Parade Route

theblackhex.tumblr.com

Hello again, SixPrizes readers! I’m so excited that I have the opportunity to write an article for you in the midst of State Championships. A lot has changed since my last article, which was published soon after Cities began — Cities are now over, we’re done Winter Regionals as well, two new sets have been released, and I’ve finally had reason to play games in the Standard format! I’m still not sure if I’ve won more games of Standard than I’ve lost, but like with any kind of adversity or challenge, I’ve learned a lot. My friends and I have been doing a fair bit of testing for States, in addition to a generous amount of discussion, and I hope that this article summarizes what I’ve learned in a way that enlightens your thinking about Standard.

Personally, I haven’t done particularly well at any tournaments in the past four months — though I was able to get second place at a local Cities. Though I still believe myself to be on track for a Worlds invitation, my performances over the next two weekends will be crucial in determining whether achieving my invite will be an easy or difficult feat. That being said, I’ve decided to dedicate this article to delving deep into Night March. Not only do I believe that Night March is currently the best deck in the Standard format, I think it’s a deck that’s easy to pilot and could lead to great results regardless of your skill level. This is partially why I’m choosing to play the deck myself: it’s going to give me the highest probability of doing well at States, but its ease also allows me to play the deck faster and therefore finish more games. Though certain decisions with Night March may be very complicated, the majority of them are rather simple. And don’t worry! Anyone who says that they won’t play a deck because it’s “easy” is only limiting their opportunities for success.

Coming right on the heels of Dylan Lefavour’s article, I can see why an in-depth look at Night March could be considered overbearing. Fear not, this article is different! Though Dylan’s piece did discuss some of the upsides to playing Night March, mine will be more of an argument for why you should play the deck and how you should build it in order to maximize your chances of success. I’m also going to take a look at certain in-game scenarios in order to shed light on the kinds of choices you will have to make when piloting this deck, so as to best prepare you for future games. For me to simply state that the deck is the best in format isn’t enough. I want to show you how I got to this conclusion and I want you to be able to use the Night March deck successfully.

Do You Have to Play Night March?

willfosho.tumblr.com

I’d first like to talk a bit about the place of Night March within the Standard format and the Standard metagame in general. If you’ve been paying attention to the kinds of discussions happening online — primarily on Twitter and the Virbank City Facebook page — you’ll see that a lot of players are frustrated that Night March has been doing so well. In fact, Night March made up 35% of all the Top 8 decks played during the first weekend of State Championships, so it’s understandable that the deck’s popularity and dominance in the format has led to outcry from the community.

Though I believe that the format could be healthier, and that Battle Compressor in particular has caused certain problematic card combinations, I’m not sure that there’s a simple way to solve this format. Some may say that banning Battle Compressor would be the best solution, but I think this would cause more problems than it would solve. Regardless, going on a tangent about how I would like the format to be won’t help anyone do better at States this weekend, and I couldn’t do the topic justice with just a short paragraph.

Instead, I would like to respond to the backlash against this deck with the idea that the deck is beatable. I don’t see Night March to be a significant issue only because there are easy ways to counter and beat the deck. On Tuesday, Dylan Lefavour argued that you couldn’t play a deck that is favorable vs. Night March without being left hindered against the rest of the metagame. I’m not sure I would agree, but ultimately you don’t need to be stacked against Night March in order to beat it. There are many ways make a deck have a more favorable matchup against Night March without reducing consistency or otherwise hindering yourself. My ultimate point here is that while Night March’s popularity may be annoying, I don’t think the metagame has gotten to the point where the deck is actually problematic.

So to answer my own question, do you have to play Night March in order to do well this weekend? No, absolutely not. But I still think you should.

Stepping Out (Week 1 List)

On March 19th, I entered the Oregon State Championships with the list below. This is a list I reworked from a list I originally received from Chris Fulop. My only real experience with Night March before this tournament was at Expanded City Championships, when I played the deck with Maxie’s Hidden Ball Trick and Archeops NVI. Night March has come a long way since then, so you’ll notice quite a few differences in the list below.

I ended up with a 3-3-1 record at Oregon States, so I won’t go in depth with what happened there. Ultimately, I believe that the error I made was in the build of this deck, and there are several key cards that I would like to change.

The biggest problem I had overall was Energy recovery. Puzzle of Time is supposed to allow the deck to only play 4 Energy cards, but what I found was that in certain cases it was impossible to keep 2 copies Puzzle of Time ready for the exact moment when I would need to recover 2 Double Colorless Energy. Sometimes the Puzzle pieces would need to be discarded; other times I had to prioritize recovering other cards out of my discard pile. Though Puzzle of Time worked in theory, it didn’t always work the way I wanted it to in practice.

Another issue that caused me to lose games was hand disruption. Even a couple turns of drawing and passing can be harmful, as all of your Pokémon have relatively low HP. I found that with the build above, I wasn’t able to draw out of a Red Card or Judge very easily. This was especially the case if my opponent was playing Garbodor BKP, and I couldn’t grab a Shaymin-EX to draw cards with.

Both of these issues can be fixed by building the deck differently. I’d like to show you several different variations of Night March, and hopefully you can find one that is ideal for your specific State Championships metagame.

Current Builds

latiox.tumblr.com

As you’re reading through these lists, think of what exactly your metagame is shaping up to be. You’re going to want to choose a variation of the deck based on what you expect others will end up playing.

Recovery Suite: Night March/Milotic

Expected Metagame: YZG, Jirachi XY67, Greninja BREAK, Night March, almost anything else

After testing heavily with this build of Night March, I can say that this one is currently my favorite. I wanted to run a version of the deck that had more accessible recovery options. My first thought was to incorporate Bronzong PHF (see below), but Milotic PRC is a much more versatile card.

Unlike Puzzle of Time, Milotic is searchable using Ultra Ball. This allows you to bench a Feebas and then wait until the opportune moment to evolve it. Of course, if you’re playing against Trevenant BREAK or Crobat PHF, you may want to rethink this strategy. However, I find Milotic to be very useful against the majority of the field. It gives Night March the consistent recovery that it needs in order to be more reliable, and it gives the deck the ability to bounce back from being forced to discard Puzzle of Time. Milotic is especially amazing if you’re running 4 copies of Puzzle of Time, as the opportunities for recovery (Energy or otherwise) are practically endless.

Consistent Draws: Night March/Gallade

Expected Metagame: Trevenant BREAK, Vileplume/Vespiquen, Manectric, Jolteon-EX

This Gallade BKT version of Night March is built for the purposes of consistency. As I mentioned previously, Night March can lose easily to Red Card or Judge, and Gallade is a strict counter to that. Unless your opponent is also running Garbodor BKP, you’ll be able to use Gallade’s Premonition Ability to set yourself up for a good topdeck.

Gallade is also a great attacker, which makes Night March a more versatile deck. Not only is it a direct counter to Jolteon-EX, but the Fighting typing also allows you to 1-shot other Pokémon that have Weakness. If you think that you’re going to see a lot of Jolteon-EX this weekend, I would surely play Gallade. You could even potentially play a version that includes both Milotic and Gallade.

Just a minor note here is that you could choose to play a Muscle Band in this build, since Fighting Fury Belt won’t do anything if you attach it to your Gallade. I don’t think this is good enough reasoning however — the HP of your Night Marchers is more important in this case than Gallade doing an extra 20 damage. Additionally, if you’re interested in a more reliable Gallade & Maxie’s line, I would cut AZ and the 3rd Dimension Valley in order to play 2 copies of each.

More Than Special: Night March/Bronzong

Expected Metagame: Seismitoad/Giratina, Giratina/Reshiram, Giratina-EX in general, Anti-Special Energy in general

This is the version of Night March that I have the least experience with, but it’s the one that intrigues me the most. I think that Special Energy cards are almost always a liability, so being able to play this deck without such a strong reliance on them would make me happy. I think this version of Night March would do particularly well against Giratina-EX. If you’re worried about an influx of that, then I would suggest testing a Bronzong variant and seeing if you can outpace them. An important note here is that this version doesn’t play Puzzle of Time, so you will have to be more sensitive to what cards you choose to discard.

Comments on Key Cards

Target Whistle — This is one of my favorite cards in this deck. I think it’s absolutely necessary in order to gain an advantage against your opponent. You primarily want to use it in order to bring a Pokémon-EX back from your opponent’s discard that you can then Lysandre and easily KO. It’s not always easy to pull all of this off in one turn, however, so another suggestion I have is to consider including Pokémon Catcher into the deck. I personally hate almost all cards that include coin flips, but a couple of copies of Catcher might be worth it in this format.

Buddy-Buddy Rescue — This is a card I sadly overlooked during the first weekend of States. The card is so much more versatile than Revive that I think you should play Buddy-Buddy Rescue over it in every single scenario. It’s especially useful if you’re playing Milotic PRC or Bronzong PHF, as you’re able to get Evolutions back as well as Night Marchers or Shaymin-EX. I was worried that Buddy-Buddy Rescue would allow my opponents to take Shaymin-EX out of their discard before I had time to Target Whistle, but this kind of scenario is so rare, and the benefits of the card are so good, that I think you have to play it no matter what.

Xerosic — I chose to play Startling Megaphone over Xerosic during the first weekend of States, but I don’t think that is the correct choice any longer. Xerosic is your friend against Giratina, which I think will see a bit more play now that Night March has become so popular. Xerosic can also be a key player for mirror matches and the card is so much more versatile than Startling Megaphone that the benefits here outweigh the drawbacks.

AZ — Though I couldn’t find room for AZ in two of the builds above, it’s an important card to think about. It’s most useful for picking up Shaymin-EX in order to deny 2 Prizes, and those scenarios do tend to occur quite often. Including AZ is somewhat of a personal choice as if you’re forced to bench 2 or 3 Shaymin-EX, scooping up one of them may end up being irrelevant in a match. I do think, however, that you should at least consider playing the card in your build.

In-Game Decisions

Puzzle of Time Planning — Popular opinion may have you believing that if you play 4 copies of Puzzle of Time, you can throw away resources without a care in the world. This is, in fact, still not true. Some of the hardest in-game decisions while playing Night March are which resources to discard and which to get back using Puzzle of Time. Ideally, you would only need 2 copies of Puzzle of Time toward the end of the game in order to recover 2 Double Colorless Energy. In reality, I often found myself being forced to take other kinds of cards from the discard — whether they were Dimension Valley, Night Marchers, Float Stone, etc.

My strategy for using Puzzle of Time correctly is to commit to what I would like to take out of my discard pile in the future, and then stick to only discarding those cards. For example, in one game I had to discard 2 Dimension Valley early on. My plan was to retrieve them with Puzzle of Time, but I was never able to because I kept discard other things that I ended up needing as well in the late game. My advice is to figure out exactly what you’re going to need to get back with Puzzle of Time before you discard it. This means that you’ll have to play a bit more carefully with other resources.

Discarding Night Marchers — Again, this is another in-game decision that tends to make players stumble. I would advise on almost always having one Night Marcher as your Active, and another on your Bench that’s ready to take the Active Spot once the first one is Knocked Out. There are some instances where you don’t need to have to this set-up, for example if you have a Float Stone on a Shaymin, but even those kinds of scenarios can be disrupted by Startling Megaphone or Xerosic.

The decision of how many Night Marchers you want to discard is based on what deck you’re playing against and what your Prize cards are, but it’s once again tied to whether or not you’re able to control your resource recovery. Just be realistic about whether or not you’ll be able to recover Night Marchers from your discard in order to keep attacking.

Benching Shaymin-EX — This is something I wanted to talk about in regard to the mirror match. You shouldn’t bench or discard Shaymin-EX if you’re playing against another Night March deck, but sometimes it’s necessary, and sometimes it’s advantageous. The best play is to use Shaymin to Knock Out your opponent’s Joltik. This allows you to draw cards using Shaymin, take a Prize, and also preserve a Double Colorless Energy in your hand, all without having Shaymin exposed on the Bench or in the discard.

Battle Compressor Discards — Another in-game choice that can be somewhat tricky is choosing what to discard with Battle Compressors toward the end of the game. Another way to protect yourself against hand disruption is to thin your deck out as much as possible. Of course, you should be cognizant of the possibility of decking out or discarding cards that are actually necessary.

Conclusion

Whether or not you choose to play Night March this weekend, I hope that this article has given you more insight into the deck. Seeing as it’s currently the most popular deck in the format, it’s helpful to have as much information about it as possible. What’s unfortunate about Pokémon is that players sometimes have no option except to play a deck that they find boring simply because it’s the most powerful one. I honestly hope that this isn’t the case for you and Night March. Who knows, maybe you’ll now be inspired to build against it.

Good luck at States, and thanks for reading!

…and that will conclude this Unlocked Underground article.

After 45 days, we unlock each Underground (UG/★) article for public viewing. New articles are reserved for Underground members.

Underground Members: Thank you for making this article possible!

Other Readers: Check out the FAQ if you are interested in joining Underground and gaining full access to our latest content.