Travis Nunlist
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Cooking Up Jurassic Park, Mega Alakazam, Silvally-GX, and Garchomp/Lucario for Portland “Looking forward to Portland, it seems to me like Standard has begun to centralize itself now that a lot of the dust regarding Ultra Prism has begun to settle. It seems rather clear that the format is Zoroark Decks, Buzzwole decks, and then everything else is Tier 2-3 at the moment. Portland Regionals is in a unique position considering we have a promo card, Lucario-GX, becoming legal just before the event and looking to make an impact. I’m uncertain if Lucario-GX will actually make a huge impact, but the card is interesting enough to warrant some attention and testing. Today…
Glaceon, Leafeon, and Zoroark/Metal as Dark Horses for Regionals “Moving forward with the deck I’ve made some radical adjustments: swapping in a Cobalion STS over the Entei and moving some other counts around for 4 Brigette and 3 Colress in anticipation of Glaceon-EX. I agree with the sentiment expressed by Pablo that we need to be more willing to stray from VS Seeker in counts of 4. With Puzzle of Time and VS Seeker, you never actually need to use all of those resources to keep playing Supporters, and I found myself often ending games with multiple left in deck. Glaceon-GX initially seems scarier in Expanded because of the…
Mapping Out the Dallas Metagame, Travelling with Toad, & Whale Watching “Looking forward to the Dallas Regional Championship, I think the metagame is going to end up looking something like this: Zoroark-GX Variants (40-60%) Seismitoad/Zoroark (15-20%) Golisopod/Zoroark (10-15%) Zoroark/Alolan Muk(10-15%) Zoroark/Lycanroc (5-10%) Night March (10-15%) Trevenant BREAK (5-10%) Garbodor Variants (5-10%) Fighting Stuff ie Donphan/Buzzwole (5-10%) Gardevoir (1-5%) Beach Decks (i.e. Wailord/Primal Groudon) (1-5%) Turbo Turtles (1-5%) Dark Decks (1-5%) Other (1-5%) As you can see, I still expect to see the decks that utilize Zoroark-GX the most to be immensely popular. I don’t think this metagame spread prediction is particularly out there, but should give people an idea of what…
Viewing Vikavolt & Volcanion as Viable Victors “Right before the event I had actually been testing Volcanion & Tapu Bulu/Vikavolt but didn’t know the meta well enough to rely on the former and unfortunately do not have cards/didn’t feel like scrambling last minute for the latter. However, I think both decks have a ton of potential going into Memphis and could easily see either deck come home with a win. Both have a lot of raw power & a track record of success, so don’t underestimate either going into Memphis! Going into Memphis, I think the overall meta will be more in line with what we’ve seen at…
San Jose Recap & Talking Texas “After a bit of testing I had narrowed down my possible deck choices to: Greninja, Trevenant, and Fighting/Bats. The first two decks I liked because I anticipated Giratina Promo to be cut from a lot of decks due to the rise of Zoroark-GX. This would scare all of the Trevenant away, and the consistency issues of Greninja keep a lot of people away from it in Expanded. The Fighting Bats deck was essentially just a remake of the Landorus-EX/Bats deck that found success in previous formats with some new additions. The logic was that Fighting type attackers should give it…
A clever combatant, this Pokémon battles using water balloons created with moisture secreted from its palms. (Drizzile)
A Case Review on Deck Building through the Lens of Zoroark for London “The first thing I do when considering a new idea is explore what inherent strengths and weaknesses it possesses, and how those interact with the existing format. I usually make a mental checklist, but here are some things I considered: Pros ? 110 HP Basic means less early game knockouts Unique Ability Flexibility Relevant Type Changing Tools Cons ? Fighting Weakness CCC attack means two attachments before anything can happen Evolution Now, I’ll consider these attributes within the context of Gardevoir-GX and Garbodor variants, which reigned supreme last format, and Alolan Ninetales-GX and Buzzwole-GX, the most hyped newbies. The CCC attack cost…
A Look at the New Comeback Cards in the Pokémon TCG “Throughout the Pokemon Trading Card Game’s history, we’ve seen a few other comeback cards, and most seen play at some point during their existence, with many of them being format-defining cards. Our new (and even recent) comeback cards can trace some similarities back to old cards that provided similar effects. Shout out to Jacob Willinger and Kyle Theaker for discussing old formats with me! Scramble Energy – The predecessor to Counter Energy was unbelievably good during its time. Providing 3 Energy of any/all types with the restriction of ‘No Basics’ was incredibly powerful during its time. While Counter Energy initially…
Gearing up Garbodor with Drampa, Golisopod, and Espeon for Canadian Competition “With that out of the way, I had originally intended to do a brief analysis of the most successful decks from Hartford Regionals, but our own Pablo Meza already did a fantastic job of that here so I don’t see a need to rehash similar information. Instead I’ll focus entirely on my top plays for Vancouver and why I am considering each option. Looking at the result spread above posted by Complexity Card Game’s Facebook page we actually see a pretty diverse field of decks. The two most important takeaways from these results for me: 1. Gardevoir is the clear…
Sprinting Through Travis’s First League Cups and Marathoning With Tapu Bulu-GX/Vikavolt “Over the past two weekends I was able to play in two League Cups and was able to sneak away with a T8 and T16 finish. I’m not sure if its the new area, a increase in playerbase, or a little of both but the League Cups I’ve attended this year has been massive compared to any others I’ve attended in recent memory, with both being 7 rounds. My days went like this: League Cup #1 – Greninja R1 Gardevoir-GX (W 1-0) R2 Gardevoir-GX (W 2-0) R3 Tapu Bulu-GX/Vikavolt SUM (L 2-1) R4 Gardevoir-GX (W 3-1) R5 Gardevoir-GX (W 4-1)…
Rebranding Greninja and Fire Decks in BKT-On “Greninja’s biggest personal loss is absolutely Dive Ball. The card was always an immediate 4 of and helped sustain the “non-ex” model of the deck by giving you an insane search card. Without Dive Ball, you have to fall back on regular ole Ultra Ball like every other deck in the format. Now that you have Ultra Ball, you can reasonably help your consistency with Tapu-Lele GX—giving Greninja a much needed boost in that department. You break the classic “non-ex” rule that Greninja has always strictly followed, but the loss of Dive Ball forces Greninja to venture into new territory.…
When it trusts a Trainer, it will treat them to berries it’s decorated with cream. (Alcremie)
Last Minute Thoughts on Gardevoir-GX and Garbodor/Drampa-GX for Worlds 2017 “4 Free Spots The above 56/60 cards are 100% what will be in the Drampa-GX/Garbodor deck that I bring to Worlds 2017. My current issue is identifying what the last couple of spots will be dedicated to and why. As you can see the skeleton I’ve outlined is relatively consistent, but balancing consistency vs techs for my last four spots is going to be my biggest concern. The ability to play an unreal amount of consistency is an aspect of this version of Garbodor that I have always been enamored with. I rarely feel like I lost a game because…
Cooking Up M Rayquaza and Vespiquen for the PRC–BUS Format “Amidst all this chaos something I’ve noticed, and personally have fallen into more than once myself, is that many players will just stick with what they know rather than take a chance on something new. Sometimes just being comfortable with your deck is enough of a reason to play it, as you know the minutia inside and out and are much less likely to misplay. Playing a deck well with minimal misplays is usually much better than playing something you may consider a better play but have not had sufficient practice with. Today I’m going to focus on two decks…
Exploring the Gardevoir-GX Hype, Considering Options for the Deck, and Building the Optimal List “20 free slots I did my best to leave this skeleton as bare bones as possible to show you that despite being a Stage 2 deck, Gardevoir-GX actually has a surprising amount of room to work with. Because it is such an inherently powerful card you don’t need a whole lot else to go with it other than just doing your best to ensure you can set it up every game! As long as you can get out more than 1 Gardevoir-GX every single game you should be in a fine position. Now let’s go over all the options Gardevoir…
Scorching the Earth with Volcanion for NAIC, Creating the Ideal Fire Solution to the Complex Meta “Volcanion is a deck that many players, including myself, have gone back and forth on throughout its entire first season of legal competitive play. The strategy is simple enough – lead with Volcanion’s Power Heater to accelerate energy to an assortment attackers, mainly Volcanion-EX. You also can use Steam Up to increase the damage output of your Fire-Type attackers. The Volcanion duo has found a few different partners throughout the season that have supplemented the strategy, but the two of them have always been the primary focus of the deck. I was convinced the deck was hot (heh) garbage through much of 2016,…
A Guide on Beating Garbodor plus Darkrai/Dragonair, an intro to Vikavolt/Tapu Bulu, and Vespiquen/Zoroark “We all know how the old saying goes: “If you can’t beat em, join ’em!” This would generally lead one to believe that we may as well jump on board the hype train after seeing Garbodor GRI absolutely crush Seattle and continue its run into the Madison Regional Championship. While I don’t think there is any fault in jumping on board with an archetype that has shown so much power so quickly, there will always be those few of us that refuse to follow the hype and instead will look to capitalize on it by countering such a polarizing concept. If we are to do…
The shaking of its freezing upper half is what generates its electricity. It has a hard time walking around. (Arctozolt)
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