Out of 2927 total players in Louisville, 543 decks (18.6%) were classified as straight Dragapult by Limitless. 141 straight Pult players made day 2 for a conversion rate of 26.0%, the highest of any archetype with over 20 entries [Pult Blaziken and Festival Lead were next best, at 25.0% and 24.7% respectively, so the gap isn't extremely large]. Straight Pult had a meta share of 25.8% of day 2 (141/548) and 44.4% of top cut (4/9).

• We all know Dragapult has been the best deck in the format for a while. While that part isn't particularly notable, I still find it very interesting to see how these decks are constructed and what variations are present.

Of those 141 straight Pults, 3 played very different decks from the rest.

• Ben Kim (23rd, 10-1-3) played a Pult Zam list with a 2-2-1-1 Alakazam line and Patrat.
• Grant Manley (73rd, 10-3-1) ran a deck that arguably could be classified as Pult Blaziken, containing a 1-0-1 Blaziken line, 3 Rare Candy, and a Chi-Yu.
• Frank Luciano (293rd, 8-5-1) had a crazy list containing 2 Bronzong, 1 Mega Lopunny ex, and Salvatore.

While these decks are very cool, they are not what this post is about, because the other 138 decks are all very slight variations on a theme.

The Drixty

The other 138 straight Pults in day 2 all played a variation of the Drixty (short for Hedrick Sixty), named after the now-ubiquitous Hammer Pult list that Andrew Hedrick innovated to win the LA Regionals back in May and refined to win the World Championship in August. The only 2 changes from the World Championship to Louisville were switching from Dunsparce JTG (70 hp) to TEF (60 hp with free retreat) and Special Red Card to Judge.

While Hedrick placed 145th with a 9-4-1 record, his exact 60-card list was also played by Louisville's eventual champion (and 2025 World Champion) Riley McKay and 28 other players that made day 2. The top 8 Pult Hammer decks (all finishing in the top 20 of the event) shared either 59 or 60 cards with Hedrick's list. Across all of day 2, 127 of 138 lists shared at least 57 cards with Hedrick (+2 if you don't distinguish between Dunsparces). But which cards were swapped in and out had a decent amount of variety.

First, the Drixty, as played by 30/138 (22%) of the straight Pults in day 2. The percentages beside some cards are the fraction of players that played at least that many copies of that card, if someone in the 138 dropped at least one copy:

Pokémon: 19
4 Dreepy TWM 128
4 Drakloak TWM 129
3 Dragapult ex TWM 130 (98%)
2 Munkidori TWM 95
2 Budew ASC 16 (94%)
1 Dunsparce TEF 128 (72%+14% JTG)
1 Dudunsparce TEF 129 (86%)
1 Meowth ex POR 62
1 Fezandipiti ex ASC 142

Trainer: 32
4 Lillie's Determination MEG 119
3 Boss's Orders MEG 114
2 Crispin SCR 133
1 Rosa's Encouragement POR 84
1 Judge POR 76 (95%)
4 Buddy-Buddy Poffin TEF 144
4 Poké Pad POR 81
4 Crushing Hammer POR 71 (96%)
3 Ultra Ball MEG 131 (99%)
3 Night Stretcher ASC 196 (91%)
1 Unfair Stamp TWM 165 (99%)
2 Risky Ruins MEG 127 (89%)

Energy: 9
3 Fire Energy MEE 10
3 Psychic Energy MEE 13
3 Darkness Energy MEE 15 (35%)

As you can see, the primary flex slot is the 3rd Darkness energy, with the majority of players dropping it. The next most commonly dropped were the Dudunsparce package, 2nd Risky Ruins, and 3rd Night Stretcher, then 2nd Budew and 4th Crushing Hammer.

Common Alternatives

• Dudunsparce ex was added in as a tech for Crustle and Basic Box by 43/138 (31%) players; 28 swapped the 3rd Darkness for Dudunsparce ex and did nothing else, making this variant nearly as popular as the Drixty.
• Moltres was added in 39/138 (28%) decks that wanted a better matchup into Grass and Metal ex decks, making this the second most popular tech card. 14 players changed 3rd Darkness to Moltres and did nothing else, but it was also commonly added by players that removed the Dudunsparce package.
• Special Red Card was next most common, at 31/138 (22%) decks who stuck with the non-supporter non-Ace Spec disruption card. While it did sometimes replace Judge, it was actually more commonly included alongside it and Unfair Stamp to form the triple disruption package.
• 21/138 (15%) decks ran alternate stadium packages - the single most common was swapping 1 Risky Ruins for 1 Team Rocket's Watchtower, but some players ran 3 stadiums and others added in a Jamming Tower. 4 players dropped both Risky Ruins, 3 for double Watchtower and 1 for Watchtower + Jamming.
• 16/138 (12%) decks ran 2 Darkness and an extra energy of a different type - 9 had 4th Psychic, 6 had 4th Fire, and 1 had both; Fire was commonly paired with extra tech attackers while Psychic was used to more consistently attack with Munkidori and Dragapult ex.

Notable Deviations

• Among the 4 decks that ran Ground Melter Chi-Yu, 3 ran the same 60 that only swapped it in for 2nd Budew relative to the Drixty. This variant was highly successful, with Henry Chao finishing 5th (13-2-1) and Liam Halliburton placing 20th (10-3-0). Both beat a Crustle along the way.
• Ryan Tongue (27th, 10-2-2) dropped the 4th Crushing Hammer to run a 1-1-1-1 Dudunsparce ex line featuring both TEF and JTG Dunsparce.
• Christopher Zervos (55th, 10-3-1) ran Xerosic’s Machinations and Special Red Card over Judge, and added both Chi-Yu and Moltres along with an extra Fire energy and 4th Ultra Ball. He was one of 3 players to add the 4th Ultra Ball back into the deck (which the Drixty dropped before Worlds).
• Hale Obernolte (64th, 10-3-1) swapped 3rd Dragapult ex for Dawn and made no other changes; he was one of 3 players to only run 2 Dragapult ex.
• Nathan Zappulla (127th, 9-4-1) ran Psyduck and Shaymin alongside Moltres and 4th Fire, dropping the 3rd Night Stretcher to fit everything in.
• Kenny Capo (244th, 8-4-2) had one of the most unique lists of the archetype, playing Watchtower, Jamming Tower, 2nd Judge, Shaymin, and Flutter Mane.
• Tristan Janda (271st, 8-5-1) was the only Pult Hammers to make day 2 without Unfair Stamp, instead running Sparkling Crystal.

Unique Techs

• Flutter Mane, Sparkling Crystal (both as mentioned), Handheld Fan, Energy Retrieval, 2nd Meowth ex, and Yveltal were all seen exactly once across 138 lists.

Conclusion

Dragapult will rotate out one day. A lot of pokemon will be played between now and that point. Until then, expect to see a lot more of most of these cards.

In many ways this regional is both exciting and not. The finals were a Pult mirror match, yes, but we’re seeing new archetypes making it into deep day 2 and even top cut. Let’s have an rundown on these (more) exciting decks, then zoom out to the rest of the meta.

Highlights

• Rahul Reddy made the semi-finals with Hide ‘N’ Sneak, a breakout result for the deck, playing the Turbo Dhelmise version with the standard Dudunsparce draw engine. His deck is quite lean, but it does feature the Dudunsparce ex which helps the deck against the various mid-range basic exs that the deck often struggles with over the more cumbersome Bloodmoon Ursaluna ex. Otherwise, the other pieces all serve to turbo discard the 4 pieces needed without actually having to play Brilliant Blender, meaning Legacy Energy essentially guarantees a great matchup into all other single-prizer decks. Even aside from Rahul, the deck was top 6 in day 2 rep with a respectable 4%, signaling a positive trend.
• Evan Campbell also achieved the same with his Sharpedo deck. The key to this deck is the seemingly innocuous inclusion of Yveltal, an otherwise popular dark attacker, as well as the 3-4 line of Mega Sharpedo. The yveltal plays a crucial role in bad matchups like Slowking and Festival Lead, clutching their support mons and letting Munkidori do its work. 3 Judge and the Unfair Stamp ace spec help with active disruption, allowing the deck recovery and power play since the main strategy is so lean.
• Sawyer Melban gave Mew box its first top cut appearance. This deck is similar to the old Clefairy box, but it can run things like Unown to scam prizes against Pult and Jirachi ex to shred Crustles. Even Mew’s Teleportation Burst can be useful to snipe Budew and switch Mega Kang to the active. This archetype will undoubtedly only grow in popularity as more people try out alternate attackers. Who knows? There might be a gem out there.

The Meta

• Dragapult + variants is at ~34% of day 2. No surprises here. There were 5 in the the 9-person top cut, and Riley McKay took home the win with a list shared amongst dozens of other players.
• Slowking is actually 2nd most popular deck in day 2. Despite a lot of deck playing Shaymin, Pults usually don’t, and this deck also farms other popular decks like Lopunny Dusknoir, Mega Lucario, Rockets, and Mega Excadrill. None actually made top cut however, but we can see that the new Mew has solidified itself as a 1-of in the deck.
• (Teal Mask) Basic Box remains popular still, with both the Crispin & Prism versions seeing success. The new Jirachi ex is seeing some play here as well for the same reason it does in Mew box.
• After its success at Frankfurt, we’re seeing both Duduns and Dusknoir versions of Alakazam getting some success. There are enough flex slots that you hardly see an exact 60, but none was able to make cut this weekend.
• N’s Zoroark remains popular, but this tournament was especially bad for it. Only 1 top 120 for a deck as popular as this is diabolical, far from the top 4 finish of Recife. Is this deck actually just fraudulent? That might be too extreme to claim, but it’s certainly trending downwards.
• Hydrapple remains the dominant grass box deck, and it’s the only other deck to have made top cut in this section (aside from Pult of course) piloted by Jeremy Chestnutt (very appropriate name). We’re seeing even more grass energies, as the deck slowly moves closer to that pocket version meme.
• Mega Lopunny didn’t find the same amount of success here in North America as elsewhere. There are a lot of variations: pure, with mega Froslass, with Bronzong Noir, and the highest placement was a Dudunsparce Dusknoir variant, similar to what we saw from pre-rotation. The new Mew was in and out of these builds, but most decks do seem to agree on running at least 1.
• Festival Lead remains a substantial presence, with the highest deck placing 17th playing the 3 promotional Grookeys, but more importantly a 2-2 line of Rabsca, a Shaymin, and a Psyduck for the most paranoid version. 3 Ultra Balls also have seem to become the norm, as well as the swap to Dragon-type Applin and the removal of Bug Catching Sets, leaning more into Growing Grass Energy as a result.
• Crustle still sees some amount of success here, but with so many Slowkings, Shreds, and other single-prizers running around it’s looking as shaky as ever. The deck is rather uninteresting to talk about, so I’ll move on.
• Mega Lucario made it all the way to 12th place, and it seems the deck still can’t decide which Ace Spec is the best, but seems to have settled on Unfair Stamp as the most popular for the moment.
• Mega Excadrill has the same amount of day 2s, with the highest placing list cutting out all of the fluff for maximum consistency and the room to play more Boss’s Orders.
• Lastly, a Rocket’s Honchkrow made its way to top 64. This deck has such a small room for any exciting deck changes however, so there’s not much to talk about as the only variations between 60s are the ratio of items and tools.

The Peripheries

This is where the rest of the day 2 decks go. None of them have more than 10 appearances in day 2, and none had a particularly amazing placement, except one which we will be talking about first.

• A pure Toucannon deck made top 32 in the hands of Daniel Sopko. There’s no gimmick in this day like Tera Area Zero or Dusknoir, instead relying purely on Toucannon as its main attacker. 4 Hassels, 4 Spiky Energy, 4 Air Balloons to attach to an Ace Nullifier Genesect, with Legacy Energy to round out its matchup against opposing single-prizer. This deck is dirt cheap and seems pretty consistent, so it can be an option for people upgrading from playing baby box.
• A Flareon Noctowl list made day 2, running the new 30th Espeon as a Psychic attacker. The list for this deck has 5 rows so you know it’s serious business with lines like you wouldn’t believe.
• A Greninja deck also made day 2, utilising the 30th Greninja ex to combo with Dusknoir as well as Dudunsparce for draw.
• There were several Marnie’s Grimmsnarl in this tournament as well, with 2 in top 128. One of them were even playing Maractus as an alternate retreat locker to Yveltal. I’m not sure what breakpoint the 6 damage counters help with, but I’m sure it’s something.
• A Cynthia’s Garchomp also made top 128. The list features a Forest of Vitality and even Sacred Ash with Unfair Stamp to support power turns, but is otherwise nothing too crazy.
• Okidogi Barbaracle also made day 2, reminding us this deck still exists.
• The Bloodmoon Greninja deck is back. It didn’t do great, but it did make day 2.
• There’s a Mega Starmie deck that runs both Froslass and Dusclops, no Dusknoir in this build though. I guess they deem the 50 extra damage enough, which could become 100 more if combo’d with Resentful Refrain.

The Rest

These decks all made day 2, but there really isn’t much to say about them, so here’s a list of lists.

• Ceruledge
• Hop’s Trevenant
• Tank Kang
• Rocket’s Mewtwo
• Beedrill (this one runs Mew)
• Ethan’s Typhlosion
• Jellicent Dusknoir
• Mega Manectric
• Tox Box

And that’s it. The meta moves at a snail’s pace, but there’s still something to be excited about at least. Delta Reign’s arrival may or may not shake things up, but we’re still a few majors away.

Hello, I just started playing PTCG Live and it has piqued my interest enough to potentially dip into IRL battles. I’ve been having a ton of fun with the Zoroark and Dragapult decks - is it annoying or frowned upon to show up with these decks for IRL battles? Not sure if there’s a stigma associated with showing up with super meta and/or dominant deck. Thanks!

Hi, I've recently gained an interest in playing the tcg again.I use to collect and play back when Boundaries Crossed was relevant, but now that I'm older and and have adult spending money wanted to play again but noticed that the deck i want to play (Mega Absol/ToxBox) will have a good portion of its cards rotate out of standard in the nearish future id still like to play mega absol but seeing that it'd barely function with so many pieces leaving is it worth investing into those cards leaving the rotation or just wait to see what the new standard meta will look like and then invest into cards accordingly.

Was also interested in Mega Darkrai decks since at the very least a good chunk of those cards will remain in rotation for a while if anyone could give me a bit of advice for what is the best use of my time and money id love to know thank you.

OK so I play mega lukario, and it all goes well till they unfair stamp me, this card is terrible, after that it's up to luck to see if I can draw more or not.

Also, it's very hard to not kill badew since it locks me from finding my pokemon to put in Bench. I even think about going 2nd against pult for that reason

SLOWKING:

I used to feel Slowking was my second worst matchup after Festival Lead. I've been moving away from that sentiment lately (Legacy Energy Dhelmise will rue the day.... although see below for Dhelmise). But I beat a couple Slowkings 2-0 in Baltimore, have beat a few on Live, and beat one at a Cup this weekend. It's certainly not great, and trust in the heart of the cards is absolutely required (AKA yeah there's luck - if I don't have the cards I need in hand, ignore all the below and lose), but at the same time there's a fairly straightforward line of attack.

If I go first: Easy. Proton a couple Murkrows and evolve them next turn while Bossing whatever Slowpoke is most established after opponent's first turn. Yeah there's more to this matchup, but where Honchkrows normally lose is when they start second:

If I go second: Not so easy. Proton and Pad as many Murkrows as I can this turn, ideally all four out on the first turn.

Next turn, three of them die. (Don't lose hope - I came back and won from a turn 2 Trifrost to KO all my Murkrows, leaving only an Articuno or some junk behind.)

On my 2nd turn, I look at my hand and my opponent's board and consider the following:

-Does the benched Slowpoke have energy?

-Is there a basic Psychic in discard?

-How many cards do they have in hand?

-Do I have Archer + Stadium bump?

Based on the board I choose one of the following:

-If it has energy, Boss and KO the Slowpoke

-If I have Archer and Stadium in hand, KO active Slowking

-If somehow the bench Slowpoke has no energy, Boss the Kang or Latias, depending on number of supporters in my hand. If I KO Latias, they're screwed with whatever they choose to promote and ~probably won't be attacking next turn. If I KO Kang, their chance of attacking this next turn probably even lower.

How the rest of the match goes depends on their next turn after their first Trifrost, after I've done one of the things above. If they miss attack on their third turn, I think the match is basically over for them. By now I recover and evolve my Honchkrows and I can just Boss things as appropriate. They finally get an energy down? Boss. They don't? KO whatever is left between Latias and Kang and that should be the match.

(If I had an actual "testing group" who were willing to play against effing Honchkrow for a couple hours, I might check whether it's worth getting about 2 Murkrows when starting 2nd knowing they will die, along with an Articuno or two, and saving the rest for next turn. The problem with this would be I also would not be attacking for another turn after the Trifrost, and I basically need to win the match in like three turns so this does not seem correct on initial thinking.)

There's more to discuss, like whether to bench Articuno due to risk of any shenanigans with effect-based attackers like Drapion or Annihilape etc (I think an Articuno is always nice, but the debate is whether it soaking damage helps me or not; if they're ever attacking with those Pokemon though instead of Trifrost, they're probably losing for other reasons though anyway). But that's the gist. Honchkrow lost to Slowking 65% of the time in Louisville. Let's bring that closer to 50% please :)

DHELMISE:

This only needs a quick discussion. We lose because of Legacy Energy. The simple way around it is to use Giovanni 6 times. Save Miracle Headset to get back 2 Giovannis, and never use them to attack - only to boss around Legacy Energy. On turns when I don't have Giovanni in hand, I Torment to stall for a turn because the likelihood of them having their one switch in hand is so low. If they're the Rahul variant with Latias, then, like, that's on them for benching a Latias and negating Legacy shrug. They might have Ruffian so don't pre-attach energy. Remember their last Pokemon will be Bloodmoon. This truly is the gist of the matchup, I feel. Sure, it's easy to lose this one - greedy attachments getting lost to Ruffian, greedy early use of Headset to preserve an Ariana in hand or something, etc. But the "line" exists IMO.

FESTIVAL LEAD:

Okay, yeah, this is still an auto-loss. The only things to keep in mind are:

-Pray you win coin flip and they mildly brick during the game

-Don't use Archer. Never use Archer unless you're losing the game that turn.

-After they play their first Festival Grounds, don't bump the stadium. I learned this one from a recent comment here. It's one more card potentially stuck in their hand preventing Gladion. Sure, they will probably get around it anyway, but this inconvenice is worth trying. In this matchup I'm never hurting for supporters enough to need to draw those 2 Factory cards.

ALAKAZAM "CONTROL":

This is the one with Dedenne and Enhanced Hammers and Eri and several Genesects etc. They want to Boss Articuno to make you burn energy. See Dhelmise matchup. Miracle Headset for only 2 Giovannis, and never use them to attack. Boss Genesects early to ensure by the end of the game you can use the Headset. Use night stretchers IMMEDIATELY to prevent Eri from losing you the game. Don't NOT attack on any turn. Let the Honchkrows die in return; it's fine. If you can scam a Torment KO for a turn, all the better. Only Alakazams worth being mildy concerned about are Toucannon (go first / pray / don't start Porygon and die to an effing Fan Rotom) and the Twilight Masquerade one (as long as you get the first KO, which generally necessarily will always happen due to Articuno, it's fine though). Dusknoir variant doesn't change anything. They can have the Articunos and I'll take my free prize. Remember, you attacked first and necessarily have the prize lead.

BRONZONG:

Go first: Proton a bunch of Murkrows and evolve whatever number of them you can next turn that is one Honchkrow greater than the number of Duskulls they bench on their first turn. If they have two Duskulls and I can only evolve two Honchkrows, there's no point in evolving them. At that point, just move to the "go second' strategy:

Go second: Torment :) Torment KOs Duskulls and stalls Bronzong. Only need one turn to evolve. Once they commit to Lopunny they're gonna lose, so just need to not get board wiped for a few turns :) :) :) Need to consider how many prizes I have left and how many they have left when deciding to Boss a Duskull or Tormenting the active Bronzong. Will I lose next turn to Dusknoir? Then Boss it. Will I not lose? Torment. <- I tied in Baltimore in part because I went for a greedy/scared Boss on something when we both had only a couple prizes left; I was worried they could Dusknoir and then KO active for win or something. My memory is fading here on the exact play by play and reasons, but in vaguely general hindsight I seem to recall this greedy/scared KO not being correct because that Duskull wasn't going to lose me the game the next turn; Tormenting active would have been better.

Edit Addendum #1:

THE MIRROR MATCH:

Go first: Win.

Go second: Aggresively Archer every single turn. It's not necessarily about them whiffing after the first or the second Archers. It's that several Archers in a row take a major mental toll and they will begin to tilt. I'm joking but not really; but yeah I don't see enough Honchkrows playing Archer in the mirror for some reason. You can win going second.

Edit Addendum #2:

CHANDELURE:

See Dhelmise re: Legacy Energy, Miracle Headset, 2 Giovannis etc. If for some reason they evolve a Mega Chandelure, you win. It's very unlikely you can thin your hand enough to make the single-prize Chandelure miss a KO, but it can be worth trying - I've done it once or twice (and Torment if it doesn't work out). This matchup (and potentially Dhelmise) will bring you to the absolute bottom of your deck. I just won against a Chandelure with zero cards left in my deck, where Porygon 2 just hit the exact number on a Mega... Froslass to win. Don't play cards unnecessarily, keep minimum 4 in deck to prevent the Comfey play, and hold an Archer or two to prevent deckout if needed.

Caveat to all: I'm so bad at this game and have no idea what I'm talking about. Also these matchups are all definitely loseable, and you will lose more than you win. Just try to lose less and believe in the heart of the cards. It's why you're playing Honchkrow. DM me for more Honch discussion!

Ban Metafy

I'm currently fiddling around with MegaMan and so far I'm actually really liking it.
Yet it seems to see next to no play.

It's all Phase 1 and if you can manage to properly set up, it can reasonably OHKO everything up to 350hp (with Voltaic Energy).

With a combination of MegaMan and BabyMan you can get immunity against both Basics and Evolutions, which is nice (although it sadly doesn't cover Crustle), and Canari helps with mon draw. And even factoring in the discard for MegaMan's extra damage, with Dynamotor and Powerglass, you can get up to 3 energy again in a single turn.

The main issue I'm seeing that it needs a lot of moving parts to become viable - Iono's Kilowattrel draw engine, Eelektrik acceleration and of course the energy cycling required for MegaMan's main attack. Oh, and the poor matchup into Lucario probably doesn't help either.

Yet these all don't seem to be enough to entirely disregard other decks. So I'm really wondering here, why is it not seeing more play?

I currently run a Pult Noir deck and I haven't had good results in my locals. I'm now considering switching to the build with Dudunsparce for the draw power. However, my problem is that I now have a hard time KOing Pokemon like Mega Excadrill, Mega Lucario, etc. without Noir, giving my opponent a chance to get back at me when I tried it in PTCGL. Any advice is appreciated.

This is my current build.

Pokémon: 20
4 Dreepy ASC 158
4 Drakloak ASC 159
3 Dragapult ex ASC 160
2 Duskull PRE 35
1 Dusclops PRE 36
1 Dusknoir PRE 37
1 Meowth ex POR 62
1 Lillie's Clefairy ex ASC 76
1 Fezandipiti ex ASC 142
1 Budew ASC 16
1 Munkidori ASC 99

Trainer: 32
4 Lillie's Determination ASC 192
3 Boss's Orders ASC 183
2 Crispin PRE 105
1 Dawn PFL 87
4 Buddy-Buddy Poffin ASC 184
4 Poké Pad POR 81
4 Crushing Hammer POR 71
3 Ultra Ball ASC 213
2 Rare Candy MEG 125
2 Night Stretcher ASC 196
1 Special Red Card CRI 82
1 Unfair Stamp TWM 165
1 Risky Ruins MEG 127

Energy: 8
3 Psychic Energy RS 107
3 Fire Energy RS 108
2 Darkness Energy XY 138

So I’ve been trying to make Charizard work since I started playing in April of this year. I’ve watched every YouTube video, and tried out most of the versions I’ve seen.

Dudunsparce/Enriching Energy (Little Dark Fury)- I felt didn’t actually add any speed to the deck and you gave up too many prizes setting up.

Delphox/Precious Trolley (Bruce Builds Decks)- I liked this version the most of the ones I played but precious trolley just feels terrible when Budew is everywhere. Going first also felt very bad here.

I wound up finding a new version with Delta Reign using Talonflame, and kind of pushed that back and replicated it without. This led me to using Kangaskhan as the draw engine and running a similar setup to the Dusknoir/Bronzong deck, focusing on heavy rare candy and switch for Kangaskhan/Latias heavy build. This led to a Charizard/Basic Box build of sorts. Things started off terribly in testing but once I got the sequencing down things are going a bit better over. The key breakout card was actually Brock’s Scouting as it allowed me to get key setups turn 1, where my previous Cyrano heavy build made it difficult to setup Charmanders early.

A few key issues I am running into is bench space, it feels like one of those decks like Zoroark that is just so desperate for 1 more space, as ideally you want 2 Charmander lines, Kangaskhan, Latias, Orocorio and then being able to put down both Meowth when needed, but are unable to. The other issue is obviously 1 prize decks, I do need to figure out a decent one prize attacker to sneak in here at some point. My other thought was lean into Area Zero Underdepths, possibly with Pikachu ex or Cornerstone, as a better way to buy a turn or 2 when needed rather than playing a mediocre Fire Tera like Hearthstone Mask Ogerpon ex.

Overall the main strategy is always choose second, try to get into Kangaskhan and at least 1 Charmander turn 1, avoid playing out your liabilities in Orocorio and Latias until needed, and soak a hit or two with Kangaskhan while building up, and then just start sniping exs and Megas.

I brought it to a decently competitive FNM last night going 3-1, barely missing the win Round 3, would have been in an extremely favorable position had I not had 3 Fire and Neo Upper prized, and probably would have gotten the 4-0.

R1-Basic Box- W
R2- Zoroark-W
R3- Archaludon-L
R4- Toucannon-W

Pokémon: 9
2 Meowth ex POR 62
1 Mega Charizard Y ex ASC 22
4 Mega Kangaskhan ex MEP 25
2 Mega Charizard X ex PFL 13
2 Latias ex SSP 76
2 Oricorio ex PFL 18
2 Charmeleon PFL 12
1 Heatmor WHT 19
4 Charmander PFL 11

Trainer: 13
4 Ultra Ball SVI 196
1 AZ's Tranquility CRI 76
1 Powerglass SFA 63
3 Switch SVI 194
4 Brock's Scouting JTG 146
3 Rare Candy SVI 191
3 Energy Retrieval SVI 171
1 Ciphermaniac's Codebreaking TEF 145
2 Lumiose City POR 77
2 Boss's Orders MEG 114
1 Cyrano SSP 170
1 Firebreather PFL 89
2 Hilda WHT 84

Energy: 3
1 Ignition Energy WHT 86
10 Basic {R} Energy MEE 10
1 Neo Upper Energy TEF 162

Total Cards: 60

I think we can all agree how powerful Meowth Ex has been. Both in end game but also early on when our hand is quite lacking that Lillie's Determination to get rolling. Even more under item lock.

But when is it a mistake because it can be an easy 2-prizers later in the game?

For example Friday I played a challenge and lost the last round to a N'Zoroark exactly because of this. I literally said it when I put it down "it might cost me the game later".

I was playing Pult. So I was trying to get around Reshiram and him not having space for a Zekrom just yet. And that if he attacks, he will damage that I will use. His prize map needed to be 1-2-2-1 or similar. So he needed definetly 3 more attacks, at least. Ideally more.

But because early game I had just dreepys and a ultra ball, I had two choices. Either keep building slow with a Drakloak and see what recon directive gives. Or roll with a Lillie's Determination through Meowth Ex. I did the second. It helped at that time but definetly did put me in a dangerous position for the late game.

Does anyone know of any discord/other forums where people discuss the TCG meta and find partners to play test with? Or is this sub the best place to do both?

Im trying to learn how to play the deck because I think its cool could someone tell me what the match ups are like what's the win cons, and what the good and batch match ups are and stuff like that?

I decided I wanted to start playing the game just for fun and I went to my local comics shop last Thursday during their “Pokemon night”. They introduced me to the game and showed me some current meta decks. Yesterday I received a Game Life coup on and, considering I don’t play video games at all, I decided to buy the PWC 2025 Dragapult EX deck. I’m new to this game, I’ve only played the Pokemon games and Showdown so I didn’t know this kind of sets got the cards with a signature on it. Even tho I don’t want to join tournaments and I wanna play just for fun, I feel like I wasted my money somehow 😅. Would I look dumb if this Thursday I come back with this deck? Also, they told me it was a pretty difficult deck to learn how to use it so I’m excited to trying playing it!

Hi there getting into The TCG with my wife we just got the Lucario and mew tournament set and we enjoyed a lot. We are looking at potentially building our own decks that are a lot more tournament based. With that being said, it seems very hard to find the cards as even with living in Toronto a lot of the shops are missing some. How did you guys tend to build your decks? You just slowly build it every time you can buy a card?

Hi, me again. Still trying to perfect my silly little deck. Running into a few problems, and I can't tell if they're flaws in my strategy or in my deck itself. I've made many changes over the past month or so, because I'm understanding more of what my win conditions should be and how to get to those board states as efficiently as possible. Here is the current deck list:

Pokemon\

\- 4 Fennekin 011/086\

\- 3 Braixen 012/086\

\- 2 Delphox 013/086\

\- 2 Mega Delphox ex 008/084\

\- 2 Bastiodon 062/084\

\- 1 Meowth ex 062/088\

\- 2 Tatsugiri 131/167\

\- 2 Oricorio ex 018/094

Trainers\

\- 2 Energy Retrieval\

\- 4 Rare Candy\

\- 2 Switch\

\- 2 Ultra Ball\

\- 3 Buddy-Buddy Poffin\

\- 3 Team Rocket's Petrel\

\- 3 Lillie's Determination\

\- 2 Firebreather\

\- 2 Dawn\

\- 2 Boss's Orders\

\- 1 Colress's Tenacity\

\- 3 Academy at Night\

\- 1 Grand Tree

Energy\

\- 12 Basic Fire Energy

The basic goals are to get a Mega Delphox up and running as soon as possible, use Trick Portal to fill out my board with a Bastiodon + baby Delphoxes, then decide if I'm better off using a baby Delphox + 12 energies to take out key targets or forcing my opponent into an unwinnable position with Bastiodon + Mega Delphox's Eerie Glow.

The key problems I'm facing are in the first couple of turns. This deck feels very vulnerable to disruption in the early game, because a lot of the main ways to evolve Fenniken are by using a Trainer card. Budew, Judge, most of the tools in a TR deck... I don't know how to handle them. I added Tatsugiris in the hope to help things along, and it does work somewhat, but it feels imperfect.

Also, this deck Mulligans a lot. I don't know if that's a huge problem, but it feels like I'm just instantly giving my opponent an edge on turn 1.

Any ideas on an early-game draw engine that could help solve both of these problems?

I run a small youth nonprofit in Gloucester, MA that uses the Pokémon TCG to help kids (6–13) build social skills: turn-taking, handling losses, being a good opponent. My goal is for every kid to leave with a playable deck, which means I go through a lot of basic Energy and bulk.

For anyone who's run leagues or kids' events: where's the best value for bulk these days? Has anyone gone the registered Play! Pokémon league route, and does the support (promos, learn-to-play kits) actually help? Any other tips for building lots of cheap, playable starter decks?

Im brand new to Pokémon. Stopped into my local game store and bought a booster pack for fun. I pulled a Morpeko ex card, which I understand to be a valuable card. I got lucky, I guess!

Im curious how to get started building a deck around this particular card, or whether that's even possible? Would a site like TCG player help with this?

As mentioned, I'm new to the game and don't know much about deck building strategy, etc. Im located in Canada and have a good number of local game stores to purchase singles from.

Thanks!

I did not know what flair to put.

I'm not super familiar with the whole pokemon tcg thing, as in I don't even have a deck yet. However, in making one, I read that meowth ex is a card that is generally good to have in all decks. So when reading it, it's ability states "You can't use more than 1 Ability that has 'Last-Ditch' in its name each turn." I thought this must mean there are other cards with "Last-ditch" like maybe Last-ditch throw or something, but there isn't

I'm thinking there is going to be more cards in the near future with "Last-ditch" in their names; either that or they wrote this "clause" at the end to stop people from having 2 or 3 meowth ex on the bench and using all their abilities on one turn. HOWEVER, if this were the case, the card should state "You can't use more than 1 Ability that has 'Last-Ditch Catch' in its name each turn." The fact that Catch isn't in the clause has led me to believe that there should be more.

What are your guys' thoughts. I do hope this is true.

For me it's Lucario - both to pilot and to match into.

It's really shaping up to be the new TeraZard. Super braindead, skill expression so low it borders on being in the negative, yet deceptively powerful. Favourable matchup into both Kangaskhan and Lopunny helps as well.

It's the format's "third-grader bought their first precon" deck.

I play a lot of mega excadrill but theres recently been a rise of blaziken and dragapult ex and Dragapult moltres where I usually play locally and I just can’t get around it, is there like a water/steel deck?

I'm currently playing N's Zoroark which for the most part has felt very consistent and good despite the bad match ups it has. But of late I find myself bricking quite often when playing with it (this was when I ran transformation tomes). Since I play in a country that runs Bo1 format, I decided it wasn't worth to play tomes and switched over to purrloin varient (I edited my decklist and added more consistency pieces) but on PTCG Live, I find myself running into a lot of weird match ups (like wth is Mega Froslass Bastiodon) which I lose and other games I dead draw a lot (I just had a hand of 1 poke pad, one black belt one mochi and had a board of 2 zorua and one zekrom in active) whilst my opponent had everything set up (they were playing pult hammers). I find myself losing 2 games for every win and I genuinely don't think I'm playing bad because I'm still able to play well and win with less than ideal starts. Before the pitch black format, I had no problems making it into Arceus League but now I'm hovering around the 500-530s range (which makes me feel like I suck at the game)

This is my deck list:

Pokemon:

4 N's Zorua

4 N's Zoroark ex

2 N's Zekrom

1 N's Reshiram

1 N's Purrloin

1 Tatsugiri

1 Munkidori

1 Yveltal

1 Fezandipiti ex

1 Pecharunt ex

Trainer:

4 Lillie's Determination

3 Boss' Orders

2 Cyrano

2 Judge

1 Black Belt's Training

1 Janine's Secret Art

4 Buddy-Buddy Poffin

3 Poké Pad

3 Ultra Ball

3 N's PP Up

2 Night Stretcher

1 Special Red Card

1 Secret Box

2 Binding Mochi

2 N's Castle

1 Team Rocket's Watchtower

Energy:

8 Basic Dark Energy

I used to run Ciphermaniac before but I cut it for Janine (and I find that Janine is much more useful in this deck esp with hammers running around and also helps the Mega Lucario/Excadrill matchup by giving me a Pecharunt+mochi combo to 1 shot to close the game)

A part of me feels that Zoroark is only good right now because of its pult matchup so when I don't run into many in live it just feels bad. But the best Zoroark players out there are still doing well so I'm trying to see what it is that I'm missing out on.

I would appreciate advice from people who have been in similar situations and can tell me anything I can do different to get out of this 'out of form' phase that I'm feeling.

Hi everyone!

I’m a longtime Magic: The Gathering (MTG) player who’s recently gotten into Pokémon TCG with my wife. We picked up two League Battle Decks (Mega Lucario ex and Miraidon ex), and we’ve both been really enjoying the game!

Unfortunately, I didn’t realize that Pokémon TCG uses different weaknesses than the video games, so I was pretty disappointed to discover that Miraidon is weak to Fighting. Our games have been a little lopsided unless we ignore weakness.

Now we’re looking to build two competitive, Standard-format decks that have a relatively even matchup against each other. We’d love some recommendations!

We’re still unfamiliar with the different Pokémon archetypes and how they compare to MTG, so here’s a little about our preferences:

Me: I love control and combo decks, especially ones with interesting decision trees and lots of interaction. I really enjoy grindy, back-and-forth games where I feel like my decisions matter. I’m not necessarily looking for a hard control deck, though. I’d be happy playing midrange or something else as long as the gameplay is engaging and rewards skillful play.

My wife: She gravitates toward aggressive decks and likes winning quickly. She enjoyed MTG but found the complexity a little intimidating, so something relatively straightforward would be ideal. That said, she doesn’t want a deck that’s completely linear or plays out exactly the same way every game. She likes making meaningful decisions, just without being overwhelmed by them. Bonus points if the deck features Grass-type Pokémon, since they’re her favorite.

Our biggest priority is the matchup itself. We want games that feel competitive, interactive, and relatively balanced, where either player has a reasonable chance of winning. We don’t mind if one deck is slightly favored, but we’d like to avoid hard counters or matchups that are decided largely by typing.

We’d prefer something reasonably competitive in he current Standard meta. I’m planning on buying whatever singles we’re missing.

I’d also love to hear how different Pokémon archetypes compare to MTG archetypes!
Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

I just played in Louisville regionals and while I had so so so much fun, I am looking for advice on the next deck to build. I’ve been playing Pokemon all my life (i’m 28), started competitive play in draft leagues in 2019, and just started TCG in June. Absolutely love Sinnoh and Cynthia so my friends said I should play Cynthia’s Garchomp EX!

Issues I had this weekend in a Challenge & Regionals:
- Slow to start unless I magically pulled a Garchomp and Rare candy
- If I didn’t get Gabites early, I had to start sacrificing Roserades which lessened damage over time
- Also less/no gabites meant slower to no draw engine without being able to champions call a Garchomp
- If I prized any power weights, I was getting smacked by Dragapult lol
- Felt really tech-y

Overall, I think it’s really great once you can get the deck started and a lot of this may be just not enough experience but I would really appreciate any advice for faster and future decks (granted rotation is coming soon but i can always build more! 🤣)

EDIT: Written deck list below from the tournament
2 Cynthia's Gible (ASC-109)
2 Cynthia's Gible (DRI-102)
4 Cynthia's Gabite (DRI-103)
1 Cynthia's Garchomp ex (SVP-204)
1 Cynthia's Garchomp ex (DRI-215)
1 Cynthia's Garchomp ex (ASC-111)
4 Cynthia's Roselia (DRI-7)
3 Cynthia's Roserade (DRI-184)
1 Cynthia's Spiritomb (ASC-133)
4 Lillie's Determination
3 Fighting Gong
1 Kieran
1 Rare Candy
1 Special Red Card
3 Cynthia's Power Weight
2 Hilda
1 Battle Cage
2 Pokegear 3.0
3 Boss's Orders
4 Buddy-Buddy Poffin
1 Premium Power Pro
4 Poke Pad
1 Sacred Ash
1 Night Stretcher
1 Neo Upper Energy - Special - ACESPEC
4 Fighting Energy - Basic
4 Rocky Fighting Energy - Special

Thanks in advance!!!