Spooky Season — An Overview of Palkia VSTAR / Dusknoir

Hello everyone! Following the Louisville Regional Championships, we’ve now had major events in Europe, South America, and the US, and as a result we are starting to see a solidified metagame emerge. In terms of attackers, the format as a whole isn’t all that different from the Shrouded Fable format that we saw at the World Championships, with only Terapagos ex joining the fray as a new archetype. There has, however, been a rather large shift in the meta itself, as players have started to fully unlock the power of Cursed Bomb Dusknoir. Dusknoir came out in Shrouded Fable, but wasn’t played all that much at first, outside of the occasional small inclusion in Charizard ex. If you look at the results from the World Championships and the subsequent Baltimore Regional Championships, it’s clear that decks with Dusknoir weren’t widespread and weren’t having a ton of success, with none making the Top 16 of Worlds. Fast forward one set, though, and the results are drastically different. Dusknoir decks won both the Dortmund Regional Championships and the Lima Special Event, and have fifteen of the Top 8 spots at the four major Stellar Crown events thus far. So, what’s changed?

One interesting thing about this development is that Dusknoir itself didn’t get anything from Stellar Crown to make it stronger. It isn’t like a Reaper Cloth Duskull came out, or like there was some new Trainer card to make it more effective. Instead, there were a few other factors. The first is simply that there were more strong decks that could naturally include Dusknoir. Dragapult ex decks got a resurgence thanks to new Trainer cards, specifically Crispin and Sparkling Crystal. Like Charizard ex decks, Dragapult ex decks were already playing a Rare Candy–heavy Trainer engine that Dusknoir could make use of, and Cursed Bomb combos well with the Bench damage from Phantom Dive. Dusknoir also quickly became one of the partners of choice for the new Terapagos ex, as Terapagos ex can benefit from having more Pokemon in play, meaning there’s no downside to using Bench spots on Duskull. Cursed Bomb also shored up a potential weakness in Terapagos ex in that it has semi-limited damage output, and made it capable of effectively OHKOing Stage 2 Pokemon ex.

The Terapagos ex / Dusknoir deck has quickly become one of the most popular decks in the format, which, as it turns out, also helped lead to the second factor in Dusknoir’s proliferation. That is, once a Dusknoir deck like this one became mainstream, just about every player started to realize that you don’t need some clear combo like with Charizard ex to play Dusknoir. Instead, Cursed Bomb works well in just about every attacking deck that can fit it in. As a result, nowadays, it seems like every deck plays Dusknoir. Raging Bolt ex has played Dusknoir. Roaring Moon ex has played Dusknoir. I’ve encountered Gholdengo ex playing Dusknoir. As long as you have a Pokemon that attacks, a Dusknoir line seems to be a good addition. The benefits of Cursed Bomb are impressively good, especially if you’re playing a deck that normally attacks with two-Prize Pokemon, and thus doesn’t suffer any downside by handing your opponent a Prize. If anything, that aspect of Dusknoir can be a benefit, as it makes cards like Iono stronger. We are certainly in the Dusknoir era of the Pokemon TCG, with no letup in sight.

Let’s step back just a bit, though. While Stellar Crown may have been the breeding ground for Dusknoir to get added to everything, there actually was another competitive Dusknoir deck in the Shrouded Fable format that I haven’t mentioned yet. That deck is the focus of this article: Origin Forme Palkia VSTAR.

Origin Forme Palkia VSTAR / Dusknoir burst onto the US scene following its 9th-place finish in the hands of Grafton Roll at the Baltimore Regional Championships, and despite the numerous other Dusknoir decks that have emerged, it remains one of the strongest Dusknoir-playing archetypes. At the Louisville Regional Championships, this was recognized with a rather large uptick in play — it was 7.75% of the meta and the 6th-most-popular deck, compared with less than 2% of the meta in Dortmund. Dusknoir saw increases in play across the board — Terapagos, for instance, rose from 5% to 10% — but the Palkia jump was among the largest.

The reasoning behind the combo is pretty much the same as for Terapagos ex. Palkia wants additional Pokemon in play, and Dusknoir provides extra damage to turn what might be a just-missed KO with Subspace Swell into an OHKO. What makes the Palkia / Dusknoir deck stand apart from the many other attacking Dusknoir decks, though, is Palkia’s ability to use Radiant Greninja‘s Moonlight Shuriken. Against decks that have evolving Basics, such as Charizard ex, Dragapult ex, or anything that relies on Noctowl, the Moonlight Shuriken / Cursed Bomb combo can be devastating. Even if the opponent plays around Moonlight Shuriken by getting Manaphy into play, it doesn’t matter, as you can simply blow it up with Cursed Bomb, then target your opponent’s Basics like you originally planned to.

This play also works well against other Dusknoir decks, as you can KO their Duskull before they can evolve, giving you a distinct advantage in the Dusknoir race. Palkia VSTAR is out of the natural OHKO range of some of the other Dusknoir partners, most notably Terapagos ex, so by stopping the opponent’s early Cursed Bomb plays, you may be able to quickly turn a slight advantage into an insurmountable one. Against decks that aren’t weak to Moonlight Shuriken, Palkia VSTAR is still among the strongest attacking partners for Dusknoir, as it can exceed Terapagos ex’s damage output while also coming with a nice increase in HP. These factors make Palkia among the strongest potential Dusknoir partners, and they come together in a big way to create one of this format’s top-tier threats. In this article, I’ll be going over the Palkia VSTAR / Dusknoir deck, including my decklist, as well as a look at the deck’s matchups into the current metagame.

This concludes the public portion of this article.

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