Peter Kica
Author Archive
Bio: I like saying nightmarch for KO.
Malamar Three Ways (Standard, Ultra Necrozma, Unit Energy) and AbilityZard ×2 (Pidgey Teched, Max Consistency) for Daytona Beach “Malamar seems to be in a decent place in the metagame right now. With a majority of the top decks being TAG TEAM-based, a single-Prized deck should be able to take advantage of that. The flip side of the argument, and what I mostly hear as the death of Malamar, is Mallow and Lana. While healing 120 does give Malamar problems, I don’t think that alone is enough to push it out of the metagame. I was able to snag a 1st place at a League Challenge and a Top 4 at a League Cup this past week with Malamar…
Pidgeotto Control and Pidgeotto/Blacephalon for LAIC “With the release of Cosmic Eclipse, Pidgeotto Control has gotten a couple of tools (which I will detail below) that make it an even more formidable deck than it was before. Prior to Cosmic Eclipse, Pidgeotto Control had three Top 8 finishes between Atlantic City and Knoxville Regionals and a Top 8 finish at Worlds, which showed how powerful it was from the get-go. With its new additions, everyone attending LAIC should focus their attention on either (A) playing Pidgeotto Control or (B) countering it. As always, my lists going into testing are consistency-focused, and most of the techs are…
Archie’s Blastoise, Turbo Dark, and Ultra Night March for Richmond “Blastoise BCR has been a relevant card in almost every format it has been legal in. It won the World Championships in the Masters Division back in 2015 and has since frequently made deep runs at Regionals in our Expanded format. Throughout its history it’s received several buffs from cards such as Order Pad, Magikarp & Wailord GX, and now, most recently, Mewtwo & Mew GX in combination with Espeon & Deoxys GX. Having access to attacks, such as Kingdra GX’s Hydro Pump, through MewMew is extremely powerful and provides a lot of versatility to the deck. Here’s the list…
On My Ability Zard from Atlantic City and the Wacky Eeveelutions Deck You’ll All Been Asking For “Leading up to Atlantic City, Ability ReshiZard received an immense amount of hype. So much so that players began teching for the mirror with cards such as Stealthy Hood to prevent Ninetales TEU from using Nine Temptations on their Benched attackers and even altering the whole build of the deck to include multiple single-Prize attackers, such as Blacephalon UNB and extra copies of Turtonator DRM. In my opinion, this surplus of options has proven to make the deck inconsistent and unreliable. I have coined the non-Zard Ability Zard deck “Fire Greninja” because of its high variance and proclivity to brick…
Poipole Lock and Keldeo-GX/Vaporeon-GX Stall from Worlds, Updated “I dropped an article on ReshiBlowns and PikaRom the week of Worlds and I was set on playing one of those decks. However, Tuesday evening (the day before I flew out to Washington, DC) I was presented with an idea from my testing group featuring Vaporeon-GX. With knowledge of some preexisting healing Stall archetypes out there which were less consistent, I immediately knew that this idea had potential. After work, I headed to three local card shops, called several GameStops, and even reached out to some vendors that I thought would be at the World Championships in hopes to get…
Once a year, on a specific date and at a specific time, they gather out of nowhere and form up in a circle. (Stonjourner)
ReshiBlowns 2.0 and PikaRom in My Pocket (for That Tournament This Weekend) “As you can see, this is not a normal Blacephalon-GX deck. The main focus of the deck, and why I believe it to be powerful, is Giant Hearth. This card is on such a high power level that it singlehandedly improves all Fire decks until it rotates. In addition to Blacephalon-GX, I included a ReshiZard which is where the name ReshiBlowns comes from. The inclusion of ReshiZard was pretty obvious to me as it is an incredibly powerful attacker. It doesn’t affect the Prize trade unless playing against another Blacephalon-GX deck, in which case you just don’t use ReshiZard. The…
The Evolution of Wall Stall (from Hoopa/Gigas to Counter Attackers + Metal for NAIC), Blacephalon-GX, and Beyond—To the Lurking Tier 2 “Throughout the last month or so dating, back to the release of Unbroken Bonds, I’ve fallen in love with this archetype. I’ve taken it to a Regional, League Cups, and even League Challenges. I have been having a fun time playing the deck. Controlling your opponent’s resources and ultimately decking them out has always appealed to me, and I’m glad I picked up the deck when I did. All this testing has led me to an assortment of different variations of Wall Stall, and today I’ll be sharing them all with you, going over their pros and cons, talking a…
A Full Look at Hoopa Wall Stall (Tournament Report, Deck Updates, and In-Depth Matchup Guide) for Madison “As per my last article, my top two decks for Santa Clara were Midrange Zoroark and Vileplume Stall. I ended up going with Stall; however, I decided to make a few key changes prior to the event in order to stay ahead of the anticipated metagame. Here is the list I played at Santa Clara: Through testing I found that this package was ineffective at setting up multiple Vileplume throughout a single game. This led me to explore different options. I knew that counters to Vileplume, such as Stealthy Hood and Stage 1 attackers, would be present and therefore I could…
Midrange Zoroark-GX and the Sinister Vileplume Stall Reformulated for Santa Clara “When beginning my testing for SUM–UNB, I overlooked Zoroark-GX as many others have. With its decline in success due mostly to Lightning decks (Zapdos and Pikarom variants) swarming the fields, Zoroark has lost respect in the eyes of many as the “top dog” it once was. With its Standard legality coming to an end at North America Internationals in June, I thought I should give Zoroark-GX a chance to shine in this new format. Throughout its history, Zoroark-GX has been an incredibly versatile card and its ability to be utilized by many different styles of decks has been very apparent.…
Powerhouse Plays—Nightmarch/Lucario-GX and Archie’s Blastoise—for Daytona “This was the Nightmarch/Lucario-GX list I played in Greensboro. This take on the deck began a few weeks prior to Toronto Regionals where we saw Jimmy Pendarvis take down the event with a similar list. Since Greensboro was being held only one week after Toronto, I knew going into Greensboro that there was going to be an influx of Nightmarch counters, such as Oricorio GRI 56 and Karen, included in a lot of decks. We even saw Azul’s 2nd place list run Articuno ROS 17 as a soft answer to Nightmarch. Although I knew this, I still went with my…
It emits psychic energy to observe and study what’s around it—and what’s around it can include things over six miles away. (Orbeetle)
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4× Worlds qualifier
Playing since 2013
@PeterJoltik
