Turbo Hands is a fast and electrifying archetype that was introduced from the previous set, Temporal Forces. Since its debut, it has been recognized as a deck that can win games fast, but also lose fast, funny enough. Turbo Hands is an interesting deck that has seen quite a good portion of success both in online and regional tournaments. On the flip side, some would say that this deck can be hot or cold, which would be an accurate statement.
Turbo Hands has seen success in major tournaments. Most notably, it was able to place 1st at the recent Special Event in Bologna, Italy. Some other top finishes include; 5th place at the Special Event in Cape Town, South Africa; 7th place at the Regional in Los Angeles, California; and 20th place during the recent NAIC tournament in New Orleans.
It’s safe to say that this deck can throw hands when it needs to. However, Turbo Hands is well known for being able to run out of steam on its own, due to some inconsistency issues with the deck itself. What also doesn’t help is that it has some pretty bad matchups such as Snorlax Stall, Charizard ex, Raging Bolt ex/Ogerpon ex, Roaring Moon ex, and Dialga ex to name a few.
Special Event Bologna - 1st Place Turbo Hands (<-- Click To View)
Special Event Cape Town - 5th Place Turbo Hands (<-- Click To View)
Regional Tournament Los Angeles, Calfornia - 7th Place Turbo Hands (<-- Click To View)
NAIC New Orleans - 20th Place Turbo Hands (<-- Click To View)
Despite having some pretty bad matchups, Turbo Hands can handle decks like: Lugia VSTAR, Chien-Pao ex, Gardevoir ex, Ancient Box, Lost Zone Box, and Dragapult ex. What these decks all have in common is that they either have a lot of small HP Pokémon in the deck, have a slower start, or are weak to electric type. It is worth mentioning that the Gardevoir matchups is favored towards Iron Hands ex if you can knock out Ralts and Kirlias early on. However, it is very doable for Gardevoir to make a comeback. That matchup itself is 50/50.
Deck list Showcase
Just as a short mention, I do want to say that this deck is pretty expensive to build! Iron Hands ex and Prime Catcher as the most expensive cards in this list. On top of that, this list that I will show you is the best and optimal way to build it. This is Kim Pobega's list that he used to get 1st place at the special event in Bologna.
Turbo Hands $112.37 USD | $154.37 CAD
Pokemon:
4 Iron Hands ex - PAR
4 Iron Crown ex - TEF
2 Miraidon - TEF
1 Mew ex - MEW 151
1 Iron Bundle - PAR
Trainer:
4 Professor's Research - SVI/PAF
4 Iono - PAL/PAF
4 Arven - SVI/OBF
1 Boss's Orders - PAL
4 Techno Radar - PAR
4 Electric Generator - PAF
2 Counter Catcher - PAR
1 Prime Catcher - TEF
1 Nest Ball - PAF
1 Pokegear 3.0 - SVI
1 Switch Cart - Astral Radiance
4 Future Booster Energy Capsule - PAR/TEF
2 Heavy Baton - TEF
Energy:
14 Lightning Energy
1 Psychic Energy
How To Play Turbo Hands
Turbo Hands revolves around accelerating energy rapidly onto Iron Hands ex, using a combination of Miraidon and Electric Generator. Electric Generator allows you to look at the top five cards of your deck and attach a maximum of two electric energies to your benched electric Pokémon. The goal of this deck is to attack with Iron Hands attack ‘Amp You Very Much’ on your 1st turn going 2nd, or on your second turn, and take two prizes each turn using that attack.
This deck is built to win games within three turns, preying upon Pokémon with 120 hp or less. What makes this swift deck even scarier is that it has a very nice partner to boost up Iron Hands damage output, and other future Pokémon in play. That partner would be Iron Crown ex which was introduced in Temporal Forces.
With Iron Crown’s ‘Cobalt Command’ ability, it allows your future Pokémon (Iron Hands ex) to do 20 more damage on your opponent's active Pokémon. This neat ability can stack up which is why Turbo Hands is so strong. With four Iron Crown ex’s in play, your Iron Hands can deal a whopping 200 damage with ‘Amp You Very Much’ and also 260 damage with ‘Arm Press’ if you need to use that instead.
That extra damage makes Iron Hands flexible and much more capable of dealing with another big Pokémon such as; Rotom V, Chien-Pao ex, Squakabilly ex, Mew ex, Lumineon ex, and even Lugia VSTAR. Knowing this, Turbo Hands is very much capable of taking three Prizes within a turn when knocking out an opponent V or ex Pokémon, with ‘Amp You Very Much’. Not to mention that your Iron Crown can also deal an extra 20 more damage and have a free retreat using the ‘Future Booster Energy Capsule’.
Miraidon is another perfect inclusion to get energy onto Iron Hands ex, using its ‘Peak Acceleration’ attack. Peak acceleration helps you search out two basic energy cards from your deck, and attach them to any of your Pokémon; for the most part that energy would be going on your Iron Hands.
One other card that makes this deck so strong is the Heavy Baton tool. That can only be attached to Pokémon with a retreat cost of four or more, and if that Pokémon gets knocked out in the active spot while having the Baton attached, you move three energies off of that Pokémon onto your benched Pokémon in any way you like.
Coincidentally, Iron Hands ex meets that requirement. What makes the Heavy Baton so good is that you can keep your lightning energy in play while having them move from your dead Iron Hands to your benched Iron Hands, and hit again with no issues.
Conversely, it is pretty easy for your opponent to work around this strategy and disrupt you. All they need to do to stop you from chaining energy with the Heavy Baton- is use Lost Vacuum to send it to the Lost Zone- and knock out your active Iron Hands ex, leaving you empty-handed on energy for the rest of your benched Pokémon.
To see how the deck plays live, feel free to watch this video below! This video is from a well known Pokemon TCG player and youtuber known as Zapdos TCG.
With all that being said, Iron Hands is a very strong deck with its pros and cons. When the deck starts going, it can steamroll most decks with no problem, and end games within three turns in most cases. The two biggest cons are that the strategy/game plan is so linear and can be easily disrupted, and you can also run out of steam if the match against your opponent goes far too long. Even now in the current Twilight Masquerade meta, Turbo Hands is still a relatively strong deck.
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