Tournament Reports - Pokémon TCG Pocket Week 33

The American National International Championship kept some tournament organizers like Ursiiday busy, and an accessibility issue for TCG Pocket on Thursday didn’t help the tournament scene either. Still, several smaller events managed to take place. Let's take a look at the key trends.

Imperium's Weekly Tournament #20

Prize pool: $20

The earliest event of the week, Imperium's Weekly, happened on Tuesday and drew 222 players. It confirmed the strength of Buzzwole ex and Silvally in the meta, while Rampardos continues to drop from the top 5 most played decks. Guzzlord ex is rising in popularity, following strong performances late last week.

Buzzwole ex capitalized on its 30% top cut share by taking the win, piloted by EmberTCG.

This list is nearly identical to last week’s Pokehub Cup winner, with one notable swap: Beastite was replaced by the more reliable Rocky Helmet. It's a strong pick for Buzzwole ex, helping it reach the crucial 140 damage with Big Beat: a big edge against opposing Buzzwole ex and bulky threats like Guzzlord ex, Solgaleo ex, or Charizard ex.

The 2 Kartana / 1 Pheromosa split continues to outperform the traditional 2 Pheromosa build. This setup leans into brute force over Cyrus-based plays, offering better results against high-HP Pokémon ex and cards like Oricorio .

It was also a strong showing for Silvally: 3 Silvally decks reached top 8. Two of them were Silvally Lightning variants running the exact same 20 cards. Here's the decklist that brought Feyyzo, to the top 4:

Silvally has long been paired with efficient 1-prize attackers. Zeraora can hit for 50 as early as turn 3, with 90 HP to boot. Its ability can also fuel your board. Oricorio isn’t as strong stat-wise, but its ability can stall long enough to build your setup; sometimes even ending games outright.

This list runs a high count of 10 Supporters, designed to consistently enable Silvally's Brave Buddies to hit for full damage. Giovanni is especially relevant again: it lets Silvally KO opposing Silvally, and helps other attackers reach 60 HP targets like Morelull or Kartana. The rest is expected: Cyrus and Sabrina for gust effects, Mars for hand control. Giant Cape and Pokémon Center Lady boost survivability: Silvally can tank Buzzwole ex’s Big Beat, while Zeraora survives Brave Buddies.

This variant benefits from Rampardos dropping off, as that deck was a hard counter. Still, both players lost in top 8 to Buzzwole ex, so some refinements may be needed to break through.

Another Silvally variant also reached top 8: mikhavv’s Silvally Blacephalon.

Blacephalon is a "kamikaze" attacker, hitting for a massive 130 damage at the cost of 3 Energy and 70 recoil on its 100 HP. To manage that Energy cost, Lusamine retrieves from the discard. The ideal setup is to start with Silvally, then transition to Blacephalon after it goes down, filling up the condition to activate Lusamine before immediately attacking. Leaf (played as a 2-of) helps smooth this plan, allowing bad Blacephalon openers to pivot into a better Type: Null (or Silvally). The deck also runs Rocky Helmet for extra chip damage. That works well with Blacephalon’s Beat Punk to hit important damage thresholds: Buzzwole ex with Leaf Cape, Darkrai ex, Giratina ex...

This was the only undefeated deck after Swiss, and Buzzwole ex’s recent success may tempt more players to try this risky but explosive build.

Magma $100 Cup

Prize pool: $100

New organizer Magma held their first tournament this week, with a $100 prize pool, a prelude for a much larger tournament series. The metagame was well-balanced, with a variety of decks represented and a diverse top cut.

After some solid showings last week, Guzzlord ex finally secured a win in the biggest tournament of the week, thanks to cura222222’s run.

This list runs two copies of each baseline Ultra Beast in the Guzzlord ex Nihilego variant. It leans into the bulk of both Guzzlord ex and Celesteela, with Pokémon Center Lady to extend their survivability, while it charges up the bigger one with Energy. The classic Poison Barb + Nihilego’s More Poison punishes low-HP attackers that would try to chip at Guzzlord ex. Beastite makes a return after strong showings last week, boosting damage once you've scored at least one point.

Despite its type disadvantage, this deck held up impressively well against Buzzwole ex: cura222222 defeated 5 out of the 6 Buzzwole decks faced. These results could push more players to explore this archetype in the coming weeks.

A nice innovation in this tournament came from a Magnezone Shiinotic deck. It wasn’t widely played but reached top 4 thanks to k2nd’s run.

Shiinotic had previously made a name for itself when paired with Solgaleo ex, as the Legendary's raw power justified the inclusion of the Morellul line for the consistency boost to get it online as soon as possible. Solgaleo ex’s switching ability also helped mitigate the drawback of starting with Morellul in the Active Spot. This new variant drops the aggressive Solgaleo ex angle in favor of Magnezone, which evolves more slowly through Magneton rather than Rare Candy. But in return, the deck runs a full 1-point lineup, better suited to counter decks that rely heavily on a single Pokémon ex.

Shiinotic reliably assembles the full Magnezone evolution line. Magneton's self-sufficient Energy engine makes it easy to actually attack with other Pokémon to soften up threats first, and seamlessly switch to Magnezone to finish them off. The combined output of Shiinotic’s Gentle Slap and Magnezone’s Thunder Blast reaches 150 damage: enough to knock out most Pokémon ex.

The cherry on top is the one-of Oricorio , easily searchable through Shiinotic. It acts like a trump card, completely shutting down certain matchups like Solgaleo ex and Charizard ex, and being made difficult to remove thanks to Giant Cape and Pokémon Center Lady.

In this run, k2nd defeated all four Charizard ex, all three Guzzlord ex, and all three Buzzwole ex decks faced, falling only in the semifinals to Darkrai ex Giratina. This creative build could be a serious sleeper pick for the second half of the Extradimensional Crisis metagame.

FrogEX Weekly Cup #23

Prize pool: $50 thanks to Pokémon Zone

This edition of the FrogEX Weekly Cup stood out for two reasons. First, it marked the debut of Pokémon Zone as the tournament’s sponsor! The sponsorship will continue through the end of the season in late July. We’re excited to support one of the biggest TCG Pocket tournament series and can’t wait to see you perform in it!

Second, the event was moved to the weekend due to a global Google Cloud Platform outage that made playing impossible on Thursday, the tournament’s usual slot. This scheduling shift made it the last major event of the week instead of the first. Surprisingly, it also ended up being the most diverse tournament, even though late-week events typically reflect a more settled metagame. A good marker of the format's overall health.

The top cut leaned more heavily on two archetypes: Buzzwole ex and Darkrai ex. And once again, the Ultra Beast deck took the crown, this time piloted by Hamza007.

A few choices in this list stand out. First, Hamza007 opted for 2 Pheromosa / 1 Kartana alongside 2 Cyrus, prioritizing Cyrus plays over raw damage. This proved effective in his run: he faced five mirror matches and four Darkrai ex decks, where Pheromosa outshines Kartana.

He also included two hand disruption cards, Mars and Red Card, similar to the top-performing builds from Week 1. This was still a solid call despite the low presence of Evolution decks in their run. Another unusual tech was a second Erika instead of a second Tool. Possibly an anticipation of more Pheromosa-heavy lists? Regardless, his run was flawless: Hamza007 went undefeated throughout the tournament.

Darkrai ex also performed well overall, though without any surprise innovations. The second-place list from Rokentin was a standard Darkrai ex Giratina Nihilego build.

Just like Hamza007, Rokentin ran two hand disruption Trainers. But despite reaching second place, his list struggled against the format’s dominant deck: he only won 1 out of 4 matches against Buzzwole ex. The type disadvantage here is hard to overcome, seemingly harder than for Guzzlord ex, as unlike the Ultra Beast, Darkrai ex can be taken down in a single Big Beat.

Where Is the Extradimensional Crisis metagame at?

Extradimensional Crisis remains a highly diverse format, with an average of six distinct archetypes regularly represented in the top cut of major tournaments. While Buzzwole ex stands slightly above the rest, it's not an oppressive force. Creative decks continue to find success, thanks to powerful staples like Silvally and Oricorio.

The next set, A3b, releases in a week and a half, and a major meta shift is unlikely before then. Still, it’s worth noting that Rampardos and, to a lesser extent, Solgaleo ex have started to fall out of favor. Stage 2 decks are more vulnerable to hand disruption, and the format is trending toward more streamlined builds. At equal power levels, decks with fewer evolutions are performing better.

This is best exemplified by Silvally. As a Stage 1, it can deal 100 damage for just 2 Energy, enough to knock out most Basic or Stage 1 Pokémon before they can evolve into Stage 2 threats. Rampardos, despite its incredible damage rate, suffers from the burden of evolving from a Fossil that isn’t searchable with Poké Ball, which hurts its consistency and tournament performance in the long run, especially against popular hand disruption cards.