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For how small it was, the very first mini-set of TCG Pocket, Mythical Island, shook up the metagame. With just 67 exclusive cards and five Pokémon ex, expectations were very contained. Ultimately, the set delivered by not only bringing new archetypes but also improving the ones from Genetic Apex. Released right before Christmas –the peak season for anything entertainment– it also drove record attendance at tournaments.
Space-Time Smackdown, the upcoming set, is nearing. Let’s take a moment to recap everything the Mythical Island format brought to the table.
Improving Genetic Apex
In the first week after release, players were very focused on refining archetypes from Genetic Apex. Mewtwo ex and Pikachu ex, the consistent top-tier decks from previous formats, remained among the most popular choices. But it was also a redemption arc for lower tier decks such as Koga and Blaine thanks to the support they received.
Momochant - Pocket Legends League #12 top 4
Unfortunately, their results remained mostly marginal throughout the format. Other decks benefited better from new cards, and fast-paced decks were getting dramatically iced by a brand new class of tanks from Mythical Island.
World of Tanks
Soon after the early experiments and the first results came in, players realized that the biggest additions from Mythical Island were its tanks: Mew ex and Druddigon.
On top of 130HP, Mew ex's Genome Hacking brought a reliable way to revenge KO major threats like Mewtwo ex and Charizard ex. Druddigon, on the other hand, has a built-in damage engine in its ability Rough Skin. Trying to getting rid of it has to be done at the cost of 20HP, which turns out to be a difference maker in many matchups. Gyarados ex decks were the biggest beneficiaries of its support, and they maintained a consistently high conversion rate throughout the format. But in the first week of the set’s release, the real surprise came from the Brock deck piloted by NinoLeo.
NinoLeo - Ursiiday's Pocket Weekly #8 winner
Winning the biggest tournament series with the set’s first edition is always impressive—but doing it with a deck that includes no Pokémon ex and was previously considered low tier is a true accomplishment. This is also the first win of a deck running Druddigon as a tank, as well as Hitmonlee and Marshadow as a complementary engine. These two would soon outgrow this shell and become prominent forces on their own.
The main takeaways from the first week were clear: Gyarados ex proved to be highly consistent and effective, while Pikachu ex and Mewtwo ex retained their dominance from Genetic Apex. But entirely new decks could break through, and there was still more to explore.
Fighting's Revenge
In this context, based decks saw a surge in popularity. Not only their type advantage against Pokémon enabled Marshadow to one-shot Pikachu ex, they also had the unique capacity to snipe benched Magikarps with Hitmonlee before they had a chance to evolve: deadly arguments against two of the best decks so far.
By the second week of competition, decks built around this Fighting toolbox rose significantly in popularity, with Aerodactyl ex decks emerging as the most popular option.
NinoLeo - Pocket Legends League #13 top 8
With an unparalleled aggressive early game, the Fighting toolbox spawned many variants: some ran Farfetch’d instead of the Mankey line, others included Greninja, and a few opted for Pidgeot ex. While these builds consistently made top cuts, few managed to crack the top 8 due to their poor matchups against decks with high-HP Pokémon like Mewtwo ex, Fire Pokémon ex and Exeggutor ex.
Grass Slithers Backs
Grass decks were noticeably absent from top cuts in the early weeks of the format. Despite being one of the most anticipated archetypes in Mythical Island—especially after Genetic Apex was a lackluster set for types— and some good early results in small tournaments, their performance in bigger events were disappointing.
The deck had now its own Gardevoir in Serperior, but Celebi ex was a very unreliable attacker. It was also easily one-shot by Gyarados ex and Mewtwo ex, and it struggled against the still-popular decks. The archetype slowly showed improvement once players shifted their focus to Exeggutor as a frontline tank, buying time for the deck to evolve Serperior and charge up Celebi ex.
Sushi5884 - Pokémon Go Raiders Live winner
For the rest of the metagame, Grass decks would remain one of the strongest threat of the meta, winning the 12th and 13th editions of Ursiiday's Pocket Weekly and consistently placing in top cuts at big events. Lesson learned: never stop to first impressions.
The Meta Settles Down... ?
The end of first half of the format was highlighted by the first high-profile win for Gyarados ex, as the aptly nicknamed player Lead took the deck all the way to the 1st place in the biggest TCG Pocket tournament ever organized on LimitlessTCG (1995 players).
Lead - Ursiiday's Pocket Weekly #10 winner
Following this success, the next week came with an unprecedented phenomenon: the exact same Pikachu ex list won the three biggest tournaments of the week.
In the second half, the metagame was shared between Pikachu ex, Mewtwo ex, Gyarados ex, decks, decks and decks. This is certainly an improvement over the Genetic Apex format, offering more interesting matchup dynamics overall.
But it didn’t stop there. A growing phenomenon in the second half of the format was brewing with multiple engines. While this was already possible in Genetic Apex (e.g., Koga engine decks), Mythical Island gave a lot more options to mix together. Fighting Toolbox with anything, Greninja with anything, Pidgeot ex with anything, Exeggutor ex with anything–sometimes even together. It wasn’t just for the sake of creativity, either; these experimental decks delivered real results.
PitiiN - BC Exeggutive Series #3 top 4
Takeaways and wrap-up
Genetic Apex left us with a metagame dominated by powerful Basic Pokémon ex. Early results suggested the new format would revolve around a battle between these high impact Pokémon vs Druddigon-based stall strategies, as non-Basic ex aggro decks like Blaine and Koga failed to live up to expectations. Fortunately, the meta has progressively opened up to more aggressive decks, led by Greninja and the Fighting Toolbox, with support from versatile options like Tauros and Mew ex which allowed them to stand up to the format’s biggest threats.
After an initial wave of experimentation with lower-tier decks from Genetic Apex and the more obvious archetypes of Mythical Island, the format ultimately settled into one of the most diverse yet. Top, high, and even mid-tier decks had opportunities to crack into top 8 of big tournaments.
The decision to highlight Generation IV for the upcoming set Space-Time Smackdown comes as a surprise, but it's probably for the better. Unlike Generation II, the Diamond & Pearl Pokédex includes a bunch of good candidates for Basic Pokémon ex, particularly for less gifted types such as and . Dialga ex is already set for a bright future.
Finally, the introduction of Pokémon Tools into the game (Pachirisu ex) and mechanics inspired by the TCG, like powerful attacks with drawbacks (Leafeon), are exciting innovations and more opportunities to make the game strategically deeper... and perhaps less coin-flip dependent?