10 results for: tier list
My Top 5 Decks for Week 1 of Players Cup Bracket Play (Including: Spiritomb, Baby Blowns, PikaRom, Dragapult, and Zacian Combo) “Spiritomb/Ultra Beasts is a deck that emerged after the metagame was already established. If the metagame stays the way it is, then we have a great deck, but if opponents make a few changes to prepare for Spiritomb, it loses a lot of potential. In addition, it is a deck with very even matchups, without great advantages or disadvantages. Spiritomb needs other attackers because alone it will not be able to close out a match due to its low HP and limit of 4 copies. As much as you use Ordinary Rod or Lana’s Fishing Rod, you still need more…
Water Mew3 Box and Silvally-GX/Alolan Persian-GX, Two Crazy Decks to Compete with Tier 1 “If I had to list in order the best decks of the format, this would be my list: Dragapult VMAX PikaRom Zacian Combo Baby Blowns Spiritomb Dragapult VMAX is my favorite deck due to the extremely strong attack and high HP of Dragapult VMAX. If you get a Dragapult VMAX with two Energies on turn two, you don’t need anything else to play against most metagame decks. By focusing the deck on being consistent to do this, you already have enormous strength in your hands. The deck doesn’t need Crushing Hammer, Giant Bomb, Spell Tag, or any other techs, it…
Analyzing the Limitless Q3 Meta and Exploring New Ideas for Q4 (Zacian V/Galarian Perrserker + Torkoal V/Magcargo-GX) “With the arrival of the Rebel Clash, no one knew exactly what the metagame would be like, so many new ideas could appear. The fact that the Limitless Online Series is a free online tournament also contributes to making players feel more relaxed and comfortable using decks outside Tier 1. So many new decks could surprise you. But it didn’t quite work out that way. The four main decks of the tournament—PikaRom, Baby Blowns, Dragapult VMAX, and ADPZ—in my opinion, are really a step ahead in the metagame. Dragapult VMAX proved to be difficult to counter; even with many players…
Vikavolt and Early Impressions of the UPR–RCL Format So Far (or: a Tentative Tier List) “A lot of people who are close to me can vouch for the fact that I’ve been talking about this deck a lot. When I first saw Vikavolt RCL, I was amazed that they were allowing Twin Energy to count as 40 damage for Powerful Storm. At this point, I hadn’t even remembered that Charjabug UNB was a card, and I already thought the deck was decent. And then I remembered that there’s 160 damage in free attachments just laying around in Charjabug. The really high damage numbers needed to be viable in this format became obtainable for Vikavolt. I…
A Look to Japan for Rebel Clash’s Impact on Standard’s Top Tiers, Including Dragapult VMAX, Toxtricity VMAX, ADPZ, and PikaRom “To understand some choices with Japanese decklists, we first have to understand Japanese tournaments. Their tournament levels roughly mirror ours: Trainer Challenges, City Leagues, Champions Leagues, and Japan Championship. Tournaments are Swiss + Top Cut, Best-of-1 with a 25-minute timer, except for Trainer Challenges. Much like our League Challenges, Trainer Challenges lack a Top Cut. Ties do not exist in Japanese tournament structure. This has an interesting effect on Stall decks. If a game would result in a tie by our standards, it results in a double loss in Japan. Because of this, Stall and Control decks don’t have nearly…
When it gets wet, its skin changes color, and this Pokémon becomes invisible as if it were camouflaged. (Sobble)
On TrevNoir in Dallas, Other Expanded Contenders, ADsPinner, and the Post-Malmö Standard Tier List “Granted, I expected the deck to be played more than in Dallas of course, which is why I had a specific tech for mirror in my list: Wobbuffet PHF. The deck ended up being the overall winner, but unfortunately not in my own hands. I did make Day 2, barely, after a 4-0 start, but I performed very poorly in Day 2 due to a combination of poor luck and poor play on my part due to me feeling terrible with the flu and a nonstop cough. 67th place meant reaching Day 2 meant nothing, as I could’ve just played…
T4 @ Dallas w/ ZoroGarb, Other Good Expanded Decks, Idea Dump (Sword & Shield Edition), and an Early UPR–SSH Tier List “Leading up to Dallas, my group and I had tested several decks, all of which felt relatively mediocre in comparison to Turbo Dark, which left us with the question “Why aren’t we just playing Dark?” To tell it short, only one of us ended up on Turbo Dark. I can’t speak for the others, but the reason I didn’t end up playing it—despite it being a sheer powerhouse of a deck—was because I didn’t feel as if I had enough options to outplay my opponent when I was playing the deck. The deck felt too reliant on if you could…
What I Learned from the Iowa Marathon, a Pre-Dallas Tier List, and Turbo Dark (My Top Play for Dallas) “At the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020, we saw “marathons” of League Cups occur across the country. Some of these were Standard-only, some were Expanded-only, and some were a mix of both formats. I chose to attend the one in Iowa because it was within driving distance and fully Expanded. I did alright, netting 125 “fake” (Stipend) CP and a whopping 10 Invite CP. During that week, I witnessed something that I haven’t seen since the end of the City Championship era with their own marathon weeks: A local meta that shifted and developed based on the…
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…
An Analysis of the Japanese Battle Carnival “The metagame before the tournament, taken from shop tournament results, testing results, and speculation is very similar to what the United States format is turning into right now. The only deck that is added with BW9 is Virizion EX + Genesect EX, but the rest of the decks seem very standard. “But why isn’t Blastoise + Keldeo EX + Black Kyurem EX PLS on the list? It should be tier 1, right?” Although Blastoise is one of the best decks right now I decided not to add it to the tier list. Because of the cost of Japanese Tropical Beach,…
Its majestic horns are meant only to impress the opposite gender. They never see use in battle. (Dubwool)