Hello everyone! Travis Nunlist here back with an article focused on the upcoming Portland Regionals. In my last article I discussed how I believed the new Sun & Moon set would affect the Standard format, and I’m excited to be able to change lanes a bit and discuss the BLW–SM Expanded format.

The Expanded format has become a much different beast than the Standard format due to the insane variety of Decks that can appear at any given tournament. Because of this, I think that teching for a certain matchup has become somewhat impossible/impractical … unless a lot of popular decks share a common weakness. It is generally a good idea to focus on the consistency of your own deck rather than fix a single bad matchup simply because you might only see that bad matchup once in the 14 rounds before hitting Top 8.

Popular Trends from St. Louis

Before any big tournament I always like to look at the most recent tournament results of that format and try and gauge how I think the metagame will change based on those results. The Top 8 of St. Louis ended up looking like this:

1. Alex Wilson … M Rayquaza-EX
2. John Kettler … Decidueye-GX/Vileplume AOR/Lugia-EX
3. Rahul Reddy … Volcanion-EX
4. John Sienkiewicz … Night March/Tauros-GX
5. Anthony Nimmons … Accelgor DEX/Wobbuffet PHF
6. Alex Schemanske … Seismitoad-EX/Decidueye-GX/Wobbuffet PHF
7. Ross Cawthon … Lurantis-GX/Vileplume AOR
8. Israel Sosa … Yveltal-EX/Maxie’s

Along with acknowledging which decks did the best, it’s important to notice which decks were the most popular. The deck spread in Day 2 looked like this:

The three most popular decks were Lurantis/Vileplume, Gardevoir, and Volcanion followed by a little bit of everything which is not uncommon to see in the Expanded format. Gardevoir is the only one of the three most popular decks to fall short of a Top 8 placement. A couple of important themes I immediately noticed from the listed decks are 1) a reliance on Special Energy and 2) a reliance on Abilities for setup and/or throughout the game. Not every deck listed relies on both, but they all rely on at least one and most of them even rely on both, including the finalists’ decks! Noticing common themes like these amongst decks and especially throughout a metagame can really help in trying to capitalize on weaknesses the decks may share.

I mentioned earlier that I thought it was generally a good idea to focus on your deck’s own consistency before trying to tech for a singular bad matchup, and I wanted to expand on that a bit. Playing a card to beat one matchup is usually not a great idea in Expanded (e.g., Giratina Promo to combat Greninja), but in Expanded we are able to notice themes like the ones I mentioned earlier where a lot of decks are relying on Special Energy, Abilities, Items, etc. Cards that can be “flex techs” to counter these kinds of themes include Wobbuffet, Xerosic, Hex Maniac, and Ghetsis.

Countering a theme is often much more feasible, realistic, and optimal use of deck space than strictly focusing on countering one or two bad matchups that you may only see a couple of times throughout a tournament.

I believe Wobbuffet fills the theme-countering niche best right now, and so I am going to spend the article focusing on decks that can abuse Wobbuffet the best. I’ll focus on what I think are decks that can counter the St. Louis metagame and the underlying themes of the format. I’ll be discussing each deck’s matchups versus the finalists (Mega Ray and Decidueye/Vileplume) and the three most popular decks (Lurantis/Plume, Mega Gardevoir, Volcanion). I hope that you can begin to see the underlying pattern that a few of these decks share.

Wobbuffet Decks

Accelgor/Wobbuffet

This is a deck that has always been around in Expanded but has often been left on the back burner of everyone’s testing. Accelgor’s Deck and Cover attack is one that has found success with a myriad of partners and has always been an especially powerful and unique attack. I have been somewhat enamored with the deck ever since Mike Fouchet’s 2nd place finish at Philadelphia Regionals, but have never had the guts to pull the trigger on it. My biggest regret of San Jose Regionals is not playing the deck for the event. Anthony Nimmons recently finished in the Top 8 of St. Louis with it before losing to John Sienkiewicz’s Night March. I think Wobbuffet is an incredibly powerful card right now as opening with it can shut down a huge portion of the metagame and lock your opponent out of blowing through their deck T1 like a lot of current decks are known to do in Expanded. Even if your opponent can reasonably set up under Wobbuffet, stopping the use of cards like Shaymin-EX and Jirachi-EX hinders their pace, giving you the time you need to set up. This is my current list:

The list is not terribly exciting and is only 3 cards off of Mike Fouchet’s 2nd place Philadelphia list, and I would not fault anyone for flexing between the few card differences of the lists successfully piloted by Nimmons and Fouchet. The most important decision to be made with the deck is in the tech Supporters. I’ve opted for Ghetsis and the 2nd Lysandre over things like Xerosic and Hex Maniac that were found in Nimmons’ list. I like Ghetsis a lot because it can help stop repeated use of things like AZ/Olympia/other switch effects by removing cards from hand like VS Seeker, Escape Rope, and Switch.

I think Hex Maniac is a bit redundant with the 4 Wobbuffet and can only think of some niche scenarios where I would want to use the Hex Maniac. I like the Xerosic a lot as it can remove options from your opponent, but I have a hard time justifying it over the Ghetsis or 2nd Lysandre which are the only realistic cuts for the card.

Hilariously enough, you get to use the Forest of Giant Plants that both Lurantis/Vileplume and Decidueye/Vileplume play and can pull off some insanely cool plays. If your opponent is playing cards that also help you, then that is always going to make any matchup a little bit easier.

Matchups

Vs. Mega Rayquaza … 60-40

I think this matchup is relatively straightforward. Opening Wobbuffet can ruin their entire game, and Wobbuffet shuts off Keldeo-EX. Lysandre is very good for them because they can reuse all of their good Abilities once Wobbuffet is no longer an issue. Keeping Shaymin-EX off of your side of the board is key, and trying to take out their Keldeo-EX with Accelgor should be a priority. If you’re able to KO the Keldeo, then even a Lysandre around Wobbuffet will still leave them stuck Active after future Deck and Covers. All things considered, I think this matchup is easily in Accelgor’s favor with some tight play and a focus on disruption.

Vs. Decidueye/Vileplume … 70-30

This matchup is actually pretty easy for Accelgor as long as you play it correctly. It is generally smart to be careful when setting up Musharna against Vileplume variants because of Lysandre. If you do not have a Float Stone attached, then a Lysandre on Musharna can lose you the game immediately. They regain control of Irritating Pollen and Feather Arrow while locking a fat 3-retreat Pokémon Active, giving them ample time to spread damage and play the game at their pace. Otherwise they play no switch cards and no reliable way to get around Deck and Cover. With their Abilities shut off throughout most of the game, Decidueye/Vileplume is a much less terrifying deck to be paired against.

Vs. Lurantis/Vileplume … 70-30

You don’t really play that much differently against this deck compared to the Decidueye variant. They can’t really punish you by locking Musharna Active as well as Decidueye can, but they are much faster and more consistent. The deck also runs 4 copies of AZ which can be incredibly annoying to deal with, but losing the Energy from the AZ can slow them down as well. An AZ play from them will never cause too much of an issue because they’re not KO’ing your Wobbuffet unless they have another 3-Energy Lurantis-GX ready to go. Eventually they do run out of AZ and then they’re in a lot of trouble because the math is very good for you if you lock Virbank City Gym into play. Watch out for Virizion-EX as it can ruin your entire day. None of the successful lists were playing the card in St. Louis but if Accelgor catches hype it can cause a lot of problems for you.

Vs. M Gardevoir … 70-30

This matchup is very similar to Mega Rayquaza except they don’t play Keldeo-EX, which makes it much much easier. They might have a couple of switch cards and get attacking relatively quickly, but between Wobbuffet slowing them down and Deck and Cover forcing missed attacks, the matchup is definitely in your favor if they opt to only play a couple of switch cards.

Vs. Volcanion … 65-35

This somewhat similar to the Ray matchup because they play Keldeo/Float, but they also have no switch cards/AZ and their attacker needs resetting to chain Wobbuffet KOs. Locking them out of Steam Up makes the Baby Volcanion much less effective, forcing the EX or a 3-Energy baby with a Fury Belt to take knockouts.

This article — “Biding Time” – An Evaluation of the Popular Trends Emerging from St. Louis and Ways to Counter Them for Portland (i.e., Wobbuffet Decks) — was originally published on SixPrizes.