Alex Schemanske
Author Archive
A Close Look at Cinccino Mill, Early in the UPR–SSH/Standard Format “This deck recently saw a lot of success in Japan’s smaller events, but I always take those results with more than one grain of salt. Their structure is different than ours and they have different styles of decks that they like to play, but I think Cinccino Mill blurs the line here quite a bit. I had actually been testing the deck before seeing these results, but some of their lists certainly gave me ideas to make mine better. The strategy with this deck is pretty simple. You need to deck your opponent out before they win. Make Do is the new Trade…
My T8 Regirock/Sableye from Dallas, Ideas for Adapting It to BLW–SSH (for Collinsville), and a Sword & Shield Set Review “Michael Catron sent me a list that he had just thought of on Thursday morning, and after talking about it some, I was very intrigued by it and decided that I would put all the time I had before Dallas into testing the deck and optimizing the list. I only made a few changes to the list he sent me because I was unable to even begin testing the deck until Friday at around noon, but the changes I did make likely made the difference between a very good finish and an alright one. In my testing, we were consistently…
What I Learned from the Iowa Marathon, a Pre-Dallas Tier List, and Turbo Dark (My Top Play for Dallas) “At the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020, we saw “marathons” of League Cups occur across the country. Some of these were Standard-only, some were Expanded-only, and some were a mix of both formats. I chose to attend the one in Iowa because it was within driving distance and fully Expanded. I did alright, netting 125 “fake” (Stipend) CP and a whopping 10 Invite CP. During that week, I witnessed something that I haven’t seen since the end of the City Championship era with their own marathon weeks: A local meta that shifted and developed based on the…
A First Look at M Rayquaza-EX for BLW–CEC, Expanded, Dallas “This card was good when it came out. Now that it has more support like Triple Acceleration Energy and Magearna UPR, it has a way to hit 270 on turn 1. I have been grinding games with this for a while and it has actually been standing up to the format rather well. Even the single-Prize decks like Ultra Necrozma are very beatable. There are way too many cards in this format with Abilities that would singlehandedly prevent us from winning the game. Sudowoodo GRI is the biggest one, but things like Xurkitree-GX and Keldeo-GX can also cause us issues.…
Beedrill/Pidgeotto for San Diego and Daytona Beach Analysis “I think we can all agree that GardEon was the surprise deck this weekend. I expected high counts of Doll Stall and Mewtwo, which definitely happened. Xander breathed new life into ADP, something that many of us wrote off as a less than stellar deck. ADP was a great meta call, and the players with the best list were rewarded for it. However, GardEon managed to sneak through all of the Blacephalon UNB and Pidgey to secure another Regional win. I do not think that GardEon is a very good deck. It was alright for this event because of all…
Its thick and fluffy fur protects it from the cold and enables it to use hotter fire moves. (Raboot)
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…
Cosmic Eclipse Highlights and Malamar for LAIC “Cosmic Eclipse is one of the most impactful sets that we’ve seen in a long time. In a format that lacks a lot of consistency cards, and has issues with single-Prize decks gaining any real traction beyond Malamar, Cosmic Eclipse adds so many game-changing cards. For instance, we had no way to recover Pokemon from the discard pile that isn’t a Supporter card. Now, we have an Item that does it (Lana’s Fishing Rod). There’s a lot of cards in this set, and quite a few of them are going to see play to some extent in both formats. Okay.…
The Alien Beheeyem/Zoroark/Walls for Richmond “A couple of weeks ago, I was sitting in a hallway about to take a midterm, and about 15 minutes before it started, this idea just came into my head. Naturally, instead of continuing to study, I started to think about this list, and after a lot of testing, this is where I landed with it. The theory behind this deck is that you use Beheeyem to Item lock, then switch into a wall such as Pyroar or Honchkrow-GX. Then Zoroark provides the incredibly powerful draw engine the deck needs to be able to find Beheeyem pieces every turn. Honchkrow-GX…
Spiritomb/Ultra Beasts (History, Lists, Cards, and Matchups) for Richmond “Before I do anything else, I feel like it’s necessary to explain how this deck came about. Way back before Origins last year, my friend Wes Hollenberg and I were trying to build something for Expanded League Cups that wasn’t meta and was more fun than anything else. So naturally, we built some nonsense Vespiquen deck. Our first game on PTCGO’s ladder, and our opponent opens 4 Spiritomb and immediately drops Black Market {*}. I quickly scooped that game, but the idea of Spiritomb got stuck in my head, and we drafted up a list (the PTCGO one that we…
Living in mud with a high iron content has given it a strong steel body. (Galarian Stunfisk)
All About Malamar (List, Matchups, Techs) for Knoxville, Cups, and Challenges “The biggest surprise coming out of Atlantic City was the failure of ReshiZard—in any form—to make Top 8 (or even Top 16). Almost nobody could have seen this coming because of how inherently powerful the deck is. I suspect that the lack of a Top 8 spot can be attributed to the fact that very few notable players actually played the deck, with most of the “top” players opting to play PikaRom and Mew Box instead. Both of these decks have legitimate shots at beating ReshiZard, so that decision made sense. ReshiZard’s numbers will probably start to decline, but I…
My Predicted Meta for Atlantic City and the Perfect (Maybe) Ability ReshiZard “Unfortunately, I don’t know enough about Europe or Latin America to be able to make a prediction on what those player bases will play in Cologne and São Paulo. The format hasn’t changed much since Worlds, but people’s perceptions on certain decks has. Ability ReshiZard was almost completely ignored by Americans, and that was an oversight. Now, most would say that it is the BDIF. Quagsire/Naganadel also emerged from the DC Open as a threat to be reckoned with, but after playing with and against it, I have to say that it isn’t a great deck. But what does this…
What Sheffield’s Results Mean for AC/Köln/SP and My Current Top Play (Mew Box) + Matchups “At Sheffield we saw GardEon take the win, which, based on the reactions I have seen across the internet, was rather unexpected. I am not overly surprised that the deck won an event because all it takes is one of in the field them avoiding Ability ReshiZard enough times to make it into Top 8. According to David Ferreira, he hit Ability ReshiZard four times during the event and finished with a record of 0-2-2 against it. This means that he beat literally every other deck he played against. That’s pretty scary. Another interesting fact is that Mewtwo Box managed…
My Top Pick (ReshiZard Minus Scoop Ups) and Crazy Rogue (Cryogonal Control) for Sheffield “This is currently my favorite deck in the format because of how ridiculously strong it is. I don’t believe that it takes any matchup worse than 50/50, and it takes favorable matchups against the biggest decks in the game. If I was in Sheffield this weekend, I would almost certainly be playing this deck. This list is basically the one that Tord used without Super Scoop Ups. I found them to be rather useless and opted to play cards that I have found to be game-changers if found. This is essentially a mirror tech for when you end up going…
An In-Depth Look at MimiGar (Gengar & Mimikyu-GX/Omastar TEU)—Worlds List, Card Choices, Potential Inclusions, and Matchups “This is the list that I finally settled on playing in Day 2. A couple of my friends played similar lists in Day 1, but unfortunately, neither of them ended up making Day 2. When I was sent the initial list on Wednesday night, I was super intrigued and I set about optimizing it. I’ve actually been questioned over this choice by multiple people. Everyone assumes that your game plan in every matchup is to establish the lock, which then translates to “why not more Omastar/Fossil?” Well, there are really only three matchups where establishing the lock is necessary to…
It’s usually peaceful, but the vandalism of mines enrages it. Offenders will be incinerated with flames that reach 2,700 degrees Fahrenheit. (Coalossal)
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