We’re Not Done Yet — Chien-Pao in the Twilight Masquerade Format

Hey PokeBeach readers! It’s crazy to think that the 2024 season has concluded and we only have Worlds left. It feels like not long ago, the season had just begun! Hopefully you were able to achieve some if not all your goals you set for yourself this season.

The North American International Championships has come and gone, answering a lot of questions about the meta. I think it is very clear that Gardevoir ex is the new best deck in format, claiming six spots in the top cut. Another takeaway was that Dragapult ex did not live up to the hype! When Twilight Masquerade released in Japan, it seemed we were headed for a format dominated by this Dragon-type Pokemon, but it failed to compete for a top cut spot in the west. Some strong players such as Tord Reklev and Michael Pramawat were rocking the card in their decks, but they both fell short. I think Dragapult still can be explored, but without a consensus list, I don’t expect the card to see large amounts of play. As expected, Lugia VSTAR and Raging Bolt ex saw lots of play, top players mostly opted to bring other decks. Going forward, I expect both archetypes to see plenty of play, but probably go down in meta share.

Heading into the tournament, I wanted to play Chien-Pao ex, but I was apprehensive since it has a weak Dragapult matchup. It’s also a bit shaky into Lugia if they set up quickly, and a decrease in Charizard ex decks meant fewer good matchups. However, Dragapult showed itself to be a low-popularity deck, and Lugia struggles mightily with consistency when going first. This, in combination with Gardevoir becoming the strongest deck in the format, is opening the door for Chien-Pao to compete! There were ten Chien-Pao decks in Day 2 of NAIC and two in the Top 32, proving the deck still has some power.

Today I want to go over why Chien-Pao is still a viable deck, and how you can best pilot it to success in our current format. I’ll focus on my current build of the deck, and discuss how to play some of the newer matchups in the format, such as Raging Bolt.

This concludes the public portion of this article.

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