What up, people! I’m glad to be writing again here on SixPrizes. Since I last wrote back in May, I have done consistently well, but with no superb finishes: Top 16 at Massachusetts Regionals with the Seismitoad/Crobat list I wrote about, Day 2 (Top 64) at US Nationals with Night March, and I made it through Day 1 of Worlds only to scrub out on Day 2 again with the same Vespiquen/Yveltal/Octillery Deck that Ross Cawthon used to take 4^th place.

Today I want to talk a little bit about both formats: first, the Standard format, which just had its first major tournaments in Orlando and in Europe, and the Expanded format, which the player base is now preparing for once again as it sets its sights on Philadelphia. My articles typically have not included an abundance of deck lists, rather focusing on a few Decks and fleshing them out. Today’s article will be a bit of departure from that, as I have a lot of decks I want to discuss in short. Today we have almost 10 deck lists spanning both formats, so get ready to take them all in!

Before all that, though, I do think it will be valuable to briefly recap the building of the Vespiquen deck that Ross, myself, and our other team members used at Worlds in San Francisco.

Worlds Buzz: The Creation of Vespiquen/Tech

Going through and analyzing the deck-building process can provide wonderful insight for even the best players. I hope you can draw some parallels from the way this deck was constructed and how we prepared for the main event. Even though the deck looks a bit like a binder-drop, every card was deliberately included.

For reference, here was the list myself and Ross played on Day 2 (and quite a few piloted on Day 1 but unfortunately did not make it through the grind):

Card Choices

4-4 Vespiquen: This was our main attacker and should not need too much explanation, but one thing to note is that with only 22 Pokémon, we were not going for big OHKOs against non-weak Pokémon-EX (like Yveltal-EX or Darkrai-EX). Instead, we would focus on 2 or 3HKO’ing these Pokémon, while using Vespiquen to take cheap KOs on Shaymin-EX, non-EX Pokémon, and Grass-weak Pokémon like Seismitoad-EX.

3 Yveltal XY: We had 4 in the list until the day before. Yveltal is one of the most Energy-efficient attackers in the game, attacking for a single Energy and getting back an Energy onto one of your other Pokémon. Yveltal is one of the big reasons this deck beat Night March. It OHKO’s Joltik and Pumpkaboo without Fighting Fury Belts, while simultaneously powering up your next attacker. Yveltal was also a great attacker against Trevenant, as it conserved Energy and could score OHKOs if you got three Energy on it.

2-2 Octillery: We really did not want to rely on Shaymin-EX in this format. Night March preyed on being more efficient than other decks and eventually jumping ahead in the Prize exchange by having time to Lysandre a Shaymin-EX or two to swing the game. By playing Octillery, we not only got rid of this option for Night March, but it also allowed us to more safely N in the late game. Octillery made us “N-proof” to a large extent, so while other decks that wanted to trade KOs would eventually wiff, we would rarely.

4 Unown: Pretty standard in Vespiquen decks. An overlooked play that I used at least twice during my Worlds run was to attack with Unown + Muscle Band against Mew FCO in Night March. Mew was particularly annoying because Yveltal could not deal with. Unown not only OHKO’d with a Muscle Band, but if they played Dimension Valley already, you did not even have to waste an Energy attachment!

1 Shaymin-EX: Because you have to. The card is too good not to play as a 1-of. With AZ and DCE in the deck, it was easy enough to get it back to your hand if you did not want the liability on the field.

1 Druddigon: This gave us yet another attacker besides Vespiquen and Yveltal. Druddigon + Muscle Band was perfect for revenge-killing Shaymin-EX, but it also gave us a way to deal with a Belted Mew. Hitting for 90/110 against big EXs like Darkrai-EX was another plus. We had 2 Druddigon at some points during testing, but I think 1 was perfect.

1 Malamar-EX: This card made its way into the deck the day before. I actually ran a Shaymin-EX XY148 on Day 1 and swapped to this card on Day 2, marking my only change between the days. While Shaymin was solely for the Trevenant matchup, Trevenant died down significantly in popularity at Worlds. Malamar-EX was included originally for the purpose of dealing with Glaceon-EX in Waterbox, but ended up having some other uses as well. Most notably, it is also very good against Seismitoad-EX in Waterbox, as it can help you break a Quaking Punch lock and get a turn to “go off,” setting yourself up with enough Vespiquen to overrun their setup.

The Supporters: Sycamore and N should be fairly straightforward. Teammates is great in any deck that wants its opponent to take 6 Prizes. We have seen it in Night March last format and we see it now in modern Greninja and Gyarados decks. Brigette may have been my MVP Supporter of the tournament. With Battle Compressor, it is much easier to get a T1 Brigette off, and I felt so confident in any game where I got this to happen. There were many games where I even played Brigette on T1 and T2! In a deck that has a couple of different moving parts — any deck with multiple Evolutions, really — Brigette is an invaluable set-up tool. AZ was really to get EXs off the board, though it was occasionally useful to pick up Yveltal or Druddigon. Hex Maniac was for Greninja and Item lock decks.

4 VS Seeker, 4 Ultra Ball, 4 Battle Compressor: These should need no explanation.

2 Muscle Band, 2 Float Stone: This combination of Tools was perfect for the list. A 3^rd copy of each would have been nice, but not necessary.

1 Revitalizer, 1 Special Charge: Looking back on it, Revitalizer and Special Charge seem like “auto-includes” in a deck like this, but both of these were the last cards added on Thursday night. As I began talking to people when I got to Worlds, it seemed like a lot of people were on Stage 1 decks similar to ours. Decks like Zoroark seemed to be popular among top players and our deck did not combat these as well as Night March, as Yveltal could not take a couple of cheap Prizes throughout the game. Special Charge and Revitalizer ensured that we would get out an extra attacker most games and coupled with N + Octillery, these would hopefully give us an edge in these type of matchups. Interestingly, both of these cards ended up being useful overall in many matchups, though they would still be the cards I would look at to cut first if I were to play Worlds again. Revitalizer was much more integral than Special Charge was.

5 Darkness, 4 Double Colorless: A high Energy count rounds out the deck. 4 DCE is obvious, but 5 Dark is a lot in a Vespiquen deck. With the emphasis on Yveltal, we wanted constant access to Energy. I would often Battle Compressor away Energy in the early game, so Yveltal could power up either another Yveltal or a Vespiquen sans DCE. By conserving DCE, Druddigon could become more of a surprise as the game went on. More Dark also made attacking with Darkness Blade a real threat, and I used that attack more during Worlds than I have in my entire time playing the card before.

In summary, our deck attempted to counter the metagame from the perspective of trading more efficiently, out-N’ing the opponent in the late game, and attacking for Weakness on the top decks. Sometimes you have to take a card that is typically played one way — in this case, Vespiquen — and morph it into something fresh and new. The look on people’s face when I told them I was running 22 Pokémon in a Vespiquen deck was too funny.

Worlds was an awesome experience and with a bit of different luck/matchups, I could have been up there with Ross at the end. I hit one of the Japanese Volcanion decks in the second round after beating Azul Garcia Griego with Night March, then proceeded to play against YZG and Metal, all bad matchups sans Azul with March. I went 0-2-1 against them and my day kind of crapped out from there. Here is to hoping I can make it back and do even better next year!

Standard Sentiments: Revisiting Orlando

For the first month and a half of the season, the Standard format was largely defined by ARG tournaments, League Challenges, and articles from various websites. Last week we got our first taste of some high-stakes events in the form of Orlando Regionals and the world’s first special event of the season over in Europe.

By now, Alex and Russell have successfully summarized the results and impact of these tournaments on how we should view the Standard format going forward, but I would like to add a bit to the discussion.

I was hoping to come into this article with a happy story of how I did well in Orlando and be able to provide you with a list or two that I was successful with. Unfortunately, I am not Russell or Alex, and I finished a disappointing 5-4 with Greninja. As I am an optimistic person, I do have some takeaways from the tournament and my tournament preparation that I would like to share with you. Also, I did craft the Greninja list that Sam Chen played to an 11^th place finish, and he was the highest placing Greninja player in the tournament. So, you will get to see what is perhaps the best Greninja list of this format and I will discuss some of the inner workings of that.

. . .

In preparation for this tournament, I did a little bit of testing with a lot of decks, and a lot of testing with two decks: Greninja and Gyarados. Back during the first week of September, Bob Zhang messaged me about the potential of Gyarados in a format where spread damage was not prevalent. I drafted a list that we began testing and we ended up only changing two cards in the month and a half since that initial discussion. Bob won and T4’d two League Challenges up in the Northeast and while we thought we had a sleeper for Orlando, we soon found out that many people had the same idea as us.

Gyarados

In the few weeks before Orlando, it became apparent that many of the top players had been forming Gyarados lists of their own. For me, that meant it was time to hop off the Gyarados train: we knew it lost to Greninja, and Giratina decks were not favorable even with a copy of Pokémon Ranger in the list. Anything with Garbodor gave it some issues as well, as it relied so much on Octillery to keep its steam going. While I ultimately decided to leave Gyarados in my wake, Bob and others still played it, and I was not surprised to see a couple of them make Day 2. Shout-out to Addison Powell for making a unique list with Meowstic-EX and Shaymin-EX, though I am still skeptical running Pokémon-EX in this deck is the correct move. Bob ended up in Top 64 with the above list and my friend Bryan made Top 128 with one card off.

. . .

With Gyarados behind me, I turned to the other deck I quite liked in the format: Greninja. With the inclusion of 4 Faded Town, I was confident I could go toe to toe with any Mega/Garbodor deck. Testing showed that Mewtwo was an even matchup, swayed slightly in either direction depending on the Mewtwo list’s Stadium count. Shrine of Memories is amazing in this matchup, so the more Shrines they played, the less chance you had as the Greninja player.

While Gyarados had very polarizing matchups, Greninja seemed to be more even against any deck in the format. What I did not take into account as much as I should have is the fact that Greninja is incredibly inconsistent and in best-of-three, if each person wins a close game, Greninja is more likely to lose the third game simply on a dead hand.

After testing literally every card you can think of to put in Greninja while discussing with Michael Slutsky and others, this is the list myself and Pablo Meza arrived at, which we gave to Sam Chen the night before. Pablo finished 6-3 (top 64) and Sam in 11^th place:

Greninja

Let’s go over some things that stand out about this list:

No Talonflame: I think Talonflame is much worse in this deck in the Standard format. In Expanded, you have to combat Item lock from many directions: Seismitoad-EX, Trevenant, and Vileplume. In Standard, only Vileplume remains, and is arguably less relevant and certainly slower in coming into play. With access to Items, it is easy to get a turn 2 Water Duplicates without the need to search out two cards on the first turn. Because of this, it seemed silly to me to include a card that increases your consistency a lot if you start with it but severely handicaps you as the game goes forward if you do not. Even if you do start Talonflame, you have three dead cards in your deck for the rest of the game, with only a few ways to get rid of them. Standard games tend to run longer and with more Ns than Expanded, so the odds of you getting N’d to a dead hand because of extra copies of Talonflame in your deck increases. Further, Greninja WANTS to constantly N/Ace Trainer the opponent, so you do not want to draw dead yourself on these!

1-1 Octillery: I have seen some lists online (like that of Ryan Sabelhaus in his last article here) that have cut Talonflame, but do not run the Sushi Master. Octillery is an amazing card in this format, despite compounding our weakness to Garbodor. First, Octillery lets us get our teeth into more games by providing a reliable draw engine in the early game that we have access to via our Ball engine. Second, Octillery gives us mid-game draw as we are digging for more and more cards. Greninja is a set-up/combo deck, so the more cards we see in a given turn, the more likely we are to hit everything we are looking for. In a matchup like Volcanion, Greninja needs a lot of stuff almost every turn. Octillery provides us a way to draw a few extra cards every turn throughout the game, allowing us to have a higher chance of always having our response ready to go.

1 Jirachi: I think Jirachi is incredible in the Standard format. While it is not quite as useful as it was during Night March’s heyday, it provides you valuable set-up time against the likes of Mega Mewtwo, Yveltal-EX, Giratina decks, Rainbow Road, and more. By not running Talonflame, we are able to include a copy of this guy, which I think is almost reason enough to drop the fire bird.

4 Bursting Balloon, 4 Faded Town: While I slightly regret running max copies of both of these, as they contribute to the deck’s inconsistencies, the added damage they bring to the table cannot be underestimated. I think I would choose 4 Faded Town over the 4 Balloons if I were to drop the counts of one of them. Without max copies of Faded Town, you can kiss your Mewtwo matchup goodbye. The only way you can beat that deck is by winning the Stadium war and 4 Faded does just that. I do not think it’s worth it to run any other number than 4 of this card, so if you are going to drop to 2 or 3, I think you should just drop it completely and run Rough Seas or Silent Lab as your 2-of Stadium card. 4 Stadiums also allow you to always have a counter to Parallel City, which can hinder you regardless of which direction it is played against you. Balloons are relevant in every matchup, but can be Lysandre’d/Escape Rope’d around and do not always put as much pressure on your opponent as you might have liked. I think 2 or 3 copies would be fine for most matchups.

My matches during the day:

Orlando Regionals // Day 1 // 616 Masters

R1 vs Volcanion … LL
R2 vs Mega Gardevoir … LWW
R3 vs Yanmega/Vespiquen … LL
R4 vs Mega Mewtwo/Garbodor … LWL
R5 vs Greninja/Talonflame … WLW
R6 vs Volcanion … WLW
R7 vs Greninja (straight) … WLW
R8 vs Rainbow Road … LWW
R9 vs Volcanion … LWL

Final: 5-4

10 of my 13 game losses were in the first three turns of the game, as the deck just did not show me a Supporter or enough Balls to find Octillery (or I prized a piece) in the early game, and I got benched out rather quickly. Pablo had a similar experience on his way to 6-3 and Sam had some dead hands, but seemed to run on the good side of variance with the deck, having it happen to him far less than myself or Pablo.

In hindsight, this was not the best play for Orlando. Why? Two major reasons:

1. As the day went on, you were more likely to play against a Garbodor deck. For the players at the top tables, Garbodor was everywhere. Even though the metagame is filled with a fairly even amount of Garbodor and non-Garbodor decks, it is important to consider what will be doing well after the first few rounds of the tournament. Mewtwo/Garb and Dark/Garb were both very strong plays that other top players recognized as strong decks, so we should have been more cognizant of this fact.

2. Greninja is incredibly susceptible to early dead hands and early pressure. While I would hesitate to call Volcanion a bad matchup, it is extremely close because of the fact that they will be taking KOs on every turn from T1 on until you get a Shadow Stitching Greninja BREAK. Add the fact that you have a low Basic count and potentially a lot of dead cards on the first turn (4 Faded Town, 4 Bursting Balloon, Fisherman, VS Seeker without a Supporter, etc.) and you are in for a lot of quick losses. Most of my losses came and went in a matter of 2–5 minutes. In a format where a lot of decks exhibit a ton of early pressure, this is a risky play to say the least.

While I still like Greninja as a deck, without Tool removal it will likely stay tier 2. With Tool removal, I think it would actually be too powerful, as you could effectively remove all of the Faded Town and Bursting Balloons for more consistency and Tool removal, ensuring that you would eventually get your ideal setup and overrun almost any deck in the Standard format. But having to compensate for Garbodor with 8 other “damaging” cards in Faded Town and Balloon takes away too much from your consistency for this to really be a top deck.

The format may shift in a way that makes this strong again, but for now, I would recommend putting this on the backburner in terms of deck choice. However, people will play it, so you will need to consider it in your testing and what you do decide to play should have some answer to Giant Water Shuriken.

This article — “Everything and Anything” – The Creation of Vespiquen/Tech, Revisiting Orlando, From Standard to Expanded, and Favorites for Philadelphia — was originally published on SixPrizes.