28 results for: UPR–SSH
My OCIC Zacian/ADP, 5-4/What Went Wrong, and Galarian Obstagoon’s Matchup Spread “The first thing that went wrong was the mentality I had approaching the event. My motivation wasn’t to win the entire event, which is okay, but that clouded my judgement when selecting decks. The Top 16 race for this year has become quite crowded in the bottom half and I found myself in a position to be knocked out of Top 16 if I didn’t earn Points. I began convincing myself that Championship Points were all I needed; I just needed to walk away with 100 CP if I could, and nothing else mattered. This put me in a negative…
The Post-OCIC Meta, Two for Collinsville (Straight Zacian V, Zacian V/Bronzong), and Understanding Expanded as an RPS Format “The main story of OCIC was the utter dominance of ADP/Zacian V. Nearly half of Day 2 competitors played it, and it took up seven of the Top 16 slots. The rest of the decks were essentially tried-and-true favorites updated with Quick Ball and Professor’s Research: Mew3, Malamar, PikaRom, Ability ReshiZard, and Baby Blacephalon. One deck that surprised me by living up to its hype was Zacian V Mill. Including the player that got DQ’d for an incorrect decklist, three of the four that made Day 2 got Top 16, and two made Top 8. I think if the tournament…
Building a Competitive Deck in Three Steps w/ Case Studies on Zacian V/ADP, PikaRom, and Lapras VMAX for OCIC “Whichever deck you choose or create, you need to make sure that that deck can work consistently. In this step, the idea is to create the most consistent list possible so that the main ideas of the deck can work without any problem. Another important point here is that we should not consider the metagame when building the list—that is, this isn’t the step to include tech cards like Phione CEC or Tapu Fini UNM. We will do that later, in Step 3. In fact, there is no exact order as to which is Step 1 and Step 2. It…
The Winners and Losers of Sword & Shield (Standard Format), Morpeko V, RowEgg/Rillaboom, and Reflections on Choosing a Deck “With every set comes changes to the metagame, with some cards and decks getting more powerful, while others fall off or vanish. With SSH bringing many new cards, including new Pokemon V and a rule change, this is more true than ever. This one might be fairly obvious—PikaRom’s greatest limitation since the rotation of Nest Ball has been finding Tapu Koko Prism Star in a timely manner. So far, PikaRom players have had to use Pokemon Communication, which is not ideal, since they typically had fewer than 15 Pokemon to use with it. Quick Ball not only seamlessly searches Tapu…
My Final ADP/Zacian V List for OCIC, Expanded in a Nutshell, and Shock Lock w/ SSH “If OCIC was tomorrow, I’d play this. It’s widely accepted that ADP/Zacian V is the best deck, and there has been little evidence to debunk this. The deck works, and being able to OHKO almost everything and take an additional Prize when doing so is powerful—who knew? -1 Phione CEC +1 Oranguru UPR -1 Tapu Fini UNM +1 Jirachi TEU -1 Metal Energy +1 Water Energy These changes are pretty self-explanatory. Phione and Tapu Fini, though good cards, are very situational and perhaps not worth running. My main reason for including Phione was as a counter to Galarian Obstagoon SSH…
A clay slab with cursed engravings took possession of a ______. The slab is said to be absorbing the ______’s dark power. (Galarian Yamask)
Preliminary Expanded Decklists ×4 and Mew3/Fire Box + Green’s Blowns for Standard “The biggest things to happen in Expanded with the release of SSH are easily the emergence of Zacian as an archetype and the turn 1 no Supporter rule. Both of these things have had a decent impact on the format, and made some of the old archetypes much better and some much worse. In my initial breakdown of SSH I mentioned some of the cards that got better, so check that out for that info. I believe that I may have initially overvalued EggLet in this format though. I initially thought the card, and the deck, would be incredibly good,…
Zacian/ADP and Mew3/Malamar, My Early BDIFs of Sword & Shield Standard “Now that I’ve had a more genuine chance to give a wide array of decks a try, I’m completely convinced that Zacian V is by far the best deck in the format. It can be paired up with Arceus & Dialga & Palkia-GX to become a huge offensive threat, or with Melmetal & Lucario-GX in order to become a tankier deck and try to win the battle of resources. Both variants have impressed me so far, and I especially love having the Energy denial aspect in the deck, whilst also having an easier time OHKOing things. Testing has led me…
Blacephalon/Naganadel Updated and Matched Up for UPR–SSH/Standard “-1 Poipole LOT +1 Poipole FLI -1 Heatran-GX +1 Blacephalon-GX -1 Blacephalon CEC -1 Marshadow UNB +1 Mew UNB -3 Cherish Ball +3 Quick Ball -1 Great Catcher +2 Pokemon Catcher I decided to keep all Poipole the same (with the Spit Poison attack) since the 10 damage ticks can actually make a difference at times. I also ended up finally dropping Heatran-GX for a 4th copy of Blacephalon-GX for a couple of reasons: First, our best starter is Blacephalon-GX. When we start with it, we can Burst-GX as soon as possible. Second, GardEon will likely not exist anymore…
A Close Look at Cinccino Mill, Early in the UPR–SSH/Standard Format “This deck recently saw a lot of success in Japan’s smaller events, but I always take those results with more than one grain of salt. Their structure is different than ours and they have different styles of decks that they like to play, but I think Cinccino Mill blurs the line here quite a bit. I had actually been testing the deck before seeing these results, but some of their lists certainly gave me ideas to make mine better. The strategy with this deck is pretty simple. You need to deck your opponent out before they win. Make Do is the new Trade…
Sword & Shield Set Rundown, ADP/Zacian V the BDIF, and Concept Lists for Hammertime and Fire Box “I’m going to run down the set list and give some brief thoughts on the strongest cards. This section is not meant to be all-inclusive, but rather an inspiration for your own deck-building adventures. I think Rillaboom is severely underrated amongst most players. On top of having the traditional Rare Candy method of getting put into play, Rillaboom can also take advantage of Rowlet & Alolan Exeggutor-GX. While it doesn’t have a plethora of strong attackers, Rillaboom can make use of Venusaur & Snivy-GX, Dhelmise V, Rowlet & Alolan Exeggutor-GX, Celebi & Venusaur-GX, and Pheromosa & Buzzwole-GX. Each of these…
It’s highly skilled at tap-dancing. It waves its cane of ice in time with its graceful movements. (Mr. Rime)
T8 @ Dallas w/ TrevNoir, Japanese Resources, Anticipated UPR–SSH Archetypes, and Snorlax VMAX for Expanded “My initial testing showed a struggle with Turbo Dark, as it was so easy for them to power up and take OHKOs due to Weakness. I discarded the deck, making a video to showcase it here: One week before the event though, my friend Alex Garcia encouraged us to give it another go as on paper it seemed strong, and we added 2 Weakness Policy to help deal with Turbo Dark. As we played the matchup more, we started to realize how favorable the match actually was, so we decided to high-roll with the deck and hope for the best.…
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…
Dallas Recap w/ Shock Lock, Sword & Shield Top 5 (for Standard), and Electrocharger PikaRom for OCIC “Heading to Dallas, I had been joking around with a few friends about playing Shock Lock for the event. As the week progressed, my friends kept getting more and more hyped about the idea. We decided on somewhat of a pact that if all six of us played it we would, but if even one person backed out we would get to play whatever we wanted. I had mentally prepared myself to play Vespiquen for the umpteenth time in my life because this Shock Lock expedition required me to gather 24 copies of Tropical Beach…in English. I began my quest…
If you’re too loud around it, you risk being torn apart by the claws on its tentacle. This Pokémon is also known as the Forest Witch. (Hatterene)