both Luxurious Cape and Fighting Fury Belt in play at the same time if your opponent hasn’t already used their field blower. If your opponent manages to discard both tools at the same time it doesn’t feel great. Try to bait the field blower out with one tool and/or Chaotic Swell if you can.

6. Getting energy attachments each turn is very important to keep streaming attackers, but don’t let this prevent you from going for aggressive plays. If you have an active Snorlax that’s ready to take a knockout with something like Hex Maniac in hand, sometimes it’s a better play to play the Hex and disrupt abilities, especially if this Hex Maniac is likely to prevent your opponent from knocking out the Snorlax. On the following turn you can dig for the energy attachment that you missed. Worst case scenario, it’s not too hard to find Raihan or Mela to attack again the following turn, or use a double energy on Kangaskhan to keep up the prize trade by knocking out the active or using Lysandre to target the bench.

7. Battle Compressor is great for thinning supporters out of the deck that you might not want to draw into mid-late game like Peony and Arven after you’ve already got your board fully set up. Depending on the situation, I usually use Battle Compressor to discard an unused Battle VIP Pass, Hisuian Heavy Ball, Turbo Energize TM, 1-2 basic fire energies (for use with Raihan), and occasionally basic search cards like Artazon and Nest Ball if I’ve already fully set up my board.

8. This deck is not too difficult to learn, but it is difficult to master the sequencing and game plan. Learning when to play cards to thin the deck, when to avoid playing cards that reorder the deck to continue digging for a game winning supporter, how to sequence turns, and when to hold resources in the hand and not use Nest Stash takes some practice. The fun and satisfying part about playing this deck is when the game plan all comes together and the careful resource management pays off, it really is a lot of fun to play.

Final Thoughts

This deck is a ton of fun to play because of its unique draw engine and explosive setup, and it is one of, if not the most powerful new deck from Paradox Rift. I highly recommend trying it out, it'll surprise you with how fast and consistent it is!

For deck list exports and periodical list updates, check out this link to its CBW deck builder page.

Credit to RooskyDoosky who won two webcam CBW tournaments and Galactoast who got second in an in-person 24 person tournament, both with different variations of this list. Their lists are posted in the Tricky Gym discord glc-decklists forums here.

Thanks to Bcevasco and all he does for the GLC community, check out his Twitch stream here for live GLC tournament commentary!