Mexico Edo. And DF States + Jumpluff thoughts

Hello everyone! It’s been a while since I have written anything for this wonderful site, and I wanted to share my insight on my recent experiences at States and my thoughts on Jumpluff and why it is such a good deck.

States:
I attended 2 different State Tournaments this year, where I went 4-2 (12th place or so) and 5-2 (5th place) both with Jumpluff. Out of my 4 losses, I can attribute all of them to bad luck/lack of practice, where as my 9 wins were mostly all games where I got the usual Turn 1/2/3 Jumpluff and was simply way ahead when my opponent’s had something set up. I didn’t do better than Top 8 in the last one due to my own fault. Here’s how the Best of 3 match went:

I was facing a Garchomp/Metagross (Magnetic Reversal) deck. Game 1 I started way ahead as usual, but when I played down Giratina PL to shuffle our respective hands and what I thought would ‘seal’ the game in my favor, actually turned out counterproductive and that is where the game turned around. He managed to build up a Garchomp as his ONLY Pokémon in play, so while I could at best 2HKO, he could 1HKO anything I had in play.

By the time this happened, we were 2-1 in prizes in my favor, BUT I had run out Jumpluff’s. In this 2 turns I was not able to find a Multi Energy or my Night Maintenance to build up another Jumpluff or attack with Luxray GL LV.X and so I lost a game I should’ve easily dominated. Game 2 went the exact same way and I struggled to build a 5th Jumpluff but when I did I won, and finally in Game 3 in Sudden Death I lost due to a crappy starting hand against his god start.

In my best days, I would’ve never let myself lose Game 1 the way I did. I think what differentiates a good Pokémon player from a great one, is the ability to be able to plan ahead for most of the possible scenarios until the game ends. I obviously am far from my top skill level, as throughout Game 1 I must have drawn into Night Maintenance a lot of times but I never figured I’d need more than the 4 Jumpluff’s since I was dominating the game so badly. I got cocky and never planned ahead more than the turn I was currently in, so it cost me a trophy and a better showing at States where in previous years I had won them back to back.

I think planning ahead and anticipating your opponent’s moves is one of the most important skills a Pokémon player needs to be really successful in Pokémon. Always planning from start to finish, how to beat your opponent, what will he be doing during his turn and how you can counteract that, and keep re-evaluating your strategy to ensure you will win no matter what.

Now as far as Jumpluff, I chose to use this deck because I figured it’d be the best ‘autopilot’ deck for me as I hadn’t practiced at all in a really long time. I was sorely mistaken though, because in game decisions of whether to use Mass Attack or Leaf Guard, or who to Bright Look with Luxray GL definitely require a lot of thinking and game state analysis. I realized that my idea of ‘autopilot’ was not applicable here.

The deck is so versatile and Luxray gives it so much depth and threat capabilities that I consider it (from my very limited testing and opinions from other people) the best deck in the format right now. It’s not heavily power reliant, there is no deck out there right now that can really function properly without a sizable bench, with a consistent build can have Jumpluff attacking at max power since Turn 1, amongst other factors. The only downside I see for Jumpluff is the fact that is has so little HP for a Stage 2, but its speed and 1HKO potential really compensate for this.

Before States I wanted to really convince myself I was making the right choice with Jumpluff but since it was too late to do some actual testing, I decide to start keeping track of initial hands and how often Jumpluff would be out and ready to attack by Turn 1/2/3. Here below is an image of the Excel file I used and the results obtained:

So with all of this in mind I have set myself the goal to improve using this deck to its maximum capabilities and hopefully do well enough with it at Nationals to earn me the trip, as it’s my only shot at going to Hawaii. If I miss it’ll be the first World Championship I do not qualify for out of the 6 that have been held so far.
Hope you enjoyed reading, and I’d love to hear all the feedback on Jumpluff from the 6p community!

Reader Interactions

17 replies

  1. Jeremy C

    Really nice chart. I wish I could do somehting like that for LuxChomp, but there isn't much to chart. Maybe getting Luxray and Garchomp out? Great article.

  2. Zachary Slater

    This deck is sure to be seen a lot more at Regionals and Nationals. I've been seeing more and more reports on the deck lately.

  3. Adam Capriola

    Thanks for the article Pabs!

    Cool that you kept track of stats, sort of interesting that going first, you got turn 2 jumpluff more often that if you went second. Wouldn't have expected that, but I guess the sample if small.

    And yeah @Zach (PKMNPrime) I think it will see some decent play too.

  4. Kenny Wisdom

    Yeah, Jumpluff is a great play. In my mind it's on par with LuxChomp.

    Good article Pablo, really interesting stats!

  5. Adam Capriola

    Pretty sure it just says what turn he got Jumpluff out and if he went 1st or
    2nd.

  6. Kenny Wisdom

    Yeah, from what I understand the chart is stating the amount of times he was able to get the Mass Attack off T1, T2, and T3, and of those times, what percentage did he go first or second.

  7. Pablo Meza

    No actually guys this is how you should interpret it:

    Out of 20 games total I 'simulated', I played 10 as if I were going first and another 10 as if I were going second. Out of the 10 going first (under the Going FIRST column) you can see I got Jumpluff out 7 times by Turn 2 and 3 times by Turn 3. Same logic applies to the Going SECOND column, and the Mass Attack column is the total for all 20 games. Out of the 20 games, 3 times I managed Turn 1 Mass Attack, 9 times by Turn 2 and 8 times by Turn 3.

    Hope that clears it a bit,

  8. Karol Nowak

    Here's yet another awesome article involving Jumpluff/Luxray. Very well written! You also did a very nice job with the graph. It looks very cool and it is really mathematic looking.

    Indeed, since so many people have posted articles about Jumpluff/Luxray, this deck is sure to be popular in Regionals.

  9. L M

    No more Palkia Lock? What's the usual Luxray line that people are puting in Jumpluff 1-1, 2-1, or 2-2?

  10. Zachary Slater

    1-1 is the most common I think. Some run 2-2 though if they focus more on Luxray.

  11. Saturn

    Sometimes I think the autopilot decks are SP ones like Luxchomp…^_^

  12. Brad Curcio

    If only.

    Also, with your excel sheet thingy, was that just playtesting by yourself? Aka no opposing deck? So those numbers would be off in a real tourney? Or were you actually playing a game against yourself/others?

  13. Pablo Meza

    yeah just by myself, it was just to see how starting hands and the usual first 2 or 3 turns played out. of course in real games it is all different, and i can only wish 20/20 games I would get Turn 3 jumpluff at the latest, but it's different and that is how I lost at my States, 25/27 games I got Jumpluff turn 1, 2 or 3, the other 2 where I didn't I got donked and then got the only unplayable hand in sudden death.

    the chart is mainly to show the natural tendency of the deck's speed and potential.

  14. George Vargas

    The idea of mass attack is very appealing especially once an opponent gets set up allowing you to do max damage. Unfortunately by the time an opponent has set up it could be too late plus the basic and stage 1 imo are asking to get donked especially against SP decks.

  15. George Vargas

    The idea of mass attack is very appealing especially once an opponent gets set up allowing you to do max damage. Unfortunately by the time an opponent has set up it could be too late plus the basic and stage 1 imo are asking to get donked especially against SP decks.

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