59 results for: PikaRom
Goodbye Insane Cards (We Will Miss You) plus ReshiZard, Raikrom, and Malamar/Ultra Necrozma-GX for UPR-on “However, this year’s rotation goes way beyond Zoroark-GX. Despite it being one of the strongest and most victorious Pokémon card of all time, we’re also losing cards that were as powerful and successful as the Dark-type fox, such as Double Colorless Energy, Ultra Ball, and Guzma. The former has been around since Base Set. It actually rotated for a few years, returned to the format, and now is leaving it once again. It has always been a strong and widely-used card. Ultra Ball showed up in 2012, stayed in the format for seven years, and has always been part of…
An NAIC Recap, What Made 1st–3rd Unique, My Own Tournament Report, and Reflections on Losing Your Head “At the Origins Special Event I chose to try and refine an idea that seemed particularly good at the time, Zoroark-GX paired with Silvally-GX and Persian-GX. I had done minimal testing with the deck besides the Thursday night before the event and I tweaked a few card counts to my liking, such as 2 Judge in the list. The event concluded with my final record being 4-2-1 after losing two sets to unfortunate prizing, but I still netted a Top 32 finish. I decided that the Silvally-GX build of Zoroark-GX might not be the best one over the course of…
A Complete Guide to PikaRom for NAIC, Including Matchups + Lists, and a Different Take on ZapBeasts “As you can see, there isn’t much different from my Madison list. This is also what Jesper played to a T4 finish. Basically, there’s nothing special. I’ll briefly discuss the changes from my Madison list and any extra cards that can be swapped in. I cut Absol TEU and Marshadow UNB because they didn’t improve the deck’s integral strategy. Absol was meant to improve our ZapBeasts matchup (and it came in handy) but didn’t carry its weight enough to warrant a spot. Erika’s Hospitality is a much stronger inclusion and increases our consistency. I’m a huge fan of Erika’s Hospitality…
The Evolution of Wall Stall (from Hoopa/Gigas to Counter Attackers + Metal for NAIC), Blacephalon-GX, and Beyond—To the Lurking Tier 2 “Throughout the last month or so dating, back to the release of Unbroken Bonds, I’ve fallen in love with this archetype. I’ve taken it to a Regional, League Cups, and even League Challenges. I have been having a fun time playing the deck. Controlling your opponent’s resources and ultimately decking them out has always appealed to me, and I’m glad I picked up the deck when I did. All this testing has led me to an assortment of different variations of Wall Stall, and today I’ll be sharing them all with you, going over their pros and cons, talking a…
Pre-NAIC Tournament Results, What They Mean, PikaRom vs. ReshiZard, and Words on a Bunch of High-Placing Lists “Headed into NAIC, it is important to track what decks have been doing well. In this case, the results of the two events I think are most important to be familiar with are Santiago Regionals and Origins SPE. In Santiago, the Top 8 deck breakdown for Masters was as follows: 1. PikaRom 2. PikaRom 3. PikaRom 4. Shedinja 5. ReshiZard 6. Malamar 7. Zoroark-GX/Persian-GX/Slowking 8. ReshiZard As for Origins, it was attended by over 100 Masters and won by Daniel Altavilla who defeated Will Jenkins in a ZapBeasts mirror match. These standings paint a clear picture: PikaRom and ZapBeasts are…
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)
Four Revelations for NAIC, Two Main Contenders, PikaRom v6.16, and ZapBeasts Reloaded “Blacephalon UNB is a terrible idea and should not be played by anyone who doesn’t want to rely on pure luck to make it through an event. Zoroark and Silvally seem like a great combination, but in reality the deck falls short of expectations. ReshiZard is seeing way too much hate to be a strong play for NAIC. Weezing has the potential to be a threat because of how good of a meta call it can be. What does this mean for us going forward? It means that inconsistent decks are seemingly falling out of the meta and old decks—such as…
The Post-Madison Tier List and Optimal Decklists for Almost Every Archetype “ReshiZard/Abilities PikaRom Blacephalon-GX Zoroark-GX/Persian-GX Green’s ReshiZard Blacephalon UNB Naganadel/Quagsire Weezing Malamar ZapBeasts Granbull You’ll notice that I separated the Ability ReshiZard and Green’s ReshiZard. They have different enough matchups to where I consider them different decks. We saw Ability-based ReshiZard dominate at Madison, while Green’s ReshiZard had significantly less high placements. I expect the trend of Ability ReshiZard seeing more finishes than Green’s ReshiZard to continue through the coming weekends. Going forward, I believe that Blacephalon-GX will see a resurgence in play because of how well it can handle the ReshiZard matchup and not immediately lose to the rest of…
A Santa Clara Tournament Report with the 1st Place ReshiZard, What I Learned From My Losses, the PikaRom I Didn’t Play, and Oh Yeah Madison “I’ll be the first to admit that I was ill-prepared for the inaugural tournament with Unbroken Bonds and hoping for some last-minute miracle of a deck to fall into my lap as I boarded my flight to Santa Clara. I was dead set on playing PikaRom or a Mill list similar to the one that Peter Kica wrote about in his article last week. I had found so much success with PikaRom in the past and the deck was testing well online, but at the final hour its flaws began to unravel themselves. Before I go into what went wrong…
The “Win-or-Lose” and “Get-Some-Points” Plays for Santa Clara Regionals “I haven’t been able to put as many games as I would have liked into the new format because of my little jaunt to Panama City, but from what I’ve been testing, this seems to be the best play for those of us who want to go all the way. Blacephalon-GX is in a very interesting place right now. It is one of the few decks that can stand up to Pikabox, Zapdos, and now Reshizard. Unbroken Bonds has brought us a whole bunch of different Fire support and Blacephalon-GX can utilize some of it. Even though Welder does allow…
ReshiZard & Friends, Turbo PikaRom, QuagNag, and Both Blacephalon on the Spotlight “The new set Unbroken Bonds has just arrived, and with that the metagame has already changed a lot. The main reason for so much change is the arrival of Welder, Fire Crystal, and the great sensation of the moment, Reshiram & Charizard-GX. With São Paulo Regionals coming in a few days, I decided not to waste time and I’ve already been testing—for a few weeks now—the new cards from Unbroken Bonds, in order to try to understand how the current metagame will be and what decks may appear in the tournament. The SUM–UNB format further embodies the end of the…
A body made up of nothing but muscle makes the grappling moves this Pokémon performs with its tentacles tremendously powerful. (Grapploct)
EUIC Tournament Recap, Innovations, Our PikaRom List, and Vespiquen Honed for Hartford “EUIC was unique in that a new set wasn’t legal for the weekend of the tournament. This was the case for the first two Internationals of the season in São Paulo and Melbourne, where Lost Thunder and Team Up effectively debuted. I’m not sure which I prefer, but I was glad for the change of pace. A major tournament in a developed format (such as SUM–TEU) isn’t bad to have, as most decklists are established, so discussions center more around optimization rather than new ideas. Though, there were a fair amount of innovative decks and lists in the tournament that…
PikaRom and Hoopa/Umbreon for Berlin/the EUIC, and Unbroken Bonds Favs “Daytona Regionals took place this past weekend, and it was taken down by yet another Zoroark-GX/Seismitoad-EX Control deck. I was not surprised to hear that the DDG group was running this deck again, as the Lusamine ban made it so people dismissed this sort of deck and were less likely to test or tech against it, thus it thrived and succeeded. Now that it’s back on everyone’s radar, I would not be surprised to see Pokemon Ranger see an increase in play at Hartford. I myself did not attend Daytona, as I vowed I was done with Expanded, and I’ve…
ZoroGarb 2.0 and PikaTickets for Daytona “I personally believe that Justin Kulas and I came incredibly close to achieving the perfect list for Greensboro. Here is said list: Going forward, I’d say that this list is a perfectly acceptable choice to play in Daytona this weekend. It’s one of the most consistent lists that still includes tech cards for nearly every matchup; however, I believe there are cards that are better in the list now that we’ve seen Drampa/Garbodor win an event and Pikarom make a comeback. There are a few key changes that I believe allow the deck to handle almost any matchup we’re going…
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…
The Green Machine (Celebi & Venusaur-GX), Blacephalon, and My Yellow Plays (Zapdos/Jolteon, Zapdos/Ultra Beasts, Lightning Box) for Denver “I really like this deck as a rogue play for Denver. It boasts quite a few good matchups that I want to beat, and that automatically put it on my radar. The deck struggles a little bit in the early game if you’re unable to find an Energy on the first turn. Usually, this isn’t a problem because we play 14 outs to Energy cards. 1 Wobbuffet LOT One of the matchups that this deck generally struggles with is Pikarom. This is because they can usually get a turn two Full Blitz if they dig for it. Wobbuffet plays a…
These daring Pokémon have coins on their foreheads. Darker coins are harder, and harder coins garner more respect among ______. (Galarian Meowth)
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