Stunky Deck Diversity: Data-Driven Insights for Teams

Stunky card art from Rebel Clash illustrating its Poison Gas attack

Image courtesy of TCGdex.net

Stunky in Diverse Decks: A Data-Driven Look for Teams

In the ever-evolving Pokémon TCG landscape, building a diverse, resilient deck is less about chasing the strongest single card and more about creating adaptable, data-informed lineups. Stunky, a Common Darkness-type Basic from Rebel Clash (swsh2-114), offers a perfect lens for this approach. With HP 70 and a straightforward Poison Gas attack, this little skunk is a budget-friendly anchor that players can lean on while they experiment with different strategies. The card art by Shigenori Negishi captures the sly spark of a creature that thrives on misdirection—a quality that translates nicely to deck-building philosophy as well as battlefield tactics.

Stunky at a glance: stats and playability

Type: Darkness
Stage: Basic
HP: 70
Attack: Poison Gas — Cost: Colorless, Colorless; Damage: 10
Effect: Your opponent's Active Pokémon is now Poisoned.
Weakness: Fighting ×2
Retreat: 2
Set: Rebel Clash (swsh2)
Rarity: Common
Regulation: D
Legal (format): Expanded only
Illustrator: Shigenori Negishi
Description: From its rear, it sprays a foul-smelling liquid at opponents. It aims for their faces, and it can hit them from over 16 feet away.

Data notes: Stunky’s common status lowers the barrier to entry for players exploring expanded-only archetypes, making it a dependable test case for measuring how budget pieces influence deck diversity.

What makes Stunky compelling isn’t just its cost. In Expanded formats, this unassuming attacker can slot into a wide range of lists where you value early pressure, reliable Poison status, and flexible colorless energy costs. The 10-damage Poison Gas may not knock out heavy hitters by itself, but the real value lies in forcing your opponent to account for a poisoned Active—creating tempo swings and allowing you to sculpt later turns around smarter retreats and targeted threats. And because Stunky is a Stage: Basic Pokémon, you can deploy it quickly, test lines, and pivot without sacrificing early board presence.

Why this little skunk matters for deck diversity

From a strategic perspective, Stunky provides a low-risk entry point for exploring poison-centric control motifs in Expanded. Its Poison Gas doesn’t require a combo finisher to shine; it simply accrues incremental pressure across turns, enabling players to diversify their matchups. By incorporating Stunky into multiple budget lists—each with different support Pokémon, trainers, and energies—teams can measure how small changes in lineup composition alter pacing, risk, and win-consistency. This kind of data-driven approach is at the heart of modern deck design: start with solid, flexible cores, then gradually introduce variations to increase coverage against a broad metagame.

Archetypes where Stunky can slot in

Budget Control: Leverage Poison Gas to poison the opponent’s Active while you set up a strategic reply, keeping your bench healthy and your resource use efficient.
Tempo-leaning Aggro: Use Stunky to apply early pressure while your faster threats come online, trading efficiently and pressuring opponent’s disruption plans.
Spread and Stall Foundations (Expanded): Pair Stunky with other Dark-type or utility Pokémon to maximize pressure on the opponent’s bench while you curate favorable matchups.

Data-driven collectors will also appreciate how accessible Stunky remains. As a Common card with a large print run in Rebel Clash, it supports varied list-building styles without inflating costs. Current market signals show that non-holo copies hover around modest prices, often trending in the low tens of cents in USD and well under a euro in many markets—while holo and rare variants push higher, their demand remains tempered by abundance in the pool of Stunky cards.

Market signals and collector insights

From Cardmarket data, non-holo Stunky averages around 0.06 EUR, with holo variants sitting closer to 0.24 EUR on average. TCGPlayer’s pricing paints a similar story: typical non-holo listings hover near the 0.03–0.15 USD range, with market prices around 0.14 USD. In reverse-holo form, values can climb toward 0.27 USD, while some listings peak around 4.99 USD for rare cases. Taken together, these figures reinforce Stunky as an accessible entry point for new collectors and a flexible inclusion for budget-focused decks in Expanded. The card’s artistically lively portrayal by Shigenori Negishi also helps keep it memorable in a sea of common staples.

For players, this means you can experiment with diverse builds without overcommitting resources. Stunky’s simple, repeatable effect—poison the Active Pokémon—functions like a data seed: measure how often your poison pressure translates into favorable trades, then adjust the rest of your deck to support that tempo. In a world where the meta shifts with every new expansion, having a stable, low-cost core that you can repeatedly rely on is worth its weight in data points. ⚡🔥

Art, lore, and the human touch

Beyond raw numbers, the story of Stunky—its description, its design by Negishi—adds flavor to the collection. The flavor text paints a mischievous, calculating creature capable of surprising opponents from range, a trait that resonates with players who love brainy, tempo-driven games. Its Rebel Clash era sits in a transitional phase for the TCG, where players began harnessing more nuanced counting, pacing, and synergy. That lore—paired with strong, accessible art—helps keep Stunky relevant in casual play and collector circles alike.

For fans who love the broader metagame story, tracking how a seemingly modest card like Stunky contributes to deck diversity can be enlightening. It’s a reminder that in Pokémon TCG, variety isn’t about a single “best” card—it’s about how a constellation of options interacts across formats, metas, and budgets to create resilient teams. 🎴

Looking to explore this concept further? Discover more from our network after you grab your next Stunky list and test it across Expanded matchups. At the end of the day, data-driven deck building is a journey—one where even a Common Dark-type can spark big ideas and many wins.

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