A Review of Collinsville and Malmö’s Big Winners Moving Forward “Despite being polar opposites in terms of attendance (Malmö had 278 Masters, Collinsville had over 1,000), the competition at both was fierce. The huge grind that was Collinsville is compensated by the huge concentration of top players in a smaller field that was Malmö. I have to admit: Weavile UPR didn’t immediately catch my eye when reviewing the cards from the new set due to its [D] cost for Evil Admonition, and when paired with Zoroark-GX, the glaring Fighting Weakness was enough of a deterrent for me to avoid it. However, with the presence of Zoroark and Tapu Lele, and…
Pablo on Dallas, Magnezone and Glaceon, and the Misses of Ultra Prism “Dallas was one of the most difficult tournaments for me so far, as it definitely didn’t start out as well as I had hoped it would. After logging in over 200 games of Expanded in January alone for the tournament, I sat down in Round 1, confident in my list (shown below), and in Games 1 and 3, I simply started lone Exeggcute going second, and got Hypnotoxic Laser + Virbank City on turn 1—and I didn’t even get to play. Needless to say, this definitely put me on tilt, and caused me to heavily misplay round 2, causing me…
Pablo on Night March, Zoroark/Golisopod, and Zoroark/Lycanroc for Dallas “Much like its Standard incarnation, this deck hits hard, is hard to take down, and can adapt easily to whatever the metagame calls for. This is my current list. I have it sleeved already, and I don’t think it will be changing much by Friday: Instead of trying to compete in the OHKO department with other Zoroark decks, it tries to level the playing field with Sudowoodo’s Road Block, and then out-resource them in an Acerola war, which other Zoroark-GX decks are hopeless to win. Golisopod-GX’s Grass typing is very appealing at the moment, as it gives you a natural…
On the State of Expanded, Zoroark/Lycanroc, Zoroark/Alolan Muk, and Gardevoir for Dallas “Since my last article, I’ve fleshed out and continued to test the Buzzwole/Garbodor and Golisopod/Garbodor concepts that I proposed… to very little success. I even tried to adapt the Buzzwole/Lycanroc deck from Standard to Expanded, with Sudowoodo GRI, VS Seeker, Computer Search for extra consistency, and even Focus Sash. This is where I left the concept after giving up on it, in case you’d like to follow up on it: None of the decks has been able to successfully stop Zoroark/Lycanroc, Zoroark/Alolan Muk, and Zoroark/Night March to where I’d be comfortable going into the tournament with them, hence they’ve been…
Pablo’s Memphis Recap, Review of Expanded, and Ultra Prism Highlights “The next big Standard events are Leipzig and Sao Paulo Regionals, and surely these will reflect much of what happened in Memphis. In North America, however, Dallas Regionals is in the Expanded format. Zoroark-GX/Lycanroc-GX was already an established archetype there, and it should continue to do well in the upcoming event, as Ultra Prism won’t be out yet. Japan’s tournaments have definitely been trend setters so far for our Expanded metagame, and the most recent concoction is a direct counter to Zoroark’s dominance in their format: Buzzwole-GX/Garbodor. Resembling the Landorus-EX/Garbodor of seasons past, Buzzwole could be a great counter to…
Its talent is tap-dancing. It can also manipulate temperatures to create a floor of ice, which this Pokémon can kick up to use as a barrier. (Galarian Mr. Mime)
Looking at Lycanroc/Buzzwole, Golisopod/Zoroark, and Gardevoir/Max Potion for Memphis ““A midrange deck is a type of deck somewhere between an aggro deck and a control deck in pace, seeking to attain victory during the midgame. Midrange decks generally try to control the board during the early game, before moving into a more aggressive role mid-game, (…) with the goal of winning before the late game.” Buzzwole-GX is a fantastic attacker which, when paired with Strong Energy and Regirock-EX, can OHKO the plethora of 60 HP Basics out there—Ralts, Remoraid, Rockruff, Zorua, Beldum, Alolan Vulpix, Type: Null (weak to Fighting) and Tapu Koko (weak to Fighting). Thus, from the very…
Moving from London to San Jose, Expanded Musings on Golisopod/Zoroark, Lycanroc/Zoroark, and Gardevoir “Zoroark-GX/Lycanroc-GX as a concept has been very appealing to me for a while now, because the Trade Ability provides draw and Bloodthirsty Eyes allows you to target any Pokemon you need. On top of this, you are still able to play a Supporter. Any other deck would have to utilize one in order to get any of those effects, so those assets plus the cost effective attacks make it so that it seems like an overall great strategy. The deck I was trying out in Standard, but ultimately dropped, was very similar to the Japanese 2nd place list used by former…
Working though Pablo’s Top 5 for the European International Championships “Why am I considering this deck? Igor Costa won Hartford Regionals with this deck, defeating Sam Chen’s Gardevoir on the way to the finals, along with many others during Swiss. This deck complies with the ‘in order to compete, you must be able to OHKO Gardevoir-GX’ rule that I mentioned earlier, as both Turtonator-GX and Volcanion-EX can reach high enough numbers. Another positive to this deck: Volcanion STS can apply so much early pressure thanks to Steam Up, getting quick KOs on the 60HP or 70HP Basics going around in different decks. Gardevoir is nonetheless a difficult matchup, as they…
The Expansion of the Metagame with the Introductions of Shining Legends and the Ultra Beasts “With no access to Sky Field, my initial thought was that Zoroark-GX would be included mostly as a support option, and I believe that is the case—for now, at least. Zoroark-GX competes with Octillery BKT in terms of space (and, to a certain extent, Oranguru SUM). However, there are some very clear pros and cons to running one or the other, and some of them are impossible to overlook when Gardevoir/Sylveon is the best deck in the format. Overall pros of using Zoroark-GX over Octillery: Higher HP means it will not be an easy pick-off to deny its ability. Can…
Pablo’s Vancouver Regional Champion Report with Gardevoir-GX “Hola people! October has treated me very well, and honestly, the past couple of months have probably been my peak so far in my Pokemon career in terms of consistency and performances. I’m sure a lot of you are aware how last season I struggled to get good finishes outside of Australia, but now I have a Regionals win under my belt to add to my Top 8 at Worlds. I’ve started off the season on the right foot, despite below average League Cup finishes (25/100 possible CP). I now have a total of 365, which puts me comfortably in the…
Its unique style of coiling allows it to blast sand out of its sand sac more efficiently. (Sandaconda)
A Look at Hartford’s Top Performing Concepts, Vikavolt’s Peculiar Place, and Gardy for Vancouver “The Gardevoir-GX/Sylveon-GX list that I posted a few days before the tournament was only 2 cards off what I ended up playing at Hartford to a 12th place finish, and only 1 card off of Sam Chen’s 4th place list. In the end, our final list accumulated a grand total of 310 CP’s between the 4 of us who used it. Here’s a quick recap of my final list and how my rounds went: Round 1: Rainbow Road WW Round 2: Gardevoir-GX/Sylveon-GX WW Round 3: Volcanion-EX/Turtonator-GX WLW Round 4: Volcanion-EX/Turtonator-GX LWT (Jimmy Pendarvis) Round 5: Decidueye-GX/Alolan Ninetales-GX LWT (Andrew Mahone)…
Looking at the Strengths and Weaknesses of Standard’s Top Trifecta, and at Ninetales & Drampa “Putting it bluntly, there are 3 very clear decks at the top of the pack: Gardevoir-GX, Golisopod-GX and Ho-Oh-GX. Everything else, based on League Cups and Bremen Regionals, seems to be just a tad behind these 3. Sure, Alolan Ninetales-GX, DeciTales, VikaBulu and the other Garbodor variants can compete. However, they lack the raw power and strength that the aforementioned trifecta contains. Looking ahead to Hartford Regionals, I would definitely recommend choosing one of those 3. Why are these decks so ahead of the pack though? Let’s break it down.+ First off, Gardevoir-GX, the World champion (and also my favorite…
Looking Back at Night March and Golisopod Garb in Expanded, Plus Gardevoir and Espeon for Standard “As an Expanded newbie, I approached my testing in a very simple way: practice the most straightforward and easy to pilot decks. This meant I logged in a ton of games with Expanded’s biggest 3 threats in Night March, Trevenant, and Turbo Dark. Practicing using these 3 decks in the ladder on PTCGO allowed me to get very comfortable with the format and how fast paced it is. In many ways, it was very similar to the Worlds format, but ACE SPECs, Colress and Battle Compressor definitely allow for it to be unique in it’s own way. As the event…
Pablo Meza’s Top 8 Worlds Report and Recap from Anaheim “The final Gardevoir list that Mikey and I ended up using was the following: Some of the last minute cards we were discussing were Fisherman and Sudowoodo. With 7 M Rayquaza decks going through, and pretty much assuming no one changes decks from Day 1 to Day 2, there would be at least 8 M Ray decks in the field. We really had no clue what card we could possibly change, however, and my efforts to convince them of dropping Fisherman and Rescue Stretcher, to add a Super Rod and Sudowoodo were fruitless. Hindsight is 20/20, and I used Fisherman…
Examining Drampa, Noivern-GX, Turbo Darkrai, and Greninja for Anaheim “Let’s start with the removal of Best Finish Limits from Regional Championships. This decision has been the most controversial and has caused many people to claim that a Top X to make Day 2 in whatever region you live in is now simply a pay to win. I think there’s 2 things we must consider here. First off, removing Best Finish Limits (BFL for short) encourages travel to more tournaments throughout the whole season. I personally might’ve only planned for 5 or 6 US Regionals, counting on adding that to Mexico City and a couple of Special events. However, now…
When it trusts a Trainer, it will treat them to berries it’s decorated with cream. (Alcremie)
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