Welcome, Cut or Tap readers! Today I’m bringing you my thoughts and experiences with Philadelphia Regionals. I somehow made it out to the tournament with the help of some great friends. As soon as I finalized that I was going, I started testing the Expanded format with Karen to see if anything changed at all. I took a look at some older classics like Manectric/Garbodor and Groudon, as well as some updated lists of Greninja and Seismitoad variants. In this article I will go over the aforementioned decks along with a tournament report of my rounds and an overall synopsis of the event and weekend in general.

Table of Contents

1. Mega Manectric
2. Greninja
3. SwampThings (Seismitoad/Yanmega)
4. Primal Groudon + Tournament
5. Final Thoughts

Mega Manectric

I saw an opportunity in testing to try out a deck that has not really been featured in the format since Night March garnered so much popularity: Mega Manectric! With Karen out to most likely lower the numbers of Night March in general, Manectric lost essentially it’s worst matchup while still boasting a positive one against Yveltal decks (in theory). This was the list that I started out with in testing:

The list was testing really well and had some pretty good match ups in the field. It did still have some hard times with Gallade which is why Mewtwo EX was included as a counter. One big problem, though, is the deck simply cannot beat a Primal Groudon EX which was another strong deck that I was testing (and my eventual choice for the tournament). Manectric is a very simple deck with simple needs throughout the game to pull off the win. First rule to success? Do not miss an energy attachment. Second rule? See the First Rule. Sure, being able to actually use Tool Drop is cute but it is not reliable and in almost every other situation you would rather be using Turbo Bolt. If I stuck with the deck for Philly Regionals, I probably would have found my way to a slightly different version of the deck piloted by my friend during Day Two, featuring Double Colorless instead of Psychic and a heavier Mewtwo EX. Going forward, I’m not quite sure what decks will make their way back into expanded from XY Evolutions, but with Groudon being a very popular choice in the West coast, you might be better off saving this for a little bit (or throw in some big Grass guys).

Greninja

After thinking about Manectric for a bit, I shifted focus to what I played in AZ and wrote about extensively in my last article: Greninja. Because I wrote about it before I won’t go over it as much. I took the list from the end of my article and kept testing with that, and honestly I loved it. It was in my final two choices all the way until 4 AM the morning of the tournament. The only thing holding me back from playing it was that people would be expecting and preparing for it. The reason that Greninja took three spots out of the Top 8 was because people wrote it off as a non-contender. With it back on people’s radar, I was expecting a ton of Archeops, Hex Maniac, and Garbodor. I decided not to give myself a headache for the day (still happened though). I still love this list going forward:

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