Hey guys, here’s part one of this article, as Denjin_Hadou suggested: a list of tips for beginners and a list for more advanced players. Hopefully you all find it useful, and I suggest even more advanced players review these basic tips, because even the best of forget them sometimes.
Play to the situation
I have seen way too many games lost because a player doesn’t just roll with the hand they are dealt with and what the opponent has. If you start off with a commanding lead, keep the pressure on! Even if you’re playing against an opponent who is considered good, it doesn’t mean he has an answer to all your threats.
Most of the time, if you have the lead, you should be keeping it. The lead doesn’t necessarily mean a prize lead, it more means board control. Especially with cards like Twins and Electrode Prime coming out, reintroducing come-from-behind decks, board control is going to be even more important.
Let me give a first hand example of something that happened to me. Round 1-of Nationals 2008, I was playing Gardy. I’ll quote what I wrote in my report:
“Round 1 vs ??? w/ Glaceon/Eevees/Meganium d
Well, my opening hand of the day was the worst I’ve ever had with the deck. I literally draw/passed for the first 4-5 turns while he powered up Glaceons and Meganiums. For some reason, though, he continued to Snow Cloak and kept doing 30 instead of KOing my basics. If he did that, he would’ve won. I don’t know if he thought that I had like Candy/Gallade/Scramble waiting in hand or what, but eventually I drew into a Tauros and next turn an Energy, so I was able to Call for Family for 2 turns. Eventually I get a Claydol and begin the comeback. He starts to retreat to save prizes and lose all of the energy drops he gained on me. I Sonic Blade Meganium because of Delta Reductos and eventually I tie prizes. Time’s called when it’s 1-1. I promote Dusknoir with 3 Energy on it and hit an Espeon for 90. He Warps thinking he has a shot, but I send up my Gallade with a Cessation Crystal on it and the win is mine. :P”
This is the kind of thing I’m talking about. Why not capitalize on an obvious bad start of mine and steal a game early? My opponent did not play to the situation and went about a strategy that probably would have worked better versus a Gardy deck that had already set up, but mine wasn’t set up that game and deserved a different approach.
Archetypes are your friends
pokemon-paradijs.comAgain, I have seen far too many newer players fail simply because they refuse to use a proven deck. Let us remind ourselves of something: they are archetypes for a reason! Obviously these decks are some of the best the game has to offer at this point, and a truly competitive player will use a competitive deck; simple as that.
Yes, they may be boring. Yes, it might get repetitive playing them. But…do you want to win? If the answer is yes, and you don’t have a deck that beats the best decks, play a best deck. It comes down to the old saying: if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. This is one of the biggest things new players need to overcome.
Going along with this idea, stop whining about broken cards. We see it ever year, if not every single set. The most recent outcry is for Gengar Prime. If you’re so worried about it, go out and look for ways to beat it! It’s not that hard. I touched on a few simple ways to alter your deck to be able to beat Gengar in a post on the forums, but here’s just 2 quick ways: Dialga/Deafen makes them never be able to play Lost World, and playing a Fossil makes Hunter useless if you keep other Pokémon out of your hand.
[Note from the Editor: This article was written before Lost World was a non-release in Triumphant, but you should still get the main idea behind that example.]
Luxchomp is a great deck, but it should never be banned. Gardy was a great deck, but never should have been banned. Blaziken was a great deck, but never should have been banned. Etc etc etc. Some cards are just better than others and we as players have to accept that. If you don’t, you’ll get left behind in the dust.
Here’s an article that covers this idea in a much more general sense and I’ve seen it referenced countless times, I suggest everyone reading it: http://www.sirlin.net/articles/playing-to-win-part-1.html
Plan ahead for drawing bad
There’s a difference between drawing bad because you never see a draw/search card and when you see one and don’t utilize it to get more search/draw cards for the future. I’ve seen a bunch of games where an opponent has the option to Roseanne (or Collector now) for an immediate benefit (i.e. taking a prize) or taking it slower, possibly sacrificing a prize even, but to have a more consistent rest of the game. I can say, in (almost!) every instant, the latter is the correct play. I can give two good examples of this:
1. I remember playing in a City Championship two years ago, using Regigigas, and my opponent was a friend of mine, Dan. He was using Regigigias as well, and he had a slightly better start than I did. He Roseanne’s turn 1 for an Energy and a Mesprit (if memory serves right), hoping to further disrupt my slower start.
However, it turns out he doesn’t have any more draw cards in his hand, so I am able to wait out the Mesprit lock and then play my own Uxie to set up and begin to roll through his now weak set-up as he proceeds to draw/pass for a number of turns. Now if he had only gotten an Uxie with that initial Roseanne, the game could have been completely different. Yes, he would have let me set up earlier, but it would have allowed him to stay in the game.
2. In a more general sense, and extremely relevant to this format, many don’t realize how important a Cyrus’s Conspiracy chain is. If you break it for getting a supporter like, say, Aaron’s Collection, you are quite possibly condemning yourself to death if you have no other draw/search cards in your hand. There are times and places to break the chain, but you have to recognize those times. And more often than not, newer players fail to recognize the correct situations for this.
So overall the point here is to keep your draw and search on hand at all times that you can. Never leave yourself with no draw if you can afford it.
Know your decklist! …and your opponent’s!
There are actually two parts to this point. You need to know every single card in your deck, what they do, and how many you play of each. You need to be able to pull out this information at any time during a tournament, especially under pressure in the middle of a heated game. You can’t be asking yourself in the middle of a game: “Do I run 1 Warp Point or 2?” especially if that second Warp Point could potentially win you the game.
When someone asks me for the list of what I played in a tournament, I can rattle off every single card and their quantities in literally a minute or two. Many people are amazed at this ability, but I stand by the opinion that any competitive player should be able to do this as well. It’s not really that hard, just requires a bit of memorization, and if you have been playing and testing with your deck like you should be before a tournament, it becomes even easier.
In addition, you should be able to make a pretty good guess at what your opponent’s list is like. For example, if I see my opponent playing Luxchomp, I’m going to assume he runs 4 Cyrus’s Conspiracy, 4 Energy Gain, 4 Poké Turn, etc etc. There are just some cards that you can always expect to see in some decks. This is also the reason why netdecking sucks: if you copy a list card for card off a major website, your opponent is going to have a pretty damn good idea what’s in your deck.
My favorite example of this came last year when Fulop posted his Jumpluff list on PokéGym. At Regionals, I played Donphan and I played against two Jumpluffs during the tournament. While one was slightly different than Fulop’s, it had a lot of the same elements, namely 6 Energy. Running Dunsparce/Mr. Mime in my deck, I was able to know when he ran out of Energy to hurt Mr. Mime and knew when the right situation was to utilize those tech cards of mine. The other list was a carbon copy of Fulop’s and proved to be even easier to play against. Because I utilized general information about Jumpluff, I was able to win games that maybe I wouldn’t have won otherwise.
Well those are four of the biggest points I want to make for beginners, but here are some more that I have less to say about because they are more self-explanatory. Some go hand-in-hand with some of the tips above, so you can put those together:
Trainers ≥ Pokémon > Energy
One of the most basic principles in the game, but one I deemed worth mentioning. Most of you reading this should be beyond this point, but just in case.
In almost all decks (there are certainly some exceptions) you should be running mostly Trainers, less Pokémon, and Energy rounding the deck out with the least quantity.
Mark A. HicksKnow when to drop a new idea
Rogue decks are great and I encourage everyone to experiment and test new decks, you might just come up with the next archetype! However, realize when a deck is just not going to work out. Sometimes it takes just one or two games; sometimes it takes 20 or 30. Whatever it is, there is a point for decks that don’t deserve to be played in tournaments (which is most decks unfortunately). So realize this when it happens, suck it up, and move on.
Every card counts!
Seriously…every single card in your deck counts. Don’t throw in some card “just because,” there has to be a reason. You will see some of the best players debating over which card should be their 60th card all the time. Should I run Luxury Ball or a Pokémon Communication? It seems like a trivial question, where either will work, but in preparation for a major tournament, decisions like that can make or break a record.
Figure out your prizes right away
There’s no excuse for not knowing what your prizes are right after the first search of your deck. Take the extra 20-30 seconds to see what’s prized. Since every single card in your deck matters, and is in there for a purpose, you need to know what isn’t available to you at will.
Don’t overextend yourself
I see a lot of players burning through a lot of resources and putting themselves in mediocre to bad board position to gain an early lead. Calm down, take the game slower, and realize you don’t need to get to a lead right away. It WILL cost you in the long run. In my Top 16 match vs Pooka at this year’s Nationals I made the mistake of overextending myself, playing down Spiritomb, Azelf, Uxie, Crobat, and Claydol, leaving myself with only one spot for a Ralts, leading to my eminent defeat. This experience reminded me of this simple rule and how important it is.
I hope this helps some of you newer competitive players, and I’ll be back soon with an article for a bit more advanced players!
Mikey Fouchet
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