138 results for: joltik phf
Influences on Deck Selection and Vespiquen/Zoroark at US Nationals “This is the order in which I came to know about decks that did well in other countries that were using the same Standard format as US Nationals. I knew that I needed to sit down and pilot these decks to understand their weaknesses, and perhaps in the process I’d be swayed enough to actually play them. Some players are overly dismissive of the results of foreign countries’ Nationals, but overconfidence is a far worse point of origin than championship deck lists. Pablo Meza Alonso won Mexican Nationals with this list. I’ve had the pleasure of knowing Pablo for years…
The Current State of the Format and My Five Favorites for US Nationals “With the format becoming Standard for the largest tournament of the year, the deck choices available to play are surprisingly wide open. There is no clear and concise “best deck in the format” (BDIF). Instead, there are a bunch of decks that have proven to be good through tournament performances in the recent past that all have good/bad matchups against each other. Great examples of these decks would be the five listed for this article, with some other notable exclusions being Greninja BREAK, Darkrai/Giratina/Garbodor, Trevenant BREAK, and Vespiquen/Vileplume. If you are looking for some great coverage of these other deck…
Origins Prep, Night March Some More, Yveltal/Zoroark, and Water Toolbox v1.2 “It’s fitting to start today’s discussion with Night March as it was the most successful deck at State Championships, the most recent circuit of Standard tournaments. Night March is a deck that has constantly evolved since its inception with the release of Phantom Forces in November 2014. This ability to adapt and counter new threats is what makes the deck so strong. Night March has been talked into the ground but the release of Fates Collide gives it a new tool and a few new threats to counter. Let’s look at a list: This list draws heavily from the Expanded list…
The Complete Testing Tier List, Work-in-Progress Concepts, and Steam Siege Salutations “Top Tier Night March Greninja BREAK Trevenant BREAK High Tier Mew Toolbox Water Toolbox Vespiquen/Vileplume Mid Tier Mega Rayquaza/Jolteon-EX Bronzong BREAK Yveltal/Zoroark/Gallade Sitting at number 1 on the tier list, Night March has been a destructive force in the Standard format the entire year and it even got help from Fates Collide. Oddly enough, Mew FCO has not been game-changing for the lists that have been successful the past couple of weeks of foreign Nationals. Many players have opted to still only play 4 copies of Double Colorless (and no basic Energy) then add 1 or 2 Mew FCO to…
Why Night March is Looking So Good, the Latest List, and How to Overcome Its ‘Bad’ Matchups “It’s always difficult to get a firm grasp on the US Nationals metagame due to the fact that we’re going into a format almost completely blind. Other than any testing you choose to do (testing which will only be relevant to determining the metagame if you’re able to try out almost the entire format over a long period of time, if that even), the only way to look at the metagame is through results of different foreign National Championships, League Challenges in the US, and the many articles from various websites that are geared towards the competitive scene. In this…
When it isn’t battling, it keeps Dreepy in the holes on its horns. Once a fight starts, it launches the Dreepy like supersonic missiles. (Dragapult)
Revisiting Regionals, Adapting Old Favorites, a New Night March, and the Future of Frogs “The only tournaments that we really care about at this point happened on the third weekend of the Spring Regionals series: M Rayquaza won Massachusetts Yveltal/Max Elixir won Utah Night March had exceptional performances in Kansas Vespiquen/Flareon took down Edmonton Honestly, Rayquaza and Night March seem like the only Standard viable decks out of the four, and FCO made little impact on either. The winner of Massachusetts played the most basic speed Rayquaza build you can get. Rayquaza does well in Standard, but takes a hard loss to Night March. Expanded is dominated by Darkness decks, making Rayquaza an exceptional deck…
Canada Recap, Tuning Up for Week 2, the Anonymous Report, and Countering Capers “Heading into Canada, I desperately wanted one of the decks I covered in my last article to work. I realized this weekend that M Gardevoir has Wonder Energy at its disposal to make the Trevenant matchup even more interesting, which made me want to consider the deck even more. I have absolutely no idea how I’d go about fitting it, or if it’d be worthwhile, but it’s testament to the fact that Expanded has an overwhelming depth of options to consider. However, at some point it became necessary to cut bait on the ideas there for the various caveats each…
Three for This Weekend, the Next, the One After That, and Fates Collide Gains “This was one of the new decks that BREAKpoint gave us. The deck has been making strong showings in Standard ever since its win in Florida. This deck is no longer under the radar and I expect it to be even more popular in Expanded. This is a good deck to keep in your playtesting circles as I would expect to play against it at least one or two times at Regionals. This is the Aaron Tarbell’s list that won Florida for reference. Many people advocate adding Head Ringer to deal with Sky Return looping. I actually do not support…
9 Different Decks for Spring Regionals “It seems that nowadays, the topic of shuffling comes around more and more in the Pokémon community. This could relate to not shuffling enough, shuffling for too long and wasting time, or just overall bad habits. I don’t really mind how my opponent shuffles, as I will always give their deck a couple of riffles myself. When I’m playing against a good friend, I actually don’t even shuffle their deck most of the time and just trust that they wouldn’t try anything tricky. Overall, it’s never a bad idea to shuffle an opponent’s deck, though. For my own shuffling habits,…
Improving Meta Decks to Create the Three Best Decks in the Format “Shuffling is a funny thing. There are so many ways to shuffle your deck efficiently, and it seems like every player you encounter shuffles in their own way. Shuffling is something that occurs many, many times in one game, yet it is something that isn’t talked about often. I don’t think shuffling is a big deal, and I don’t care how my opponents shuffle as long as I can see that their cards are moving around so that they do not have any idea where a given card may be. As for me, I don’t have a stylish shuffle. I…
Five of them are troopers, and one is the brass. The brass’s orders are absolute. (Falinks)
The Top 16 Grind, Junior Meta Updates, Modern Deck Design, and Maryland + Virginia States Reports “That’s enough talk about parenting! Let’s talk about Pokemon — specifically, what is going on in the Junior meta. The Junior meta feels more different from the Masters meta than ever before. Whereas Masters are circling around Battle Compressor decks obsessively, I think your average Junior still seeks decks where there is an element of attaching and attacking. Most Juniors are put off by the complexity and non-linearity of decks such as Vespiquen/Vileplume. Similarly, the chunk of Juniors not put off by the complexity are put off for a different reason, but to articulate that, I need to tell a…
On Banishing Battle Compressor, Yveltal at States, and Night Marching Forward “In one of Erik Nance’s most recent articles, he discussed the disappearance of the tournament report and how no one seems to write them anymore. I remember in my younger days, how I would go to PokeGym and look up certain players by their username just so I would be able to read about their past tournaments from formats I never competed in. It was always incredibly fun for me to read the reports of certain players because they definitely lent themselves to a certain type of writing that does not exist today. Ultimately though, these posts were just as…
Random Thoughts on Randomizing, A Greener View from the Dark Side, and the Final Week “Is there a proper way to shuffle? This has been a question on my mind ever since I started playing the game … wondering if my shuffling caused this terrible dead draw or how my hand ended up so perfect. I could never figure out what was the best process to randomize my deck. If you really want to find the perfect technique, go ahead and do all the numerous statistics and probability problems in order to get to as few dead draws as possible. However, no matter what the outcome is, I am thoroughly convinced you will always have…
Why Night March is Still the Play (for Most People) and Three Current Builds for Varying Metas “I’d first like to talk a bit about the place of Night March within the Standard format and the Standard metagame in general. If you’ve been paying attention to the kinds of discussions happening online — primarily on Twitter and the Virbank City Facebook page — you’ll see that a lot of players are frustrated that Night March has been doing so well. In fact, Night March made up 35% of all the Top 8 decks played during the first weekend of State Championships, so it’s understandable that the deck’s popularity and dominance in the format has led to outcry…
Bridging the Gap Between Night March and All the Rest “I took YZG to a 5th place finish at the New Hampshire State Championships this past Saturday. I went a clean 5-0 in Swiss rounds and drew my way into 1st seed. This actually not the exact list I played — I subsequently swapped a Super Rod for an Yveltal BKT. I found that with Puzzle of Time, the Super Rod that I played was excessive. Yveltal BKT’s Ability offers too much utility against Night March to pass up. If I could do Saturday morning over again, these are the 60 cards that I would play. My Top 8 opponent was a very good…
It evolved after experiencing numerous fights. While crossing its arms, it lets out a shout that would make any opponent flinch. (Obstagoon)
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