The new season is in full swing, and 30th Anniversary cards are now legal. For those of you interested in what changes to the metagame the new set has brought, especially if you’re interested in going to Lousville or maybe Nice, there might be something here for you here.

This writeup comprises three majors over the last 2 weeks: Brisbane at ~800 players, Recife at ~1100, and Frankfurt at ~2800. Most things have not change significantly since Baltimore, so I’ll save us all time by limiting what’s covered here.

The Winners

• Arboliva Meganium: from the same region that gave us the Hydrapple regional win, South America saw the ascension of another Meganium Ogerpon deck. Arboliva has been on the fringe of the meta ever since its 2nd place at the first post-rotation major in Japan, and finally it’s here for the crown. The winning list by Victor Carreira is extremely standard for a Meganium box template, but cutting the Celebi & Tapu Bulu you’d see in Hydrapple for Energy Switch, fitting for a much more aggressive mon in Arboliva.
• Alakazam Dusknoir: not only did this deck win Frankfurt, it faced an exact copy in the finals. Mateusz Łaszkiewicz introduced this archetype to the world stage with a top cut there, and here he was facing down the eventual winner Tomasz Chałupka (who also played this deck at Worlds 2026 but in the SR division) in the finals. The deck features Strange Timepiece as a native draw engine in Alakazam so you can forgo a weakness to Dudunsparce under Watchtower, as well as Stadiums to bump them. Cursed Blasts are here to finish off kills and lessen the impact of opponents’ hand disruption due to a lower need to score OHKO on big target, and multiple Red Cards to take advantage of prize manipulation.
• Dragapult Hammers: Edmund Khoo takes the win in Brisbane with the world-winning Dragapult Hammers build. Compared to the highest placing Pult in Baltimore, his list runs a Moltres and omits the Red Card which gives him a slightly better match up into Mega Excadrill and Teal Masks deck, both Basic Box and Grass Boxes, but otherwise nothing notable. We’ve all seen Dragapult.

Top Cuts

Note that Brisbane and Recife featured 9 decks in top cut, and Frankfurt had 16, here’s the list of decks that made cut across the 3 tournaments.

• Dragapult Hammers (12)
• Lopunny Bronzong Dusknoir (3)
• Alakazam Dusknoir (2)
• Dragapult Dusknoir (2)
• Dragapult Blaziken (2)
• Slowking (2)
• Festival Lead (2)
• Mega Excadrill (2)
• N’s Zoroark (2)
• Meganium Ogerpon Arboliva (1)
• Meganium Ogerpon Hydrapple (1)
• Lucario Hariyama (1)
• Rocket’s Honchkrow (1)
• Prism (Basic) Box (1)

Lopunny Dusknoir is definitely the breakout success of this new season, especially with the addition of Mew. The deck really appreciates the not having to leave Bronzong in the attack due to its relative frailty and ‘weight’, with Mew being so easy to switch back and forth to facilitate Lopunny attacks onto the cards Pult previously ruinous to the strategy like Munkidori and Fezandipity. Mew + Budew isn’t a real combination, but Mew + Frillish certainly is.

Speaking of Mew, Slowking is the other deck to incorporate it. It’s much harder for Pult to Hammer off energy on the active Slowking and hand disrupt you to stall while they recover if your Slowking isn’t actually in the active. It’s also much easier to retreat into Mega Kang to draw off of a Stamp in that case as well. Mew can also fire of Smoochum energy load on turn 1 going 2nd, very convenient for early Mega Kang attacks if it comes to that. The new 30th Unown and PFL Pawmot are also making sporadic appearances here as part of the suite of Slowking attackers for enterprising trainers.

Festival Lead got its highest major masters placement at Frankfurt. While the Seaking build really hasn’t taken over like some people predicted after Worlds, both variants continue to see decent success. The highest placing list omits Shaymin entirely and relies on the Forest of Vitality to get the Rabsca up as fast as possible against certain matchups, as well as cutting out the Bug Catching Sets. These slots are dedicated to Pokemon Catcher to facilitate the back-breaking Gladion + Gust combo (if the proverbial coin lands on head lmao) as well as an extra Ultra Ball to manipulate your hand size easier.

A lot of people attributes Dragapult’s dominance for being the only good deck from last format left after rotation, but N’s Zoroark was a regional winning deck back then as well, now struggling to put up real representation. It’s doing better than Marnie’s Grimmsnarl at least.

Recife’s Mega Excadrill saw a 2-1 line of Piplup + Empoleon to counter the dreaded Alakazam matchup, however they faced none on the way to top 5. Just a funny tidbit.

The Rocket Honchkrow list at the same tournament also features a Brave Bangle, by the by.

Brisbane’s 9th place Prism box is also the highest placing Prism Box, and the only Basic Box rep. across these 3 tournaments. It most notably runs a Briar late game prize manipulation, something otherwise rare for these N’s Plan + Prism Energy lists, along with the equally rare Lillie’s Pearl, usually relegated to Clefairy Box variants.

The keen eye among you might have already spotted the 0 Crustle representation. Ever since the new season, the deck has basically fallen out of top cuts and sporting record low conversion rate for its standard. Is this a dangerous trend for crabheads, or just a temporary blip?

Notable Decks (Top 128)

If you want new, exciting decks or older archetypes with notable changes in a successful list, this section is for you. Obviously I’m ignoring those that already made cut.

• Ceruledge: One made 32nd of Recife with a list very similar to the one that saw success at NAIC with the Pokemon Catchers & Brilliant Blender. it also has an Armarouge as an anti-Crustle tech.
• Dhelmise Turbo: The new 30th Yveltal has found its way to a few Dhelmise lists as a counter to Big Healing, not to mention the Black Belt’s Training that allows for the 210 OHKO on Fezandipity & Latias. Next you’ll see Pokemon Catchers in these lists too.
• Mew Box: the latest archetype out of the new set, this deck combines with the Clefairy Box package, Dusk Balls and Wondrous Patch, of the last season to present an extremely energy efficient attacker, featuring the insane ASC Stunfisk Pouncing Trap + Torrential Pump combo.
• Mega Greninja: 68th place at Brisbane is this Mega Gren + Tera Gren + Drakloak deck. This deck is the (relatively) hyper consistent version we saw when Chaos Rising came out, and it took this long to see any real success.
• Greninja Dusknoir Water Box: Speaking of which, Mega Gren once again gets mogged by its much cooler cousin. This is the closest thing to a water tool box we have in the current format, and can be notable to explore if you’re really into a challenge.
• Ethan’s Typhlosion: Yes it’s Yasmin Kiss again. Typh’s strong soldier fr.
• Mega Absol Box: Another relic of yesteryear propping up every so often.

The rest of these decks will be noted for their existence in top 128, without commentary because they’re not doing anything out of the ordinary, purely for fans of these archetypes.

• Mega Starmie Meta Froslass
• Cynthia’s Garchomp
• Sharpedo Toxtricity
• Marnie’s Grimmsnarl
• Lopunny Dunsparce (with Mew)
• Kangashkhan Bouffalant

Between Pitch Black's Sizzlipede and delta reigns upcoming Combee, spinirak, and masquerain, seems there will be support for this "attack archetype" deck, for any unfamiliar, all the cards named have the "Bug out" attack, "Reveal the bottom 7 cards of your deck, and this attack does 50 damage for each Pokémon you find there that has the Bug Out attack. Then, shuffle any revealed Pokémon back into your deck. Discard the other cards."

All of them do 50 damage, first three for 3 colorless energy, masquerain for one grass, positioning masq to be the premier bug out attacker, probably only viable one tbh, using the attack for 3 energy is just bad. This is all the pokemon revealed with "bug out" to the best of my knowledge, but please correct if there is more.

Definitely does NOT seem like it will be meta, discarding the non-pokemon cards hurts, though helps the deck thin out for higher damage subsequent attacks. 50 dmg per also isn't *amazing*, makes me think drakloak will be a nice draw engine for this though? Putting bugs on the bottom of deck for you. Shuffle hand into deck effects will also be big, but lillies is already incredibly prevalent.

Don't think it'll be meta, but could make a cute rogue deck? Anybody else thinking of building bugs?

Hi everyone! The 16th I will be traveling to New Jersey (very close to New York, so we will be going there almost every day). I've always wanted to play in a local game store on another country, and I also saw delta reign releases during our stay.

So, I would love to play a prerelease event, do you guys have any recomendations? will I be able to find a spot for my brother and I for a decent price? also looking to hear about your favourite LGS to pay a visit, I will be staying for 4 weeks so lots of time to check out different stores.

thanks!

Hi to everyone, i recently got into the tcg and started with mega Sharpedo and managed to reach master rank in 4-5 days with a win rate of 62%. I went to a Local shop and they suggested MLucario saying its more competitive and complete then sharpedo, i tried the hariyama version but i keep loosing against Any deck that is psychic, i get that is a bad matchup but with sharpedo i managed to win against basic box. Also i get a hard time also against single prize decks where with sharpedo i think I have a Fair winrate. First of all i wanted to ask if is really a better deck or no? And second whats my plan against psychic decks? I really like both decks so just want to be sure to pick the better one before buying it
Also open to new deck suggestion, maybe in the same price range, only thing i like a deck without a mess of pokemon like the basic box or the reshiram

So i played a lot this afternoon and got the conclusion that the MSharpedo and MaLucario are good in their ways but have the downside of having an hard time against their wkeanesses and also against single prize decks due to the lack of spread damage. So i searched up a bit and saw the Zoroark and the slowking deck, i like a lot the fact that they have a lot of variety in their offensive repart and wanted to ask which one is better? I tried the Zoroark but feels like you need to know What your opponent is playing so u can bench the right pokemon other than zekrom, reshiram is quite situational but i think darmanitan can be very good. On the other side i didnt have the possibility to try slowking but got beat a lot of Times by him, the Kyurem attack is so good and also the metagross one. Any idea of which one is better? I think both are better then MSharpedo and MLucario thx to variety of the attacks and can hit quite as hard. Thx to anyone will help as always and sorry for the posting again but i want to be sure to pick a good deck and having a good time

With miraidon being one of my favorite pokemon, how does this card fare in the current meta? I haven’t seen people use this deck but I really want to try to make this deck work. Any ideas for a deck that contains this would be welcome!

Hey everyone!

I'm looking for some advice on getting back into the Pokémon TCG in 2026. I have some experience with the game and I know the basic rules, but it's been several years since I last played, so I'm completely out of touch with the current meta and what the decks look like these days.

For some context, I come from playing Yu-Gi-Oh!, and my favorite strategies aren't really the "play one huge monster and unga bunga your way through the game" kind of decks. I'm also pretty tired of the extremely long combo turns that Yu-Gi-Oh! has these days... spending ages setting up a board, only for your opponent to do the exact same thing to you. So I'm looking for something that feels a bit more interactive and focuses on playing the game over multiple turns.

I tend to prefer decks with a lot of grind game, different options depending on the situation, and a sort of toolbox playstyle. Being able to reuse resources, adapt to the matchup, and gradually build an advantage over the course of the game rather than just trying to blow up the opponent as quickly as possible.

I'm looking for something that isn't too complicated to understand, although I'm definitely not opposed to a deck with a bit of a learning curve if it rewards good piloting.

One other thing: I'd preferably like a deck that isn't about to rotate out of Standard. Since I'm getting back into the game and will have to invest in the cards, I'd rather pick something that I'll be able to play for a while.

hey, i’m pretty new only been playing a couple months and i’ve pretty much just been playing festival lead. the other day i was playing on pokemon tcg live against some kind of mega lucario deck, knocked out the mega lucario and they promote cornerstone mask ogerpon which id never seen before. because of its ability, i could do no damage to it and he didnt play anymore pokemon and basically stalled until he could just ko all my guys with that one pokemon. is there a counter to this for festival lead? it seems like it pretty much counters my entire deck lol. i know festival lead is not supposed to be the greatest but i really like it so id like to put some kind of counter to that in my deck if possible

So im running a frostlass munkidori deck i saw AzulGG on youtube pilot, and after attempting arboliva ex/teal mask, it feels like the lowest skill floor deck ive played but i have a question, I know typically frostymunk is favored into flead, but i find that whenever i matchup against them, they typically come out on top, not worried about munki promotions since my frostlass will self damage and then they can hit me with 100 times 2 for a 2 prize turn, all my other matchups have been pretty straightforward but i cant wrap my head around the FLead matchup, aside from tecking 1/1 cornerstone/fighting since i run crispen but the 60 already feels really tight, tips?

Ok so I’m going to Gdansk regionals in October and I have and idea that I really want to try. I am certain I want to play slowking, however I want to bring my deck in a dragon shield box with “Crustle” written on top, using a crustle Playmat, with green sleeves and a crustle sitting cutie. Considering it could be considered bait would most people be annoyed by this or would people find it funny?

Edit: I may for-go writing crustle on the box and just use a green one instead, it feels a bit too far

​

Hey all! I'm coming back from a 2 month break and wanted more experienced players to give me a few pointers regarding Grimmsnarl.

Here's my current list:

Pokémon: 10

1 Shaymin DRI 10

2 Munkidori TWM 95

2 Froslass TWM 53

4 Marnie's Impidimp DRI 134

3 Snorunt ASC 46

2 Budew ASC 16

3 Marnie's Grimmsnarl ex DRI 136

3 Marnie's Morgrem DRI 135

1 Yveltal MEG 88

2 Munkidori PRE 44

Trainer: 13

1 Energy Switch SVI 173

1 Air Balloon ASC 181

2 Night Stretcher ASC 196

2 Buddy-Buddy Poffin TEF 144

4 Lillie's Determination MEG 119

4 Poké Pad POR 81

4 Spikemuth Gym DRI 169

3 Boss's Orders MEG 114

1 Special Red Card CRI 82

1 Unfair Stamp TWM 165

2 Team Rocket's Petrel DRI 176

2 Gwynn PBL 78

1 Rare Candy MEG 125

Energy: 1

9 Basic {D} Energy MEE 7

So my first question is about the Grimmsnarl line. I'm currently running 4-3-3, pretty heavy. I'm set on 3 Grimm, but I'm not sure if the others are too much. I've seen people running 3-2 and 2 rare candy, I've tried that but the deck felt more inconsistent. So I ask your opinion since it may have been just bad luck on the first couple of games.

I won't play secret box as I don't have it so stamp is the ace spec.

All in all, I'm also open for more suggestions if you have any :D thanks and good day

I had the idea to build a Deck which combines Slaking ex and the new 30th Mew ex, so that I can still use Slakings attack without the opponant having to have an ex pokemon in play. Any ideas what a Deck using these two cards could look like?

N’s Zoroark is one of my favorite decks that I play in Gym events, but ever since Worlds, I found that most of Zoroark’s bad matchups predominate my local scene (FLead, Hydrapple ex, etc.). I can hold my own against Dragapult, but man it feels very disheartening when I’m up against a Festival Lead deck or any grass deck in particular. It’s pretty hard when it comes to the setup race as I run the Tome Zoroark’s variant. I wonder if Zoroark would be able to work with other cards aside from the traditional N’s pokemon archetype. What do you guys think?

For me, maybe a Dudunsparce caught in one of the spotlights 😄

Pokémon: 19

4 Riolu MEG 76

3 Mega Lucario ex MEG 77

3 Makuhita MEG 72

2 Hariyama MEG 73

2 Solrock MEG 75

2 Lunatone MEG 74

1 Ethan's Sudowoodo DRI 93

1 Shaymin DRI 10

1 Psyduck ASC 39

Trainer: 30

2 Gravity Mountain SSP 177

4 Lillie's Determination MEG 119

3 Iris's Fighting Spirit JTG 149

2 Boss's Orders MEG 114

1 Acerola's Mischief MEG 113

4 Fighting Gong MEG 116

4 Ultra Ball MEG 131

2 Night Stretcher SFA 61

1 Secret Box TWM 163

1 Switch MEG 130

4 Premium Power Pro MEG 124

2 Air Balloon BLK 79

Energy: 11

9 Fighting Energy MEE 6

2 Rocky Fighting Energy POR 87

The cards that were switched were 1× Surfer for 1× Acerola's Mischief, 2× Basic Fighting Energy for 2× Rocky Fighting Energy, 1× Basic Fighting Energy for 1× Psyduck, 1× Fezandipiti ex for 1× Ethan's Sudowoodo, 1× Bloodmoon Ursaluna for 1× Shaymin.

I am going to go to my first pokemon tcg tournament it's happening next month i built this deck and also what should bring/don't bring to it

Pokémon: 13

3 Riolu ASC 112

3 Mega Lucario ex ASC 113

2 Mega Zygarde ex POR 47

2 Lunatone ASC 105

2 Solrock ASC 106

1 Fezandipiti ex ASC 142

Trainer: 34

4 Lillie's Determination MEG 119

2 Cyrano SSP 170

3 Boss's Orders ASC 183

2 Naveen POR 79

4 Fighting Gong ASC 187

4 Premium Power Pro ASC 199

4 Ultra Ball MEG 131

3 Poké Pad POR 81

3 Switch 30C 127

1 Secret Box TWM 163

2 Core Memory POR 70

2 Gravity Mountain SSP 177

Energy: 13

13 Fighting Energy SVE 6

Has anyone tried this reprint deck - Pult Bomb made by Jose Cruz Galindo-Resendiz?

I bought this deck for my GF so she can try Pokémon TCG and play with me at home but no matter what, she does not have enough engine burst to win against my Mega Lucario ex deck. I’ve never played Dragapult ex but I thought and heard it will be a good deck against my Mega lucario since it was a winner on tournaments.

Do you have any suggestions or thoughts about this deck?

Pokémon League Cup 10/4 - Basic Box (Refine’s Metafy 60 list minus Red Card + Iron Crown)

R1 vs Dragapult - L

I started first with Jirachi and didn’t put down another Pokemon in my hand (I had Meowth + Cyrano in hand for T2 so I could set up — big misplay there). I get Judged immediately after into an unplayable hand so all I can do is Swift away the Budew but then I get donked by Moltres and lose. I picked up Iron Crown from my prizes but it didn’t matter since I couldn’t put it down.

R2 vs Lopunny Dunsparce - L

I had a board setup of Wellspring Ogerpon + bench and chose to sob the dunsparce instead of Torrential Pump — opponent top decks a Hilda into Dudun and Enriching.

I also did not prebench Koraidon expecting the payback hit, so I couldn’t Crispin because I had to prioritize other lines.

R3 vs N’s Zoro - L

No sense of math calculations. I bossed senselessly on N’s Zoro and N’s Zekrom (with only 3 grass energies on Teal Mask, so I can’t even knock out any of them) and lost my only Teal Mask on the board to a Rampaging Thunder. I scooped with a 4-2 prize score in my opponents favor; I didn’t feel like playing it out. I had ultra balls but I wouldn’t have made the right line, I know I wouldn’t.

R4 vs Mega Excadrill - W

I won’t mention much of this one, my opponent was a very inexperienced junior but I did get a heads on RFC on the Genesect to then knock out the Mega Excadrill with Bellowing Thunder. I had both Teal Masks prized which would have been very hard if my opponent was more skilled.

R5 vs Ogerpon Arboliva - L

Honestly I’m not sure where I may have misplayed. Maybe I didn’t! I didn’t ask my opponent much after the game but we did discuss the last turn.

I threatened torrential pump the whole game but never used it — in fact I probably should have Full Moon Rondo’d earlier on his tapu bulu (can you believe that he never used his Meganium? so I let him hard attach his Tapu Bulu 4 separate turns); even with the self inflicted damage I still couldn’t torrential pump it out of the game, so I knocked it + his teal mask on the following turn (on this specific latter turn I wish I could have Xerosic’d but I didn’t have a grass in hand and my previous teal mask + energies were discarded with no e-switch pulled ever or the last grass, so I had to Crispin into the knockout)

I dropped because I wasn’t going to break even (only 6 rounds) and just wanted to go home.

Hero’s never landed into my hand once. Xerosic was never used.

Thoughts? what more can I do to eventually become a regionals top cut level player? I’m trying to reach this before Worlds.

I was looking through the player's guide that came with the 30th celebration ETB and came across this strategy on page 10, exact text copied below (will paste image in comment since idk how to attach the image to this post). After the players guide text I list the relevant ability descriptions.

Pika-Power

Pikachu's Pika Chain does 40 damage for each Pikachu and Pikachu EX you have in play, so you'll want as many as possible to maximize its power. Start by putting the Pikachu EX with zip-zap frenzy into play, as this attack can attach any number of basic energy cards from your hand to your Pokémon in any way you like, letting you charge up pika chain (or any other Pikachu you fancy!). Make sure to put Pikachu EX from the Scarlet and Violet-Surging Sparks expansion onto your bench, as its tera type let's the Area Zero Underdepths Stadium expand your bench to 8.

With over 30 pikachu in this expansion, you'll have plenty to choose from-if you can put those two pikachu EX plus three more pikachu onto your bench, that brings Pika Chain up to a truly electrifying 360 damage!

__________

Pika Chain - this attack does 40 damage for each of your Pikachu and Pikachu Ex in play (3 energy)

Area Zero Underdepths Stadium - Each player who has any Tera Pokémon in play can have up to 8 Pokémon on their Bench.

__________

My question is, if you are limited to only 4 copies of a given card at once (so you have 4 pikachu EX cards and 4 regular pikachus in your deck) HOW can the attack do a max 360 damage as suggested in the players guide? That would require there to be 9 total pikachus and pikachu EXs in play at once (one in the active slot and with a full bench thanks to the stadium allowing up to 8 benched pokemon). The 4 copies per deck limit refutes this, but it is written in the official players guide so, if it really possible? Or is the true maximum 320 damage?

Thanks for reading, I typed this on mobile so I apologize if the formatting is messed up

Went to a league challenge over the weekend and wanted to get some input from the community.

Organizer did not require a deck list submission.

Organizer did not have a trophy for the winner (e.g. playmat or some other TPCI prize). They did get win prize packs though.

Somehow there was a 1st place tie between one person who won 3 matches against their opponents, and another who had 1 bye and won 2 matches against their opponents.

Anything off about this event? Just curious. Thanks!

So introduced my 8 year old nephew to Pokemon TCG via Battle Academy and he absolutely loves it! Even got him a Mega Lucario Ex Battle Deck as it’s one of his favorite Pokemon and he’s been catching on to the nuances and strategies that come with it very quickly!

I actually was learning with him and want to get a deck that can be competitive with him, but fair enough that he can learn how to play around it. So a deck that he can beat, but not too easily (he isn’t the type to take a win if he feels like it’s given to him).

Any suggestions? Thought of some of his favorites like Greninja, Gengar or even some I favor like Scrafty or Sceptile. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Is it better to mostly go first or second with mega lucario and what certain matchups do you switch this up.

Hey there, I’m recently getting back into TCG after a few years, and I’m looking for some recommendations.

I really like tanky/annoying decks where I can potentially stall my opponents to death, so I’m hoping there’s some good meta teams right now that I could choose from.

If that strategy doesn’t work against the top decks right now (I understand Dragapult is everywhere right now),I’d prefer a mid range team with threats at every stage of the game.

I’m not picky about the pokemon themselves, and I’m willing to test a bunch of teams in PTCGO. Thanks for any advice!