The Dragapult ex Debate: How I Won Vancouver and Why the Dusknoir Version is Better

Welcome back, Cut or Tap readers! We are nearing the end of our pre-Rotation format, and soon will be losing many current staples as well as seeing the release of the Journey Together set. However, there are still a couple of tournaments left in Prismatic Evolutions, and I was even able to take down the one in Vancouver, Canada a couple of weekends ago with Dragapult ex.

Going into the European International Championships, I wasn’t super sure what deck to play, but I eventually decided on Dragapult. I was extremely impressed by the deck at that tournament despite a mediocre result, which was in large part caused by an extremely poor record against the four Gholdengos I hit, including in the win-and-in to Top 32. However, while I was undecided on attending Vancouver before EUIC, I booked a flight shortly after EUIC finished because of how confident I was in the deck coming out of the event. After being defeated 2-0 in Round 1 of Vancouver though, I definitely wasn’t so sure about my decision, but then I didn’t lose a round for the rest of the event and was able to take down the whole tournament.

The deck proved its strength throughout the weekend, taking decent matchups across the board and allowing me to navigate through the middle rounds of the event fairly effortlessly. I was hoping to get to talk about how much better the Dusknoir version of Dragapult was following Vancouver, but the other version of Dragapult also had a strong weekend, including taking down the Fortaleza Regionals and placing in Top 8 at Vancouver, making it seem like both variants are here to stay (likely in fairly equal meta shares) for the rest of the format.

In this article, I will discuss why I prefer the Dusknoir version, as well as the card choices in the list that I played.

The List