Chasing Perfection

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Hello SixPrizes UGers! I hope you’re all doing well in these troubled times. I’d like to start off things by saying a huge thank you to Adam inviting me to write to 6P UG. As this is my first time writing for 6P, I thought it’d be best to briefly introduce myself for those of you who don’t know who I am.

I’m Freya Pearce, and I’ve been playing the Pokémon TCG since it first debuted but only got into competitive play in 2011, my first tournament being a State Championship in the HS–EPO format. Since then, I’ve gone on to be an official caster for TPCi since 2016 at several European National Championships, the EUIC, and the LAIC, as well as place Top 16 the World Championships two years running. The first was in 2016 which is where my tagline (“Forever 9th”) comes from as I was the only 5-1-1 to bubble miss Top 8 (it still stings) and the second was in 2017 where I finished 15th. Sadly, I’ve not really had any accomplishments of the same caliber since then, but I’m hoping to change that once IRL events kick off again!

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Since 2017 Worlds, I’ve been slightly on and off with playing, but in the wake of a massive increase in online tournament series kicking off I’ve been playing more than ever, primarily in the Atlas Collectables Championship Series but also in the Players Cup II Qualifiers. For this article, I’d like to focus on my experiences playing in both of these alongside the metagame development I’ve seen as these series have gone on, as well as give you a flavour of one of my favorite deck choices for Expanded currently: Mewtwo & Mew-GX Toolbox.

The Atlas Collectables Championship Series is being run by the same organizers that ran the Pokémon Online Global (POG) Championship in August, and runs a set number of events every month, which all offer qualifying points toward next year’s POG Championship:

• Eight “Mini” events, with a new one usually kicking off every three or four days. Six of these are in the Standard format and two are in the Expanded format.
• One “Monthly” event, which as the name implies starts at the beginning of the month and lasts until the end of said month, and is also in the Standard format.
• One Special Event, at the end of the month, which has a different ruleset from the norm and rewards less points than the other two event kinds. The first one that ran for example was in the current Standard format but with Arceus & Dialga & Palkia-GX banned.

I’ve been a big fan of these events as each round is run over the course of either 24 hours (Minis, Specials) or 72 hours (Monthlies), which gives plenty of time to try and organize time to play around mismatching timezones, work schedules and so on. I’ve been recording almost all of the matches I’ve played and if you’re curious to check those out you can do so at https://www.youtube.com/xanatu.

@playpokemon

As for the Players Cup II, I’ll avoid rehashing old territory too much as the structure has already been covered in a few previous 6P articles. I’m sure most of you reading this will be actively trying to burn through your Tournament Keys and rack up as much Tournament Rep as possible. For me, I’ve finished up already having ended on 90 Tournament Rep after using up all 50 of my Tournament Keys, so I’ll share some of my experience with the benefit of hindsight so if you still have keys left, you don’t end up making the same mistakes I did and hopefully end on more Tournament Rep than I did!

The Online TEU–DAA Metagame Progression

One of the interesting things about seeing the metagame develop over the past few months is how differently the metagame progression formula has shifted on the basis of all play being online. Quite often in the past, if a certain list of an archetype did well at an event or outright won, that would for a while be considered the “correct” way to play said archetype, and a lot of the subsequent finishes for that archetype would build that archetype similarly, if not exactly the same. However, as various different online Leagues have emerged to fill the gap left by the lack of in person tournaments, different players have opted for different Leagues and the metagame has become a lot more decentralized as a consequence. We still see a lot of different builds of all the top decks being tried out, including Clay, Persian-GX, and consistency-focused lists for ADPZ; Green’s, Salazzle UNB, and Straight builds for Centiskorch VMAX; and all manner of support attackers and techs for Eternatus VMAX, including Spiritomb UNB, Hoopa UNM, Hoopa DAA, Sableye V, Galarian Slowbro V, Viridian Forest vs. Dark City, and so on. This makes for a very interesting dynamic in deckbuilding and I’m looking forward to seeing how the lists of the top decks continue to evolve over the coming tournaments.

Looking at the meta breakdowns for the Atlas Mini events, we saw in Mini #1 (all the way back in the beginning of September) that Eternatus VMAX and Mewtwo & Mew-GX emerged as joint top contenders with 16.4% at 11 showings, ADPZ following up at 10.4% with 7 showings, and Centiskorch VMAX rounding off the top four contenders at 7.5% with 5 showings. However, skip ahead to the most recent meta breakdown from Atlas Mini #11, and we see a drastic shift in the pecking order as while Eternatus still took the top spot with 17% at 9 showings, Centiskorch VMAX and ADPZ are now tied for second with 13% each at 7 showings each. Meanwhile Welder/Mew3-GX has fallen way off the radar with only 6% at 3 showings and LucMetal/Zacian, PikaRom, and Blacephalon all surpassing it in popularity.

Looking at this data, I have a few takeaways:

• As I had suspected for a while now, Welder/Mew3-GX is not the powerhouse contender in the format it used to be. With a lack of options for 2-Energy attacks other than outrage, the deck is now more reliant upon Welder than ever, and, unlike Centiskorch VMAX, the deck doesn’t really have many options for advancing its game plan in the games where it does happen to miss Welder.
• Eternatus VMAX was not overhyped and is here to stay as a serious contender. I foresee it trading blows with ADPZ for “BDIF” status, but the consistency in damage output and ability to fairly easily KO an ADP is a force to be reckoned with.
• ADPZ, though a top contender, is not the be-all/end-all deck of the format. In terms of where this places discussions on ADP’s ban-worthiness due to its gatekeeping of single-Prize decks, I’m not sure, but the format is not currently in a state of “play ADPZ or lose.”

I imagine in the wake of PikaRom taking a few wins in a row in some of the other online tournament series, we will see an uptick in that deck over the Minis to come. Either way, I’m very curious to see where the metagame goes from here and I am going to continue to give it my all in the Atlas events and the Players Cup II bracket play should I qualify for it. Speaking of which…

Players Cup II: Qualifying Hindsight

As mentioned previously, I finished the Players Cup II qualifying tournaments with 90 Tournament Rep, leaving me on 1.8 Tournament Rep per Key and hopefully leaving me in a safe position to remain in the Top 256 for Europe and qualify for the next stage. I played some mixture of the top three archetypes over the course of the tournaments I entered—mainly ADPZ and Centiskorch VMAX with a peppering of Eternatus VMAX for a tournament or two. I tried three variants of ADPZ: (1) with Clay, (2) with Persian-GX, as well as (3) Tate Whitesell’s “Optimal ADPZ” list from his previous 6P article. Of these, I found Tate’s list to be the most successful and if you’re looking for a good ADPZ list to play for the tournament I’d recommend it wholeheartedly.

I initially thought of the Clay/ADPZ list as the logical conclusion to the ultimate win condition of ADPZ—Altered Creation T2, KO a Bench-sitter T3, KO a Bench-sitter T4. The biggest problem with the Clay list, however, is that, more often than not, what you discard off of your Clay aside from your Items hurts you too much to be able to close out the game. Sometimes you’ll discard one of your W Energies and not have the means to attach the other one to an ADP-GX before going for a Dedechange. Other times you’ll discard too many Boss’s Orders and not flip enough heads on Pokémon Catcher to win. Ultimately, as the old saying goes, consistency is king. A similar logic applies for the Persian-GX version of the list; although it’s nice to be able to fetch the exact two cards you need after an ADP-GX gets KO’d, it relies on you being able to get the Meowth down during your early setup as well as finding the Persian-GX and your opponent not playing around it by using a gusting effect to KO a Pokémon V instead.

As for Centiskorch, it’s another solid pick and what I’d highly recommend if you don’t fancy playing ADPZ. Here is the list I used for a bunch of the Atlas events in the Standard format as well as all my runs in the Players Cup II Qualifiers, including a Top 8 finish in the Atlas September Monthly event:

I have to give credit to my good friend Joe Bernard of OmniPoke for the list as the concept was originally his, the main change I made being he originally had Oricorio-GX in there, which while I liked, I ended up cutting for a Cramorant V out of fear of Bronzong TEU. Cramorant V also has the same utility it does in every Welder deck of sniping Dedenne-GX to finish the game. However, it’s not a mandatory include, and if you feel Bronzong has declined enough in popularity you can cut it. Some people are employing the strategy of choosing to go second if they win the coin flip and they see they’re up against a repeat opponent who they saw playing Centiskorch in a previous tournament, so maybe space out your tournaments a little bit if you opt to play Centiskorch in the Players Cup Qualifiers.

With that out of the way, I’d like to shift away from Standard and focus on a format that’s not been touched on for a while on 6P: Expanded. While most of the online tournaments happening have been in the Standard format, a few Expanded tournaments have popped up every now and then and aside from a few toxic card combos (Scoop Up Net + Shaymin-EX ROS, in a nutshell), Expanded is in a pretty fun place right now. One of my favorite decks to play has been Mewtwo & Mew-GX Toolbox, which I’m going to go over for you now including my current attacking lineup for the deck as well as general tech and matchup advice.

Mewtwo & Mew-GX Toolbox (in Expanded)

When I started playing in the Atlas events, I had missed the cutoff for the first Mini event, which meant the first one I was able to sign up for was the Mini #2, which just so happened to be the first Expanded Mini of the month. I’d not visited Expanded for a long time so I brainstormed with my playtesting group, Team Cake, on what the best play would be. We eventually landed on Mewtwo & Mew-GX for its versatility in attacking options and ability to deal with most matchups if teched correctly. This was the list I played for the Expanded Mini #2:

This list took me all the way to Top 4 of the event, where I ended up losing to Stéphane Ivanoff’s ADPZ after a series of rough draws in Game 3. You can find the full recorded match here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePYO1_IE7Dg

The deck’s objective, in a nutshell, is to set up your discard pile with all your different GX and EX attackers for Mewtwo & Mew-GX to copy with its Perfection Ability. Dimension Valley reduces all of Mew3’s attack costs by C, which means access to a lot of powerful 3-Energy attacks for only 2 or sometimes even 1 Energy attachment. Battle Compressor is a boon for this deck as it puts all your Pokémon in the discard pile, as well as provides the usual benefits Battle Compressor does in Expanded (i.e., setting up your Supporters in the discard pile to toolbox with VS Seeker as well as discarding any cards which aren’t useful in any given matchup).

Though I was pretty happy with the list overall, I felt the attacking lineup was not optimal, as there were a few matchups that ended up being more prevalent than I was expecting (Mad Party) and some new contenders that appeared in the mix to shake things up (Mew FCO Toolbox). I ended up cutting Yveltal-GX and Gengar & Mimikyu-GX as these were the two attackers I used the least, if at all, during the Mini #2.

• Yveltal-GX needs to be set up over two turns with a leading Linear Attack from Garchomp & Giratina-GX in order to get the value out of Doom Count-GX, at which point you’re usually better off attacking with other things.
• Gengar & Mimikyu-GX can be useful in spots, but the PP attack cost requires 2 Energy commitments (i.e., it can’t attack off of 1 Energy + Dimension Valley), at which point (again) you’d almost always rather be attacking with other things.

These two cuts made room for inclusion of Latios-EX ROS and Jirachi-GX, leaving us with the following list:

I didn’t make any changes to the Trainer and Energy lineup as I was happy with them as is, though there are certainly other options you could include, which I’ll go over in the “Other Techs” section.

Pokémon Choices

To begin, let’s get into the attacking lineup of the deck and what purpose each attacker I’ve included serves:

3 Giratina LOT

This sets up your opponent’s Benched Pokémon for KOs from Spiky Storm-GX, Boomburst-GX, and Calamitous Slash, and can be reused over and over in combination with M Gardevoir-EX STS’s Despair Ray.

3 Mewtwo & Mew-GX

Your main attacker. The only important note to add here is don’t forget about Miraculous Duo-GX; with Dimension Valley, you only need 3 Energy attachments to pull off the heal effect with it and it’s an attacking option under Ability lock.

2 Dedenne-GX, Shaymin-EX ROS

Drawing cards wins games, go figure. I have a feeling with the advent of Scoop Up Net either it or Shaymin-EX will be banned before long.

1 Alolan Sandslash-GX

The newest addition to the deck and it’s an absolute doozy. Against a lot of matchups being able to do 100 damage to all your opponent’s Pokémon with damage counters on them becomes a win condition in and of itself in combination with Giratina LOT’s Distortion Door. A must-include.

1 Cobalion-GX

This prevents extra damage from Hypnotoxic Laser + Virbank City Gym shenanigans, as well as Paralysis lock. In some fringe situations Iron Rule-GX can buy you a turn as well, but generally speaking it’s in here for the Metal Symbol Ability.

1 Garchomp & Giratina-GX

Not only does this combine nicely with Giratina LOT to take 1HKOs on TAG TEAM GXs, but Linear Attack also gives you options for attacking when you have no Energy on a Mewtwo but you have a Dimension Valley out. GG End-GX can be clutch sometimes as well.

1 Jirachi-GX

A more recent include in light of increased prevalence of the mirror match as well as Mad Party and Mew FCO Toolbox coming into the picture. This turns Mad Party from a net unfavoured to a net favored matchup and gives you a shot against Dragapult VMAX if you can avoid Ability lock.

1 Jolteon-EX

Flash Ray has too much merit against too many matchups for Jolteon to not be included in the list. It’s even an OK starter as it has free retreat, and Swift is a potential, if not ideal, option against anything that blocks Pokémon-GX.

1 Latios-EX ROS

Being able to steal the occasional win from Mad Party makes this one worth the include, though I think it’s the most cuttable of the attacking lineup, especially if Mad Party goes down in popularity. Getting in some chip damage with Fast Raid in other matchups if you’re able to do so going first doesn’t hurt either.

1 M Gardevoir-EX STS

Another super important attacker for the deck as not only can you clear your own setup Pokémon and Giratina LOT off the board, but it also enables you to 2-shot most Pokémon in the game for just 1 Energy plus a Dimension Valley. You can also clear your own board to set up for a lone Mewtwo & Mew-GX to use Flash Ray and prevent Guzma from being an out to play around it.

1 Mega Lopunny & Jigglypuff-GX

You want to be able to punish overbenching of GXs and EXs, especially against the mirror match, and Jumping Balloon gets you there. You can also power up this attack in one turn with a Dimension Valley + Double Colorless Energy attachment.

1 Mewtwo-EX BKT 158

Damage Change is still far too strong to pass up, and is something your opponent has to be wary of if they’re attacking your Mewtwo & Mew-GX but can’t Knock it Out in one hit.

1 Noivern-GX

One of the best attackers in the deck. Distort can cripple a lot of decks in the early game, Sonic Volume locks out any deck that’s reliant on Special Energy, and even Boomburst-GX can come in handy against certain matchups.

1 Sudowoodo GRI

An important include to ensure that any of the big Bench decks (Eternatus VMAX, Snorlax VMAX, M Rayquaza-EX, etc.) are kept in check.

Other Techs

For this list I’ve opted for Pokémon Ranger as a “tech Supporter” given the increased prevalence of ADPZ in the Atlas Expanded metagame as well as an out to Item lock and Sonic Volume in the mirror match. One option you could give consideration to is AZ as a means of reusing Shaymins, healing, as well as surprise-removing a Jirachi-GX from the board in order to get a KO on a Psychic-weak Pokémon by enabling Weakness again.

Matchups

TrevNoir-GX: 30-70

If they can get their turn two combo of Ace Trainer + Ability lock and you can’t find your Stealthy Hood quickly enough, there’s usually not much you can do. If you can find your Stealthy Hood and they can’t get rid of it, then you have a chance; however, you’re being hit for Weakness with Night Watch and the combo is consistent enough and devastating enough that I still consider the matchup very unfavourable, especially as the Ability lock hurts your consistency even if you can find the Stealthy Hood, and Pale Moon-GX hurts you a lot as well. If they aren’t able to pick up their Shaymin-EXs and they miss the combo, then you have the potential to set up a Distortion Door + Spiky Storm-GX play for the win.

Mewtwo & Mew-GX Mirror: ??-??

This is a hard matchup to pinpoint numbers for as a lot of lists take very different directions. You have to adjust your game plan based on what sort of attacking lineup they’re going for. Flash Ray is a potential option if they don’t play Pokémon Ranger or an attacker that can hit through Flash Ray (like Greninja-GX SM197). Giratina LOT Distortion Doors + Alolan Sandslash-GX’s Spiky Storm-GX is always an option if they’re forced to bench too many Shaymin-EX along with Mega Lopunny & Jigglypuff-GX. Watch out for lists playing Moltres & Zapdos & Articuno-GX using Sky Legends-GX to finish off three of your own Bench-sitters. Sonic Volume on Noivern-GX can also be a game-winner.

Mad Party: 60-40

Your strategy against Mad Party is pretty much to always go first on the chance you get the donk with Latios-EX, and if you miss that just build up a Mewtwo to use Alolan Sandslash-GX’s Spiky Storm-GX in combination with multiple Distortion Doors to take KOs on multiple attackers and Shaymins. You can also use Noivern-GX’s Boomburst-GX to KO multiple Mad Partiers. The reason why the matchup isn’t more favored than 60-40 is that they can take an early KO with Mew FCO if you can’t get a Jirachi-GX down, and if they play Mew UNB you have to KO it before you go for the Spiky Storm-GX. You have Jolteon-EX’s Flash Ray as fallback against any list that doesn’t play Pokémon Ranger or Sinistea though.

Mew FCO Toolbox: 60-40

With the inclusion of Jirachi-GX this matchup becomes a lot more manageable. They can’t play any Ability negation as they’re relying on their own Mew FCO to copy attackers. Your usual game plan is similar to Mad Party—do a full board sweep with Giratina LOT and either Noivern-GX’s Boomburst-GX or Alolan Sandslash-GX’s Spiky Storm-GX. Just make sure to KO their Mew UNB first before you do so.

ADPZ: 70-30

You play Pokémon Ranger to get rid of Altered Creation-GX, which already helps you a lot, plus you have Flash Ray as an option since ADPZ can’t play Ranger itself as it would remove Altered Creation-GX. Their game plan has to be Target Whistle + Mawile-GX shenanigans to gust around your Mew3-GX for KOs. If you can keep your hand Pokémon-free you should be fine in most games.

Dragapult VMAX: 35-65

This matchup is rough as even if you’re able to get Jirachi-GX down to stop Dragapult V and VMAX from hitting you for Weakness, you really struggle to 1HKO a Dragapult VMAX, and with your heavy Item count it’s easy to fall victim to a 1HKO from Garbodor GRI’s Trashalanche. If they manage to set up Garbodor BKP or DRX as well then they can still hit you for Weakness and you need to dig for Field Blower or Stealthy Hood to carry on attacking. Noivern-GX’s Distort is your friend early on to hinder their setup.

TinaChomp: 55-45

The scariest part about facing against this deck is if you miss Fighting Fury Belt they can get a T1 KO on a Mew3-GX. If they miss the early KO your attackers should be able to deal with theirs well enough as they’ll have to bench a few EXs and GXs for their setup, which means that Mega LoPuff-GX is always a threat.

Final Thoughts

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In summary, I think Mewtwo & Mew-GX is still one of the top contenders in the Expanded format and is a lot of fun to play. However, a metagame shift in favor of TrevNoir and Dragapult VMAX could be a deterrent to its success in future. In terms of Standard online, I think we’re in a unique point in time in the history of the Pokémon TCG and although there are some elements of the format which can make it very unfun (a noted uptick in Crushing Hammers being one of them), there is still a lot of interesting and unexpected developments to be found if you look at the raw data. And finally, if you still have Keys left for the Players Cup II Qualifiers and want the tl;dr summary of my advice on how best to use them, I’ll leave you with the following three pieces of advice:

1. Play whichever of the top three decks (ADPZ, Eternatus VMAX, and Centiskorch VMAX) you feel most comfortable with. Consistency is king, especially in best-of-one.
2. Space out your tournaments if you’re playing Centiskorch to avoid getting metagamed on the opening coin flip.
3. If you play ADPZ, don’t play Clay.

I hope you all enjoyed reading this article as much as I enjoyed writing it, please let me know what you thought in the comments if you’d like. You can also get in touch with me on Twitter @XanatuVPR if you have any follow-up thoughts or questions on anything I wrote; I’d love to hear from all of you!

Until next time, this is Freya, signing off <3

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