Dylan Bryan
Author Archive
The Flying Elephant, Meek Mill, and Snail’s Pace (Alternative Options for Fall Regionals) “Although it’s been a while since I’ve gotten a chance to play Donphan, it’s always a deck that’s on the back of my mind. Ever since losing to Seismitoad/Crobat at back-to-back States with Donphan, I’ve dismissed the deck as too risky for the metagame. However, it may finally be time to bring everybody’s favorite elephant back in the format: The Concept Out of all the decks I’ll be discussing, this deck has the least amount of innovation. However, I’m fairly confident that it will work since it’s so similar to Donphan builds I’ve achieved success with in the past. Donphan…
What to Expect for Fall Regionals, Eight Ways to Tech Vespiquen, and Attacking from All Angles “History has shown that players are very fond of Quaking Punch. Since its release last year, players have found success with Seismitoad-EX in various forms all season. With such a huge card pool, Seismitoad/Giratina becomes a very attractive deck for players to default to because a proven list is readily available and Seismitoad-EX is a card anybody with minimal prior Expanded experience is familiar with. I’m confident that even if it wasn’t the best deck, it would see a significant amount of play for those reasons alone. However, Seismitoad/Giratina is a force to be reckoned with and what I consider…
‘It Only Looks Like a Dropped Binder’ Worlds Recap and Expanded Frontrunners “I somehow ended up with another “binder-drop” deck this year at Worlds. My friend Jit Min had been testing different Raichu variants on and off against me since US Nationals. These variants suffered from the same problem that many of the decks I was working on heading into Worlds; it was impossible to exploit the weaknesses of every deck in the format because there was too much variety to prepare for and not enough deck space. The deck basically sacrificed the extra damage from Crobat in exchange for deck space in an effort to become more of a toolbox-esque Raichu…
Shifting Gears, Feelin’ Froggy, the Grounding Force, and the Lurkers “While I wasn’t as prepared for US Nationals as I would have liked, choosing to play Klinklang wasn’t an accident and I still had a solid grasp on the format thanks to my pre-Canadian Nationals testing. I arrived at US Nationals expecting a ton of Raichu, but it seemed like the majority of players were afraid of Raichu and wanted to make sure their deck could beat it instead. I saw a bunch of Metal variants, Manectric, some Landorus/Crobat, some Seismitoad, and heard whispers about Kyogre potentially seeing play. After finding Kyogre/Ninetales too clunky and testing some Flygon variants with…
Breaking Down the Post-Trump Card, Pre-North American Nationals Metagame “At first glance, Groudon/Dragonite seems like a deck that should be relegated to PTCGO. It appears clunky, inconsistent, and gimmicky, but really fun when it works. After testing the format with Shaymin-EX ROS quite a bit, Seismitoad-EX variants were certainly insane, but I just couldn’t create a Trevenant deck I was happy with. It struggled even more against Manectric-EX than Seismitoad-EX decks from testing, so with Seismitoad decks having the most hype and the assumption that players would also find Seismitoad to be the superior Item lock deck in testing, I began to search for a counter. I wanted something that beat…
It eats berries nonstop—a habit that has made it more resilient than it looks. It’ll show up on farms, searching for yet more berries. (Skwovet)
Bringing Back Donphan, Eyeing Up Exeggutor, and Looking Ahead at Rayquaza/Shaymin “Donphan quickly went from a deck everyone was excited to try during Fall Regionals to a deck everyone was sick of playing against a few weeks into City Championships. Eventually the deck faded in popularity due to Yveltal/Hard Charm, Seismitoad variants with healing cards, and Aromatisse variants. I was a bit disappointed since I still found the deck enjoyable to play and thought it required a bit more depth than simply using Spinning Turn like some people seem to believe. After Donphan won a State Championship the first weekend when paired with Primal Groudon-EX, I was excited to pick the…
What We Learned from Week 1, or the Front Runners for Florida Regionals “Landorus/Crobat Night March Manectric/Suicune Gardevoir/Aromatisse Hyped Cards of Primal Clash Conclusion The Shift to Landorus/Crobat From my experience, Landorus/Crobat struggled the most with the defensive Yveltal/Hard Charm variants and Seismitoad variants that played healing cards such as Super Scoop Up. In every other matchup the deck was very strong once it managed to get a couple of Zubat and a Fighting attacker into play. Yveltal/Hard Charm is hard for Landorus/Crobat to trade with efficiently due to a combination of Hard Charm, Fighting Resistance, and other healing cards making it difficult to even two-shot an opposing Yveltal-EX. However, the deck only came into the…
The Cities Metagame and the Two Most Pliable Plays “The Metagame Virizion/Genesect Night March Aromatisse and Bronzong Variants Seismitoad Variants Pyroar Yveltal Variants Donphan Conclusion The first weekend of City Championships is usually the most chaotic. There are a lot of different cards from the new set being hyped and nobody knows exactly what to expect, rather they only have a general idea. I think this is really exciting because you get to see tons of variety and witness cards you overlooked perform well and in the end the best decks rise to the top. This year, the standout deck was Donphan with the most wins and both Virizion/Genesect…
Discussing the 2015 World Championships Invite Structure “Who Deserves an Invite? The New System Tournament Structure Other Concerns Conclusion I think it’s important to take a step back and take a look at the goals in mind when deciding on the invite structure for Worlds. It seems reasonable to say that the goal of Worlds is to have the best players from various regions come together and play for the title of World Champion. So then, what’s the best way to do this? There has to be some kind of system in place to determine which players are the best in each region. In the case of…
All About the Top 8 1st Seed Philadelphia Regionals Lists “Elephant in the Room Preparing for Expanded Paralysis Analysis Conclusion I feel the best way to explain how to play Donphan is to go over a card-by-card analysis of the deck. Every card serves a very specific purpose and it’s difficult to play the deck correctly if you don’t know why a certain card is in the deck. After a lot of testing, this is the list I ended up playing: 4-4 Donphan PLS The main strategy of the deck is to use Spinning Turn with Donphan and bring up the most annoying Pokémon for your opponent to deal with.…
Leaving leftover black tea unattended is asking for this Pokémon to come along and pour itself into it, turning the tea into a new ___________. (Polteageist)
Breaking the 2007-2008 Format “It’s really easy to say that you want to play your own “rogue” deck at huge tournament and achieve success, but it’s very difficult to do in practice. Players try to pick out the strongest cards when every new set comes out, test them, and the cards that perform well in a tournament setting become part of the metagame. Sometimes the format has tons of variety, but in 2007-2008 the format was dominated by two decks. The best first step I’ve found in coming up with a “rogue” deck in a narrow format is to look for an overlapping weakness…
A Couple Decks to Combat Seismitoad-EX “Seismitoad Virizion/Genesect Aromatisse Conclusion Seismitoad/Garbodor in some form appears to be the deck to beat, and I believe the deck list that Jay Hornung provided in his article is a great starting point. But what exactly makes Seismitoad so threatening? It seems that locking Items isn’t that big a deal when Seismitoad is only doing 30 damage per turn with Quaking Punch. 1. A turn 1 Item lock can shut certain decks out of the game. This is especially true for Stage 2 decks, since Quaking Punch stops Rare Candy along with all the Items that let you search for…
What Not to Play, the Frontrunners, and Cards to Watch Out For “What Not to Play The Frontrunners Cards to Watch Out For Conclusion Blastoise The general consensus seems to be that Flashfire didn’t do Blastoise any favors. Blastoise has always struggled against Virizion/Genesect, a deck that certainly isn’t going anywhere. In addition, Druddigon FLF is easily splashable in Yveltal or any deck that struggles to deal with Black Kyurem-EX PLS. As a result, Blastoise is left with no good matchups, while struggling against Yveltal/Garbodor/Druddigon and Virizion/Genesect decks. Blastoise always seems to see some play, but I really can’t think of a reason to take it into a big event like Nationals.…
The Spring Regionals 2014 Metagame Prospectus “What to Look for in a Deck States Week 2 – “Branching Out” States Week 3 – “Smelling Good” The Metagame Prospectus Conclusion 1. Pick a deck with good matchups, or pick a deck that is difficult to play against. Playing a deck with good matchups sets you up for success before a single card is drawn. It’s a great feeling sitting down at the table knowing that it’s your game to lose. It’s a lot easier to make Top Cut if you play against several favorable matchups and several even matchups, rather than use a deck with all even…
What XY Means for Dragonite, Darkrai, and Plasma “Dragonite Darkrai Plasma Conclusion Going into Regionals I was having trouble narrowing down what to play. I really liked Darkrai/Garbodor, but it struggled a lot with Virizion/Genesect. Plasma was my safe choice since it didn’t seem to have any bad matchups, but it also didn’t seem to have any good matchups either. This meant that if all my opponents played optimally, I would only win about half my games. This caused me to look for something else to play. The night before the tournament I decided to throw together Dragonite/Garbodor/Reuniclus. This idea was inspired by my two friends Jit Min…
In times past, it worked together with a king of the people to save the Galar region. It absorbs metal that it then uses in battle. (Zamazenta)
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