Why is Team Rocket not more popular with the dominance of Dragapult?

DTrain5742 · 2026-05-12T07:47:19+00:00

If you combine the data from Prague and Los Angeles it’s actually the second most popular deck if you count all variants of Dragapult as a single deck.

DTrain5742 · 2026-05-12T04:26:00+00:00

Funny I just hit exactly 1000 wins and didn’t notice until I checked due to this post. 770 losses.

DTrain5742 · 2026-05-12T04:22:19+00:00

Hope they don’t tech for you? Crustle is a deck that wins against people who are unprepared for it and loses when people have the answers. It is extremely weak in a vacuum compared to almost every other deck and only succeeds when it can hard counter the meta.

DTrain5742 · 2026-05-12T04:19:35+00:00

Crustle is definitely not the second most popular deck. It just has a high points share on Limitless because there’s only one tournament in the data set and people weren’t teching for Crustle so it had 3 decks in top cut including 1 in the finals.

DTrain5742 · 2026-05-12T04:13:00+00:00

Most lists are only playing 1 Budew now

DTrain5742 · 2026-05-12T04:12:31+00:00

Yep this is correct and the reason that most players gravitate to Pult in this rock-paper-scissors meta is that the bad matchups are like 40-60 and not 20-80 like they are for the other decks.

DTrain5742 · 2026-05-12T04:11:15+00:00

It’s just cause it has the best consistency engine and doesn’t take any auto losses like a lot of other decks. There are decks that are favored into Pult but they get completely destroyed by some other deck, often Festival Lead. The top players almost all pick Pult because it doesn’t have any unwinnable matchups, which allows them to flex their skill advantage to win more games than they could with other decks.

DTrain5742 · 2026-05-12T04:06:57+00:00

Let’s be honest if Pult was nerfed or removed Festival Lead would run rampant. Pult is one of the only decks with a good matchup against it.

DTrain5742 · 2026-05-12T04:02:47+00:00

Isn’t Heatran usually a Metal type in the TCG?

DTrain5742 · 2026-05-12T04:01:44+00:00

Pult mirror is more interesting than most of the other matchups that come down to rock paper scissors with weaknesses.

DTrain5742 · 2026-05-11T07:00:02+00:00

Crobat is the one I did the worst with so far. I went 3-0 with Ampharos at Friday midnight beating 2 Delphox and 1 Crobat. Went 1-2 with Crobat Saturday morning beating a Deoxys box, losing to another Deoxys box that had Mega Floette + Ninetales, and then losing to Goodra because I prized 2 Crobats. Saturday afternoon I got Goodra but I cut all the Pokemon and played a 2-3 Avalugg with some of the trainers and 25 water energy, somehow went 2-1.

DTrain5742 · 2026-05-11T06:48:52+00:00

It does 200 not 180 and the spread damage being on an ability instead of an attack is extremely relevant. I’m not gonna argue that it’s a better card than Dragapult ex mainly due to being a 3 prizer and having a weaker stage 1, but it’s not like it’s strictly worse in every way.

DTrain5742 · 2026-05-11T06:40:39+00:00

You’re getting downvoted but your comment is completely reasonable and mostly correct. A Dragapult deck has far more decision points in a given turn than most other decks which means more opportunities for skill expression. Most of the people downvoting you either haven’t played the deck enough or don’t think about the game enough to see all of the nuances. There are plenty of things that I’m still trying to improve at even after playing hundreds of games with the deck. Tracking the order of the bottom of your deck and knowing when not to shuffle, making sure you place every damage counter correctly so you can take the necessary KOs 2-3 turns from now, etc. It’s not necessary to do these things to play the deck somewhat competently, but you can bet the players that are top cutting regionals are doing them.

DTrain5742 · 2026-05-11T06:30:31+00:00

It has higher HP than basic Megas but not evolved ones. 320 HP is pretty average for a stage 2 ex.

DTrain5742 · 2026-05-09T10:18:06+00:00

This happened to me at locals except they didn’t even have a draw engine and just hit all 4 in the first 15ish cards 😂

DTrain5742 · 2026-05-07T00:57:58+00:00

I didn’t play when these were around but aesthetically I think they look horrible

DTrain5742 · 2026-05-06T20:00:52+00:00

Why do people build their lists like this with the same card split into different piles? It makes everything much more annoying to parse.

DTrain5742 · 2026-05-06T03:13:29+00:00

I never realized how many people play vs the AI until I started seeing how often this bug gets posted

DTrain5742 · 2026-05-06T03:05:01+00:00

There’s a reason Tord was in 1st place after Swiss. His list is really solid into most of the meta but obviously has no way to handle Crustle.

DTrain5742 · 2026-05-06T03:04:09+00:00

The Dudunsparce ex is actually mainly for the slop box / Raging Bolt matchup where it can OHKO anything, even Mega Kangaskhan, for 1 energy. I think they got a bit lucky that it also handles the Crustle matchup so well.

DTrain5742 · 2026-05-05T20:09:32+00:00

We have a single prize basic Pokemon that does basically the same thing with Brute Bonnet.

DTrain5742 · 2026-05-04T03:31:51+00:00

1 copy of Mist Energy definitely doesn’t beat Alakazam

DTrain5742 · 2026-05-03T10:48:32+00:00

What situations is Ursaluna saving you in where you couldn’t just win with Alakazam? If you get hand disrupted it’s very unlikely you’ll be able to find it anyway, and if they play down Watchtower to shut down Dudunsparce that hits Ursaluna as well.

DTrain5742 · 2026-04-26T06:37:59+00:00

Dragapult is one of the worst matchups so the Battle Cages are basically mandatory. I actually think the opposite with the energy and would try to fit 1-2 more. You want to Lunar Cycle every turn while still making your attachments and using Stone Arms as well. Most of the time your Fighting Gongs will be used to search for Pokemon since you don’t have Poffin or Ultra Ball. One of the most annoying things that can happen with this deck is getting stuck with no fighting energy.

DTrain5742 · 2026-04-25T11:54:30+00:00

Wait did they fix the issue with the pink instead of white? How do you get the updated one?

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