Brandon Cantu
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Top 10 Picks for Philadelphia Regionals & Honorable Mentions “The first deck I want to talk about is the Groudon deck piloted by Stefan Tabaco to top 8 in Phoenix, shown above. Every time there is a Regional in the West Coast it seems like Stefan is finding a way to make Groudon viable. He ran a very unique list with a slim Groudon line and plenty of techs. The deck does run 4 copies of Korrina as well as 4 Tropical Beach in order to aid you in finding your 2 copies of Groudon-EX quickly. The 2 Regirock are great at getting back Stadiums as well as stalling with Focus…
11th Place Phoenix Regionals Report and Plays for Orlando “Phoenix was the very first Regionals of the season. Everyone expected a mix of the same decks from past Regionals with a Vileplume Toolbox deck or two thrown in here and there. I arrived in Phoenix early on Friday morning to get in some test games with friends and get a read on what everyone was playing. The majority of people I talked to were playing some kind of Yveltal variant. This made me lean heavily towards Mega Rayquaza but I was very wary of having a terrible Night March matchup. Mega Rayquaza’s poor Night March matchup ultimately eliminated it from being a possibility. I did…
Volcanion, Mega Scizor, Mega Mewtwo, and Vespiquen … Plumebox, Yveltal, and Ho-Oh/Ninja Boy “Upcoming Standard Events Pre-Evolutions: Orlando Regionals — Oct. 15–16 Post-Evolutions: Fort Wayne Regionals — Nov. 26–27 I saw this deck being played by many of the Japanese players — such as Masataka Hirano — at the World Championships. It even managed to take two spots in top 16. This is my take on the deck. This deck’s strategy is very simple. You discard Energy with Volcanion-EX for added damage and then accelerate them with Volcanion STS to your other attackers. This deck is one of the fastest decks in the format in my opinion. It can do 120 damage turn 1…
Three Lock Decks for Worlds and a Few Future Faves “I have not discussed this deck since State Championships but I do think it has potential to make a deep run at Worlds. My friend Max Armitage played a similar list at Nationals and netted a record of 5-3-1. His only losses were to 2 Metal decks and 1 Night March/Vespiquen deck. Those are not the best of matchups for Wailord but Max told me he still had potential to win against them and even managed to take a game off the Night March/Vespiquen deck. Some of the card choices might not be clear so I will take a moment…
Night March and Decks That Can Beat Night March “Pokemon Ranger will be the most meta-impacting card from the new set since we are not getting Karen. This card makes Night March even better than it already was. Pokemon Ranger deals with four of Night March’s biggest threats: Seismitoad-EX, Giratina-EX, Jolteon-EX, and Jirachi XY67. I feel these cards are nearly unplayable now because of Pokemon Ranger. Pokemon Ranger also nullifies a few decks that performed very well at US Nationals. Waterbox takes the biggest hit from Pokemon Ranger since many of the deck’s win conditions are met by effects of attacks that lock opponents out of the game. Another deck that…
It stashes berries in its tail—so many berries that they fall out constantly. But this Pokémon is a bit slow-witted, so it doesn’t notice the loss. (Greedent)
Three for This Weekend, the Next, the One After That, and Fates Collide Gains “This was one of the new decks that BREAKpoint gave us. The deck has been making strong showings in Standard ever since its win in Florida. This deck is no longer under the radar and I expect it to be even more popular in Expanded. This is a good deck to keep in your playtesting circles as I would expect to play against it at least one or two times at Regionals. This is the Aaron Tarbell’s list that won Florida for reference. Many people advocate adding Head Ringer to deal with Sky Return looping. I actually do not support…
The Top 10 Picks for Week 2 of State Championships “Mega Manectric I want to point out that even though Manectric did the fourth best at State Championships this past weekend, it does not make my top 10. The reason for this is that I do not feel it has a particularly strong matchup spread. It has trouble against anything that techs in Gallade and it even has trouble with Night March. It has favorable matchups against Seismitoad and Trevenant decks but I do not think that is enough for it to merit a spot on my list. Trevenant Trevenant did not perform very well during Week 1 of State Championships. The…
A Template to Teching and Night March for Regionals “This is a basic version of the Night March list I posted in my previous article. I’ll go through the steps on how I got to the final product. The first thing I do when deciding when to add techs is to look at what cards are nonessential for the deck to function. Essential: Pokemon & Energy All Pokemon in this deck are essential for it to function. Jirachi Promo — unlike the other Pokemon — will not be used every game, but I would not consider it a tech card due to how much weaker this deck is without it. Jirachi…
Polar Decks for Winter Regionals and BREAKpoint Standouts “I covered this deck in my last article so I won’t go into too much detail here. I do feel this deck is still very strong and it fits perfectly into the type of decks I want to cover. It has near autowins against Vespiquen/Flareon, Manectric-EX decks, and Night March. Its really bad matchups include Blastoise, Seismitoad/Crobat, and Mega Rayquaza. Yveltal is an even to slightly unfavorable matchup. Vespiquen/Flareon was the most popular deck throughout City Championships and should remain quite popular at Winter Regionals, making Landy/Bats a solid play. I also expect Sableye/Gabodor to see much more play at…
Back-to-Back Runner-up Reports, A Fiery Standout, and Some Potential Plays “I had only attended Houston Regionals this season prior to this tournament. As a result I was not sure what to expect. I turned to a few of my friends to see what they were thinking about playing and what had been played at previous League Challenges. They told me that Manectric variants had been very popular and they were thinking about playing Yveltal/Gallade and Yveltal/Regirock. I wanted to pick something safe and consistent for the first week of Cities. My first choice was Night March since its Manectric matchup was favorable and it did not have many particularly bad matchups. Here is the list…
Highly intelligent but also very lazy, it keeps enemies out of its territory by laying traps everywhere. (Drizzile)
Surprise Decks and Techs for Standard and Expanded City Championships “There have not been any major tournaments played in the Standard format for us to get an idea of what will be most heavily played. I do see some of the most popular decks being M Manectric variants, Vespiquen variants, Gengar/Trevenant, Magnezone/Raikou, Wobbuffet/Crobat, and Lucario/Crobat. There are still many other decks in the format but I believe these will be the most popular. This brings me to the first deck I will be going over … This deck’s strategy is to devolve Milotic every turn with Porygon-Z’s first attack, Digital Reboot. Digital Reboot lets you devolve as many of your Benched…
Though it has a gentle disposition, it’s also very strong. It will quickly freeze the snowball on its head before going for a headbutt. (Galarian Darmanitan)
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