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.
