Welcome back, Cut or Tap Subs! Change is in the air as summer approaches for the end of the competitive TCG season. We have experienced an amazing circuit this year, crowning new Champions and old alike. Cut or Tap has been going strong for almost seven years and we have some great new ideas on the horizon! We will be moving to Metafy soon and joining the other content creator spaces for Video, Long Form, Short Form, and Class-style content. I can’t wait for this new chapter for myself and Phinn to usher in new writers!

As the season end approaches, I want to always keep you all informed on my race to Worlds, so here is where I’m at. I’m currently Rank-131 with 642 points; the invites go down to 136 so I’m currently right on the cusp of the current structure. I have two tournaments left to play in: the Portland Regional Championship and NAIC. Hoping to clutch a finish up and get to the 700-750 point mark, and I think this should get me to another World Championship invite. I’ve always been an optimist when it comes to Worlds, but this year is one of those years where I didn’t compete that much, but still managed five Day 2’s out of six tournament attempts. If I get the invite I’ll be ecstatic, but I’ll be honest: if I miss this year, it wouldn’t crush me as I basically played 1/4th of the season. Wish me luck as I try to complete this goal, and I hope you all will support the new Cut or Tap on Metafy, even if this old man is washed up.

Now that we recapped where I’m at, let’s talk about the Portland Regional Championship that takes place next week as I’m writing this. The meta has had such a violent shift from the beginning, which I’m not sure most people have even noticed. For example, looking at Tera Box as one of the front runners, and a deck that can handle both variants of Dragapult ex, has practically fallen flat on its face. Terapagos ex/Bouffalant has also practically disappeared even though its meta position has hardly changed. Both of these and many other decks are being piled together in the 2-6% meta shares of tournaments like Atlanta and Milwaukee. Trends that haven’t changed are the popularity of both Dragapult ex variants, which make up almost 60% of the three largest events in this format. This is an astounding number that places Dragapult ex firmly in the “Gatekeeper” position in the format, meaning that if you want to make Day 2 or win the tournament, you must 50/50 or better against the mighty Dragapult ex. Gardevoir has taken three major wins despite the Dragapult meta percentage takeover, but you would expect with the caliber of player that wouldn’t be the case. Gholdengo/Drakloak has solidly placed itself in the top five decks, having even matchups across the board with a stable consistency backbone.

The newcomer that has inserted itself all the way to multiple Top Cuts is none other than Joltik Box. Joltik Box is interesting as it has a shot against the evolution decks and turbo decks barring our final mention of this meta. Aggression and acceleration give Joltik Box the legs to stand on in a Budew-dominated format, so I expect this deck to continue its rise to popularity after each finish it adds.

So where does that leave us exactly? Dragapult ex is the most popular with Gholdengo ex in second, followed by Gardevoir ex and Joltik Box. Besting three of these four decks is a winning strategy, but not so easily done in a vacuum like our format is currently. Which brings me to the only other deck that has laid claim to a win in this format: none other than Raging Bolt ex.

Raging Bolt was one of my front runners previously to Atlanta Regionals, as its consistency was unmatched to any other archetype. The Dragapult matchup always felt slightly favored due to the aggression of Bellowing Thunder, which was one of the only strategies currently that could OHKO back-to-back Dragapult ex. Now with Christian’s list, heavily inspired by older Japanese builds, we have another threat to Dragapult ex: non-ex Raging Bolt. I will be the first to say I had been skeptical of this card for sometime now. My students who played Raging Bolt didn’t include this because I didn’t see the value it brought as a one-prize attacker, when Fan Rotom would KO most of the same Basics. This was a piloting issue, as I didn’t see the value in sniping off Drakloak with energy on the bench, over and over. This means Dragapult has to put a lot more pressure on finding Rare Candy or Luxurious Cape to protect their attachments. Kirlias on the bench are also not safe from baby Raging Bolt’s wrath, giving us a nice way to pressure extra board presence from their set up.

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.

Username

Password

Remember Me

 

 

Forgot Password