-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.
