Welcome back, Subs and Pokemon TCG players! We have officially had the first tournament in the 2024/2025 season in Baltimore this past weekend. What was once thought to be a stale meta birthed plenty of interesting decks, not only landing throughout Day 2 but also into the Top 8. Before we start discussing Stellar Crown in this piece, I want to go over a few items about the Baltimore tournament meta, as it is our last tournament in the Twilight Masquerade format.
Firstly, I’m sure some of you happened to see my streamed game in Round 9 for the win-and-in, where I played a very interesting deck: Palkia/Dusknoir. Fortunately for myself, my day ended into a very favorable matchup paired to a lower-skill player which I couldn’t be more happy about. That all came crashing down when it came to the draws I had throughout both games, landing me at a 6-3 finish for my first tournament of the year. My opponent even missed the game-winning combination during Game 1, simply not knowing all he needed to do was “Scream Tail” my bench. Even giving myself the chance to win after misplaying, I was still unable to find my Vacuum. As frustrating as this was, I’m happy that my friend Grafton was able to take the list to Asymmetrical Cut, where he was also eventually felled by variance.
The deck was extremely broken and I wouldn’t change any card from the list, so if you wish to play it to Cups, here is my only advice: if your local meta has Raging Bolt with Bravery Charm in it, the deck is not worth playing. The HP buff, plus the ability to take a two-prize KO on your Palkia on Turn 1, is simply too much to handle. Lastly, I think the deck will remain the highest cash for Greninja ex ever, so hopefully that title will stick.
After upgrading to Stage 2 you will see the rest of Hunter Butler’s article and an audio recording of this article narrated by Andy Hyun: 
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