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.

H-Block Rotation onwards is go, and 3 different winners in the first weekend!

🖉 Kashvinder Singh Mann | @kashmann27

 Here is a summary of this past weekend's events, which was the first outside of Japan to feature major events in the new H-Block onwards rotation, the legal sets for play being from Temporal Forces to the recently released Perfect Order set. Three different decks won the three events and in a fun little not, the 3 decks are the only ones from their variants to make Top Cut in any of the 3 events as well!

From the 3 major events, if we were to look at decks that placed in the Top 8:

• Teal Mask Ogerpon ex - 7
• 5 from Raging Bolt ex variant
• 2 from Lillie's Clefairy ex variant
• Dragapult ex - 6
• 3 from Blaziken ex variant
• 1 from Dudunsparce variant (Prague winner)
• 1 from the straight variant
• 1 from Dusknoir variant
• Cynthia's Garchomp ex - 2
• Crustle - 2
• Everything else with just 1:
• Mega Lucario ex/Hariyama
• Mega Starmie ex/Dusknoir
• Alakazam/Dudunsparce (Philippines winner)
• Marnie's Grimmsnarl ex/Froslass
• Tera Box (Korea S4 winner)
• Team Rocket's Box
• Archaludon ex/Dudunsparce

Alakazam wins in Philippines Master Ball League

Ricardo G. Patriarca book his spot into the 2026 Pokémon TCG World Championships by winning the Philippines Master Ball League with Alakazam Dudunsparce! It was the first Master Ball League in the South East Asian region for the 2025-2026 season and the first to feature a new tournament structure. 

This is not the first major win for Alakazam but backs up that is it now a legit contender in the meta, especially after it's win at the Osaka Champions League. Ricardo ran a slightly different list for Day 1, opting for a 1-1 Mega Lopunny ex line initially before switching it out for the 4th Dawn and Dudunspace ex for Day 2.

Also congrats to Aki Gulmatico who placed 2nd with Raging Bolt ex/Teal Mask Ogerpon ex and by being in the finals of this event, he also earns a Worlds invite spot for this year's World Championships in San Francisco. Players had to get a x-2 score or better to make it into Day 2 where they would play 4 more rounds of Swiss, but now in a Bo3 setting.

And points scored were a bit different too, 

• For a 2-0 win, winning player scores 6 points, losing player scores 0 points
• For a 2-1 win, winning player scores 5 points, losing player scores 1 points
• For a 1-0 win, winning player scores 3 points, losing player scores 0 points

For some reference, 6 players ended Day 1 at 7-0 (21 points)

• The first placed player ended on 31 points (46th in standings before Cut)
• The seconded placed player ended on 33 points (25th in standings before Cut)
• The third placed player ended on 32 points (42nd in standings before Cut)
• The fourth placed player ended on 39 points (5th in standings before Cut)
• The fifth placed player ended on 38 points (6th in standings before Cut)
• The sixth placed player ended on 28 points (72nd in standings before Cut)

And on the flip side, the first seeded player in Top Cut at 40 points ended day 1 at 6-1. 8th seeded player was on 38 points having ended day 1 at 5-2, scoring 23 points from the 4 swiss rounds (3 2-0 wins and 1 2-1 win). 

Tera Box wins the Korean League Season 4 for 2026

Lin Pin Yuan took the win at the Korean League Season 4 with Tera Box, beating Donguk Jung (who finished 3rd in Season 1 of this 2025-26 season) and his Raging Bolt ex/Teal Mask Ogerpon ex deck in a close finish set. You can watch the match that was reviewed by Rahul Reddy here. Pin Yuan is also now the first overseas player to win a Korean League Season event as he is from Taiwan. 

There were 2 overseas players in Top 4, the other being Shinnosuke Sato who finished 6th in the previous Korean League Season 3 event and we also had Fabien Pujol who made Top 8 cut, his first Top 8 finish in an Asian event with an interesting build of Lillie's Clefairy ex/Teal Mask Ogerpon ex featuring Iron Crown ex, Tapu Koko ex and Frillish. It wasn't the only one in Top 8 with Seokmin Lee also piloting with a more typical build of Clefairy Ogerpon that we're used to seeing, but with a thin Raging Bolt ex package splashed into the deck!

Dragapult Dudunsparce wins the Prague Regional

And now onto the Prague Regional and if you had predicted a Dragapult ex winning the event, you'd be correct...but the variant of Dragapult ex winning this event probably was not the one anyone expected, with Mateusz Łaszkiewicz taking the win with the Dudunsparce variant, beating Elmar Tresp and his Crustle deck in finals. It was an interesting Top 4 that also featured a Cynthia Garchomp ex deck and a Mega Starmie ex deck!

Mateusz's list was a straight Pult variant with Dudunsparce (Run Away Draw and the ex) and no other supporting Pokémon like Mewoth ex, Fezandipiti ex or stuff like Bloodmoon Ursaluna ex in this list. The Dudunsparce ex was a key factor in helping him win in the finals against Crustle as was Hero's Cape, probably the Ace Spec not many was expecting to see in the winning list, or either finalist list for that matter. 

There was another straight Pult list that made cut, thanks to the one and only Tord Reklev who fell to the Crustle player in Top Cut, his list had 3 Rare Candies in it! Also in his list that isn't as usual as others is the choice of Area Zero Underdepths as his stadium in the deck as his build does tend to rely on those supporting Pokémon a bit more. 

But as we expected, Dragapult would be the biggest threat in the meta as this weekend's results showed it. Even though we don't have any info on the meta share for Korea and Philippines, seeing the decks that scored big results this weekend was enough to paint the picture:

• 5 out of the Top 32 in Korea League Season 4 were Dragapult ex decks (15.6%)
• 24 out of the Top 154 in Philippines Master Ball League were Dragapult ex decks (15.6%)
• 93 out of the Top 255 in Prague Regional were Dragapult ex decks (36.4%)

The numbers were constant in Asia while it was doubled those numbers and a bit more over in Prague! One of the decks that had more big finishes throughout the 3 events was Dragapult ex/Blaziken ex, with an 8th place finish in Prague and a 3rd place finish in Philippines. 

Raging Bolt ex/Teal Mask Ogerpon scores big in all 3 regions

Perhaps the more interesting result of the weekend was seeing Raging Bolt feature in the Top 8 in all 3 regions, with runner-up finishes in both Philippines and Korea (both events had a Raging Bolt deck finishing in the Top 4 with 2 players) and 6th in Prague. 

It is no longer the straight forward deck from previous rotation even though now the deck relies heavily on Crispin but it's not the only way it can energies on board with the likes of Teal Mask Ogerpon ex, Glass Trumpet and Energy Switch helping out. But not all the lists were same as you can see from the 2nd place finishing list in Korea which was build popularized by Sejun Park (who finished 32nd) while the 6th place list from Maé Brusasco whose list was inspired by Ian Robb's build.

The Korea list ran 4 Mega Kangaskhan ex and 4 Meowth ex, going for as much consistency as possible and opting for Raging Bolt over Passimian that saw more play for those who were using Ian Robb's build of Raging Bolt ex. That version also featured Wellspring Ogerpon ex and Water Energy for snipe options, Xerosic preferred over Judge as the disruption of choice and a 4th Teal Mask Ogerpon ex for extra draws and also Pecharunt ex as an out to retreat lock plays. 

There wasn't much difference between Mae's list and Carlo who finished 3rd in Philippines, with Carlo going for Iron Leaves ex, an additional Grass and Fighting Energy in place of the 3rd Mewoth ex, Pecharunt ex and Xerosic. 

Next up for players will be 3 events again on the 9th of May, with Aichi Champions League in Japan, the Malaysian Master Ball League in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and the Los Angeles Regional in California.