A guide to Chatot in TCG Pocket

In every TCG, cards that allow you to draw from your deck are always worth a closer look. Pokémon TCG Pocket only allows you to play with a 20-card deck - compared to the regular 60-card TCG, each card is important and can represent a key piece that may lead you to victory. Not only that, but card advantage opportunities are limited in Pocket compared with the TCG:

• The opening hand is smaller (five cards vs seven)
• Draw effects in Pocket are much rarer
• Draw effects in the TCG are way overtuned (for instance, Professor's Research discard your hand and draws 7, against Pocket's 2 cards)

Chatot, the 4th-generation exotic bird, made its debut in Pocket with Mythical Island, and has brought out a rather interesting approach to deck thinning.

The little bird is a Basic Pokémon with 60 HP and a “Mimic” attack that does no damage. Instead, you shuffle your hand with your deck and draw as many cards as there are in your opponent's hand, allowing you to draw multiple new cards at once –a stark contrast from Meowth or Sigilyph’s 1-card draw attack. This is technically the first card in Pokémon TCG Pocket that can make you draw more than 2 cards at once, a feature notable enough to deserve its own niche in building decks.

Which decks benefit from Chatot?

Stage 2 evolution decks

Being a multiple card drawer, Chatot thrives in decks that rely heavily on stage 2 evolutions. Those type of decks can typically be slower to set-up and even potentially brick early or mid game. As evolving Pokémon takes at least one turn for each stage, you'll want to find the right pieces quickly to not make things any slower than they already are.

While not being guaranteed, Chatot offers an interesting solution to speed up the process and catch the opponent off guard.

I would advise not using Chatot in stage 1 only decks, such as Darkrai / Weavile, or Exeggutor ex / Yanmega decks. It’d take too much space and time for too little benefit, as getting to the stage 1 evolution lines can be done organically fairly easily.

Example: Garchomp Chatot

This Garchomp deck piloted by cyanglaz was seen at the FrogEX Weekly Cup #8 tournament, where it reached fifth place.

To work properly, this deck needs a Garchomp (stage 2 evolution), Cynthia and two different energy types, making it a difficult deck to set up. By using Chatot, you maximize your chances of finding the pieces you need to deal 150 damage as quickly as possible. Dawn helps with energy management, transferring Chatot's potential extra or energy to the Garchomp line after a retreat.

Fossil decks

Fossil Pokémon are fun to mess with, but they come with a drawback: their line have no basic Pokémon. Instead, you need to play a fossil Trainer card on your bench that will act as your basic.

Therefore, you’re not guaranteed to have it in your starter hand, as they’re not considered as basic Pokémon by the game system. They cannot be searched for with cards like Poké Ball or Combee either. This makes fossil Pokémon extra hard to pull off because it has a better chance to “brick” from the start.

That’s how Chatot became fossils’ best friend, as it greatly increases chances of getting to them quicker. Plus, because fossil cards aren’t considered as basic Pokémon, if you only rely on fossil Pokémon along with Chatot, you’re guaranteed to start with the little bird.

Example: Rampardos Lucario

Rampardos is the only Pokémon in the game being able to deal more than 100 damage for a single energy. In return, it carries the drawback of being a stage 2 fossil evolution and dealing 50 damage to itself when it KOs the opponent's Pokémon. Still, Head Smash is an all-star attack worth considering against many Ex Pokémon: even more after the release of Triumphant Light, where it takes down Arceus ex in a single hit! Combining it with Lucario enhances Rampardos even more as each Lucario increase +20 damage all type attacks, a one-hit knock out against Dialga ex, Palkia ex, Leafeon ex, Darkrai ex...

Chatot is a great help being able to set up the Rampardos line along with Lucario as quickly as possible.

Decks with power cards

In some very specific cases, even stage 1 decks can benefit from Chatot. These decks don't capitalize on the quick finds of evolution line cards, but on finding a specific combo of cards that work well together –most often, a specific Trainer card with a powerful Pokémon that benefits from it.

The deck belows features Gyarados Ex and Chatot as a draw engine to quickly set up a fully powered Gyarados Ex with the help of Misty.

As Gyarados Ex is the most powerful stage 1 Pokémon in the game by a wide margin, if you manage to get good coin flip luck with Misty as soon as turn 2, you've got a great chance of winning the game. Chatot is here to make it happen

Only one copy of Chatot is used to keep it as an option if you’re not satisfied with your starter hand or / and if you don’t start with Manaphy.

Interestingly, this type of deck can be also considered in the future for any type of strategy involving a powerful card combo, as a high risk / high reward approach.

How to use Chatot correctly?

As an early game starter

As Chatot is a weak Basic Pokémon offering no further evolution, it is mainly used in the early game, when the opponent is not yet capable of doing much damage nor to unload their hand.

In addition, since the only point of playing Chatot is to quickly draw a large number of new cards at once, it makes all the more sense to use it as your first Basic Pokémon, while building your other Pokémon on the bench. This is also why it can be paired with just Fossil: to guarantee to open it in the Active spot.

When the opponent has more cards in hand than you do

Chatot’s Mimic attack forces you to shuffle your hand into your deck to draw new cards; the amount of new cards you’re allowed to draw being tied to the number of cards in your opponent hand.

To maximize the effect of Chatot's attack, you should ideally have fewer cards in your hand than your opponent. For example, if you use Mimic when you have 4 cards in hand and your opponent only has 2, using Chatot might be counter-productive, as you'll be adding back 2 cards to your deck at the resolution that you might draw the following turns!

Keep in mind that since you're shuffling all of your cards in hand with your deck before drawing a new hand, you carry the risk of drawing your those cards again.

When your current hand seems underwhelming next turn

As we've already seen, Chatot can prove so valuable for stage 2 evolution decks, especially if they're fossil decks. The main gain, apart from potentially picking up useful Trainer cards, is to find all the pieces needed for the desired evolution line to minimize chances of the deck to “brick”.

Sometimes you'll be stuck with a Stage 1 evolution, but no basic Pokémon. Or your basic Pokémon will be sitting on the bench and you've got the Stage 2 evolution in hand, but you're missing the Stage 1.

Either way, using Mimic can unblock this kind of situation and speed up the set-up of your deck. So don't be afraid to shuffle cards that may be useful later, but not immediately: you'll find them later –especially if your opponent has a lot of cards in hands.

How to play Chatot more efficiently?

"Discard" the cards you don't wanna see

Occasionally, you would want to thin your hand in the sole purpose of getting rid of cards that you know won’t be useful in the game anymore.

If you find yourself in this situation, don’t be afraid to use Trainers like X Speed or Leaf to "discard" them before using Chatot’s attack.

Play Pokémon Communication

In the scenario you play multiple Basic Pokémon in your deck (even multiple Chatot), as Mimic's efficiency might become dubious in the mid-late game, Pokémon Communication is good to shuffle a Chatot and pick a better Pokémon card.

Should I let Chatot get Knocked Out?

As Chatot is sent to the early game frontline, sometimes it might get KO-ed early. You may be tempted to retreat it to prevent your opponent from netting a point. It’s up to you to decide, but keep in mind that sometimes Chatot has to fell to be able to use a Mimic attack that could lead you to victory. That’s why Chatot finds itself particularly good in non Ex decks.

The Meowth/Sigilyph alternative

It could happen that you end up with cards that can’t be used now but could be useful for next turn, so you don't want to risk sacrificing them with Chatot’s attack. If this kind of situation bothers you, there’s the option of running Meowth (or Sigilyph for Psychic decks) instead of Chatot.

Meowth and Sigilyph's attack deal 10 damage and make you draw one card. It’s significantly less than what Chatot might provide, but it comes with the benefit of not getting rid of your current hand and go for a complete gamble.

Also, Chatot's ability remains dependent on the number of cards in the opponent's hand, unlike Meowth and Sigilyph which provide a minor, but more consistent draw.

At the end of the day, it’s a choice you have to make depending of your preferences and taste for risk... which is pretty much Chatot is all about!