Some of you may have seen my recent post on the lists page where I have a section on Persian and why I believe the deck is now viable. With the almost endless number of ways that Cosmic Eclipse has made it possible for Persian to be played, I was (and I still am) sure that at least one build is tier one. In preparation … Continue reading Persian variants in Standard

Brazil Intercontinentals is this coming weekend and there is plenty to unpack with the introduction of Cosmic Eclipse to Standard. This piece covers information on several decks and how they can adapt to the new format. I start by going over information about the format in a general sense. The new Tag Engine is interesting and powerful, the impact of Pidgeotto is very real, and … Continue reading Options for Brazil: Dark Box, Malamar, Oranguru Pidgeotto, Persian Box, Gardeon, and PikaRom

Before we get into this article, I want to make you aware that this post has a small library of my current lists. Recently I have been working hard on improving many of these lists and making the post easier to navigate. There are deck for current Standard, current Expanded, and Standard + Cosmic Eclipse. Check it out! Many of our subscribers have explained that … Continue reading Expanded guide to match ups for Blastoise, ZoroGarb, and ZoroControl

We all need a little guidance in the new Expanded format with multiple new sets released and about 4 months since the last major Expanded event. This article is here to give you a look at some of the decks that are predicted to be in the Top Tier. This piece is meant to give veteran Expanded players a refresher on the format and an … Continue reading First takes on Expanded – Mewtwo variants, ZoroGarb, Archie’s Blastoise, and Turbo Dark

“Introduce a little anarchy. Upset the established order and everything becomes chaos. I’m an agent of chaos. Oh and you know the thing about chaos, it’s fair.” – Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight, 2008) If you have been playing Pokemon since the rotation before Worlds, you should be acutely aware of the fact that the format is very luck-based. Pokemon feels like gambling. I don’t … Continue reading Joker – using Blowns to find order within a chaotic format

The biggest issue I have with decks like Mewtwo Box and Ability Zard are that they run almost entirely on Welder and Dedenne, leaving your match results largely up to drawing those at the right time. Discarding too many of one card or another off Dedechange, or prizing two Welder, can easily lose you games. That is exactly why I prefer Green’s; this variant of … Continue reading Green’s ReshiZard – the fire variant that gives you control

The main problem players have with Dark Box is bad variance. They can win four games in a row and feel like the deck beats everything, then lose four in a row and feel like the deck is garbage. I kept this in mind when building my list. If Dark Box can be consistent, it is without a doubt a very powerful archetype. The match … Continue reading Dark Box – an approach focused on consistency

Malamar lost it’s reputation for being a consistent powerful deck after it was played at Worlds. The deck saw very high numbers taking up around one third of the meta in Masters Day 1 and despite the popularity, not a single Malamar deck made it to Top 8…It didn’t even make Top 16! I felt the need to explain where competitors (including myself) went wrong … Continue reading Redeeming Malamar

Now that Worlds is over there are tons of new ideas and lists to work with. I am testing decks daily, but need a couple more days to write another piece and post it. For the time being I figured posting a short list of the decks I am testing might be helpful for you all. It also helps to have this piece out because … Continue reading Current Lists

My overall opinion on a few things have change significantly. I need to make this quick because we’re almost out of time. I also felt the need to tell you all that I will not be playing a deck list I posted on the site. My teammates came up with an excellent idea for a deck and as usual I do not post other people’s … Continue reading Final Worlds Lists

In this article we are going to take a look at: match ups between the commonly accepted top five decks, my lists for everything even remotely viable, and my tier tist. This piece includes updates on much of the information discussed in the last piece, especially in relation to card changes in the lists. A section at the end has updated lists for every deck … Continue reading Top plays for Worlds 2019

Since posting An Archetype Collage I have done far more testing and coaching, leading me to condense and then expand the number of deck choices for Worlds. In the process of trying to cut out the bad lists and concepts, I ended up building new decks and exploring different variants of those decks. It’s been a while since the last article. That extra time allowed … Continue reading New ideas & revisions to the previous ideas

The last two pieces have been solely focused on one archetype each, but at that pace I will only be able to talk about half the decks I am considering for Worlds. This post is about a variety of archetypes, which can help to make the playable options for Worlds a little more clear. With each deck I explain how much potential I believe it … Continue reading An archetype collage

Yo! As promised in the last piece, this article is covering the Malamar variant I prefer. The formatting is pretty similar to the last article with details about the list, techs, and other Worlds info. I also cover the general strategy of the deck, but this time with descriptions of match ups. Towards the end I briefly explain another variant of the deck focused on … Continue reading Garchomp Giratina Malamar in the Worlds format