I'm feeling a little bit smug, because while I was completely wrong with my tentative guess that Eevee Grove might not have much impact on the Pokémon Pocket meta, I was bang on when I predicted that Sylveon ex would be its most significant card. At least, that's what the latest tournament results seem to show.
Ursiiday's Pocket Weekly tournament, the largest competition in the mobile game by far, took place at the weekend on June 28, and Sylveon ex was the star of the most successful deck by a long shot. This strategy was not only the most popular deck and highest achieving, taking four out of five spots in the top 5, it was also shockingly consistent, with a win rate of 56.8%.
But the thing about the new strategy is it's not really a Sylveon deck at all. Let's peel back the Eeveelution's cute rubber mask and reveal that… it was old mister Giratina ex the whole time! Yes, Sylveon ex is really just a card-draw tool in the arsenal of a deck that runs Giratina and Greninja - two Pokémon we've seen pair up in the past.
While it can be an attacker, you're much more likely to use Sylveon to improve your deck's consistency by drawing all the cards you could need. Who wouldn't want two more Professor Oak's in their deck? Because of Sylveon this deck can skip Frogadier altogether and still be confident that it'll find its rare candy.
After that, it's simple. The deck unleashes a barrage of briny shurikens, while building up Giratina to knock out anything still standing. Two copies of Cyrus gives the deck plenty of control, allowing it to pull in whichever Pokémon you choose to receive some pain.
A worrying aspect of these tournament results is how well Giratina and Darkrai continues to perform, now using Nihilego and poison barbs to punish opponents for trying to chip away at them as they build up. Time will tell if Eevee Grove has provided the tools to punish this seemingly unstoppable deck. Right now, though, I'm cautiously optimistic about it, but we'll see if that bears out.
How are you finding the newest Pokémon set? I'm loving trying out a ton of new decks before I settle on something to try and climb the ladder with. Let me know what you're running over at our Discord.