Amulet Mew Box for Daytona Beach “These three arguments make a lot of sense in my mind, and thus this is the list that I’ve been practicing with and enjoying since LAIC: Mega Lopunny & Jigglypuff-GX and Greninja-GX fit right into the list as necessary metagame adaptations with the new presence of Keldeo-GX as a force to be reckoned with. I enjoy having access to 4 Dedenne-GX, and I’ve found myself utilizing all 4 more than you’d think. Every other attacker is standard as of now, but Latios-GX and Charizard & Braixen-GX have merit to being in the deck, but space is incredibly tight. Other inclusions…
Recapping LAIC 2020 w/ Exploratory Looks into Robin’s ReshiZard, DDG’s GuzzNag, and Green’s ADP “My tournament run with Mewtwo & Mew-GX felt like a roller coaster of emotions. I was extremely excited to play in my first big tournament of the season, only to lose Round 1 in a disappointing fashion as my Great Catcher decided to live in the bottom 2 cards of my deck. I managed to recover to a 4-1 record, where once again whiffed a card in the bottom 2, which made me tie (instead of win) against Malamar, putting me at a 4-1-1 record rather than 5-1 (and in a prime position to make Day 2). After that, my…
Arceus & Dialga & Palkia-GX (ADP) and GardEon for LAIC “On the other hand, ADP impressed me quite a bit after giving it a try and focusing on getting attacks off on turn 1 with N’s Resolve. My initial thoughts for it were that it was going to be too slow overall. Using up a GX attack and not dealing any damage? That felt awful to me. However, N’s Resolve helps you attack with Ultimate Ray so quickly that often it’s fine if you don’t end up using Altered Creation-GX+ at all. The second part of the deck, walling with Keldeo-GX and Chaotic Swell, has also proven to be more…
Tenets of Expanded, Turbo Dark Two Ways for Richmond, and Ability Zard + Mew Box Updated for LAIC “First off, let’s start with Expanded, which will be the format for the next two upcoming major events, Richmond and Portland. After testing Expanded the past last month, both on streams/videos and with the people I coach, I can confidently say this about the format: it’s all over the place. Any given deck that seems great one second ends up falling short against yet another potentially really good deck. There are many decks that can be effectively teched against with a single card, such as Oricorio GRI 56 or Sudowoodo GRI; however, how common will these be? That’s another big…
Comparing Winning Mew Boxes, Which One To Play, and Other Options for Knoxville “First off, we saw two very different takes of Mew Box win Atlantic City and Cologne. It wasn’t a surprise for anyone to see Mew Box win, as the deck is indeed extremely powerful. However, the lists are so different and contrasting in their approaches that it is actually quite fascinating to see them both win. It is no secret that the original Mew Box deck that won the Worlds Championships this past August had a few clear and exploitable weaknesses, for example, things such as 2 Fairy Charm {P} in GardEon decks, 2 Keldeo-GX on the field with nothing…
It’s skilled at both offense and defense, and it gets pumped up when cheered on. But if it starts showboating, it could put itself in a tough spot. (Cinderace)
On Countering Ability ReshiZard, Another Reset Stamp PikaRom, and GardEon v. ReshiZard “The tier list I posted a few weeks ago still holds as of today, especially the Tier 1 and 1.5 decks, as we have seen those decks keep dominating League Cups and Challenges per Facebook posts detailing results. I do believe, however, that it is worth making one small change and separating the Malamar variants, as shown below: Ability ReshiZard Mew Box Blacephalon-GX/Naganadel LOT Pidgeotto Control PikaRom Green’s ReshiZard GardEon Malamar (Pure Psychic variant) I’m not including any Tier 2 decks this time because, frankly, they’re not good enough. They might seem cool in concept (like Dark Box), but in…
Sheffield’s Results, On Robin’s T8 Ability ReshiZard, GardEon Guesses, and My Mew Box List for Atlantic City/Köln “Looking forward to Atlantic City (USA) + Köln (DE) and how Sheffield’s results will affect the metagame, I think the Ability ReshiZard lists will look a lot more like Robin Schulz’s take from this weekend with 4 Fire Crystals and a Blacephalon UNB. His list is located below: Having 13 versus the previous 18 Fire Energy weakens your Victini {*} late-game strategy significantly, as you are no longer able to 1HKO any TAG TEAM with it, but this opens up a new attacker that is just as, if not more, lethal. I found that stretching to get 12-14 Energy in…
Mew Box and the New ‘Zard, Malamar for Cups, Tiers, and Worlds Recap w/ PikaRom “PikaRom to me felt like the most reliable deck with a chance to beat anything, and I was pretty settled on 58 cards of my list before Day 1, which were the following: Before seeing Day 1’s results, the 2 remaining spots were occupied by 1 Tapu Fini UNM (as an answer to Blacephalon-GX) and 1 Great Potion (which is key vs. Malamar decks). However, the advantage that my 1500+ CP got me this season was competing directly in Day 2, and thus I was able to witness Gardevoir & Sylveon-GX power through Day 1, with very little Malamar or…
On the Best Finish Limits for 2019–2020 and My Current Top 3 Decks for Worlds “I started my Worlds testing on the Monday right after NAIC with this mindset for deckbuilding: this is a completely new format, so I need to not make any assumptions and get my decks hyper consistent before I consider teching for matchups. I went through that process for 2–3 weeks, trying to get decks consistent and performing well over and over. Now that we are less than two weeks away from Worlds, however, I’m at the stage where I do want to make some matchups a bit easier if I can with techs, which brings me to my current lists…
Mewtwo & Mew-GX with Welder and Attackers for Worlds/DC Open and What’s Good in UPR-on “Back to Worlds testing and the big, humongous question mark that is the UPR-on metagame. I’ve been playing quite a bit, making and unmaking lists over and over trying to find the right balance in things. I’m not sure anything is perfect because there are so many options and directions each deck can go, and it’s hard to test absolutely everything. It has been surprising to me to find myself building decks so differently in what is a heavily-reduced card pool compared to SUM-on. Claiming to know what the BDIF is as of right now is impossible and whoever says…
It drifted in on the flow of ocean waters from a frigid place. It keeps its head iced constantly to make sure it stays nice and cold. (Eiscue)
On the Unified Minds Set List and Malamar Adapted for UPR-on “But enough about the current Standard (SUM–UNB) which is about to end as we head into UPR-on. Last time around I had only theorized different decks, based on transitioning older decks into this newer format by “replacing cards” one for one. Thankfully, the Unified Minds set list has already been confirmed, and thus we know exactly what we can (or can’t use) for Worlds. I’m sure many people were disappointed that Unified Minds included no reprints whatsoever, but I think it’s a matter of properly adapting and embracing change. The same thing happened when we lost Professor Sycamore and N,…
UPR-on ReshiZard, Predicted Trends for UPR-on, the Transition Period (Goodbye, Cards…), and a Succinct NAIC Recap “In terms of the actual tournament, Stéphane Ivanoff pulled off what seems like an impossible feat, by winning back-to-back in 2018 and 2019. He also did it with two different Zoroark-GX decks, the latest one including a wide array of options such as Dewgong UNB, Persian-GX, and Naganadel-GX. Triple Acceleration Energy was the real star of the show, however, as it is what allowed all of these cards to work so well and have so much synergy between them. I myself didn’t have such a stellar experience, as I was eliminated from Day 2 early on with a 3-3 record.…
On ReshiZard’s Dominance, the (Mostly) Failed Attempts to Counter ReshiZard, and a Potential Savior, Malamar, in Two Flavors (Standard and Techy) “So far in the Unbroken Bonds era, we have seem ReshiZard dominate even more so than PikaRom did in the previous quarter. Despite the fact that Azul fell short vs. Ian Robb’s Blacephalon-GX deck in the final at Madison, I’m a firm believer that that matchup is as 50/50 as it gets, since 6 Energy in play isn’t exactly easily accomplished twice in back-to-back turns. Having said that, Blacephalon-GX decks will gain some traction and confidence after the Madison Regionals result, and I would not be surprised if they had a solid presence at the events taking place this weekend.…
Thoughts on My Winning ReshiZard List, What to Change, and a Meta Counter (Zoroark/Slowking) for Madison “Overall I was super happy with my list and my choice, as, outside of winning, the reliability of 4 Jirachi TEU and 4 Kiawe + 4 Welder was unparalleled. My deck performed the same thing over and over super reliably, especially in a Best-of-3 setting. This is 100% supported by the fact that I went 6-1 (13-4 in individual games) in the mirror match. I could tell people were overteching and using inconsistent ReshiZard decks, which made me look forward to facing off against what I felt were super favorable “mirror” matches. The deck was also incredibly fast at either…
On Unbroken Bonds, Fire, and Two Early ReshiZard Decklists (One Straightforward/T1 Kiawe, One Flexible/Support) “Fire decks are as good as they’re hyped up to be, kind of like Pikachu & Zekrom-GX which did live up to the hype, culminating in it winning European Internationals two weeks ago. I didn’t do so hot at the tournament, as I lost two win-and-in’s to Day 2 with a list that was four or five cards different from Gustavo Wada’s winning list. The immense amount of support available for Fire-type Pokemon is what makes Reshiram & Charizard-GX decks so good. They can also be built in a variety of ways, ranging from hyper offensive to more teched out…
On days when blizzards blow through, it comes down to where people live. It stashes food in the snowball on its head, taking it home for later. (Galarian Darmanitan)
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