Chaos Rising and it's impact in Week 1 in Turin + Japan Championships with Pitch Black cards

🖉 Kashvinder Singh Mann | @kashmann27

 Over the past weekend we saw cards from the latest Chaos Rising (CRI - M4) set see official play in the TPCi region for the Turin Special Championships. There is just one other event set to take place for TPCi events with Chaos Rising and that is this weekend's North American International Championships (NAIC) over in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. While over in Japan, we got our first glimpse of what we might get to see for the 2026 World Championships with the upcoming set Pitch Black (PBL - M5) legal for play at the Japan Championships.

Chaos Rising - What's changed?

Let's take a look at the top 15 most played decks from Indianapolis the previous week compared to Turin this past weeked:

Straight Dragapult ex is still leading the charge, most with the Crushing Hammer build, although the number did drop slightly from Indianapolis to Turin. It is still expected to be the most played deck for this weekend's NAIC event in New Orleans.

Dragapult ex/Dusknoir was the 2nd most played deck this time around, and part of the reason is due to the new Special Red Card introduced in Chaos Rising. Hydrapple ex/Meganium is still the 3rd most played deck but did drop in play, but not as much as Raging Bolt ex/Teal Mask Ogerpon ex, dropping by 3%, making Hydrapple ex now the preferred partner for Teal Mask Ogerpon ex.

Alakazam/Dudunsparce still keeps it's reign as the most popular single-prize deck but that spot might soon be challenged. Even though it did see an increase in play, Slowking's 2nd place finish in Turin will likely result in the deck seeing more play for NAIC, potentially more than Alakazam?

Of the new decks, Mega Greninja saw the most play at 3.10%, followed by Beedrill ex/Dudunsparce at 2.41%. The next closest "new" deck would be Metagross from CRI, but that is essentially the old Metang Box now with Metagross as an attacker. 

The Usual Contenders

Dragapult ex

Ignoring the Crushing Hammer counts here, the only two changes were the 4th Crushing Hammer and 2nd Budew cut for a 4th Boss's Orders by Pedro and the shiny new toy for Dragapult decks, Special Red Card! I will explain it's impact more with the next deck.

Dragapult ex/Dusknoir

While the best placing Pult Dusk list still runs Crushing Hammer as Justin did in Indy, there are some changes to Julio's list. A 2nd Budew and Psychic energy are in place over Moltres and Fire energy while there is a straight swap of Crispin for Rosa.

The biggest addition for the deck is Special Red Card and Pult Dusk is likely the best deck to abuse it's power as with the Dusknoir package, you can pick and choose when your opponent goes down to 3 prize cards, thus enabling Special Red Card to disrupt their hand to just a 3 card hand.

Alakazam/Dudunsparce

 Jonathan's 6th place list is not much different to Cerys' winning list in Indy, but does include the new Special Red Card as a new form of disruption over going for Elgyem. Air Balloon is also favoured over Lucky Helmet in his list, potentially as a way to get around Boss/Crushing Hammer stall plays.

N's Zoroark ex

Nikoline's deck had plenty of changes from the 54th placed Indy list, adding more consistency over tech cards such as the 2nd Pecharunt ex, the 2nd Black Belt's Training, 4th Boss's Orders and 4th Poke Pad and to help with this, she's gone for Secret Box over Unfair Stamp. The new additions to the deck are Lumiose City to help set the board up early and Special Red Card for late game disruption. 

The New Contenders

Slowking 

One of the decks that gained the most from Chaos Rising is Slowking now that is has Metagross as an attacker, and one that can do 300 damage at no other cost. Brennan's build also included 3 Boomerang Energy over the Powerglass to help get attachments going after Kyurem's Trifrost attack. 

Smoochum is also a great addition for the deck to get extra energy attachment down on Turn 1. Brave Bangle helps to reach 330 with Metagross' Metallic Hammer. Dawn helps to find the Metagross along with Slowking for Stage 1 and any other Basic. Lana's Aid helps to bring back said attackers and Slowking pieces and Surfer helps with re-treat lock stuff.

Clefairy Box

Emma's list is pretty much the same as James' from Indy but with the new Prism Tower along with a 2nd Wellspring Ogerpon ex over the Koraidon ex + Fighting energy. Prism Tower lets you draw a card at the cost of discarding two cards and this deck does not mind doing that as there will be a lot of extra attackers that might be useless in certain matchups and becomes the draw for Prism. It also works well with Wondrous Patch after discarding Psychic energies. The only other deck to play Prism and make Day 2 was Archaludon ex.

Pitch Black - What's coming?

Ogerpon Box

While the winning deck is not new, the build of it is something much more different to what we're used to seeing. Firstly it's a Turbo style build with only Grass and Prism energy, which did see play early on at the start of the latest rotation. Toshiyuki's list had some interesting inclusions, with the double Pecharunt and also Chi-Yu that hits for 120 and discards a stadium in play, effectively taking Chien-Pao's spot, and also Moltres to some extent. 

Dhelmise/Dudunsparce

One of the newer decks from Pitch Black is the Ghost Veil Box Hide 'n' Sneak Box. The deck wants to discard as many Pokemon with that ability to attack with Dhelmise. It only needs 4 in discard to hit for 170 and it's not that difficult to do so with 4 Ultra Ball, Prism Tower and also the new Gwyn supporter that discards up to 2 Pokemon Cards to draw 3 for each discard.

Banette does 80 for just 1 psychic and you can search for any card from the attack which can help to set up some combo plays. Sinistcha, with 6 Hide 'n' Sneak mons in discard, can put 4 damage counters on all of your opponent's Pokemon which could set up KOs with Dhelmise later on. And let's not forget, with Clefairy, Dhelmise can cleanly KO a Dragapult! 

Dragapult ex

Yes, Dragapult is not a new deck and there isn't anything new in this list but it's always nice to see what difference there are from two decks in two different formats on the same week. The one curious difference is the lack of Special Red Card but also all the Crushing Hammers were cut for tech cards such as the 1-1 Dudunsparce line and also Shaymin, an answer for the rise of Slowking, which did make Top 8 in this event as well. Yveltal was also included for the retreat lock option along with the 3rd Dark in place of the 4th Fire.

Mega Venusaur ex

While Hydrapple has continued to be the most preferred Teal Mask Ogerpon ex/Meganium deck over in TPCi events, Mega Venusaur ended up 4th in the Japan Championships! The deck plays a heavier line of Meganium to include the 1 Mega Meganium ex to fill in the role of Hydrapple ex, to hit for big numbers for not much energies. Mega Venusaur does have the added bonus of being able to use Wally's Compassion to make it's 380 HP size that much more difficult for any deck to take down. Judge is also preferred over Special Red Card in this list.

NAIC is just days away and we do expect even more shifts in the meta for the final big event of the season and also this format as we'll move on to the format we've just seen in the Japan Championships for the World Championships in San Francisco in August.