Images courtesy of The Pokémon Company
The Pokémon Europe International Championships (EUIC) 2025 broke records as the largest tournament in the west by far. Headed by the brand new Prismatic Evolutions (PRE) expansion, the Pokémon Trading Card Game (or TCG) had its very first broadcast tournament with this format, and yet the meta has already experienced drastic shifts from where it was in the weeks prior.
In a format supposedly ruled by Budew, decks had to pivot to less Item-reliant strategies to get around the dreaded Item Lock, catapulting decks such as Dragapult ex and Gardevoir ex to the top. This then caused a surge of Miraidon ex players to take advantage of this meta, proven by back-to-back wins in the Merida Regionals and Special Event Puerto Rico.
However, the metagame has once again shifted to counter Miraidon ex and one of its simplest counters, Archaludon ex, causing an interesting direction of several decks during EUIC 2025.
Let’s discuss the different flavors of these decks in today’s article.
Klawf Terapagos
In a metagame where many decks rely on small basics, such as Gardevoir ex and Dragapult ex, Klawf Terapagos ex has the insane potential to donk the opponent before they can even play the game, as demonstarted by Ryuki Okada in the Masters Division finals of the tournament. The combination of Pecharunt, Radiant Hisuian Sneasler, and Brute Bonnet can output 80 poison damage on the first turn, allowing for a cheap early KO into slower decks.
This potential increases the fewer big basic decks such as Raging Bolt ex are in the meta, which made the crab and turtle a great pick for the weekend. From a fringe meme deck to a legitimate meta contender, this also marks Klawf’s highest placement in a tournament!
Ryuki Okada actually won a regional in Europe this season with Dragapult, so it’s interesting to see him face off the same deck in the finals of EUIC 2025.
Dragapult
The Dragapult archetype has received some massive overhauls this weekend. Tord Reklev piloted a pure Dragapult deck, without any copies of Dusknoir at all. This was picked up early on by Gabriel Fernandez, who tweaked the list and clinched the Senior EUIC 2025 title, while his older brother Vini Fernandez piloted the same 60 to a 5th place in the Masters division.
Meanwhile, Oceania representative Natalie Millar stuck to the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mantra, piloting the deck to a second place finish in the Masters Division. Tweaked by Ethan Hegyi, the deck ran two copies of Dusclops and a singular copy of Dusknoir, which is crucial in the mirror and against Gardy, among many other matchups where the extra early evolution matters to set up a Counter Catcher play.
Archaludon
A divisive deck due to its low power output, Archaludon ex seemed to be one of the decks to beat for the weekend. It posted favorable matchups to Miraidon ex and Dragapult ex, two of the strongest contenders for EUIC 2025.
Simone Fiorito piloted a variant with Origin Forme Dialga VSTAR to a 4th place finish, while all the other Bridge decks failed to break into Top 64.
Meanwhile, Cyrus McCane played a straight list with no other attackers, but the list folds in non-Miraidon and Pult matchups.
Gholdengo
The breakout deck of the weekend, the testing team of Rahul Reddy, Grant Shen, Isaiah Bradner, Jon Eng, and Lucas Xing, among many others, believed the deck had all the right answers to Archaludon ex, Miraidon ex, and even Dragapult ex due to Munkidori – which was believed to be one of the hottest decks of the weekend – and posted nine day two conversions with the same 60, one landing in Top 3 in the hands of Xander Pero.
Jelle van Kampen meanwhile utilized a 1-1 Origin Forme Palkia VSTAR line to combat the mirror, while Ilya Kornilov used a 1-1 Scizor line to answer decks such as Gardevoir ex, Miraidon ex, and the mirror. Even two-time Regional Champion for this season, Henry Chao, who is best known as Gardevoir’s strongest soldier, fielded the silly string cheese man over his tried and tested signature deck.
Snorlax
A risky pick into a weekend full of Archaludon ex, Daniel Magda’s hybrid Snorlax positioned itself as a very effective counter to Miraidon ex decks and still had game to other top decks by running both Rotom V and Boxed Order.
Meanwhile, Rone Nielsen utilized more Pokémon such as Mawile and Milotic to lock opposing Gardevoir ex and Archaludon ex out of the game.
Where Are the Other Top Decks?
In an extremely hostile meta, Sebastian Lashmet piloted Gardevoir ex to an 18th place finish, while Alejandro Luciano Eijo landed 26th with Miraidon ex.
The Gardevoir ex lists have been pushed out of the top tables due to the presence of Jamming Tower, all the Dragapult ex and Miraidon ex running around. Klefki, on the other hand, was one of the hottest tech cards for the weekend, with 17% of decks (62 out of 360) running a copy in Day 2 to slow down Miraidon ex, and hitting Lost Box as collateral damage.
Lugia was already floundering with the rise of Miraidon ex (and the electric deck’s counter, Archaludon ex) to the top. The best placement came from Sergio Rodriguez in 41st place. The amount of Gholdengo ex didn’t help either, as this is another horrible matchup for the Gen 2 cover legendary.
However, judging from sheer statistics, Gardevoir ex still posted a Day 2 16% stat, while Miraidon ex was at 11%. So these two decks still had a great run. Lugia fell off, though, dropping to 4% from Day 1’s 8% number.
The Prismatic Evolutions metagame continues to develop on a weekly basis, with each tournament having drastically different metagames based on the results of the previous major. With Klawf cutting Hisuian Electrode V and the rise of the Bridge and Dengo, will Charizard ex make a comeback? How about Lost Box, as more and more decks cut Manaphy? Which decks are you expecting to next rise to the top?
Want more Pokémon TCG content? Check out our recent ranking of each Scarlet & Violet set so far.
