12 results for: Control
My Players Cup II Experience (So Far), Moving Forward to Phase 2, and Two Favs: Excadrill Control + Excadrill Beatdown “The meta has been constantly shifting with the amount of online events happening nowadays. We can gather results from an average of one online event per day to figure out what deck would be the best choice for the PCII, so in a sense we are being spoiled by the influx of events lately. On the other hand, the amount of events with so little on the line means that players are more likely to make slight edits to their lists or switch up variants for their archetype of choice completely, with the rare case of a player deciding to…
A Guide to Learning and Understanding the Control Archetype in the Pokémon TCG “One of the primary reasons I decided to write on this topic, and a major motivation I have for advocating for trying control in general, is that Control and other AWC decks get an undeserved bad rep within the community. People with minimal exposure to the archetype immediately label it problem rather than putting in the effort to understand it. More than anything else, I want to change this. By providing an easily-accessible, basic understanding of the archetype, I hope to shed light on the benefits of AWCs and shift the community’s opinion away from this constant distaste towards the…
A Comprehensive Rodent-and-Bird-Filled Guide to Post-Rotation, Post-Bellelba & Brycen-Man Control “I’ve already covered a lot of my reasoning behind specific card choices, but I want to make sure every choice is clear. If it’s our win con why is there only 1??? Very good question! Essentially, this list is tight, especially because we need a good level of consistency to make up for its inherent clunkiness. The Bunny is a win con but it’s not the only win con. If you were to prize the Bunny, or choose not to use it, you would default to an aggressive Energy-denial playstyle, where, instead of pivoting between Bunny and Exca, you can…
The Debut of Gothita Lock “The main idea behind the deck is to get rid of the opponent’s hand and then infinitely lock them by pivoting between Gothita and Drilbur. You can accomplish this by using Reset Stamp late in the game and following it up with Jessie and James in order to remove the few cards that your opponent got off of Reset Stamp, or you can use Jessie and James opportunistically if your opponent overextends their hand. However, it’s likely that most games will follow the Reset Stamp strategy. From there you use Fortune Eye to arrange your opponent’s top 5 cards in…
A New and Improved Way to Play Cinccino Control “Without further ado, I present to you the new and improved Cinccino Control: Considering that the deck focuses on Energy denial, most of the list should be fairly self-explanatory. However, there are some very unorthodox includes that I feel need to be elaborated upon. Let’s talk about the elephant in the room. Why is there a Shuckle-GX in a competitive deck, let alone a Control deck? Shuckle-GX is not only one of the most out-there inclusions, but also one of my favorite mechanics the deck has to offer. Spiritomb cannot handle Shuckle. The Spiritomb matchup becomes one of the most…
When it contracts its body, over 220 pounds of sand sprays from its nose. If it ever runs out of sand, it becomes disheartened. (Sandaconda)
Not Just A Horror Film (A Deep Dive into Pidgeotto Control for UPR–CEC/Standard) “Now I will laboriously walk through our cards and their counts—much of this will touch on matchups, but in the big scheme of things every matchup is the same, so discussing matchups is boring—at some point you will have 1 to 4 Prizes left and you will play (worst-case scenario) Reset Stamp, Lt. Surge’s Strategy, Jessie & James, Jessie & James to reduce your opponent’s hand to 0 cards, Chip-Chip Ice Axe to control their top-deck, and then Cold Crush-GX to strip the Active attacker of Energy. Generally speaking, it doesn’t matter who they are or what they do, your…
LAIC by the Numbers, Pidgey Power, and My Top 2 Plays for Daytona Beach “Thanks to RK9 Labs, we have access to the entire Day 1 field across all age divisions for LAIC. We’ll focus on Masters for our purposes, but there are a few interesting numbers in the other two divisions as well—notably 5 Reshiram & Charizard-GX/Flareon-GX decks in Seniors, and 2 Naganadel/Rayquaza-GX decks in Juniors. Masters saw a Day 1 meta dominated by Arceus & Dialga & Palkia-GX (ADP) decks, as well as Mewtwo & Mew-GX decks. Based on numbers provided by Limitless, we know some number of players brought a Green’s Exploration-based ADP list, as opposed to the midrange list with…
Pidgeotto Control and Pidgeotto/Blacephalon for LAIC “With the release of Cosmic Eclipse, Pidgeotto Control has gotten a couple of tools (which I will detail below) that make it an even more formidable deck than it was before. Prior to Cosmic Eclipse, Pidgeotto Control had three Top 8 finishes between Atlantic City and Knoxville Regionals and a Top 8 finish at Worlds, which showed how powerful it was from the get-go. With its new additions, everyone attending LAIC should focus their attention on either (A) playing Pidgeotto Control or (B) countering it. As always, my lists going into testing are consistency-focused, and most of the techs are…
UPR–CEC Meta Developments, Updating Pidgeotto Control, and Asides on Checkmate and Oranguru UPR “At the beginning, I posed lots of questions. Now, my job is to answer them. I’ll specifically get into Pidgeotto Control later on in the article, as that’s the main topic I’ll be discussing. For now, I’ll do a brief overview of the decks I expect to gain (or change) a lot from the new set release. PikaRom will flop due to the absolute lack of card support it received in Cosmic Eclipse. The problem isn’t even Mega Lopunny & Jigglypuff-GX; the strong decks are too difficult. To start, ADP should be able to wipe the floor with PikaRom because…
Dissecting and Improving Pidgeotto Control from AC/Cologne for Knoxville “Frankly, I wasn’t surprised to see Pidgeotto Control do well. It can do great things in 50-minute Bo3 with a long Game 1 and dismantle inexperienced players if they make a mistake. That being said, it requires a fair bit of knowledge to play, and mistakes with the deck don’t go unpunished. Two completely different variants did well: Sander Wojcik’s teched version and Grant Manley’s Jirachi version. Sander wrote a great post in Heyfonte summarizing the subtleties in his and Grant’s list, so I greatly urge you to check it out. Both lists are also available online on Heyfonte and Limitless.…
It eats berries nonstop—a habit that has made it more resilient than it looks. It’ll show up on farms, searching for yet more berries. (Skwovet)
Poipole Lock and Keldeo-GX/Vaporeon-GX Stall from Worlds, Updated “I dropped an article on ReshiBlowns and PikaRom the week of Worlds and I was set on playing one of those decks. However, Tuesday evening (the day before I flew out to Washington, DC) I was presented with an idea from my testing group featuring Vaporeon-GX. With knowledge of some preexisting healing Stall archetypes out there which were less consistent, I immediately knew that this idea had potential. After work, I headed to three local card shops, called several GameStops, and even reached out to some vendors that I thought would be at the World Championships in hopes to get…
Highlighting Denver’s Unexpected Standouts: Bodybuilding/Zoroark Control, Draw/Celebi & Venusaur-GX, and Order Pad/PikaRom “Denver was a lot of fun and here’s a quick report on how my games went: Denver Regionals / 640 Masters / SUM–TEU Day 1 R1 — Alolan Muk/Garbodor/Psyduck — WW R2 — Zoroark-GX/Lycanroc-GX — WLL R3 — Buzzwole-GX/Zygarde-GX/Lycanroc-GX — WW R4 — Zoroark-GX/Lycanroc-GX — WLL R5 — Blacephalon-GX/Naganadel — WW R6 — Pikachu & Zekrom-GX/Zapdos — WW R7 — Blacephalon-GX/Naganadel — WW R8 — Regigigas/Hoopa — WW R9 — Blacephalon-GX/Naganadel — ID Day 2 R10 — Zapdos/Buzzwole/Nihilego — LL R11 — Pikachu & Zekrom-GX/Zapdos — WLW R12 — Buzzwole-GX/Lucario-GX — WW R13 — Blacephalon-GX/Naganadel — WW R14 — Pikachu…
This Pokémon reigns supreme in the skies of the Galar region. The black luster of its steel body could drive terror into the heart of any foe. (Corviknight)
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