128 results for: 0000/00/01
Two Decks That Omit Crobat V and Dedenne-GX (Green’s/PikaRom and Decidueye/Obstagoon) for the Players Cup II Qualifier Period “This deck offers a slower and more elaborate strategy for winning games. As the name indicates, the deck is based on Green’s Exploration, which allows you to search for 2 Trainer cards from your deck and put them into your hand—if you have no Pokémon with Abilities in play. When using Green’s Exploration, you practically start playing with your deck in your hand, as you will have access to almost everything, but only 2 cards at a time. The great advantage of this type of strategy is not having to use Dedenne GX or Crobat V, which, despite offering a…
Recapping the Players Cup Finals and the Future of TEU–DAA “This past weekend we saw the final 16 players duke it out over the past few days. Here’s a link to the full results from those players; I’ll be covering some notable archetypes and ultimately discuss why I think things panned out how they did. Finals VOD Links Preshow: Day 1: Day 2: Lucario & Melmetal-GX/Zacian V dominated the tournament, finishing 1st and 2nd with the same exact list. Kudos to Jack Millar and Matthew Burris for this great accomplishment. I know that when I’ve built decks in the past, it’s been rewarding to succeed and equally rewarding to watch…
A Look to Japan for Rebel Clash’s Impact on Standard’s Top Tiers, Including Dragapult VMAX, Toxtricity VMAX, ADPZ, and PikaRom “To understand some choices with Japanese decklists, we first have to understand Japanese tournaments. Their tournament levels roughly mirror ours: Trainer Challenges, City Leagues, Champions Leagues, and Japan Championship. Tournaments are Swiss + Top Cut, Best-of-1 with a 25-minute timer, except for Trainer Challenges. Much like our League Challenges, Trainer Challenges lack a Top Cut. Ties do not exist in Japanese tournament structure. This has an interesting effect on Stall decks. If a game would result in a tie by our standards, it results in a double loss in Japan. Because of this, Stall and Control decks don’t have nearly…
JoseZard (Card Choices, Matchups, Worlds Recap) and a Comparison to Tord’s Worlds Top 4 Ability ReshiZard List “At first, my top two deck choices going into Worlds were Green’s ReshiZard and Blacephalon-GX/Naganadel LOT (similar to what Shintaro Ito used to place 2nd, which I talked about in my article right before Worlds). I decided against playing Blacephalon-GX/Naganadel LOT because many players were playing Tapu Fini UNM on Day 1. I figured this trend would carry over to Day 2, so I changed decks last minute. I also disregarded Green’s ReshiZard because I was so intrigued by Ability ReshiZard. I wanted to be less prone to Reset Stamp, which hinders Green’s ReshiZard more so than Ability ReshiZard. It’s…
Two Worlds Powerhouses, PikaRom + ReshiZard, and How to Answer the Problem of Walls “2 Pikachu & Zekrom-GX Most times you will want to use Full Blitz to power up other attackers. If you are taking a KO with Full Blitz then even better. However, worst case you can set up future KO’s. Tag Bolt-GX can potentially take a huge multi-prize turn which a lot of the time Tag Bolt-GX is used as an end game attack to finish the game quickly. Before if you Full Blitz onto the active Pikachu & Zekrom-GX it could get punished by an attacker that could otherwise take it down in one blow. However, now you…
A body made up of nothing but muscle makes the grappling moves this Pokémon performs with its tentacles tremendously powerful. (Grapploct)
EUIC Tournament Recap, Innovations, Our PikaRom List, and Vespiquen Honed for Hartford “EUIC was unique in that a new set wasn’t legal for the weekend of the tournament. This was the case for the first two Internationals of the season in São Paulo and Melbourne, where Lost Thunder and Team Up effectively debuted. I’m not sure which I prefer, but I was glad for the change of pace. A major tournament in a developed format (such as SUM–TEU) isn’t bad to have, as most decklists are established, so discussions center more around optimization rather than new ideas. Though, there were a fair amount of innovative decks and lists in the tournament that…
Christopher’s Look Back at Portland, ft. Trevenant BREAK Report & First Thoughts on Lost Thunder “Over the summer, we saw what was primed to be the biggest shakeup in Expanded’s history: bans of Wally, Ghetsis, Puzzle of Time, and Hex Manaic were shown their way to the ban list, seemingly ending Zoroark’s death grip on the format. The lead-up to the weekend was optimistic, and I don’t think we’ve ever covered as many decks in one tournament’s preparation as we did with Portland. As this weekend showed us, none of this was quite the case. Instead, Zoroark did reemerge from the bans a more oppressive version of itself, which raises significant questions about where the…
A Primer on the Zoroark Variants of Celestial Storm, with Looks at Golisopod, Garbodor, and Magcargo “Garbodor BKP The list only plays one Garbodor, and a low tool count. This is because Garbotoxin does not always need to be online and the deck does not have room for a thicker count. It needs to dedicate space to techs for opposing Zoroark decks, and that means cuts elsewhere. With Rescue Stretcher and Puzzle of Time in the deck, you usually don’t have much trouble maintaining the ability lock when you want to. The biggest issue I have had with the singleton copy is prizing it, which can occasionally result in a rough game. Acerola and Max Potion…
A Pair of Looks at Buzzwole/Lycanroc and Buzzwole/Garbodor for NAIC “4 Buzzwole, 1 Buzzwole-GX Baby Buzzwole is one of the best attackers in standard currently. It’s bulkiness makes it quite hard to deal with for Zoroark decks, and they only get one prize when it is KOed. Against opposing Buzzwole and Malamar decks, having GXs on the board is a liability because the match turns into a prize race. Buzzwole-GX still serves it’s purpose though, being able to take KOs on Pokemon that are hard for baby Buzzwole to deal with, such as Golisopod-GX. 2 Rockruff, 2 Lycanroc-GX Lycanroc-GX is an incredibly powerful card in the current metagame. Bloodthirsty Eyes…
An Expanded Primer for Salt Lake Regionals “Reference List: Costa Mesa This is the deck that I’d probably be playing in Utah, but also one that I’d want to put in a lot of time with to learn before the event. It’s not that I think the deck is that hard to play, but there are a good handful of decisions to make each game and the reward for playing perfectly is usually a win. Why would I play Drampa? The deck just has the best matchups against the field while also being strong against Zoroark. Garbotoxin carries a few matchups, Trashalanche a few more, and your other…
It has many hidden capabilities, such as fingertips that can shoot water and a membrane on its back that it can use to glide through the air. (Inteleon)
Profiles of Trevenant, Dugtrio, Toad/Glaceon, and Greninja for Costa Mesa Expanded “Yes, even in the face of a format with Dark set to reign over all, this still is a serious suggestion. As it happens, Zoroark can have a little trouble finding Energy under Item Lock. Nowadays, we also have things like Tapu Lele to sneak in with Counter Energy, which makes the whole deck all the more interesting. I’ve been testing against a plethora of Zoroark variants, and it actually works out far better than I initially expected. Most of them have no idea what to do when faced with Turn 1 Item Lock, which makes life far easier. Zorua only…
Looking at the Top 8 Drampa/Garb from Dallas and More Garb for Standard “Tauros-GX Tauros was the MVP of my weekend for sure. I actually donked two players in day two with Horn Attack, which was quite unexpected, but just another reason why I love this bull. Horn Attack in the early game against decks like Zoroark and Gardevoir applies a decent amount of pressure, and can draw you a couple prize cards. In addition to this, Tauros is a terrible Pokemon to just deal damage to because of Mad Bull-GX. Allowing the Tauros to take three or four prizes will almost always result in a horrific loss, which often made my opponents…
Evaluating the Top Card of Crimson Invasion and Zoroark-GX & Sableye for San Jose Expanded “Crimson Invasion doesn’t have quite the treasure trove of useful cards that some recent sets have, but it does have a few cards that threaten to transform the playability of a lot of already-released concepts. Travis gave us a great look at this idea last week, taking a look at the effects Counter Energy might have on the format. Counter Energy is the single most prolific example of the idea I describe, but it’s far from the only. Even its direct counterpart in Counter Catcher has some potential in this vein, as it’ll be able to aid concepts like Golisopod…
Some 6P News, Dissecting Drampa/Garbodor, Guessing at Greninja (ugh), and Guiding Gardevoir for Anaheim “Drampa is in a unique position as we head into Worlds. While it’s the reigning force out of the last few PRC-GRI events, it doesn’t seem to have captured the massive attention that a run of its sort seems to usually garner. There are a few possible reasons for this (my personal favorite is what I’m calling “Garbodor fatigue”—people are just really sick of talking about the Trash), but either way, it’s something to note for Worlds: I think a decent number of players that would be inclined to play Drampa are more likely to try to counter it than…
Xander’s Seattle Recap, Methods and Madness for Beating Garbodor, and a Patient Waterbox. “Going into Seattle, I knew that Garbodor would be a threat. Usually at the arrival of a new set, the meta retains itself with very little improvement. What everyone in the room found was a spew of Garbodor. I decided to go back to my roots and play M Gardevoir because its bad matchups would decline in popularity. M Rayquaza and Decidueye/Vileplume were the bad matchups before, but with Tapu Lele-GX, Decideye became an easy matchup. Had I known how amazing and prevalent Garbodor would be, I probably would have played a different deck, or a less Item-heavy list. Here’s how my…
It’s very curious, but its means of investigating things is to try to punch them with its tentacles. The search for food is what brings it onto land. (Clobbopus)
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