Michael Slutsky
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Bio: Name’s Michael Slutsky. I’m a graduate of the University of Minnesota, with a History degree. I’m from Minnesota and play in the Midwest, but travel all over. Hit me up if you want to talk!
I’ve recently gotten into streaming and YouTube! My Twitter and Twitch are below, but here are the links to my entire content creation suite! Drop me a like, follow, and subscribe, and I can’t wait to show you guys what I’m working on!
Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/ssky57
Twitter: @SSky57
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SSky-Productions-1887058934876162/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-57DcPAFEOs91zqrygQzpg
Michael Slutsky on The Season’s Road, Expanded Golisopod/Eeveeloutions, and Waterbox Reborn “In my last piece, I discussed how it was likely far too soon for the season to start again—a mere two weeks after Worlds—and how that could cause some serious competitive fatigue. I didn’t really see a problem with starting the Regionals circuit in October, given that there are plenty of weekends throughout the year to host Regionals. Yet here we are, with a major tournament before the school year even starts (at least in Minnesota—and who really cares about anywhere else)! This has put a lot of pressure on players as they frantically switch gears from a one-of format…
Introducing Expanded Beyond the Bans and Looking at Espeon/Garbodor & Gardevoir for Ft. Wayne “As I mentioned above, I think it’s mildly comical that many are already setting their sights on Ft. Wayne. From an untrained eye, it would almost look like we’re dogs chasing cars: all eyes are focused on actually getting to Worlds, and now that Worlds is here…it’s time to focus on next year! This is mostly a joke, of course, as I know the most important priority for players at this time is to do well at Worlds, but the tournament date of Ft. Wayne—two weeks after Worlds concludes—is still incredibly sudden. TPCi seems to be shifting the season into…
Michael Slutsky on Constructing, Drafting, and Executing a Pokémon TCG Cube Draft “As I’m sure many in the community have noticed, Cube Drafts have seen a spike in popularity in recent years. Like many concepts, this one is also borrowed from Magic: The Gathering. In layman’s terms, a Cube Draft is literally a custom-made format, with the Cube’s architects in charge of every card choice, drafting procedure, and rule set. They are a collection of specifically chosen cards to be played only against each other, similar to Dominion or other DBGs; players need not input their own cards (other than occasionally Basic Energy), as doing so ruins the point of the Cube.…
Thoughts on the new Expanded and Standard Formats, plus a first look at Volcanion, Gardevoir, and Metagross in BKT-on “I’ve been relatively shy about my thoughts on Expanded, keeping quiet while the discussion on the format (and the game in general) raged this past season. I personally felt that Expanded was a diverse and healthy format- Expanded has been an absolute dumpster fire of a format and I freakin’ hated it with a seething passion. It was abject trash and anyone who thought otherwise was, quite frankly, wrong. Then, this past week, TPCi published an update to Expanded’s banlist, finally making due on their ancient promise of actually monitoring that format for unhealthy combos. As I’m sure many of…
Focusing on a Fantastic Frog Formula and Gauging Greninja’s General Odds of Glory “Greninja is probably the oldest deck in the current Standard format, being one of the few virtually untouched by the rotation of the first block of XY sets. Originally released last year in Breakpoint, Greninja had mild success in a format suffocated by Night March. Greninja had a relatively positive matchup against the top deck, as it was able to score multiple prizes in a single turn against the tiny Marchers, and thanks to Rough Seas, could fend off Trevenant as well. The problem came from the fact that N was not yet rereleased into the game, making the lists clunky…
Via the protrusion on its head, it senses other creatures’ emotions. If you don’t have a calm disposition, it will never warm up to you. (Hatenna)
Analyzing the Format Shift from Seattle to Madison and Decks to Consider Looking Ahead to Mexico “As the first Regionals in the PRC-GRI format, Seattle had the responsibility of showing us what meta decks were strong and which were smoke. What we got was unprecedented. Garbodor, man. To my knowledge, there has never been a such a commanding performance by a single deck, occupying an impossible 75% of Top 32. Gardevoir/Gallade is the only reasonable comparison, but even then, I’m not sure even it reached those levels. I don’t know the overall meta from Day 1, but I imagine that it had to be at least over 50%, which is likewise shocking. Decidueye/Vileplume, at its peak…
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Volcanion/Turtonator, Wishiwashi (?!) and Metagross for Seattle “Everyone was in agreement that Tapu Lele and Field Blower would change the game immediately upon release, and I too felt that when I originally wrote about them. For the first time this season, my optimism has been rewarded! It is normal for the game to have its better formats at the end of the season, at Nats/Worlds time, strictly because the card pool is largest then. While it’s no different here, the quality of our May set has been leaps and bounds above years of previous May sets. The amount of rogue potential buried in this massive set is…
Further Exploration of Guardians Rising “Victini This is another spiritual reprint, this time of “Fliptini” from Noble Victories. It has a bit more HP and a slightly stronger attack this time around, but you’re really here to flip coins. Fliptini saw virtually no competitive play whatsoever the last time, and I don’t really expect it to see much this time either. This is wholly dependent on the flip effects in the format, of course, but none jump out at me immediately compatible. Chandelure This is another in a long line of damage manipulation abilities. This time, Chandelure moves one counter from any one Pokemon to another,…
Guardians Rising Preview Pt. 1 “In my last article, I gushed over Guardians Rising. This set is really going to change the game, and I think it’ll be strictly for the better. Last time, I had the pleasure of covering Tapu Lele-GX and Field Blower, the two best cards in the set. I won’t be covering them again here because you can check out my previous article, but here’s a summary of my thoughts in case you missed it: These are the single two best cards Pokemon has created since Shaymin-EX, unquestionably. Last time it was easy to talk shop, because I only had two cards to worry about. This time, I’ve got what seems like…
Guardians Rising Preview and Cosmic Dream Team “#1: Tapu Lele-GX If you’ve been living under a rock up to this point and don’t know what this card does, here’s the translation (per Bulbapedia): …Wow. I mean, uh, wow. This card is…actually insane! Its ability is the same as Jirachi-EX’s, which has largely been an Expanded staple since Lysandre was printed! It. Is. Incredible. For starters, the release of this card sends a clear indication that Shaymin’s time with us is finally (and thankfully) coming to an end. Tapu Lele-GX provides a much more stable consistency boost to a deck, without the blistering speed. This means that the…
This Pokémon has slumbered for many years. Some say it’s Zamazenta’s elder sister—others say the two Pokémon are rivals. (Zacian)
Salt Lake City Surprises and Discussion on Matchup-Based Formats “In Greninja’s case, the answer is the same as it’s always been: Greninja can beat almost any deck when set up, and against most EX decks, it shines, trading incredibly favorably: Turbo Dark, Volcanion, Lapras and Rayquaza are all matchups where Greninja shines…assuming you don’t brick. In almost every match, you’ll go down early, N, then mount a comeback and win. While Vileplume isn’t actually too much of a problem for Greninja (it has historically always had a strong Plume matchup), the combination of Vileplume and Decidueye is more than enough to put that deck out of commission…or so we thought!…
Volcanion, Groudon, and Night March for Portland plus an Honest Discussion on the State of the Game “Volcanion is a deck that has received widespread attention in Standard, though very little attention in Expanded, up until St. Louis. This is a little ironic to me as I believe that Volcanion has consistently been a mediocre play in Standard, in spite of its victory in Melbourne (more on this below), yet has been a heavily underrated play in Expanded. This is almost singularly due to Blacksmith, which not only changes the entire structure of the deck, but also turns Volcanion’s Ability into a consistent and self-sustaining one. I had been briefly testing the deck to surprisingly good results…
Decidueye, Turbo Dark, Dark/Garb, Waterbox, and Mega Rayquaza for Anaheim Regionals “One thing I stressed in my last article was that the lists and ideas were conceptual rather than concrete. The headliner of my last article was Vespiquen/Decidueye, a deck I felt was an initially strong contender: theory and early testing showed a powerful deck that traded very favorably with a lot of Evolution-based decks, though one mired by slight inconsistency issues with the departure of the crucial Battle Compressor. As I tested it more, I came to the unfortunate realization that Vespiquen/Decidueye is unfortunately not as strong as I originally thought, and that there are better partners for Decidueye. When…
The Beginnings of PRC–SM Testing with Vespiquen/Decidueye, Eeveelutions/Zoroark, Turbo Dark, and Mega Rayquaza “Like Primarina, the other GX Pokemon are mostly just … alright. Few of them are game breaking to any serious degree. Sure, Decidueye appears to be quite strong and it is, but put into a future format (without the support of things like Shaymin-EX and Forest of Giant Plants), it is suddenly very average, no more or less powerful than the other GX Pokemon, at face value. The ridiculous stats on some of the GX Pokemon and the fact that many of the GX attacks seem absurdly strong ironically hides the fact that many of these cards are quite underpowered…
Schematics for the Lone Star, a Figured-Out Format, and the Intergalactic Battle for Balance “”Not from a Jedi.” Oh boy, where to begin? Before Fort Wayne, Aaron and Travis released a great two-part series, discussing the strengths and weaknesses of the Darketype. Avoiding the temptation of the Dark Side was too much for our feeble format, and we’ve been thoroughly corrupted. The finals of Fort Wayne Regionals and the semi-finals of the International Championship were all occupied by the same deck: Yveltal/Garbodor. We really seem to be jumping from one extremely dominant deck to the next, though I guess we don’t have to look at spiders and pumpkins anymore. How can a deck be…
It’s so strong that it can knock out some opponents in a single hit, but it also may forget what it’s battling midfight. (Cramorant)
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