Dustin Zimmerman
Author Archive
Bio: I have been playing the Pokémon TCG professionally for ten years. In that time, I have qualified for the World Championships four times (in 2013 I even placed in the Top 4), and won four State Championships. You can always find me in tournaments around Indiana having a great time with my friends in Team Hovercats. Come by and say hello sometime!
Karen’s Impact, How to Utilize Her, the Big Picture, Yveltal, Sableye/Garbodor, and Rainbow Road for Philadelphia “Back in August of 2013, I had a really “interesting” premonition of sorts: By now, we are all happily aware of what this unique Supporter — given to us arbitrarily in the middle of the season — is capable of. We first saw her leaked in May, begged for her to be released in Steam Siege for use in the most recent World Championships, and now the time has finally come: Philadelphia Regionals will be the first premier event where both Karen and NM/Vespi will be legal. “What’s going to happen?” I’ve heard many mixed reviews from notable players. Some…
Introducing the Nomadic Pokémon, Drifblim BW64 and Absol ROS “First, let’s define the term “nomad”: no·mad ˈnōˌmad/ noun noun: nomad; plural noun: nomads 1. A member of a people having no permanent abode, and who travel from place to place to find fresh pasture for their livestock. 2. A person who does not stay long in the same place; a wanderer. See? You get the idea. Decks that have solidified their place in the metagame have nothing to worry about. Yvetal-EX, M Rayquaza-EX ROS 76, or Primal Groudon-EX aren’t going anywhere. They stay where they are, and other Trainers/Pokemon come to them to create new decks. In a sense,…
The Rise of Exeggutor and Other Overlooked Cards “This walking, stumbling, three-headed tree of coconuts is the entire reason I wanted to write about this topic. When I heard that Ross Cawthon was playing Exeggutor at St. Louis Regionals, I was stunned. Actually, I’ll just admit it — I was jealous. Jealous because I tried to make Exeggutor work so many times on separate occasions after its release! I distinctly remember driving home from Illinois States 2014 thinking I broke the format with my Exeggutor PLF/Rocky Helmet/Rock Guard/Mew-EX deck. I excitedly built it when I got home … and lost nearly every game I played. And mind you,…
A Lesson in Avoiding Linear Thought “Through Rose-Colored Glasses A Multiple-Trick Elephant Never Forgets Conclusion A few weeks before the tournament, Mike Newman and I had come across Donphan PLS and recognized its potential right away. We excitedly built an initial list and played a few games, soon finding out the concept was certainly worth pursuing. Given that I hadn’t tested really at all and the games I did play were against a limited pool of decks (which was a mistake in the first place), I prematurely assumed the proper way to play a Donphan deck. We had a hunch we were right and went for it.…
A Look Back at MD-CL (2011) Format Gyarados “On paper, the entire strategy can be boiled down very easily. Place three Magikarp into the discard pile, use the fourth to evolve into Gyarados, and use Tail Revenge for zero Energy doing 90 damage to your opponent’s Active Pokémon. Golly! Everything else in the deck was intended to set up the Tail Revenge as soon as possible, and (in a perfect world) make sure that the attack was used six times in a row to take six Prizes. In fact, this is one of the very few decks in Pokémon history that only wanted to use one damaging attack…
Searching for an opponent to test its skills against, it emerges onto land. Once the battle is over, it returns to the sea. (Grapploct)
A Guideline on Reactions and Adaptations “Initial Hype Recognizing Potential New Decks Improving Existing Decks and Cards Admitting Defeat My Top 10 Cards in Furious Fists It’s one thing to have a new set released four times a year; it’s another that we can readily see what these cards will do months in advance. This leads to premature excitement, also known as “hype”. It can come in many forms, but what I am referring to mostly in when a community of players comes to the general consensus over a card’s perceived superior playability. Before a single tournament has even taken place with new cards (Japan included),…
Making the Most of M-Pokémon-EX “Meet the Megas Mega Venusaur & Mega Blastoise Mega Kangaskhan Mega Charizard X & Mega Charizard Y Proper Utilization Deck Lists Hydreigon Aromatisse Conclusion The five Mega Pokemon available in the current format are Venusaur, Blastoise, Kangaskhan, Charizard X, and Charizard Y. They’re monstrous creatures with the highest amount of HP ever printed; even the likes of G Booster and Black Ballista aren’t enough to take them down in one blow. Each one has a single attack that is none too revolutionary or game changing (although both Charizard do boast an almost unnecessary 300 base damage). The biggest source of…
Understanding the Minutia of Gameplay “I’m not going to go into full detail listing each and every deck that managed to make Top 8 (check out The Top Cut for that!), but I will make note of trends that I have seen. It is clear that XY had an enormous impact on the format, with cards like Yveltal-EX and Muscle Band making already existing decks even stronger. On the other hand, Aromatisse was able to aide in the creation of a new deck entirely, borrowing from older existing concepts. Not surprisingly there were several Plasma, Blastoise, Aromatisse, and Darkrai/Yveltal decks that crowded the top tables.…
It lived in snowy areas for so long that its fire sac cooled off and atrophied. It now has an organ that generates cold instead. (Galarian Darumaka)
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