Testing Standard: Vespiquen pt: 2

In an effort to increase his content output, Johnny is going to begin posting test logs. These will be short entries with high level thoughts and observations that will hopefully increase thinkspiration in the Pokemon TCG space.

Male pronouns will be used throughout these articles because Johnny has fallen victim to cis male white hetero normative corporate oppression. Or he is just trying to spin these blogs off in less than 30 minutes and making universally agreeable+grammatically correct pronouns is exhausting.

All obvious considerations about small sample size should be observed.

Played: Vespiquen

Used the Charizard Lounge list again. Thought I might have to change things up a tiny bit to prepare for the league challenge tomorrow since I only have 3 Shaymin, but my local game store had a Shaymin show up since Wednesday. I have never paid $60 for a pokemon card before, but I did spend $100 on tins black friday 2015 (50% off yo) in an (failed) effort to pull my fourth one... which is kind of the same thing? Anyway, word to Wizard's Asylum. Let's go!

Game1 vs Haxorus. Got to a quick lead knocking out a couple of axew before my opponent got setup, but was 10 damage short of knocking out the first Haxorus. This decided the game as he intelligently kept his bench small, and I missed the cards necessary to put resurrect vespi from the discard once things got to that point. In the turn I missed Haxorus, I could have discarded combee off of a Sycamore, but benched it to prep a second vespi. Should have paid more attention to opponent's board state and extended to take the ko. Perhaps a good rule on this is to dump <= x (x = 3?) parts of the Vespi line as long as you have Revitalizer in deck? 0-1

Game2 vs M Ray. This player made a few puzzling plays, and I had kind of a slow start, but eventually pulled out of it. Klefki is so clutch in this matchup. 1-1

Game3 vs M Scizor/Garb. Started zorua with a klefki on the bench. One appealing thing about using Raichu instead of Zoroark is that Pikachu actually has a useful attack (nuzzle for one colorless, flip coin for paralysis), whereas Zorua does not (all require dark energy). Opponent had a strong setup, and I had hand of evolutions, non draw supporters, and energy. I don’t think this matchup would be too bad if you can get a couple Zoroark setup to attack immediately, and get Unown (and possibly Klefki, if you don’t have a setup to take down Garb immediately). Whiff on that stuff, and get basically no setup like I did… and it gets ugly fast. 1-2

Game4 vs Yveltal/Yveltal EX/Zoroark. I went first, started with Forest of Giant Plants in hand and blew up from there. I knocked out baby Yveltal on my second turn with Bee Revenge for 150 and he conceded. 2-2

Game5 vs M Mewtwo/Garb: In the game, damage change goes through Klefki, which seems wrong, but I need to check. After that happened I just went HAM on Shaymin and Hoopa. I should have taken garb out early though. I had it set up to draw out my deck with Shaymin and Lysandre an injured Mewtwo (bumped shrine with forest, natch) for game, but my opponent got Garb up the turn leading into when all this stuff was going to happen. It didn’t occur to me until this happened that I would need abilities late. I had ignored trub early because I had already used 4 Unown and all but 2 Klefki by the time I was attacking for OHKOs. Solid game, ignoring Garb was dumb. To win this matchup, I think Lysandre will need to be used at least 3-4 times… which is kind of extreme, but getting up to 210 damage with 26 pokemon in the deck is difficult since outside of Klefki and Unown, your engine for discarding them is Ultra Ball + Sycamore, and discarding 19 with that combo requires some combination of luck and a willingness to burn pokes out of your hand at a break neck pace, assuring yourself Revitalizer and Special Charge can re-assemble anything you lose in the process. Might be worth experimenting with Giovanni’s Scheme? 2-3

Update: I looked at the cards and the PTCGO behavior is correct. Damage Change doesn't inflict damage equal to the amount on Mewtwo EX, it moves that number of damage counters onto the opposing active pokemon. Klefki's Wonder Lock ability prevents damage done from the attacks of Mega Evolution Pokemon, but not effects of attacks, which the placement of damage counters is. I think this is why my wife hates this game?

fyi Suicune BKP Wind Charm ability reads "As long as this Pokemon is your Active Pokemon, prevent all effects of your opponent's attacks, except damage, done to each of your Pokemon (existing effects are not removed). Doesn't fix anything here, but if Mewtwo gets big... something interesting could be built with Suicune, Klefki and Palkia?

Game6 vs M Audino: not sure how much this one was modified from the wordl’s winning list, but my opponent ran the same pokemon lines and lots of 1 of tech supporters, which makes me think it probably wasn’t modified very much. My setup came really slow, and I had to drop shaymin several times early. Was able to sky return twice (in part due to lack of better attacker) promoting miracle locked Vespiquens. Got some nice hands in mid game and was able to N him to 2 before knocking out his only M Audino with energy on it (Audino EX on bench with no link or energy, Shaymin on bench with no tool or energy, Magaerna EX on bench with on metal energy), and after digging some, he conceded on his next turn. Among the 8 cards I had in hand was Lysandre, DCE, VS Seeker, etc. so I am pretty confident I would have been able to ride this one to a win. 3-3

Game7 vs M Scizor/Garb: Went first and setup pretty solid, was doing 110 damage with Vespi on my first attacking turn (probably should have sky returned tho, played down one shaymin on first turn). Discarded both Special Charge on my first turn, but had checked the deck and I had all four DCE… so I thought this would probably go ok if I didn’t get caught by hammers. Grabbed trub with Lysandre on my third turn, benched a Klefki, and my opponent conceded. Would have liked to see how this played out :[ 4-3

Thoughts on the list: I was leaning hard toward experimenting with the AOR eeveelutions in place of fourth shaymin and some of the zoroark line, and teching the trainers a bit more in place of the duplicates of revitalizer and special charge... but after playing today, and getting a better feel for the deck, I think the only changes I would look into is Raichu for Zoroark, and finding a way to add Giovanni's.

I don't find myself using Stand in very often, and I don't have a strong grasp on how much people are playing around Zoroark vs. just being sensible with their bench usage. I am beginning to see more times when the extra HP from the Break is clutch, so as long as Zoroark is in, the break is staying in too.

I think my thirst for Giovanni's is just an attempt to cover for early game misplays I am making. Hopefully I will continue to improve my feel for when+how to discard my attacker lines. A better solution here may be finding room for level ball?

Overall: I feel a lot better about this deck than I did earlier in the week, and I think most of that has to do with my overall comfort level with the game returning. Before a tournament I typically go with decks that I am winning ~80% of my PTCGO games with. That isn't the case here, and I hope my level of play returns to where it was a couple seasons ago soon, but I am happy with the progress I have made.

I am surprised that I have only seen Volcanion once since getting back into PTCGO. That isn't even my biggest matchup concern though. If the in PTCGO ruling, that Damage Change is not blocked by Klefki when used by M Mewtwo, then that matchup will be brutal. If that is the case, I think the M Mewtwo/Vespi matchup will be totally reliant on having access to Lysandre at the right times... Which is sub optimal if the deck is popular :[

Testing Standard: Vespiquen

In an effort to increase his content output, Johnny is going to begin posting test logs. These will be short entries with high level thoughts and observations that will hopefully increase thinkspiration in the Pokemon TCG space.

Male pronouns will be used throughout these articles because Johnny has fallen victim to cis male white hetero normative corporate oppression. Or he is just trying to spin these blogs off in less than 30 minutes and making universally agreeable+grammatically correct pronouns is exhausting.

All obvious considerations about small sample size should be observed.

Played: Vespiquen

I used the list Andrew Wamboldt posted on the Charizard Lounge a couple days ago. I have huge respect for the resources Andrew has developed. He is an inspiring deck builder and his stuff is enjoyable to read.

A big part of the respect I have for him is due to him keeping his blog free. I am still stunned that pokemon sites have pay walls. It is 2016. You are not a newspaper exploiting baby boomers. Half of your writers barely seem literate (and a large number of the remainder open all of their articles with intensely uninteresting recounts of their resume). I am not paying more for a few pokemon articles a week than I do for Netflix, or nearly as much as I pay for NBA League Pass. Maybe it is just because my day to day as an embedded software engineer exposes me to a world where everything is either open source, or has viable open source alternatives, but I am still shocked that the pokemon community supports this model of information sharing.

ANYWAY

the games:

Game1 vs Xerneas Break/Giratina. Awful setup, didn’t draw into a supporter until the fourth turn, by which time I was way too far behind. 0-1

Game2 vs Darkrai/Giratina/Garbodor. I wasn’t able to get my mid game board state to a point where I could use Pokemon Ranger against Giratina without falling behind. The solution here is probably to make a more aggressive run at Giratina early. This seems extremely obvious now that I type it out, but didn’t occur to me in game… Probably because I am still feeling out this deck? I played Flareon variants a lot in the 2014/15 season… but that was a long time ago man. 0-2

Game3 vs Wailord. Had a solid start and came out really aggressive since I knew I could knock Wailord out. Drew through most of my deck without hitting DCE… which showed up when I had 8 cards left in deck. And by showed up I mean he discarded three on a team rockets handiwork and the last one on the same turn with Bunnelby. Nice. 0-3

Game4 vs Mega Rayquaza. Kind of difficult to decide who to protect with Klefki at times in this one. I won fairly easily, chipping down one mega ray early and then lysandreing Shaymin for the final four prizes. Zoroark and Klefki seemed to push my opponent into sub optimal plays. 1-3

Game5 vs Volcanion EX. The game didn’t recognize me playing a Lysandre and timed out… which was annoying, because despite the weakness issue, I think this is definitely a winable matchup. I need to work on being more aggressive with early discards, especially when it comes to discarding parts of the Vespiquen line, as falling 10 or 20 damage short of a KO can really set the deck back. 1-3 (I just won't count game errors?)

Game6 vs Mega Tyranitar + Clauncher. Much like the Mega Rayquaza matchup, to lose this game you have to either have a horrendous start, or they have to get extremely lucky draws, ie being able to lysandre around klefki for several turns. The situation klefki presents reminds me of Substitute Robot in Donphan when it ran wild on cities in 2014. 2-3

Thoughts on the list I need to spend some more time with this deck to pick up on some of the intricacies. I had a few situations where I was short 10-30 damage, that I am pretty sure were do to benching extraneous attackers early on.

I kind of hate Acro bike, but I understand why it is here. Really... I just hate discarding VS Seeker.

In the solitaire games I ran, and in the Xerneas game, I had serious supporter drought early game. This is probably due to reluctance to play Shaymin. I never had more than one on the field, and never lost on to knockout thanks to sky return... but perhaps I need to read these situations better and push Shaymin occasionally?

I am going to experiment with replacing Zoroark Break with something else. I understand the logic Wamboldt presented in his article, but I never had it in hand when I could use it, and usually didn't have the resources or motive to go find it.

Overall The only issues I ran into with this deck were due to my own misplays, or supporter drought/the deck seeming to come out backwards... Which could also possibly root in misplays. So I am confident that with some more practice and study I pilot this deck to more success than I found online tonight.
 

Testing Standard: Darkrai/Giratina/Garbodor

In an effort to increase his content output, Johnny is going to begin posting test logs. These will be short entries with high level thoughts and observations that will hopefully increase thinkspiration in the Pokemon TCG space.

Male pronouns will be used throughout these articles because Johnny has fallen victim to cis male white hetero normative corporate oppression. Or he is just trying to spin these blogs off in less than 30 minutes and making universally agreeable+grammatically correct pronouns is exhausting.

All obvious considerations about small sample size should be observed.

Played Darkrai/Giratina/Garbodor

Pokemon

3 - Darkrai EX BKP

2 - Giratina EX AOR

2 - Trubbish BKP

2 - Garbodor BKP

2 - Shaymin EX ROS

1 - Hoopa EX AOR

1 - Yveltal XY 

Trainers

4 - Sycamore

2 - N

2 - Lysandre

1 - Hex Maniac

1 - Pokemon Center Lady

4 - Ultra Ball

4 - VS Seeker

4 - Max Elixir

3 - Trainers Mail

1 - Escape Rope

1 - Switch

1 - Super Rod

3 - Fighting Fury Belt

2 - Float Stone

1 - Parallel City

Energy

9 - Dark

4 - Double Dragon

Game1 vs Regice deck. I didn’t have pokemon ranger, so this would be difficult. Thought I might be able to pull out a win because he played a lot of Shaymin, but my setup came together too slow to one hit shaymin when I needed to. 0-1

Game2 Played Xerneas break/Giratina. I think my strategy made this one worse than it should have been. Benching my own Giratina is a major liability in this matchup, and their attachments quickly get out of control, building Xerneas Break’s attack to kind of ridiculous levels. 0-2

Game3 vs Mega Gyrados. Got a decently quick setup for the first time, but got stuck with awkward hands where I needed to switch baby Yveltal to the bench (was only basic in opening hand) to attack with Giratina. Put a Fury belt on a shaymin I was planning to sky return which prevented a knockout, which was a nice little play… but I only had it on my bench in the first place because I wasn’t hitting supporters early and had to bench Hoopa-Shaymin on turn one, then ultra ball a shaymin on turn 2. The decision to bump Hoopa instead of the second Shaymin would be a great subject to discuss in the comments. 1-2

Thoughts on my list: The power of the archetype is immediately apparent. I wasn't able to get it to set up smoothly in any game I played (counting some solitaire before hand), either due to early supporter drought, or just bad luck/play. It has been six months since I last played... which I am sure did not help me.

Hex and Pokemon Center lady could come out. I love cute plays, but getting the one of supporter when you need it is considerably more difficult without battle compressor.

If you are going to use parallel city, 1 is enough. I did not have issues getting it when I needed it, which is similar to my experience last season. If you are concerned about your opponent getting it down first, you should probably just play M Scizor or something, because reworking a deck to let you bump Shaymin's consistently looks like it will be costly in this format.

I was expecting issues with switching to optimize Max Elixir, but this never really came up.

I found Super Rod more useful for stacking the deck in your favor for late game Max Elixir than pulling back pokemon.

I will probably practice some more with this list, and re-work it some, just to determine how consistent I can get the setup to be.

Overall Garbodor was not useful in any of these games… and really, not sure if Darkrai is an optimal attacker if the deck cannot be accelerated more to get him in range to ohko more stuff earlier. Possible I was just playing terrible, but the deck definitely seems to have a timer, ie if you do not get ahead of your opponent early, you will quickly be at an insurmountable energy deficit.

Based on some solitaire, these three games (lolz), and other anticipated archetypes… I am not sure why anyone not using a mega would incorporate Garbodor, as the only ability that looks like it will be present is Giratina’s, and I guess Volcanion (presumably will be played).

I need to play some more in general to get the rust off, then I will return to this deck to make a more useful read on its place in the meta.

Tulsa Cities mini marathon

There was a time last spring when I was thinking seriously about giving up the Pokemon TCG. Maintaining knowledge of the card library, and how various decks interact with eachother is time consuming. Keeping a competitive collection up to date is expensive.

Then I read about US Nationals, and the success of Wailord. A group of friends working in secret to develop an idea and break the meta for a weekend is the ultimate TCG achievement in my opinion. These events inspired me to update my collection and keep playing.

I had played casually online since the release of Ancient Origins, but really buckled down about a month ago when cities started up. Tulsa cities were the second weekend in January, and performing well at them was my goal.

I played the list below at both Tulsa and Jenks:

Pokemon - 14	Trainers -35	Energy - 11
4 - Yveltal XY	2 -Professor Sycamore	7 - Dark
2 - Zorua BKT 89	1 - Professor Birch's Observations	4 - Double Colorless
1 - Zorua BKT 90	1 - Judge	-
3 - Zoroark BKT 91	1 - Lysandre	-
2 - Yveltal EX	1 - Skyla	-
2 - Shaymin EX	1 - Giovanni's Scheme	-
-	-	-
-	4 - Ultra Ball	-
-	4 - VS Seeker	-
-	4 - Trainer's Mail	-
-	3 - Battle Compressor	-
-	2 - Acro Bike	-
-	1 - Town Map	-
-	1 - Target Whistle	-
-	1 - Startling Megaphone	-
-	1 - Professor's Letter	-
-	-	-
-	3 - Muscle Band	-
-	2 - Float Stone	-
-	-	-
-	2 - Parallel City	-

I originally experimented with more typical Y/Z/G lists, I could just never get Gallade out in situations where it mattered, and felt like I was getting a ridiculous volume of Shaymin starts. I changed the deck up to have some techier items and thicker Yveltal XY and Zoroark lines. This improved my early game consistency, and provided some fun options during the game (I'll admit it, I only used Target Whistle once during both weekends... but it was cool?).

Obviously, this makes the matchup against any form of Manectric virtually unwinnable, but when I wasn't hitting Maxie's with meaningful regularity, I figured the consistency was more helpful than the lack of a strong Manectric counter was hurtful.


1/9 Jenks cities, 33 masters

R1: Vespiqueen/Vileplume/Forest of Giant Plants L ( 0-1-0 )
R2: Mienshao W ( 1-1-0 )
R3: Entei L ( 1-2-0 )
R4: Night March W ( 2-2-0 )
R5: Vespiqueen W ( 3-2-0 )
R6: Yveltal/Zoroark/Gallade T ( 3-2-1 )

Final Standing: 12/33

Round 1 I started lone Zorua, went first, couldn't dig out a second pokemon and got donked. Round 2 I just setup too fast and benched my opponent on my third prize.

I had the Entei matchup under control, using parallel city to dampen their damage output and hitting a timely megaphone, I just couldn't hit a dark energy to save my life (the professor's letter in the list above was actually a Hex Maniac in Jenks, this game inspired the change!). I hit heads on Birch and drew my remaining 7 cards to find 4 dark energy... extremely frustrating.

Night March is extremely easy with this build, barring horrendous prizes. Bumping Shaymin EX off with Parallel City early game is a must, then just stream baby Yveltal until they run out of attackers/DCE.

Round 5, my opponent had a decent setup, I was just too fast and ended up taking 4 prizes off Shaymins.

I am pretty comfortable in the mirror, it is just typically a very slow game. Without Laser Bank, it is difficult swing for 170+ barring careless play by your opponent. I played this game well, and would have taken the game given a few more turns as I wiped all of his energy off the board with a clutch Giovanni's attack on his last Yveltal EX, but we hit the time limit and thus, a tie.

This day wasn't a total disappointment considering it was my first competition in over a year. Some bad luck in rounds 1 and 3 hurt, but overall I was pleased with the result.


1/10 Tulsa cities, 38 masters

Round 1: Mewtwo (damage swap) W ( 1-0-0 )
Round 2: Yveltal/Zoroark/Gallade/Jirachi W ( 2-0-0 )
Round 3: Mega Manectric W ( 3-0-0 )
Round 4: Night March/Bronzong/Milotic W ( 4-0-0 )
Round 5: Manectric/Toad/Bats ID ( 4-0-1 )
Round 6: Yveltal/Zoroark/Gallade ID ( 4-0-2 )

T8: Yveltal/Zoroark/Gallade LWL ( 4-1-2 )

Final Standing: 7/38

My luck was better overall in this tournament. I got out to a fast start in round 1 and benched my opponent before he was able to mount anything threatening.

The round 2 semi mirror match was kind of interesting. I started baby Yveltal with Yveltal EX and Zorua on the bench, hit Oblivion Wing on the first turn and attached dark to Yveltal EX. My opponent started baby Yveltal, with Zorua on the bench and by the end of his turn had added Yveltal EX, Shaymin EX and Jirachi. He also hit the Oblivion Wing and attached to Yveltal EX.

I knew I didn't want to mess with Jirachi nonsense, so I evolved to Zoroark and used Lysandre to take the KO. I was expecting my opponent to come back with baby Yveltal and resume setting up... but instead he brought up Yveltal EX, attached DCE and used Evil Ball for the knockout.

I look at my hand. I have DCE, Parallel City, Muscle Band, and two VS Seeker. My opponent had three cards in hand. Assuming he couldn't find an out to a DCE in that... I had just won the game. He didn't, so I did.

Round 3 my opponent could not get a manectric out, and I quickly took down Articuno and Regice. This was very lucky on my part. I got ahead of my round 4 opponent, kept baby Yveltal streaming without exposing Shaymin EX. Two intentional draws and I entered top cut as the third seed.

The top 8 matchup was against my round 6 opponent. He is an accomplished player, and the first two games were extremely intense and technical, with the winner in both being determined by who recovered their Shaymin most efficiently.

The only play I regret from game 1 was overextending to KO Gallade. I went for Giovannie's with VS Seeker to hit 160 with Evil Ball... which isn't a bad play, but I only had a dark energy and a muscle band in hand, so I probably would have been better off with a chip shot attack and some sort of draw supporter.

I went first in game 2 (after going second in game 1), and had one of the smoothest setups of the day. Things got close at the end, but I thinned my deck well throughout, so I was able to get the muscle band + VS Seeker I needed to win the game on prizes, taking my last two on Shaymin with Y Cyclone.

Time was called as my opponent began game three. I had kind of a clunky start, but I lost due to a horrendous misplay. On the first turn of sudden death, I had baby Yveltal active, with Yveltal EX and Shaymin EX on the bench. Dark on baby Yveltal with no outs to get it into the discard. Lysandre in hand. He had baby Yveltal with dark attached active, Yveltal EX with dark attached, Gallade (yes, turn one Maxie's fml) and two Shaymin EX on the bench. I needed to stall him.

So looking at his bench, I am trying to choose between Yveltal EX, Gallade or Shaymin. I don't want Yveltal EX, because if he has a DCE, he can Y Cyclone for the game. Shaymin has a retreat cost of 1. What if he has a basic energy in hand and just retreats back into the current game state? A HAH! Gallade has retreat cost of two! He will have to burn a DCE to retreat that, I thought.

But lo, Gallade also has a serious attack that costs a measly DCE. So of course, I try to stall with Lysandre on Gallade, Oblivion Wing. He has DCE and VS Seeker in hand. VS Seeker, Lysandre Shaymin, attach DCE to Gallade, Sensitive Blade for game.

ugggggggggggggghhh

Such an awful misplay.

It probably would not have mattered. I was too far behind in energy attachments to reasonably expect to take a prize before him. I probably should have scooped game 1 and played faster in game 2 to give myself more time in game 3, blah blah blah... Mental fatigue is real, man.

Favorite Card of the weekend: Town Map

Some people like to hate on Town Map. "You can deduce your prizes through a deck check with ultra ball/etc." they say. This statement ignores the utility of Town Map. Playing low supporter counts, it can be crucial to get some of them (Lysandre especially) out of your prizes ASAP. Just in general, with so little hand disruption in the format right now, tools that you can use to line up subsequent turns are invaluable.

Least favorite card of the weekend: Second Parallel City

75% of the time, this deck uses Parallel City to bump Shaymin EX into the discard pile for free. This is extremely valuable for holding an edge in prize trade. This also requires the stadium only be active for a turn. I played a second in anticipation of more Entei in the meta, as denying the OHKO on Yveltal EX is pretty clutch. However, this was almost always a dead card.


Overall, I was happy with how this deck performed. There is some more tweaking to do, and I have room to improve as a player ( specifically in the area of time management ), but I am glad to return to the pokemon TCG community!

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.