36 results for: Zoroark
The Quiet Days and Second Wind of My Pokémon Career, Including the Most Unbalanced Decks I’ve Played, from 2013–2014 to Now “Ah, where were we? After 2013 Worlds, BLW, EPO, NVI, and DRV were rotated. Since the early Black & White sets started off slow, and because power creep really ramped up started at NXD, very few important cards were lost to this rotation. In addition, several of the powerful cards had already been reprinted: Terrakion got a secret rare in BCR; EPO Item powerhouses Pokemon Catcher and Max Potion got theirs in DEX and PLF; and the staple supporters Professor Juniper and N were spared too. The main exceptions were Eelektrik NVI and Crushing Hammer EPO. Virizion-EX/Genesect-EX PLB was the…
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…
The Latest on ZoroGarb, ADP Dark, and UltraGarb for Dallas “With that in mind, I have found myself putting in the most work with ZoroGarb, mostly because it feels familiar and very powerful. It combines a wide variety of things that are important in Expanded, such are Item abuse, Ability abuse, and overextension on the Bench usage, whilst having the amazing Trade Ability. Here is the latest draft of the list that I’ve been practicing with the most: The list is of course heavily based on Ian Robb’s winning list from Portland. However, it does feature new inclusions that are both great new cards but also personal preference choices. The…
Exploring Expanded Garbodor Variants: Zoroark-GX, Ultra Necrozma, and Rogue Giratina-EX/Welder “Zoroark-GX/Garbodor has been a staple of the Expanded format for as long as I can remember. Lists have remained incredibly similar over time due to the unchanging core of the deck: Brigette and Colress. These two Supporters define the engine and contribute to the deck’s low variability between games. Garbotoxin always counters an entire format, Riotous Beating is a good attack, and Trade glues the components together. As you’ll see, the list is quite similar to all those before it. To start my testing, I took Ian Robb’s list from Portland and made a few changes to account for the…
ZoroGarb for Portland, Jon’s Idea Dump (UPR–CEC Edition), and Charizard & Braixen Hand Lock for LAIC “-1 Cobalion-GX -1 Mr. Mime PLF +1 Garbodor GRI +1 Brigette For the most part, I thought Michael’s list was perfect. It was well suited for the expected meta. However, to the surprise of some, Archie’s Blastoise, arguably the most hyped deck going into the event, didn’t have a single spot in Day 2. This wasn’t even due to the deck doing poorly or having a poor place in the meta, it was mainly because not many people played it. The changes I’ve made to the list are under the assumption that the same will hold true in Portland. Cobalion…
Cunning and cautious, this Pokémon survives by stealing food from others. It erases its tracks with swipes of its tail as it makes off with its plunder. (Nickit)
The Alien Beheeyem/Zoroark/Walls for Richmond “A couple of weeks ago, I was sitting in a hallway about to take a midterm, and about 15 minutes before it started, this idea just came into my head. Naturally, instead of continuing to study, I started to think about this list, and after a lot of testing, this is where I landed with it. The theory behind this deck is that you use Beheeyem to Item lock, then switch into a wall such as Pyroar or Honchkrow-GX. Then Zoroark provides the incredibly powerful draw engine the deck needs to be able to find Beheeyem pieces every turn. Honchkrow-GX…
A Shock Lock Disclaimer, ZoroGarb (Sky Field & Parallel City), ZoroToad, ToadGarb, and Misc. Other Expanded Thoughts on/for Richmond Regionals “Most people first associate my name with my beloved Stoutland deck, so I wanted to include a bit for the people who may have clicked just for that. Shock Lock is a very poor play in current Expanded. Part of what made the deck so consistent and powerful is that it could play no Pokémon Tool removal and simply concede to Garbodor decks. Now, any deck that plays Stealthy Hood makes themselves immune to Evoshock. Previously, Shock Lock took an auto-loss to Trevenant PHF (sans clunky Lysandre techs) because your only means of using Evoshock infinitely is with Lillipup BLW’s…
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…
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…
A Journey with QuagNag through São Paulo, and Why Zoroark-GX is Now My Main Until the End of the Season “QuagNag on paper looked like a wonderful deck for the metagame a month ago. It is a deck focused on non-GX Pokémon that hits for the Weakness of the main metagame decks, has a good matchup (in theory) versus Control decks like Lucario & Melmetal-GX/Vileplume, and can play against anything. It is worth remembering that the São Paulo Regional was the first tournament with Unbroken Bonds, so the metagame was still a mystery. Based on the results of Japan and my studies, I decided that QuagNag seemed to be a safe choice. And it really was—there was no match in…
These daring Pokémon have coins on their foreheads. Darker coins are harder, and harder coins garner more respect among ______. (Galarian Meowth)
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…
Thoughts on My Winning ReshiZard List, What to Change, and a Meta Counter (Zoroark/Slowking) for Madison “Overall I was super happy with my list and my choice, as, outside of winning, the reliability of 4 Jirachi TEU and 4 Kiawe + 4 Welder was unparalleled. My deck performed the same thing over and over super reliably, especially in a Best-of-3 setting. This is 100% supported by the fact that I went 6-1 (13-4 in individual games) in the mirror match. I could tell people were overteching and using inconsistent ReshiZard decks, which made me look forward to facing off against what I felt were super favorable “mirror” matches. The deck was also incredibly fast at either…
Santa Clara Regionals Wrap-Up, Featuring: A Zoroark-Less Top 8, an Analysis of Kian’s 1st-Place ReshiZard, and Other Important Takeaways “To start things off, let’s take a look at the Top 8 after the Swiss rounds (along with final placement in parentheses): Alex Schemanske—Reshizard (2nd) Michael Catron—Zapdos/Fighting (3rd) Kian Amini—Reshizard (1st) Jimmy Pendarvis—Shedinja Control (5th) Mike Morton—Zapdos/Ultra Beasts (4th) Preston Ellis—Lucario & Melmetal-GX/Vileplume (6th) Azul Garcia Griego—Shedinja Control (7th) Marcus Dodson—Pikarom (8th) There’s a ton to break down here, so let’s get right to it. First, I would like to focus on what wasn’t present in the Top 8… Zero Zoroark-GX decks in the Top 8 is quite the rare occurrence. We don’t have a full metagame breakdown (yet), but…
Midrange Zoroark-GX and the Sinister Vileplume Stall Reformulated for Santa Clara “When beginning my testing for SUM–UNB, I overlooked Zoroark-GX as many others have. With its decline in success due mostly to Lightning decks (Zapdos and Pikarom variants) swarming the fields, Zoroark has lost respect in the eyes of many as the “top dog” it once was. With its Standard legality coming to an end at North America Internationals in June, I thought I should give Zoroark-GX a chance to shine in this new format. Throughout its history, Zoroark-GX has been an incredibly versatile card and its ability to be utilized by many different styles of decks has been very apparent.…
Meta Shifts to Hartford, How to Counter Shock Lock, Plus Zoroark/Vespiquen and Buzzwole/Garbodor/Jirachi for this Weekend “But before anything else, I want to talk about how the Daytona meta is likely going to impact what we see in Hartford. Over half of Top 8 was made up of Control decks Zoroark/Garbodor and Archie’s Blastoise fell off the map in Day 2 Seismitoad is back and still a major threat Shock Lock made two consecutive Top 8 placements by the same player Pikarom is easily the strongest deck in the game But what does this all mean? Hot Take #1: We should see more people playing Shock Lock. How does the game deal with this though? There…
If this weak Pokémon is by itself, a mere child could defeat it. But if ______ has friends to help it train, it can evolve and become much stronger. (Dreepy)
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