r/pkmntcg

31% Day 1
47% Day 2
Placed 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th...(if you play another deck you're not even playing for second)
5 out of the top 8
56 out of the top 100.

This deck only improves with special red card. Pokemon either needs to ban Dragapult EX or get ready for Dragapult the TCG.

Edit: At which point do we say that the card should be banned? 50% of day 1? 60, 70? When its 90% of top 8?
Why should anyone bring an otherwise middling deck for the odds that its a good matchup into Pult?

Dragapult is BDIF and insanely successful, but what about the archetypes that weren't? I'm not going to bother with decks that only had 1 or 2 reps, and limit this to those with at least 5+ players. Here's a listing of all the sub 14% conversion decks, sorted by conversion rate.

1. Ceruledge (0% conversion / 11 players): this shouldn't be surprising to anyone who's followed this once popular deck. The lack of Professor's Research really hurts and this deck is just too linear without the power. Maybe it'll get better after Prism Tower releases but Japanese results makes this doubtful.
2. Ethan's Typhlosion (0% conversion / 14 players): this deck was eaten alive. Candy in Pult and the increase in Dusknoirs in general meant doom for this stage 2 one-prizer. The future does look bleak.
3. Flareon (0% conversion / 15 players): there were some influencers hyping this deck up after rotation but it has done hot nothing. 0 success literally anywhere except City Leagues. I don't know if this deck has any batters left after this, nor what it's even good at at this point.
4. Archaludon (0% conversion / 6 players): all 4 variants of Zoroark, Dunsparce, Metang, and Cinderace saw play here. Unfortunately this deck is just currently hopelessly underpowered. Maybe Prism Tower will help the Dunsparce variant but to what end?
5. Toxtricity with Mega Sharpedo / Mega Absol (0% conversion / 5 players): these decks are just underpowered imo. Takes too long to set up and has basically 0 good matchups since there are very few Psychic decks to farm.
6. Yanmega (0% conversion / 5 players): one of my personal favourites, but unfortunately only good at cheesing wins off of grass-weaks and there weren't a lot of those in this regional compared to Prague.
7. Starmie Dusknoir (3.45% conversion / 58 players): probably the biggest loser of this regional. Top 4 in Prague and cannot even squeeze out 5% here. The deck still bricks like crazy despite all the techs and the Psyduck usage didn't help.
8. Mega Lucario (5.8% conversion / 68 players): Lucario's century of humiliation saved by Xavier Phelan making top cut with his Secret Box build. The rest dropped like flies despite the lack of respect aside from the Clefairy other decks play for Dragapult. This deck looks very grim going forward, unless Xavier's build turns out to be the truth long term.
9. Mega Venusaur / Mega Meganium (6.25% conversion / 16 players): this deck sucks and is just worse Hydrapple ex (who has 25% conversion) in every way that matters. Not surprising.
10. Rocket's Honchkrow (7.7% conversion / 39 players): very disappointing result for the Honch after a fairly successful Prague. Another 1-prizer deck that gets eaten alive by all the Dragapult Dusknoirs, or just Dragapult in general. Also not a lot of Crustle at this tournament for Honch to farm.
11. Steven's Metagross (8.33% conversion / 12 players): underpowered deck that has some good matchups (Mega Froslass, Alakazam, Festival Lead) but otherwise extremely middling with not much of a selling point.
12. Lillie's Clefairy Box (10% conversion / 10 players): this is the slop box that plays Lillie's Pearl. Good Dragapult matchup but gets farmed by most other things due to Clef's low base HP. Worse than other slop box variants in most ways.
13. Tera Box (11.1% conversion / 9 players): the Noctowl line isn't enough to make up for this deck's low power ceiling compared to slop box and raging bolt.
14. Slowking (12.5% conversion / 16 players): a middling deck with an ok Dragapult matchup. It's very linear and predictable as well. Playing 10 million garnets also doesn't help with consistency.
15. Grimmsnarl Froslass (13% conversion / 23 players): this deck is just underpowered now, and gets farmed by all the grasses, bolt, Garchomp, and Zoro.
16. Crustle (13.33% conversion / 15 players): significantly worse than its Prague performance. We do see Crustle techs in decks now but there are barely anyone playing this deck in the first place.
17. Okidogi Barbaracle (13.8% conversion / 29): good single prizer with an underrated matchup spread which unfortunately gets farmed by the BDIF.

Other fun facts:

• Dragapult Blaziken is the Dragapult build with by far the lowest conversion rate at 18% while every other Dragapult variants is 25%+.
• Hydrapple ex has the highest conversion rate of non-Pult variants, albeit with a lower sample size. After that are variants of slop box.
• Starmie Froslass ended up much better than Starmie Dusknoir, boasting a 20% conversion rate.

I don’t want to but I will if it’s the only competitive deck.
I’ve tried festival lead, which feels broken half the time, and bricks 20%of the time and gets absolutely destroyed by pult.
Mega Lucario feels incredibly mid
Garchomp is fine and seems to be pretty good but the deck isn’t very interesting/fun to play
Raging bolt seems fine but also a little brain dead
Alakazam also loses to pult and is tedious to play.

Any suggestions ???

Disclaimer: I'm bad. There will be no Metafy from me.

LA was my third regional (plus last year’s NAIC) and the first time I made day two. Here’s my summary of the weekend.

The Deck:

I played Mewtwo/Spidops with Articuno, Mimikyu, Wobbuffet, Sneasel, and Clefairy. The item, tool, and supporter counts are all over the place compared to standard Mewtwo lists, but who wants to just use the same list? Overall I feel like it held together fairly well all weekend, which is not always the case.

Two Articuno: I really don’t think this is necessary but will admit, sure, it’s convenient not to have to spend a Night Stretcher on this when I need it. It’s also nice to have another basic that survives Solrock. But I’m not sure I will keep the second one going forward, TBD.

One Mimikyu: Enough. Two Articuno and two Mimikyu feels crazy to me.

Wobbuffet: The GOAT. He helped in several matches. No notes.

Sneasel: Not relevant all weekend, haha. I used the attack maybe once or thrice. But I’ll still keep playing that garbage. One of my favorite Pokemon.

One Brave Bangle: I really miss having two but just don’t know where to fit the second. Need to learn not to preemptively attach.

Hero’s Cape: I’m honestly not sure. Sometimes it feels invisible, like an insurance policy you don’t actually use. And so in one sense, it can be a bit of a dead card that could be spent on anything else. I just felt like too many Megas don’t die to Max Belt anyway, but in hindsight how many of those actually matter? Mega Venusaur?? I may go back to Belt. Or perhaps I’ll try Secret Box for the first time. In terms of when I actually used the Cape: Against Dragapult, always on Clefairy. Against Festival Lead, before they all teched tool scrapper, it was kind of a trump card that allowed me to win even going second. When Dusknoir was a more popular Dragapult inclusion it was also very good. But they seemed to have all stopped playing Dusknoir, which seems bizarre to me.

Tool Scrapper: Love this guy, though I don’t think I used it all weekend. Just didn’t face the matchups where it matters. I really like it against Garchomp - but where were they???

Two Factories: I would really like another, or maybe a Watchtower. Too many Risky Ruins out there. One of the most annoying stadiums of all time. For a minute a couple months ago I had a Battle Cage because I was sick of Gardevoir, but eventually took it out.

Two Ultra Balls: The standard seems to be just all four. I can not imagine what cards I’m supposed to be discarding with FOUR Ultra Balls. Hello??? Even one a game I have to have a difficult internal debate over. Four???? Even if I went to 7 energy that’s surely not enough to be getting value out of four of these.

Two Poke Pad: Nice. These help a lot when I need a Spidops or need to fill the bench.

5 Grass / 1 Psychic: It feels like enough, personally. Maybe it’s greedy. I just don’t recall missing key attachments this weekend. Now, I for sure missed Rocket Energy several times and that was a pain. Separately, two Psychic would be a nice backup option but also feels overkill.

One Energy Search and One Energy Switch: I like search. I don’t think people play it. But it’s nice to get Psychic on the board or in discard early for use later on. Energy switch is a critical card I used several times to get me out of binds all weekend and frankly wish I could have two.

Two Petrel: I almost always end up using both of these in every game. Not sure how people get away with one. It’s typically one to get the stadium and the other to get one of the tools.

Three Proton: Used to have two and went to three only because of nest ball. Seems fine.

Three Night Stretcher: Love to always have one of these around. I’ve never tried Sacred Ash so not sure if that’s worth it. But doesn’t Sacred Ash just mean I need to spend another card finding what I put back in? Why not just use the stretcher?

Three Giovanni: it’s enough but I used to have three and then a counter catcher. I find myself having to discard Giovanni early because I need something, and then later in the game I really regret having lost it.

Three Lillie: a good count, no notes.

Three Ariana: Also fine I think.

Two Archer: Also good.

Day 1:

Round 1: WLW - Mega Lucario with Hariyama. Okay, I lost game two in part because I never found a Proton, but otherwise games one and three were pretty chill. I could have scooped the second game a little earlier but at this point I’m still learning when it’s time to cut my losses and go again. It’s so nice to start off with a win.

Round 2: WW - Okidogi. With Cape I think this matchup is better for me than it might usually be for Mewtwo. Game one they went with Cornerstone which took me a few turns with Mimikyu and Tarantula, but eventually I got there and after that it was smooth sailing taking a prize every turn. Game two they bricked and we finished the match with over 30 minutes to spare. 2-0 had me feeling like I would win the tournament.

Round 3: WLL - Festival Lead. Won the coin flip and went first. Smooth game. Lost the second game for obvious reasons. Revealed Cape for the first time in game two just to check for a tool scrapper, which they showed immediately. Game three I started Mewtwo. Nothing to be done about that. Well, there is sometimes - flee to the bench with a Cape, and they can’t Black Belt’s Training and Boss at the same time, but I could never find energy to attack with it, let alone retreat, so it just got stuck a few turns before dying. Opponent said I made a bunch of mistakes. Don’t really remember what about. This is the first instance of opponents seemingly lecturing me this weekend. 3-0 would have felt crazy but reality set in here and I felt like five wins was very far away.

Round 4: WLT - Dragapult. He played incredibly slow. So slow. I asked a judge about it and they just gave a quick “watch your pace” and then didn’t return. We barely started the third game before time was called. Every time I took an action, he would shuffle my deck for 10-20 seconds. He would take 20-30 seconds on every action of his. It was egregious and I should have asked a judge a second time to do something about it. 2-1-1 had me mentally again feel like day two was miles away but I kept hope.

Round 5: WW - Dragapult. Only notes I wrote down were “quick win.” 3-1-1 felt good. I believe in game 2 he Unfair Stamped me into Clefairy plus Rocket energy which I needed for the win lol

Round 6: WLT - Dragapult. We both played kind of slow, and I was on the precipice of losing game three but managed to live. On my last turn there was an incredibly slim chance I could take three prizes to clutch the win from the jaws of defeat, only for my opponent to ask me “do you think you can take four prizes this turn?” I looked at my prizes and was like, lol, lmao. 3-1-2 is starting to feel ridiculous, like the drama could not be any higher.

Round 7: WW - Zoroark. Quick win. He was never able to attack with Darmanitan. 4-1-2. To know that my only option to get to day two is to win the last match of the day had me feeling like I could throw up.

Round 8: WW - Dragapult. I felt like my opponent didn’t quite know the matchup, mostly because they weren’t putting 60 on Spidops. Crazy to make my first day two on the “win and in” match, right up to the last minute.

Day 2: Round 9: LL - Hydrapple/Ogerpon. I vaguely recall the first game wasn’t so bad for me. He loaded 40 energies onto Ogerpon to KO the Cape Mewtwo and for some reason I just could not find a Rocket Energy for Mimikyu to wipe the board of energy. Ended up doing several half attacks with Spidops so his whole board was full of benched Ogerpons with 30-60 HP left. Game two he got a two prize penalty for drawing 6 off of stamp and he still ran away with it lol.

Round 10: WW - Alakazam. Opponent played slow and after the match explicitly admitted to playing slow to try and get a tie if they got a fluke game two win. They would just pop Dudunsparces 40 times and in both games got down to only a couple cards in deck. They didn’t seem to have any techs - they just started loading up the regular Dudunsparce with the draw ability. He attacked Articuno once. I took 12 total prizes across the two games and he took none. After the match he said I made a ton of mistakes and got lucky. Okay??

Round 11: WW - Dragapult… Control? He had 40 crushing hammers, a Ruffian, and a bunch of other annoying junk. After the match, he had the gall to say I was the one who got lucky, after he used all 8 total crushing hammers across both games with a roughly 75% success rate. Said my deck was a pile, and that it’s “better to be lucky than good.” Don’t really know what compels a person to say this out loud. Is it ever that serious. I do have a problem with Unfair Stamp players always saying I get lucky when the usual brick after Unfair Stamp is just... them getting lucky? (But yeah, he Unfair Stamped me back into the Rocket energy I needed lol)

Round 12: LL - Mega Lopunny. Got up to table 47, my highest of the weekend. It was interesting to see that Cape was problematic for him, as it took several turns to KO. But Wally’s Compassion makes this close to an auto-loss without Max Belt.

Round 13: LL - Mega Lopunny/Mega Froslass. At this point I’m mentally over it. When the first game started if I had put more than two seconds of thought in I could have played differently (some turns I just forgot to empty my hand due to an incoming Froslass attack, or miscalculate by forgetting that I would be adding a prize to my hand that turn, etc), but it wasn’t really close anyway.

Overall Thoughts:

Ending in the top 200 with 7-4-2 is an amazing record for me after my previous regional results being like, 2,000th place or something. So happy with how this worked out and I won’t shy away from the fact that yeah, I was fairly lucky. I avoided bad matchups pretty much right up until the end of day 2. Now, I mean I see other people faced Dragapult 9 times compared to my 5, and I only hit Alakazam once, in day two, and never saw a Garchomp, so I could certainly have been luckier, but yeah. I would not have made day two without good matchups along the way. Also separately, in the side event TCG challenge on Friday I went 6-1 and came 5th!!!

Lessons Learned:

Play faster.

Call a judge but don’t be ridiculous. I should have called judges for slow play more than I did. Another time my opponent tried to talk me out of calling a judge (with the 6 off Unfair Stamp) and I almost let them convince me, but when they didn’t even want to go with my suggestion of shuffling the card back into deck, that’s when it started to feel strange and I’m glad I called. Now, I observed people calling judges for truly insane reasons. Match next to mine in round 9, before the match even started one person asked a judge to check their opponent’s sleeves because they looked marked and blah blah blah and several judges - including a head judge when the person appealed - said “the sleeves have normal wear and tear, there’s nothing here.” That gamesmanship was a bit much.

People get really salty, especially in day two. Just say “okay, pal” and go laugh about it with friends, as it’s very funny to relay salty stories.

Try to have fun.

Prizing takes forever. Just ask round 13 opponent to tie or concede early to get in line lol

My deck, however unconventional and suboptimal, made it. I don’t have to play the same 60 as everyone else. Highest ranked Sneasel in the room!!!

Full List:

Pokémon: 16 4 Team Rocket's Tarountula DRI 19 4 Team Rocket's Spidops DRI 20 2 Team Rocket's Mewtwo ex DRI 81 2 Team Rocket's Articuno DRI 51 1 Team Rocket's Mimikyu DRI 87 1 Team Rocket's Wobbuffet DRI 82 1 Team Rocket's Sneasel DRI 128 1 Lillie's Clefairy ex JTG 56

Trainer: 34 3 Team Rocket's Ariana DRI 171 3 Lillie's Determination MEG 119 3 Team Rocket's Proton DRI 177 3 Team Rocket's Giovanni DRI 174 2 Team Rocket's Archer DRI 170 2 Team Rocket's Petrel DRI 176 4 Team Rocket's Transceiver DRI 178 3 Night Stretcher ASC 196 2 Poké Pad POR 81 2 Ultra Ball MEG 131 1 Tool Scrapper ASC 212 1 Energy Search POR 72 1 Energy Switch MEG 115 1 Hero's Cape TEF 152 1 Brave Bangle WHT 80 2 Team Rocket's Factory DRI 173

Energy: 10 5 Grass Energy MEE 1 4 Team Rocket's Energy DRI 182 1 Psychic Energy MEE 5

As a Steven's main myself, I'm very proud of Trolley Metagross making it into day 2 at the LA Regional. The 60 is very similar to the 60 that got me a top cut at a local which makes me think that this archetype has a very bright future!

I want this post to eventually reach Karlson Koenig, the exceptional pilot who cooked this list, so I can discuss the deck with him going into the next regional.

Deck Profile in the comments below!

I've been preparing for Utrecht regional a lot over the last couple of weeks and one thing has become clear: If I miss both Lillie's determination and Buddy-Buddy poffin and my opponent doesn't, the game may as well be over.

I'm playing Blaziken Pult which runs 4 of each, and 4 ultra ball to get to Meowth, of the 22 games where I whiffed all 4 of Ultra Ball, Meowth, Buddy-Buddy Poffin and Lillie's Determination and my opponent didn't - I lost 19 of them.

Does anyone find this a bit ridiculous? There's literally nothing I can do, it's completely luck of the draw what is in my opening hand.

Just built my first deck but haven’t played IRL yet. How do I go about finding someone to play with? I’m pretty comfortable at my local card shop in terms of talking to the employees and buying cards but the other players there intimidate me lol.

If I see two people playing, can I just ask to play one of them next? Do I just sit with my deck and wait to be approached? Should I be entering the weekly tournaments?

side note: what’s the difference between league and tournament? My card shop does tournaments on Saturdays and League on Mondays

I've been playing Slowking with a Dudunsparce line but have recently been experimenting with this Solrock/Lunatone version. It seems to have more flexibility, but more difficult to pilot. I've been comfortable enough with the Dudunsparce version to compete with the various versions of Dragapult, but wanted to test other variants. This Solrock list feels like there are more options and I like having a Solrock to attack with if I go turn 2. Any other Slowking players with thoughts on this list or their recommendations?

Pokémon: 20

2 Slowpoke SCR 57

2 Slowking SCR 58

2 Kyurem SFA 47

2 Mega Kangaskhan ex MEG 104

2 Lunatone MEG 74

2 Solrock MEG 75

2 Latias ex SSP 76

1 Riolu MEG 76

1 Mega Lucario ex MEG 77

1 Lillie's Clefairy ex JTG 56

1 Bloodmoon Ursaluna PRE 54

1 Annihilape SSP 100

1 Frillish WHT 44

Trainer: 30

2 Lana's Aid TWM 155

2 Crispin SCR 133

2 Ciphermaniac's Codebreaking TEF 145

2 Boss's Orders MEG 114

1 Brock's Scouting JTG 146

4 Fighting Gong MEG 116

4 Poké Pad POR 81

3 Night Stretcher ASC 196

2 Energy Switch MEG 115

2 Ultra Ball MEG 131

1 Secret Box TWM 163

1 Switch MEG 130

1 Energy Retrieval SVI 171

1 Powerglass SFA 63

2 Academy at Night SFA 54

Energy: 10

7 Fighting Energy MEE 6

3 Psychic Energy MEE 5

After lurking the competitive side of the hobby for a few years, and finally getting back on it with a Shrouded Fable ETB back in 2024 for my birthday, on Monday the 11th, I went to my first prerelease event. Was I nervous? Yes. Will I go to more events? Definitely.

I showed up to the small local store, completely baffled with the idea that I’m going to talk to other adults about Pokemon to an extend where it’s beyond the basics. I picked up my Build & Battle Box and sat quietly in the back of the room, away from the groups of people that were opening their boxes together and discussing strategies, favorite cards and more. I ended up getting the deck I wanted, Goodra. In my 4 packs I was also able to pull a Mega Floette ex and a Prism Tower, both good for this event. The nights before, I had already spend a few hours looking into the decks and what I could possibly do when it comes to my deck building, so I ended up going with the full Goodra evolution line, the Mega Floette ex and only one copy of Espurr and Meowstic. I sleeve up my deck, I get my things in order and wait for the shuffle.

First Match vs Crobat:
I met my first ever locals opponent, we shake hands and we chat a bit about my being a first timer in an offline event. Surprisingly, both him and the people around me reacted in a very enthusiastic way, happy that I took the leap to play. In short, I was able to get a Goodra live in three turns, and started getting my prize cards down to my last one. The turning point was that my opponent played Crobat, confused me, and the dice roll didn’t go my way, so I ended up losing my Goodra on the next turn and then I couldn’t come back due to not drawing any Lillie's Determination and energies, so I had no resources. The one “negative” thing is that my opponent played a couple of his cards and abilities without fully knowing what they do, and when I asked to check the text, he ended up reversing his actions (e.g. Crobat ability, he thought he selected 1 card from his deck and put it in his hand). I didn’t want to say anything negative like “you already made the move” in the spirit of my positivity, which I won’t repeat in an event that is not prerelease. So 0-1 it goes.

Second Match vs Ampharos:
Ampharos was my second deck of choice, so I was excited to see it in action. My opponent was a very experienced player and a Pokemon judge as well, so he was by nature very helpful. Unfortunately, I opened with Mega Floette ex, but without any energies or draw power despite having Prism Tower, 3 Lillie’s & Poke Pads in my deck. After a couple of rounds I was only able to evolve a Goomy into Sliggoo but my enemy was slowly building his bench with Mega Pyroar ex and an Ampharos in the lead, so I sank slowly into defeat. 0-2.

Third Match vs Crobat:
I was feeling good because both matches have been a good learning experience, so I was heading into my third match with the same confidence if not more. I match with another Crobat, lovely guy again, guided me step by step and fixed my mistakes (I played Dawn in the 1st turn of the game). I opened up with Goomy and Mega Floette ex on my bench, I quickly evolve in two turns up to Goodra and start knocking out his active Pokemon. He didn’t have a lot of luck in drawing so he bricked really bad, to the point where I used Switch to move my Mega Floette ex on the active spot, and tanked with the +30 heal attack every turn until he decked out. My first offline win! 1-2.

Third Match vs Delphox:
Really happy to play vs all different decks in the same event. Great opponent, came from another TCG to have a more pleasant experience while playing. He opened up quickly with Vulpix and two Fennekin. I open with one Goomy. He goes first, attaches and on to me. I draw.. nothing. I got stuck with no energy, two Goodra in hand and two AZ supporters that were not useful. The game went back and forth for maybe 10 rounds, where I bricked again and didn’t draw any draw support or energies, and he slowly burned me to the ground. Total tally 1-3.

Overall I was able to confirm what I was seeing in all these videos from other locals and events; the Pokemon community is really friendly, eager to help you and there is cool vibes all around. I enjoyed it so much that I’ve signed up for another prerelease event this upcoming Friday! Then, I have to make an actual deck to play on locals lol. The store gave us 2 packs also for participating so it was cool to open up new cards, felt amazing. Said bye to everyone and walked to my car as I heard them starting to trade with each other, again, really cool!

In the finals of the LA regionals, we just witnessed Andrew Hedrick stall to gain an advantage and be issued a double prize penalty. Andrews advantage was not taken away. They still had the time to think and make a play and they even got more time during the judges deliberation. As both decks in play were Dragapults, the 2 prize penalty didn't really matter as both decks can take multi prize turns late game. In a meta that is so dominated by Dragapults, are these penalties actually enough? What is stopping players from stalling if the penalty ultimately means nothing?

Hi everyone,

I've been thinking about getting into the pokemon tcg, but I've been running into some posts that got me worried like these:

https://www.reddit.com/r/pkmntcg/comments/1svgo4c/why_does_it_feel_like_im_playing_against_myself/

https://www.reddit.com/r/TCG/comments/1t9al9t/whats_one_tcg_mechanic_that_instantly_makes_you/

I know pokemon isn't the most complex tcg, but I'm a bit worried the game will cease being fun, become boring or lack variety... What are ya'll's experiences?

I've been maining Pult (sorry) for about a year now and I'm looking to branch out to playing a single prize deck. Sell me your favourite single prize deck right now and why I should play it.

Things are looking dim for the future in terms of the ultimate cringe overlord, Dragapult ex. This new one-prize deck has good draw, good attacks, and albeit gimmicky prize mapping. The deck is focused around overwhelming spread damage, prize denial, and exploitation.

In specifics to exploitation and prize denial, Ghost Veil shuts down anything that places damage counters on it. That means no Alakazam, Dusknoir, Munkidori, Froslass, Phantom Dive, etc. for your opponents if they choose to target a Ghost Veil Pokémon.

In regards to overwhelming spread damage, Spiritomb is fundamentally a god compared to N's Vanilluxe, which only doubles the amount of damage on your opponent's Pokémon. Its attack quadruples the damage on two of your opponent's Pokémon for one C energy, and it's a Basic Pokémon. 40 → 160, 80 → 320, 120 → 480. Combine this with Sinistcha's attack (40 spread damage) and you can clean out your opponent's entire board in a single turn. One major drawback to Spiritomb is its attack condition, only allowing the attack if 13 Ghost Veil Pokémon cards are in the discard. This makes it purely a late-game attacker, which may raise issues if you begin with one in the Active Spot (it does not have the Ghost Veil ability).

For Dragapult, Dhelmise hits 340 if you have Lillie's Clefairy in play. That's going to do a lot of work against Dragapult decks. Even better, Dhelmise with Black Belt's Training can knock out a Fezandipiti, and one-shots Meowth. Dhelmise by itself honestly seems incredibly strong, but Munkidori once again ends up being the party-pooper. Get down Mr. President- Stage 1 and Stage 2 Megas get out of two-shot range entirely via a single Adrena-Brain. Good thing Lillie's Clefairy exists.

For drawing power, this deck really wants to play the new Gwynn. Gwynn discards up to 2 Pokémon from your hand that do not have a rule box, drawing 3 cards for each Pokémon you discarded. This pairs somewhat well with Sinistcha, although it is more likely for Carmine or Lillie's Determination to take up most of the Supporter slots.

Now, about the ginormous elephant in the room. You can't hide behind Ghost Veil and expect to get away with it against most decks. All of your Pokémon are around 60 HP, which is extremely low for such a gimmicky damage setup. In addition, cards like Greninja ex and N's Darmanitan can easily destroy your bench with no real response options, going right through Ghost Veil. Keep in mind that Mega Greninja ex decks will all at least play one copy of Greninja ex, and that deck right now is the presumed successor of Dragapult. That means a likely 20% of the players you face will end your run on the third or fourth turn. 13 Ghost Veil Pokémon in the discard pile to use Spiritomb is super demanding, requiring either insane milling or stalling enough time to get there. In this meta, the time just is not there. By the time you get Spiritomb running, you will likely be 2-3 prizes down. Overall, this deck will be really fun, but not too practical.

Poltchageist - Grass - HP30
Basic Pokemon

Ability: Ghost Veil
This Pokemon can't be affected by effects of attacks or Abilities from your opponent's Pokemon.

[C] Furtive Drop: Place 1 damage counter on your opponent's Active Pokemon.

Weakness: Fire (x2)
Resistance: none
Retreat: 0

Sinistcha - Grass - HP60
Stage 1 - Evolves from Poltchageist

Ability: Ghost Veil
This Pokemon can't be affected by effects of attacks or Abilities from your opponent's Pokemon.

[C] Matcha Spin: If you have 6 or more Pokemon in your discard with the Ghost Veil Ability, place 4 damage counters on each of your opponent's Pokemon.

Weakness: Fire (x2)
Resistance: none
Retreat: 1

Shuppet - Psychic - HP50
Basic Pokemon

Ability: Ghost Veil
This Pokemon can't be affected by effects of attacks or Abilities from your opponent's Pokemon.

[P] Hang Down: 10 damage.

Weakness: Darkness (x2)
Resistance: Fighting (-30)
Retreat: 1

Banette - Psychic - HP80
Stage 1 - Evolves from Shuppet

Ability: Ghost Veil
This Pokemon can't be affected by effects of attacks or Abilities from your opponent's Pokemon.

[P] Doll Catch: 80 damage. You may search your deck for any card and put it into your hand. If you do, shuffle your deck.

Weakness: Darkness (x2)
Resistance: Fighting (-30)
Retreat: 1

Spiritomb - Psychic - HP60
Basic Pokemon

[P] Soul End: If you have 13 or more Pokemon in your discard with the Ghost Veil Ability, choose 2 of your opponent's Pokemon and quadruple the number of damage counters on each of them.

Dhelmise - Psychic - HP140
Basic Pokemon

[P] Regretful Rage: 30+ damage. If you have 4 or more Pokemon in your discard with the Ghost Veil Ability, this attack does 140 more damage.

Weakness: Darkness (x2)
Resistance: Fighting (-30)
Retreat: 3

Gwynn - Trainer
Supporter

Discard up to 2 Pokemon from your hand (excluding any Rule Box Pokemon). Draw 3 cards for each Pokemon discarded in this way.

You may play only 1 Supporter card during your turn.

Pokemon has occasionally released what is functionally a completed deck in a single set or two, with night march, lost box, and the new "ghost veil" archetypes being recent examples. More examples that come to mind are festival lead, mad party, and united wings.

What are some of y'alls favorite decks of this genre throughout the history of the game ?

I was looking at results for LA regionals and saw that Garchomp players were running a relicanth. Why would people be adding it in? I don’t see any cases where it would actually be helpful.