Palworld TCG Meta: What Won the Kyoto Masters League

Twelve decks finished on a podium at Kyoto, and not one of them contains a single Green card.

Bushiroad ran Japan's first Palworld OFFICIAL CARD GAME Masters League 26-27 qualifier at Miyako Messe in Kyoto on 22 September 2026. On 28 September its Japanese site posted the decks that finished first, second and third in each of the event's four blocks. Kyoto is the first Masters League stop on either of Bushiroad's Japanese or English schedules - the English schedule starts with Kissimmee on 7-8 November - so these are the first Masters League results Bushiroad has published.

They are also English results in everything but language. Every booster and trial-deck card in all 12 lists has an English printing under the same card number plus an E prefix (BP01-025 is EBP01-025 in English), with the same cost, Power and Strike. The only other cards are a Japanese promo printing of Cryolinx – Arctic Ordeal in two lists, which is the same card as EBP01-038. I pulled all 12 lists from the deck-recipe database behind Bushiroad's Japanese page, converted every card number to its English printing, and counted.

The short version: eight of the 12 are Blue-Purple, ten run four copies of Chillet – Dragon Whisperer, all 12 run exactly eight Lucky Pals, and the average list carries ten Pals with Interrupt.

How Kyoto was run

Bushiroad's Japanese event page sets out a format that differs from the Day 1 / Day 2 structure on the English qualifier page our Masters League guide covers:

• Four blocks, each a separate tournament. The page allocates roughly one block per 64 players and balances blocks on the day. Kyoto's decklists come from Blocks A to D. Bushiroad has not published Kyoto's attendance.
• Preliminary rounds: best-of-one, 30 minutes, Swiss with triple elimination - a third loss ends your day - for up to six rounds.
• Finals: the top 8 of each block's preliminaries play three rounds of untimed, best-of-one single elimination, with a third-place match. The bracket is drawn regardless of preliminary standing.
• One deck all day. Each player pre-registered a single deck on Bushi Navi and used it in every round.

The stakes: each block champion earned places at both the Masters Japan Finals and the Masters World Finals, and second and third place earned Japan Finals places. So Kyoto produced four World Finals qualifiers and twelve Japan Finals qualifiers. Bushiroad's Japanese Masters Series graphic, at the top of this page, schedules the Japan Finals for April 2027 and the World Finals for May 2027.

All 12 podium decks at a glance

Handles are as Bushiroad published them. "Interrupt Pals" counts copies of Pals that print Interrupt; "Dragon Pals" counts copies of Pals carrying the Dragon element.

By colour pair: Blue-Purple 8, Red-Purple 2, Blue-Red 2, anything with Green 0. Blue-Purple won Blocks A and C, Red-Purple won Block B, and Blue-Red won Block D.

Every one of the 12 runs exactly eight Lucky Pals, the maximum rule 6.1.1.3 allows. Our Lucky Pals guide argued in August that the correct number is very close to always eight. Kyoto's podium agrees, 12 lists out of 12.

Blue-Purple is the deck to beat

The eight Blue-Purple lists draw on just 20 different cards between them, and seven of those appear in all eight. The two right-hand columns are the complete lists of the Block A and Block C champions.

Blue does most of the work: Blue cards fill 26 to 38 of the 50 slots in each of the eight lists, Purple 11 to 20. Here is what the shared core does, straight from the card text.

Blue finds cards and locks down blockers. Elphidran Aqua draws two on deploy and puts one card from your hand back on top of the deck; Aurora Guide draws one and puts up to one back, at Quick speed, for 2 souls. Relaxaurus rests a Pal costing 6 or less on deploy, and that Pal does not stand while Relaxaurus stays in your base. Jormuntide – Surging Sea Serpent draws a card and rests a Pal costing 7 or less, which then does not stand during your opponent's next stand phase. Under rule 9.2.3 a resting Pal is a legal attack target, so both of those turn a potential blocker into something you can attack.

Pengullet Rocket Launcher is a board wipe with a draw attached. Rest the Launcher and a 《Pengullet》 gets Power +500 plus an ability: rest the Pengullet to deal damage equal to its Power to all of your opponent's Pals, then put it into the graveyard. On Pengullet – Yearning for the Sky that is 1100 damage to every opposing Pal, and Yearning for the Sky draws a card when it goes to the graveyard. Seven of the eight lists run three or four Launchers; the Block C champion is the exception, with no gear at all. The gear guide called the Launcher "the funny one". At Kyoto, 26 copies of it made the podium.

Purple is the removal and some of the Interrupt. Zoe's Strategy offers three modes: strip up to five of your opponent's Material and Ingredient, return a Pal from your graveyard and make your opponent discard, or butcher one of your own Pals to put one of theirs into the graveyard. Strike from the Darkness puts any Pal into the graveyard with no conditions. Blazehowl Noct and Pyrin Noct add more Interrupt.

Two structural details stand out. None of the eight Blue-Purple lists runs a 2-cost Pal: five open at Pengullet – Frequent Flyer on 3 and the other three start at 4. And no Pal in any of the eight is printed below 500 Power. That matters for Astegon, which is in seven of them: its On Attack ability puts every Pal with 300 Power or less into the graveyard, both sides included, and in these lists it cannot hit its own side unless something has shrunk a Pal first.

Ten Interrupts per deck

Interrupt is the defining mechanic of this podium. Across the 600 cards in the 12 lists there are 120 Pals with Interrupt - ten per list on average, from six in the Block C third-place list to 13 in the Block A champion's. The eight Blue-Purple lists run between 10 and 13 each.

Rule 12.8.2 spells out the ability: pay 1 soul and discard the card, or discard it plus one other card from hand, to nullify the opponent's attack. Official Q&A #51 confirms it only works while the card is in your hand. Five of the nine Interrupt Pals in the launch pool showed up:

The other four - Bushi – Ephemeral Blade, Blazehowl – Hellflame Defender, Wumpo Botan – Tropical Sentinel and Dinossom – Radiant Fragrance - appear in none of the 12. That includes the card our Lucky Pals guide picked in August as the standout Lucky Pal: Bushi is the only Pal that is both Lucky and Interrupt, and no podium player ran it.

Put the two defensive layers together. None of the five Interrupt Pals is a Lucky Pal, so a Blue-Purple list here carries its eight Lucky Pals, which cancel damage from the top of the deck during player damage resolution, plus 10 to 13 Interrupt Pals that nullify attacks from hand. That is 18 to 21 cards out of 50 that can stop an attack in one of two ways. Reindrix, the most-played of them, is a trial-deck card.

Chillet and the Dragon count

Chillet – Dragon Whisperer is in all ten lists that play Blue, at four copies every time: 40 copies across 12 decks. Its On Deploy ability reveals the top card of your deck and lets you deploy it if it is a Dragon Pal costing 8 or less; if you don't, the card goes to your hand.

Those ten lists run 16 to 20 Dragon Pals each. The Blue-Purple lists draw theirs from six cards: Chillet itself, Elphidran Aqua, Relaxaurus, Jormuntide, Astegon and Elphidran – Gentle Radiance, a colourless 4-drop that gets Power +500 on attack if you reveal a Dragon Pal from hand. The two Blue-Red lists get their Red Dragon, Jormuntide Ignis – Savage Lava Dragon, where seven of the eight Blue-Purple lists have Astegon.

Two of the most-played cards also set Chillet up. Elphidran Aqua and Aurora Guide both put a card from your hand on top of your deck, which is exactly where Chillet looks.

Our elements guide concluded in early September that "Dragon is not a deck yet". The podium says otherwise. Bushiroad's Japanese site had in fact listed a Dragon-element deck (竜属性デッキ) among its four recommended Dawn of Palpagos decks on 31 July, and Kyoto's Blue lists are built on the same Chillet-plus-Dragons idea.

Red-Purple took Block B with structures

Block B's champion and runner-up played the same deck: card name for card name, their 50 cards match except that the champion ran two Lyleen Noct where the runner-up ran two Single-Shot Rifle. Here is the champion's list.

This is a Material engine. Stone Pit and Primitive Furnace each turn an assigned Pal into 3 Material and a card, once per turn. Mounted Machine Gun spends X Material and an assigned Pal to deal 500 damage X times, and Primitive Furnace's second ability spends Material to cut the cost of your next gear - such as the 7-cost Pump-Action Shotgun. Suzaku – Hellfire Wings adds 200 to non-battle damage your red cards deal to Pals, and Q&A #53 confirms that covers red structures and gear. Under Suzaku each Mounted Machine Gun shot deals 700, and Pump-Action Shotgun's on-deploy sweep deals 1400 to every opposing Pal.

The cheap Pals each bring a rider. Lamball – My First Pal cannot be attacked by Pals costing 4 or more, Cattiva – My First Pal cannot be attacked by Pals costing 3 or less, and Leezpunk makes your opponent discard a card when it goes to the graveyard. Menasting, which fills four of the eight Lucky slots, takes the opposing combat Pal down with it when it dies in battle (Retaliate) and returns a normal Pal from your graveyard to your hand whenever it goes to the graveyard.

These two lists are the only ones of the 12 that run structures - twelve each, all Red. The ten Blue lists run none. Our structures guide warned that Material is dead weight without a sink like Mounted Machine Gun. Block B's top two ran four Mounted Machine Guns next to eight Material generators, and half of those generators are Primitive Furnaces that can spend Material themselves.

One card-text observation, not a match result: both Red-Purple lists run twelve 200-Power Pals (Lamball, Cattiva and Leezpunk), which is exactly the range Astegon's On Attack sweep of 300-Power-or-less Pals hits.

Blue-Red Dragons took Block D

The Block D champion was the only Blue-Red list to win a block:

Chillet can deploy Jormuntide Ignis, the 8-cost Strike 4 Dragon, straight off the top of the deck. Foxparks' Harness gives a 《Foxparks》 an On Attack trigger that deals 700 damage, and this list runs eight Foxparks to wear it. Axel's Strategy offers 1500 damage, stands Pals equal to your gear count, or stops opposing 5-cost-or-greater Pals from blocking.

This list shares nine of its 13 card names with the Dragon-element deck Bushiroad recommended on its Japanese site in July. The Block C third-place list is also Blue-Red: it runs Jormuntide Ignis and Jormuntide, four Reptyro – Ore Gorger and 12 gear, including four Pump-Action Shotgun and four Single-Shot Rifle.

What nobody played

• Green. Zero Green cards across all 600: no Lyleen – Blessing of the Goddess, no Digtoise, and no Mammorest – Roar of the Wilds, the only 2000-Power Pal in the card pool. Our colours guide has what the colour does on paper.
• Structures outside Block B. 24 copies in total, all in the two Red-Purple lists.
• Seventeen of the 24 Lucky Pals. Only seven appear: Chillet (10 lists), Jormuntide – Surging Sea Serpent (7), Astegon (7), Menasting (2), Shadowbeak (2), Suzaku – Hellfire Wings (2) and Jormuntide Ignis (2). Grizzbolt, Mammorest, Katress and Wumpo – Frostpeak Sentinel are among the absentees.
• Most of the card pool. The 12 lists use 38 different cards between them.

Kyoto against the August release tournaments

Kyoto is not the first time Bushiroad has posted decklists. Its three Japanese release tournaments - Osaka on 8 August, Tokyo on 15 August and Nagoya on 29 August - were four fixed rounds of best-of-one Swiss at stores capped at 94 to 112 players, and the prize for going 4-0 included having your decklist posted on the site. Sixteen lists went up. One appears twice: the handle bet went 4-0 at both Osaka and Nagoya with the same registered deck.

The samples are different - 4-0 records at store events against block podiums at a qualifier - so treat the comparison loosely. Two things hold across both. Blue is in 13 of the 16 August lists and 10 of the 12 Kyoto lists, and all 28 published tournament lists run exactly eight Lucky Pals. The single Green deck in either sample went 4-0 at the Tokyo release tournament.

What it means for English players in October

• Same cards, for now. The English card database still holds 266 rows and no Legends Awaken entries. Until Sleeve & Card Set Vol.1 adds five new card types on 16 October, an English store event draws on the same distinct cards Kyoto did; the English promos are reprints.
• The nearest English format is the Grand Challengers Cup. Each official store may hold one between 1 and 31 October: best-of-one Swiss into a top cut, the same basic shape as a Kyoto block. Our Challengers Cup breakdown has the prizes and cut sizes.
• The Masters League format changes before it reaches you. English qualifiers begin on 7-8 November, and the English page makes every card legal from its release date, so Booster Pack "Legends Awaken" (30 October) will be legal at every dated one. Kyoto shows what the Dawn of Palpagos format looks like, and that format has a month left.
• Blue-Purple needs both trial decks. Reindrix, Elphidran Aqua, Pengullet – Frequent Flyer and Single-Shot Sphere Launcher come from Trial Deck "Dawn of Palpagos Red・Blue". Astegon, Blazehowl Noct and Strike from the Darkness come from "Green・Purple". Bushiroad's published list for each trial deck runs two copies of each of those, so four-copy counts mean two of a deck or singles. Across all 12 lists, 216 of the 600 cards are trial-deck cards. Our trial deck comparison covers what else is in each box.

What Bushiroad has not published

• Kyoto's attendance and the size of each block.
• Records and pairings. No Swiss standings, match results or finals bracket, so the published data cannot show which deck beat which.
• English versions of the lists. The English site's Deck Recipe page still lists no tournament decks; the lists are on the Japanese site, not the English one.
• Tokyo Autumn results. Japan's second qualifier is on 3 October at Tokyo Big Sight.

Quick reference

• Event: Masters League 26-27 Kyoto, 22 September 2026, Miyako Messe. Four blocks, one block per roughly 64 players; decklists posted 28 September.
• Format: best-of-one Swiss with triple elimination, up to six rounds; top 8 per block into untimed best-of-one single elimination with a third-place match.
• Stakes: block champions earned World Finals and Japan Finals places; second and third earned Japan Finals places.
• Colour pairs on the podium: Blue-Purple 8, Red-Purple 2, Blue-Red 2, Green 0.
• Block winners: A Blue-Purple, B Red-Purple, C Blue-Purple, D Blue-Red.
• Lucky Pals: exactly eight in all 12 lists; seven of the 24 Lucky Pals were played, led by Chillet in 10 lists.
• Interrupt: 120 Interrupt Pals across 600 cards, ten per list on average; Reindrix is in 10 lists.
• Blue-Purple core, in all eight lists: Chillet, Pengullet – Yearning for the Sky, Elphidran Aqua, Reindrix, Relaxaurus, Zoe's Strategy, Strike from the Darkness.
• Structures: only in the two Red-Purple lists.
• Relevance: the same distinct card pool English players have until 16 October; Legends Awaken is legal at every dated English Masters League qualifier.

The deck to beat in Dawn of Palpagos turned out to be the one Bushiroad's own recommended Dragon list pointed at in July, dressed in Purple removal and a lot of Interrupt. It has about a month left before Legends Awaken arrives, and October's Grand Challengers Cups fall inside that month.