A whopping $10,000 prize pool brought tons of Pokémon Pocket hopefuls to the mobile TCG's biggest ever tournament last weekend. Ultimately, 2,829 people took part in the contest, which was run by Grails.GG and hosted by the streamer Ursiiday. That's an impressive turnout, given that very few Pocket tournaments in the game's history have cracked even 1,000 players.
What's even more interesting is that, less than a full week after I named it the best Pokémon card in Pokémon Pocket, strategies revolving around Giratina ex appear to be falling off. After months of it dominating every big tournament, and both of the game's ranked seasons, now Giratina decks have a win rate below 50%.
By itself, that fact might not be too meaningful. After all, many of the decks involving Giratina and other tech cards like Snorlax and Greninja involve a lot of decision points. They're tricky decks to pilot, and their recent success has made them the most popular strategy, so it's understandable that a lot of less skilled players would be bringing Giratina to tournaments and faring poorly.
However, this isn't a sufficient explanation because Giratina's relatively poor record in this tournament goes right the way to the top. In the Grails.gg tournament there were only two Giratina decks in the top 10. For the last few weeks we've been lucky if there are two decks that aren't Giratina.
So what performed well? Well Magnezone/Oricorio took first and fourth, but the lightning pair doesn't show up again in the standings till the mid-200s. Arceus ex and Crobat meanwhile is the opposite story, with a high win rate overall but few standout performances.
There are some true oddities: I would not expect a Beedrill ex/Beedrill deck to take 349th place, for instance, while a deck running every version of Gengar in the game made it into the top 100.
But the true success story of Pokémon Pocket's biggest tournament is Meowscarada/Decidueye ex. This deck not only took second and third place, it has an impressive 54% win rate overall, and appears 30 times in the top 100.
It's no secret as to why this deck is so good. It offers few tricks compared to other strategies, just extremely solid damage output paired with healing that is second to none.
This deck had plenty of players, but it still only made up 11% of the meta. That's likely to change now it's seen such a strong showing, so perhaps you consider warming up your Charizard for the next tournament?
What Pokémon Pocket deck has seen you climbing the ranks? I can't seem to settle on one, so come give me advice in our Discord. And don't miss our great guides to the costliest rare Pokémon cards and all Legendary Pokémon.