The Beekeeper

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Hello again, SixPrizes! The third week of Autumn Regionals is finally over and City Championships are fast approaching. It has been a crazy past couple of Regionals, especially with the live coverage at Fort Wayne, Indiana over the weekend. New decks surfaced, such as the very strange and powerful HexRayquaza list, along with some crazy combinations, like the booming Tyrantrum-EX/Bronzong build. Over the past two weekends, the deck that ultimately saw the largest surge in popularity was Vespiquen/Flareon. Coincidentally, this is the same deck that I decided to play for Ft. Wayne Regionals, and it netted me a very strong performance over the two-day event.

I’m going to begin this article by going over my tournament performance at Fort Wayne where I took 7th place. I’ll discuss in depth the Vespiquen/Flareon/Entei deck that brought me so much success, along the matchups that I faced and reasoning behind certain card inclusions in my list.

While researching topics to write on, I noticed that not many authors on SixPrizes had done extensive coverage of converting decks from the Expanded format to the Standard format (aside from Brit). With City Championships around the corner, I’ve decided that the second portion of this article will focus on the Standard format and possible options to try out. I always believe that every player has a different play style that they like to incorporate choosing decks, so I’ve once again split my deck choices into three categories (speed, setup, and straightforward).

A new format to play in usually brings about innovative strategies and exciting card combinations, which makes this one of the most exciting times of the year for Pokémon! It’s always difficult to leave behind all of the cards we have grown so accustomed to throughout the years, but we have to get acquainted to this new Standard format to earn those Championship Points. Let’s get into the article!

Making a Buzz: Ft. Wayne Regionals Experience

The first two weekends of competition had ended, leaving only Ft. Wayne Regionals in my sights. Everyone was amazed at the performance of Jimmy O’Brien the previous week with Vespiquen/Flareon in Lancaster, who ended the event with a 16-0-1 final record and a Regional Championship victory. Would this powerhouse of a deck remain relevant for Ft. Wayne, or would it be too heavily teched against to succeed? That seemed to be the biggest question throughout the week leading up to this tournament.

I actually had decided on playing a Donphan/Eeveelutions list until I arrived in Indiana. This deck had a good matchup against Vespiquen/Flareon, which was growing heavily in popularity throughout the week. Donphan could also deal with many of the other options that were popular in Lancaster, such as M Manectric-EX and Yveltal-EX/Darkrai-EX. I will admit that I didn’t playtest the Donphan deck very much, but it seemed great in theory and could beat many of the matchups I was expecting to face.

When I finally arrived at the venue, I met up with my friends Dylan Bryan, Russell LaParre, Jimmy McClure, and Johnny Rabus. I will certainly admit: This group is definitely one of the most powerful groups I have ever stayed with, in terms of ingenuity and accomplishments. Dylan Bryan is a deck-building genius that brings innovative twists to large tournaments and comes home with trophies. Russell LaParre is a creative mastermind that constantly brings new ideas to the table, including the recently popular Tyrantrum-EX/Bronzong deck that everyone seems to love. Jimmy McClure won last year’s Ft. Wayne Regional Championships and always seems to make top cut with his straightforward and consistent deck choices. Johnny Rabus is a friend that I’ve played many times in tournaments who has always performed well with speed-based decks and even has a Worlds Top 8 to his name from the 2013 World Championships.

With all this power in one room, I figured that I would ask everyone about the Donphan/Eeveelutions deck I wanted to play. It quickly became very clear to me that no one seemed to like the deck I was hyping up, which meant that my deck choice may have been incorrect. After testing a few games with Dylan, I made the switch to a much stronger deck choice in Vespiquen/Flareon/Entei.

Flareon/Vespiquen/Entei (7th Place)

This is the Flareon/Vespiquen deck that I piloted to a 7-0-2 finish for Day 1. I was the overall 3rd seed of the tournament on both days, ending Day 2 with a final record of 9-0-5. Let’s get into the matchups that I faced and see my progression throughout the Regional Championship:

Day 1

R1: ??? w/ M Rayquaza-EX/Bronzong (2-0)
R2: ??? w/ Archie’s Blastoise (2-0)
R3: Mark Samuelson w/ HexRayquaza (1-1)
R4: Alex Hill w/ Tyrantrum-EX/Bronzong (2-0)
R5: Franco Llamas III w/ Yveltal-EX/Darkrai-EX (1-1)
R6: Michael O’Donnell w/ Yveltal-EX/Darkrai-EX/Raichu (2-0)
R7: Griffin Pepin w/ HexRayquaza (2-0)
R8: Shane Conley w/ Tyrantrum-EX/Bronzong (2-1)
R9: Ross Cawthon w/ Night March (2-0)

Day 2

R10: Connor Finton w/ Vespiquen/Flareon (2-0)
R11: Michael Pramawat w/ Seismitoad-EX/Crobat (2-0)
R12: Drew Cate w/ Seismitoad-EX/Giratina-EX (ID)
R13: Dean Nezam w/ Seismitoad-EX/Giratina-EX (ID)
R14: Dalen Dockery w/ Seismitoad-EX/Giratina-EX (ID)
T8: Ross Cawthon w/ Night March (1-2)

Overall, I faced some very tough opponents throughout this tournament, which concluded with a loss to Ross Cawthon in the Top 8. It was a little frustrating to lose off of completely drawing dead in the third game of our series, but I had already gotten pretty lucky throughout the tournament and had a great run until then. Let’s talk about the reasoning behind some of the card choices in my deck.

“Why did you play an Entei?”

This seemed to be the question of the weekend. Almost every opponent that I played against had to pick up the card and read what it did, since most people honestly didn’t know that the card even existed. Entei has the same attack as Absol PLF, which does 20 damage plus 20 more damage for each of your opponent’s Benched Pokémon.

There are three main reasons that Dylan Bryan and myself decided to use Entei, which were (1) to soft-counter Archeops until we could get out more Evolutions, since Archeops prevented us from evolving and Entei could attack being a Basic Pokémon and all, (2) to use as an attacker in speed-based matchups that needed immediate responses, which could be done easily with just a VS Seeker for Blacksmith, and (3) to abuse with the high amount of Sky Field that everyone played, which allowed for Entei to hit up to 180 damage and Knock Out Pokémon-EX in one shot.

1 AZ, 1 Blacksmith

These cards seemed to be growing in popularity for Vespiquen/Flareon decks. AZ and Blacksmith were becoming regularly seen with the previous success of Jimmy O’Brien and Dylan Bryan at Lancaster Regionals, and it would clearly be the correct call to add these cards in. AZ is the only form of switching that this deck plays, but it suffices for that purpose, and it also allows us to pick up Shaymin-EX and prolong matches. The Blacksmith is very clutch in allowing us to keep attacks going throughout the entirety of a game. Think of Blacksmith as a potential 5th or 6th Double Colorless Energy to use on a Flareon in order to pick up your last couple of Prize cards.

1 Lysandre, 1 Town Map

This was originally 0 Town Map and 2 Lysandre, but Dylan convinced me to lean otherwise the night before the tournament. 2 Lysandre is always very helpful to have for these speed-based decks, but with nearly unlimited attacking power and an ability to see our Prize cards, we can pick out the Lysandre if need be on our first knockout. The decision to only play 1 Lysandre actually ended up hurting me in one or two games throughout the tournament, but the Town Map was helpful in every other match. Knowing which Prize cards to pick out and in which order to take them is powerful.

1 Jirachi-EX, 1 Enhanced Hammer

The list started off with 3 Shaymin-EX, but I ended up going to 2 Shaymin-EX and 1 Jirachi-EX in order to help with the Seismitoad-EX/Giratina-EX matchup. With Shaymin-EX and a hand full of unplayable Item cards, this deck can just fold to Seismitoad-EX. With a Jirachi-EX in place of Shaymin-EX, we can now grab a Professor Juniper to refresh our hand — while also possibly discarding Pokémon to power up our attackers.

The Enhanced Hammer was actually Dylan’s idea to help our matchup against Giratina-EX decks and other fast-paced matchups. With a turn two attacking Giratina-EX, an opponent could efficiently shut us down for a couple of turns from attaching Special Energy cards, which could give them enough of an advantage to win the game. Knocking off one of their Special Energy cards and delaying their attacks for a turn could help to get enough of our own Special Energy cards down and win the game.

Overall, this deck was extremely powerful and it proved to have enough speed and surprise factor to carry me to the Top 8 of Ft. Wayne Regionals. I played against many other speed-based decks along the way, which was a good advantage for Vespiquen/Flareon/Entei. The highlight of this tournament would probably have to be getting on stream and playing in front of all my friends in the community, which is something I enjoy doing. It’s extremely important to keep spreading Pokémon coverage and gameplay; anything that can help the game grow in any way. We can never go wrong with having a bigger Pokémon community!

The Shift: Standard Format Deck Choices

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As I said in the introduction, City Championships are coming up very soon. I honestly don’t think that I can stress this point enough, but I’ll try my best: CITY CHAMPIONSHIPS ARE THE KEY TO GETTING YOUR INVITE TO THE POKÉMON WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS!!!!! Alright, hopefully I got your attention. With a Best Finish Limit of four and a total of 50 Championship Points being given for every win, City Championships can carry you to a great position for making your invite to Worlds. Just think about the point structure from 2014-2015: You could have gotten two-thirds of your entire invitation to the biggest tournament of the year just from playing in Cities!

Since these tournaments are so important, we certainly need to focus on deck choices that will be popular in the new Standard format. Many of our favorite cards have come and gone with rotation, but we must move forward and try our best to adapt.

For this article, the three types of decks that I will be focusing on are speed-based decks, setup and Energy acceleration decks, and builds with straightforward strategies. Each category will have two possible options to try out, which should hopefully get everyone in the right mindset for initial testing.

I understand that a new set is coming out within the next month, but I’ve decided to focus on the current Standard format (XY-AOR) and what has proven itself to work instead of speculating on what could be good in the upcoming set. It’s always easy to make slight alterations to these lists if any of the cards from BREAKthrough would fit into their strategies. Here are the decks!

Gotta Go Faster: Speed Decks

Vespiquen/Eeveelutions/Entei

Since we just focused on this deck for the Expanded format during my adventures in Indiana, we might as well keep the train going and update my old list for Standard. With one of our main attackers leaving the deck in Flareon PLF, we have to find ways of adding more damage and hitting harder with Vespiquen to shorten the game. The easiest way to do more damage with this deck is to hit everything possible for double the damage output, which can be accomplished through the Eeveelutions that have been added. Now, anything that is weak to Lightning, Fire, or Grass Pokémon will get hit for huge sums of damage through our Vespiquen attacking. This includes Seismitoad-EX, M Rayquaza-EX, and plenty of other possible adversaries.

With only Vespiquen as our main attacker now, I’ve decided to another Entei into the mix. This card honestly proved to be much better than expected and was ready to attack in the blink of an eye through just 1 Blacksmith. More attackers will help to keep the onslaught going, but we ultimately are going to need some of our Vespiquen line back after they are Knocked Out. The addition of 1 Sacred Ash allows us to use a total of 6 possible Vespiquen throughout the match, with Bunnelby adding infinite possibilities as well.

With so many possible attackers now, the importance of Blacksmith becomes extremely high. Flareon allows all of our Stage 1 Pokémon to be Fire types, which gives Blacksmith the ability to work on even our Vespiquen. The old version of this deck couldn’t use that combo, but it will come to fruition in this Standard format build. Another strange Pokémon that people may question would be the Ariados line. With a good amount of hype surrounding the Mienshao deck, which will be covered later in this article, it is important to include this counter to break an opponent’s Focus Sash and take Prizes to keep up.

HexRayquaza/Altaria

This deck has been growing in popularity recently and has had some success at Regional Championships. It almost seems strange to play a deck with only 1 Professor Sycamore, since almost every deck that we’ve ever played has had 4 copies. When building decks, I usually just have a guaranteed 4 spots being filled with this card, but this deck incorporates a different strategy than most. With 4 Trainers’ Mail, 3 Acro Bike, 4 Ultra Ball, 4 Shaymin-EX, 2 Hoopa-EX, and 2 Battle Compressor to help draw through the deck, a Supporter card doesn’t even have to be used during the process. Might as well tech in some strong Supporter cards to help shut down our opponents, right? Hex Maniac is the perfect card to use for this situation, as the opposing player can no longer incorporate Abilities into his or her strategy for the turn and now must deal with a M Rayquaza-EX swinging for big damage. Once the Hex Maniac is gone, we can use another one with a VS Seeker to keep them locked out of Abilities.

Without the combination of Keldeo-EX + Float Stone, this deck has a vulnerability to large Retreat Costs. Hoopa-EX would be one of the main concerns, which is why I’ve added in a copy of AZ, along with 2 Escape Ropes. There shouldn’t be any situation where Hoopa-EX becomes stranded in the Active Spot with these cards added in. This newer version of the deck also has an Altaria line added in to counter any Lightning-type attackers, but we should be very cautious of the interaction with Hex Maniac. Once we play a Hex Maniac on our turn, Altaria’s Ability is shut down and M Rayquaza-EX becomes weak to Lightning again. Choose a wise time to play Hex Maniac that will not compromise our own game plan.

Please Hold: Setup and Energy Acceleration Decks

M Manectric-EX/Regice

M Manectric-EX is an extremely powerful card that works well with a strong partner. In this case, our strong partner is going to be the Regice from Ancient Origins. Regice can effectively shut down any effects of attacks from opposing Pokémon-EX, which basically nullifies most attackers out there. Although the attack is strong, it takes a little bit of preparation to get enough Energy equipped. This is where M Manectric-EX comes into play with its Energy acceleration capability.

The dream setup for this deck would be a turn two Turbo Bolt from a M Manectric-EX that would attach 2 Energy cards onto a Regice. The game would continue with more attacks from multiple M Manectric-EX, which would need to be dealt with by our opponent. If a Pokémon-EX comes into play and starts attacking, we now have the option to switch strategies and use Regice to our advantage.

With so many Pokémon-EX in this deck to utilize in different matchups, I’ve added in a Hoopa-EX to increase consistency and hopefully get the turn two M Manectric-EX more often. Hoopa-EX has proven to be one of the strongest cards from Ancient Origins and has been utilized in almost every successful Regional Championship deck recently. With multiple M Manectric-EX powering up other attackers and eventually shutting down Pokémon-EX through Regice, this build should definitely be a strong option to test out.

Tyrantrum-EX/Bronzong

Throughout the past two weeks, this deck inspired by Russell LaParre has been wreaking havoc on Regional Championships with its crazy attacking power and locking ability. The crazy attacking power would obviously refer to Tyrantrum-EX, which can hit for 190 damage and can even Knock Out a M Manectric-EX with the help of a Muscle Band. With huge damage output checked off of the list, we might as well add in some locking capability through Giratina-EX shutting down Special Energy cards, Stadium cards, and Tool cards from being played. With either of these huge Pokémon-EX being ready by the second turn of the game with Bronzong’s Energy acceleration, it should be very easy to tell why this deck took down Vancouver Regionals.

To change this deck from the Expanded format to the Standard format, we have to get through the giant obstacle of not having a Keldeo-EX with a Float Stone to constantly switch and refuel attackers. The only way to fix this problem was to add in a fairly large amount of switching cards. There are many Pokémon with big Retreat Costs in this deck and there is also an obvious need for getting out attackers, which should be solved from the 3 Switch.

I’ve also decided to go with a 3-2 split of Professor Birch’s Observations and Shauna. My reasoning is that I feel like Professor Birch’s Observations is the stronger card, allowing an average net of 5.5 cards instead of just 5, but there is sometimes a need for a guaranteed 5 cards to hit a vital resource. As long as Tyrantrum-EX can come up and take out opposing Pokémon-EX, there shouldn’t be a problem of getting some wins with this deck.

Walking the Line: Straightforward Strategy Decks

Mienshao/Hawlucha

This deck has an extremely straightforward strategy:

1. Get a Mienshao out with multiple damage-adding cards (Strong Energy, Fighting Stadium, and Muscle Band)
2. Use Aero Turn and switch into a Robo Substitute or Hawlucha with a Focus Sash
3. Repeat the first two steps over and over again while disrupting opponent’s board (Team Flare Grunt, Enhanced Hammer)

Without the Supporter card N in the format, there is no way of shuffling an opponent’s hand into the deck (aside from a Red Card or Ace Trainer). This allows for the Mienshao deck to consistently hit for around 80-100 damage and keep sending up attackers that won’t give up any Prize cards. If your Focus Sashes keep getting broken through, just use one of the 2 Eco Arm to get back all of your Tools. Many people are underestimating how strong this strategy can actually be, especially with how consistently it can be done. All it takes is 1 Korrina to get everything in motion and search out attackers. From the point of the first attack, anyone playing this build will always have a Mienshao line in their hand, Energy cards to utilize, and they won’t even need to play a Supporter on most turns.

Since this deck focuses on a continuous cycle of the same Pokémon attacking and coming back to the hand, Supporter cards are much better utilized for disruption and attacking desired targets. This is the reasoning behind playing 3 copies of Lysandre and having a Team Flare Grunt. It is also for this reason that my build plays 2 Tierno. Since Professor Sycamore isn’t utilized much after the first couple of turns (since we don’t want to discard our main attacker), it is much better to get 3 cards off the top of the deck and draw extra resources. Don’t sleep on this powerful and consistent deck choice.

Seismitoad-EX/Giratina-EX

This deck should be nothing new to consider for the Standard format, as we’ve all seen this build dominating tournaments since it came out. Without Hypnotoxic Laser and Virbank City Gym to add damage output, this build is focused on constantly picking up damaged attackers and discarding Energy cards. With 2 Team Flare Grunt, 4 Crushing Hammer, and 2 Enhanced Hammer at our helm, no opposing Energy card will be safe. Adding in 3 copies of Head Ringer will also help us to slow down opposing Pokémon-EX since we can’t hope for Hypnotoxic Laser Sleep flips anymore.

Overall, this deck is just about the same thing we’ve come to expect from Seismitoad-EX based decks. There are plenty of disruption cards to throw an opponent off balance, healing cards to constantly pick up our hurt attackers to use for later, and consistency from a straightforward strategy that revolves around a Double Colorless Energy and a Seismitoad-EX. With Giratina-EX around to help fend off Special Energy, Stadiums, Tool cards — and any opposing Pokémon that are Mega Evolved — Seismitoa/Giratina should remain a powerhouse deck choice in the Standard format. This build just has a way of stealing some games and capitalizing on an opponent drawing badly, so be prepared to see this combination.

Conclusion

Thank you to everyone for reading — hopefully this review of the Standard format has inspired you to get ready for the City Championships coming up. They are definitely going to be a blast, especially with the marathons that happen every year during this time. If you haven’t ever gone to a City Championship marathon, I would definitely recommend attending one. They are usually 5-9 days straight of Pokémon tournaments that all award points and have great people to hang out with. I will personally be going to the Georgia marathon, just as I usually do, and can’t wait to see everyone that is going!

Good luck during City Championships and hopefully you can get some quality points toward your Worlds invitation. We still don’t know the point structure for this year, so getting every Championship Point possible is a top priority. Thanks for reading and feel free to message me or comment with any questions that you may have!

– Ryan Sabelhaus <3

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