2,018 results for: i want to be the very best
Humble Beginnings and Onward to Flashfire “This season started off with my college graduation over last summer. I received my bachelor’s degree in computer science from UNC Charlotte in July, and was fortunate enough to be offered a job opportunity in Greenville, SC shortly after. The icing on the cake was that I was now literally right down the road from two of my best friends, Kyle and Ryan Sabelhaus. I knew as far as my TCG career went that this was a huge step to take in order to improve my game. I had played the previous season somewhat competitively, but never making a huge…
Green’s New Best Friend, Centiskorch VMAX (for TEU–DAA) “I will only discuss any counts where there is an argument that they could be different. Volcanion is a card used in both lists because of just how powerful it can be. Flare Starter is incredible at rapidly charging up Centiskorch, especially with its synergy with Green’s. Often this deck wants to go second, due to the power of 3 Energy instantly attached and how well Green’s can set you up for later turns. High-Heat Blast is also a strong attack, and its damage combines well with that of G-Max Centiferno. 110 twice knocks out Vikavolt V, and 110 t2…
Hot Thoughts on the POG Format (UPR–DAA), All the Decks I Want to Work On More, Eternatus VMAX Two Ways, and How, Now, to Play Ultimate Mewtwo “So far, in watching and playing, the more aggressive build of Vikavolt V feels like the best deck in the format. Vikavolt V’s Paralyzing Bolt is of course reminiscent of Seismitoad-EX’s Quaking Punch, and the effect on the format has felt the same. Item lock so severely cripples the consistency of many decks by simply limiting cards like Quick Ball, Acro Bike, Escape Board, and Switch, forcing players to reinvent their decks. Where Vikavolt V differs from Seismitoad-EX, however, is its support. Our new favorite bug can exploit Electropower, Tapu Koko Prism Star, and Thunder Mountain Prism Star to one-shot…
The Rise and Glory Days of My Pokémon Career, Including Every Deck I Played During HS-on/2012 and BLW-on/2013 Modified Formats “Emerging Powers was the set released after Worlds 2011, a year famous for its mid-season rotation, Pokemon Reversal flips, and Ross Cawthon’s The Truth deck. Jay Hornung wonderfully documented the pre-EPO HS-on format extensively in his recent article. Let me remind you of some rules at this point in the game: Player who wins the coin flip must go first. Player who goes first has no restrictions. Pokemon Catcher did not require a coin flip. Burn is permanent like Poison, and you flip to see if you take damage. Emerging Powers was a notably bad set in terms of Pokemon—you…
Dethroning ADP/Z, Turbo ADP/Z, Sleep Mill (Best Mill), and, Yep!, Shock Lock “Traditionally, decks are prevented from becoming too dominant via the Weakness mechanic. As Gabriel pointed out, this doesn’t apply to ADP/Zacian, as there simply aren’t any good Fairy Pokemon to counter ADP, and Zacian V can have its Fire Weakness removed by Metal Frying Pan. (In case you have forgotten, Fairy Pokemon are being phased out of the TCG, so there will never be any more Fairies printed to stand up to ADP-GX.) So, if we want to counter ADP/Zacian, we are stuck dissecting it for exploitable weaknesses. I’ve compiled a short list here of quirks that you can look…
It sneaks into people’s homes, stealing things and feasting on the negative energy of the frustrated occupants. (Impidimp)
Turbo Flareon-GX, Fire Box, or Whatever You Want to Call It (Detailed and Updated from LAIC) “Note: The list I played in São Paulo is already on Limitless, so I won’t put it here. I was pretty much lost on what to play until Michael Catron told me about Flareon-GX being good in Fire. I, living up to my habit of not testing my final list for Brazil, built the deck and went to sleep after playing zero games with it. Usually, this is a bad idea, but it has worked out well for me a few times now. I sat down for Round 1, having zero clue if my deck actually functioned and somewhat nervous…
On the Best Finish Limits for 2019–2020 and My Current Top 3 Decks for Worlds “I started my Worlds testing on the Monday right after NAIC with this mindset for deckbuilding: this is a completely new format, so I need to not make any assumptions and get my decks hyper consistent before I consider teching for matchups. I went through that process for 2–3 weeks, trying to get decks consistent and performing well over and over. Now that we are less than two weeks away from Worlds, however, I’m at the stage where I do want to make some matchups a bit easier if I can with techs, which brings me to my current lists…
A Complete Guide to Gardevoir, the Best Deck of the 2010 DP-on Format “I want to start out by thanking Jonathan Paranada who does an excellent job of helping to set up these events and collecting the results and lists. Jonathan has all of these results posted on the Facebook Group Snowpoint Temple which is an outstanding resource for anybody who has an interest in older formats. There is a lot of discussion about decks of different eras, upcoming tournaments, and tournament results. As these are all decks of the past, players are very open with information and helpful to anybody with questions. The tournament had 50 players attend and, with such a…
The Post-Madison Tier List and Optimal Decklists for Almost Every Archetype “ReshiZard/Abilities PikaRom Blacephalon-GX Zoroark-GX/Persian-GX Green’s ReshiZard Blacephalon UNB Naganadel/Quagsire Weezing Malamar ZapBeasts Granbull You’ll notice that I separated the Ability ReshiZard and Green’s ReshiZard. They have different enough matchups to where I consider them different decks. We saw Ability-based ReshiZard dominate at Madison, while Green’s ReshiZard had significantly less high placements. I expect the trend of Ability ReshiZard seeing more finishes than Green’s ReshiZard to continue through the coming weekends. Going forward, I believe that Blacephalon-GX will see a resurgence in play because of how well it can handle the ReshiZard matchup and not immediately lose to the rest of…
An Exploration of Lost Thunder’s Impact on the Best Decks of 2018 Standard “I mark the secondary tag as Stage 1 because this deck revolves around the utility of Ditto {*}. It effectively allows us to play multiple Stage 1 Pokemon without losing consistency or taking up space. For example, I really would’ve loved to play this in my Zoroark-GX/Banette-GX list. (This is where this is going.) I’d have been able to run it in place of the 2nd Shuppet, most likely, so I could force double Shuppet or double Trubbish in some situations. Now with Lycanroc-GX in the deck, I could force a double Rockruff while also leaving Ditto {*} for something…
It emits psychic energy to observe and study what’s around it—and what’s around it can include things over six miles away. (Orbeetle)
Friday Flyer #6: A Look at Tournament Play Best Practices “When I started this idea of a column a few weeks ago, I planned to hit on Expanded a pretty great deal in this early portion. As it happens, that has turned out to be a bit of a miss—other stuff has been more important, it’s been unavoidable that I talk about Standard, whatever may be. As it happens, October’s scheduling puts us in another spot where I’d have initially discussed Expanded today, but believe the better use of time will instead be to concentrate those efforts on my Tuesday article—there may be some Standard stuff I mix in there,…
A Look at the Worlds Meta, Gardevoir, Gallade, and Decidueye “First, let’s discuss the premises that most of my thinking has stemmed from: Zoroark/Magcargo, Zoroark/Garbodor, Buzzwole/Lycanroc, and Rayquaza decks will make up the majority of the field at Worlds. These four decks are very powerful and can beat almost any deck, even if the specific matchup isn’t the best. Before and at NAIC, Malamar decks were among the top performing decks, but I suspect they will take a sharp dip in play at Worlds. This is for a couple reasons: first, they take a very weak matchup against all the Zoroark decks and even more so against the two listed…
Reviewing the Top Finishers from NAIC with an Eye to Worlds “I think that this deck might not be “the play” for the World Championships, but I also feel that this deck is almost never a bad choice for an event. It is incredibly consistent, and allows more experienced players to take advantage of all the options it has and outplay the opponent. 2 Tapu Lele-GX, 4 Brigette I have been asked about this a lot, so I feel I should address it here. Having the 4th Brigette instead of the fourth Tapu Lele-GX slightly increases your chance of using Brigette on the first turn of the game. This is because you…
On Best Finish Limits and Barometers of “Best” in the Pokémon TCG Championship Series “Now, from the top, I want to be clear: I do not aim to take a position, nor do I personally really have a position, on whether it is “right” that a player earn an invitation to the World Championships one way or another. I do strongly believe that the people crowing it’s “beneficial to good players to have more (worse) players on Day 1” are naive in their evaluation—if you told me I needed to go 4-2 against 6 of the 54 Day 2 invitees we’ll have this year or 7-2 against the field of Day 1 invitees we’ll have…
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Jimmy’s Look at Drampa and Lucario for Expanded and the Best Decks in Standard “This is a deck that I have loved in Expanded for quite a while now, and it is pretty much all my friends and I have been using in the format. We have had a decent amount of success with the deck, so I certainly felt like it was worth a try when Forbidden Light game out. I am still a huge fan of the deck, as it still feels like I can beat almost anything with the deck. While my games are very close most of the time, I like to leave the games in my hand by playing…
This Pokémon was born from sweet-smelling particles in the air. Its body is made of cream. (Milcery)
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