Hey guys, Yanmega guy… blah blah blah, it’s almost time for worlds. Forget the introduction, you know who my annoying icon represents, let’s jump into things. And yes, that article image on the front page is me, cosplaying as my author icon.
My Brief Discussion of Yanmega/Magnezone
This deck has been done to death and back on the Underground site, and it has seen a moderate amount of articles here on the non-UG area. That said, anyone taking it to the grinders needs to remember some key points:
pokebeach.com~You’ll want a way to help your Tyram match up.
This can be done with more Reversals, Kingdra techs, Samurott techs, or anything else that clears Typhlosion off the board ASAP. There’s a super secret tech floating around on the Underground, but we both know I’m not allowed to hand that out.
~You’re going to want to run an Umbreon counter, preferably one that overlaps with the point above.
Oh god, Cabd lost his mind, is he seriously saying we need an UMBREON counter? Well, yes I am, and for two reasons. First, even though it’s not seen much in this format, Umbreon was the clutch “I need a tech lol” card of last format, and I expect at least one or two people to do so.
Which brings me to part two: Grinders is single elimination. If a single Umbreon shuts down your ENTIRE deck (Yanmega body, Magnezone power, Kingdra power, Pachi power, etc.), then running in to the ONE guy who teched it will knock you out of the event, and losing to “eeveelutions.dek” in this format is darn near suicide worthy.
~You cannot get away without at least 9~10 energy.
If you insist on playing that low of an energy count, you had better run something good tech-wise for mirror, because missing a single energy drop is ruinous in the mirror match, even more so than who goes first. Otherwise, expect to lose mirror to lists playing that much energy. Also, with that low of energy, Pachirisu becomes a dead-draw too often.
~Junk Arm is good, too good, to not play at least three of
Junk Arm acts as a way to discard cards to allow drawing more with Magnezone, while also giving you back a good Trainer, or even disrupting, such as Reversal or Lost Remover.
st-andrews.ac.uk~Watch your deck size
This cannot be emphasized enough. Last format, I lost a game in regionals to decking out, and it was embarrassing as heck. Always know your deck and hand size when you get down to less than 10 in your deck.
Using Judge when your hand is huge might deny you some resources next turn, but if it keeps you from decking out, it’s worth it regardless. Always think before you announce Magnetic Draw.
All of these points are pretty valid in my opinion, but by no means are they gospel, if you have a reason to ignore one or two of them, go for it.
My Thoughts on Trends for Worlds
Here are some last minute thoughts about what cards will appear at worlds:
~I expect to see a lot more Rescue Energy being played
Don’t ask me why, I’m not 100 percent sure, but my gut is telling me that a LOT of players will be slotting Rescue Energy into their builds. I think the major reason I think this is that the format has grown toward some 2HKOs, so dropping Rescue Energy is now a valid form of recovery, especially when Tyram can drop Rescue then Afterburner twice.
~Tyranitar will see more play than at Nationals
pokemon-paradijs.comLast format, this was Erik Nance and his Steelix build. Some people like playing fun yet capable decks that exist outside the metagame. Tyranitar is that deck, in my opinion. It’s seen some love since it ran deep at Nationals this year, and the decklist has been semi-posted on the Gym, so I expect to see at least one or two both in grinders and at the main event. Not to mention apparently Japan loves the card.
~We’ll see some “Yanmega Hate” techs in full force
These cards don’t target Yanmega/Magnezone, but just Yanmega in general. Examples of this include Sharpedo TM (Strip Bare their hand, laugh as they cannot attack), Raichu (two L Energy for a turn-two dead Yanmega), Zekrom in non-Zekrom builds (Outrage the Yanmega swarms to death), Umbreon (see above), and others. Many of these can be seen on the forums here at our very own 6P.
~Water will be more popular
At Nats, everyone expected the BDIF to be Magneboar, which attacked with Magnezone. This time around, people see the metagame with a top three consisting of Donphan/Dragons, Yanmega/Magnezone, and Typhlosion/Reshiram. Being able to put a serious hurt on 2/3rds of those decks means that a water deck also using Donphan or some other sort of Magnezone counter can have at least an even match vs. the rest of the field.
~Emboar will see a return
With everyone mostly switched over to Typhlosion, I expect at least a few people to want to ignore the norm, and fall back to Emboar. It won’t be a whole bunch, but there’ll be at least a few good players doing so.
~Vileplume variants will be knocked out of the Grinders quickly
Sorry, Trainer lock lovers, but when all three “top” decks in the metagame can withstand a trainer lock and still fight through your defenses, the game is up. Typhlosion doesn’t mind Trainer lock, Yanmega/Zone will just spam Judge and Copycat to take cheap prizes, and Donphan/Dragons runs a majority of basics and Donphan, who is easy enough to set up anyway
Some Miscellaneous Thoughts
~The top 32 of grinders will be less slanted toward “pro” players than previous years
Given what we know about the grinders, it is safe to assume that they could pair up two “amazing” players on the first round, immediately assuring that the top cut will not contain one of them
~Grinders attendance from international players will be down
Who would pay to travel from out of country, only too be Knocked Out the first round? I know that if I didn’t happen to live in Central California already, I’d not have even considered making the trip.
~Judges will be VERY strict about ensuring coin flips and dice rolls are legal
From both the controversy surrounding the Seniors division at US Nationals, to the multiple threads on the Gym regarding flips, to the statements made by the judges, I fully expect judges to have eyes in the back, front, and sides of their heads, looking out for any attempt to manipulate a random event.
~Come find me!
pokebeach.comI’m looking forward to meeting quite a few of you guys! At the grinders, I’ll have on the black 6PUG shirt on, look for the skinny white dude with glasses on. I’m making the trip down to worlds Thursday night, leaving home at like 9PM, so I won’t see anybody until the morning of grinders.
My iPhone has a 6P and Gym mobile app, so if you PM me during those three days, I’ll be able to read it and hook up. You can also email me at zayello33@gmail.com if you’re looking for some games, fun, or not, once I get knocked out of grinders (being realistic here, lol, but if I somehow make it in, I’m still game to some chill time, sleep is over-rated)
Well, that’s all I have for now. I’ll be back after Worlds with at the very least my losing Grinders report, and some nice plushies, and some other swag. I’ll see you all at the event, or online.
~Yanmega guy out
Well, the image WAS me cosplaying my icon, but it got taken out. I’ll link to it later.
I look forward to seeing you there, seeing as how I’ll be living nearby after worlds.
Let me know what image you want for the article thumbnail and I’ll use it, sorry if I took it out!
It’s fine. I’m just linking to it here:
https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/167847_104062949670130_100001992757288_23866_2041651_n.jpg
Yes, i DO look like a dork. That’s the point!~
Nothing wrong with that. I dress as my avatar all the time. Beanie and all.
Good choice with Shiki. Lol.
Hah awesome!
lol what were you cosplaying as?
A person from the 50s going to bed?
“There’s a super secret tech floating around on the Underground, but we both know I’m not allowed to hand that out.” this is exactly what is wrong with the game now days…
Say what you will about the underground, but do you honestly think there would be no secret techs without it?
All UG does is make it a secret tech for a group of people instead of for one person.
its an elitest mentality… thats the point…
Who said anything about “elitist mentality”?
To be fair all one has to do to find a anti Tyram tech is to Look at the limited card pool we have available.
Several strategies stand out right away
1. Zoroark (basically the best tech in the format IMO)
2. Defender, Tyram wont OHKO my magnezone now. and they will have to waste a pluspower KOing yanmega.
3. Maxing out on consistency. Instead of trying to do cute strategies like kingdra techs for donphan prime decks, just smash Tyrams face harder so they have a hard time setting up.
4. 4 judge. While Tyram is strong against judge after setting up, they can’t beat judge before they setup, giving yanmega decks the ability to hit the Tyram deck to fast for Tyram to catch up.(Pairs well with #3)
5. Jirachi, Spread the Damage around the Typlosions and KO Them in one fell swoop, Or just plain disrupt their plan with Jirachi/Use him for magnezone lost burn fodder.
Simply put, all players should go to pokebeach and look at every card in the format so they to can find “secret” techs its not to hard.
All very good points, yes. But none of those are what I was talking about. Although if you continue with your reasoning, you’ll see it.
I don’t have an issue with UG, I have an issue with UG being $15 a month. I think the UG membership would be much higher (and more lucrative) if it was $3 or $5 a month. At $15 a month you are basically limiting the knowledge pool to those who can buy that knowledge. It sure seems like people like to brag that they are UG and I’m not even sure they know they are doing it. If you know or have a secret tech that you developed and you don’t feel like telling people that is one thing. However, mentioning that “I know of a tech that will break Worlds wide open, but I can’t say” is basically telling people that they need to pay up or they are already behind.
At $3 or $5 a month you would be sharing this knowledge with a larger circle while also supporting the site just as much as the current pricing format. I realize that there still would be a circle of knowledge, but that circle would be much larger and I feel the knowledge would trickle down even further.
Besides, I’m pretty skeptical that the best players are even going to tell everything – nor should they. They still want to win and they should be leading players down the right path without telling them everything or spilling all secrets.
Just my 2 cents.
well to be fair. You can’t bash underground (not you personally) when they have secrets, and bash them when they don’t.
At least the subscribers are paying for something now.
Paying for lies.
Only thing that’s wrong is some expectation that we should br spoon fed info for nothing. If not for UG, only the highest circle of players would know what’s up because there would be no incentive to write about and share their findings with people outside their testing partners in the first place.
The metagame as a result can accelerate towards a universal understanding of the best plays as knowledge proliferates down.
If you think there is some elitist mentality running around you are mistaken. Nobody has any obligation to hand out knowledge. The kind you only obtain from hundreds of hours spent playtesting a month.
Whilst knowledge in this game can be a very tangible thing, there’s a lot you can’t really deliver to readers in the written word. I can’t say things like the underground is bad if it simply means other players are forcied to try different things and not only reach similar conclusions, but reach an understanding of why.
I pay for UG to see the game from the perspective of top players. Being a UG member is liberating in that I’m inspired to be original in the face of both hard decklists and emerging ideas.
It’s pretty ludicrous to ever say “super secret tech” when everyone has access to the same cards.
I’m pretty sure that most top players know about every strategy that ever claims to be a “secret deck”. The reason they don’t use it is because they either dismiss it before extensive testing (due to time) or simply don’t test well with it.
I can legitimately say that the only thing close to being a “secret” was the genius deck that Mynx was. Things like Raieggs which were called “SDs” were simply ideas that people dismissed early.
Or perhaps how UG fed us a load of BS only to change their decks after Canadian Nats. Oh but wait…no one said a peep about that. Nor did anyone say a peep about how certain players played US Nats for only a couple rounds…running and hiding when they got their hides beat to protect their scores. Guess what? There were other players with rankings at stake who played through (no names) despite what was at stake. Why? Because love of the game should ALWAYS come before cult of personality. What I am saying, in conclusion, is that UG or not, we should be free thinkers since the best will always be looking to persuade us into a giant pile of BS while they fear for their lives in large tournaments. There are some who are honest like those top cut dudes, but even then we should not trust anything anyone says on this site ever again. This is why I stopped writing here. Sorry Adam.
Ummm, not to detract from your semi-valid points, but a LOT was said about that stuff. Did you miss this?
https://sixprizes.com/deck-analysis/kennys-wisdom-megazord/
Hi Dave. This topic has been discussed at length like Cabd mentioned. Please read through the comments in Kenny’s article. You’re not putting yourself in the writers shoes; it was an issue of loyalty more than anything. These are the two scenarios so you can see:
It was a case of loyalty more than anything. It can be a balancing keeping trust and friendship in people. The guys do their best to keep “in the know” and share as much as they can without losing their testing partners/friends. All season we’ve provided great info and helped people out. That situation was the only one of its kind all year, and I’ve addressed the guys on how to handle it better in the future.
Love,
Adam
<3 Yanmega
The secret tech is Zubat. THERE I SAID IT.
Shhh!!
“My iPhone has a 6P and Gym mobile app…”
What’s that? 6P has an iPhone app?! Must obtain… I would love it if there were ANY decent Pokémon iPhone apps, just so I could obsess no matter where I am. Actually, will someone please design an app where I can input my decklist and draw seven random cards. That’s all I need, just to playtest in my head the first couple moves. I would do that on the city bus, in bed, at school between classes…
Oh, I love my lifestyle. :P
Tapatalk. It costs money, but is well worth it. Enables mobile usage of all the features of both the 6P forums and the gym forums. Heck, I can even use all my mod abilities from it.
Cool. I’ll have to check that out. Thanks!
You seriously don’t need an Umbreon-counter. Whilst maintaining the lock, the Umbreon will hit you for 30 Every turn. In the meantime, you will be sniping his/her beench for 40. You win.
But what if Umbreon is the only pokemon in play? Magneton. If you run a 3-2-3 Mag-line (which I strongly advice), Tri Attack offers a way for you to keep up with the damage output:)
There is no such thing as a super secret tech because people are always innovating this game.
I don’t need to pay a monthly fee to know that if i need to improve my Reshiphlosion matchup i’ll need something that ohkos typhlosion and doesn’t hurt my consistency. Lanturn Prime.