Dragapult ex / Dusknoir deck: the core, the flex slots, and what beats it

What Dragapult ex / Dusknoir looks like when you open the box

Across the 41 lists we counted, this deck runs 19 to 23 Pokémon, 28 to 33 Trainers and 7 to 9 Energy. Its attacks are paid for in Psychic and Fire.

On results pages and on stream you will see it written « dragapult-dusknoir ». Every card named in that label turns up in the tables below, which is what makes it a fair name for the deck.

Look at the Energy: 7 to 9 out of 60, when half the 97 decks we track run 10 or more. This one is lean. It lives on cheap attacks and leans on Trainers to find the right Energy at the right moment rather than stockpiling it.

It takes a while to set up. Dragapult ex is a Stage 2 Pokémon: you put down the baby, you evolve it, and then you evolve it again. Three cards stacked before anything attacks. That is what the hardest-hitting decks cost you, and it is also where they crack — a fast opponent can bury you before the line is standing.

Look at the Trainers: 28 to 33 cards out of 60, against a median of 31 across the 97 decks we track. Inside that, 9 to 12 Supporters, and the rule there is strict — one a turn, even if you are holding three. The 15 to 21 Items you can play all of in the same turn. It also brings up to 3 Stadiums, and 91 of the 97 decks we track bring that many or more. Only one Stadium sits on the table at a time: the one you play sends the one already there to the discard pile.

What Tools and Stadiums do — the two Trainer families we skipped here — and why the Energy count says so much: how to read a deck list.

What the cards in this deck's name actually do

Dragapult ex and Dusknoir give this deck its name. Here is what is written on them.

Dragapult ex is in all 41 lists, 3 copies of it.

Dusknoir is in all 41 lists, 1 copy of it. Its Ability is called Cursed Blast, and here is what is printed on it, word for word: « Once during your turn, you may put 13 damage counters on 1 of your opponent's Pokémon. If you use this Ability, this Pokémon is Knocked Out. »

How Dragapult ex / Dusknoir actually wins

Dragapult ex attacks with Phantom Dive for 200. It needs 2 Energy, 1 Fire and 1 Psychic attached, and it has 320 HP. And the number is not everything the card says. There is one more line printed under the attack, and it is the one everybody skips: "Put 6 damage counters on your opponent's Benched Pokémon in any way you like."

The cost of Phantom Dive decides your first few turns. You only get to attach one Energy a turn, and that attack asks for 2. On your own attachments alone, your first real swing lands on turn 2. Except you are not on your own. Rosa's Encouragement, a single copy in the list, digs Energy out of your discard pile and puts it back on one of your Pokémon. Not whenever you feel like it, though. The card itself says when, so read it before you count on it. One copy in the whole list, so do not build your turn around it. When it shows up it buys you a turn, and that is already a lot.

Good news on mobility: pulling Dragapult ex back to the Bench costs you 1 Energy attached to it, and that is all. Retreating does not cost you your turn, so you step back and swing anyway. That matters enormously the day your opponent lands something nasty on it.

Dragapult ex, Fezandipiti ex and Meowth ex carry the "ex" suffix, and your opponent takes 2 Prize cards instead of one when one of them falls. They need 6 to win: 3 well-placed knockouts on those cards beat you, where it would take 6 anywhere else on your Bench.

The attackers in the deck's core, with their best attack, its cost and their Weakness

Pokémon	HP	Attack	Damage	Cost	Weakness	Retreat
Close Dragapult exStage 2	320	Phantom Dive	200	Fire + Psychic	none	1
Close DusknoirStage 2	160	Shadow Bind	150	Psychic + Psychic + Colorless	Darkness ×2	3
Close DrakloakStage 1	90	Dragon Headbutt	70	Fire + Psychic	none	1
Close Meowth exBasic	170	Tuck Tail	60	Colorless + Colorless + Colorless	Fighting ×2	1

The core: the 17 cards every list runs

These 17 cards appear in all 41 lists, without a single exception. That is 46 of the 60 slots. The other 14 are decided player by player.

Look at how those 46 slots break down: 23 Trainers, 17 Pokémon, 6 Energy. Trainers outweigh everything else put together, which is the mark of a deck that goes and fetches its cards rather than waiting to draw them.

12 of those 17 cards do not sit at the same count from list to list: Dragapult ex (2 to 3), Duskull (1 to 2) and Budew (1 to 2), plus 9 more. Add those spreads up and you get 14 copies the 41 lists do not agree on, inside the core itself.

What "3 to 4" means in the copies column, what the "TWM 130" code under each name is for, and why we count dozens of lists instead of one: how to read a deck list.

The cards present in every list counted, with the number of copies

Copies	Card	Printing	Kind	Rotation
4	Close Drakloak	TWM 129	Pokémon	leaves
4	Close Dreepy	TWM 128	Pokémon	leaves
2–3	Close Dragapult ex	TWM 130	Pokémon	leaves
1–2	Close Duskull	PRE 35	Pokémon	leaves
1–2	Close Budew	ASC 16	Pokémon	leaves
1–2	Close Dusknoir	PRE 37	Pokémon	leaves
1	Close Fezandipiti ex	ASC 142	Pokémon	leaves
1–2	Close Meowth ex	POR 62	Pokémon	stays
4	Close Buddy-Buddy Poffin	TEF 144	Trainer	leaves
4	Close Lillie's Determination	MEG 119	Trainer	stays
3–4	Close Poké Pad	POR 81	Trainer	stays
3–4	Close Ultra Ball	MEG 131	Trainer	stays
2–3	Close Boss's Orders	MEG 114	Trainer	stays
1–3	Close Crispin	SCR 133	Trainer	leaves
2–4	Close Night Stretcher	ASC 196	Trainer	leaves
3–4	Fire Energy	MEE 2	Energy	stays
3–4	Psychic Energy	MEE 5	Energy	stays

The 27 cards that change from list to list

27 cards fight over the 14 slots that are left: 6 above three lists in four, 14 below one in four, and the percentage on each row says how many players took it.

The most agreed on first: Dusclops at 98 %, Munkidori at 98 % and Darkness Energy at 98 %, plus 3 more above 75 %. Add those to the core and you have the common build.

The dividing line runs through Crushing Hammer, at 49 %: 20 of 41 players took it, 21 put something else there. The ones who run it bring 4 copies. Right at the bottom of the table, Judge (9 lists out of 41) and Shaymin (7 lists out of 41).

Why a card at 45 % is not a bad card, and what order to buy all this in: how to read a deck list.

The cards some lists run and others don't, most common first

Lists running it	Card	Copies	Printing	Kind
98 %40/41	Close Dusclops	1–2	PRE 36	Pokémon
98 %40/41	Close Munkidori	1–2	TWM 95	Pokémon
98 %40/41	Darkness Energy	1–3	MEE 7	Energy
95 %39/41	Close Unfair Stamp	1	TWM 165	Trainer
85 %35/41	Close Rosa's Encouragement	1	POR 84	Trainer
83 %34/41	Close Special Red Card	1	CRI 82	Trainer
73 %30/41	Close Team Rocket's Watchtower	1–2	DRI 180	Trainer
56 %23/41	Close Jamming Tower	1	TWM 153	Trainer
49 %20/41	Close Crushing Hammer	2–4	POR 71	Trainer
44 %18/41	Close Rare Candy	2–4	MEG 125	Trainer
44 %18/41	Close Dawn	1–2	PFL 87	Trainer
37 %15/41	Close Moltres	1	PFL 14	Pokémon
34 %14/41	Close Risky Ruins	1–2	MEG 127	Trainer
22 %9/41	Close Judge	1	POR 76	Trainer
17 %7/41	Close Shaymin	1	DRI 10	Pokémon
7 %3/41	Close Patrat	1	CRI 70	Pokémon
7 %3/41	Close Area Zero Underdepths	1	SCR 131	Trainer
5 %2/41	Close Yveltal	1	MEG 88	Pokémon
5 %2/41	Close Handheld Fan	1	TWM 150	Trainer
2 %1/41	Close Blaziken ex	1	JTG 24	Pokémon
2 %1/41	Close Dudunsparce	1	TEF 129	Pokémon
2 %1/41	Close Dunsparce	1	JTG 120	Pokémon
2 %1/41	Close Lillie's Clefairy ex	1	JTG 56	Pokémon
2 %1/41	Close Torchic	1	DRI 40	Pokémon
2 %1/41	Close Babiri Berry	1	SSP 163	Trainer
2 %1/41	Close Hero's Cape	1	TEF 152	Trainer
2 %1/41	Close Sparkling Crystal	1	SCR 142	Trainer

The most common Dragapult ex / Dusknoir list, all 60 cards

Here they are in full, ready to build. 46 slots come from the core, the cards all 41 lists run. The remaining 14 come from the table just above, working down it: the cards the most players chose, each at its most common copy count, until the total lands on 60.

This list is nobody's list in particular. It takes, slot by slot, what the most people played, under the guardrails a judge would hold you to: never more than four copies of a card, and one ACE SPEC. Behind the core it took 9 more cards to reach 60. The whole thing comes to 20 Pokémon, 32 Trainers and 8 Energy.

One thing to know before you build it: the 41 lists we counted are all from players who came in the top twenty of their tournament. Nobody publishes the lists of the players who lost. So what you have in front of you is what the players finishing near the top bring most often.

The text under the table is the one the game expects: copy it, paste it into the deck manager, and the list builds itself.

There is no price total on this page. The readings we have are Cardmarket's, in euros, and the shop link further down sends you to TCGplayer, which quotes in dollars. Putting a euro figure next to a dollar shop would be one currency too many. The French and German pages carry the total.

Why we only read lists from players who came in the top twenty of their tournament, and what that changes about every percentage on this page: how to read a deck list.

Pokémon: 20
4 Drakloak TWM 129
4 Dreepy TWM 128
3 Dragapult ex TWM 130
2 Duskull PRE 35
1 Budew ASC 16
1 Dusknoir PRE 37
1 Fezandipiti ex ASC 142
1 Meowth ex POR 62
2 Dusclops PRE 36
1 Munkidori TWM 95

Trainer: 32
4 Buddy-Buddy Poffin TEF 144
4 Lillie's Determination MEG 119
4 Poké Pad POR 81
4 Ultra Ball MEG 131
3 Boss's Orders MEG 114
2 Crispin SCR 133
2 Night Stretcher ASC 196
1 Unfair Stamp TWM 165
1 Rosa's Encouragement POR 84
1 Special Red Card CRI 82
1 Team Rocket's Watchtower DRI 180
1 Jamming Tower TWM 153
4 Crushing Hammer POR 71

Energy: 8
3 Fire Energy MEE 2
3 Psychic Energy MEE 5
2 Darkness Energy MEE 7

Total Cards: 60

Which decks beat Dragapult ex / Dusknoir at tournaments

Here is how Dragapult ex / Dusknoir did against every other deck at tournaments. Real games, real players sitting across the table from each other, and the platform those tournaments run on counts them one by one. All of them were played after Pitch Black became legal for tournaments, and we read the table on 5 September 2026.

The format matters more than people think. When the next set lands, decks get rebuilt around the new cards, and a matchup that leaned one way can swing the other. What you are reading holds for today's format.

We start with the opponent that gives you the most trouble, because that is where the work is before your next tournament. The further down the list you go, the better it goes for you.

Always look at the number of games next to the score. Six wins out of ten happens on its own, even with a middling deck: it is the same as flipping six heads in ten tries. Six hundred out of a thousand, and luck has nothing to do with it. Below 100 games we show nothing at all, because at that count half the matchups look like they lean one way when they lean nowhere.

Against Mega Excadrill ex: over 802 games, 340 won and 452 lost. 10 ended with no winner.

Against Slowking: over 552 games, 231 won and 313 lost. 8 ended with no winner.

Against Dhelmise: over 408 games, 171 won and 233 lost. 4 ended with no winner.

Against N's Zoroark ex: over 534 games, 232 won and 296 lost. 6 ended with no winner.

Against Dragapult ex: over 868 games, 399 won and 448 lost. 21 ended with no winner.

Against Raging Bolt ex: over 208 games, 91 won and 114 lost. 3 ended with no winner.

Against Dragapult ex / Blaziken ex: over 661 games, 311 won and 343 lost. 7 ended with no winner.

Against Marnie's Grimmsnarl ex / Froslass: over 443 games, 206 won and 232 lost. 5 ended with no winner.

Against Beedrill ex: over 111 games, 49 won and 60 lost. 2 ended with no winner.

Against Cynthia's Garchomp ex: over 141 games, 66 won and 72 lost. 3 ended with no winner.

Against Mega Lucario ex: over 226 games, 110 won and 115 lost. One ended with no winner.

Against Mega Lucario ex / Hariyama: over 179 games, 91 won and 86 lost. 2 ended with no winner.

Against Latias ex / Mega Kangaskhan ex: over 193 games, 99 won and 93 lost. One ended with no winner.

Against Alakazam / Dudunsparce: over 656 games, 369 won and 272 lost. 15 ended with no winner.

Against Crustle: over 107 games, 55 won and 50 lost. 2 ended with no winner.

Against Festival Lead: over 628 games, 359 won and 264 lost. 5 ended with no winner.

Against Team Rocket's Honchkrow: over 131 games, 70 won and 60 lost. One ended with no winner.

Against Teal Mask Ogerpon ex / Meganium / Hydrapple ex: over 135 games, 73 won and 61 lost. One ended with no winner.

Against Mega Chandelure ex: over 108 games, 62 won and 45 lost. One ended with no winner.

Against Mega Greninja ex: over 144 games, 90 won and 52 lost. 2 ended with no winner.

Against Toucannon: over 224 games, 153 won and 70 lost. One ended with no winner.

What Dragapult ex / Dusknoir costs to build, and how long it will last

You need 44 different cards to cover every version of this deck, 17 of which nobody argues about. We do not have card prices, so we are not going to put a number on it.

All 41 lists bring an ACE SPEC, and that is where they part ways: 39 took Unfair Stamp, 1 took Hero's Cape and 1 took Sparkling Crystal. You are allowed ONE ACE SPEC card in your whole deck, so a single copy covers it whatever it costs. New to this deck? Take Unfair Stamp and watch what the others do with theirs before you switch.

Then there is time. 10 of the 17 core cards carry the letter H, the one that goes at the next rotation: Drakloak, Dreepy, Dragapult ex and Duskull, plus 6 more. The core table marks every one of them. In copies, that is 24 of the 46 slots the core fills. Which day it lands, we do not know yet.

What Dragapult ex / Dusknoir struggles against

The attackers in this deck are Weak to Darkness and Fighting, so they take DOUBLE damage from those types. 24 of the 97 decks we track attack in exactly those types.

Concretely, here is what is waiting for you: N's Zoroark ex, Marnie's Grimmsnarl ex / Froslass and Mega Lucario ex, plus 21 more decks. The table below takes them one at a time, and those are the lists you practise against first before an event.

This table counts one thing, Weakness, and that comes to 24 decks out of the 97 we track. The other 73 do not attack into yours, and this table says nothing about them. You will still run into them.

Going the other way, your attackers are Psychic and Fire, and 6 of the decks we track have an attacker Weak to one of those: Mega Lucario ex, Mega Lucario ex / Hariyama and Greninja ex, among others. That is you doubling, for once. Second half of the table.

Questions people ask

What is the Dragapult ex / Dusknoir deck list?

There isn't one, so we built one for you: all 60 cards are written out further up this page. Across 41 tournament lists harvested between 11 August 2026 and 3 September 2026, 17 cards turn up in every single one, 46 slots out of 60. The remaining 14 change from player to player, with 27 different cards competing for them. Both tables are above.

How many lists is this counted on, and where do they come from?

41 lists, played across 38 different tournaments, harvested between 11 August 2026 and 3 September 2026 from play.limitlesstcg.com. All 41 were read card by card, and every card recognised.

Where do I start if I want to build Dragapult ex / Dusknoir?

With the whole core: 17 cards, 46 slots. Inside it, buy the 23 Trainer slots and the 6 Energy first: they carry over into your next deck. Leave the 17 Pokémon slots for last. Only then work down the flex table and add the cards the most lists agree on, starting with Dusclops at 98 % and Munkidori at 98 %.

What beats Dragapult ex / Dusknoir?

Its attackers are Weak to Darkness and Fighting, so they take double damage from an attacker of that type. 24 of the 97 decks we track play an attacker of that type: N's Zoroark ex, Marnie's Grimmsnarl ex / Froslass, Mega Lucario ex and Mega Lucario ex / Hariyama, among others.

Will Dragapult ex / Dusknoir survive the next rotation?

Not intact: 10 core cards out of 17 carry the letter H, starting with Drakloak, Dreepy, Dragapult ex and Duskull, plus 6 more.

Are a lot of people playing Dragapult ex / Dusknoir?

We have read 41 lists of it, which puts it 8th of the 97 decks we track by lists read. The platform those tournaments run on counts 2,283 entries for it, 5.6 % of the field, across all its players. That figure is theirs.

These pages are about the same corner of the game. If you came away from this one still wondering about something, start with one of them.