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…
A Discussion on Cubing and Using Tabletop Simulator “If you haven’t downloaded Tabletop Simulator yet, now’s your chance. It’s $20 on Steam, which is entirely worth it if anyone else you know owns it—the fun is in playing with friends. Now, whether it’s creating a deck, cube, or simply messing with cards, the first task is subscribing to RomyKing’s Steam Workshop with all of the card information. Then, when you boot up Tabletop Simulator and create a lobby, you can load it under your list of “Workshops.” If it doesn’t pop up immediately, there’s a tab called “Game” on the upper bar. Once you’ve loaded in, you’ll see…
An Update on Omastar, Advancing to the Top 64 of the North American Players Cup with Omastar/Inteleon VMAX, and Looking Ahead to Darkness Ablaze “I played Omastar/Stonjourner VMAX in the second of the Limitless Qualifiers, which was the last event before the release of Rebel Clash. I ended up at 5-5 before dropping the event. My losses were 2 Malamar variants, 1 Rillaboom, 1 Blacephalon, and 1 ADPZ. The first three losses were largely unavoidable—I had taken Mallow & Lana out of my list in exchange for Crushing Hammers. Mallow & Lana was a considerable help against many Malamar variants. Rillaboom is an autoloss due to Grass Weakness. The losses to Blacephalon and ADPZ can mostly be chalked up to big deltas in the…
An Introduction to Flygon/Torterra (aka Flyterra), the Missing Link of the 2010 DP–UL Format “Some Modified formats were better than others, and some of those formats have been more fondly remembered than the rest. What makes one format better than another is a topic for a different day, but I believe there is no denying that it is the case that some formats are just better and more fun to play. The allure of what made those formats so great has led to a growing movement within the Pokemon community to “go back in time” to play and revisit these formats. One of the most revered Modified formats of all time was DP–UL, which…
An In-Depth Look at Cinccino Mill in the UPR–RCL Format “Part of Mill’s strength as an archetype lies in its ability to adapt to the metagame and survive most shifts in the meta. An example of this is Mill’s adaptation to counter ADP-GX with Zacian V (ADPZ) during the UPR–SSH format. Initially, Mill ran 4 Crushing Hammer, which made the matchup fairly reliant on flipping heads on Crushing Hammers. At this point, Mill had two major questionable matchups: ADPZ and Mewtwo/Malamar. Fire Box was also a threat; however, Fire Box saw a huge fall-off in play as the format developed further. In an attempt to improve its ADPZ matchup, Mill…
It has special pads on the backs of its feet, and one on its nose. Once it’s raring to fight, these pads radiate tremendous heat. (Scorbunny)
An In-Depth Look at the 2010 DP–UL Format, Part 2 “At the end of 2009, Pokemon announced that Worlds would be returning to Kona, Hawaii in 2010. Invites to the World Championships were given to the Top 4 of Worlds 2009, Top X of Nationals 2010 (the US was Top 4; most other countries got fewer invites—paid/unpaid—depending on size), and then the Top 40 in the Elo rating system. The last way to qualify was through the Last Chance Qualifier affectionately called “the grinders” by players. I went in depth on how the Elo system worked and my feelings about the system in my 2011 article. I’ll go ahead and…
Rillaboom VMAX/Rowlet & Alolan Exeggutor-GX for Limitless Q3 “There are a few different ways that you can play with Rillaboom VMAX, Rowlet & Alolan Exeggutor GX, or a combination of both, but after testing pretty extensively since Rebel Clash’s release, this is where I’ve landed. Credit for the list and a lot of the theory behind the archetype goes to Luke Morsa. The primary gameplan of this deck is to use RowEgg-GX’s Super Growth to get an early Rillaboom SSH 14 into play. What you do next largely depends on the matchup and how the first few turns have played out, but thankfully you’ve got a few different options. Against…
The Rebel Clash Up-and-Comers, Including Falinks V, Malamar VMAX, and Lost March Rebooted “To start off, we have Falinks V, a Fighting-typed brute reminiscent of Passimian SUM decks from a couple of formats ago. The deck utilizes Falinks V’s Iron Defense Formation Ability to decrease damage done to your Falinks’ by 20 damage. This pairs incredibly well with your main attacker, another Falinks! This single-Prize version does 30 damage for each of your Benched Falinks. With all 4 Vs and a 5th Falinks on board, you’re attacking for 150 with no other buffs and having damage reduced by 80, effectively giving Falinks at least 170 HP. Even better, the deck sets up incredibly…
The Untapped Potential of Pokémon Research Lab, Omastar TEU, and Stonjourner VMAX “I placed Top 8 at the 2004 World Championship and Top 4 at the 2008 U.S. National Championship. I have won one Regional Championship (2008), two Gym Challenges (2004 and 2005), and seven State Championships (in most of the years leading up to and including my last full season of playing: 2013). I am also very proud of my smaller tournament wins and high placements at various States, Regionals, and Gym Challenges throughout the years. Since December, I have played and placed in a handful of League Cups and Challenges around Portland. I also played in the Collinsville Regional Championship…
A Deep Look into HS–BLW, the Wild-Ride Anything-Goes 2011 Nationals and Worlds Format “If you asked top players what their favorite format to play at the time was, you would get mixed answer. The format was considered highly luck-based, filled with donks and some consistency issues. The randomness and uncertainty of the format caused me to sit out US Nationals that year to make sure I secured my Worlds invite. However, it’s also a very unexplored format which leaves a lot of room for creativity and rogue decks to shine. Many of the reasons I hated playing the Worlds 2011 format at the time are the same reasons I enjoy playing the format…
When ________ is content, the cream it secretes from its hands becomes sweeter and richer. (Alcremie)
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…
Top 8 @ Collinsville w/ Sceptile/Vileplume, Vileplume Variants Moving Forward, and Looking Toward Charlotte “After making Top 8 at Dallas Regionals with the list that my friend Aaron Friedman made, I took a bit of a break from the game until Collinsville. With my invite secured and a big Regional done, I enjoyed my time relaxing and grinding through schoolwork. I played some games of the format before Collinsville, but not a ton. As such, I spent a lot of time Friday night scrambling to figure out what to play. I was between three options: Doll Stall, Trevenant & Dusknoir-GX/Milotic FLF, and, of course, Sceptrow. I didn’t feel as prepared for the event as…
Not Just A Horror Film (A Deep Dive into Pidgeotto Control for UPR–CEC/Standard) “Now I will laboriously walk through our cards and their counts—much of this will touch on matchups, but in the big scheme of things every matchup is the same, so discussing matchups is boring—at some point you will have 1 to 4 Prizes left and you will play (worst-case scenario) Reset Stamp, Lt. Surge’s Strategy, Jessie & James, Jessie & James to reduce your opponent’s hand to 0 cards, Chip-Chip Ice Axe to control their top-deck, and then Cold Crush-GX to strip the Active attacker of Energy. Generally speaking, it doesn’t matter who they are or what they do, your…
Recapping My 2nd Place Rosa ADP List from Daytona Beach “My parents and I decided to head to Florida early for Thanksgiving. We spent some time in the Cape Coral area staying with the Retzloffs and there just so happened to be a League Challenge on Wednesday night. Lacking a better idea, I took the ADP list from my last article and included some of the untested ideas I wanted to mess with. It’s not worth including the full list here, so here are the important inclusions: Absol TEU, Phione CEC Custom Catchers Choice Helmet, Counter Gain Cynthia instead of Lillie Everything else was just the bread-and-butter ADP list that…
Living with a savage, seafaring people has toughened this Pokémon’s body so much that parts of it have turned to iron. (Galarian Meowth)
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