This has been my most active season since 2013-14. I attribute this mainly to how enjoyable the standard format has been this season. Nothing has been consensus BDIF for more than a week or two. I am not sure if that is due to the constant stream of high profile tournaments, or just to the lack of a single dominant archetype.
I have been playing Vespiquen throughout the season, picking up some decent League Challenge finishes when I am not identifying truly horrible alternate attackers to feature (if rattata is good for removing tools, you might as well go ahead and add Raticate BKP... right? right??!?).
I was expecting to see a lot of Decidueye/Vileplume at this League Cup, and through being familiar with the local league knew there would be a healthy amount of Volcanion and Turbo Dark as well. I ran the list below.
| Pokemon - 27 | Trainers -29 | Energy - 4 |
| 4 - Combee AOR | 4 -Professor Sycamore | 4 - Double Colorless |
| 4 - Vespiquen AOR | 2 - N | - |
| 2 - Zorua BKT | 2 - Lysandre | - |
| 2 - Zoroark BKT | 1 - Teammates | - |
| 1 - Tauros GX | - | - |
| - | 4 - Ultra Ball | - |
| 4 - Unown AOR | 4 - VS Seeker | - |
| 3 - Shaymin EX | 4 - Acro Bike | - |
| 2 - Klefki STS | 2 - Special Charge | - |
| 1 - Oranguru SUM | 1 - Revitalizer | - |
| - | 1 - Buddy Buddy Rescue | - |
| 2 - Eevee AOR | - | - |
| 1 - Vaporeon AOR | 2 - Float Stone | - |
| 1 - Flareon AOR | - | - |
| - | 1 - Forest of Giant Plants | - |
| - | 1 - Faded Town | - |
This is a pretty straightforward Vespi list. 2 Revitalizer is nice because it lets you get wild discarding the vespi line early, but I prefer the flexibility of being able to recover Vaporeon/Flareon, or just like... recycle an Unown or something. I tried hard to cut out the second stadium, but being able to bump opponent stadiums can be super clutch.
3/19 Tulsa, 27 Masters
R1: Decidueye/Vileplume L ( 0-1-0 )
R2: Decidueye/Vileplume W ( 1-1-0 )
R3: Turbo Dark W ( 2-1-0 )
R4: Lapras GX W ( 3-1-0 )
R5: Volcanion W ( 4-1-0 )
T8: Decidueye/Vileplume WLL ( 4-2-0 )
Final Standing: 5/27
In Round 1 I had an opportunity to Lysandre Vileplume and Mad Bull GX for 180, but instead chose to Lysandre a Decidueye GX and Mad Bull GX for 180 hoping Decidueye would be stuck active and I could horn attack for KO on the next turn. This was very dumb, and while it may not have cost me the game, it certainly didn't help me win it.
In round 2 my opponent over benched Shaymin and locked himself out of a second Decidueye until he could sky return, or I KO'd something. Unfortunately for him, I had flareon up, and Zoroark+Lysandre in hand. I took out his lone Decidueye, then plowed the rest of his board.
Turbo dark can be a rough matchup for vespi, as fighting fury belt puts Darkrai's HP to a level that is challenging to hit early in the game. Additionally, early Chaos Wheel wins the game. In round 3 though, I had a very quick setup and was swinging for 180 by turn 3, so this never got close.
Round 4 was uneventful to the point I felt kind of guilty. I wanted to see what my opponent's deck could do. I mean, he had won two games with Lapras. Grass weakness is just not something you will overcome against Vespi. I benched him on my third turn.
So we get to round 5. This game was not very interesting. I had Vaporeon in my opening hand and discarded with Sycamore, assuming I could get back with Buddy-Buddy later on. I got my first ultra ball 3 turns later and discovered Buddy-Buddy was prized! This would normally make things kind of sketchy, but my opponent's nerves seemed to be locking him up, and he made a couple of misplays that opened doors to a fairly simple victory.
Why was my opponent nervous? well, everyone at the top 4 tables had ID'd. I had been down paired due to low resistance (second round opponent dropped). There were at least 4 3-1's at the top four tables, and when they realized there was an unaccounted for 3-1 who was still playing, they all started watching the match. We had at least 20 people watching. It was weird.
Anyhow, I won, and ruined the day of a guy I had never seen before. I felt kind of bad, because I am familiar with the pressure to ID at the top tables at these small events where it seems like everyone knows eachother. There are so many variables to account for, and the decision has to happen pretty quick. If this was his first tournament with a top cut, it was a rough way to learn bout dat bubble life. That is as far as my pity extends though. There are few things I despise more than experienced players whining about bubbling top-X. If you don't want to bubble, don't ID. Or learn to math better.
In top 8 I was matched against a pillar of the local league whom I had never defeated, so it was nice to take game 1 off of him. I got Flareon setup and hit a timely Lysandre to take down a Shaymin with Zoroark for the win. In game 2 I got my first search card on my 4th or 5th turn and discovered that Flareon was prized. I considered scooping right then. We had about 10 minutes left and I didn't have the remaining resources to win the game lysandreing Shamins... But the prize trade was even, and with the exception of Flareon, I was set up really well so I chose to play it out. Dumb. I lost and we started game 3 with 2 minutes remaining. I went first, got a solid setup, and time was called as his first turn began. No prizes were taken during the three turns, and he double feather arrowed to finish off Flareon on the first turn of sudden death. This was a rough way to lose, but I have to say it was due to my being too stubborn to concede game 2. He went on to lose in the final against Mega Mewtwo.
Favorite card of the tournament: Tauros GX. I didn't really mention it above, but it is so nice having a good option to sky return into. I had people wasting resources to get around it, and in some cases just choosing to end their turn without attacking. All of this adds to the prize trade edge that makes Vespiquen viable.
Least favorite card of the tournament: Teammates. OMG Teammates by a mile. I have this really bad habit of latching on to cards like this because I will remember all of the super clutch+obnoxiously cute plays they enabled during testing. You know what would have actually improved my record during this tournament though? Another out to search my deck! I was considering cutting Teammates for Hex on my way to the tournament. Going forward I plan on dropping it for a Town Map, level ball... or like... Skyla.
I loved Flareon PLF, and I love Vespiquen AOR. Barring a huge meta shift that makes it hot garbage, or one of the clever Lurantis GX builds I have been discussing with some friends at league actually like... working, I plan on riding Vespi through the end of the season.
