Hey guys! After my last article, recapping my Top 8 finish at Portland, I was able to place in the Top 8 again, this time at NAIC! Ending my season with back-to-back Cuts felt great, and catapulted me to the top of the leaderboards to get stipends for Worlds and probably LAIC as well, so overall I’m super excited and hope to continue the momentum into Worlds.
Back to my NAIC run – I ended up playing the new Marnie’s Grimmsnarl archetype, which I discussed how to play against as Gardy last time, but I was not considering it as a play at that point. So what changed?
Leading up to the event, I was pretty dead set on playing Dragapult Dusknoir, however while some of my friends and I were testing the deck, I watched Raz Wolpe destroy our current PultNoir list with his Grimmsnarl build. At that point Raz was playing heavy Poffin, a PokeGear, and a Fezandipiti ex, which made the deck look super smooth, contrary to my early testing with it. Since we lost to the deck, I asked him for his list so we had a better list to practice against, and that is where I got the start to my final list, which I will discuss more later.
I started playing a bit more Grimmsnarl with everyone, as I am pretty fond of spread decks, so I figured learning the deck as a backup pick was a good idea. Soon, I got to New Orleans, and tested the PultNoir versus Grimmsnarl matchup more, as we were getting a bit worried about it. We went like 0-8, and that got us very scared about playing PultNoir, and a bit desperate on what to play. As my group kept trying to optimize PultNoir, I was playing Grimmsnarl into people who wanted to play the matchup, and I was drawing super well, beating bad matchups like Eevee Box and Joltik, and finding really good lines despite poor prizes like both Grimmsnarl ex or TM: Evolutions. I also really liked how self-sufficient and consistent the deck is, as consistency was something many lists were lacking. The consistency, along with me assuming I would play better than most of my opponents (at least in Day 1), meant I would be at a significant advantage, which really drew me to the deck.
After tons of testing, it is 11 pm Thursday night, so I play a bit of mirror match to figure out the best route, and while Bodhi had just built a super-consistent PultNoir list, I figured my time would be better spent getting a good sleep and playing Grimmsnarl, rather than trying to learn or optimize the new build, and be super tired the next day. Obviously, both options were good, since Bodhi and I both made Top Cut.
The List
https://limitlesstcg.com/decks/list/18501
After upgrading your membership, you will see the rest of the article, and an audio recording of this article, narrated by Andy Hyun: 
You must have a Premier Membership or greater to see the rest of this post. If you don't have a Premier account, you can Sign Up for one here.
You must have a Premier Membership or greater to see the rest of this post. If you don't have a Premier account, you can Sign Up for one here.