Not all Pokemon Build and Battle Boxes are created equal. Depending on the box, your experience playing can vary drastically. I have to say that the Twilight Masquerade Build and Battle is extremely fun. And because of how many interesting cards are included in what is likely to be an underrated set, deck building options are enormous.

In this review, we’ll be looking at the Build and Battle deck I out together for my Twilight Masquerade prerelease event

The deck

For the those of you who haven’t been to a Pokemon TCG prerelease before, here’s a very quick primer on what goes on.

You get a build and battle box which is has a very basic deck in it that enables you to play a really slowed down Pokemon battle. Along with that prebuilt deck, you’ll get four booster packs from which you can draw to build out your own custom deck that you will then battle opponents with.

Prerelease decks have 40 cards in them as opposed to the usual 60 card deck. This is because typically cards in a prerelease are slower, making it hard to find relevant cards like you would in a 60 card deck.

Although as you’ll see, this time around card search capabilities are pretty incredible in the Twilight Masquerade Build and Battle Deck.

The Promos

If you’ve read our Twilight Masquerade deck building tips article, then you might already know what the four different promos are for the Twilight Masquerade Build and Battle Box. This is important because each build and battle is essentially a random synergy of these two promos and their supporting strategies.

Twilight Masquerade Build and Battle Deck Promos Ranked

Wondering which promos are best and which are worst? Here’s my take and ranking from best to worst.

Tatsugiri: Attract Customers is an insane ability that lets you burn through your forty card deck in a way that’s usually not possible in a prerelease deck.
Thwackey: If you get your Festival strategy going, Thwackey is insane – letting you get any card from your deck.
Froslass: I honestly thought Froslass wasn’t very good when I first saw him as a preview. Turns out, he’s pretty strong. But how strong he is depends on another card that you get in his kit, and we’ll get into that strategy in a bit.
Infernape: Infernape isn’t a bad card but on its own its certainly the least useful of the four. You sometimes are able to evolve your Stage 2 Pokemon in a Prerelease but it’s inconsistent and often you’ll lose to decks taht can do enough damage easier.

Which promos did I get?

As the prerelease tournament format is random, you don’t know which combination of promos you will get. I got the Infernape/Froslass combination – the two I was least interested in playing.

The deck I built

Because I already knew I didn’t like the Infernape Promo, I threw it out right away and its corresponding strategy. I kept Froslass since it wasn’t too demanding on my deck space. And luckily, I pulled a bunch of other better cards from packs like Dipplin and Tatsugiri.

In the deck list below you will see a bunch of cards that are included in Build and Battle premade kits, but in my deck everything you see is from packs. I felt like this deck strategy was a bit risky because of how much it differed from the stuff you get in the kits right out of the box. But it proved to be quite strong, and I didn’t lose any of my matches during the prerelease tournament.

Tatsugiri is insane in prerelease

First and foremost, Tatsugiri is an insane card and it’s all the more insane because it’s actually included in a bunch of prerelease kits. Mine I at least had to pull from a pack. But it seems that if you happen to get Tatsugiri you have a huge leg up on decks that don’t have it.

As I got things set up with Tatsugiri, I found I could quickly move through my deck, and in a couple of turns in one battle even I had very few cards left in my deck. While this makes for a very fun and enjoyable prerelease, I wonder if its not slightly offbalance? If you don’t get a Tatsugiri or a Thwackey, it could be hard to win against those that have it.

Munkidori Plus Froslass is Deadly

For the most part I was right about my predictions for the strategies and even contents of the Twilight Masquerade Build and Battle Boxes. One thin I certainly missed was how good Froslass can be in the right scenario. Basically you use Froslass to dish out damage to both yours and your opponent’s Pokemon. Then, you can just use this Munkidori Pokemon to move damage around, kind of like how Radiant Alakazam does, if you’re familiar with that Pokemon.

I often found I could use Munkidori to take knockouts against weakened Pokemon before even getting my attack off from the turn. Munkidori was easily one of the MVPs of my deck.

Fezandipiti can be great if you get lucky

I got this Pokemon in one of my packs and included it because I liked the synergy it seemed to have with Munkidori. If you have a darkness energy attached to it, there’s a fifty/fifty chance you won’t take damage. This definitely carried me through an entire battle that I had no right winning, and actually once I got this Pokmeon out it never got knocked out. I used a Cook card to heal it and it dodged enough from lucky coin flips that it withstood plenty – even a Teal Mask Ogerpon ex!

Dipplin is no joke

I didn’t get the Thwackey/Festival Ground deck kit. That being said, I pulled just enough of the pieces for the core strategy to include it. Not to mention that because plenty of people you play have Festival Grounds in their deck you can really get Dipplin’s double attack off quite often.

This is especially good in prerelease format because you can pretty easily take two knockouts in a turn, especially if you are strategic with how you use your Munkidori effect.

Additional cards I found helpful

While those were the key cards I found helpful in the Build and Battle Box, there were a few more cards I found very helpful. Those include:

Abra: Abra is known for its Teleport ability in the games where you basically have one shot before its likely to teleport somewhere far away. In a prerelease, this can be very helpful. I found myself using the Teleport ability to easily switch in a Pokemon without having to waste an energy on retreat, and also to send it away when its damage was getting too high from my Froslass.
Screaming Tail ex: Getting an ex during prerelease is one of the most exciting things, and you can even build your entire deck around it (although it might be best not to). Screaming Tail was helpful in one battle, but in reality it wasn’t nearly as strong as you might think an ex would be.
Teal Mask Ogerpon: This guy is seriously good and I’m glad I included him in my deck after getting him in one of my packs.
Lucky Helmet to draw extra cards in a pinch.

Cards I should have/could have cut

Building your deck during a thirty minute time period from spare parts is a challenge, and you probably won’t get it 100% right. I made some errors in this deck list, even though it played well.

The biggest mistake was including Salvatore even though I literally could not use his effect. Typically you want to include most of the trainer cards you get in a prerelease. Salavatore in this deck is a great example of when not to do that.

I also found that most of the basic Pokemon I included for their ability to search the deck like Jinx and Volbeat (there’s some shine in my deck picture so you might have trouble seeing those two) weren’t necessary, and could have been replaced with other Pokemon.

All-in-all, this was probably the most fun prerelease deck I’ve ever put together, and I love it when a custom deck in prerelease works out. Undoubtedly, we have Tatsugiri to thank for how much fun this particular build and battle was, and I hope they keep this going in future releases – including totally viable, competitive grade cards in the prerelease kits.

Rare cards I got

Of course, one of the most exciting things about prerelease events isn’t just the new strategies you get to pull – it’s the rare cards you have a chance of acquiring early. Apart from the Screaming Tail Ultra Rare showed in my deck, I also got my top Twilight Masquerade chase card: Eevee Illustration Rare!

Not bad from a Build and Battle!

The Verdict

Twilight Masquerade Prerelease Build and Battle Boxes are perhaps the most fun I’ve played of any Pokemon set. And that bodes well for the Twilight Masquerade expansion. The strategies that you can pull together in this set are incredibly fun and unique, and it felt like a lot of the stuff I pulled in packs was playable well outside of just what I got in the prebuilt kits.

The Crazy Deck I Built with My Twilight Masquerade Build and Battle