Hey CutOrTap nation, Liam here with my US Nationals report. I was lucky enough to finish in fourth place in a field of 1,105 masters, making it the largest Pokemon TCG tournament ever, at least outside of Japan. Today I want to give you a run down of my play for Nationals, some of the card choices, and my matches.
I played this deck at Nationals:
| Pokémon -11 | Trainers -35 | Energy -14 | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | Darkrai EX | 4 | Professor Sycamore | 4 | VS Seeker | 10 | Darkness | ||
| 2 | Giratina EX | 3 | N | 4 | Ultra Ball | 4 | Double Dragon | ||
| 2 | Hydreigon EX | 2 | Lysandre | 4 | Max Elixir | ||||
| 2 | Shaymin EX | 1 | AZ | 3 | Trainer’s Mail | ||||
| 1 | Latios EX | 1 | Hex Maniac | 2 | Float Stone | ||||
| 1 | Hoopa EX | 2 | Enhanced Hammer | ||||||
| 1 | Yveltal XY | 1 | Fighting Fury Belt | ||||||
| 1 | Muscle Band | ||||||||
| 1 | Startling Megaphone | ||||||||
| 2 | Parallel City | ||||||||
I had been testing different dark-based Max Elixir decks for a while leading up to nationals, and was pretty sure I wanted to play Yveltal/Darkrai/Garbodor deck with Double Colorless Energy and the Fright Night Yveltal, but the results of the Origins Win-a-Trip event made me revisit the Darkrai/Giratina decks. Upon testing them a little bit more, I discovered they had a slightly better Waterbox match-up than Darkrai/Yveltal because of how attainable 180 damage becomes when some of your energy give you an extra 40 damage. I did most of my testing with Olliver Barr, who didn’t attend US Nationals, and Sorina Radu, who played the same 60 cards and finished in the Top 16. I didn’t make any last minute changes to the deck, and played the same cards I had sleeved up when I arrived in Ohio.
Specific Card Choices:
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