Zacian/LucaMetal, Learning Lines of Play, the Players Cup, Growing as a Player, and on Using Articles “Before anything else, I feel the need to briefly touch on the subject of the Players Cup. The qualifying system itself is terrible, and requires an undetermined amount of Event Tickets on PTCGO, rather than any semblance of skill, to earn a spot in the Online Qualifiers. There’s also this tiny little issue with the leaderboards not showing all of our earned “Tournament Rep.” For me at least, it doesn’t show around 66% of my Rep, and I’ve seen and heard of similar numbers throughout the community. However, this is actually not a huge problem in my opinion. If everyone…
On ReshiZard’s Dominance, the (Mostly) Failed Attempts to Counter ReshiZard, and a Potential Savior, Malamar, in Two Flavors (Standard and Techy) “So far in the Unbroken Bonds era, we have seem ReshiZard dominate even more so than PikaRom did in the previous quarter. Despite the fact that Azul fell short vs. Ian Robb’s Blacephalon-GX deck in the final at Madison, I’m a firm believer that that matchup is as 50/50 as it gets, since 6 Energy in play isn’t exactly easily accomplished twice in back-to-back turns. Having said that, Blacephalon-GX decks will gain some traction and confidence after the Madison Regionals result, and I would not be surprised if they had a solid presence at the events taking place this weekend.…
Georgia Regionals Recap, Decks by Play Style for Nats, and Format Predictions “Leading into this tournament, I was very confused about what decks would actually perform well with Roaring Skies just coming out. Shaymin-EX ROS would definitely show up in large quantities because the card is simply amazing. The ability to draw through your deck so quickly just can’t be ignored. I assumed there would also be a massive amount of Seismitoad-EX decks, along with many Trevenant XY/Shaymin-EX decks following behind. Based on my prediction, along with previous success with Primal Groudon-EX in some tournaments, I decided to play a very straightforward Primal Groudon-EX/Wobbuffet PHF deck. Primal Groudon-EX can handle all of the…
The Emergence of Pyroar and Analysis of 11 Competitive Decks “Yveltal/Garbodor Yveltal/Raichu Pyroar/Charizard Pyroar/Landorus/Mewtwo Plasma: Lugia Plasma: TDK RayBoar Empoleon/Miltank Flygon/Dusknoir/Accelgor Kangaskhan/Fairies Virizion/Genesect Conclusion It suffices to say that this deck deserves to be spoken about first. It has been widely hailed as the best deck by many. The topic has been beaten to death by writers and players alike. This deck and its variants will cover a massive portion of the field for obvious reasons, namely that it is a safe play. This deck will top cut. It has few terrible matchups. It is quick, consistent, and has an unlimited damage capacity. For some players, the debate will be…
It eats snow that piles up on the ground. The more snow it eats, the bigger and more impressive the spikes on its back grow. (Snom)