Hey everybody!  My name is Charlie Lockyer, and this is my first article for Cut or Tap.  I’m a player from New Jersey/Maryland that recently aged up to Masters.  Outside of Pokemon I am on my school’s robotics team, and I play lacrosse. Today I am going to talk about three different Standard decks, one of which is an established archetype, another is a new … Continue reading “Building a Bide Barricade”: Three Options for the Post-Melbourne Standard Format

Where was I last time?… Right. Covering the list. Continue reading “Toad the Line:” Updating Dark/Garb from Standard to Expanded Pt. 2

Before I get into this piece, I want to explain that this article will have two parts. I am posting the second half of the article this Saturday, so I can test some more matchups a little more before adding the matchup descriptions and strategies. With around 20 viable decks in Expanded, one needs far more time to test against all of the strong options. … Continue reading “Toad the Line:” Updating Dark/Garb from Standard to Expanded Pt. 1

Hey there, Cut or Tap readers! Daniel here again, with a little report on my findings at St Louis Regionals. With the tournament’s conclusion, we’ve been shown the complete and utter chaos that is Expanded. Good players did horrible while others pushed through, but for the most part the chaos of Day 2 was the result of those who managed to meet the stronger matchups … Continue reading “Bees are Endangered?” – A Follow Up on Vespiquen in Expanded

I suppose it’s time for you to make a choice. St. Louis is in two days, and there are more options than ever before. I cannot tell you which is the best choice, but I can show you my Expanded Vespiquen list, which is the best thing since sliced bread. My articles that cover one deck in detail seem to be the most well-received, so … Continue reading “Flareon, My Wayward Son” – Expanding on Expanded Vespiquen

Hi Cut or Tap readers, my name is Connor Pedersen. I am a senior who lives in Fair Oaks, California and I have been playing Pokémon competitively for about four years. Some of my most notable accomplishments have been multiple regional Top Cuts, two regional wins, Top 32 at Worlds 2014, and 2nd at Worlds 2016. Players have been so focused on Australia that a lot … Continue reading “En Garde (and On Darkrai):” Three Plays for Collinsville’s Expanded Regionals

What’s up Cut or Tap readers! My name is Jon Eng and I’m extremely excited to be writing again for the site. As some of you may recall, my last article was a report on my experience at Dallas Regionals. I also went over a few decks that I thought would be good decisions for Athens Regionals. Since my last article, we saw the Standard … Continue reading “The Return of the Queen.”: An in Depth Look at Vespiquen/Flareon in the Expanded Format.

Darkrai/Giratina won Anaheim Regionals four days ago, making Kenny Britton a Regional Champion, and giving Darkrai/Tina its first major Standard accomplishment. Dark/Tina is a deck that I used to refer to as a worse version of Turbo Dark. In my “What the Hex” article, and multiple others, I argued that the decreased Max Elixir probability, vulnerability to Enhanced Hammer, and the decrease in consistency create … Continue reading “Paint it Black:” Darkrai Giratina, Turbo Dark, & Yveltal Garbodor

Good morning, Malibu – or should I say Melbourne? How’s it going, Cut or Tap readers! I haven’t written an article for this website for a while, but I’m ecstatic to bring an article that has excited me this past week. Chronologically, I’m writing this before Anaheim, California’s Regionals go underway, so it’ll be interesting to see if my knowledge is correct. I always find … Continue reading “Dragon the Line:” a Look at Gyarados for Standard PRC-SM Format

Hey there, Cut or Tap readers! Daniel here, teaming up with Phinn to bring you our first collaboration! Anaheim Regionals is awfully soon (tomorrow), and Standard is in a crazy place right now. As a bit of an introductory segment, I’ll go over the information we’re sitting on: Yes, these Grass decks work. Decidueye and Lurantis are two GX Pokemon that have been tossed into the … Continue reading Daniel Altavilla & Phinnegan Lynch – Exploring Passimian Raichu, Mega Rayquaza, and Solgaleo Darkrai

What is up, Cut or Tap readers! You may be wondering how the weather is up here, and I can only reply with a smooth “sunny and rocky”! If you have guessed that I have been “up in space” testing the new Sun and Moon decks, well, you would be very much correct! I have been spending late nights crushing out decklists, going over ideas … Continue reading “Fly Me to the Moon (and the Sun):” Updates and Creations with the new Sun & Moon Format

Vespiquen is one of the few decks that has been a very hard puzzle to crack – not only for me, but for anybody who plays it. With the current Standard format, there are a vast number of options to take up the Pokemon line in the deck. If you disagree, you most likely have not spent any significant amount of time testing and/or building … Continue reading “The Great Unown:” Building Vespiquen For the Sun & Moon Format

Hello! A long-time request I have gotten is to write a piece about how to play small events; namely League Challenges and League Cups. For most of my competitive career I haven’t felt comfortable doing so, because I didn’t actually think I did that well at them. If you’re friends with me on Facebook, you might have seen my rather annoying rants about the problem … Continue reading “Professor Lynch’s Observations:” Scientific Testing and Successful League Cup Play

Well met, Cut or Tap community! I’m back out of the woodwork of editing for the site, offering a look at a rather under-the-radar niche within our current Standard format. If you’ve followed CoT throughout this season, you may recall my coverage about the infamous Wailord EX deck and its misadventures as my choice for Phoenix Regionals. Since Phoenix, I’ve had moderate success in League … Continue reading “Deck-Outs For Harambe:” Exploring Houndoom and other Standard Mill Decks

Introduction Hey Cut or Tap readers, I am back to close out an awesome month of articles from this website! I have been thinking long and hard all month on what I should write about, and I figured that a lot of you may appreciate my thoughts on Sun and Moon cards. I hope that you get your deck list feast for both formats and … Continue reading Thoughts out of This Galaxy: A Sun and Moon Thought Analysis

Hey kiddies, it’s Phinny again. Over the last week I played a lot of Pokemon – probably too much. But you know what that means, don’t you? I made a bunch of lists! My last piece covered some more fringe decks that may have been too abstract, in hindsight. So this piece will cover three of the more commonly-played meta decks. With the Break membership … Continue reading “Beauty and the Bees:” a Look at Volcanion, Rainbow Road, and Vespiquen

Hey there, Cut or Tap readers! Daniel here, to silence all talk of Standard PRC-SM. I feel that it will take plenty of innovation to actually change this format. We’re in a good place right now, with the gist of it all being: Ability-heavy decks Garbodor decks to counter the Ability decks Third-party decks with no affinity towards Abilities (Spare Shaymin or Hoopa-EX) or Anti-Abilities … Continue reading “What’s Changed, Jesse?” – Breaking (a) Bad Format

Yo! I feel like a new player! If you thought I liked Pokemon before, you should see me now. Since San Jose Regionals, something in my head ticked and I have escaped the slump I was in about four weeks ago. Lots of good things are happenin’ for Phinny these days. I won a League Cup on Sunday using Darkrai – you can see my … Continue reading “Phinn: Guy of Volcano” – Expanding on Darkrai and Exploring Its Counters

This is a collaboration between Zach and Jay Lesage for double the reading pleasure! We were asked to do a special article as brothers and we loved the idea upon hearing it! We both have been playing for over a decade with multiple successes across the span of our Pokemon careers. — The first part of our article will be handled by Zach, discussing his … Continue reading “Double Trouble” – A Double-Take on Poke-Thoughts