Jimmy O’Brien
Author Archive
Influences on Deck Selection and Vespiquen/Zoroark at US Nationals “This is the order in which I came to know about decks that did well in other countries that were using the same Standard format as US Nationals. I knew that I needed to sit down and pilot these decks to understand their weaknesses, and perhaps in the process I’d be swayed enough to actually play them. Some players are overly dismissive of the results of foreign countries’ Nationals, but overconfidence is a far worse point of origin than championship deck lists. Pablo Meza Alonso won Mexican Nationals with this list. I’ve had the pleasure of knowing Pablo for years…
A Fruitful Run with Vespiplume, Then vs. Now, True Grit, and the Value in Persistence “Other than believing I’d have positive matchups, why Vespiquen/Vileplume? If you follow me or my writing on SixPrizes, it’s no surprise that I’d choose another deck that plays Vespiquen: The deck got some new tools in Generations The dominance of Night March had helped to narrow the metagame Puzzle of Time is a format-changing Item card Vileplume from Undaunted was a card I used to great effect My Standard list from City Championships that I mentioned in my “Fox Trot” article left me wanting something more. Here it is for easy reference: So there are certain things about this list…
Five Methods for Evaluating New Cards and Uncovering Opportunities at State Championships “Compared to the other methods of analysis I’m going to address, understanding reprints isn’t as deep as the others. In part, that’s what makes it the perfect place to begin. The reprints are cards we’ve seen before — exact copies — but the metagame in which they exist may be slightly or wholly different. A pretty substantial disclaimer is needed here — the game of Pokémon has been around long enough, that sometimes old cards that were excellent simply aren’t good enough anymore. Hitmonchan and Electabuzz from Base Set were reprinted in Stormfront without fanfare, but when Energy Removal 2…
A First-Hand Evaluation of the Zigzag Approach to City Championships “In a given cycle of Regionals, the average player only participates in one Regional Championship. If they make the second day, and play out all of their rounds, that makes for 14 rounds of Swiss. Add in three more rounds of top cut, and it’s possible to play 51 total games over the weekend with one deck. This is exactly the time for a hedgehog mentality. Play that one deck, and play it very well. By comparison, during City Championships, there will be plenty of competitive players making it out to 12 or more events. For Masters Division players, that will frequently mean…
A Comprehensive Field Guide to Vespiquen “I was motivated by a lot of different players to recognize the potential of Flareon — the precursor of Vesquipen — starting over a year ago playing fun games against Brit Pybas at a Regional Championship. Flareon’s Vengeance does 20 damage plus 10 more damage for each Pokémon in your discard pile. To get a lot of Pokémon in the discard, Brit’s Flareon deck didn’t have the effective and dynamic means (e.g. Battle Compressor, Shaymin-EX) we do today. He had discussed the deck with Jason Klaczynski, and it was clear to me after a handful of games that this deck was…
Highly intelligent but also very lazy, it keeps enemies out of its territory by laying traps everywhere. (Drizzile)
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