Emery Taylor
Author Archive
On the Auspicious Arrival of Our New, Virtual Face of the Pokémon Trading Card Game “To understand the monumental mentality shift that happened for me through quarantine, we first need to look back on my mentality before quarantine and COVID-19. Simply, this season wasn’t incredible for me. Sure, I started off with a Top 32 finish in Atlantic City, but I lacked a follow-up Day Two finish, with my hopes being blown out by back-to-back autolosses and poor deck choices. Everyone has off tournaments, slumps, and seasons, even the best of the best, but that didn’t help me feel any better. I’m sure some complications from my senior year in high school, like applying to…
Hot Thoughts on the POG Format (UPR–DAA), All the Decks I Want to Work On More, Eternatus VMAX Two Ways, and How, Now, to Play Ultimate Mewtwo “So far, in watching and playing, the more aggressive build of Vikavolt V feels like the best deck in the format. Vikavolt V’s Paralyzing Bolt is of course reminiscent of Seismitoad-EX’s Quaking Punch, and the effect on the format has felt the same. Item lock so severely cripples the consistency of many decks by simply limiting cards like Quick Ball, Acro Bike, Escape Board, and Switch, forcing players to reinvent their decks. Where Vikavolt V differs from Seismitoad-EX, however, is its support. Our new favorite bug can exploit Electropower, Tapu Koko Prism Star, and Thunder Mountain Prism Star to one-shot…
My First Foray into Commentary, the Four Common Criticisms of Casters, and What I’ve Learned Behind the Mic So Far “For brevity’s sake, I’ve boiled down the complaints about commentary to four which I’ll be looking at more carefully. I’ve selected these four points to talk about because, well, I struggled with many of these in my first bout of commentary. By shrinking the overall complaints about commentary to just four categories, I hope to reach a broader audience of players who have felt frustration similar to me when watching live-streamed tournaments. After detailing the issue, I’ll go into the mind of the caster by reflecting on my own experience, in order to fully explain why some of these common…
Coming to Terms w/ the Pandemic, PikaRom Two Ways (PikaHammers + PikaClay), and an Aside on the SPE/Region-Locking Debate “As my favorite Beatles song goes, “When I find myself in times of trouble, Pikachu & Zekrom comes to me.” Looking back over every single article I’ve written for this website, I’ve somehow only covered my trademark deck briefly following San Diego, which I attribute to the regrettable number of Expanded Regionals I’ve played in this season. Throughout this season, though, I’ve played Pikachu & Zekrom-GX at almost every local event and at four out of the five major Standard events I’ve attended. Looking forward, I’ve joined everyone else in trying to find answers to the extremely dominant ADP-GX/Zacian V…
Mew/Cramorant V @ Collinsville, Matchups, Moving it Forward, and Expanded Takeaways for Charlotte “Going into this weekend, I was fairly set on a list a few cards off from the Zacian V list that I had posted last week. The only real changes I had made were swapping a Blissey LOT line out for the Copperajah SSH and Galarian Rapidash SSH line I was working on in my article, while trying out a few different slots, like a 2nd Dhelmise GRI and a Professor Kukui, as well as a 12th Energy and a 4th Max Elixir. Each time I laid out my list, it felt like it made sense to me. Then, my…
It was inside a meteorite that fell 20,000 years ago. There seems to be a connection between this Pokémon and the Dynamax phenomenon. (Eternatus)
Chaotic Zacian V and Treasures & Traps (Collinsville Edition, ft. RoxieChomp, Turbo Dark, Ultra Necrozma, and More) “I know that fellow author Jonathan Croxton wrote about this very same deck yesterday, but I still think it’s important to cover my iteration of the list because it feels different enough and uses a few different strategies in certain matchups. While Jonathan went for a more aggressive approach, using cards like Sky Field and no Tapu Lele-GX, I’ve been finding success with a more methodical version of the deck. Here’s what I have sleeved up right now: I’ve seen a ton of players on the Expanded PTCG Online ladder try to put an Arceus & Dialga & Palkia-GX into…
Wobbuffet/Sableye V for Collinsville and in the Concept Cave with Torkoal V, Stonjourner VMAX, and Zacian V “The following deck is the list I’ve put the most time into for Collinsville Regionals, which is just a little over two weeks away! For those of you that don’t know, Collinsville Regionals in 2018 was my first Day 2 finish, where I played Zoroark-GX/Lycanroc-GX, so the tournament holds a special place in my heart. Enough nostalgia, though; here’s the list: There’s a ton to unpack here, and I’ll get into the specific counts in a moment, but the essential concept is to slow your opponents down by going second and starting Wobbuffet PHF. From there, you’ll quickly find that…
Dallas Recap w/ Ultra Necrozma, Takeaways for BLW–SSH Expanded, Sword & Shield Top 5 Cards, and an Aside on Goal Setting “Going into Dallas, I was fairly set on playing Ultra Necrozma. I felt good about the deck, its matchups, and how it could efficiently deal with the decks I expected to see. In the week leading up to Dallas, I continued experimenting with my list, ultimately adding in some quirks that I ended up playing in my final list below: When I told people this weekend I was playing Ultra Necrozma, they would often respond with “Garbodor or Octillery?” I often found myself responding by saying “Both?” to a plethora of confused faces. So first, the Wobbuffet and Garbodor BKP…
Turbo ReshiRom, ReshiRom/Naganadel, and Ultra Consistency Ultra Necrozma for Dallas “The idea for utilizing Reshiram & Zekrom-GX originally came from a late night of Expanded testing, where I ran into a Rayquaza-EX/Eelektrik deck, straight out of a little less than a decade ago. When I started building the deck myself, to remind myself of the old days, I remembered that there was a significantly stronger version of Rayquaza-EX, and built the Naganadel list farther below. While I’ll cover that deck in a moment, I wanted to have a little more pure aggression for my list, to truly scrap with the Turbo Greninja & Zoroark-GX decks. So, after looking through different…
Steven’s PikaRom in San Diego, Treasures & Traps (Post-Bans Edition), and Two Concepts for Dallas “I was feeling fairly confused heading into San Diego Regionals, following Daytona the week before. My top pick had been an Arceus & Dialga & Palkia-GX list not too dissimilar from the one Diego would take to a Top 4 finish later on, followed by a Malamar list which featured Ultra Necrozma-GX and Gengar & Mimikyu-GX, inspired by that of Daniel Altivilla. However, I wasn’t really feeling satisfied with either pick; I knew both were good, but ever since I had been working with Lost March, I wanted to find something else that felt like it had surprise factor. Speaking…
Anger has reignited its atrophied flame sac. This Pokémon spews fire everywhere as it rampages indiscriminately. (Galarian Darmanitan)
LAIC/MewMew Rewind, an Aside on Lost March, ADP for Daytona Beach, and Treasures and Traps (LAIC Edition) “Like many of our other writers, I chose to play Mewtwo and Mew-GX at the Latin America International Championships because it simply felt like the best deck for the event. When I tested Arceus & Dialgia & Palkia-GX (colloquially referred to as “ADP” for short) against fellow author Jon Eng’s Mewtwo & Mew-GX the night before the event, the deck felt underwhelming, and I decided to switch last-minute to the list below: Differences from Jon’s list include: -1 Pokegear 3.0 -1 Solgaleo-GX SM104 +2 Reset Stamp I finished a mediocre 3-3-1 drop on the day after an encouraging 3-1 start,…
Its thick and fluffy fur protects it from the cold and enables it to use hotter fire moves. (Raboot)
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