Tournament Reports - Pokémon TCG Pocket Week 40

Wisdom of Sea and Sky (A4) comes with a lot of fan-favorite Pokémon from Generation 2 and new concepts like Baby Pokémon and their attack with no cost. Will they be also relevant in the competition? Let's break down the biggest tournaments of last week and see if the new expansion has changed the metagame and how.

Magma $51 Weekly Cup

Prize pool: $51

Right away, the new Crobat ex deck made a strong impression as both the most played and the most represented list in top cut. The field remained diverse though, with a mix of established archetypes and newer builds.

Although Crobat ex was successful in top 8, it was another deck that claimed the title: DaniMartinez97's Darktina.

In the first major event of the season, Darktina proved that its legendary staying power isn’t going away with the new set. The deck gained a strong addition in Wisdom of Sea and Sky: Silver, which reveals the opponent’s hand and shuffles one of their strongest cards back into their deck. While generally always good, it's most effective on turn one, where hands are generally at their fullest and a well-placed shuffle (like on Professor's Research) can be devastating. Playing Giratina ex helps offset the usual disadvantage of going first, and Silver reinforces this edge, acting as a third hand disruption card.

Crobat ex also had a solid run. Hasalf placed highest with a teched-out variant:

Besides the Crobat line supported by Rare Candy, Hasalf added Eevee and Sylveon ex for better consistency through Find a Friend and Happy Ribbon, Darkrai ex for damage follow-up since Crobat ex is light on Energy, and Nihilego to enhance poison damage and answer Pom Pom Oricorio in a single turn when combined with Darkrai ex (Crobat ex can still poison it, but it's a longer clock).

The deck also included Dark Pendant, another disruptive tool from the new set. It forces the opponent to shuffle a card back into their deck when they damage a Pokémon, making every attack a costly trade. Combined with Crobat ex's natural bulk, Lillie's healing, and few viable OHKO threats in the current meta, this creates a durable and frustrating game plan.

Another new archeteype made it to the top 4: Donphan ex, piloted by nuggets.

Donphan ex is a Garchomp ex lookalike, with a 50-damage starter attack and a 110-damage main move... except it's the same attack! It evolves only once, making it more consistent than the bigger dragon. This list pairs it with Lucario, a classic partner, to add +20 damage across the board. Even without Lucario, Donphan already threatens key KOs on popular cards like Eevee, Pom Pom Oricorio, and Zubat. With support, Gigantic Press can hit 70 by turn 3, enough to knock out most Basics or even Stage 1 threats like Type: Null and Eevee ex.

Tyrogue from Wisdom of Sea and Sky adds a fast, turn-one threat that also benefits from Fighting Coach. Giovanni, played as a 2-of, rounds out the damage to further secure the one-shot on curve: among other cases, Tyrogue can one-shot another Baby or even Zubat, Phanpy can one-shot Eevee, Donphan ex can one-shot Charmander and later on, with Lucario's Fighting Coach, reach the critical 140 damage threshold to one-shot most Basic and Stage 1 Pokémon ex. The deck also uses a single Hiker, taking advantage of all the Pokémon in play to improve the next draw phases. It's hard to see if this card will stand the test of time with all the hand disruption effects shuffling the deck after their use.

FrogEX Weekly cup Season 3 1/12

Prize pool: $50

A new season begins for this iconic series, and decks were everywhere following early showings by Crobat ex and Darktina. But the top cut told a different story: Buzzwole ex and Sylveon ex rose above.

At the top of the bracket, a deck secured the win! Sylar33 brought Espeon ex to its first big finish.

The Psychic Eeveelution Toolbox had moderate success in the previous format with Sylveon and regular Espeon. Espeon ex finally gave it a win condition strong enough to take a tournament. While healing isn't often enough in the face of devastating combos like Greninja + Cyrus or Nightmare Aura + Chaotic Impact, it's strong into decks that deal smaller chunks of damage. Super Psy Bolt also outclasses Fairy Wind from Sylveon ex, though the regular Sylveon is still relevant for Evoharmony as a finisher. Sylar33 went all-in on hand disruption, playing two copies of Silver and a Mars.

Another top 4 finish for the archetype came from Thunderlulz:

Espeon ex was cut to a single copy to fit in the regular Espeon, which shines in Energy-heavy matchups like Charizard ex and Darktina, where it can easily land 150 damage. Thunderlulz also teched in another Eevee Bag and even Pokémon Center Lady to increase survivability.

Ursiiday's Pocket Weekly #37

Prize pool: $400 thanks to XPCollect

In the largest event of the week, the meta looked barely unchanged compared to last week! Darkrai ex, Silvally, and Buzzwole ex dominated both attendance and top cut, accounting for two-thirds of the top 64. Among new decks, only Espeon ex held its own.

Once again, Darktina won the whole thing: this time piloted by Luuffy.

Luuffy did so with the exact same 20-card core that won the Magma Cup, proving it wasn’t just a lucky run. He defeated Sekkarou's Espeon ex build in the finals:

Compared with the top lists in the FrogEX tournament, Sekkarou chose to include all the Eeveelutions and max out the ex line. This helps evolve any Eevee as soon as possible more reliably for better early pressure.

Silvally Lightning also did great, with 2 decks in top 4. Its combo of the best Stage 1 attacker of the game and Pom Pom Oricorio is still a tough matchup for many ex decks. But a new twist came courtesy of DariusPopek's top 4 list:

Silver is an obvious auto-include in Silvally decks, which needs frequent Supporters to hit 100 damage consistently with Brave Buddies. The most original part of this list is a pair of one-of Baby Pokémon: Pichu and Magby. They help ramp up early and support Silvally hitting for 100 as early as turn 3, a very hard situation to overturn. Despite only having 30HP, losing one isn't a big issue in this all one-point deck: the first copy is pretty much only shown as an opener, and the second copy is left unplayed to avoid easy knockouts. This more aggressive take-on Silvally has done just as good as the classic version this tournament, and we'll see throughout the format which one is the most successful.

Where Is the Wisdom of Sea and Sky metagame at?

The old recipes are still the most successful. Darktina won the two biggest tournaments of the week with the exact same list. It didn't ignore the new set either: the one-of Silver adds more hand disruption to an already punishing deck. Behind it, other classics are holding strong. Silvally Lightning still punishes ex-heavy decks, Buzzwole ex keeps its edge against Darkrai ex, and both benefit from solid consistency.

Sylveon Greninja Giratina was mostly absent this week. Psychic Eevee Toolbox with Espeon ex is doing a better job of capitalizing on the "Professor’s Research on legs" engine, and being a more reliable deck overall.

Crobat ex is ironically struggling against most of these decks, despite strong objective qualities as in being a pretty much better Charizard ex and relative strengths (rare weakness, relevant type advantage). It however suffers from the same weaknesses as the big lizard, and it's likely it remains as a middle-high tiers until better partners are found, if ever.

Baby Pokémon and Elemental Switch have opened up a lot of rooms for deckbuilding, and it's likely that we'll see more players venturing in these avenues. We'll have to see if it's enough to fight against the established players of this new format.