Hey there, Cut or Tap Readers! I am thrilled to be fresh off a 5th place at the Indianapolis Regional Championships! While many of you might be interested in reading about my tournament experience, Indianapolis was my last tournament in this regrettably brief format, which I believe was a great one overall. Therefore, today I want to shift my focus to the future, and share my top 10 picks from the newly released Pokémon TCG set, Twilight Masquerade.
I will continue to offer coaching services in the Temporal Forces format, so please don’t hesitate to contact me if you would like help preparing for the Los Angeles Regional Championships, or any other upcoming tournaments in the current format.
Compiling this ranking list was quite challenging, as the set is packed with cards that show great potential. I am incredibly excited about the release of Twilight Masquerade and the upcoming NAIC format. I will be taking the summer off work to hopefully finish the book I am working on, so I should have a good amount of time to explore this format as well.
To ensure that the other remarkable cards in the set receive the attention they deserve, I have decided to rank the Ace Specs separately. If I were to include them in the overall top 10, they would likely dominate the list, overshadowing the rest of the set’s offerings.
So, without further ado, let’s dive into my top cards from Twilight Masquerade, starting with a few honorable mentions that barely didn’t quite make the top 10. All translations and card images are courtesy of justinbasil.com, https://www.justinbasil.com/translations/sv6.
Please note that these are just my first impressions, and are very subject to being proven wrong (I have yet to actually play any games in the new format, so this is all theory). Regardless, I am very excited to see how this format actually pans out! With that said, let’s dive into some honorable mentions which barely missed the top 10 (in no particular order).
Honorable Mentions
Iron Thorns ex
Ability: Initialize
As long as this Pokémon is in the Active Spot, Pokémon with a Rule Box in play have no Abilities, except any Future Pokémon (Pokémon ex, Pokémon V, etc. have Rule Boxes).
[L][C][C] Bolt Cyclone: 140 damage. Move an Energy from this Pokémon to 1 of your Benched Pokémon.
While I think this card is pretty mediocre overall, Iron Treads deserves mention for its ability to shut off Rule Box Abilities and its effectiveness against Lugia VStar, a potential top-tier threat in the upcoming format. By exploiting Lugia VStar’s weakness to Lightning and negating its Summoning Star ability, this Pokémon can completely shut out Lugia VStar’s strategy.
The card has seen moderate success in dedicated quad Iron Thorns decks, but the archetype lacks the flexibility and power level of top-tier decks. The attack’s damage output is relatively low, limiting its inclusion in a wider range of decks.
However, if Lugia VStar becomes dominant, this card could serve as a valuable tech option to improve that specific matchup. While not a format-defining powerhouse, its niche application and ability to counter a specific top-tier deck make it worthy of consideration in the right metagame.
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Great read! A solid highlight of the meta relevant cards to get people up to speed quickly, all in an easy to read format. Always good to hear some of your theory of the cards too, some of the Grooky board state and Kieran/Rad Zard theories were things I hadn’t thought of! Time to cook for NAIC 🔥