Twilight Masquerade — Set Overview

PMJ

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It saddens me to say that the extra short Temporal Forces format is now over. In my opinion, this was one of the few fun and deeply interesting formats in recent memory. The Twilight Masquerade format is in full swing, and the North America International Championships is just around the corner. It feels like this season has just started, yet we’re almost done! The new set is quite good, without a doubt. If you didn’t like the Temporal Forces format, Twilight Masquerade is sure to shake things up. As far as Japan’s results, we have one Champions League and several City Leagues’ worth of data to look at, and one thing is apparent above all else: Dragapult ex is a menace. I’ll start by discussing this card, as it is very meta-warping and the rest of the set overview will revolve around it.
Dragapult ex...

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What an incredibly biased review of a great pokemon set, especially the attitude toward Carmine. Because I am playing against Teal Mask Ogerpon sets online making 4x use of Carmine so they can get their 4 Ogerpon out with Sinischa one prizer in their massive grass energy decks.
 
What about teal mask + raging bolt ? Literally all anyone is running right now. Turn 2 knockout of any mon is so dumb.
 
Compared to Charizard ex in the Temporal Forces format, I feel like Dragapult is a little bit more fair. Still overpowered, but what made Charizard broken was its self-sufficiency. I also agree that Raging Bolt is currently more of a problem.
 
Dragapult ex is clearly less toxic than Charizard ex and it’s relieving to finally have decks that can counter it, including roaring bolt with ogerpon ex — I’m surprised it made no more than one sentence here. Sadly, the whole article feels more like a biased rant towards a set you personally dislike than anything else.
 
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First of all, I think that Dragapult is indeed a very strong archetype. Being such a beefy Pokemon without weakness and its ability to punish the bench without a simple way to prevent it (Rabsca being stage 1) is pretty bonkers. And the built-in draw engine from Drakloak makes it even better. The results don't lie in Japan either as Dragapult has a huge meta share.

That being said, I do think that calling it toxic and saying the meta before Dragapult in the west was so rich is unfair. It's not uncommon to see a 25% share of Charizard in any tournament either.

Also, saying that once a Dragapult player has set up multiple Dragapults it doesn't matter how skilled they are just seems to me to point to a personal frustration against the deck. It feels just like pointing at a deck which accomplished its gameplan and then saying it's overpowered.

Finally, I think that the meta is still developing as you can see a major threat coming up with Raging Bolt and Ogerpon. And as we may see that deck become more common the meta may shift again, which signals to me that there are a bunch of options and a pretty healthy format to play and theorycraft in. Or at least, not one that's necessarily worse than it was before Twilight Masquerade.
 
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