Pokémon TCG Mega Excadrill Deck Guide: Lists and Matchups

Mega Excadrill ex is a Metal deck that has put 713 players into the first seven Regional Championships of the 2027 season, and it has not won one. It has two top-cut seats out of 73: Neddy Kosek took the last of Frankfurt's 16 and Riguel Assis of Brazil finished 5th in Recife. It made Day 2 at 11.8%, against 18.0% for the whole field, and it won 44.0% of its non-mirror matches. This guide covers what the deck does, the 60 cards that 713 lists mostly agree on, which splits came with better results, and who it beats.

Every tournament number comes from Limitless Labs, which builds its tables from the RK9 tournament software: all 713 Mega Excadrill decklists registered at Baltimore, Brisbane, Frankfurt, Recife, Louisville, Nice and Puebla, and Limitless's matchup table for those players, Swiss and top cut. Win rates count a tie as a third of a win, the way Limitless does. Card text is from the Pokémon TCG API. Gdańsk (October 31 to November 1) is being played as this goes up, and none of its results are in these numbers.

Recife is the only one of the seven where the deck beat the field's Day 2 rate, and its non-mirror win rate was below 50% at every event. The deck was never a fringe pick, though: it was 3% to 7% of the field every weekend.

How the deck wins

The card the deck is named for is Pitch Black's Mega Excadrill ex, a 340 HP Stage 1 that evolves from Drilbur. It has two attacks:

Undermine (Metal, Metal): 90 damage. Discard the top 2 cards of your opponent's deck.

Maximum Drilling (Metal, Metal, Metal): 200 damage, plus 130 more if this Pokémon has at least 2 extra Energy attached beyond the attack's cost.

So the ceiling is 330 for five Metal Energy, which is enough to Knock Out a 320 HP Dragapult ex in one hit. It is a Mega Evolution Pokémon ex, so its owner gives up 3 Prize cards when it is Knocked Out, and it is weak to Fire. The deck's other half is the problem of getting five Metal Energy onto it.

Metang is the engine. Temporal Forces Metang has the Metal Maker Ability: once during your turn, look at the top 4 cards of your deck, attach any number of Basic Metal Energy you find there to your Pokémon in any way you like, and put the rest on the bottom. 687 of 713 lists run four Metang, and 696 of 707 lists with Beldum run four in total, split between two printings. Because Metal Maker can put Energy on any of your Pokémon, one turn can charge Mega Excadrill ex and a Benched attacker together.

Genesect ex is the search. Black Bolt's Genesect ex is a 220 HP Basic whose Metallic Signal Ability, once per turn, searches your deck for up to 2 Evolution Metal Pokémon and puts them in your hand. Metang, Metagross and Mega Excadrill ex are all Evolution Metal Pokémon, so one Ability use can fetch the evolution line a turn needs. It is in 713 of 713 lists, at two copies in 709.

Metagross is the second attacker. The Chaos Rising Metagross (the same card Slowking borrows in our Slowking guide) is in 704 lists, one copy in 462 and two in 242. Bounce Back costs one Metal Energy: 60 damage and your opponent switches their Active Pokémon to the Bench. Metallic Hammer costs four for 150, or 300 if you discard 3 Metal Energy from it. It is a Stage 2 with no Rule Box, which becomes important below, and it gives up one Prize rather than three.

The other pieces are small. Drilbur, in 712 lists, has Call for Family, which puts up to 2 Basic Pokémon from your deck onto your Bench for one Colorless Energy, and Mega Skarmory ex (531 lists) is a Basic Mega Evolution ex whose Sonic Ripper does 220 to any one of your opponent's Pokémon for three Energy and shuffles all Energy attached to Skarmory into your deck. Weakness and Resistance are not applied to Benched targets.

The 60 that 713 lists agree on

All 713 lists are exactly 60 cards. The table gives the lists that run each card and the count most lists chose.

Reading the trainer lines against card text:

• Team Rocket's Petrel searches your deck for a Trainer card, and the deck runs four in 612 lists.
• Buddy-Buddy Poffin is the setup Item, at four in 445 lists.
• Energy Recycler shuffles up to 5 Basic Energy from your discard pile into your deck. It gives a way back to the 3 Metal Energy that Metagross's Metallic Hammer discards.
• Jumbo Ice Cream heals 80 from your Active Pokémon if it has 3 or more Energy attached; 679 lists run it.
• Hero's Cape gives the Pokémon it is attached to +100 HP. On Mega Excadrill ex that is 440 HP. It is the ACE SPEC in 440 lists, and our ACE SPEC guide has the three-event version of this card's numbers.

The Empoleon ex package (Piplup and Empoleon ex, 167 lists each) and Shaymin (368 lists) are the common optional pieces. Gravity Mountain, a Stadium that gives every Stage 2 in play -30 HP, is in 284 lists, and Team Rocket's Transceiver is in 252.

Where the lists split

Three weeks of decklists are enough to see which choices came with better results. These are Day 2 rates among Excadrill players, and they describe the players who made the choice as much as the cards: lists that run four of one card often run four of other things too, and the groups below are not independent of each other. Treat them as a place to look, not as proof.

On Energy count, lists with 16 Basic Metal Energy made Day 2 at 14.2% (50 of 352), against 9.9% (14 of 141) for 15 and 10.4% (17 of 163) for 17. The two top-cut lists are worth reading directly: Riguel Assis's 5th-place list in Recife (11-2-2) runs four Brock's Scouting, a one-of Empoleon ex line, and 17 Metal Energy, and Neddy Kosek's list in Frankfurt (11-3-1, 16th) runs three Brock's Scouting, two Judge, two Lumiose City and no Boss's Orders at all.

Matchups from 5,197 matches

This is every Mega Excadrill match at the seven Regionals against another deck, Swiss and top cut, grouped by Limitless's label for the opponent. Mirror matches, 17 procedural results such as byes, and 8 matches against opponents with no deck on file are left out. These are the opponents it played at least 100 times:

Across all 5,197 non-mirror matches the deck went 2,025-2,392-780 (44.0%). Because a tie counts a third of a win for both players, the two sides of a matchup do not add up to 100%: the Slowking guide has Slowking at 62.2% over 307 of these matches (six events), and the rows here include Puebla.

Where it wins. Excadrill was above 50% against N's Zoroark (54.7%), Dhelmise (52.0%), Festival Lead (51.8%) and Sharpedo/Toxtricity (58.7%), and under 48% against the three Dragapult builds and both Alakazam builds in the table. The N's Zoroark guide has the other side of the first row, with Zoroark at 38.4% over its first four events. Against the three Dragapult builds together it went 42.7% over 1,583 matches.

Crustle is the best row by a distance, and card text explains it. Crustle's Mysterious Rock Inn Ability prevents all damage done to it by attacks from the opponent's Pokémon ex, and Mega Excadrill ex is a Pokémon ex. The deck went 76.9% over 150 matches anyway.

The Metagross line is the obvious reason: Metagross has no Rule Box, so Mysterious Rock Inn does not stop it, and Metallic Hammer's 300 is twice Crustle's 150 HP. Undermine also works, since discarding two cards is not damage. That is a reading of the cards, not a diagnosis of 150 matches. For contrast, Basic Box's own guide has it at 41.7% against Crustle and the N's Zoroark guide has Zoroark at 31.9%.

Fire Weakness and the two worst rows. Mega Excadrill ex, Genesect ex, Metang and Metagross all print a ×2 Fire Weakness, and the Dragapult / Blaziken ex build is the Dragapult variant our Dragapult ex guide flags as strong into Fire-weak decks, citing third-party breakdowns. Excadrill went 27.3% against it over 265 matches. The Alakazam decks (27.0% and 25.2%) are the other end of the table, with Rocket's Honchkrow (25.6%) and Lucario/Hariyama (29.2%).

Delta Reign and Legendary Lava Cave

The Pokémon Company's Delta Reign rule changes announcement, posted October 22, makes no changes to the Standard or Expanded banned card lists and sets an effective date of November 20. Nothing in this deck is leaving, and the set itself arrives November 6.

The thing to check is Storm Emeralda's Legendary Lava Cave (伝説の溶岩洞; the English name is a translation until the card is shown). On its Japanese card, it is a Stadium played as a two-card pair that removes every Ability from every Evolution Pokémon in play, on both sides. Metang is a Stage 1, so Metal Maker would be off while it is in play; Genesect ex is a Basic, so Metallic Signal would not be. Mega Excadrill ex and Metagross print no Ability, so their attacks are untouched. We found no English-printed Lava Cave as of November 1, and English wording can differ, so this is a list of things to check when the set is out, not a reason to change your 60 now. Our Delta Reign guide has the full Legendary Stadium rulings.

Delta Reign is tournament-legal from November 20, the day the Latin America International Championships open in São Paulo. Gdańsk is played on today's card pool.

Quick Action Checklist

• Mega Excadrill ex has 713 players across seven Regionals and no wins. It made Day 2 at 11.8% against 18.0% for the field, has 2 of 73 top-cut seats, and won 44.0% of 5,197 non-mirror matches.
• Metang's Metal Maker puts Basic Metal Energy from the top 4 cards on any of your Pokémon, and Genesect ex fetches 2 Evolution Metal Pokémon. Together they are the setup; 696 of 707 Beldum lists run four.
• Mega Excadrill ex does 330 at five Energy and gives up 3 Prizes. Metagross is the Prize-efficient second attacker, 300 for four Energy with Metallic Hammer.
• Crustle is the best matchup (76.9% over 150 matches), because Metagross has no Rule Box and Undermine's discard is not damage.
• The worst rows are both Alakazam decks (27.0%, 25.2%), Rocket's Honchkrow (25.6%) and Dragapult / Blaziken ex (27.3%). Slowking (36.1%) and Ogerpon/Meganium/Hydrapple (35.5%) are also under 40%.
• Lists with four Brock's Scouting, four Buddy-Buddy Poffin and zero or one Boss's Orders had the best Day 2 rates, but those groups overlap and describe players as much as cards.
• Check Legendary Lava Cave when Delta Reign is out. On the Japanese card it turns off Metang's Metal Maker.