Pokémon TCG: Alakazam - Top 10 Best Cards

In this article, we'll show you the 10 strongest and most interesting Alakazams in Pokémon TCG - considering cards from the Wizards of the Coast era until today. This is one of the most beloved Psychic Pokémon, and it also has an incredible fan base.

Let's go!

10 - Alakazam Gold Star (Ruby/Sapphire: Crystal Guardians)

Skill Copy was interesting because of its cost, particularly because at the time we could be tribute by three colorless energies, which is easy to assemble. Through this attack, Alakazam Gold Star copies any attack of a basic or evolution Pokémon in your hand, as long as you have the energy cards needed. A great pro to this attack is that you'll always surprise your opponent with surprise attacks in your hand they can't predict.

9 - Sabrina's Alakazam (Wizards of the Coast Era: Gym Challenge)

What stands out in this card is its ability: Sabrina's Alakazam copies attacks from any Psychic Pokémon under your control in play, as long as you have the energy cards needed and fulfills the extra requisites that attack has or not. This compensated for this card's downside, which was the fact that its single attack, Mega Burn isn't available every turn.

So, the challenge was knowing how to use Psychic Pokémon (which wasn't too difficult with Sabrina's theme deck, in which every Pokémon sort of matched each other) and using them to take advantage of its Alakazam's attack.

8 - Alakazam (e-Cards Series: Expedition)

This card stands out because of its ability, Psymimic, which allows you to choose one of your opponent's attacks and copy it - but, of course, as long as you had the energy cards needed and met that attack's extra requirement if they had one.

7 - Alakazam (e-Cards Series: Skyridge)

This version of Alakazam mixes usefulness and satisfaction with two mechanics every Pokémon TCG player loves: a recursive ability, and a powerful attack.

Its "ability" transfers energy cards from one of your Pokémon to another. As for its attack, it deals a standard base damage + extra damage based on the number of energy cards attached to your opponent's active Pokémon, as a sort of "counter-attack that uses your opponent's strength against them".

6 - Alakazam (Wizards of the Coast Era: Base Set)

Damage Swap is one of the most memorable abilities from the classic Wizards of the Coast era. A famous deck at the time that relied on a "tanker" strategy used Chansey BS 3 + Alakazam's ability to deal damage, and then recycled this Chansey BS 3 and put it in play again.

5 - Alakazam V (Sword/Shield: Promo Card)

In Expanded, it is a useful attacker.

If we look for cards with Fog Crystal CRE 140, it is easy to put it in play, and, to attach energy cards, we can use Malamar PR-SM SM117 and Xatu PR-SV 59.

However, this card's greatest asset is its second attack, which deals damage based on the number of cards your opponent has in their hand - this means, if you're facing a greedy player who will try to have a hand full of resources at all times, you'll deal more damage.

Additionally, to deal more damage to Pokémon that aren't weak to Psychic, we need to combo with Unown VSTAR SIT 66's VSTAR attack.

4 - Radiant Alakazam (Sword/Shield: Silver Tempest)

Still relevant in Standard in 2023 and 2024, this card conquered its slot in our list because of its ability, Painful Spoons, which allows you to transfer two damage counters from one of your enemy Pokémon to another, which will help you knock out a few enemy Pokémon.

As it is a basic Pokémon, it is easy to set it up (you don't need Abra's entire evolution line), and, because it is a Radiant Pokémon, it is ideal as a support Pokémon.

In Standard, we can use Xatu PR-SV 59 in a Psychic Box deck as an attacker.

3 - Alakazam-EX (X/Y: Fates Collide)

This Alakazam's combo involves damage counters - with its attack, it places 3 damage counters on each enemy Pokémon that has energy cards attached.

Finally, with its ability, Kinesis, it is part of a combo that uses its Mega Evolution, M Alakazam-EX FCO 26. Remember the downside to Mega Evolutions; if you Mega-Evolve a Pokémon, you'll spend an entire turn doing so - so, it is essential to equip Alakazam Spirit Link FCO 90.

To optimize its attacks, we use Dimension Valley PHF 93, which will discount the cost of your attacks by one colorless energy card. We also use Mystery Energy PHF 112 to discount Alakazam-EX's retreat cost by two energy cards.

2 - Mega Alakazam-EX (X/Y: Fates Collide)

In our second place, we have the second part of the combo with the Alakazam we showed above. It deals 10 points of damage plus 30 damage for each damage counter your opponent has.

You can double these counters with Lunala CEL 15, or combo it with Pokémon that knock out other Pokémon instantaneously, such as Gengar GEN 35 and its second attack.

1 - Alakazam ex (Scarlet/Violet: 151)

This version of Alakazam was released in Scarlet & Violet's Kanto special set. It was the first Pokémon in the history of Pokémon TCG that deals damage even when benched, and it doesn't need to be in the active position!

We can optimize this with Unown VSTAR SIT 66's VSTAR attack effect (also listed above when we discussed the Alakazam in our 5th spot), in current Standard (2024). This combo gives your opponent's Pokémon weakness to the Psychic type - which allows us to knock out 80% of Standard. We can even triple this damage if we use Supereffective Glasses ASR 152, which means we'll deal 360 damage!

You can check out a few decks that use this Alakazam by clicking here.

Alakazam (Diamond/Pearl: Mysterious Treasures)

Its Poké-Power ability allows us to disable enemy Poké-Powers used against this Alakazam, as long as we discard two cards. This concept could return to Standard in the future, this time adapted, in a new type of Alakazam which could disable "ability effects" if you discard an X number of cards in your hand.

As for its attack, it allows us to reduce the damage dealt by evolved stage 2 Pokémon to your Pokémon by 30 points. In current Standard (2024), the Pokémon Company has shown us it wants to bring back the old, classic concept of "evolution steps", which would make the game a bit slower. It would be nice if these effects returned too.

What did you think of this list? What would your top 10 best Alakazam list look like? Tell us your thoughts in the comment section.

Thank you for reading! See you next time.