And With That

Hello again readers, I’m back with you for the second time this month with quite a few lists for the upcoming format. We’ve finally entered the point where post-rotation decks are the only thing that matter, and after messing around with a lot of stuff over the last few days, I’m really excited to see what new archetypes pop up.

@AtlasPog

Before I get into the lists today, I want to go over the POG Championship. I participated in what was my first unofficially-run large-scale PTCGO event last weekend. Well, sort of. I had a Day 2 invite, so I didn’t actually have to play in the much larger Day 1 pods, so I can’t give a completely accurate opinion on those. I did observe the Discord most of the day, keeping track of friends and stalking some players’ decklists.

Here’s my uninvolved take on how Day 1 went. Pod 1 was run exceptionally well and concluded in a timely manner. I wasn’t awake for most of it, but that’s the vibe I got. Pod 2, however, was a different story. The start time was delayed and round turnaround was much worse. I don’t know all of the reasons for this, but I would assume fatigue played at least a small role.

One thing I liked about the Day 1 format was that if a match was unreported within two minutes of time being called, it was a double game loss. This is also how Japan plays the game. However, from what I could tell, there were multiple times throughout the event that matches were awarded wins/losses after said time limit was up. Basically, I think the organizers were too nice. They tried to track down unreported matches. That’s not to say they didn’t do a great job running the event, because they certainly did. But if you’re going to do the Japanese structure, you can’t be wasting time tracking down matches. That slows down the event incredibly much. Awarding the double game loss and moving on with the event would be optimal in this situation.

top.gg

On to Day 2. I say Day 2, but I’m going to start directly after Day 1 concluded. Everything in the event was run through a Discord bot. Cool. Unfortunately the bot broke. Inevitable. The bot was also how we were supposed to turn in decklists. That command wasn’t working until roughly three hours before the event began. I got lucky here, because I live in what is arguably the best time zone to play in for this event. I only had to wake up at 6am. Players on the West Coast of the USA? 3–4am. Globally? You get the idea. Obviously the time zone issue itself is unavoidable when you run a global event. Scrambling to turn in a decklist wasn’t the greatest way to start out the day.

Day 2 itself was run pretty smoothly, at least while I was still in it. There were some more issues with decklists, but those were ironed out rather quickly. I played some Pokémon and dropped at 2-2. I actually wanted to drop at 1-1, but it was still early enough in the day that I decided to play some more. Obviously I wouldn’t normally drop at that record, but what was the point of staying in? I could play five more rounds for a chance of $25?

This might offend some people, but oh well. As much as we wanted POG to be Worlds 2020, it just wasn’t. Sure, we played an event with a majority of the top players. How many of those top players actually put significant work into the format? Probably not even close to as many (or doing nearly as much work) as would have for Worlds. I literally did no testing aside from some ladder games. Nothing was on the line. I didn’t play an entire season leading up to this event. I didn’t have the Worlds experience. There is no 2020 World Champion, but there’s at least a 2020 POG Champion.

To wrap up this little section on POG, I’m grateful the organizers ran the event. They did an amazing job. They’re not professionals (I think), and they weren’t paid. It obviously motivated some people in the community and many players found enjoyment in it. I simply hope such an event is never necessary again. Well, now that y’all made it through that section, onto the decklists.

Centiskorch VMAX

I loved this deck so much before rotation. Sure, I completely butchered my original list in order to play Pokémon Catcher in POG, but the deck was really solid when built correctly. Aside from Escape Board, this deck didn’t really lose anything to rotation. In order to combat the loss of Escape Board, I decided to cut Jirachi and add more consistency cards.

This list is frighteningly close to what I should have played in the UPR–DAA POG format. Obviously Jirachi is gone, but that might not be the end of the world. This deck is going to want to choose second every time it is able to. Going first in this format is seemingly worse for quite a few decks, which is something that I never thought I’d see again. Part of the draw of Centiskorch is its ability to 1HKO literally anything in the game. Yes, it takes a lot of Energy to do so, but it can do it.

My biggest mistake with Welder decks is playing too few Supporters other than Welder. Yes, in a perfect world you play Welder every turn. Pokémon is not a perfect world. You can’t find Welder every turn, every game. Thus, I’ve included a number of other draw Supporters in this list. I won’t need to play them all, but I need to have them sometimes in order to play the game at all. I still think that Pokémon Catcher could find a home in Centiskorch, but before that I need to have a list that actually consistently plays the game.

I’ve also mentally messed around with the concept of playing Volcarona-GX with Centiskorch, but I don’t know if I could make space or consistently find enough R Energy. In a similar vein, I think Ninetales TEU could be a decent card in the deck, but you would have to seriously up the Energy count. In UPR–DAA, that was acceptable because you could play Victini p in order to recycle Energies and do a decent amount of damage. Alas, Victini is gone.

Another thing that draws me to this deck is its ability to stand up to literally every deck in the game. Even the newly-emerging Inteleon VMAX decks can have significant trouble with Centiskorch. Centiskorch has multiple methods of beating decks like Decidueye. It can beat ADP by simply running over them before the beat you. Cards like Wondrous Labyrinth p allow you to steal games against decks like Eternatus VMAX and Blacephalon UNB, which usually have just enough Energy to attack without an added cost.

ADPZ… and Z

Zamazenta V is finally seeing the light of day with the release of DAA. What better deck to showcase its stopping power than ADP? With Eternatus VMAX seemingly a very strong deck in the TEU–DAA format, having Zamazenta V can be the difference between winning and losing multiple games. However, one copy isn’t always enough. Eternatus has been able to play non-VMAX attackers that are capable of chipping away at a Zamazenta, and if you bench too many other Pokémon, you can easily lose to multiple Boss’s Orders.

My list’s main draw is the heavy counts of Dedenne-GX and Crobat V. ADP feels like the BDIF when it draws well, so adding more cards to ensure it draws well felt natural to me. In past times I might have included a Rayquaza-GX in order to increase my chances of a turn one GX attack, but Rayquaza-GX has left the stage. My list includes a few of the techs that can make ADP so versatile. Duraludon (it took me far too long to figure out this name when trying to find it in PTCGO) is capable of dealing with Decidueye. Mawile-GX allows the deck to play to its optimal out: KOing two support Pokémon-GX/V in order to take all of its Prizes. Finally, Milotic V is here to help deal with the prominent Fire Pokémon VMAX.

I don’t like ADP and I never have. However, I have to acknowledge that it has been and always will be a top tier deck. It’s almost like the GX attack is too good. Oh wait, that’s because it is. Matchup-wise, your biggest issues are going to come from Charizard VMAX, Blacephalon UNB, and potentially a control-style Inteleon VMAX.

Eternatus VMAX/Weavile-GX

Eternatus is looking to be a major player in the TEU–DAA format, and it’s no wonder why. The deck has everything. Insane draw support, Energy efficiency, high damage output. I decided that I also wanted the ability to mess around with moving my Energy, so I added a 2-1 Weavile-GX. The other notable inclusion in this list is the 3 Turbo Patch. With Inteleon VMAX on the rise, I’m somewhat worried about getting enough Energy in play fast enough, and then keeping them there.

Matchup-wise, Eternatus is in a weird place. Before rotation, it had Yveltal-GX to 1HKO a 2nd VMAX after you 2HKO another. Now, you’re forced to deal with 2 Pokémon VMAX in the normal way. On the flip side, Eternatus wasn’t playing/couldn’t play Jirachi before rotation, so the slight consistency hit that every other deck has taken is irrelevant to Eternatus. This means that matchups like Centiskorch, Blacephalon, and ADP all become more manageable. I think Eternatus is similar to Centiskorch in the sense that it’s capable of beating everything, but can also lose to everything.

Spiritomb

I was playing a list a few cards off from this one before rotation, and it wasn’t bad. Escape Board was a small hit, but with the loss of Rainbow Energy, retreating Spiritomb is almost always better anyway. Hiding D Energy, along with Spikemuth, seem like they were made for Spiritomb. One thing I love about this deck in general is its capability to play Nanu effectively. So you switched your Jirachi out three times? Attach a Cape and play Nanu for a surprise damaged Spiritomb.

Unfortunately, this deck’s matchups are somewhat shaky. Sure, Eternatus and Centiskorch are fine, but ADP is incredibly difficult unless they’re unable to use Ultimate Ray before you KO their ADP. With Vikavolt V taking major hits from rotation, Spiritomb loses a frightening matchup, so that at least is nice. Yes, Vikavolt might stick around, but it will be far less powerful.

Xatu/Garbodor

This one is just a bonus and the list is already on my Twitter somewhere. I wanted to have more than 140 characters to talk about the deck. It’s not terrible, but it relies too heavily on facing off against Pokémon VMAX and hitting heads on coin flips. I tried a different build of this deck without the Garbodor line, which relied on Galarian Slowbro V, Horror P Energy, and Galarian Zigzagoon SSH. That version was slightly worse because Slowbro is a bad card because it relies on finding Switches. On top of that, Zigzagoon and Horror P Energy both provide damage after your attack, so you lose to Mallow & Lana.

The whole theory behind this deck is to use Xatu to leave your opponent’s Active at 10 HP remaining, and then Garbodor poisons them in order to pick up the KO. It’s not the most sound strategy, mostly because of the ridiculous amount of coin flips involved. As I already stated, the deck struggles with single-Prize attackers. Fortunately, those are somewhat rare at this point due to ADP.

There is also another version of this deck that uses Kartana UNB rather than Xatu, but I’m unsure if I like relying on a Stage 1 or Twin Energy less. Both decks are obviously not Tier 1, but they’re fun to play and since events don’t exist, fun is always a good thing.

Final Thoughts

That’s all I have for today. This was my final article before school starts back up for me, so I’ll potentially have less time to spend on building decks and testing. I don’t foresee this being an actual issue, but who knows? I’m somewhat excited to start playing in the TEU–DAA format, especially after how not good UPR–DAA felt. As I’ve been recently doing, I’ll probably be posting the occasional free rogue decklist on my Twitter, so watch out for any of those. I’m playing in an invitational this weekend, so I’ll at least have some sort of list to hopefully post this weekend.

Going forward, I expect to be participating in at least one online series, so maybe I’ll end up playing some of you at some point. Anyway, I hope everyone is staying safe and everything. I’ll be back in a couple of weeks with some more, hopefully in-depth TEU–DAA content.

Until the next one.

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