What up, people! I’m glad to be writing again here on SixPrizes. Since I last wrote back in May, I have done consistently well, but with no superb finishes: Top 16 at Massachusetts Regionals with the Seismitoad/Crobat list I wrote about, Day 2 (Top 64) at US Nationals with Night March, and I made it through Day 1 of Worlds only to scrub out on Day 2 again with the same Vespiquen/Yveltal/Octillery deck that Ross Cawthon used to take 4th place.
Today I want to talk a little bit about both formats: first, the Standard format, which just had its first major tournaments in Orlando and in Europe, and the Expanded format, which the player base is now preparing for once again as it sets its sights on Philadelphia. My articles typically have not included an abundance of decklists, rather focusing on a few decks and fleshing them out. Today’s article will be a bit of departure from that, as I have a lot of decks I want to discuss in short. Today we have almost 10 decklists spanning both formats, so get ready to take them all in!
Before all that, though, I do think it will be valuable to briefly recap the building of the Vespiquen deck that Ross, myself, and our other team members used at Worlds in San Francisco.
Contents
Worlds Buzz: The Creation of Vespiquen/Tech
Going through and analyzing the deck-building process can provide wonderful insight for even the best players. I hope you can draw some parallels from the way this deck was constructed and how we prepared for the main event. Even though the deck looks a bit like a binder-drop, every card was deliberately included.
For reference, here was the list myself and Ross played on Day 2 (and quite a few piloted on Day 1 but unfortunately did not make it through the grind):
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Pokémon – 22 4 Combee AOR |
Trainers – 29 3 Professor Sycamore
4 VS Seeker |
Energy – 9 5 D |
Card Choices
4-4 Vespiquen: This was our main attacker and should not need too much explanation, but one thing to note is that with only 22 Pokémon, we were not going for big 1HKOs against non-weak Pokémon-EX (like Yveltal-EX or Darkrai-EX). Instead, we would focus on 2 or 3HKOing these Pokémon, while using Vespiquen to take cheap KOs on Shaymin-EX, non-Pokémon-EX, and Grass-weak Pokémon like Seismitoad-EX.
3 Yveltal XY: We had 4 in the list until the day before. Yveltal is one of the most Energy-efficient attackers in the game, attacking for a single Energy and getting back an Energy onto one of your other Pokémon. Yveltal is one of the big reasons this deck beat Night March. It 1HKOs Joltik and Pumpkaboo without Fighting Fury Belts, while simultaneously powering up your next attacker. Yveltal was also a great attacker against Trevenant, as it conserved Energy and could score 1HKOs if you got three Energy on it.
2-2 Octillery: We really did not want to rely on Shaymin-EX in this format. Night March preyed on being more efficient than other decks and eventually jumping ahead in the Prize exchange by having time to Lysandre a Shaymin-EX or two to swing the game. By playing Octillery, we not only got rid of this option for Night March, but it also allowed us to more safely N in the late game. Octillery made us “N-proof” to a large extent, so while other decks that wanted to trade KOs would eventually wiff, we would rarely.
4 Unown: Pretty standard in Vespiquen decks. An overlooked play that I used at least twice during my Worlds run was to attack with Unown + Muscle Band against Mew FCO in Night March. Mew was particularly annoying because Yveltal could not deal with. Unown not only 1HKO’d with a Muscle Band, but if they played Dimension Valley already, you did not even have to waste an Energy attachment!
1 Shaymin-EX: Because you have to. The card is too good not to play as a 1-of. With AZ and DCE in the deck, it was easy enough to get it back to your hand if you did not want the liability on the field.
1 Druddigon: This gave us yet another attacker besides Vespiquen and Yveltal. Druddigon + Muscle Band was perfect for revenge-killing Shaymin-EX, but it also gave us a way to deal with a Belted Mew. Hitting for 90/110 against big EXs like Darkrai-EX was another plus. We had 2 Druddigon at some points during testing, but I think 1 was perfect.
1 Malamar-EX: This card made its way into the deck the day before. I actually ran a Shaymin-EX XY148 on Day 1 and swapped to this card on Day 2, marking my only change between the days. While Shaymin was solely for the Trevenant matchup, Trevenant died down significantly in popularity at Worlds. Malamar-EX was included originally for the purpose of dealing with Glaceon-EX in Waterbox, but ended up having some other uses as well. Most notably, it is also very good against Seismitoad-EX in Waterbox, as it can help you break a Quaking Punch lock and get a turn to “go off,” setting yourself up with enough Vespiquen to overrun their setup.
The Supporters: Sycamore and N should be fairly straightforward. Teammates is great in any deck that wants its opponent to take 6 Prizes. We have seen it in Night March last format and we see it now in modern Greninja and Gyarados decks. Brigette may have been my MVP Supporter of the tournament. With Battle Compressor, it is much easier to get a T1 Brigette off, and I felt so confident in any game where I got this to happen. There were many games where I even played Brigette on T1 and T2! In a deck that has a couple of different moving parts — any deck with multiple Evolutions, really — Brigette is an invaluable set-up tool. AZ was really to get EXs off the board, though it was occasionally useful to pick up Yveltal or Druddigon. Hex Maniac was for Greninja and Item lock decks.
4 VS Seeker, 4 Ultra Ball, 4 Battle Compressor: These should need no explanation.
2 Muscle Band, 2 Float Stone: This combination of Tools was perfect for the list. A 3rd copy of each would have been nice, but not necessary.
1 Revitalizer, 1 Special Charge: Looking back on it, Revitalizer and Special Charge seem like “auto-includes” in a deck like this, but both of these were the last cards added on Thursday night. As I began talking to people when I got to Worlds, it seemed like a lot of people were on Stage 1 decks similar to ours. Decks like Zoroark seemed to be popular among top players and our deck did not combat these as well as Night March, as Yveltal could not take a couple of cheap Prizes throughout the game. Special Charge and Revitalizer ensured that we would get out an extra attacker most games and coupled with N + Octillery, these would hopefully give us an edge in these type of matchups. Interestingly, both of these cards ended up being useful overall in many matchups, though they would still be the cards I would look at to cut first if I were to play Worlds again. Revitalizer was much more integral than Special Charge was.
5 Darkness, 4 Double Colorless: A high Energy count rounds out the deck. 4 DCE is obvious, but 5 Dark is a lot in a Vespiquen deck. With the emphasis on Yveltal, we wanted constant access to Energy. I would often Battle Compressor away Energy in the early game, so Yveltal could power up either another Yveltal or a Vespiquen sans DCE. By conserving DCE, Druddigon could become more of a surprise as the game went on. More Dark also made attacking with Darkness Blade a real threat, and I used that attack more during Worlds than I have in my entire time playing the card before.
In summary, our deck attempted to counter the metagame from the perspective of trading more efficiently, out-N’ing the opponent in the late game, and attacking for Weakness on the top decks. Sometimes you have to take a card that is typically played one way — in this case, Vespiquen — and morph it into something fresh and new. The look on people’s face when I told them I was running 22 Pokémon in a Vespiquen deck was too funny.
Worlds was an awesome experience and with a bit of different luck/matchups, I could have been up there with Ross at the end. I hit one of the Japanese Volcanion decks in the second round after beating Azul Garcia Griego with Night March, then proceeded to play against YZG and Metal, all bad matchups sans Azul with March. I went 0-2-1 against them and my day kind of crapped out from there. Here is to hoping I can make it back and do even better next year!
Standard Sentiments: Revisiting Orlando
pokemonscreenshots.tumblr.comFor the first month and a half of the season, the Standard format was largely defined by ARG tournaments, League Challenges, and articles from various websites. Last week we got our first taste of some high-stakes events in the form of Orlando Regionals and the world’s first special event of the season over in Europe.
By now, Alex and Russell have successfully summarized the results and impact of these tournaments on how we should view the Standard format going forward, but I would like to add a bit to the discussion.
I was hoping to come into this article with a happy story of how I did well in Orlando and be able to provide you with a list or two that I was successful with. Unfortunately, I am not Russell or Alex, and I finished a disappointing 5-4 with Greninja. As I am an optimistic person, I do have some takeaways from the tournament and my tournament preparation that I would like to share with you. Also, I did craft the Greninja list that Sam Chen played to an 11th place finish, and he was the highest placing Greninja player in the tournament. So, you will get to see what is perhaps the best Greninja list of this format and I will discuss some of the inner workings of that.
. . .
In preparation for this tournament, I did a little bit of testing with a lot of decks, and a lot of testing with two decks: Greninja and Gyarados. Back during the first week of September, Bob Zhang messaged me about the potential of Gyarados in a format where spread damage was not prevalent. I drafted a list that we began testing and we ended up only changing two cards in the month and a half since that initial discussion. Bob won and T4’d two League Challenges up in the Northeast and while we thought we had a sleeper for Orlando, we soon found out that many people had the same idea as us.
Gyarados
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Pokémon – 12 |
Trainers – 44 4 Professor Sycamore
4 VS Seeker
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Energy – 4 |
In the few weeks before Orlando, it became apparent that many of the top players had been forming Gyarados lists of their own. For me, that meant it was time to hop off the Gyarados train: we knew it lost to Greninja, and Giratina decks were not favorable even with a copy of Pokémon Ranger in the list. Anything with Garbodor gave it some issues as well, as it relied so much on Octillery to keep its steam going. While I ultimately decided to leave Gyarados in my wake, Bob and others still played it, and I was not surprised to see a couple of them make Day 2. Shout-out to Addison Powell for making a unique list with Meowstic-EX and Shaymin-EX, though I am still skeptical running Pokémon-EX in this deck is the correct move. Bob ended up in Top 64 with the above list and my friend Bryan made Top 128 with one card off.
. . .
With Gyarados behind me, I turned to the other deck I quite liked in the format: Greninja. With the inclusion of 4 Faded Town, I was confident I could go toe to toe with any Mega/Garbodor deck. Testing showed that Mewtwo was an even matchup, swayed slightly in either direction depending on the Mewtwo list’s Stadium count. Shrine of Memories is amazing in this matchup, so the more Shrines they played, the less chance you had as the Greninja player.
While Gyarados had very polarizing matchups, Greninja seemed to be more even against any deck in the format. What I did not take into account as much as I should have is the fact that Greninja is incredibly inconsistent and in best-of-three, if each person wins a close game, Greninja is more likely to lose the third game simply on a dead hand.
After testing literally every card you can think of to put in Greninja while discussing with Michael Slutsky and others, this is the list myself and Pablo Meza arrived at, which we gave to Sam Chen the night before. Pablo finished 6-3 (top 64) and Sam in 11th place:
Greninja
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Pokémon – 18 |
Trainers – 33 4 N 1 Lysandre
|
Energy – 9 7 W 2 Splash |
Let’s go over some things that stand out about this list:
No Talonflame: I think Talonflame is much worse in this deck in the Standard format. In Expanded, you have to combat Item lock from many directions: Seismitoad-EX, Trevenant, and Vileplume. In Standard, only Vileplume remains, and is arguably less relevant and certainly slower in coming into play. With access to Items, it is easy to get a turn 2 Water Duplicates without the need to search out two cards on the first turn. Because of this, it seemed silly to me to include a card that increases your consistency a lot if you start with it but severely handicaps you as the game goes forward if you do not. Even if you do start Talonflame, you have three dead cards in your deck for the rest of the game, with only a few ways to get rid of them. Standard games tend to run longer and with more Ns than Expanded, so the odds of you getting N’d to a dead hand because of extra copies of Talonflame in your deck increases. Further, Greninja WANTS to constantly N/Ace Trainer the opponent, so you do not want to draw dead yourself on these!
1-1 Octillery: I have seen some lists online (like that of Ryan Sabelhaus in his last article here) that have cut Talonflame, but do not run the Sushi Master. Octillery is an amazing card in this format, despite compounding our weakness to Garbodor. First, Octillery lets us get our teeth into more games by providing a reliable draw engine in the early game that we have access to via our Ball engine. Second, Octillery gives us mid-game draw as we are digging for more and more cards. Greninja is a set-up/combo deck, so the more cards we see in a given turn, the more likely we are to hit everything we are looking for. In a matchup like Volcanion, Greninja needs a lot of stuff almost every turn. Octillery provides us a way to draw a few extra cards every turn throughout the game, allowing us to have a higher chance of always having our response ready to go.
1 Jirachi: I think Jirachi is incredible in the Standard format. While it is not quite as useful as it was during Night March’s heyday, it provides you valuable set-up time against the likes of Mega Mewtwo, Yveltal-EX, Giratina decks, Rainbow Road, and more. By not running Talonflame, we are able to include a copy of this guy, which I think is almost reason enough to drop the fire bird.
4 Bursting Balloon, 4 Faded Town: While I slightly regret running max copies of both of these, as they contribute to the deck’s inconsistencies, the added damage they bring to the table cannot be underestimated. I think I would choose 4 Faded Town over the 4 Balloons if I were to drop the counts of one of them. Without max copies of Faded Town, you can kiss your Mewtwo matchup goodbye. The only way you can beat that deck is by winning the Stadium war and 4 Faded does just that. I do not think it’s worth it to run any other number than 4-of this card, so if you are going to drop to 2 or 3, I think you should just drop it completely and run Rough Seas or Silent Lab as your 2-of Stadium card. 4 Stadiums also allow you to always have a counter to Parallel City, which can hinder you regardless of which direction it is played against you. Balloons are relevant in every matchup, but can be Lysandre’d/Escape Rope’d around and do not always put as much pressure on your opponent as you might have liked. I think 2 or 3 copies would be fine for most matchups.
My matches during the day:
Orlando Regionals // Day 1 // 616 Masters
R1 vs Volcanion … LL
R2 vs Mega Gardevoir … LWW
R3 vs Yanmega/Vespiquen … LL
R4 vs Mega Mewtwo/Garbodor … LWL
R5 vs Greninja/Talonflame … WLW
R6 vs Volcanion … WLW
R7 vs Greninja (straight) … WLW
R8 vs Rainbow Road … LWW
R9 vs Volcanion … LWLFinal: 5-4
10 of my 13 game losses were in the first three turns of the game, as the deck just did not show me a Supporter or enough Balls to find Octillery (or I prized a piece) in the early game, and I got benched out rather quickly. Pablo had a similar experience on his way to 6-3 and Sam had some dead hands, but seemed to run on the good side of variance with the deck, having it happen to him far less than myself or Pablo.
In hindsight, this was not the best play for Orlando. Why? Two major reasons:
1. As the day went on, you were more likely to play against a Garbodor deck. For the players at the top tables, Garbodor was everywhere. Even though the metagame is filled with a fairly even amount of Garbodor and non-Garbodor decks, it is important to consider what will be doing well after the first few rounds of the tournament. Mewtwo/Garb and Dark/Garb were both very strong plays that other top players recognized as strong decks, so we should have been more cognizant of this fact.
2. Greninja is incredibly susceptible to early dead hands and early pressure. While I would hesitate to call Volcanion a bad matchup, it is extremely close because of the fact that they will be taking KOs on every turn from T1 on until you get a Shadow Stitching Greninja BREAK. Add the fact that you have a low Basic count and potentially a lot of dead cards on the first turn (4 Faded Town, 4 Bursting Balloon, Fisherman, VS Seeker without a Supporter, etc.) and you are in for a lot of quick losses. Most of my losses came and went in a matter of 2–5 minutes. In a format where a lot of decks exhibit a ton of early pressure, this is a risky play to say the least.
While I still like Greninja as a deck, without Tool removal it will likely stay tier 2. With Tool removal, I think it would actually be too powerful, as you could effectively remove all of the Faded Town and Bursting Balloons for more consistency and Tool removal, ensuring that you would eventually get your ideal setup and overrun almost any deck in the Standard format. But having to compensate for Garbodor with 8 other “damaging” cards in Faded Town and Balloon takes away too much from your consistency for this to really be a top deck.
The format may shift in a way that makes this strong again, but for now, I would recommend putting this on the backburner in terms of deck choice. However, people will play it, so you will need to consider it in your testing and what you do decide to play should have some answer to Giant Water Shuriken.
Mega Gardevoir
One deck that has not been talked about much and one I would like to highlight is Mega Gardevoir. This deck was piloted by a lot of notable players in Orlando: Brit Pybas, Dean Nezam, Omar Izaguirre, Chris Bianchi, Dan/Dave Richard, James Hart, and more. It was actually the third most popular deck in the Top 32, only behind Darkrai/Giratina and Mega Mewtwo. Mees also took home a Top 8 finish at the European special event with a similar list to the players above. I do not have a ton of experience with the deck, but it should be put on your radar after its strong showings in these tournaments. Here is the list that Mees shared:
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Pokémon – 14 |
Trainers – 38 1 N 1 Lysandre 1 Karen
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Energy – 8 8 Y |
This deck wants to run similarly to how Mega Rayquaza does: get a Sky Field, power through the deck with the combination of Hoopa-EX and Shaymin-EX, and then swing with Mega Gardevoir, discarding Pokémon as necessary. With Karen and 3 copies of Super Rod, it is easy to get these Pokémon back in the deck to reuse their strong Abilities and set up another powerful Despair Ray attack.
Mega Gardevoir is strong because it is the Pokémon most capable of reliably 1HKOing Mega Mewtwo. It also resists Dark and hits for Weakness on Giratina, making Darkrai/Giratina a positive matchup. Resisting Dark is also good against Yveltal, as you can mitigate the damage from Yveltal BKT through Resistance. Hex Maniac lets you use your Spirit Links against this pesky card and Despair Ray can discard damaged Pokémon on your Bench. One thing to watch out for against Darkrai-EX is that Darkrai actually resists the Psychic part of Mega Gardevoir, so it is impossible to swing for a 1HKO on a Belted Darkrai. This should have issues against Regice in Vileplume Toolbox, but you may be able to set up quickly enough and exert enough pressure that it makes the game difficult for them. Glaceon and Jolteon are not really options, as you can attack with the Basic Gardevoir-EX if needed. With 3 Escape Rope, 2 Lysandre, and Hex Maniac, I can easily see the deck even dealing with Regice after it gets attacking. See Alex Hill’s Round 8 recap versus Brit for more insight.
Volcanion should be a close matchup, since they are fast and have non-EX attackers. You need to stream Hex Maniacs to prevent them from taking a 1HKO with Volcanion-EX. Rainbow Road and Gyarados should be extremely difficult, as they are non-EX attackers that can 1HKO your Mega Gardevoirs. Parallel City can be annoying as well, but with 4 Sky Field and the Pokémon recovery, I think you should be okay to combat a couple of these. The main decks that run Parallel are ones that you have strong typing advantage over as well.
While I have not looked extensively over the Evolutions set that comes out before Fort Wayne, I do know of some cards that this deck gains, and they are quite significant:
- Dragonite-EX will certainly be included in new Mega Gardevoir decks, putting discarded Shaymin-EX and Hoopa-EX right back into your hand for immediate usage. No need to hang on to an Ultra Ball after you Super Rod or Karen. Karen might not even be necessary with Dragonite-EX in the deck — save your Supporter for something better and use multiple Super Rod. This should be a big boost to this deck.
- Rattata with its ability to discard Pokémon Tools — even just on the Active Pokémon — will be a welcome addition to the game and perhaps no deck can as readily include the little rat as Mega Gardevoir can. You can discard it and reuse it a few times in a game, making it much more powerful than just a single use.
- Brock’s Grit should be considered over or in conjunction with Karen. Getting 6 cards back is a lot and the option to get Energy back as well perhaps makes this stronger than Karen. I can’t imagine you are ever using Karen for much more than 6 Pokémon in this, so I would highly suggest trying this out in its place.
With these new tools, Gardevoir should be at the top of your list of things to consider playing and decks to test against as you prepare for Fort Wayne.
Updated List
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Pokémon – 16 |
Trainers – 36 1 N 1 Lysandre 1 Karen/Brock’s Grit/3rd Super Rod
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Energy – 8 8 Y |
I will not be able to attend Fort Wayne unfortunately, but I am excited to see how the event pans out!
Bridging the Gap: From Standard to Expanded
When Modified was split into Standard and Expanded a few years ago, the two formats were not all that different. Accelgor was probably the most notable card in Expanded but not Standard. Last year, the differences began to widen, with significant card differences such as Hypnotoxic Laser and Jirachi-EX. Still, the two formats did not feel all that different, especially when N was reprinted before Nationals. This year, however, we see for the first time a huge divide in how decks run and how the metagame is shaping up in each format. While there will always be similarities, it is quite refreshing to switch between two formats that are so unalike.
After Orlando Regionals, I was pretty bummed with my lackluster performance and did not want to even think about Pokémon. I told myself I would take the week off before starting to look at Expanded again. However, by Tuesday I had played a few games on PTCGO with Expanded Manectric/Garb and Yveltal/Maxie and found myself enjoying Pokémon again! The games played so differently than the last few months of Standard. I got a Tool on my Garbodor when playing Manectric and the next turn it got discarded by Startling Megaphone — I was actually taken by surprise!
As competitive players, it is going to be difficult to keep up with both formats and constantly have to switch between them. However, I think it will be exactly this that keeps our interest throughout the year. Without having to grind too many tournaments at once, like Cities or States of years past, we have a bit more time to think about each big tournament coming up and how the deck(s) we want to play should be modified to fit into our perception of the metagame. This will be a challenging yet fun mental exercise for everyone that plays the game, even the most competitive players.
Veteran players will continue to enjoy a significant edge in the Expanded format over players that have begun their Pokémon TCG journey only in the last year or two. Card knowledge, card interaction, and how to play matchups all play a large part in how tournament results are determined. With well over 20 sets worth of cards, a newer player has a lot of ground to cover.
Inevitably, this will also affect the metagame to some extent. Newer players will tend to play decks that are more convertible from Standard to Expanded, such as Dark, Greninja, Vileplume Toolbox, Volcanion, Mega Rayquaza, or Rainbow Road. They will also tend to perhaps not play a deck in a way that more experienced players may consider “optimal” because it is drastically different than the Standard version. A good example of this is Rainbow Road, which runs Max Elixir and/or Exp. Share in Standard to help with Energy acceleration. It is widely accepted that Rainbow Road in Expanded should be running Ho-Oh-EX and Energy Switch for acceleration. However, from talking to my friends that went to Phoenix, there were quite a few people piloting Rainbow Road without Ho-Oh, instead opting for a more “Standard” engine of Max Elixir. Keep this idea in mind as you prepare for decks and especially when you sit across from your opponents: expect anything!
Expanded Anew: Favorites for Philadelphia
With that, let’s look at all (most of) the decks that you can expect to see played at Philadelphia in a week and a half:
- Yveltal (/Maxie)
- Turbo Dark
- Trevenant
- Toad/Bats
- Night March
- Mega Rayquaza
- Rainbow Road
- Greninja
- Accelgor/Wobbuffet
- Eels/Raikou
- Groudon
- Vespiquen/Flareon
- Vileplume/Vespiquen
- Vileplume Toolbox
- Sableye/Garbodor
- Mega Manectric variants
- Virizion/Genesect
- Volcanion/Fire Pokémon
- Archie’s Blastoise
- And there is a lot more that you might see! Fairy decks, like Mega Diancie/Aromatisse, Mega Gardevoir, and more could see some fringe play.
Expanded is incredibly diverse and while it has a lot of “busted” combos in it, it still has a wide open metagame. It is going to be incredibly difficult (perhaps impossible) to have positive matchups across the board.
While I think it is safe to say that Dark will be the most popular archetype in the room, from there it could be any of the aforementioned decks that show up in high numbers. Since I do not consider myself a Master of Darkness, I tend to look toward other options for Expanded events, as I do not feel comfortable playing the mirror match against players who have been piloting the deck for far longer than I.
BulbapediaMy buddy Dustin will be covering how Karen impacts the metagame in detail later this week, but for now I will say that I think Karen is overall a bad card. I think it does very little for any deck besides to counter Night March/Vespiquen and I’m not even sure how effectively it does that if the Night March/Vespiquen player knows that you run it. They can take cheap Prizes in the early game and conserve their Compressors and resources to plan for Karen as the game progresses. Decks like Mega Manectric and Virizion/Genesect will still likely be getting 1HKO’d on the first/second turn of the game, making them need to find and play Karen on turn 2 or 3 for it ward off the Night March player from taking 4 Prizes before they take any.
With these thoughts in mind, I’d like to present you my top five choices heading into Philadelphia Regionals. I will do matchups for each, but note that these matchups are for these lists. Almost every deck in Expanded can be tweaked to do better/worse against various decks. My lists are constructed with certain metagame decisions in mind, but could easily be tailored if you want to focus more on beating other decks and sacrificing your matchup against decks my lists may be stronger against.
Seismitoad/Crobat
This has been my Expanded baby since last winter and I think the metagame is still quite sound for it, as Eric Gansman showed with his Top 4 finish in Phoenix. As was the case in my last article back in May, the deck does need a bit of updating based on how the metagame has shifted since that time. Though the deck has always been a disruption deck at heart, I think we need a more Energy removal-focused build to combat the likes of Mega Rayquaza, Rainbow Road, and heavy-Yveltal BKT Dark decks. With that in mind, I have Frankenstein’ed my previous lists with Eric’s list to land at the following:
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Pokémon – 15
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Trainers – 38 3 N 1 Lysandre 1 Colress 1 Ghetsis 1 Xerosic 1 AZ
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Energy – 7 3 W |
61st and 62nd cards are Muscle Band and the 4th Golbat/3rd Crobat, with Tool Scrapper also being high on my list of cards to consider. At least one of these will probably make my final list as they are important to ever so slightly up your damage output, which is getting a little low without Virbank City Gym and Fighting Fury Belt over Muscle Band as the overall superior Tool. Delinquent over the 4th Professor Sycamore is something I am toying with, but I may prefer the consistency of the 4th Sycamore in the end.
The host of options this deck has at any point is astounding. With access to so many 1-of Supporters via Jirachi-EX, the deck can disrupt whatever annoying thing your opponent has going for them. Seismitoad-EX, Silent Lab, N, Enhanced Hammer/Team Flare Grunt, Hypnotoxic Laser, and Delinquent are some of the most annoying cards in the game. Putting them all together in one deck will ensure that your opponent will hate you. That is okay as long as you are winning the game!
There are a lot of situations, despite your options, that you simply want to Quaking Punch and do nothing else. Often you will put your opponent in positions where it will be in your benefit to wait for them to try to do anything fancy to get out of the lock, and then punish them in some other way. By conserving your resources and making them overextend and burn cards, you can take advantage of whatever resource they end up lacking. This is important to remember, as you can very easily lose games with this deck by being too ambitious with trying to lock them out of the game.
With a lot of Energy removal and focus on disruption, this list takes a stronger matchup against DCE-reliant decks, while taking a weaker matchup against a deck like Trevenant, where Rough Seas would help a lot.
Matchups
- Yveltal (/Maxie) … Favorable
- Turbo Dark … Slightly favorable
- Trevenant … Very unfavorable
- Toad/Bats … Even
- Night March … Very favorable
- Mega Rayquaza … Slightly favorable
- Rainbow Road … Slightly favorable
- Greninja … Slightly unfavorable
- Accelgor/Wobbuffet … Even
- Eels/Raikou … Unfavorable
- Groudon … Even
- Vespiquen/Flareon … Favorable
- Vileplume/Vespiquen … Unfavorable
- Vileplume Toolbox … Unfavorable
- Sableye/Garbodor … Favorable
- Mega Manectric variants … Unfavorable
- Virizion/Genesect … Very unfavorable
- Volcanion/Fire Pokémon … Very favorable
- Archie’s Blastoise … Slightly unfavorable
Groudon
My good friend Sebastian Crema had an incredible run with Groudon last season, solely using it to get his invite to the World Championships. He piloted it both in the Expanded and Standard formats, but it is obvious Groudon was and is much more poised for success in Expanded. This is because of a singular card: Tropical Beach. (Well, and now Korrina!) My current Groudon list is not far off what Sebastian played back in the Winter/Spring.
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Pokémon – 12 4 Wobbuffet PHF |
Trainers – 38 4 Korrina
4 Puzzle of Time
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Energy – 10 |
This is another deck with a lot of options. With a high count of 1-of Trainers, this deck theoretically has an answer for everything. The combination of Korrina, Puzzle of Time, Computer Search, and Tropical Beach make these cards accessible and reusable throughout the game. Wobbuffet bides you time as you find the correct combination of cards for the matchup while powering up your two Primal Groudons that cannot be affected by your opponent’s annoying Trainer cards.
While there are a lot of 1-ofs in this list, hopefully they are self-explanatory. It would take a while to go through each one, so if you have a question on any one in particular, please leave a comment on the forums and I can discuss it. The one card I do want to mention that is new to the list is Karen, of course.
In my testing, so far, Night March is still an unfavorable matchup even with Karen, but the matches are much closer than before. Previously, Groudon’s strategy was to run Night March out of Energy using repeated Enhanced Hammer, Xerosic, and the normal Groudon’s Rip Claw attack. With Special Charge and Puzzle of Time, this becomes incredibly hard. However, with Karen now, the Night March player must constantly dig for new resources. In the process, this might put them in a situation where they must choose between recycling DCE or Battle Compressors, giving you an opening way or the other to lock them out of the game. In any case, if Night March does get played less because of Karen, Groudon is poised to have a better shot at taking home the title.
I should also mention Stefan Tabaco’s very different list that got Top 8 in Phoenix. Stefan deemphasized Groudon a bit in favor of a heavy Regirock + Focus Sash build to combat Night March. Each Regirock would be able to take 2 Prizes against Night March and a Groudon could come up to take the remaining Prizes. I think he sacrifices strength in other matchups to combat Night March effectively. While this may have been smart before, I am not sure it is as smart going forward with Karen in the format.
Matchups
- Yveltal (/Maxie) … Even to slightly favorable
- Turbo Dark … Favorable
- Trevenant … Slightly unfavorable
- Toad/Bats … Even
- Night March … Unfavorable
- Mega Rayquaza … Favorable
- Rainbow Road … Slightly unfavorable
- Greninja … Slightly unfavorable
- Accelgor/Wobbuffet … Slightly unfavorable
- Eels/Raikou … Very favorable
- Groudon … Even
- Vespiquen/Flareon … Unfavorable (this is now winnable with Karen)
- Vileplume/Vespiquen … Unfavorable (perhaps this is much better with Karen)
- Vileplume Toolbox … Unfavorable
- Sableye/Garbodor … Favorable
- Mega Manectric variants … Very favorable
- Virizion/Genesect … Slightly unfavorable
- Volcanion/Fire Pokémon … Very favorable
- Archie’s Blastoise … Favorable
Vileplume Toolbox
We have just seen Vileplume take Orlando by storm, so it should be on everyone’s mind going into Philadelphia. This deck gets even more options in Expanded and like the above decks, theoretically has an answer to every other deck in the format. My list is heavily influenced by Sam Hough’s list, borrowing some ideas from the recent list that Alex discussed in his last article.
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Pokémon – 20 3 Vileplume AOR |
Trainers – 31 3 Professor Juniper
4 Trainers’ Mail
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Energy – 9 4 Double Colorless |
The great and terrible thing about this deck is the sheer number of cards that could fit into it. Instead of a heavy AZ count, we could switch to Darkrai-EX and Rainbow Energy. We could play Mew-EX and Lugia-EX. We could play another copy of Regice, Glaceon, or Aegislash. We could run cards like Landorus-EX and Jirachi XY67. And more. I think Sam really got his list correct, so I did not want to stray too far from it. Trevenant-EX seems like a good call with Greninja doing so well in Phoenix. Yveltal-EX is mostly included for Trevenant, but also does a good job of conserving Energy. Regice is played over the second Glaceon to deal with Mega Rayquaza and Groudon.
Some way to deal with opposing Jolteon-EX would be nice. I am not sure what this would be, though. Pokémon Ranger seems extremely weak in a deck like this and I would rather not run Evolutions. The 4th AZ would be good to fit in, but I am not sure what the cut should be right now. 3 AZ has been fine so far, but that is currently the 61st card.
I will not do matchups with this deck for two reasons: First, I have not played enough with it. Second, it seems like a deck where if it gets its lock up against a deck, it will win. If it stumbles in getting its lock up, it will struggle to win. If a Maxie deck goes first and gets a Gallade out, the match becomes somewhere between unwinnable and extremely difficult. Variable factors like this will ultimately decide your fate with a deck like this.
Night March/Maxie
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Pokémon – 18 4 Pumpkaboo PHF 1 Jirachi-EX |
Trainers – 38 3 Professor Sycamore
4 VS Seeker
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Energy – 4 |
Ah, the menace is still alive. I have mentioned it a few times, but I think Karen will not impact this deck as much as others may think. I think the only way Karen “auto-wins” Night March is if they use Karen and Quaking Punch in the same turn. For that to happen, one of two things must be true:
- They are playing a Seismitoad deck with Karen and you would have a bad matchup against their deck anyway.
- They have included 1 Karen and 1 Seismitoad into their deck specifically to beat Night March.
I cannot imagine many decks taking the second route, especially when it only makes sense in a deck that has an abysmal Night March matchup in the first place AND that deck runs DCE already (or perhaps Max Elixir).
If Greninja doing well in Phoenix was not enough to include Maxie’s for Archeops, Karen should be for Gallade. Gallade serves two purposes against decks with Karen: First, it gives you consistency in planning for and recuperating after a Karen through its Ability. Second, and more importantly, it gives you an attacker if you cannot get enough Night Marchers back into the discard pile right away. For a DCE, Gallade will be swinging for 130 damage regardless of how many Marchers have been discarded, which is still plenty for keeping up with the Prize trade. Even against a Seismitoad, Gallade will 2HKO the Seismitoad and perhaps let you back into the game.
Gallade is also amazing against Mega Manectric, which may see more play with Karen. I do not think Mega Manectric even beats Night March without Gallade if it runs Karen, but Gallade really makes the match unwinnable for most Manectric builds.
For my matchups, I will assume Karen is in the decks that have very unfavorable Night March matchups already, but I will not assume they are running a Seismitoad-EX. I will assume that decks that so slightly unfavorable to even with Night March already will not waste a space on a card like Karen.
Matchups
- Yveltal (/Maxie) … Favorable
- Turbo Dark … Favorable
- Trevenant … Very unfavorable
- Toad/Bats … Very unfavorable
- Night March … Even
- Mega Rayquaza … Very favorable
- Rainbow Road … Favorable
- Greninja … Unfavorable
- Accelgor/Wobbuffet … Slightly favorable
- Eels/Raikou … Very favorable
- Groudon … Favorable
- Vespiquen/Flareon … Slightly favorable
- Vileplume/Vespiquen … Slightly unfavorable
- Vileplume Toolbox – Unfavorable
- Sableye/Garbodor … Very unfavorable
- Mega Manectric variants … Very favorable
- Virizion/Genesect … Very favorable
- Volcanion/Fire Pokémon … Very favorable
- Archie’s Blastoise … Favorable
Accelgor/Wobbuffet
Another favorite from another friend, Ross Cawthon saw a lot of success with this deck last season. While I chose Toad/Bats over it last year, I am more strongly considering this as an option going into Philadelphia. I have been a fan of non-Trevenant Accelgor variants for a long time — I even wrote an article about my crazy Accelgor/Garbodor/Flareon deck almost three years ago! This deck draws a lot of parallels to that deck, using Wobbuffet to shut off Abilities.
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Pokémon – 19 4 Accelgor DEX |
Trainers – 35 4 Professor Juniper
2 Level Ball
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Energy – 6 |
This is the same exact list Ross used to Top 8 Alberta Regionals in the Spring. I have played around with it a bit and have not found anything I have wanted to change. Xerosic could be considered over Tool Scrapper. A 3rd Level Ball or 4th Ultra Ball would be nice to help find Shelmets/Accelgors.
This deck plays a lot differently from most other Expanded decks. Wobbuffet slows the opponent down like it does in Groudon, but you are still aiming to attack on the second turn of the game. You want to get your deck down to a small size relatively quickly so you can stream Deck and Covers easily, but you also want to conserve resources. There are a lot of intricate and seemingly contradictory plays you will make when running this deck.
The one thing holding me back from pulling the trigger on playing this deck is the extremely close Dark matchup. Depending on their list and how well they approach the matchup, it can be favorable to slightly favorable to slightly unfavorable. The two big cards to look out for are AZ and Keldeo-EX. Most lists run AZ, but Keldeo is hit-or-miss. If they run both, you are probably a slight underdog. With just one or the other, the matchup is close to even — perhaps slightly favored for Accelgor. Without either, the matchup is in your favor.
Matchups
- Yveltal (/Maxie) … Even (varies a lot on list)
- Turbo Dark … Even (varies a lot on list)
- Trevenant … Unfavorable
- Toad/Bats … Even
- Night March … Slightly favorable
- Mega Rayquaza … Favorable
- Rainbow Road … Favorable
- Greninja … Favorable
- Accelgor/Wobbuffet … Even
- Eels/Raikou … Slightly favorable
- Groudon … Favorable
- Vespiquen/Flareon … Slightly favorable
- Vileplume/Vespiquen … Favorable
- Vileplume Toolbox – Favorable
- Sableye/Garbodor … Even? (Haven’t played the matchup, so not sure actually!)
- Mega Manectric variants … Slightly favorable
- Virizion/Genesect … Very unfavorable
- Volcanion/Fire Pokémon … Slightly favorable
- Archie’s Blastoise … Favorable
Conclusion
pokemonscreenshots.tumblr.comThe Pokémon Trading Card Game is at an exciting point in its history right now: two formats, a new tournament structure, more prizes, and the resurgence of Pokémon in the mainstream are all leading to huge numbers of attendees at Regional Championships. I am super excited to see how the rest of the 2016–2017 season pans out and I hope to do well enough (and travel enough!) to secure an invitation to the World Championships in Anaheim.
I’d also like to say to watch for me streaming games at twitch.tv/magnechu. I have already run two “Conquest” style streams with my good friend Pablo Meza (aka Tablemon) where we pitted five different decks against one another in a best-of-nine series. I hope to continue doing this and other streaming events throughout the year.
Please ask questions in the forums, hit me up via email or Facebook, and come say hi at Philadelphia Regionals. Thanks for reading!
-Mike Fouchet
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