Trusting in the ‘Broken Deck’ and Hot Picks for Memphis Regionals “Like many, my initial curiosity coaxed me into exploring Decidueye-GX/Zoroark-GX first. I played Decidueye-GX decks for almost exclusively after the release of Sun and Moon, so I knew I would have the experience needed to Feather Arrow appropriately. Though never really practicing with Decidueye-GX after losing Forest of Giant Plants, I was not surprised to see that it could have some success. In a format full of Evolutions, it seemed like a natural counter to many decks, and while much of this strength is predicated on the sheer awe of Espeon-EX, Zoroark-GX does make a good partner—albeit the pairing is…
Analyzing the Results from the European International Championship “I am happy to report that I think the game is in an incredibly favorable position. Crimson Invasion, while perceived to be weak initially, saw some decent success this past weekend in London. Buzzwole-GX seemed the biggest breakout to me, as all the hype surrounding the card was paired with Garbodor and the old Po Town/Espeon-EX package, or as a lone tech in decks already playing four Rainbow Energy. Two mono-Fighting made Top 8 and proved most of us skeptics wrong. Landorus-EX, upon its initial release was incredibly strong and preyed on the vulnerabilities of decks that needed to evolve…
Looking at how Zoroark-GX “Trades” in Standard and Expanded “I also cannot help but wonder if the combo could not be better explored in Expanded, where Teammates seems like an obvious and incredible boon to the concept as a whole. I think Mallow + Zoroark is the best way to make it work in Standard, as Travis points out, but that’s considerably worse than just playing a staple supporters like Teammates. For reference, here is the deck list I have been working, inspired by many of Travis’s concoctions: Not much about the list deviates from Travis’s initial concept, and all of the attackers are discussed in his write up.…
Updating Alolan Ninetales-GX, Some League Cup Reports, and Shining Speculation on SLG+CIN “I believe I hinted at this somewhat in my last article, but a large portion of my infatuation with this deck surrounds the fact that Ninetales has historically been my favorite Pokemon. I wanted to try the deck while it was somewhat of a popular choice within the metagame. I talked extensively about this list with Andrew Mahone, who saw a reasonable amount of success with it at some earlier League Cups. I believe the above list is about as perfect as the deck could possibly be. I have continued to refine the deck as much as possible and seem…
Examining Ninetales-GX and Considering the Top Tier of Standard “When trying to predict a metagame, even when one has no prior information about what certain players will be favoring, I think there are a few ways to make safer predictions as to what will be popular. In general, I tend to assume that my area(s) will be on the weaker side or behind in terms of meta-game trends. This is not to say that most these players are bad (though this can certainly be the case), but moreover an observation I have amassed evidence for over my whole career playing in the same area. In my experience, players in the…
Eating a sweet apple caused its evolution. A nectarous scent wafts from its body, luring in the bug Pokémon it preys on. (Appletun)
Thoughts on Fort Wayne Results, Expanded Projections, Shift to Standard, Golisopod Gathering, and Spicy Standard Salazzle “While observing from the sidelines, I was happy to see that most of my predictions about Expanded game to fruition. Though the M Manectric-EX deck I wrote about did not make any sort of appearance (were there any Manectric-EX decks in the entire tournament?), the concept of pairing Garbodor with new things was all over the place. Sableye/Garbodor (which I mentioned) saw Igor Costa and our own Jimmy Pendarvis coast to day 2, and there were a few Seismitoad decks floating around. Gardevoir-GX, my pet project for the event, did expectedly well, but I did not observe any one utilizing…
Brit’s Worlds Run, (re)Making Manectric, and a Tropical Take on Expanded Gardevoir “Here is the list I ended up playing: One last hurrah for Decidueye! These decks will never be the same (if they are able to still exist) in the coming days. We all know the general song and dance of the deck, so I will not dwell on this deck list much, but I will say that I think it was a very smart list—albeit, an over-teched list as well. As we can observe from Benjamin Pham’s 1st place list from the Anaheim Open, consistency was king and so while there are merits for all of the Pokemon included above,…
Garbodor in the Burning Shadows Format, plus Greninja, Volcanion, and Gardevoir for Anaheim “The biggest question mark for me at the moment is whether or not Garbodor will have a presence at the World Championships. While both Garbodor are very likely to be relevant for the entirety of their legality, I cannot help but be skeptical of whether they are worth considering at the moment. I have yet to see a list that seems competitive enough, which is such an interesting shift from the last format. Some of my fellow writers here at Six Prizes have offered up lists for both Espeon/Garbodor and a Drampa-GX toolbox list, and yet neither of them seemed…
Musings and Considerations on Stipends & Structure, with Discussion of Volcanion, Gardevoir, and Metagross “It was my intention to talk about this in my last piece, but I got somewhat sidetracked and then Christopher wrote a longer and better piece on the whole subject matter. In his research, you can find a bulk of the statistics and information regarding who qualified for Worlds this year, how many were able to do it, and the projected turn out for Day 1 in Anaheim. With that in mind, I do not wish to dwell on the mathematics of the event. It is my intention in this section to focus on the ramifications of the current invitation…
Crafting a New Version of Decidueye, Brit’s 2017 NAIC Run, and “Good Not Good” “I think it is very difficult for some players to stomach the notion that other are better than them. This is no doubt (at least in some part) a general psychological response and it is simply hard to stomach propositions such as “simply not good enough” or “my opponent just outplayed me” but I think that acknowledging such an idea is important or even necessary to becoming better players ourselves. For instance, if we use running as an analogy, I do not think anyone would really be upset at the assertion that someone who has been running marathon for years…
Anger has reignited its atrophied flame sac. This Pokémon spews fire everywhere as it rampages indiscriminately. (Galarian Darmanitan)
Teching out Lurantis-GX/Tapu Bulu, Considering its NAIC Playability, and Musings on Meta at Large “To begin the strategy portion of this article, I want to begin by highlighting what I believe to be the clear and distinct tier list for the current. As already discussed above, I think that Espeon and Zoroark will be the most popular decks, but I also believe that in terms of strength, they are also in a class by themselves. Both decks have so many things going for them that I would almost take too much space in this article to discuss each and every one of them, but to be brief, I think that we can simply say…
Adjusting to a More Methodical Format, The Rise (and development) of Zoroark, and Owls Reborn “After Danny Altavilla’s top 4 performance at Madison Regionals, my focus quickly shifted from Lurantis to the new deck. I watched the official stream for most of the event, and Daniel’s list seemed to have minimal difficulty against everything except for the other new contender, Metagross-GX. This problem, I thought, could be easily remedied by adding in Flareon AOR into the deck. Theoretically, this would give the deck a stronger matchup against Metagross, and any Decidueye-GX deck that might still be lingering around. For reference, here is the list that Danny played in Madison (and would go on to win…
Looking at Lurantis, Incorporating Promotional Power, and Seattle Regionals Recap “It was brought to my attention early last week that Lurantis-GX might has what it takes to compete in the current format. My friend and teammate Curtis Lyon took back-to-back first places at his local competitions, but noted at one that he narrowly defeated a Lurantis deck in the finals and thought that the deck had a lot of promise. While the list he faced proved a worthy adversary, it was questionably built. Ironically, stealing cool or under-discussed archetypes and refining the list into something streamlined tends to be a way that Sheep (our team) comes up with a lot of our decks…
Standard Greninja and Thoughts for Toronto “Let us begin by exploring the list I have been working on: There is very little to discuss about the Pokemon count in this list. For the most part, this has been the norm since Steam Siege, and I think that is for good reason. There has been some debate over whether or not Talonflame is needed in the list, but I have argued for its inclusion since the Fall despite the trend somewhat reflecting otherwise. By no means is Talonflame “needed,” but Greninja, as many of are acutely aware, has some natural inconsistency, and I think Taloneflame is simply the…
Learning from Loss, Mailbag, and Top Trio for Brazil “A month ago, I was primarily focused with dealing with the sheer amount of hype that Decidueye/Vileplume carried. Now that time has passed and the format has settled somewhat, I have had time to test out the deck in a competitive environment as well as observe counters arise, and see the deck (expectedly) lose some of its popularity. Somewhat controversially, I remained skeptical of the deck right after the Melbourne International, and I believe that my opinion has been somewhat validated by many of the results we have seen. In a lot of ways, the format did shift to counter Decidueye,…
Its curly fleece is such an effective cushion that this Pokémon could fall off a cliff and stand right back up at the bottom, unharmed. (Wooloo)
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