Tulsa Cities

Work travel has caused me to delay my participation in cities, but I competed in Tulsa today with some decent results.

I had spent most of my testing time since the release of Phantom Forces trying to find something that could counter Seismitoad and Donphan, and the frustration with that nearly drove me to give up on the current meta. Holding a grudge against certain archetypes is not productive, but I feel like both of these decks are VERY anti-fun, Seismitoad in particular... There just aren't very many decent grass type attackers right now. When it gets to the point where you are lamenting Red Genesect's absence from PTCGO, you need to take it as a sign to put your head down and play an established tier 1 deck, mirror matches be damned.

So I played Donphan.

Pokemon - 14	Trainers -35	Energy - 11
4 - Phanpy PLS	4 - N	4 -Fighting
4 - Donphan PLS	3 - Professor Juniper	4 - Strong
2 - Hawlucha FUF	3 - Korrina	3 - Double Colorless
1 - Zekrom LTR	2 - Colress	-
1 - Kyurem LTR	2 - Lysandre	-
1 - Dedenne FUF	-	-
1 - Wobbuffet PHF	4 - Robo Substitute	-
-	2 - Ultra Ball	-
-	2 - VS Seeker	-
-	2 - Pokemon Catcher	-
-	1 - Evosoda	-
-	1 - Professor's Letter	-
-	1 - Escape Rope	-
-	-	-
-	2 - Muscle Band	-
-	2 - Silver Bangle	-
-	1 - Float Stone	-
-	-	-
-	1 - Computer Search	-
-	-	-
-	2 - Fighting Stadium	-

This is not an optimized list. I played about a dozen games with a few lists I found around the internet, and tried to combine things for a meta that I expected to be Donphan and Vir/Gen heavy.

Quick aside: If you have a problem with netdecking, get over yourself. Yeah, I know deck building creativity is one of the pillars this blog was founded on, but creativity doesn't mean running a wacky Flygon-FUF / Energy Evolution Eevee deck at a city tournament. If your goal is to be a competitive player, you should be playing something that has either proven itself to be viable in the current meta, or something that effectively and consistently counters your expected meta. It is so strange to me that the same people who complain about the game lacking skill, or being dumb downed, are the same people who complain about the prevalence of netdecking. Want to know a good way to determine the most skilled players? Give everyone an extensively tested optimized deck, which is what netdecking essentially produces. I will be open source on decks until the day I die.

There were 38 masters at the tournament. Here are my games:

Round 1: Hydreigon/Yveltal/Aegislash W (1-0-0)
Round 2: Donphan/Keldeo/Walls W (2-0-0)
Round 3: Virizion/Genesect/Raichu W (3-0-0)
Round 4: Mega Heracross/Virizion/Cherrim PLS W (4-0-0)
Round 5: Seismitoad/Mega Manectric ID (4-0-1)
Round 6: Donphan/Robo/Snorlax ID (4-0-2)
T8: Seismitoad/Delphox LL (4-1-2)

I top cut in third place, but the Seismitoad/Delphox matchup was brutal. Both it and the Round 5 toad matchup pushed 4 seismitoads and heavy energy removal (hammers, team flare grunt, xerosic....). I played out the round 5 matchup after we ID'd, and ground out a win by hitting Manectric for weakness, and getting some small windows to use items when my opponent would turbo bolt.

The top 8 matchup though... no such luck. Heavy energy removal, lasers, and constant item lock. Donphan, and pretty much everything except Vir/Gen, gets taken apart by this sort of strategy (presumably, that is where Delphox steps in though).

The top 8 consisted of four Donphan, Metal/Bronzong, Seismitoad/Delphox, Seismitoad/Mega Manectric, and an Yveltal EX/Landorus EX/Mewtwo EX/Keldeo EX deck (may have had Garb too?)

Overall it was a solid day. The Aegislash in round 1 came out late and gave me a scare, but outside of that, I felt in control of every game I played (outside of the T8 toad matchup, obviously). Got some championship points, 4 packs, and pulled a head ringer. Not bad.

The Donphan/robo substitute combo is vicious. Just those two, Korrina, and the damage boosting stuff is really all you need in most matchups. Zekrom hit the field once (...but knocked out an Yveltal and won me a game), the catchers were more useful than Kyurem in the mirror, and Dedenne saw a little action but only in desperate situations... overall, I was not thrilled with the non fighting type pokemon. I was so excited about Wobbuffet that I almost included a second one.

Perhaps my view would be different if I had not led Wobbuffet in half my games, and it had more opportunities to disrupt opponents than jamming a couple turns of red signal.

The deck needs a stronger toad counter. I thought Hawlucha would handle this better than it did. Maybe a third stadium to keep Virbank off the field? Maybe replace Dedenne and Kyurem with Sigilyph? Find room for Jamming Net to buy time? Heavy energy removal combined with toad isn't an issue that a few tech cards can fix... But this is where deck building creativity comes in.

The strangest part of this deck to me is how infrequently I use ultra ball. It is so easy to just draw into/Korrina everything you need. This definitely had to do with the matchups I had... And maybe I am just playing it wrong? I had a few people comment on the low number of draw supporters and float stones/switching cards, but Korrina is such a powerful setup card for this deck that I question how much additional draw supporters would actually help. Once you get two Donphan... and really 1 of anything else on the bench, you are set. As for the switching cards, through ~20 games, it has honestly never been an issue. I can either just cycle through spinning turn/robo sub/hawlucha to get something from my prizes, or the situation is such that I can fish out the 1 ofs I need with Korrina.


I am definitely going to keep working with this deck, it isn't exciting, but it sets up consistently and matches up very well against most of the current meta.

Houston Regionals: Post 1

I am going to make a few entries on this tournament, each covering different aspects of the event. these will be:

-Deck choice and review, expectations and reality of the meta
-Detailed matchup reviews
-Thoughts on the format, 50 minutes best of 3, etc.

I am always a fan of rogue decks, but the rotation left the format so wide open, and took away so many of the tools that made the bulk of rogues from the previous format at all functional (level ball, primarily), I was forced to take a more macro look at things.

In early September, the popular decks were fighting variants (Landorus EX, Lucario EX, some combination of Machamp, fighting stadium, hawlucha, etc.), Seismatoad Garbodor decks (maybe some Mewtwo or Landorus EX, but just as often not), Pyroar, and Virzion Genesect. Everyone who talks on the internet thought that Yveltal variants were dead due to the loss of dark patch and Sableye (somehow ignoring the fact that most Yvaltal variants were dropping Sableye as early as 2014 States, and that Evil Ball remains one of the most powerful attacks in the format).

The one commonality I could find between all of these, is that they often require the use of special energy to function optimally. Of course, enhanced hammer was rotated, but Cobalion EX was not. Cobalion is beefy, and at 1 energy, Righteous Edge allows for similarly annoying max potion gags and Landorus EX Hammerhead. The fire weakness makes pyroar an obvious problem, so I added Beartic FUF. Then Drifblim DRX to cleanup, and a Flareon line to help with Vir/Gen.

This was a very pleasing rogue for a few weeks. Even through the surge of Donphan popularity.

Then I hit a matchup on PTCGO that was truly frustrating. My deck had been built on the assumption that Yveltal would see minimal play. An assumption that was made very clear by watching the matchup playout, but whose clarity is enhanced even further when the Yveltal variant is built for y-cyclone instead of just straight Evil Ball aggro.

This deck was not novel, I had just never paid much attention to it. Making use of Zoroark, it achieved a nice energy spread fairly easily, making it difficult to take significant amounts of energy off the field. I built a version of it, and a lot of enhancements to the deck I had faced online immediately jumped to my attention. What if I play heavy energy switch and max potion counts, for a pseudo-Hydreigon type effect? There are a lot of techy DCE req attackers, let's try some different ones! Oblivion wing is nice, but this deck does fine not starting it, lower the count!

And thus, Yveltal/Darkrai/Mewtwo/Beartic was born!

The biggest downside to the deck is that it is relatively easy for your opponent to read, and attempts at misleading them based on what you have access to from your hand (y cyclone DCE to an yveltal EX with no energy, instead of one with dark attached) are very risky if your opponent has not played out their N's. This was obviously cured by Dark Patch in the last format, but in spite of this, the deck is still strong.

This is the list I played at Houston Regionals:

Pokemon - 13	Trainers -35	Energy - 12
3 - Yveltal EX	4 - N	8 - Dark
2 - Darkrai EX	3 - Professor Juniper	4 - Double Colorless
2 - Yveltal XY	2 - Colress	-
2 - Cubchoo PLS	2 - Lysandre	-
2 - Beartic FUF	1 - Skyla	-
1 - Mewtwo EX	1 - Pokemon Center Lady	-
1 - Jirachi EX	4 - Hypnotoxic Laser	-
-	3 - Energy Switch	-
-	3 - Ultra Ball	-
-	2 - Max Potion	-
-	1 - Switch	-
-	3 - Muscle Band	-
-	-	-
-	1 - Computer Search	-
-	-	-
-	2 - Virbank City Gym	-

I finished 5-3-1. I had game in hand on a loss, but it turned out my opponent did as well. Made a critical misplay in the tie that would have won game two, and probably should have called a judge on a player who stalled me out of a tie and into a loss.

I also got really lucky on some sleep flips though, so who knows.

Every matchup either played to my advantage, or was roughly even. Here's a quick run down:

round 1: Fairy box WT (1-0-0)
round 2: Yveltal/Darkrai/Drifblim/Hammers WW (2-0-0)
round 3: Donphan/Outtrage LT (2-1-0)
round 4: Virizion/Genesect WW (3-1-0)
round 5: TDK/Eeveelutions WLT (3-1-1)
round 6: Yveltal/Darkrai/Garbodor/Seismatoad LT (3-2-1)
round 7: Pyroar/Seismatoad/Mewtwo WLW (4-2-1)
round 8: Yveltal/Darkrai/Raichu/Mewtwo LL (4-3-1)
round 9: Seismatoad/Mewtwo/Raichu WW (5-3-1)

I expected the meta to have a lot of Raichu, or other yveltal counters, but otherwise look like the past weekend (Donphan, Yveltal/toad variants, some pyroar and virgen).

There was a TON of Virizion/Genesect around me all day, I don't know how I only hit it once. Donphan was really popular as well. TDK was also surprisingly well represented. I heard most of the Pyroar was knocked down to the lower tables early, presumably by Donphan.

So was Beartic the appropriate tech call?

This is a challenging question for me, as this honestly changes so much matchup to matchup. Raichu is preferable as a general purpose attacker, against safegaurd and lightning weak pokemon, and is really just kind of nice to have around for free retreat. However, fighting weakness makes Raichu very fragile in the current meta.

Beartic is bulkier, but his utility as an attacker is really only seen against a selection of water weak opponents. However, in testing, Landorus EX, Donphan, and Pyroar gave me a lot more trouble than opposing yveltal, and I assumed there would not be a Lugia pressence. Unlike Raichu though, Beartic is a total waste of bench space in matchups that do not feature these pokemon.

Other considerations were Zoroark (had drawbacks of Raichu, without the benefits. Looks cool though), and Pyroar... for two games of testing with some dark subbed out for rainbows :[

Overall, Beartic made Pyroar more winnable than Raichu, gave me an extra attacker against Donphan, and put my matchup with any fighting/Landorus EX variants over the top. Raichu gave me a stronger mirror, and a solid single prize attacker in any matchup, but I felt max potion did enough in the mirror, and Pyroar dealt with Raichu too easily.

Given that choice, a challenge I had with this deck is having a single prize attacker who is worth using for more than a turn or two. I do not use Oblivion Wing very much. If I can hit it on my first attacking turn and accelerate energy a little, that is great, but typically one turn active early, and possibly a select turn toward the middle to end of the game is all the action baby Yveltal will see. Given the limited utility of Beartic, there are games that occur where I cannot force a seventh prize. This led to some testing with a thinner Beartic line in favor of an Absol and extra item, but this hurt the Pyroar matchup too much. This seventh prize issue is minor, but I feel like it is worth pointing out.

That said, 2 baby Yveltal was too much. I don't know if I just haven't seen enough lists, but I do not think baby Yveltal is that essential to this deck. Oblivion Wing is certainly useful, and as I said, getting a consistently useful single prize attacker into this deck is kind of awkward, but accelerating energy at the cost of attacking for turn (for nominal damage... 30 and 50 play nice with Yveltal EX/Darkrai EX+laser bank math, but still) doesn't seem to balance in all matchups. Comparing it to dark patch is short sited, since dark patch was true energy acceleration, whereas using the term for Oblivion Wing is borderline oxymoronic. When I see lists with three Yveltal... I just question how much the person has actually played their list. The energy acceleration is nice, and 130HP is awkward to one hit without exploiting weakness, but I feel like Yveltal EX is the preferred starter here. I never benched more than one Yveltal XY, and the only games where I used Oblivion Wing more than once or twice, there were other worse things going on. If I develop this deck further, dropping Yveltal XY to 1 or 0 is something I will experiment with.

The Darkrai count was perfect. Dark Cloak is essential to the deck, but without dark patch, night spear plays are pretty obvious in development to seasoned opponents. I still like to get an energy on Darkrai early, so an e-switch and attachment can get him there, but I it is not an essential attack in most matchups.

While I didn't question it going into regionals, if I could make one change to the pokemon line with the benefit of hind sight, it would be exchanging Mewtwo for a fourth Yveltal EX. Mewtwo was in to counter Lucario EX, opposing Mewtwo, and Deoxys. These counter plays were things that seemed to happen seemlessly online, but in the tournament, the play was just too obvious to the opponent (and I did not see ANY Lucario EX), or required too many pieces in hand. The number of times I dropped a muscle band on mewtwo before a juniper, or y cycloned to it only to have the energy stuck there, totally useless for the rest of the game outnumbered the times Mewtwo made a play. Looking back on it, this should have been obvious, since the combination needed in hand to actually make a Mewtwo counter play is pretty steep. Another thing that should have been more obvious, is how limited this Y-cyclone/retreat/eswitch+heal strategy is when an Yveltal EX is prized. The best games I had would have extended sequences where I had all three Yveltal EX active and energy spread evenly.

I saved Jirachi for last, because Jirachi was a champ. Seasoned players ignored him, while lesser players would waste resources going after him (sometimes not even getting the KO). Jirachi saved my setup in multiple games, and is honestly one of my favorite cards right now. Stellar Guidance for a Juniper early can jump start you out of a bad start. Stellar Guidance for N or Lysandre can seal things late. Stellar Guidance for Pokemon Center Lady sounds dumb, but it can swing games against seismatoad!!!

I feel like the supporter count is fairly standard.

I only played 3 Juniper because the discard can really hurt in a few situations with this deck. Without Dowsing Machine, losing multiple energy switch or max potion early can make the late game very difficult.

I added Pokemon Center Lady for Seismatoad, and any sort of weird Dragalge stuff (didn't really expect this, but it is such hell to play against that I wanted to be prepared). I didn't use it in a lot of games, and most of the time I had it I would have rather had a colress or something... but I don't really regret it.

Skyla is kind of in the same boat. Using it for a clutch laser or eswitch was fun, but there were a lot of times it was totally inconsequential.

I always felt like I was a Lysandre short. I'm not sure if a third Lysandre is the answer here, or if switching to Dowsing Machine or adding a pal pad or something would be better. Two makes you think really hard when you get one in hand with Juniper early.

Shawna was pleasantly mediocre. Never felt bad discarding her, never felt bad drawing into her. Perfect one of.

Another draw supporter would be nice, possibly a pokemon fanclub, but other than the perpetual uselessness of Skyla (I HATE using skyla to grab a supporter), and the seeming perpetual shortage of Lysandre, I felt pretty good about the supporter line.

 

The items are also pretty straight forward.

When I began testing I used 3 virbank, but so many things run it right now it would often lead to dead cards. I only had an issue keeping it out once, and it was of no real consequence.

I experimented briefly using shadow circle and hammers, but even when you hit the crushing hammer flip, it just weakened the deck too much. With so many 170hp pokemon ex in format, Virbank+laser create so many devastating options for yveltal and darkrai that foregoing it is really not an option I would encourage anyone to take.

The only other ace spec I considered was dowsing machine. With computer search and dowsing machine, my most frequent target is a supporter. With this deck, I occasionally want to computer search for a DCE though. So the decision really came down to searchable DCE vs extra Lysandre. I think I would have been fine either way, as I never regretted or felt particularly thrilled over my choice throughout the tournament.

I played around with counts a bit too, but I am pretty happy with how the list played. A professor's letter would be nice, I would LOVE having a couple of bicycles, and I am always tempted to replace switch with super scoop up when I have easy access to free retreat, but I don't feel like I can cut much from the items listed above.

The more I played with the deck, the more I noticed that 4 DCE is excessive. I still went with four because it is really important to draw into it early, and having at least one in play is a must. This is another element of the deck that I do not feel I optimized fully.

8 dark is just enough. One of the biggest strategy changes after rotation for dark decks is to NOT throw dark energy away carelessly. Missing attachments hurts too much (say you discarded dark with juniper prior to attaching, hoping to hit dark and recover the discard with baby y. Not an awful play, but with the y cyclone heavy conservation focus of this list, I found in testing that missing an attachment via whiffing energy hurts A LOT more than accelerating helps.) This list really only needs 3 attachments to function optimally. Wasting one attachment on baby yveltal to get an "extra" attachment on yveltal ex is nearly counterproductive, considering the optimal strategy here is to use y cyclone to move a single DCE across the yveltal ex. This idea gets back to how small baby yveltal's role in this deck actually is; you don't need a lot of energy in play for this deck to run well.

I will have another post in a couple days detailing my matchups at regionals. If you have any questions about card choices, meta of the tournament, or any pokemon tcg stuff really, please post them in the comments.

League Challenge Report

I learned a lot of things at winter regionals. The importance of sleep, the importance of snacks, the importance of maintaining good posture throughout 12 hours of pokemon cards...

But the most important lesson was the value of play testing. Really working out a deck list until it is as lean as possible. Due to this, on the drive back from St. Louis, I decided that before the next league meeting, I was going to select my deck for states.

XY had not officially released, but I had read the scans. There are quite a few fun cards, but none of the pokemon really inspired me along the lines to build a deck around them. A friend and I discussed a Malamar/red card hell deck for about an hour on the way back from regionals... But we both knew it would not be competitive.

I knew I wasn't going to lay down enough money for Yveltal EX singles, and it would take an absurd swing of luck pull three. The fairy decks I have seen seem to lack enough punch to win consistently, and I am not going to buy beaches, so pairing Ray/Boar with Delphox is moot.

So that left me looking at old ideas and trying to pick one that would remain competitive, or get a boost with a small splash of the new stuff.

Palkia with Trevenant was the first deck to consider, but three games against Darkrai/Garbodor at league told me that even if you can slow their setup, dark types just blow through Trevenant too easily.

Then a meta-hater Magnezone/Sigilyph/Deoxys/Genesect deck. This was a blast against anyone who benched more than one Lugia EX or Yveltal EX, but Gyroball isn't quite as disruptive as I had hoped. I still run this online a few times a week, but my current build just hasn't proved capable of setting up Magnezone by turn 2-4 consistently. Beach would really help it, but again... Not buying that. $200 for a pokemon card is asinine.

So I began reading into current archetypes, and found Colin Moll's Hydreigon list. I love the flexibility that Dark Trance provides, I love Safeguard, and Dragon Blast is powerful enough to take care of non-EX nuisance pokemon such as Snorlax PLS, Reshiram LTR, etc.

So I tinkered with it, playing in online and in league for the past month, and this is the list I settled on for the first XY League Challenge:

Pokemon - 16	Trainers -33	Energy - 11
4 - Deino PLF	3 - N	7 - Darkness
1 - Zweilous LTR	3 - Professor Juniper	4 - Blend GRPD
3 - Hydreigon LTR	2 - Shauna	-
2 - Sigilyph LTR	1 - Colress	-
2 - Sableye DXP	4 - Dark Patch	-
2 - Darkrai EX LTR	3 - Ultra Ball	-
1 - Yveltal XY	3 - Random Receiver	-
1 - Virizion EX PLB	3 - Max Potion	-
-	3 - Rare Candy	-
-	2 - Enhanced Hammer	-
-	2 - Tool Scrapper	-
-	1 - Super Rod	-
-	1 - Silver Bangle	-
-	1 - Silver Mirror	-
-	1 - Computer Search	-

I went into this knowing that 30 minutes best of one works against one of this decks strengths, but I wanted to get as much experience with this deck as I could, so YOLO I guess.

Round 1 - W vs Mewtwo EX/Mew EX/Chandelure EX/Gardevoir
Round 2 - L vs Lugia EX/Deoxys EX/Thundurus EX/Genesect EX/Snorlax PLS
Round 3 - W vs Yveltal EX/Darkrai EX/Sableye DXP/Bouffalant DEX
Round 4 - L vs Yveltal EX/Sableye DXP/Garbodor LTR/Bouffalant DEX
Round 5 - T vs Lugia EX/Deoxys EX/Thundurus EX/Genesect EX/Absol PLF/Heatran EX

My favorite thing about this style of Hydreigon build (ie walling with Sigilyph instead of using a handful of tech attackers) is how often it either mounts a huge comeback, or just backs an opponent into a corner within the first 3-5 turns.

The round 1 matchup was easily my worst start ever with any version of Hydreigon. A Juniper, three rare candies, a Sigilyph and two blends in my opening hand... but I was able to pull out of it and hit energy and dark patches down the line to end up blowing through my opponent with successive Dragon Blasts after feeding a few one prize attackers.

On the opposite end of this, the game I tied I pulled Sableye and both enhanced hammers in my opening hand, junk hunting to lock my opponent out of energy until I was ready to begin Dragon Blasting.

The losses were close, and the tie would have gone to me given 5 more minutes.

It has been very tempting to for me to add Raichu XY, or Chandelure EX, something that either has 1HKO punch without a tool attached, or can punch out high damage pokemon that end up on the bench. However, since space is so tight on the bench I often end up with this special tech either wasting away on my bench while blocking out a more crucial strategic piece or unavailable in the discard pile when I need it.

Anyway, I finished 6 of 15, won a booster pack... and despite spending the evening experimenting with Luxray/Ninetales builds online, I will probably be playing something very close to this at states.

Bored At Work Deck #3

I get bored at work a lot. To pass the time and stay awake, I imagine ptcg decks featuring cards that are generally considered unplayable. How is this different from the decks in the feature articles on this blog? The bored at work decks have never been tested!

BAWD #3 - Trill Steel 

Pokemon - 20

3 - Klink DXP
1 - Klang DXP
3 - Klinklang PLS

3 - Onix PLF
3 - Steelix PLF

2 - Porygon PLB
0 - Porygon2 PLB
2 - Porygon-Z PLB

2 - Deoxys EX

1 - Skarmory EX

Supporters - 13

4 - Skyla
3 - N
3 - Juniper
2 - Shauna
1 - Cassius

Items/tools/stadiums - 17

3 - Rare Candy
3 - Ultra Ball
3 - Max Potion
2 - Switch
2 - Silver Bangle
2 - Colress Machine
1 - Heavy Ball

1 - Dowsing Machine

Energy - 11

7 - Steel
4 - Plasma

I love Klinklang!

Really, I just love jamming up ex pokemon. I would 0-X a hundred tournaments before playing a mouth breathing knuckle dragger like Yveltal EX!!!!

Principles aside, this deck is probably pretty bad. Huge pokemon roster to accommodate tanking damage with a stage 1 whose attacks are ludicrously expensive.

I wouldn't write it off completely though. With a deoxys and silver bangle, Steelix will hit Pokemon EX for 90 using Metal Defender. This is good to 1hko Xerneas EX. Put a second Deoxys in play and Metal Defender 1HKOs all fairy type pokemon, and other Klinklang irritants like Kyurem PLF.

In all honesty, Metal Defender is a pretty solid attack. SCC is expensive for 50 damage, but avoiding fire weakness without relying on a stadium (or Leavanny! Don't forget about Leavanny!) is a nice effect. Combine that with Plasma Steel and Steelix 150HP, and the only 1HKOs you are vulnerable to are G Booster, a Delphox with 5+ fire energy, a musclebanded Hydreigon LTR, Samurott LTR with 8+ water energy, Blastoise with 9+ water energy... And Charizard BCR???

I thought about using Thundurus EX in here to accelerate energy some and help the deck recover after a KO, but it cluttered up the energy line too much.

Scramble Switch would make things more fun, but grabbing an extra bangle, switch, max potion, etc. Is just too valuable. If I ever play test this though, the first thing I will investigate is dropping Cassius for a Super Rod.

See! I do care about these being playable!

Winter Regionals Report

I am a bit late in posting this, as we are nearly a month into X&Y, but I went to the St. Louis winter regional last month!

It was a lot of fun, a good experience etc. etc. etc.

This is going to be a huge post, so let's get down to business. Starting a with a deck list!

Pokemon - 16	Trainers -33	Energy - 11
3 - Palkia EX PLB	4 - Skyla	5 - Psychic
2 -Latias EX PLF	4 - N	2 - Fire
2 - Sigilyph LTR	3 -Professor Juniper	4 - Double Colorless
1 - Snorlax PLS	1 - Colress	-
3 - Swablu DRX	3 - Level Ball	-
3 - Altaria DRX	2 - Ultra Ball	-
1 - Mr. Mime PLF	2 - Hypnotoxic Laser	-
1 - Spiritomb LTR	2 - Tool Scrapper	-
-	2 - Switch	-
-	1 - Super Rod	-
-	1 - Max Potion	-
-	1 - Energy Search	-
-	2 - Float Stone	-
-	1 - Silver Mirror	-
-	3 - Skyarrow Bridge	-
-	1 - Dowsing Machine	-

I have to be physically restrained from playing a rogue. Whether it is at a league challenge, or a regional tournament... Something about playing a major archetype just makes me feel icky. The only one that even appealed to me much for this tournament was RayBoar, but I ain't bout dat spending $600 on three beaches life, so it was back to the rogue pool!

The concept of this deck is to attack with Palkia's Strafe, and switch into a pokemon that will not take damage from whatever your opponent has active. An unmodified strafe hits for a paltry 50 damage, so if we ever want to win a game on prizes, 2 Altaria is recommended. Altaria is quite fragile at 70HP, so we need Mr Mime too. Sigilyph and Latias EX both have a retreat cost of 1, allowing a free retreat with Skyarrow bridge in play. Retreat into Palkia, strafe for 90, promote Sigilyph/Latias EX, wash rinse repeat.

That is the meat of the deck. If you can strafe for 90 and promote a pokemon that is immune to whatever your opponent plans to attack with, your only opponent is time. I would be more than happy to talk about individual card choices in the comments.

So with that perfect strategy, how did I finish 122nd with a 4-4-1 record? Read on and see!

Note: These reports were written between 4 and 30 days after regionals, so level of detail may vary.


Round 1 vs Yeti

Pretty straight forward yeti matchup. My Altaria set up kind of slow, but I put a silver mirror on Sigilyph early and it somehow managed to stay on the entire game. I don't know if my opponent didn't play a scrapper, or just didn't care enough to mess with it since I wasn't doing very much damage. Long story short in this match, he drew plasma energy to Red Signal 2 Palkia and KO with Snorlax before I could get a second Altaria.

I was finally setup late in the game, and he had 4 plasma energy on the field. I had only taken a single prize, and my deck was thin, but I had Palkia powered up, 2 Altaria, Sigilyph and Skyarrow all in play. The lock was on!

He played Colress for 9, then did a bizarre combination of plays so that he could promote Genesect, and then discard plasma energy on the retreat. This led me to assume that a Shadow Triad was among the Colress spoils, and would be played to recover plasma energy, red signal, and end the game on his upcoming turn. Pass to me.

I N him to 1 out of Shadow triad fear, but in the process draw my deck down to 2 cards. I end up decking out, and he reveals his final Shadow Triad was actually prized. Well played sir!

First game took about 40 minutes. I got a decent setup in the second game, but he filled his bench and switched/retreated into fresh EX pokemon each turn after I attacked... which was the smart play, but frustrating, since the first game had been so close. This opponent made top 8 in the tournament. I don't know what the appropriate response is to that, but battling top notch competition is a big reason I came to regionals!

0-1-0

Round 2 vs Straight Darkrai

Leading into regionals, hammers were on my mind nearly as much as the tier one archetypes. Thankfully, my opponent only played 2 copies of enhanced hammer, and no copies of crushing hammer. That is not to say he shied away from flippy cards though, as he played (guessing based on what I saw played) 3-4 catcher and 3-4 laser.

Behind Snorlax and Garbodor, sleep on a laser was my biggest meta game fear. Thankfully, this opponent had one of the worst coin flipping games I have ever witnessed. Across our two games, he hit 2 catchers and one laser despite junk hunting for them back repeatedly. I was impressed by how well he maintained his composure in the face of such odds!

That said, the first game I got one powered Palkia, an Altaria, a Mr. Mime, and a Sigilyph on board by turn 3 and began one hitting Sableyes. He scooped a couple turns after I took down the final Sableye. I setup a little slower in the second game, but was able to hold him off by starting Snorlax. By the time I was ready to start attacking, he had a decent setup, but I had counters to everything he did. Max Potion to keep Sigilyph out of laserbank KO range, Super Rod + level ball to recover Mr Mime (KO'd off one of the 2 catchers he hit), and 2 Altaria on board most of the game to allow 1-2HKO for everything on his field. Once again, after I cleared out the Sableye he scooped. He went on to finish 6-3-0 and bubble, so I am guessing he got a new randomizer after our match.

1-1-0

Round 3 vs Bizarro Mirror

I did not test as much as I should have going into this tournament. The testing I did was against the heavy hitters, VirGen, Ray/Boar, Dark/Garb, etc. The last thing I expected, was to face someone who built the version of this deck I gave up on a few months ago. He basically had an identical deck, but with Donphan in place of Palkia.

I ultimately gave up on the Donphan Build, because I could not keep up a consistent stream of Donphan. 1 energy to attack is nice, but 40 damage without bangle just gives the opponent too much time, and the grass weakness is brutal in the current format.

Unfortunately, one matchup Donphan totally wrecks (lolz) is the bizarro mirror against Palkia.

I had a small window in the first game because my opponent got a slow start and I drew kind of hot, but it was quickly slammed shut once he was able to Wreck+bangle a couple of Palkia. Prize trade blues, yo.

It was kind of interesting though, as this opponent and I followed eachother through most of the tournament, rarely being separated by more than a few seats. All things considered, this matchup was a mirror, and both of our decks benefited and suffered from the same things. If you have a timely or reliable catcher mechanic, we usually lost. If not? Guaranteed victory via damage lock.

1-2-0

Round 4 vs Empoleon

I ran 2 Latias EX so I wouldn't run out of strafe partners vs Snorlax, and in the event of an annoying G Booster - scrapper - shadow triad - G Booster - scrapper - shadow triad - G Booster - Dowsing Machine - scrapper exchange. Looking back, I probably should have only played one.

I do not regret this though, because in this matchup Latias EX showed me something I was not expecting to see at this tournament. What is that you ask? The look on someone's face when you play a card they have never seen before!

This dude actually called a judge to ask for clarification on Latias ability when I informed him that none of his pokemon in play (Empoleon DXP, Drifblim PLB, Dusknoir BCR) could damage Latias EX with an attack.

He was one of the younger players I faced, so I had some sympathy, but he also had custom sleeves featuring a version of Skyla with basketball boobs... which was really weird.

He also proceeded to evolve each of his Piplup to Empoleon (as opposed to attacking with Prinplup + bangle or something) after talking to the judge, and blame his eventual round 1 loss on a misplay (attacking Latias once with Drifblim), instead of admitting that barring an awful setup on my side, he had an autoloss against me.

He was also really picky about where I put my dice to indicate damage.

Is it clear that I did not care for this kid? Or respect him as a player?

Good.

When piloted by a player like this, who cannot adjust on the fly, any deck I have a chance to lock turns into an easy matchup. I was very happy to draw hot in the second game and not have to see this kid anymore. Basketball boob Skyla, man! What is wrong with you!!!!

2-2-0

Round 5 vs Blastoise

This matchup was against a pokedad. I love pokedad's! It is so cool to me that a parent would invest enough time in something like the pokemon trading card game to like, discuss it with their kid. I mean, this pokedad was familiar with all of my cards and we had a nice chat about Stoutland BCR after the match!

That being said, he had the pokedad version of Blastoise. ie, the one made of water type EX pokemon the child is not using. So we had the outrage EX Kyurem, baby outrage Kyurem, and a few promo Keldeo. It is a testament to how strong Blastoise+Keldeo (no Black Kyurem, no Beach) is that he was 2-2-0 when we matched up.

I set up Altaria kind of slow in the first game, which made baby outrage Kyurem difficult to deal with. Things got a little tense late because he ran a lot of escape ropes, but I pulled out a long game one. I had one of my fastest setups of the tournament in the second game. Setup a third Altaria just for baby outrage Kyurem. I held onto a Skyla to grab a laser with just to ease baby Kyurems passing a little more.

3-2-0

Round 6 vs Big Basics + Victini EX

I had one of my slowest starts of the tournament in the first game. This deck does not handle Garbodor well to begin with (drops damage down to pitiful levels, removes all stalling and walling abilities), but when my opponent had it set up turn two and I could not get a scrapper or a skyla to save my life... barf. I should have scooped this game in the first 5 minutes instead of letting it play out as much as I did (~20 min... this deck rarely wins or loses fast, fyi).

Got a better start in the second game. My opponent was never able to get Garbodor together. Mr Mime was prized though, and that hurt a lot, as I was never able to get more than one Altaria up at a given time. Still, I was putting damage on the field, and things were going well. Then he hit a catcher, and KO'd Palkia with a huge Mewtwo. I answered by knocking out Mewtwo with Sigilyph on the next turn. He responded with another catcher on a Palkia to take his remaining prizes.

3-3-0

Round 7 vs Empoleon

For all intents and purposes, my round 6 loss eliminated me from top cut... But there was a still a chance. My opponent and I were both in situations where if we won out, we had a slim chance to top cut with 18 points. We agreed before the game that if the match hit the time limit, and one player was obviously in position to win, but wouldn't be able to hit it in time, the player on the short end would scoop. I am not a fan of scooping in situations like this, but this dude was chill and scooping is a topic for another post.

In the first game I had 2 Altaria, a powered Palkia, and a Latias all in play on the third turn. My opponent had the dreaded Exeggcute start and scooped after my first attack. Feeling good!

Not great though, because we still had 40 minutes left! Plenty of time for a second game.

In the second game we both regressed to the mean. He got setup and used escape ropes to maneuver around Latias and put damage on my field. Enter Dusknoir and Latias is knocked out!

Now it is time for my most memorable misplay of the day!

I have 2 Altaria, a powered Palkia in the active with 120 damage on it, and one on the bench with one psychic and 40 damage on it. I ultra ball for my second Latias and place it on my bench, leaving my hand with a Super Rod, a Dowsing Machine and a few other cards I did not make note of. My opponent had only taken 2 prizes, so a third Latias could be useful down the line. In the moment, I was only thinking about max potion though. I knew it was in my deck (checked for it on the ultra ball), but I didn't have a skyla in the discard to dowsing for... So I play Dowsing for a Juniper. Then play the Juniper, trashing the super rod. I meant to rod the just knocked out Latias back in! This meant that if I didn't hit Max Potion in my top 7 cards the game was over.

I realized this right after I took my 7 cards. Didn't ask for a re-do because that is tacky... and because I hit Max Potion. Also hit float stone and a DCE, so +1 YOLO I guess?

Retreated Palkia with float stone, used Max Potion on the one with 120 damage, played a DCE on the active, strafe for 90, promote Latias, and the lock is alive!

My opponent counted the escape ropes in his discard, noted his dowsing machine was also there... we played a few more turns before he scooped.

4-3-0

Game 8 vs Gothitelle/Accelgor

This was definitely my least expected matchup. I figured the popularity of Virizion EX would exterminate this deck from competitive play... Well I was wrong, and I was tired. Was approaching delirium at this point.

I had a slow start in game 1, but was really just exhausted almost past the point of even being interested in the game seeing as I was up against a strong player who was using a deck that I was not only unprepared for, but that some quick mental theorymon told me would likely beat me ~99/100 games.

My opponent was a super nice guy with a really slick build. My deck just wasn't cut for this matchup.

4-4-0

Game 9 vs ID

My opponent showed up a couple minutes before play started and asked if I was cool with an intentional draw. Part of me wanted to ask what he was playing, as it had become apparent that my deck was basically a matchup dependent auto-win/auto-loss... But I just said sure. It was approaching midnight, and 14 hours of pokemon is A LOT of pokemon.

4-4-1

----------------------------------------------------

So what did I learn?

Play testing is really important!

I ran about a dozen games with a very similar build to this on PTCGO, but more testing would have told me that I had too many energy in the deck, would never attack with Latias, that benching a second strafe partner is more important than a second Palkia or possibly a second Altaria since an escape rope is both more likely and more predictable than Palkia getting knocked out, and that Spiritomb is a waste of space in this deck (I just hate G Booster sooooooo much).

Settling in and really learning the ins and outs of a deck is hard for me. I have more fun thinking of new decks than ironing out the ones I already have.

Regionals was a good experience though! 122nd out of 300+ players doesn't feel too bad considering I started playing (for the first time in 15 years) at the Plasma Blast pre-release.

I am hoping to go to Oklahoma States next month, but time availability might keep that from happening. X&Y didn't do a lot to inspire me, so I am playing with Hydreigon and a Super Meta H8r deck featuring Magnezone.

Later guys!

Bored At Work Deck #2

I get bored at work a lot. To pass the time and stay awake, I imagine ptcg decks featuring cards that are generally considered unplayable. How is this different from the decks in the feature articles on this blog? The bored at work decks have never been tested!

BAWD #2 - Junk Typhoon

Pokemon - 20

4 - Sableye

4 - Froakie
2 - Frogadier
3 - Greninja

2 - Horsea
1 - Seadra
2 - Kingdra

1 - Duskull
0 - Dusclops
1 - Dusknoir

Supporters - 12

4 - N
4 - Shauna
2 - Colress
2 - Skyla

Items - 17

3 - Rare Candy
3 - Hypnotoxic Laser
2 - Level Ball
2 - Evo Soda
2 - Professor's Letter
1 - Super Rod
1 - Ultra Ball
1 - Energy Retrieval
1 - Random Receiver

1 - Computer Search

Energy - 11

7 - Water
4 - Rainbow

X&Y is out! Let's celebrate!!!!

This deck uses Sableye and Lasers to stall the opponent while setting up Greninja to spread damage. Eventually Kingdra will come online and blast all of the water energy back into the deck. You then have the option of retreating into sableye to resume the junk hunt/water shuriken combo, or you can use Kingdras tri attack to put even more damage onto the field.

The major flaw in this deck is obvious: to run optimally, you will need to set up 3+ stage 2 pokemon. There are a lot of people out there who will say this cannot be done. I am not only here to assure you that it CAN, but also that it will be a lot more effective and entertaining than the Emboar/Blaziken/Infernape builds I keep running into on ptcgo.

Remember kids: there is a difference between going rogue, and just wasting everyone's time.

Bored At Work Deck #1

I get bored at work a lot. To pass the time and stay awake, I imagine ptcg decks featuring cards that are generally considered unplayable. How is this different from the decks in the feature articles on this blog? The bored at work decks have never been tested!

BAWD #1 - Crystal Light

Pokemon - 18

3 - White Kyurem EX PLS

1 - Kyurem LTR

4 - Litwick
2 - Lampent
3 - Chandelure PLF

2 - Solosis
0 - Duosion
2 - Reuniclus

1 - Cresselia EX

Supporters - 12

4 - N
4 - Skyla
3 - Juniper
1 - Colress

Items - 17

4 - Rare Candy
3 - Ultra Ball
2 - Super Rod
2 - Muscle Band
1 - Max Potion
1 - Level Ball
1 - Energy Search

1 - Crystal Edge

2 - Frozen City

Energy - 13

10 - Fire
3 - Water

The star of this deck is White Kyurem EX PLS. In case you find yourself wondering why you have never heard those words that close together before, consider the following!

1) while expensive, at RRWC, white inferno is no more difficult to set up than Black Kyurem EX Black Ballista, which is one of the defining attacks of the format.

2) unlike black ballista, you do not have to discard energy after using white inferno.

3) in a format dominated by attackers with 1HKO potential, White Kyurem EX PLS strongest attack is dependent on damage being on White Kyurem at the time of attack.

Ok, now forget that. Or at least the last part, because it is time to talk about why this deck will change the perception of every White Kyurem Special to ever grace the last table at regionals.

The goal of this deck is to attack with White Kyurem's White Inferno attack for 1HKOs. The damage output of the attack can be manipulated by Reuniclus damage swap ability.

The big decision in this deck is how you want to get damage onto your field. This is obviously a slippery slope, as too much damage makes you vulnerable to your opponent whereas too little prevents you from delivering 1HKOs.

White Inferno requires 4 energy and outputs 100 plus 10 for each damage counter on White Kyurem EX. So at most, we need 8 damage counters on White Kyurem EX. A muscle band drops that to 6, and Crystal Edge drops it to 3.

Let's ignore the most likely source of damage on your active (a turn two emerald slash, raiden knuckle, night spear, etc) and focus solely on mechanics we can control.

The most obvious, and probably most consistent path to this is Emboar + Frozen City.

...But what if we didn't need a full 180 to KO the opponent? What if Frozen City was knocked out of play? What if we are tired of seeing four Chandure PLF sit unused in a binder???

Chandelure's ability, Flare Navigate, allows you to search your deck for a fire energy, attach it to a pokemon, and then put one damage counter on that pokemon. So in a lot of ways, it is like Dynamotor, but in reverse... And on a stage 2 pokemon.

What I am saying is: Chandelure PLF + White Kyurem EX PLS is basically NXD-XY legal Ray/Eels omgwtfbbqchz

So we shoot for turn 2 Chandelure while manually attaching to White Kyurem. Ideally at some point we would have 2 or 3 Chandelure and a super rod in hand, allowing us to strike fear into the most stout of opponents by unleashing a stream of White Kyurem EX capable of devastating the field with an endless White Inferno!!!!! Just to keep things from getting too out of hand, we have Cresselia EX and a max potion.

Note: As a matter of fun, we do not analyze how BAWDs fit into the meta. Most of them will falter against any competitive deck piloted by a competent player. Or any player with Garbodor and a tool. The primary goal of a BAWD is to keep me from falling asleep at work. The secondary is to give you an opportunity to sleeve up some never used cards, and have an entertaining deck to run a few times against juniors at league. Here at Fliptini Chill, we are proponents of competitive pokemon, but also of jokes. White Kyurem Power!!!!!

Delphox is not Tropical Beach

As the release of the xy set gets closer, more and more articles have begun to pop up speculating on the implementation of various cards. One of the most common conclusions I have seen made is that Delphox will displace Tropical Beach, both in Ray/Boar decks, and in various stage 2 decks across the format.

There is a big thing all of these articles and forum posts seem to be missing though: a stage 2 evolution is not the same thing as a stadium.

That may sound simplistic or twee, but I swear I am saying it with every last  trace of sincerity. Furthermore, I would argue it is not any more simplistic than the following:

Beach allows me to draw until I have seven cards, Delphox allows me to draw until I have 6, therefore Delphox is a suitable sub for beach.

Let's take a step back and look at the function of each card.

Tropical beach allows a player to end any turn by drawing until he or she has 7 cards in hand.

Delphox will be available turn two at the earliest, and allows the player to draw until he or she has 6 cards in hand once during the player's turn.

Tropical Beach will displace opposing stadiums.

Delphox has an attack that is functionally equivalent to a fire Keldeo EX BCR.

Tropical Beach can be played directly onto the field, recovered by dowsing machine, and retrieved by computer search or Skyla.

To enter play, Delphox requires Fennekin to be in play for a turn, and then some combination of rare candy, delphox, and Braixen. Delphox cannot be recovered from the discard pile through any quick sequence of cards, due in large part to how many cards you may need to get it into play in the first place. Level ball, ultra ball, Skyla... Unless you play Cradily (as a lover of esoteric cards and anti-meta decks, it should tell you something that *I* think Cradily is unplayable in the current format. I will test once again as soon as I get a few evolutionary sodas on ptcgo though... But you probably assumed that).

Tropical Beach costs $200

Delphox will likely top out around $2.50

Some combination of the last and the first set of reasons explain where this idea comes from. The middle set dumps a bucket of cold water on the idea for me though. Delphox is more analogous to Electrode PLF than Tropical Beach, and even then, Electrode is a level ball retrievable stage one. Sure, you will have extra rare candies in ray/boar, but that makes one more card you need in hand to play Delphox.

Delphox has an intriguing ability, but in my opinion, using it as a sub for beach is a flawed and likely terrible idea. Using it as a sub for Electrode is more reasonable, but it seems like it would hurt consistency just as much (if not more) than it would help.

Fliptini Chill

While the Pokemon Trading Card Game is definitely a game that requires skill, luck and random chance play significant rolls roles as well. As a holdout Klinklang player, I am all too familiar with this.

What if I open with a perfect hand for a turn two Klinklang and a Cobalion with two energy, but my opponent goes first and plays N? What if I get a hand with one Klink and 6 supporters? What if I am forced to open with Jirachi?

Obviously, there are controls that can be put in place here, but none quite as obvious as Victory Star Victini, re-printed in Legendary Treasures.

Victory Star gives you a second chance! Don't want to discard energy? Take damage from your own attack? Well if that condition is determined by a coin flip on the attack, this is the card for you!

There are several attacks that could benefit from this, but two immediately jumped out to me:

Gothitelle

Vanilluxe

How did I decide between these two? I simply pondered how many coins I would like to flip! Gothitelle will be 2-4 flips every turn once powered up. This is a healthy number of coin flips, but not quite up to the standard I was looking for. Vanilluxe on the other hand? Try 2 to.... Infinity???

Enough chit chat, let's check out the list.

Pokemon	Trainers	Energy
3 - Victini (LTR)	4 - Professor Juniper	7 - Fire
4 - Vanillite (PLF)	3 - N	3 - Water
2 - Vanillish (DXP)	2 - Skyla	4 - Double Colorless
4 - Vanilluxe (PLF)	2 - Colress	-
2 - Voltorb (BCR)	4 - Rare Candy	-
2 - Electrode (PLF)	3 - Ultra Ball	-
1 - Mr. Mime (PLF)	2 - Level Ball	-
1 - White Kyurem (BCR)	2 - Tool Scrapper	-
-	1 - Switch	-
-	1 - Super Rod	-
-	1 - Random Receiver	-
-	1 - Skyarrow Bridge	-
-	1 - Computer Search	-

The strategy here is pretty straight forward: lead with Victini, or possibly Vanillite, build Vanilluxe with 3+ energy as fast as possible, then drop ChillMAX and don't look back. Attaching somewhere every turn is a must. Victini's stored power attack actually comes in handy here as you can lead him, attach to him, and unless your opponent runs hot, hits for weakness, or runs a laser bank, usually dump those energy to an ice cream cone on the bench, and retreat for free via sky arrow bridge.

Why the DXP Vanillish? Because you get to flip more coins, duh!

Electrode helps consistency early and protects against late Ns.

Mr Mime and White Kyurem are the other techs. All the pokemon in this list are pretty fragile, so preventing bench damage is quite valuable. White Kyurem BCR is generally terrible, but having an attacker that can get through silver mirror is nice. That White Kyurem has flippy attacks is just icing on the cake!

Supporter line is fairly typical, as are the items. There are a few different Ace Spec cards that could work in this deck, but Computer Search was the most consistently useful.

How has this deck performed? In 47 games of Expert Modifed play on PTCGO, it has won 25 of them. As is typical of the PTCGO, about 50% of those games have been against random terrible things (I remember a lot of Blaziken builds?), 30% against popular archetypes with terrible tech ideas (Virizion/Genesect... Dusknoir!!!), and the remaining 20% against competent top tier archetypes. Which is to say that I have piloted this deck to multiple wins against straight Darkrai, one against Darkrai/Garbodor, and a couple against Ray/Boar+beach. This deck has its weaknesses, and is obviously very flippy (should have added catchers...), but it also has the potential to deal 240 damage on the second turn. So while it is extremely silly, if you take it lightly you will be smoked by an anthropomorphic ice cream cone.

I am too embarrassed to play it in real life, but if you have opened a decent amount of plasma freeze and legendary treasures, you probably have what you need to build this deck.

Have fun!

PS - When I started this blog, this deck was the namesake. I have since re-named the deck "Cones of Unova-shire". I suppose this is what happens when you have 2 month gaps between posts?