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Pokemon TCG 2024 New Format Temporal Forces Report

Intro

Every year around March/April for us and Europe and around January for Japan/Asia old cards from the third oldest letter sets rotate out to keep the game fresh and balanced. The year of 2024 sees the rotation of E Sets like Fusion Strike and Battle Styles rotating out.All Sets released after march/january will be H Sets. All F,G,H Cards will be legal for this rotation. With the new set, Temporal Forces being our first of the new rotation. Japan already has the new format and the new set so I will be using the data provided from japanese tournaments within this article.

In this article I will be discussing the cards and decks we lose, the new set temporal forces, The new meta decks and how current meta decks favour and adapt to rotation, the results from japanese tournaments and some example decklists.

What We Lose

With the new format of 2024 all E issued cards will rotate out. These are included from the following sets: Shining Fates, Battle Styles, Chilling Regin, Evolving Skies, Celebrations and Fusion Strike.

Some of the most format impacting cards we are losing are: VIP Pas, Path To The Peak, Celebrations Mew, Level Ball, Raihan, Klara, All the Fusion Strike Cards, All Rapid Strike and Single Strike Cards, Fog Crystal, Cheryl, Cross Switcher, Energy Recycler, Avery and Escape Rope.

With the loss of these cards, it will mean that a lot of ball search and consistency to most of the main decks will be reduced. Also, because we lose the Strike archetypes, any deck based around them like Single Strike Lugia, Mew Vmax and Rapid Strike Box will no longer be in the meta after rotation. With the loss of disruptive cards like path to the peak, it means that the meta will be more screwed to decks with strong rule box abilities and those that can beat them. From what we have seen in japan it seems the removal of path has caused this can you beat charizard meta. With the removal of escape rope it makes pokemon with powerful abilities much harder to get out of the active like snorlax, mimikyu etc.

As i already mentioned, the strong decks of Mew Vmax, Rapid Strike Box and the lesser deck Single Strike Lugia will no longer be able to be played ounce rotation hits which will make room for new decks and decks that struggled against those decks like Arc Piles, and Single Prize Decks to be on the rise.

Temporal Forces Highlights

The Main New Cards

With March 22nd the release of the first of the new format sets comes Temporal Forces to the Pokemon TCG. This Set will be legal for tournament play on the 5 of april with the hosting of EUIC in london being the first big tournament they will be legal for.

Below I will feature some of the powerful cards coming out of the Temporal Forces Set.

The Return of Ace Spec Cards

With the Release of Temporal Forces also comes the return of Ace Spec Cards, which are really powerful items, tools and energy cards but you can only have 1 Ace Spec card in your deck. The last time we saw Ace Spec cards be legal in the game was all the back in the Black and White Sets, so it has been awhile.

Below are the Ace Spec Cards being released within the Temporal Forces Set.

The New Meta

The Decks Staying Strong After Rotation

From the results in Japan City Leagues and Championship League we have seen quite a few different current meta decks be successful and adapt to rotation pretty easily. The Main decks doing well in japan from the current meta are Charizard, Lost Zone Decks, Chien Pao and Snorlax Stall all with varying degrees of success. Charizard and Chien Pao have seen a lot of success over many city leagues, whereas snorlax did really well in the champions league. Lost zone has seen average and consistent topping between all events with various different builds.

Charizard

Charizard got barely affected by rotation, losing only VIP Pass, Celebrations Mew and Level Ball. So it only took a minor hit to its consistency and set up, but with the release of buddy poffin it counteracts this loss with one expectation. This expectation being the loss of getting turn one RotomV because of buddy poffin pokemon hp restriction which also makes turn 1 forest seal stone less viable so your set up is far weaker. Because of this issue we have seen huge increase in Bidoof+Bibarel being played in Charizard in japan.

The Bibarel build has seen more success and population than the pidgeot build because of the lack of need to always go second since you can go first have a slightly okay set up and set up more consistently turn after turn thanks to buddy poffin not having that turn 1 restriction. Lastly with cards like TM-Evolution and the new card Cryptomanic’s Deciphering can both combo well with the bibarel build. TM-Evolution making so that if you do have to go second you can have charmeleon and Bibarel already set up. Cryptomanic’s Deciphering also combos well with bibarel allowing us to search for 2 cards that we need and then draw into them. This card also makes it harder for us to lose to Iono in the late game.

Some tech pokemon we have seen in charizard builds are Delphox V and Gouging Fire for the utility of sniping or dealing with Vulpix Vstar.

As towards the Ace Spec Card being run in the deck we have seen a split between [people running Maximum Belt and Prime Catcher. Prime Catcher is just a strong all round good item card that can help in many different situations. Maximum belt allows for Charizard to be able to OHKO the Mirror with 5 prize cards taken, OHKO Chien Pao, Roaring Moon & Iron Hands with 0 Prize Cards taken and OHKO Gholdengo with 1 Prize card taken. So maximum belt can be helpful in some matchups, making it easier to combat them. Some Builds have been running Hero’s Cape to make it hard to OHKO their charizard as Chien Pao would need 8 energies, Cinccino will need 7 cards and it stops Iron leaves and Tina+MBelt from OHKO Charizard. All the Ace Specs mentioned are easily accessible via Arven or Cryptomanic’s Deciphering.

As a whole Charizard has been the most successful deck in japan with around 17% to 27% of toppings in city leagues and 3 placings in the top 16 of the most recent champions league.

Lost Zone Variants

Lost Zone decks did lose a couple of cards, more so for the kyogre and sablezard builds and not so much for the turbo builds. Turbo builds seem to be the predominant choice for japan. With the loss of Fog Crystal, Klara, Raihan sabelzard has to adapt with mela and less powerful cards. Kyorge rotated out so that build is no longer usable. As towards the turbo build they only lost VIP Pass and Escape Rope which was just replaced with more nest balls. and buddy poffin. Some builds are running a ditto to take advantage of the buddy poffin. As for escape rope there are tree cards that have seem to be used to replace this loss of switching they being switch, The new emergency board which allows for comfeys and cram to retreat for free and iron bundle as a discardable escape rope for opponent only.

As Towards the choice of attackers in the turbo build the main three have been Iron hands, Roaring Moon and Raikou V. We did use Dragonite V but now that Lugia has returned to the meta Raikou V seems to be the more versatile option. Recently we have also seen people opt to add the Tera Hoopa Ex in order to improve their match up into Iron Hands and Arceus. This is a pretty easy inclusion as both Hoopa and Roaring Moon use dark energies.

Lost Zone Giratina on the other hand,has had to do a lot more to adapt to the loss of Path to the peak. With the introduction of Mist energy it makes it harder for giratina to use its vstar ability, so in order to adapt it is now using the temple of sinnoh. It also utilises iron leaves so it can have a still good match up into charizard.

The main Ace Spec Card of choice is prime catcher as it allows for the deck to utilise these attackers to get prizes via weakness and special attacks for better mapping.

The Giratina version hasn’t has as much success as the turbo version. The turbo version had 2 toppings in the both the seniors and masters of the champions league as well between 7% to 13% of toppings in japanese city leagues.

Chien Pao

Along with VIP Pass Chien Pao also lost Cross Switcher. This deck again like all of the other decks mentioned above, uses buddy poffin to gain access to its frigibax and bidoofs. The deck gained a huge consistency card in the form of cryptomanic’s deciphering, which combos well with pokestop and bibarel to basically turn these cards into search any two cards. The only other changes to the deck have been the return of Kyogre,giving the deck two snipe opinions. Because of the rise in manaphy in the format and now having multiple ways of snipping in the deck we have added cancelling cologne back into the build as well.

Like other decks this deck too loves the powerful card that is prime catcher, which is a single card version of the old cross switcher it use to run. This deck also has easy access to it through Irida and Cryptoamanic’s Deciphering.

In the early stages of city leagues Chien Pao had massive success thanks to its great match up into Charizard and the sheer population of Charizard but as the game has evolved over the past month the deck’s presence in city leagues has dropped from 15% to around 10. It didn’t any toppings in the champions league at all despite its great success in city leagues. It has recently fallen from being the 2nd most successful deck to being the 3rd most successful just behind lost box. Main reason for this is its rough match up into lost zone and many Charizards adapting with Cape making it almost impossible for chien pao to gain the energy needed to one shot the charizard. Another reason has been the influx in other rough/even match ups such as future box, ancient box and Vulpix Vstar/Goodra Vstar Decks.
The deck still has consistency issues and a lot of match-ups are more even then favoured in chien pao’s favour despite there being no path and a reduced amount of both roaring moon and miriadon in the format.

Snorlax Stall

Snorlax Stall has only lost three powerful supporters in the form of Avery, Sidney and Peonia but in snorlax gained away to deal with decks that just keep all switching options in their hand in the form of Eri. Eri is so powerful and it makes nearly every match up so much easier for snorlax as it can snipe set up and switching item cards from the hand whenever possible. Snorlax also got better due to its match up spread getting better with the absence of Mew VMax and Giratina and Guardy both getting worse. Snorlax still is using the fire version with Chiyu, we have seen a couple Pidgeot versions and a unique version placed in the 16 of the champions league in the form of Noivern Ex.

The Ace Spec of Choice is Obviously Hero’s Cape as snorlax was already playing Lux Cape and this is just the same without the two prize downside.

Snorlax placed 3 times in the champions League top 16 and we have seen at least 3-4% of toppings from it in city leagues due to its low population. From these results we can say that Snorlax wil definitely be a strong force in the next format. The only thing that will keep it in check is probably Chien Pao and Lost Box. Although The Stall deck will have to consent with a Mill Deck being in the same format as well.

The Decks that are Returning to Form

Lugia

We have seen a huge surge of Lugia having success in the new format. This is thanks to both the absence of Vmax and Guardy getting worse. Another reason Lugia has seen so much success is because of the new Cinccino card from temporal forces. This card provides lugia with a really strong single prize attacker. With two archeops activations and an attachment from hand for the turn Cinccino can deal 350 damage with its special roll attack allowing it to OHKO a Charizard ex pretty easily. This pokemon also being this strong ona single prizer also makes the prize mapping really awkward for a lot of match ups, since Lugia can take consistent two pize knockouts and the opponent may be forced to only take 1 prize knockouts. The best Minccino we have access to is the one from brilliant stars which offers lugia the option of a call for family attack when it is forced to go second into match ups it can not read the wind into.

Now Sadly Lugia did lose the powerful supporter professor burnet so lugia decks have adapted by adding in Jacq and masterball to have easier access to adding Archeops to the hand along with Cinccino and Lugia Vstar. You still have the discard outlet support of Serena as well the new card morty’s conviction to help get arcephos into the discard pile, also. because of the aggressive decks have got weaker and it is now harder to knock out Lugia V with a Vguard you can now more safely read the wind going second. Because of all these adaptations you can actually still get turn two vstar activation pretty consistently. Other attackers we have seen in lugia is Snorlax. Luxray and Radiant charizard have both seen less of a need in the build thanks to Cinccino just being to deal with all pokemon. The only other thing to note is that lugia also gets easy access to mist energy so the roaring moon and Tina match up is easier. In conclusion, Lugia is still really strong of a contender that go a few benefits from rotation and with its success in city leagues being around the 10% mark as well winning the Champions League it looks to be one of the top decks of the format.

Arceus Variants

Arceus has seen a vast increase in success and popularisation and this is thanks to many factors. First being several bad matchups being absent from the meta such as Rapid strike, Mew VMax, Guardian and Miriadon. Second is multiple ways for the deck to challenge charizard and other decks in the format thanks to maxim belt and iron leaves. We have also seen the inclusion of Grabbers and Eri to give the deck great Star Birth options to control matchups in the deck’s favour. Their stadium of choice is pokemon League Headquarters, which helps the deck do well into single prize and big basic decks allowing arecus to be able to cover and face any deck. Yes the deck still does have some consistency issues. Due to the loss of rihan making it harder to have the energies needed. Some builds have added gardenia’s vigor.

The most successful variants are Arc Giratina, Arc Goodra, Arceus Pure, Arc Vulpix. Arc Giratina has been the most successful of all the variants as a catch-all deck. Arc Vulpix is pretty much an anti-meta deck that plays really well into Charizard and Chien Pao. Arc Goodra is a huge tanky deck that is hard to take down thanks to Hero’s Cape for taking the required damage to knockout a goodra being a total of 450 damage. Which even for chien pao and lugia is hard as chien pao needs 8 energies and lugia needs 7 special energy cards, respectively.

The New Decks

Ancient Roaring Moon

Roaring moon had to change its face drastically because of the loss of many strong cards such as cross switchers, vip pass and Galarian Moltres V. Roaring moon has now become more of a ancient pokemon deck more focused on the single prize roaring moon as well the ex along with fluttermane many and other ancient cards to keep the deck at a high tempo rate.

The deck uses a high count of around 23-25 ancient cards so that roaring moon can hit high numbers and be able to 1 hit any 2 prize pokemon in the late game. The function of this new form of roaring moon is to use an ancient support every turn and speed through its high item count with poke stop in order to keep powering up roaring moons and hit high numbers. The reason why we play the ex’s is so that we can have a stronger earlier game as well as being able to deal with any attacker. We cna still power up a pokemon with ease due to the high dark patch, sada, vessel and poke gear counts we play.

The ace spec of choice is obviously prime catcher as it allows us to get knock outs on that ever we need. The only thing holding the deck back other than consistency is that mist energy exists, so you’ll have to play around it but if it becomes too hard or popular playing temple of shinnon might become an option.

Ancient Box

The other Ancient style deck that has risen from the temporal forces set is Ancient box which plays similar to roaring moon being a fast tempo deck that uses a high ancient card count as well as playing an ancient supporter every turn. The major differences between the two variants is that the ancient box uses koraidon as its main attacker, which can hit for up to 180 damage for two energy if they you 6 ancient pokemon on the bench.

Ancient Box is purely a single prize deck with other attackers such as silver wing, great tusk, flutter mane as well the new roaring moon. Because Ancient box floods the board with pokemon we can use the new ace spec awakening drum to draw up to 6 cards with no cost which helps accelerate the pace of this deck even more. Because all our attackers have cheap attacks at 2 each they can be powered up with only just a sada. Along with decent 2 hit knockout damage and efficient attacks, these ancient pokemon boast a base of 140 hp along with ancient booster capsules to boost their hp to 200 making them a little rough to knock out.

Silver wing is in here to deal with pokemon that cause this deck trouble such as Arceus V and Iron hands EX. Flutter mane slows down other decks while we set up and can also offer the deck a free retreat option with a rescue board attached to it. Great dusk is in here too close out some of the longer games as we are a single prize deck which makes the opponent have to use a lot of resources to take all 6 prizes against us so in some instances we can use the mill of 4 cards to put pressure in the late game and cause our opponent to deck out.

Future Iron Hands

So to go along with the new ancient box we also have a new future deck in the form of an iron hands turbo. It utilises the baby miraidon to work as a sudo arceus to accelerate energies along with electric generators. Iron crown is in there in order to create really high damage numbers with both amp you very much getting to a maximum of 220 and arm press getting up to 240 as well both with a future booster capsule. Future booster capsules also help a lot in the deck to offer multiple free retreaters. Heavy baton is in the deck to preserve energies after knockouts. Lastly it has its own version of VIP Pass in the form of Techno Radar. Although the deck has a pretty bad charizard match up, its other match ups across the field are pretty good so I can see why this deck has had pretty good success. We have seen some builds running gift energies, some running psychic to improve their stall match up and some running grass with a single iron leaves to give them a better prize map vs charizard.

Great Tusk Mill

So one deck we didn’t expect to appear was a Mill Deck focused around the new single prize Great Tusk with the attack Land Collapse which if you have played an ancient supporter that turn makes the opponent mill four cards off the top of the deck. This is a pretty sizeable amount for just the low resources of two energies and a supporter. The deck also uses a couple controly options such as mawile tempting trap and Eri. The only problem with the deck is it can mill it self pretty fast as well due to the sheer amount of cards being drawn or discarded by the supporters so to circum vent this they have added pidgeot v, palpads and super rods. Sadly this deck hasn’t seen any good results in high tier play but did see a small 2-3% topping in Best of one metas in japan’s city leagues.

Raging Bolt

Last of the newest decks to come out of temporal forces is Raging Bolt this deck seems to be more on the rogue side of the meta. The deck basically sets up high amount of energies across its pokemon in order to fuel Raging Bolts large attack numbers. We have seen many different variants of this deck be somewhat successful in city leagues. Raging bolt has been seen to have noteworthy partners such as Palkia, Sandy Shocks, Guardy and Lost box. All these variations use various different methods of spreading out energies across its pokemon in order to fufil the discard requirement Raging bolt needs in order to take knockouts. Shady Shocks attaches to it self when you are behind in prizes. Lost box can utilize gate to pull energies out of the deck once the lost zone is at a count of seven. Guardian spreads discarded Psychic energies across its psychic pokemon in exchange for damage counters and Palkia can pull three water energies from the discard pile and attach them to water type pokemon. Out of these variants Palkia and Lost box have seen the most success bar it still being far and few between.

Other Decks

Some other decks that are a noteworthy mention that will exist but either really weak or aa little niche or will have low populations are the infamous 2nd place champions league anti-meta deck arc vulpix, the once all powerful gaudy that now resorts to driftloon to survive, Diagla rising rom the ashes with the help of metang and the disappointment that is gholdengo seeing very little success despite rotation being very good for the deck.

Japanese Results

City Leagues

I have used both the champions league data (Japan’s version of Regionals) and City league data (Japan’s version of League Cups) from mid January till mid march.

Below are some pie charts showing each week of city leagues top 16 results as a percentage of how many of each deck topped in total. I have decided to show pie charts from 29th of January till March 20th. I have chosen to show all these pie charts to show the progression of the meta being developed both pre champions league and post champions league as well as coming close to release in América and Europe.

Pre Champions League Results

Post Champions League Results

The final City Leagues results before the global release date of Temporal Forces and Online Tournaments adapt to new Rotation Regulations.

Champions League

On the 17th of Feburary Japan hosted its first Champions League of the new format in Fukuoka. It had a grand total of 2655 attending Master players. Below are the day 1 and day 2 different deck distribution across all these players. Day 1 was nine rounds of swiss and Day 2 was 5 rounds of swiss. All Swiss rounds in japan are 25 minutes best of one matches. The Top Cut is comprised of the most successful top 16 players swiss results. Top Cut is also best of one matches as well.

Day 1 of Champions League Deck Population

27.1 Charizard, 10.8% Chien Pao, 10.2% Lost Box, 8.6% Arc Tina, 8.6% Lugia, 6.2% Ancient Box, 4.3% Roaring Moon, 3.7% Lost Tina, 3.1% Gholdengo, 17.2% Other

Day 2 of Champions League Deck Population

31.5 Charizard, 13.6% Chien Pao, 12.2% Lugia, 6.1% Lost Box, 6.1% Arc Tina, 5.6% Lost Tina, 5.2% Ancient Box, 4.2% Snorlax, 15.5% Other

Champions League Top 16 Finalists
Below is a list of all the top 16 players and where they managed to finish as well what deck decks they played. In order of most presence the decks in top cut were 3 Charizard, 3 Snorlax Stall, 2 Arc Tina, 2 Lost Box, 1 Lugia 1 Arc Vulpix 1 Anicent Box, 1 Great Tusk Mill & 1 Future Hands.

With Lugia winning the entire thing and Arc vulpix coming a close 2nd place. A surprise for most was Snorlax Stall placing as high as 3rd place. Even know charizard was the most popular deck day one and two of the tournament it only managed to come at highest 4th place. Lost box and arc tina also did well managing to also place in the top 8. The biggest disappoint of the tournament was the lack of chien pao doing well considering its pretty prevalent city league results as well its high population boasting 2nd most popular deck from day 1 and 2 of the tournament.