By Tord Reklev, Contributing Writer

The biggest tournament of the year recently concluded: the North America International Championships. Innovative decks and strong players prevailed at this event, making it one for the history books. Dragapult ex was one of the most anticipated cards going into the tournament, even making it to the top spot of our Power Rankings. But how did it end up performing?

We saw multiple variants being used to great success, but none of them was quite able to make it into the Top 8 of the event. Today we will talk about the most successful deck lists featuring Dragapult ex from NAIC, how lists can be adapted going forward, and what might have stopped Dragapult ex from performing as expected so far.

Regidrago VSTAR + Dragapult ex

The highest-placing deck featuring Dragapult ex was not one many people had on their radar going into the event, belonging to Jacob Eye of the USA. This Regidrago VSTAR variant included a variety of Dragon-type attackers (most notably Dragapult ex) that could be used thanks to Regidrago VSTAR’s Apex Dragon attack. Even with so many attacking options, I think it’s important to note that Phantom Dive will always be the deck’s most used attack by far; in a way, you could call it a Dragapult ex deck in disguise.

Jacob’s NAIC deck list:

One of Dragapult ex’s shortcomings is the fact that it is a Stage 2 Pokémon, which are a little bit more challenging to set up. Regidrago VSTAR needs to evolve only once, and it can copy Phantom Dive via its Apex Dragon attack to boot. This eliminates one of the most fragile parts of Dragapult ex—the lower HP of its previous Evolutions Dreepy and Drakloak. Especially against other Dragapult ex decks, the low-HP Pokémon tend to be the main targets when attacking the Benched Pokémon with Phantom Dive.

Regidrago VSTAR has historically had a hard time accelerating Energy onto itself, but that all changed with the release of Teal Mask Ogerpon ex. Even though its Teal Dance Ability can only place Energy on Teal Mask Ogerpon ex, this list uses Energy Switch to move that Energy onto Regidrago VSTAR. With an aggressive engine and a little extra help from Legacy Star, this deck can deliver relatively consistent Phantom Dive attacks as early as the second turn of the game.

Going forward, I think we will see a lot more of this variant, as the new Kyurem from Scarlet & Violet—Shrouded Fable will provide Regidrago VSTAR yet another powerful attack to target the Bench. Phantom Dive can make it challenging to use Manaphy for Bench protection, making this a significant upgrade to an already strong deck.

Charizard ex + Dragapult ex

We also saw other variants of the card succeeding, with the second-highest placing list featuring Dragapult ex coming from yours truly.

For this event, I decided to play the popular Charizard ex + Pidgeot ex deck from EUIC, but this time including a thin Dragapult ex line to go along with it.

My NAIC deck list:

One of Charizard ex’s flaws is that it doesn’t reach its true potential for really high damage output until the very end of the game. Therefore, Charizard ex will naturally miss key Knock Outs throughout, falling just short of the damage needed. This is where Dragapult ex comes in handy: it can clean up the damaged Pokémon afterward or even set up for future Knock Outs by Charizard ex.

Because of Dragapult ex’s high attack cost and lack of an internal power source like Charizard ex’s Infernal Reign Ability, it is harder to attack with it early. Even though Dragapult ex would be the ideal attacker to start off the game, you will likely have to use Charizard ex instead as it’s easier to set up. Before any Prize cards are taken, Charizard ex’s damage output is only at 180 versus Dragapult ex’s 260 damage (if you include the damage to the Benched Pokémon). That being said, Phantom Dive will still usually do more damage in total—even after the first Charizard ex is Knocked Out.

So instead of following the normal plan of attacking with three Charizard ex, you can take a layered approach: attack with Charizard ex, then Dragapult ex, and finally a Charizard ex again. The overall damage output increases, and it gives the deck the option to take multiple Knock Outs at once.

Another perk of the Dragapult ex inclusion is the slight consistency boost the deck gains with Drakloak’s Recon Directive. With it, one of Charizard ex’s most troublesome matchups—control decks—also becomes significantly easier to deal with thanks to Dragapult ex’s higher damage output.

Dragapult ex + Pidgeot ex

Next up we have Chaz Finchum’s Dragapult ex list, which I think is much closer to what most people anticipated the Dragapult ex lists to look like.

Chaz’s deck list:

The choice of consistency engine is the same as in the Charizard ex deck, using Pidgeot ex and Bibarel to both draw and search out cards as needed. The difference here is that this list lacks Charizard ex entirely, focusing on a thicker Dragapult ex line instead. To help pull off an early-game Phantom Dive, Neo Upper Energy fills the ACE SPEC spot. With the help of Pidgeot ex’s Quick Search Ability or Forest Seal Stone, this deck can efficiently access the precious Energy necessary to use Phantom Dive quickly.

In addition, this list includes several cool Supporter cards in Roseanne’s Backup and Mela. Roseanne’s Backup is one of the few cards that lets you reuse an ACE SPEC card, and it can shuffle the Neo Upper Energy back into the deck so that it can be accessed by Quick Search afterward. Mela can help with drawing cards and can be paired with a Psychic Energy card to fully power a Phantom Dive attack from scratch.

Because of the more dedicated Dragapult ex approach, I also find the Technical Machine: Devolution inclusion really strong. It is something we used to only see as a tech against the Charizard ex decks, but thanks to Phantom Dive’s Bench damage, this deck can reliably set up multiple Pokémon to be Knocked Out at once by devolving them. This can give a significant edge against deck based on Stage 2 Pokémon.

Longtime high-level player Michael Pramawat played a version that can be described as a hybrid between the more dedicated Dragapult ex list and the Charizard ex list featuring Dragapult ex. This list moves the focus by including two or three Dragapult ex and maybe just one Charizard ex instead of the other way around. This way, Charizard ex serves as an aggressive attacker and as another way of accelerating Energy cards onto Dragapult ex.

Michael’s deck list:

What’s Next for Dragapult ex?

Going forward for the Pidgeot ex / Bibarel engine, I’m very excited about the new Dusknoir line that will become available with Scarlet & Violet—Shrouded Fable. Both Dusclops and Dusknoir have the same Cursed Blast Ability, placing 5 and 13 damage counters respectively for the trade of a Prize card. With this extra damage, Dragapult ex can now be able to take multiple Knock Outs a lot more easily. Putting 13 damage counters on the opponent’s Active Charizard ex or similar high-HP Pokémon can be especially game-changing: it allows Phantom Dive to pick up a clean Knock Out. Depending on the timing, the Prize card sacrifice might actually end up working in your favor as well: Cursed Blast can activate powerful comeback cards like Iono, Roxanne, or Counter Catcher. It can even allow Charizard ex to do additional damage! Forcing the opponent into an odd number of Prize cards tends to be advantageous because doing so often doesn’t make a difference in the number of attacks needed from the opponent to win.

Control and stall variants will also despise playing against these cards as their whole strategy revolves around not taking Prize cards. I think the Dusknoir line will play an influential role in the game going forward.

What Can Stop Dragapult ex?

One of the things that I think stopped most of the Dragapult ex variants from performing as well as expected was the rise of the more refined Gardevoir ex deck lists. My initial impression was that Dragapult ex would be naturally strong against the Gardevoir ex decks, mainly because of the low-HP Pokémon and the self-damage that is needed from the Psychic Embrace Ability.

However, the damage that is spread to the Bench from Phantom Dive can be almost or completely negated thanks to Munkidori’s Adrena-Brain Ability. A lot of players picked up on how strong this Ability was, and a decent number of lists ran two Munkidori and multiple Darkness Energy cards. This is a huge problem for Dragapult ex: the Bench spread is now actively working against itself instead.

Even when using Boss’s Orders or Counter Catcher, it’s difficult to pick up more than two Prize cards at a time with Phantom Dive. Drifloon with a Bravery Charm can take a relatively easy Knock Out on Dragapult ex when combined with the Adrena-Brain Ability, making it difficult for Dragapult ex to keep up.

Charizard ex, on the other hand, can take advantage of Gardevoir ex’s Weakness. In fact, it can even be paired with a Lost Vacuum on the Drifloon to score a three-Prize turn, which usually is too much for the Gardevoir ex deck to deal with.

Raging Bolt ex combined with the new Teal Mask Ogerpon ex also became a very popular deck in the weeks leading up to NAIC, creating a major threat to the Dragapult ex decks. Against Raging Bolt ex’s high HP and unlimited attack power, Dragapult ex variants were not doing well and needed to be adapted. Because of this, the new default for the Dragapult ex decks began including Radiant Charizard as a way to trade favorably into the matchup.

Even if this served as a sufficient strategy against the Raging Bolt ex decks, it meant that the Dragapult ex decks no longer could include Radiant Alakazam, which is strong against the Gardevoir ex decks. Seeing as the top tables were dominated by Gardevoir ex decks, with six of them making their way into the Top 8, this lack surely influenced the final outcome of the tournament.

I still think Phantom Dive is one of the strongest attacks in the game, and I think that will hold true for some time to come. No other card was as respected heading into NAIC as Dragapult ex was. I think it’s a good thing when a card can be strong while also having a lot of counterplay potential, as this tournament showed to be true for Dragapult ex.

Moving forward, I’m excited to see how the format will continue to adapt and evolve, especially as we are heading into the World Championship later in August. Will Dragapult ex redeem itself on the biggest stage thanks to some new friends, and will players continue to respect the Stealth Pokémon?

For more Pokémon TCG competitive analysis, visit Pokemon.com/Strategy.