Not This Time – Jay’s Nebraska and Wisconsin State Synopses

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Losses are for learning.

We’ve already made it through the first two rounds of State Championships and we’re closing in on the third this weekend. My first two events didn’t go as well as I would have hoped, but they were still great experiences and really showcased a lot of this format. They also gave me a lot to reflect on and learn from when writing this article.

Our writers have done an excellent job covering the big Tier 1 and Tier 2 decks of the format the past couple weeks, so I want to keep my article a little more specified.

I’m going talk very heavily about the deck I played week 1 and week 2-of States – Tornadus EX/Landorus-EX – and give a very thorough breakdown of it. Hopefully this will give you a very close look at the deck and strong understanding of how it works, allowing you to modify it to your own personal play style and local metagame, if you so choose.

After reading this article also I hope you will have a strong understanding of my thought process for the first two weeks, and in turn come away with helpful information you can take and apply to your own testing heading into this coming weekend and Regionals in April.

Article Breakdown

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The Full Art Dilemma

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To use me, or not to use me? That is the question…

I remember writing last winter about how much I loved the Full Art versions of cards and that I found them to be much better investments of your money than buying the regular versions. Now, I find myself backpedaling on this to a certain degree.

I still do feel the Full Arts hold value better than the regular forms of EXs, but as far as playing I’ve found that I once again prefer the regular art of cards.

I’m not writing this to inform you of my updated personal opinion, but to say I feel it’s much better for your deck’s consistency. Perhaps it’s all in my head, but I always seem to find that Full Arts clump together, leaving me with either a hand full of Supporters or none at all. It is also quite sad in the mid game to Juniper looking for a key card, only to find myself drawing into 4-5 Full Arts.

I still do find myself preferring the FA version of some Pokémon, but I’ve sold off all of my Full Art Supporters and I don’t regret it one bit. Like I said, perhaps this is all in my head, but I feel my deck shuffles much better and I get a much more random distribution of cards. My wallet also thanks me for giving up my FA obsession.

To each their own I suppose, but I would like to at least suggest trying a few games or even a few tournaments without playing Full Arts and see if you find similar results.

Deciding on My Deck for States

Heading into States I was fairly confident I had my deck choices narrowed down to one of two different decks. The first of which was my Blastoise deck that I discussed in my last article. The only real change I had made to the list was to drop the Mewtwo EX and a W Energy for a Victini NVI 15 and a R Energy.

I didn’t think that Blastoise alone would be enough to win the Klinklang matchup. For the first weekend of States I thought it would be better to make the “safe” play and run a Klinklang counter.

My second option was a very fast Basic deck that borrowed heavily from Justin Sanchez’s T4 Florida Regionals deck. As soon as I saw his list after Regionals I was extremely disappointed that I hadn’t come up with the deck myself. Had I come up with the deck I wouldn’t have hesitated to play it at Regionals. If you haven’t seen it, the deck was basically built around Tornadus EX and hitting T1 60.

I honestly felt like the deck was 50/50 against Blastoise and a favorite against everything else besides Klinklang. At the time I honestly wasn’t sure exactly how popular Klinklang would be, but I knew at the very least I wanted to run a soft counter.

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Throwing a wrench gear into the meta.

After testing the matchup for a few games I was very surprised to realize how just a single Victini could really make the matchup more winnable. Don’t get me wrong, the matchup was still horrible (35/65), but the 1 Victini gave me an out once the Plasma Klinklang was on the field.

The night before Nebraska we ended up play-testing until about 2 AM, and still not feeling great about anything, I told my brother to choose my deck. He picked Tornadus EX, which actually I was happy about because it was the deck I was leaning toward anyway.

I felt like Tornadus had a tough matchup against Klinklang, but Blastoise had a tough matchup against Garbodor. At the time I felt like both Klinklang and Garbodor would see about the same amount of play. Looking back at the results of the first week this seemed to be pretty accurate overall, but Garbodor did seem to come out with more success winning multiple State Championships.

The List and Card Explanations

I didn’t work with anybody on the list, but like I said it was heavily influenced by Justin Sanchez’s Regionals list.

Pokémon – 8

4 Tornadus-EX DEX
2 Landorus-EX
1 Mewtwo-EX NXD
1 Victini NVI 15

Trainers – 40

4 Professor Juniper
4 N
3 Skyla
3 Bianca

 

4 Pokémon Catcher
4 Hypnotoxic Laser
4 Switch
3 Eviolite
3 Ultra Ball
2 Max Potion
1 Energy Search

1 Computer Search

 

2 Virbank City Gym
2 Skyarrow Bridge

Energy – 12

6 F

4 Double Colorless
2 R

Basic Strategy

The entire idea of the deck is to hit T1 60 or possibly T1 90 with Virbank and Laser. This quick and easy damage output first and foremost offers me the opportunity to donk any Basic Pokémon with 90 HP or less. In other matchups, such as mirror, the quick damage usually allows me to get the first KO and make more favorable Prize tradeoffs throughout the game.

Card Explanations

4 Tornadus EX

tornadus ex dark explorers dex 90pokemon-paradijs.comWith the entire idea of the deck being to hit hard T1, it was very important for me to play a full set of Tornadus EX. While I would never need all 4 copies in a single game, I did find it important to be able to get 2 on the field quickly. This allowed me to very easily switch between them if my opponent played a Hypnotoxic Laser.

2 Landorus-EX

I really like how Landorus-EX is a Fighting type and T1 30-30 for just a single energy is really strong. However, I still feel that it gets outclassed by Tornadus EX in most situations. With Hypnotoxic Laser, Tornadus can usually 2HKO any EX in the format for a single DCE.

Landorus-EX on the other hand will usually yield a 3HKO relying on its first attack and Poison damage. And I’ve found it to be very difficult to consistently get 3 energy on Landorus-EX before it’s Knocked Out due to the fast pace of this format.

1 Mewtwo EX

In no way was Mewtwo designed to be a major part of the deck. I ran a single copy to deal with opposing Mewtwo EX and have an easy out to Bouffalants and large Keldeo-EXs. Overall I was not overly impressed with Mewtwo EX the first week, but I would like to keep it in.

1 Victini

Playing in Nebraska week 1 I was fairly confident that RayEels and Garbodor would be two of the bigger decks there. I felt both of those decks had amazing matchups against Klinklang and if I could dodge it for the first few rounds I would probably never have to play against it.

That being said, I didn’t want to basically be forced to scoop up my cards if a Plasma Klinklang ever hit the field either. After a few games of testing, I felt pretty good about playing the lone Victini. It certainly didn’t make the Klinklang matchup favorable, but it did give me an out for victory.

I would say that I was winning maybe 3 to 4 games against Klinklang out of 10. This certainly isn’t good, but for my worst matchup I was willing to take it.

4 Switch

switch-expedition-ex-157pokemon-paradijs.comI had 3 Switch in the deck when I first started testing it, but quickly I realized in mirror it was extremely important to be able to get out of Poison/Sleep on the following turn if your opponent played a Laser. A couple bad Sleep flips or failing to get out of Poison even just once was usually enough to end a game.

To some degree it also helps get T1 Tornadus EX.

2 Max Potion

In mirror or against Darkrai this card was MVP of the deck. Both Tornadus EX and Landorus-EX could do significant damage for a single energy, so Max Potion basically read “Your opponent didn’t attack last turn.” The number of Max Potion each player runs and who can hit them at key times can easily decide a matchup.

4 Stadiums

With such a huge emphasis placed on hitting T1 Tornadus, I was fairly confident that I wanted to play 4 Stadiums. The four I considered were Virbank City Gym, Aspertia City Gym, Skyarrow Bridge, and Tropical Beach.

Before I discuss the two I did decide to play, I want to quickly discuss the two I decided not to play.

No Tropical Beach

I thought 1 copy of Tropical Beach would be an easy Skyla out for T1 if I wasn’t able to get the T1 60. I also liked how the deck went up so quickly in Prizes that Tropical Beach would make it harder for my opponent to “N lock” me later in the game.

I ultimately decided against it because the format is so fast that I almost always had a better play T1 than to search out Tropical Beach, and if I was searching out Beach I was already in a bad situation. I also felt like it could be a huge liability against setup decks like Blastoise and Klinklang. Lastly, I simply had no reliable way of keeping it in play late game when I would actually need it.

So while I still feel like it’s a cool idea, it’s only situationally useful and I wanted to go with a more overall practical Stadium.

No Aspertia City Gym

aspertia-city-gym-boundaries-crossed-bcr-127pokemon-paradijs.comJustin ran a 2-2 split of Aspertia and Skyarrow Bridge for Regionals, which I thought was a genius move. However, at Regionals, popular decks like Darkrai and Garbodor were not playing Stadiums. In the case of decks like Blastoise, only 1-2 Tropical Beach were played, and you could trade Beach/Skyarrows with them early and then lock an Aspertia City Gym in the late game.

Now at States, however, almost every deck in the format plays 1-3 Stadiums that are easily searchable with Skyla, so it’s too hard to keep Aspertia in play long enough for it to matter.

So even if I do get it into play and prevent a KO one turn, I’m still hoping that my opponent won’t have the counter Gym the following turn and possibly take the Knock Out anyway.

I don’t like making “all in” plays simply “hoping” my opponent doesn’t have the out.

2 Virbank City Gym

Playing Virbank is a given – it was just finding the right number to run. I knew I had 4 spots to work with Stadium-wise, so I could devote either 2 or 3 spots to the card. I decided to run only 2 copies because I felt Skyarrow was essential at certain times (which I’ll discuss in a moment) and Virbank really didn’t change the magic numbers at the start of the game when I’m going for a donk/T1 knockout. I will admit the drop from 3 down 2 Virbank was a last minute decision that I’m not fully sold on.

When it comes to getting that T1 KO, opposing Pokémon fall into either 1-of 2 categories: 60 HP or less (Tynamo, Squirtle, Trubbish), or 70 HP (Sableye, Victini, the other Trubbish). There really wasn’t anything with 80 or 90 Hit Points that saw enough play that I was focused on KOing T1.

In the of 60 HP or less grouping I just needed Tornadus + DCE + Stadium and it didn’t matter if it was Virbank or Skyarrow. In the case of a 70 HP Basic I needed Tornadus + DCE + Stadium + Laser and once again it didn’t matter what the Stadium was because that extra 20 damage from Poison was irrelevant to the 1HKO.

2 Skyarrow Bridge

skyarrow bridge next destinies nde 91pokemon-paradijs.comIt wasn’t until I really started to test did I realize just how big of a deal Skyarrow Bridge was. What I found was it’s essential to get out of Hypnotoxic Laser on the following turn before Poison added up too much. By having Skyarrow Bridge in play, I could simply retreat between Tornadus EXs and not force myself to go and fish out a Switch or pay a Retreat Cost.

I also like running a counter to Virbank (despite playing 4 Laser myself), as I felt like it gave me the ability to turn Virbank on/off as I wished. This gave me a lot of control over Poison damage, especially against opponents who were banking on the extra damage to score a KO.

1 Energy Search

I believe I’ve talked about this in the past, but being able to turn Skyla into a guaranteed energy without wasting a Computer Search is huge. If you’re playing a high Skyla count, I would really recommend considering playing 1 Energy Search.

I actually think that it’s so important to the deck that on my first search I always check to see if my Energy Search is Prized or not. At any point in the game if I need an energy and I decide to Skyla for it, I have to know if it’s in the deck. If it’s Prized and I don’t realize it, I could be leaving myself dead in the water.

6 F Energy

Landorus-EX was never a major part of the deck when I first built it and instead was more of a secondary attacker used only in certain matchups. I found his strength to be in Hammerhead; Land’s Judgment was much tougher to pull off.

I’ll admit that 6 F Energy seem really low, but the amount seemed fine when the focus was on Tornadus EX.

2 R Energy

The 2 R Energy and 1 Energy Search seemed to be just the perfect number for Victini. It made them very easy to find when I needed to, but not so far over the top I was drawing into them when I would rather see F Energy. Once again, with Tornadus EX as the main attacker the Energy lineup made little difference.

Nebraska State Championship

Match Summary

Round 1 – Klinklang – W
Round 2 – Klinklang – L
Round 3 – Garbodor – W
Round 4 – Big Basics – W
Round 5 – Big Basics – L
Round 6 – Big Basics – W

Final Record: 4-2, 10th Place, Missed Top 8 Cut

My tiebreakers were so-so and I waited around for the standings with a glimmer of hope that I might make top cut. However, my luck was just not good enough for me that day and I ended up in 10th.

I was a little disappointed, but I couldn’t really be that upset considering I lost 2 games in a 6 round tournament. My disappointment more came from the fact that we were close to having enough players for 7 rounds, which would have given me the opportunity to at least play for my spot in the top cut.

Instead of doing a long and detailed tournament report, I instead just want to quickly discuss my 2 losses and what I learned from them.

Round 2 vs. Klinklang

klink-dark-explorers-dex-75pokemon-paradijs.comAs I discussed earlier, I only played a soft Klinklang counter in the hopes of dodging the deck entirely. I knew a lot of Nebraska players favored RayEels and would most likely be teching Victini into their decks. This certainly isn’t how the tournament played out for me, having to play against 2 Klinklang decks in the first 2 rounds and never encountering a RayEels deck.

As for the game itself, it was pretty straightforward with my opponent going first with a slow start. At one point I was able to KO his only Klang on the field, but it was a play that forced me to discard 3-of my Catchers (I played 1 and than Junipered away 2 more).

On the following turn he was able to bench 2 more Klinks, and there was going to be no way that I could get rid of both of them.

In the mid game I was filling my Bench in an effort to set up the Victini play, but this allowed my opponent to get off a huge Colress for 9 and set up both Plasma Klinklang and a Shift Gears Klinklang to KO my Victini. I had been able to get major damage on both of his Cobalions, but at this point I had only taken 1 Prize, so even if I got lucky with some Hypnotoxic Laser plays there was no way I would be able to win. I scooped.

Heading into the tournament I took a major gamble by only playing a light Klinklang counter and this was the game I paid for it. I learned from this game that if in the future Klinklang is a major deck, I’ll either need to find a better way to tech for it or play a different deck.

Round 5 vs. Big Basics

His list was considerably different than mine and had some interesting card choices. I could tell he played 3 Max Potion, 3-4 Bicycle, 3 Bouffalant, no Eviolite, and no Mewtwo EX. I think his main strategy was just to simply speed through his deck as fast as possible to hit key cards when he needed them. From him not playing Eviolite and always seeming to have a Supporter, I’m guessing he gave mainly tech spots to find room for the 3-4 Bicycle.

As for the game itself, I ran into some trouble early where some bad Sleep fits forced my Tornadus EX to be stuck Active on my first and second turns of the game. A timely Max Potion stopped the Poison damage from building up, but not being able to attack for the first two turns of the game really put me in a tough spot right out of the gate.

hypnotoxic laser plasma storm pls 123The real turning point came in the mid game where I need to KO a Bouffalant and remove all of my opponent’s energy from the field. My plan was to use Landorus-EX and then Juniper hoping to hit one of my 2 remaining Lasers to score the KO.

Once I played my Ultra Ball for the Landorus and Switch to put it in the Active Spot I realized the much safer play probably would have been to KO the Bouffalant with Mewtwo EX. At this point though, I was already committed to this play and couldn’t go back. It would all pan out fine if I was able to hit my Laser off the Juniper, but I whiffed on it.

This allowed my opponent to get another shot in on my Landorus with Bouffalant and another energy drop under a benched Landorus-EX. Not going the Mewtwo route would really backfire on me in another turn when my opponent would Catcher it up when the Prizes were 2-3 in his favor.

He followed the play up with an N and left me with a Supporterless hand. He hit me with another Bouffalant for 120 and I didn’t topdeck anything and so offered the handshake, not having an out to the Bouffalant.

I don’t know if I could have won had I swung with the Mewtwo EX, but I know it wouldn’t have left me in the situation where he could have used Pokémon Catcher to strand it Active. I’m usually really good at looking over all of my options and thinking before I make a play. I really don’t have any excuses this time though, and I just have to own up to a misplay. I took it as a learning experience and moved on.

I saw a lot of different ways that the Darkrai and Big Basic decks tried to counter Klinklang. Most of them seemed to favor trying to fit Victini into their lists (myself included), however after this tournament I really don’t want to continue to cut consistency.

Alternative Klinklang Counters

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Giant Cape + Scramble Switch

One of the more interesting approaches to countering Klinklang I saw was my round 3 opponent who played 2 copies of Bouffalant and then opted to play Scramble Switch and Giant Cape over Computer Search and Eviolite.

This made it so the Klinklang player would need Tool Scrapper (which most seemed not to play week 1) to be able to 1HKO a Bouffalant with Cobalion. Due to the fast nature of his deck, if he could go up a few Prizes he could most likely finish the game off with Bouffalant.

In most other matchups I feel like Eviolite is still far superior to Giant Cape, but it’s a small change that helped a really bad matchup without really hurting his overall consistency.

After the tournament I thought about this a bit more and think that maybe a combination of Giant Cape and Aspertia City Gym would be enough for the Big Basics deck to overcome Klinklang. It would force the Klinklang player to set up a 3 energy Cobalion and also have both Tool Scrapper and a counter Stadium.

I feel these are both small changes the deck could incorporate without hurting the overall consistency of the deck or other matchups.

Wisconsin State Championship

Heading into week 2-of States I still felt very confident in the deck, but between tournaments I made some major changes to the deck. Below is my updated list.

Pokémon – 7

4 Tornadus-EX DEX
2 Landorus-EX
1 Bouffalant DRX

Trainers – 41

4 Professor Juniper
4 N
3 Skyla
3 Bianca

 

4 Pokémon Catcher
4 Hypnotoxic Laser
4 Switch
3 Eviolite
3 Ultra Ball
3 Max Potion
1 Energy Search

1 Computer Search

 

2 Virbank City Gym
1 Skyarrow Bridge
1 Aspertia City Gym

Energy – 12

8 F
4 Double Colorless

Garbodor had a really strong showing the first week. It won the Illinois State Championship and I figured a lot of Illinois players would be at this tournament as well. My feeling was that players would realize Klinklang would be a horrible play for this metagame and simply not play it.

In hindsight, the flaw in my logic was that I assumed all players would follow the same thought process as myself. While it was safe to assume the best players who analyze the meta would reach the same conclusion, the same can’t be said of the masses who more than likely would follow the thought process of “EXs are popular and Klinklang is good against EXs, so Klinklang is a good play.”

That’s not to say that anybody who plays Klinklang is bad, rather I feel they either gambled with the meta or underestimated Garbodor. Furthermore, they could simply be willing to accept the loss to Garbodor and RayEels in exchange for strong matchups against Darkrai and Big Basics.

Following my original thought process, I decided to drop the Victini and 2 R Energy. I didn’t want to hurt my consistency to play cards that would help a matchup I thought would see less play week 2 (Klinklang) and hurt a matchup I thought would be more popular (Darkrai/Lasers).

As for the breakdown of the rest of my choices…

1 Bouffalant

The 1 Bouffalant was by no means supposed to be an answer to Klinklang (I was basically accepting the auto-loss there), instead it was so I could create that 7th Prize situation.

1 Aspertia City Gym

It was hard for me to drop the Skyarrow Bridge down to 1, but I like some of the situations I could create with Aspertia City Gym. Many decks only play 2-3 Stadiums, so in the late game I could stick an Aspertia, or in the early game I could add one more piece my opponent needed to add to their combo to get a KO. Some of my favorite situations that could be created are…

  • Cobalion EX can’t 1HKO Bouffalant.
  • RayEeels needs 4 Energy to 1HKO a Tornadus EX. I would often set this play up with Eviolite on the Tornadus EX as well. So in this situation my opponent would need a counter Stadium and Tool Scrapper. Most Eels lists play 2 Skyarrow Bridge and 1-2 Tool Scrapper, so it’s very likely that they could get 1 of the 2, but much harder for them to hit both.
  • Black Kyurem EX would even need some help to 1HKO a Tornadus EX in the late game. With both Aspertia City Gym and an Eviolite the opponent needs to hit for 210 damage to 1HKO a Tornadus EX. This is almost impossible to set up and very easy for the opponent to play around, but it’s still pretty cool to have that option.

3rd Max Potion

max-potion-emerging-powers-epo-94pokemon-paradijs.comIn testing, 3 Eviolites and 3 Max Potion made both Darkrai/Lasers and mirror very favorable. The Eviolite force your opponents to have to 2HKO any Pokémon. It also makes it very hard for Darkrai to set up bench KOs with Night Spear.

Max Potion basically plays the way it used to back in Eels and might as well read: “Your opponent didn’t attack last turn.” When I upped it from 2 to 3 I noticed a major difference when playing the deck.

No Mewtwo EX

In hindsight this was a really bad decision, but at the time I thought I would be fine. I dropped it because I never used the card outside of opposing Mewtwos, and the week before Mewtwo had seen very little play.

I should have kept one because both Garbodor and Mewtwo/Eels had seen a rise in play from the week before. I got very lucky that this didn’t come back at me as badly as it should have.

Match Summary

Round 1 – Landorus-EX/Terrakion – W
Round 2 – Darkrai EX/Lasers – L
Round 3 – ??? – W
Round 4 – Empoleon/Friends – W
Round 5 – Darkrai/Lasers – L
Round 6 – Klinklang – W
Round 7 – RayEels – W

Final Record: 5-2, 25th Place, Missed Top 16 Cut

I didn’t even wait around to check the standings, knowing that my tiebreakers were absolutely horrible. I end up getting 25th or something toward the bottom of the X-2’s. I can’t really complain about not top cutting – I mean after all I lost 2 games, but it was still disappointing knowing how close we were to having enough players for an 8th round which would have at least given me a chance to play a game for a top cut spot.

I’ll briefly discuss my 2 losses.

Round 2 vs. Darkrai/Lasers

computer search boundaries crossed 137This match, my opening hand was actually pretty good, but T2 I get N’d into 6 dead cards and never really saw a Supporter the entire game. I manage to keep the game pretty close and on the final turn of the game my opponent uses Catcher to bring up a benched Landorus-EX and hit it.

The game was all tied up at 2-2 and I had a powered up Tornadus EX on the bench. I win with a Switch, but lose if I can’t get it. My hand is dead, but at this point I had only played 2 Supporters, so I still had a good number of outs.

I topdeck N and play it, revealing the top 2 cards of my deck… Bianca and Computer Search. I was 1 card in hand shy of being able to play the CPU Search so I have to offer the handshake.

Round 5 vs. Darkrai/Lasers

Once again I play only 3-4 Supporters the entire game, but still manage to keep the game extremely close. At the end of the game I’m once again actually feeling pretty good despite my Supporter-less hand. The Prize count is 1-2 in my favor and his Darkrai EX has 100 damage on it and his benched Keldeo-EX had 60. He plays his last Laser and ends up hitting heads, and I start to get nervous.

He hits my Tornadus EX for 110 with Darkrai and then I roll for sleep… tails. I play my only Supporter, N, and flip over my 1 card revealing something other than Switch and once again I’m forced to offer the handshake.

I wasn’t mad about not drawing the Switch off of the N because I had only 1 Switch left in a good 20 card deck, so the odds weren’t in my favor at all. I was kind of mad about the Laser flips, knowing I had a 75% chance to win that game and it all came down to a flip.

I’ve said this many times before I lost this game, but the Sleep flips with Laser are stupid and add too much randomness to the game right now. The Poison and even triple Poison with Virbank City Gym I’m fine with, but not the randomness of the Sleep flips.

There is not a whole lot of point in complaining about it since it won’t change anything, but it does make me feel better to share my thoughts on it.

Reflection

Despite both of my losses being against Darkrai, I still feel like the 3 Eviolite and 3 Max Potion make the matchup very positive. I never really found any issue with my consistency either, so while I’m always hesitant to chalk losses up to bad luck, it’s what I feel I should do in this case.

Perhaps I could improve the matchup even more though by playing a 3rd Landorus-EX and a 9th F Energy. Playing Scramble Switch over Computer Search is another thought I had, but I have a tough time dropping a major consistency card when I feel like both of my losses came due to Supporter droughts.

A Quick Look at Mewtwo/Bouffalant/Eels

After finishing in the top 4 at Illinois, Jando Luna wrote a quick tournament report about this deck. It’s one I feel we’ve kind of neglected and is a very strong contender in this meta. I’m still terrified of Tynamo donks, but if you survive the first turn or get lucky enough to go first it’s one of the strongest decks in the field.

Jando didn’t want to give out his list and honestly I can’t blame him, but I wanted to take a stab at it. My list is a mix of my play style and some of the card counts Jando revealed in his article.

Pokémon – 15

4 Tynamo NVI 38
4 Eelektrik NVI
3 Bouffalant DRX
3 Mewtwo-EX NXD
1 Zekrom BLW

Trainers – 33

4 Professor Juniper
4 N
2 Skyla
2 Bianca
2 Colress

 

4 Ultra Ball
4 Pokémon Catcher
3 Switch
3 Level Ball
2 Max Potion
1 Super Rod
1 Tool Scrapper

1 Computer Search

Energy – 12

8 L
4 Double Colorless

Jando did an excellent job of really explaining the main strategy of the deck as basically forcing the opponent to take 6 Prizes by KOing 6 Pokémon instead of the standard now days of taking 6 Prizes by KOing 3 Pokémon. This strategy also allows him to make far more favorable trade offs against the EX decks.

I won’t go through all of the cards and instead only hit on a few of the more interesting choices.

3 Bouffalant

bouffalant-dragons-exalted-drx-110pokemon-paradijs.comBetween Eelektrik and DCE it’s very easy to get a Bouffalant powered up in 1 turn. With such a large majority of the format being EXs, the Bouffalant is most likely swinging for 120 damage a turn and the opponent often times will struggle with trying to score a 1HKO response.

Being a non-EX attacker that hits for major damage plays right into the strategy of making 1 for 2 Prize tradeoffs.

3 Mewtwo EX

Even with so much emphasis on the deck being placed around trading 1 Prize for 2, I’d still play 3 Mewtwo EX. Mewtwo is designed to counter opposing Mewtwos and also be a main attacker. It’s very easy to load up a Mewtwo with a lot of energy against decks like Darkrai EX that don’t play their own Mewtwo EX.

Jando very easily might have only played 2 copies of Mewtwo EX and put a larger emphasis on other non-EX attackers. However, I opted to still play 3 because I feel with Eelektrik it’s so easy to load a Mewtwo with energy and have it swing for major damage.

1 Zekrom

The lone Zekrom is a solid attacker against a Klinklang, but I mainly played the 1 copy because it’s capable of 1HKOing a Tornadus EX.

The Supporter Lineup

I’m not extremely confident in my Supporter line up right now. I think both 4 Juniper and 4 N are the right call, but the 2-2-2 line of Skyla, Bianca, and Colress could easily be adapted for personal play style. The main call comes down to if you want to play Skyla or not. If you want to drop the Skyla I would probably add 1 more Bianca and 1 more Colress.

2 Max Potion

With a deck like this it’s very hard to prevent the opponent from scoring those 1HKOs. I still find Max Potion to be extremely useful though for removing bench damage off of Eels or making Mewtwo a 3HKO by the opponent.

No Stadiums

pokemon center next destinies nde 90pokemon-paradijs.comI know in his article Jando spoke heavily about just how important he felt counter Stadiums were, however I couldn’t find any that I felt would stay in play long enough to offer the deck any sort of real benefit. The choice to play none reflects my personal play style and is certainly something that should be played around with.

If I was going to run Stadiums, my top 2 would probably be Pokémon Center to stop bBnch damage on Eels or Aspertia City Gym to help ensure Bouffalant is a 2HKO.

I want again state I don’t have Jando’s list and I know for a fact that since he played Stadiums, our lists have to be slightly different. I really like this deck and all of the options I feel it offers, however I also feel the deck is really tight on space. I never feel like I’m able to fit in everything I want to.

My original list was over 65 cards, consisting of a lot of things I would really like to have, such 3 Stadiums and Eviolites. While I like my list, looking at it I see a bunch of cuts that I really didn’t want to make.

What I Like About the Deck

I think the deck is extremely well rounded and matchups pretty evenly with everything in the current format. The list is also very easy to modify for personal preference or for different metas.

What I DON’T Like About the Deck

The first thing that sticks out is that I don’t like play 40 HP Basics like Tynamo. Going second with a lone Tynamo means that almost any deck in the format could donk you.

I also don’t like how I can’t seem to fit everything I want, meaning I end up making cuts I don’t want to make.

Would I Play the Deck?

The only thing stopping me from playing the deck is the 40 HP Tynamo. I honestly feel like I would be too scared of being donked to take the deck to a tournament. Outside of that I would absolutely play the deck in a tournament due to its 50-50 matchups across the board.

So I guess what I’m saying is if the fear of getting donked is something you can either accept or overcome then the deck is a great play.

Conclusion

energy-charge-neo-genesis-85pokemon-paradijs.comWe still have one more week of States left for people to either make up some much needed ground or continue to throw themselves farther ahead in the race for a Worlds invite. Not including Nationals, there are only 2 major Points tournaments left to try and reach that 400 number. If you didn’t do as well at States as you wish you would have, then you do have a few weeks regroup, analyze the meta, and test for Regionals.

Coming up this weekend I’ll be in Iowa defending my home state for our State Championship. Anybody who’s in the area or feels like making the drive I would love to see you come out. Every year we make this tournament bigger and bigger and I would love it if we would continue that tradition into this year as well. I still have 1 more die and I plan on holding onto it for as long as I can.

However, if I don’t see you I want to wish everybody good luck heading into this final weekend. For people that are getting close to that Worlds invite, these next few tournaments are really going to be make it or break it tournaments.


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