ZPST (TCG)

ZPST
Zekrom and Tornadus Types used Major cards Zekrom, Pachirisu, Shaymin, and Tornadus Era 2011–2012

ZPST was a Pokémon Trading Card Game deck archetype. The deck's name is an acronym, with each letter representing one of the four main Pokémon used in it: Zekrom, Pachirisu, Shaymin, and Tornadus. An earlier version of the deck, conceived before the release of Tornadus in Emerging Powers, was, not surprisingly, named ZPS. This version won the 2011 Canadian National Championships, bringing the archetype greater consideration as a viable tournament choice.

Strategy

The main idea of the deck was to have Zekrom as the Active Pokémon, with Pachirisu, Shaymin, and three Lightning Energy in the player's hand. Pachirisu's Self-Generation attached two Lightning Energy to itself when the player played it onto the Bench, and Shaymin's Celebration Wind allowed the Energy to be moved to Zekrom. Then, the player could simply attach an Energy to Zekrom normally, and this would give it the necessary amount to use its powerful Bolt Strike attack. Tornadus generally replaced Zekrom against Pokémon or in certain other situations.

Cards

Pokémon

• Zekrom - The main attacker of this deck. With just , Bolt Strike dealt 120 damage to the opponent and 40 damage to itself. Once it acquired enough damage counters, it could use its Outrage attack instead, which increased in power with each damage counter on itself.
• Pachirisu - Its Poké-Power Self-Generation allowed the player to instantly place two Energies on Pachirisu when it was put from the player's hand to the Bench. Along with Shaymin, it helped Zekrom have enough Energy to quickly use its Bolt Strike attack.
• Shaymin - Its Poké-Power Celebration Wind allowed the player to move Pachirisu's Energy to Zekrom when Shaymin is put into play from the player's hand. Along with Pachirisu, it helped Zekrom have enough Energy to quickly use its Bolt Strike attack.
• Tornadus - the secondary attacker of this deck. It has a resistance to the Fighting type and could deal 80 damage for with Hurricane.
• Magby - Was mainly used to counter Gothitelle. By using Play with Fire, it burned the Defending Pokémon for no Energy and put itself to sleep. Magby's Sweet Sleeping Face then protected Magby from any damage while it was Asleep. Like many Baby Pokémon, it had a free retreat cost.

Trainers and Supporters

• Professor Juniper - Supporter card to discard the player's current hand and draw 7 cards.
• Sage's Training - Supporter card that allowed the player to choose 2 cards from the first 5 cards in their deck.
• Professor Oak's New Theory - Supporter card that caused the player to shuffle their current hand into their deck and draw 6 cards.
• Pokémon Collector - Let the player search for any 3 Basic Pokémon in their deck and show them to the opponent. Because all of the Pokémon in ZPST were Basic Pokémon, this helped with generating the requisite Pokémon for this deck archetype to work.
• Pokégear 3.0 - A Trainer card that allowed the player to choose a Supporter card from the top 7 cards of their deck.
• Eviolite - A Pokémon Tool card that reduced any damage taken from attacks by 20 if attached to a Basic Pokémon.
• Rocky Helmet - A Pokémon Tool card. If the Active Pokémon had a Rocky Helmet attached to itself, it damaged the opponent whenever it dealt damage to the Active Pokémon by using an attack.
• Xtransceiver - Allowed the player to search for any Supporter card in their deck by a sucessful coinflip.

Typical decklist

The deck list appearing below is not official; it is meant to represent an average build of the archetype, not specifically constructed for any regional metagame. Being that this is merely an archetype, a player may wish to change any part of this deck when building his or her own version.

Quantity	Card	Type	Rarity
4×	Zekrom
3×	Pachirisu
3×	Shaymin
4×	Tornadus
2×	Magby
4×	Professor Juniper	Su
4×	Sage's Training	Su
4×	Professor Oak's New Theory	Su
4×	Pokémon Collector	Su
3×	Pokégear 3.0	T
3×	Xtransceiver	I
4×	Eviolite	I
3×	Rocky Helmet	I
12×	Lightning Energy	E	—
4×	Double Colorless Energy	E

Possible tech cards

The following cards were often used in ZPST in place of certain cards included in the above list.

• Zoroark - Zoroark was often used because of Foul Play, which was helpful when dealing with powerful Pokémon such as Reshiram and Magnezone Prime.
• Dual Ball - Dual Ball could replace Pokémon Collector, as both cards let the player search for Basic Pokémon. While Dual Ball had an inferior effect, Pokémon Collector was a Supporter card, and using Dual Ball instead would allow the player to use a different Supporter card in that turn.

This article is part of Project TCG, a Bulbapedia project that aims to report on every aspect of the Pokémon Trading Card Game.