pokebeach.comHello everyone and welcome to my newest article. I’ve put some thought into this and have been thinking about how ZPS: Zekrom/Pachirisu/Shaymin and ZekMega: Zekrom/Yanmega could do at Worlds. I’ll talk about how ZPS and ZekMega work, and then predict how they could possibly do at this year’s Worlds.
I’ll provide a deck skeleton list for both ZekMega and ZPS and talk a little about what I think the updated playing field will be for Worlds. Last I’ll give out some last-minute playtesting tips and my YouTube channel link.
Enjoy!
What is ZPS?
It’s very fast deck that started upon the release of the Black and White set. It uses Zekrom from Black and White, Pachirisu from Call of Legends, and Shaymin from Unleashed. It can usually set up about turn one to turn two. The strategy is to use Pachirisu for “Self Generation.” It lets you attach up to two L Energies to Pachirisu when you play him down.
Then you play Shaymin and use “Celebration Wind”. That lets you move around Energies on your Pokémon in any way you like. If you have Zekrom in play you can move the Energies from your Pachirisu to Zekrom. This can let you get up a turn one Zekrom and possibly give you the donk.
It’s easily the fastest deck in the format. It’s only really hard matchup is Donphan variants. Now with a Yanmega tech it can have a better matchup against Donphan stuff. Now onto what ZekMega is…
What is ZekMega?
ZekMega can kill your speed in your Zekrom build, but for Worlds I’m not sure you’ll really need the speed. People will be playing very consistent decks that can get two plus basics down in the beginning so there goes the donk. I think that ZekMega will be a very good choice for Worlds; it can beat Donphan, and still has the Zekrom to take down other things.
Yanmega can get cheap prizes off of Linear Attack too so that’s another plus. Zekrom has the big attack so that’ll be the main attacker. I don’t really have a preference to which deck is better. That’s for you to decide.
Does Zekrom have a Chance at the Worlds Title?
Lets first start with the Canadian and Mexican Nationals results. First place for both were Zekrom. That might be a bit surprising, huh? I know I was very surprised. Both events are seven round Swiss with a top sixteen in Masters. Worlds is very similar. It has seven to eight rounds of Swiss with a top thirty-two cut.
I think this gives Zekrom a good chance at the title. Zekrom is a fast deck and can get you to about a 5-2 record in a seven round Swiss tourney. That’ll hopefully give you a top thirty-two spot. Sounds good. Now in top cut it got through a top cut a numerous rounds in Mexico and Canada and won the event. Now in the U.S. Zekrom decks got to top sixty-four in Masters.
Now the United States tournament is nine rounds Swiss, and getting to top sixty-four which is an extra round that you won. That’s ten rounds. Now Worlds is seven rounds, and say you made top cut. You could get that next three rounds. Now you’re in top eight at Worlds. You can see that Zekrom does have somewhat of a chance.
When you look at ZekMega and ZPS I think ZPS is better. You need to start getting prizes fast and with ZekMega you can’t do that. ZekMega is a good deck, but I’m not sure it’s the right choice. I think ZPS is a good choice for Worlds and I hope you can see that.
ZPS Skeleton – 49 Cards
| Pokémon – 9 | Trainers – 25
4 Junk Arm
|
Energy – 1515 L |
ZekMega Skeleton – 46 Cards
| Pokémon – 13
2 Yanma TM
|
Trainers – 20
2 Judge
2 Copycat
|
Energy – 1313 L |
What to Expect At Worlds
You’ll see a variety of decks, but I think you’ll see the most of MegaZone: Magnezone/Yanmega, MegaZord: Yanmega/Zoroark/Donphan, TyRam: Typhlosion/Reshiram, ZPS: Zekrom/Pachirisu/Shaymin and meta-counter decks.
Why?
pokebeach.comMegaZone is very fast and consistent. You can usually get a turn two Magnezone and Yanmega. Yanmega is disruptive in the early game and Magnezone can be used to clear the field when you have bigger HP Pokémon on your opponents field. MegaZord counters lots of things around the board because it makes the game like rock-paper-scissors.
They put out Lightning, you put out Donphan. They put out Rayquaza & Deoxys LEGEND, you put out Zoroark… TyRam is great because it’s really fast with Ninetales’ draw power. You can usually get out a turn two Reshiram with three Energies consistently. It puts out a ton of damage and doesn’t really have an auto-loss except for Water decks which you probably won’t see.
As for ZPS this whole article was on it, so you should have a good idea of how the deck works. Meta-counter decks like SamuPhan: Samurott/Donphan and things like that you might see. Some can be clunky so they might not be your biggest worry, some like MegaZord, which is now a meta-deck, are very fast so those you should be testing against a lot.
Last-Minute Tips for Worlds
Get together with a testing group and play a lot of games. Play against lots of different people so you have a feel for different playstyles. Play on online simiulators and try to play about five to ten games per day. That may sound like a lot but it will pay off in the long-run. Play whatever you have that is really consistent and doesn’t have a particular auto-loss. Hope this helped!
Check out my YouTube!
I posted the link in an earlier article, but wanted to put it out again:
http://www.youtube.com/user/cmg123abc123
I’m putting up Card of the Days every Monday, Recorded Matches on Wednesday, and Lessons from the Pro on Friday (which are pretty much tips and analysis on different topics.) I have some Zekrom Recorded Matches up so you can check those out for some more information on the deck! Check it out!
Conclusion
This will probably be my last article before Worlds so I hope you enjoyed it! Good luck to all who are going to Worlds and I hope you do great! Thanks for reading!
I think not.
It can win a lot of the time against a wide variety of decks… but, if you get a below-average draw (or if your opponent gets a good draw), you will lose.
Unless you get lucky and avoid that situation, then you won’t be able to be successful enough – before too long, you’ll have your deck screw up.
Has anyone ever tested 2-2 Raichu Prime in Zekrom? As a last resort?
How about partnering it with 2-2 or 3-3 Lanturn Prime because Lanturn Prime can use its poke power to attack as water to deal with reshiram and donphan prime. i havent done a lot of playtesting with this tech though.
Also, my one tip: If you play zekrom, play 4 defender. You’ll need them.
seeker too so you can recycle your shaymin and pachirisus while at the same time disrupting your opponent’s bench.
This article isn’t about saying it WILL win. It’s talking about how things seem and if it even has a chance…
Finally a ZPS article. I actually think that ZPS could win Worlds. Great Article!
Did you miss the article I posted just before US Nats?
yup David wrote a Zekrom article prior to US Nats
or the one i wrote in June for pokegym(okay I know it wasn’t for 6P.com, but it was still a Zekrom article)
Yup, saw that one. That was ZPSe, right?
Edit: And 6P .com is some weird Dice game site. =P
I wish I could buy that domain!
Both of them ;).
Poor Zekrom. That deck just makes some people angry . . .
“It might win in places like Canada, but it won’t fly here blah blah blah. Now let us copy your Yanmega lists”
Zekrom’s decent. It doesn’t fail if it doesn’t hit the T1 set up. It’s only going to get better with future cards.
I wouldn’t be shocked if it did a lot better at Worlds than people think.
well wasn’t magneboar hyped up and touted as BDIF by the very same people who has been dissing Zekrom? In contrast, magneboar has yet to win any Nationals.
I dunno bout Zekrom decks most decks that run Zoroark run a 3-3 line.
Honestly, I’m disappointed in this article. Skeleton lists were provided, but no techs to fill them out. The lists are pretty typical, but not all that great. Aside from the fact that there are no techs listed, I don’t even like the supporter lines in either deck.
I’ve played both decks (as well as other Zekrom varients) extensively and can say with confidence that this deck does wonderfully against anything with lightning weakness. Considering how popular Yanmega is, that is a huge plus in the “will this do well at worlds” question. However, considering how popular MegaZorD and how well teching Donphan in has worked, I don’t think it will do that well through top cut.
Sorry about that. This was my first article fully centered on a certain deck. Next time I’ll add in techs and explain them.
I think that an extensive tech section could’ve helped this article quite a bit.
ZPS is in a way versatile tech-wise, you can either add a cincinno tech, a zoroark tech, magnezone prime tech, lanturn prime tech.
Zekrom can win Worlds, just like any deck in this baby flip/Reversal flip driven metagame. It cruises through Yanmega/Kingdra, and has a win chance vs about anything just based on that small chance of a t1 Bolt Strike. But it also can and will lose versus pretty much every deck in the format that isn’t weak to Lightning provided they have the time to set up. Which is not always, but it sounds to me like that should occur at least once versus every Zekrom list in the Grinder and in Top Cut.
Zekrom benefits from the popularity of Yanmega, but it has such huge issues with Zoroark and especially Donphan. Even 2-2 lines of those are enough to make it tread carefully. Yanmega alone can’t handle Donphans, but even if it could you are reducing speed big time.
PS ZekMega is a horrible name. Not every deck needs to be named according to the Luxchomp/Dialgachomp/Vilegar pattern.
Also i was reading about how Zekrom did good in canada and mexico and i think the reason it did so well there was b/c they have a VERY small attendance compared to USA nats, thus giving Zekrom an advantage as there’s a better chance of it hitting T1’s at a higher clip, and its incosistency issues not being as prevalent. Also Donphan wasn’t played as much as it was here. Lastly at USA nats i don’t recall a Zekrom deck making t32 in masters, correct me if i’m wrong though(there might ‘ve been 1, but not sure)
Another argument why Zekrom didnt make it to T32 because most of the top US players played non-Zekrom decks.
Another argument why Zekrom didnt make it to T32 because most of the top US players played non-Zekrom decks.
I guess you could say that, but I know i saw some Zekrom running around, it’s big problem IMO was the increase in donphan decks, especially stage one rush.
Or perhaps it may be smart to have 2 Ruins of Alph in your deck to even things out with Donphan.
It’s not like they didn’t choose not to play those decks…. and it was VERY represented below T32…. therefore it wasn’t as good. QED
It’s not like they didn’t choose not to play those decks…. and it was VERY represented below T32…. therefore it wasn’t as good. QED
no
I think that this is a fairly well written article, all you haters Xp