Tournament Reports - Pokémon TCG Pocket week 14

The Space-Time Smackdown expansion falls in size between Genetic Apex and Mythical Island, introducing 155 exclusive cards and two booster packs. While Mythical Island primarily refined existing archetypes and laid the groundwork for toolbox decks, Space-Time Smackdown has shaken up the metagame by supporting lesser-played types and introducing new strategies. Let’s see how the meta has evolved during the highly active launch week, which featured four tournaments with over 500 players.

FrogEX Space-Time Smackdown

A day after the set's release, 500 players (the cap) competed in the FrogEX tournament for a $50 prize pool. A mix of new decks and top-performing decks from the previous expansion showed up, but the veterans struggled significantly in the top cut.

Metagame breakdown

From the conversion rate, it became clear that the established decks were heavily challenged by the new cards. Weavile ex, Palkia ex, and Darkrai ex dominated the event, with the finals featuring two variants of Weavile ex.

The winning list, piloted by Yoguru, ran two Spiritomb. Swirling Disaster deals 10 damage to all opponent’s Pokémon, ensuring that Weavile ex’s Scratching Nails hits for the maximum 70 damage.

It also turns Cyrus into Boss’s Orders, allowing players to pull any Benched Pokémon into the Active Spot for easy knockouts. As more high-quality Trainer cards (especially Tools) entered the format, players have been gradually dropping Potion out of their lists, making this strategy even stronger.

Yoguru and other Weavile ex players capitalized on this aggressive playstyle to secure the deck's first major tournament win a day after the expansion dropped. The previous top-tier decks were obliterated, with Mewtwo ex failing to place a single deck in the top cut. This was just the beginning of Darkness-type dominance...

Hooglandia & Spragels Open

To celebrate the release of the new set, two of the biggest Pokémon TCG Pocket content creators, Jeff Hoogland and Spragels, teamed up to organize a tournament. Sponsored by Advanced.gg and Into the AM, the event featured a $1,500 prize pool and was entirely streamed to over 6,000 viewers on Twitch, confirming TCG Pocket’s growing popularity. 960 players competed, and after a top cut of 54 (all x-2 players), one archetype dominated: Darkrai ex.

Metagame breakdown

Why such a dominant performance? Let's see himokyu's list, winner of the Hooglandia & Spragels Open

• Darkrai ex’s Nightmare Aura deals 20 damage to the Defending Pokémon every time a Energy is attached to it. This means a consistent 20 damage per turn from the very start of the game.
• The deck includes tanks like Druddigon or Kangaskhan that chip away at the opponent’s Active Pokémon, forcing them to find an answer before being overwhelmed by even more residual damage that converts Darkrai ex’s Dark Prism into a one-shot attack later in the game.
• Magnezone, a new technology from Space-Time Smackdown, benefits tremendously from Genetic Apex Magneton’s Volt Charge ability, which allows it to attach a Energy once per turn. Magnezone’s Thunder Blast attack requires only one Energy and two of any kind, and while it does force a Energy discard, at least two of these will be attached to it thanks to Volt Charge. It provides a strong secondary attacker, dealing 110 base damage (130 with Nightmare Aura; 150 against Flying and Water Pokémon) for just three Energy and trading for a single point.

As Magnezone is an independent, self-charging unit, it lets the deck run only Energy in the Energy Zone to maximize Nightmare Aura’s proc. This “Darkzone” variant dominated the top 8, with six of the decks running Darkrai ex Magnezone. The seventh was another Darkrai ex variant (Koga), while the eighth was the only non-Darkrai deck—a lone Aerodactyl ex Lucario deck, piloted by JeremiahTheGreat.

Aerodactyl ex has been the type ex of choice since Mythical Island, thanks to its aggressive statline. While being a Fossil makes it trickier to set up compared to regular Basic Pokémon, it also has the advantage to pull up the other Basic Pokémon more easily from the deck: the famous Fighting Toolbox that had a good amount of success ever since the previous format.

This version of the deck replaced Mankey/Primeape with the Riolu/Lucario line, which boosts all Fighting Pokémon’s damage by 20. Thanks to this, Aerodactyl ex’s Land Crush can now one-shot Druddigon, a decisive asset against Darkrai ex decks that rely on the tanky Dragon.

Hitmonchan is also preferred over Hitmonlee since it benefits from Lucario’s Fighting Coach, essentially acting as a Primeape without requiring evolution. Hitmonchan’s typing also hits Magnezone for weakness, further improving its chances against these variants.

The deck ultimately fell in the top 8, but props to JeremiahTheGreat for being the only light in a sea of Darkness!

Ursiiday’s Pocket Weekly 14

The must-attend event of the weekend did not disappoint, with 1,764 players competing for a $400 prize pool, courtesy of XPCollect’s sponsorship. Armed with insights from the week’s previous tournaments and fresh off opening Space-Time Smackdown booster packs, players brought the newest decks—but they also came prepared to counter the dark menace. While Darkrai ex still dominated the top cut, other decks fought back in the top 8.

Metagame breakdown

Besides a Lucario deck (playing another fossil, Rampardos) and Darkrai Magnezone decks, the top 8 was made of familiar faces from the past: Charizard ex and Gyarados ex. To everyone’s surprise, the final was a mirror between the latter!

In a mirror match final, Werr claimed victory over kei5342, with their decks differing only in the ratio of Misty and Leaf. Both lists ran one copy of Cyrus; a targeted Sabrina thanks to Greninja’s Water Shuriken ability.

Gyarados ex decks share similarities with Darkrai ex lists, particularly in their setup strategy:

• Both use Druddigon as an early-game tank and damage amplifier.
• Both rely on "attacking from the Bench"—Darkrai ex via Nightmare Aura, Gyarados ex through Water Shuriken.

However, Gyarados ex holds the advantage in the matchup. Its Rampaging Whirlpool attack one-shots every Pokémon played in these Darkrai ex decks, while itself being out of this reach. Despite the new wave of Darkrai dominance, it looks like the best Druddigon deck still belongs to the old guard!

Though the Fire-Water matchup proved too much to overcome, kytheon, a familiar face in top-tier competition, made an impressive run with a Charizard ex deck tuned for the current meta.

Space-Time Smackdown brought a lot of useful new tools:

• Pokémon Communication improves consistency by fetching missing pieces of the Charmander line.
• Dawn helps with "Energy acceleration", fueling either Moltres ex from turn 2 after it's used Inferno Dance for an early Heat Blast, or Charizard ex for back-to-back Crimson Storm attacks in the late game.
• Giant Cape boosts the overall survivability of these Pokémon
• One-of Shaymin serves as a recurring heal effect that alleviates chip damage from Darkrai ex, Greninja, Spiritomb... while also disrupting Cyrus plays.

Charizard ex does well against Darkrai ex as Moltres ex accelerates Energy faster than Darkrai can chip away at the Charmander line. Once ready, Charizard ex's high HP are a nightmare for the Dark deck to overcome.

After Darkrai ex’s overwhelming dominance at the Hooglandia tournament, Ursiiday's Pocket Weekly suggests a potentially more balanced meta. With Gyarados ex and Charizard ex proving competitive, can long-time archetypes still find a place at the top?

Another major tournament on Sunday was set to test these new developments—and perhaps, challenge Darkrai’s reign.

BEC Exeggutive Series! 4/8

The fourth edition of the Blazing Exeggutor Crew tournament brought together 589 players, marking the halfway point toward the highly anticipated Exeggutive tournament next month.

Metagame breakdown

The very large top cut included 72 players, half of them piloting Darkrai ex—an unprecedented conversion rate. However, the single-elimination format led to a more diverse top 8, though Pocolius still took the win with a Darkrai ex Greninja variant.

Running only Energy, the combination of Druddigon’s passive ability and Greninja and Darkrai ex’s abilities allows the deck to constantly deal chunks of 20 damage before even attacking. From there, Cyrus makes it easy to drag a weakened Pokémon from the Bench for a finishing blow.

The top cut’s large size gave more opportunities for a bigger variety of decks to perform, including the top 4 Exeggutor ex list from 7earless, which features a bold and unconventional approach in deckbuilding.

Running only two different Basic Pokémon, the deck maximizes Pokémon Communication, making it almost guaranteed to evolve Exeggcute into Exeggutor ex on curve. While relying on a single Exeggutor ex may seem risky, Potion, Erika, and Giant Cape makes sure that the palmtree stays in play long enough to trade KOs and charge up Celebi ex with Energy. After two formats with no real upsides, Darkrai ex’s Weakness finally gives the typing an advantage in the metagame.

This was also the first major breakthrough for the Volkner deck, with Jirosiete finishing in the top 8 using a streamlined yet effective build.

While tricky to execute due to multiple evolution lines, the deck’s strengths lie in Electabuzz and Luxray, which snipe Benched Pokémon: a very appropriate counter to these successful Druddigon-heavy decks. Rocky Helmet also helps hit key damage thresholds against Darkrai ex, Palkia ex, and Magnezone.

High in the echelon of the tournament as well, BruGno proved that Magnezone wasn't just Darkrai ex’s best partner, but as a powerful support piece in many archetypes.

Topping with a Mewtwo ex deck in a Dark-saturated field is certainly no small feat. With the help of Magnezone and Druddigon to charge up and even present aggro without taking away from Mewtwo ex's energy needs, the psychic star of the previous formats becomes a game-winning finisher. The deck runs only Energy and Dawn to potentially make Mewtwo ex attack a turn earlier, or back-to-back with Psydrive.

Where Is the Space-Time Smackdown Metagame at?

Not even a week in, and the meta has already shifted drastically. The old guard was nearly wiped out, while newcomers—especially Darkrai ex—quickly took over.

Darkrai ex’s ability to add 20 damage every turn, combined with aggressive attackers like Weavile ex or a tanky Druddigon, turned out to be an meta-defining feature. Meanwhile, Magnezone stands out as the first “self-sufficient” attacker, dealing over 100 damage with solid bulk.

Yet, despite Darkrai’s dominance early on, new counter-strategies have emerged:

• Hyper-aggression (Lucario)
• One-shot against Druddigon and Darkrai ex (Gyarados ex, Charizard ex, etc.)
• Tanky decks that exploit weaknesses (Exeggutor ex)

As we're starting the 2nd week of Space-Time Smackdown, even more adaptations surfaced. Hitmonlee is making a comeback, paired with Cyrus to pull any Pokémon hidden behind a tank into the Active Spot for a finishing touch before it has the chance to grow bigger. Meanwhile, Magnezone is being tried everywhere as players are looking for the best shell to exploit it.

Although this format will be short-lived—with A2a set to release on February 28—the diversity of viable strategies has never been wider.