30 results for: SUM–TEU
The Collinsville Meta, the Future of Standard, Variance Got Me, and What’s “the Play” Now? “We saw a Blacephalon/Naganadel deck take the win this past weekend. Zapdos/Jirachi and Zoroark/Lycanroc made up a major portion of the meta, Stall is back (and causing me a major headache), and the top players brought a variety of decks to the event. What influenced these plays though? Blacephalon was, in retrospect, the obvious choice for the weekend, having a borderline free matchup against Zoroark, 50/50s against Pikarom and Zapdos, and a chance against the Stall decks. The Zapdos and Zoroark players were influenced by the results from OCIC. Zoroark was still a very strong play for the weekend, and…
Synthesizing Collinsville’s Results at the Dusk of SUM–TEU Standard (and an Electrical Stab at Expanded) “1st Zach Lesage won the tournament with his tried-and-true Blacephalon-GX/Naganadel deck that he has played at almost every tournament since its release. This came as a surprise to most players, including myself, as there was little reason to believe that the deck could compete with Zapdos. For an incredibly linear deck like Blowns, the two-shot nature of Zapdos/Jirachi should be overpowering due to its extra consistency and capability to attack immediately. However, Zach’s list contained a 1-1 Alolan Muk line, which is something I’ll touch on in a bit. 2nd Surrounding the success of Blacephalon-GX/Naganadel was Zoroark-GX/Lycanroc-GX/Lucario-GX. Basically, this deck…
Tyranitar/Hoopa, Fossil Frenzy, and Alolan Exeggutor for Collinsville “2 Tyranitar TEU: 170 HP, single Prize, and can do 230 damage with one attack! What’s not to love about the new Tyranitar? Spinning Tail does 30 damage to all of your opponent’s Pokemon, which can allow you to clear your opponent’s board of any low-HP Pokemon hanging around. The real attraction here is Bite Off, which does 130 base damage but adds a whopping 100 damage if your opponent’s Active Pokemon is a GX or EX, which KOs most Pokemon. Tyranitar-GX plays well into the spread strategy, hits for solid damage while having 250 HP, and Lost Out is…
SUM–TEU as a Whole, Oceania Internationals Results Analysis, Ultra Necrozma for Collinsville, and Words on Zoroark/Lycanroc + PikaRom/Jirachi Too “I was rather unsure of my feelings about the new format. On one hand, I was, and still am, very excited to be able to play a format that isn’t the travesty that the previous Standard format was. On the other hand, I don’t know that I like the changes that Team Up brought. It seems to me that games are almost always decided by Turn 2 with very little chance to come back once you fall behind in many matchups. For instance, the Zapdos mirror match is the first matchup that I believe it is actually correct to choose…
The Oceania Meta, Post-Oceania Zoroark, Ultra Necrozma / Malamar (Updated), and What We Have Left “Based on what I heard, the Day 1 metagame was very similar to what we saw Day 2: a lot of Lightning decks—mixed between Pikachu & Zekrom-GX and Zapdos based—along with a heavy presence of Ultra Necrozma-GX/Malamar decks and Zoroark-GX as well. Decks like Blacephalon-GX and Psychic Malamar also showed up in lower numbers, but ultimately didn’t do as well as the others previously mentioned. The Top 8 was comprised of 3 Zapdos, 3 Pikachu & Zekrom-GX, and 2 Zoroark-GX decks. Malamar had three Top 16 showings, including a 9th place bubble. One of the three Zapdos decks included Buzzwole…
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)
Oceania IC Results Discussion, Breakout Cards, and the Four Major Decks Heading into Collinsville “Let’s look at the results from the Masters Division of the event! Here are the Day 2 final standings (via Limitless, PokéStats, RK9 Labs): 1. Byron Isaiah Williams — Zapdos Jirachi 2. Stéphane Ivanoff — Zoroark Lycanroc Lucario 3. Kaiwen Cabbabe — Pikachu & Zekrom 4. Jose Marrero — Pikachu & Zekrom 5. Bert Wolters — Zapdos Jirachi 6. Lucas Henrique de Araujo Pereira — Pikachu & Zekrom 7. Henry Brand — Zoroark Lycanroc 8. Daniel Altavilla — Zapdos Jirachi 9. Christian Hasbani — Malamar Ultra Necrozma 10. Robin Schulz — Zapdos Jirachi 11. Azul Garcia Griego — Zapdos Jirachi 12. Rahul…
Shrine Zapdos, Pikachu & Zekrom-GX (Updated!), and Ultra Necrozma-GX/Malamar for SUM–TEU (Pre-Oceania IC Standard) “The best deck (that I wouldn’t play at Melbourne) is Shrine Zapdos. The deck has felt extremely powerful, yet it easy to prepare for by teching Alolan Muk SUM or a copy of Absol TEU into many decks. That has been the biggest issue I’ve encountered, along with tanky Celebi & Venusaur-GX-based decks. A deck such as this one can thrive in an environment that suits it, where it’s not expected and no one is playing Absol or Celebi & Venusaur. However, due to the OIC metagame being undefined, I genuinely think Shrine Zapdos is not a good call as…
Pikachu & Zekrom-GX/Electric.dec, Lost March (SUM–TEU, Pre-Oceania IC), and Some Commentary on the Recent DQs and Suspensions “First of all, I want the record to show that I don’t think TAG TEAM GX cards are particularly good for the game. I expect that most of these cards will either be too powerful—bordering on oppressive—or they won’t be good enough to see competitive play. Either result is not great and I don’t believe the card type is going to lead to fun, engaging gameplay. I would love to be wrong about this, but I haven’t had too much fun playing with the cards yet and I don’t think there’s enough design space to make these cards interesting. They…
Team Up Notables, the Oceania Meta, Lost March, Psychic Malamar, and Impressions of the New Standard “There are a lot of cards in Team Up, and quite a few of them are pretty good. Pikachu & Zekrom-GX: This is probably the card/deck that is seeing the most hype, and from my experience it has certainly lived up to that hype. The card is incredibly strong, combining high HP, insane Energy acceleration, and a broken GX attack. Add in the Lightning-type support we’ve received in the last two sets, and you get a truly powerful archetype. Celebi & Venusaur-GX: This is what I feel is probably the most interesting TAG TEAM to talk about, because it is played…
A More Focused Look at Top Contenders Post-Team Up (Electric.dec, Psychic/”GasKan” Malamar, and Decidueye-GX) “In my opinion, Electric.dec is the most hyped newcomer in the meta. There have been plenty of lists published, both from USA and Japan, and I can safely say I’m a fan of Pablo’s which he posted last week. Electropower is a worthwhile card in hitting numbers, and other support cards like Raikou SLG and Zapdos TEU are there as sidekicks, not the main show. The part of this deck as a whole that I’m unsure about is its capability to get rolling initially. The first Full Blitz leads into the next, but the path to the first looks somewhat dicey. Using…
It’s said that this Pokémon was formed when an ancient clay tablet was drawn to a vengeful spirit. (Galarian Yamask)
The Return of Fulop’s Korner, Malamar Goes Far, and a Special Poll (RED or BLUE?) “I finished in the Top 64 of Roanoke Regionals with a pretty unique take on an Ultra Necrozma/Malamar deck that has since spawned a very unusual direction for me to take the archetype. For reference, this is the list I piloted at the event: This deck has a lot of options available to it, but the main thing that stood out from playing the deck is just how strong Ultra Necrozma’s Sky-Scorching Light-GX attack was. Traditionally, Ultra Necrozma builds of Malamar focused on just one-shotting opposing Pokemon. That isn’t exactly a bad plan, as Ultra Necrozma is extremely efficient…
Pikachu & Zekrom-GX, Rayquaza/Vikavolt, and Celebi & Venusaur-GX (for Standard) “Having said that, I know current Standard (SUM–LOT) is on its last legs, so I won’t bore you with that. Instead, I’ve also been thinking and theorizing a lot about Team Up. I’ve paid special attention to Japanese results and their Team Up format, and there’s one easy conclusion to arrive to: Pikachu & Zekrom-GX is the next big thing. Lightning-type Pokemon have so much support with Thunder Mountain {*}, Electropower, Volkner, and strong Pokemon like Zeraora-GX, Tapu Koko-GX, and Zapdos TEU. All this synergy, along with some pretty broken attacks, will finally make Pikachu an undisputed force to be…
The Past (Dallas w/ ZoroToad), The Future (SUM–TEU Standard), and a Team Up Top 10 “This is the Seismitoad-EX/Zoroark-GX list that my entire group ended up playing for the event! Caleb ended up with a 2nd-place finish, and the group had great success overall, so I would say it was a very successful tournament! 1 Oranguru UPR: This is a card that was mentioned when removing stuff, but ended up being kept around, and I am super glad that is the case! Despite not playing against any mill decks or decks that featured Garbodor GRI, this Oranguru pulled its weight. It was crucial in my victory against Mega Gardevoir, and it made some big plays in…
Primal Groudon in Dallas, Bans in Expanded, and Swampert in Standard (Pre-Team Up) “I’m trying to think of another deck that has had such longevity in the field of viability, and I’m drawing a blank. There have been no Regionals since the initial rise of Primal Groudon that I feel the deck has been utterly unplayable. Dallas was no exception to this. We saw a few vastly different takes on the deck this past weekend, all of them viable in their own right. My build was built more as an attacking–mill-style deck, whereas the others we saw focused more on healing their Groudon rather than alternate attackers. Hours of testing with my friend,…
My Dallas Experience w/ Zoro/Garb, Final Notes on Expanded, and Team Up and Standard “To nobody’s surprise, Zoroark-GX decks made up a majority of the meta in Dallas. Zoroark-GX/Garbodor was the most popular deck, but Archie’s Blastoise was only behind by two people. Aside from the 88 and 86 playing these respective decks, there was a slew of other Zoroark-GX decks, a surge of Vespiquen, Rayquaza-GX, and other meta decks somewhat seen in the field. Fighting decks, Trevenant, and Drampa-GX/Garbodor were all relatively unpopular, only having about 20 players each. I was surprised to see that there weren’t more Fighting decks because of Zoroark’s last win. My theory is that most people were more…
With jaws that can shear through steel rods, this highly aggressive Pokémon chomps down on its unfortunate prey. (Drednaw)
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