memegenerator.netWith many European Nationals coming up very soon and most playing an MD-CoL format I decided to write an article to help you understand and give you an idea about the high tier decks that are going to be played. To do this I will use my own knowledge and link you to older SixPrizes articles that have in-depth analysis.
Firstly I will look at what I consider the top tier decks. I highly advise reading the information about each of these even if you are not planning on playing them yourself. The more you understand a deck the easy it will be if you get matched against it.
Dialgachomp
This is one of my favorite decks to play and one I play a lot. I am sure anyone who has ever played Dialgachomp has found out that it is extremely hard to play and is very unforgiving with even the smallest of misplays.
pokemon-paradijs.comEven though the majority of high level players will say that Dialgachomp is on par if not better than Luxchomp and say that it has some amazing match ups all round, it is still underplayed compared to Luxchomp and Vilegar mainly because of how unforgiving the deck is and how hard it can be to play well through an entire tournament.
When I started to learn Dialgachomp I found it very hard to find any good information about the deck. Most of the articles and decklists you find on the internet are either out of date or Luxchomp lists that have had the Luxray taken out and have had a Dialga G put in instead which is a very bad way of making the deck.
Here are some of the articles I found most useful to find out more information about the deck.
Chris Fulop – Battle Road Report Plus Dialga Discussion
This article is a bit old now, but you can get a good idea of how some of the key techs can work in the deck and it is a nice alternative decklist to the one in this article.
Kenny’s list is very interesting, playing 3 Lost Remover and no Stadiums. There is a good explanation to why he played the deck this way. I like this list, but the lack of Machamp counters can be a big problem.
My Decklist
|
Pokémon – 19 2 Dialga G |
Trainers – 27 4 Pokémon Collector |
Energy – 14 |
When testing this list with a player of similar skill this is my average win to loss ratio versus the other highly played decks.
- Luxchomp 50/50
- Vilegar 65/35
- Machamp (speed) 50/50
- Gyarados 55/45
- Sablelock 50/50
These can change depending on techs in your opponent’s deck . For instance Blaziken FB in Sablelock will put the matchup in Sablelocks favor.
Luxchomp
pokemon-paradijs.comLuxchomp is a deck that I have played very little with. It has been well over a year since the deck was first created and I never played it in any Premier event and have played the deck under 50 times. This is just because I have always played different SP that I found more suitable toward my play style (i.e. Gengar/Garchomp C and Dialgachomp).
But just because I haven’t played it much doesn’t mean I don’t know a lot about the deck. I have tested against this deck an unbelievable amount of times – far more than I have tested against any other deck. Anyone who wants to do well, no matter what deck you are playing, needs to know the Luxchomp matchup better than any other.
It has been the most played deck overall especially in the UK. I played 26 games at States and 15 of them were against Luxchomp. This is why when testing I spent well over half my time just playing every version of Luxchomp.
There have been so many articles about Luxchomp there is nothing I can think of to tell you about the deck that has not already been said. Over the last year there have been a few articles that have stood out and helped me massively in learning the matchup and how the deck works.
Josh Wittenkeller – The Bible On Luxchomp
This is my favorite Underground article ever. If you haven’t already I would highly recommend reading this article. Even if you are not playing Luxchomp it is a must read. Although it is a fairly old article it still has so much key information that you need to know and if you are not a Luxchomp player it will help you understand what is going through a Luxchomp players head when they are playing.
Chris Fulop – Luxchomp – As played by Chris Fulop
This will help any Luxchomp player Understand how one of the best Luxchomp players thinks when he is playing and it has a very solid Decklist.
Daniel Middleton – A Season of Building Luxchomp
I have played Dan at Battle roads, Cities and States and noticed how his play style and his lists improved throughout the year. This article can help you understand what cuts you can make from your list and why you should make them.
My Decklist
|
Pokémon – 21 2 Garchomp C |
Trainers – 27 4 Pokémon Collector |
Energy – 12 |
Matchups:
- Dialgachomp 50/50
- Vilegar 45/55
- Machamp (speed) 45/55
- Gyarados 55/45
- Sablelock 50/50
Vilegar
pokegym.netVilegar is a very solid deck to play at Nationals. The deck is easy to play. Vilegar, unlike most other decks, does almost the exact same thing in any match up.
A lot of people playing consistently well throughout big tournaments hard and even the best players make some awful misplays just because they are tired, haven’t had enough food or are dehydrated.
This will rarely happen with Vilegar because the deck can make it so obvious what card to play, it’s almost like it is on auto pilot sometimes.
I don’t play Vilegar much just because after you learn how to play the deck you don’t need to test it much because you have so little interaction with your opponent. The only time I play it is if I want to test out a new tech in the deck or I am playing someone who is testing a tech out to see how well it works against Vilegar.
The reason I personally don’t like to play Vilegar is because if something does go wrong like a bad start or your Vileplume gets Knocked Out it is very hard to recover and get back into the game because of the few options the deck has.
Most Vilegar decklists are similar and because of how easy the deck is to play there are not many in depth articles about Vilegar.
John Kettler – Amorphic: The Post-States Metagame, and a Major Vilegar Update
Has a very solid decklist with nice techs. Also explains what techs work well with the deck and how the deck has changed throughout the year. Basically tells you all you need to know about the deck and the best way to play it.
My Decklist
|
Pokémon – 28 4 Spiritomb AR 1 Haunter SF |
Trainers – 18 3 Pokémon Collector |
Energy – 14 |
Matchups:
- Dialgachomp 35/65
- Luxchomp 55/45
- Machamp (speed) 80/20
- Gyarados 55/40
- Sablelock 40/60
Gyarados
pokemon-paradijs.comGyarados is one of my favorite decks to play. I love how the main engine of the deck works and how you have a high health, heavy hitter up and running very fast. The way that Gyarados runs is brilliant, but the problem is the matchups are not too good against some of the top decks.
They are not awful but it always feels like you are working so much harder than your opponent. Gyarados is very good at beating the random rogue decks you may find in the early rounds. This can be very nice to have a few easy games at the start of the day to get you ready for the hard ones later.
Gyarados is a very nice deck for any new or intermediate player that wants to do well in a tournament, but doesn’t think they can win it. But that doesn’t mean to say that Gyarados cannot win Nationals tournaments.
If you are going to play Gyarados and are think you can win then you need to make sure that you know all of your match ups extremely well and are perfectly teched for the metagame in your country.
I would highly advise checking what was being played by the best players in your country at States and on the day of Nationals make sure you know what the most popular deck is at the event and what is doing well so you will know what to expect in your matches.
If you know all your match ups and you know the Meta game in your country isn’t too bad for Gyarados, then you should play it. But if you don’t know how Gyarados friendly the meta is, then I would advise staying away from the deck.
This is a nice article with several different decklists including a good Gyarados one. I like how he explains why he chose to play the deck at the time and why he uses certain cards in the deck.
Josh Wittenkeller Plenty of Fish in the Sea: Post-Triumphant Gyarados Analysis
Another great article from Josh, with a similar decklist. He goes into more detail about each card in the deck and how you can use them to their full potential. He also gives his thoughts on the matchup with some of the other top tier decks.
My Decklist
|
Pokémon – 22 4 Magikarp SF |
Trainers – 32 4 Pokémon Collector |
Energy – 6 |
Matchups
- Dialgachomp 50/50
- Luxchomp 45/55
- Vilegar 45/55
- Machamp (speed) 65/35 (fixed… numbers were accidentally reversed previously)
- Sablelock 50/50
Sablelock
pokemon-paradijs.comI don’t play Sablelock too often just because every time I try any type of build I just find that it does not fit my style of play. It is still a very strong deck that can sometimes be very hard to play. I have tested with some very good Sablelock players with a lot of different decks.
Every time I always seem to find that Blaziken FB is not needed and Luxray GL is a much better tech for the deck. Chatot G is not as necessary as people think it is and Honchkrow SV is a good card. The deck has good matchups and it is a very solid deck choice for Nationals.
There have been a few good Sablelock articles but the ones that stand out the most are Josh Wittenkeller because he has played the deck in the majority of his premier events and had great success with it.
Josh Wittenkeller – This is How I Lock: Two Sablock Lists in Preparation for States
This article is an in-depth analysis of Sablelock telling you everything you need to know to be successful with the deck.
My Decklist
|
Pokémon – 22 4 Sableye SF |
Trainers – 26 4 Pokémon Collector |
Energy – 12 3 Call |
Matchups:
- Dialgachomp 50/50
- Luxchomp 50/50
- Vilegar 60/40
- Machamp (speed) 50/50
- Gyarados 50/50
That finalises my in-depth look at some of the best decks in the format. Here are some other decklist of deck I have played in the last year.
Regigigas
|
Pokémon – 13 2 Regigigas LA 37 |
Trainers – 33 3 Twins |
Energy – 14 4 Double Colorless |
Related Articles:
Gengar C
(This is the list I was going to play at Nationals, but I am not playing Nationals anymore to save my worlds invite.)
|
Pokémon – 21 3 Gastly SF |
Trainers – 29 4 Pokémon Communication |
Energy – 10 4 Double Colorless |
Related Articles:
Speed Machamp
|
Pokémon – 21 3 Machop SF |
Trainers – 30 2 Warp Point |
Energy – 9 6 F |
Related Articles:
Mewperior
|
Pokémon – 19 4 Mew Prime |
Trainers – 19 4 Pokémon Collector |
Energy – 22 |
Related Articles:
Magnezone Machamp
|
Pokémon – 24 4 Machop SF |
Trainers – 25 3 Pokémon Collector |
Energy – 11 6 F |
Related Articles:
Steelix
|
Pokémon – 17 3 Onix UL |
Trainers – 29 4 Pokémon Collector |
Energy – 14 4 Special M |
Related Articles:
Uxie Donk
|
Pokémon – 12 4 Uxie LA |
Trainers – 47 4 Poké Drawer + |
Energy – 1 1 Cyclone |
Related Articles:
These are all of the decks that I have tested with or tested against over the last year. I hope this helps you to prepare your own deck or improve your knowledge of other decks.
I wish you all the best of luck at Nationals, but most importantly I hope you all have a good time.
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