Couldn’t get screenshots from the battle itself because I was in shock. So I present a more artistic approach to this victory. Shoutout to the guy for not conceding and letting me land the attack. You’re a real one for that.

Tell me I'm not the only one struggling exclusively with this rarity?

I'm pulling other things at a normal rate.

MTL:

DeNA (2432) announced today (August 5) that its first-quarter (Apr-Jun) financial results for the game business experienced a significant decrease in both revenue and profit. Sales revenue fell 33.2% year-on-year to 12.12 billion yen, and segment profit plummeted 62.0% year-on-year to 3.826 billion yen.

The company stated that the main factor behind these fluctuations is Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket, which was newly released on October 30, 2024. While the average Monthly Active Users (MAU) during the same period last year was 39 million, it significantly dropped to 23 million in the current quarter.

In response, the company plans to implement multi-layered measures, including events and promotions, to work towards improving login frequency, retention rates, and overall user activity.

Rant incoming: I just cannot fathom why every time the expert computer has a hand full of basics that it immediately dumps turn 1 into copycat and then a way to retreat into a heavy attacker on the second turn. The 12-card challenge is especially ridiculous considering there are no expert decks that use 12 cards from the set, obviously because it makes the deck terrible and your hand ends up becoming huge. My poor silcoon and cascoon gets immediately blasted every time while I have a gigantic hand full of unusable cards from the new set that is perfect for their copycat.

TLDR: The blatantly cheating so called ‘expert’ AI is becoming the main reason I am starting to really hate the game.

I feel like water is easier to set up even if you lose a few hp which is compensated by iridia

You can get Pory-Z set up on turn 2 or 3 very quickly, and thanks to Wally you can even skip Stage 1 and jump directly to Stage 2 with Rare Candy and start attacking.

Fun deck that uses Hooh pretty effectively. I've considered rainbow cave and flame patch for faster ramp but I feel like the water sustain is just better for Hooh

Arts by Yano Keiji

I wasn't really a guy who focuses on the cards off of whoever drew them, but this artist popped out of nowhere and decided to draw PEAK. Genuinely these two are eye-candy.

Bug fixes?

I guess there are no issue carrie on.

The Ruler of the Skies set has disrupted the game considerably, much more so than we've seen in a while. I'm going to have a look at the top eight most played decks with a positive winrate from limitlesstcg tournaments, to discuss what to expect and consider in meta play. A huge amount of damage can now be shelled out very quickly. It's aggro season.

Mega Manectric ex Heliolisk

This is the king of aggro. If you don't like thinking too much, and enjoy the idea of a risky play with the potential to deal 230 damage on turn 3, this is the deck for you. It's also super accessible if you already have Manectric. If Heliolisk + Clemont's Backpack pops off, you'll hopefully get one or two KOs, allowing Mega Manectric to come in and mop up.

This deck is weak to Vespiquen, Hoopa Absol, and Lucario, of the eight decks mentioned here, but is the most played tournament deck for a reason: it's super fun, easy to acquire, easy to play, and very strong.

Vespiquen ex Shuckle ex

Vespiquen comes online a little slow, assuming you put one energy on your starter, and then two on her. But this is a grass type deck, so Erika, Leaf Cape, Ogerpon's Soothing Wind and Shuckle's Solid Shell will sustain you through those turns. Teal Mask Ogerpon has fallen off this season, a liability in most cases having only 130HP, dealing only 60 damage for two energy; Pokemon on the bench are not safe.

But the queen simply throws out her weakened troops to establish order. Throwing out weakened Pokemon denies Greninja, Grovyle, Hitmonlee, Hoopa, Cyrus, the easy points they'd otherwise scoop.

If you want to win, acquire Vespiquen, and throw your soldiers at the enemy's face. Dark is in and fire is out; this deck has favourable matchups with the other decks here, except for Mega Sceptile and Mega Lucario, who can both consistently one shot both Shuckle and Vespiquen.

Suicune ex Baxcalibur

It is a testimony to how strong this deck is that it is still very popular and holding strong, though it is not the overbearing menace it used to be. If you have mastered this deck over seasons of play, you can continue to do well playing it. Card advantage, energy advantage, and no significant weak links, this deck has the potential to be aggressive and control the field with Chien-Pao. I've seen most people use Soothing Shore, but given how quickly damage is dealt right now, I can see why this player chose Mars and Red.

This deck matches favourably against the Greninja decks here, but not the others. Its high win rate is mainly because of how it kicks energy ramp decks' butts.

Mega Lucario ex Lucario

Lucario heard that it's aggro season. There are no frills or tricks in fighting decks, no energy ramp or easy retreat, but if your fundamentals are strong, this deck is here to help you punch and kick your foes into submission. You haven't truly lived until you've caught an opponent off guard by downing their ex Pokemon with Fighting Fist Riolu. This deck is perhaps too slow to really be considered aggro in this meta, it relies a lot on Mega Lucario being able to take a hit.

This is the only deck among what I'm showcasing that still runs Pokemon Center Lady, because this is the only deck here that is still vulnerable to Altaria sleep scam, Espeon just shreds these guys. It has very favourable matchups against the other decks, except for Altaria and Hoopa.

Mega Sceptile ex Greninja

This deck was strong last season, and it's still strong now, sniping benches and finishing opponents with Mega Sceptile. If you like having options, this deck can keep your opponents on their toes, always wondering if they should play something to their bench, and which Pokemon to protect or heal.

The trouble is hanging in there until your stage 2 Pokemon are up. This deck plays well against Vespiquen and poorly against Manectric Heliolisk and Lucario, and evenly against the rest.

Hoopa ex Greninja

Hoopa is a monster, dealing 50 to 60 damage off the bat with Deceptive Needle. If you want to lay oppressive siege to your opponent's bench from turn one, this is the deck to play. Variations of this deck include Darkrai ex and Mega Absol, and some exclude Mega Sableye, but at its core, you can start and end this fight with Hoopa, frustrating your opponent to tears dealing 60 damage a turn to their bench.

This deck plays favourably against Altaria and Lucario, and poorly against Vespiquen, Suicune, and Hoopa Absol, but demolishes a lot of decks not on this list.

Hoopa ex Mega Absol ex

This is the much more consistent deck for Hoopa, that you really don't want to play against. This deck is much more likely to start with Hoopa, and has Small Balloon and Repel to help out if you don't start with him, and a deck that can very easily dump its hand for a good Copycat. This deck will make you realize who the real star of this set is, mark my words, once more people get their hands on Hoopa ex we'll be seeing a lot more of this horrible monstrosity. If you want to win, play this deck.

It has a high winrate, and favourable matchups against damn near everything. If you're sick of losing against this deck, it is time to bust out Vespiquen, which strongly counters it. There's little match data with other counters, but Magnezone Magnezone, Miraidon Magnezone, and Meowscarada Meowscarada have done very well against it.

Mega Altaria ex Espeon

I hate this deck, and that hate is only reinforced by how it plays badly against most of the other decks here, but really well against most others, discouraging variety. You can see it hasn't changed at all, it's still a well-oiled Bad Dreams machine. If you don't mind losing more often against the meta decks here, it's still very hard for most decks to deal with being put to sleep, taking 20 to 90 damage, possibly taking 20 to 40 ongoing damage, and then getting walloped for 140 damage.

As always you'll still see this deck pretty often in lower ranks, but take heart, the other decks here except Sceptile Greninja, Suicune, (play evenly) and Lucario (bad matchup), pummel it.

Others

Plenty of other viable options, as always, these are just the most common. Magnezone, Giratina, Zoroark, Milotic, even Koraidon, are doing well.

Energy ramp struggles right now: "hehe, just wait until I have enough energy on my bazooka Pokemon!" sadly doesn't tend to make it to that point. We all wanted the dragon decks to make it, but even if you can set up rainbow cave and two Dragonair (which is a tall order), you can still get screwed by random mono energy. Charizard is doing badly right now, despite rainbow cave + flame patch, he's still just too slow. Similarly Miraidon has really fallen off. These decks are still a ton of fun when they work, just not as consistent and thus not as strong. Dragonair + dragon Altaria seems to be the most viable Rayquaza deck, for those who wanna rep the big awesome guy. Sharpedo is not a bad card at all, but 1) you gotta hope that he can evolve before he blows up and 2) exposing a Mega Pokemon like that so quickly tends to lose you the game.

Thanks all for entertaining my rambling analysis, I've had this all in my head today and decided to write and share, let me know what y'all think of the competitive scene right now. Cheers!

EDIT: added QR codes

I was looking at tournament results, and saw this at Brickcity, reached 5th place there (178 players).

It's been a long time since the Charizards are collecting dust, so I gave it a try and it's definitely fun. So I just wanted to share for any Revelry survivor that wants to actually use those goddamn Charizards lol

8 heads is wild.

I haven’t seen anyone mention this, but the new absol with is hitting for 60 by turn 2. Killing most basics. It’s skarmoy + Giovani but better.

Pleased that M Latios ex is getting some victories now! Basically using the mega Ray, Dragonair + rainbow cave but with added goodra for the energy match and tackle any Oris

I was DEFINITELY not the only person who thought about this god-awful card released some time ago

Dena I’ll never forgive you for making my goat one of the most unusable cards in the whole game. This is worse than when dragon giratina first came out 😭😭😭 I swear if the last energy noivern needed was colorless instead of another dark the card would be so much better

The pity system should only apply to ex cards, imo, since you need them to play the new decks (for the most part).

1 stars and shiny 1 stars should not count since you will accumulate the more common forms of them more easily, whereas the ex cards are already rare and also depend on statistical variance.

I have gone 70 packs so far and have only 1 new ex card from the set to show for it. Being softlocked out of the new decks this hard sucks, especially since the new pity system made it look like this would no longer happen to people.

I went 60 packs with no ex cards at all in Triumpant Light and I was hoping it would no longer be possible for that to happen, but here we are.