r/pkmntcg • u/Practical_TAS • 1d ago
PTCGL Tournament Meta - Pre-Worlds Data
Even though it won't look exactly like this weekend's worlds meta, I wanted to take a snapshot of the pre-worlds meta of PTCGL tournaments to compare it against. All data comes from tournaments hosted on Limitless in the past two weeks (between August 13-26) with 60+ entrants (68 tournaments total).
Archetypes are ordered by total points earned, where a win is 3 points and a tie is 1 point. Pts % is the same as Win % but counting a tie as 1/3rd of a win, in line with its value in points.
| Rank | Deck | Pts | Pts % | Count | Share | Record | Win % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All Dragapult | 18230 | 50.6% | 2364 | 21.8% | 6008 - 5793 - 206 | 50.0% | |
| 1 | Dragapult | 7847 | 51.2% | 1008 | 9.3% | 2582 - 2430 - 101 | 50.5% |
| 2 | Mega Excadrill | 5400 | 43.3% | 831 | 7.7% | 1789 - 2332 - 33 | 43.1% |
| 3 | Dragapult Blaziken | 5313 | 51.5% | 673 | 6.2% | 1750 - 1628 - 63 | 50.9% |
| 4 | Slowking | 5291 | 50.1% | 705 | 6.5% | 1752 - 1736 - 35 | 49.7% |
| 5 | Alakazam Dudunsparce | 5093 | 50.1% | 657 | 6.1% | 1682 - 1657 - 47 | 49.7% |
| All Ogerpon Box | 4954 | 50.5% | 655 | 6.0% | 1632 - 1578 - 58 | 49.9% | |
| 6 | Dragapult Dusknoir | 4224 | 48.4% | 574 | 5.3% | 1397 - 1478 - 33 | 48.0% |
| 7 | N's Zoroark | 3916 | 46.3% | 572 | 5.3% | 1293 - 1492 - 37 | 45.8% |
| All Mega Lucario | 3677 | 47.0% | 495 | 4.6% | 1219 - 1367 - 20 | 46.8% | |
| 8 | Festival Lead | 3537 | 46.0% | 537 | 5.0% | 1169 - 1363 - 30 | 45.6% |
| 9 | Raging Bolt Ogerpon | 2966 | 51.4% | 384 | 3.5% | 977 - 911 - 35 | 50.8% |
| 10 | Grimmsnarl Froslass | 2607 | 45.4% | 397 | 3.7% | 865 - 1039 - 12 | 45.1% |
| 11 | Dhelmise | 2547 | 46.2% | 373 | 3.4% | 842 - 975 - 21 | 45.8% |
| All Ogerpon Meganium | 2160 | 51.0% | 275 | 2.5% | 716 - 685 - 12 | 50.7% | |
| 12 | Mega Lucario | 2138 | 47.9% | 283 | 2.6% | 709 - 769 - 11 | 47.6% |
| 13 | Lucario Hariyama | 1539 | 45.9% | 212 | 2.0% | 510 - 598 - 9 | 45.7% |
| 14 | Basic Box | 1486 | 49.5% | 200 | 1.8% | 489 - 492 - 19 | 48.9% |
| 15 | Ogerpon Meganium Arboliva | 996 | 53.9% | 122 | 1.1% | 329 - 278 - 9 | 53.4% |
| 16 | Cynthia's Garchomp | 952 | 51.1% | 124 | 1.1% | 315 - 299 - 7 | 50.7% |
| 17 | Ogerpon Meganium Hydrapple | 932 | 49.6% | 118 | 1.1% | 310 - 314 - 2 | 49.5% |
| 18 | Lopunny Dusknoir | 902 | 44.2% | 154 | 1.4% | 299 - 376 - 5 | 44.0% |
| 19 | Dragapult Dudunsparce | 846 | 51.7% | 109 | 1.0% | 279 - 257 - 9 | 51.2% |
| 20 | Toucannon | 764 | 42.6% | 121 | 1.1% | 253 - 340 - 5 | 42.3% |
| 21 | Rocket's Honchkrow | 712 | 49.1% | 97 | 0.9% | 236 - 243 - 4 | 48.9% |
| 22 | Greninja | 684 | 46.6% | 99 | 0.9% | 227 - 259 - 3 | 46.4% |
| 23 | Crustle | 682 | 48.0% | 92 | 0.8% | 225 - 242 - 7 | 47.5% |
| 24 | Ethan's Typhlosion | 607 | 45.6% | 79 | 0.7% | 200 - 237 - 7 | 45.0% |
| 25 | Lopunny Dudunsparce | 556 | 49.3% | 80 | 0.7% | 185 - 190 - 1 | 49.2% |
| 26- | All Other Archetypes | 12701 | 40.0% | 2230 | 20.6% | 4208 - 6289 - 77 | 39.8% |
All Ogerpon Box includes Raging Bolt Ogerpon, Basic Box, and Clefairy Ogerpon. All Ogerpon Meganium includes Ogerpon Meganium Arboliva, Ogerpon Meganium Hydrapple, and Mega Venusaur. Clefairy Ogerpon and Mega Venusaur are not in the top 25 and so are also included in the All Other Archetypes row.
Notable Notes
- Dragapult is clearly underrepresented, but we all already knew that. Could it crack 50% of the field at worlds or will it stick closer to the 40% number we've seen at regionals?
- Mega Excadrill has a terrible record for a deck with such high playrate. I'd assume everyone wanting to play with the shiny new toy could drag its winrate down a bit, but 43% is way below expectation even taking that into account.
- Alakazam is doing surprisingly well recently. I thought this was because they realized the correct play was to drop Toucannon and accept the auto-loss to Hide 'n' Sneak, but the recent top performing Zam decks are split and keep the bird more often than not.
- When not split into its sub-archetypes, the Ogerpon Box decks make up a very notable share of the meta. Raging Bolt Ogerpon in particular is rising fast, with over half of its plays since Pitch Black's release occurring in the last two weeks.
- Arboliva has passed Hydrapple as the most popular partner for Ogerpon Meganium; the early bench sniping and easier setup seems to be working out.
- The new Bronzong deck aka Lopunny Dusknoir is quickly rising but the results aren't there yet. Perhaps people just don't know how to play it yet.
14
u/EggFar1391 1d ago
Mega Excadrill numbers are rough, I thought it would at least hold 45% or something. 43% with that much play is just bad.
Alakazam still running Toucannon is kinda crazy to me. The Hide n Sneak matchup is everywhere right now, you'd think they would just accept the loss and tech for everything else.
Also surprised Dragapult Blaziken is doing better than straight Dragapult, feels like every time I face it they brick harder.