About Me and the 2010 Format

Some Modified formats were better than others, and some of those formats have been more fondly remembered than the rest. What makes one format better than another is a topic for a different day, but I believe there is no denying that it is the case that some formats are just better and more fun to play. The allure of what made those formats so great has led to a growing movement within the Pokémon community to “go back in time” to play and revisit these formats. One of the most revered Modified formats of all time was DP–UL, which served as the card pool for the 2010 World Championships.

My name is Evan Cole. I am 20 years old and pursuing a degree in mathematics at Loyola University Chicago. I’m a casual Pokémon player who has found himself as a part of the social side of the game, where I have forgone competitive play to dedicate myself to old formats. I have been a part of the old format movement since 2016, when I became fascinated with the 2010 Worlds format after being charmed by the design of Pokémon SP. While I did not compete during these formats, I have since spent the past four years of my life learning about these old decks and metagames, with special guidance from my mentor Cara Querin and the top players who played when these formats were the then-current Modified format. I created the Snowpoint Temple Facebook group in 2017 to have a dedicated forum for discussion of “old formats” and the decks that inhabit them, while also providing a place for those new to old formats to learn more about any specific formats or decks. Over these past four years, I have poured hours and hours of my life into studying and considering every archetype from nearly every Modified format that has ever existed. More recently, I have challenged myself to build decks that can fit well into these metagames, including modifying established archetypes or promoting and playing under-played rogue decks. With 2010 being my favorite format, my tallest and most recent challenge has been to tackle its strongest and most daunting archetype: Gardevoir.

There isn’t much debate that Gardevoir is the strongest deck in the format. Gardevoir SW as a card is one of the most oppressive Pokémon ever printed, and was viable in all three Modified formats that it lived in, with the DP–UL format hosting one of its strongest iterations ever thanks to the power of Double Colorless Energy. SixPrizes’ resident Gardevoir expert Jay Hornung has already spoken in depth on the archetype and why it is so dominant. It is necessary to understand the deck in order to be able to beat it, and Jay’s article is a priceless resource. In his article, he states that Gardevoir has favorable or even matchups against every other significant archetype in the metagame, and I agree with that analysis. For the past 10 years, it has appeared that Gardevoir is unbeatable. No archetype has proven that it has a consistently favorable matchup against Gardevoir. The archetype that we have seen come closest to this title is Steelix, but even then we saw it lose to Gardevoir in the finals of the DP–UL tournament at NAIC 2019.

I set a goal for myself to search for the missing link—to discover that archetype that not only can survive when it squares off against Gardevoir, but can also boast good matchups across the rest of the board. If a truly viable deck can be discovered that puts Gardevoir in its place, such an innovation could unlock an entirely new metagame for the format 10 years after it officially rotated out of Modified play. With the help of my testing partners, I finally discovered the path that would lead us to this new world. Little did I know that the answer was right under my nose the whole time. Amazingly, the answer is actually the archetype that has been my absolute favorite since I first learned of it years ago: Flygon/Torterra.

The History of Flyterra

Flygon RR is a phenomenal card that had an immediate impact in the metagame upon its release. Top players Sami Sekkoum and Jay Hornung piloted Flygon to second and third place finishes respectively in the Masters Division of the 2009 World Championships, with David Cohen also taking a second place finish in the Seniors Division with Flygon. There were two dominant versions of Flygon at the time: the fast, hard-hitting combination of Flygon and Machamp SF, and the much slower Flygon Stall, which sought to mill out its opponent for the win with a combination of Palkia LV.X’s Restructure Poké-Power and Trapinch SW’s Sand Tomb attack (thanks to Memory Berry) to lock Bench-sitting support Pokémon like Claydol GE to the Active while milling the opponent with Flygon LV.X’s Wind Erosion Poké-Body. While this combination may sound convoluted, it proved to be deadly, and Flygon Stall was certainly a force to be reckoned with.

With these two wildly different Flygon archetypes, surely the card should have continued to see success into the 2010 season, where there would be no Modified rotation, leaving the format to remain DP-on. The very next set, Supreme Victors, saw the release of Garchomp C LV.X, a powerful Pokémon SP that has just the right typing to punish Flygon thanks to the Pokémon’s Colorless Weakness. The story only got worse for Flygon with the release of HeartGold & SoulSilver, where the reintroduction of Double Colorless Energy gave Garchomp C LV.X a way to take out Flygon with merely a single Energy attachment. (Sidenote: While the release of Double Colorless Energy was the nail in the coffin for Flygon, it would mark the revival of Gardevoir into the powerhouse we know now.) With Flygon being pushed out of the meta after HeartGold & SoulSilver, it looked to be the end for the Pokémon that was once on top. However, there would be one more set before the summer—one last chance to help revive Flygon before the series of National Championships and then Worlds.

While Unleashed was generally considered to be a weak set by players at the time, one of the cards printed was Torterra UL: a 140-HP Pokémon with favorable typing and an attack that allowed it to heal itself. Some players saw potential in this tank of a Pokémon, including David Sturm of Germany, who decided to combine Torterra and Flygon, giving birth to Flyterra.

David went on to win Germany’s National Championships, earning himself an invite to the World Championships. There was a small amount of buzz online about the archetype after David’s win, but he still decided to take Flyterra into Worlds, where he would finish 5-2 in Swiss and earn himself a Top 32 berth, where he would face…Gardevoir, piloted by Gordon Coates. Coates would win the match in three games, ending David’s incredible run. If you would like to learn about David’s decklist and his Worlds run in detail, check out his tournament report here!

Using what we know about Flygon RR at its peak and how David crafted and piloted his Worlds list, let’s figure out what made Flyterra work, and how we can make it even better.

The Deck

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At its core, Flyterra combines the speedy Flygon with the slow, powerful Torterra to create a midrange deck that tries to answer any possible matchup. Let’s take a moment to break down every option at the deck’s disposal to identify what makes it so versatile:

• The primary attack is Flygon RR’s Power Swing, which hits hard for only two Energy attachments with a Double Colorless Energy, offering a fast option.
• Sand Wall allows for Flygon to disrupt your opponent in a pinch, while also affording you a turn of immunity and disincentivizing your opponent from playing Stadiums.
• Rainbow Float gives free retreat to any of your Pokémon, meaning your fat 4-Retreat Torterra can run away with ease. Rainbow Float allows you to heal up your damaged Active while also being a soft counter to Luxray GL LV.X’s Bright Look Poké-Power.
• Flygon LV.X’s Wind Erosion Poké-Body disrupts your opponent while also offering an alternate win-condition in the late game against other slow decks.
• Flygon LV.X’s Extreme Attack lets you Knock Out nearly every Pokémon LV.X in a single hit!
• Torterra UL’s Giga Drain is the other primary attack of the deck, allowing it to survive any attack that comes its way and tank to a slow, sure victory, particularly against decks with Colorless attackers that would otherwise prey upon Flygon’s Weakness.
• Torterra SF’s Crash Impact acts as a counter to Fighting-weak Pokémon (such as Luxray GL or Regigigas) by swinging for a base 60 damage for just one Energy attachment.
• Torterra LV.X’s Forest Murmurs Poké-Power is a powerful disruption effect, opening up the possibility of more lines for taking out your opponent’s board. Just be sure you’re behind on Prizes!

David opted for a thick 3-2-3-1 Flygon line, while keeping his Torterra line at a thinner 2-1-(1/1)-1 count. He must have anticipated a faster meta, which would necessitate prioritizing Flygon in the early game while cleaning up the late game with Torterra. David was right to make this analysis, as his Swiss matchups ended up being exclusively aggressive decks, with his Top 32 loss being to the slower archetype of Gardevoir.

As we have learned more about the DP–UL metagame and which decks are the strongest, there has been a shift away from these fast, somewhat-fragile aggressive decks and toward the slow, tanky, value-oriented decks that grind the game out. This outcome is evident by the results of the 2019 NAIC tournament, where the only fast archetype to make Top 8 was Gyarados. As the metagame does move in this direction and the fast SP decks fall out of favor, it is important that the best Flyterra lists reflect this shift and prepare for more slow decks. While David just barely lost to Gardevoir with his list, we can still improve upon what he created to better suit Flyterra to this slow meta. And so, I introduce to you that improvement:

****** Pokémon Trading Card Game Deck List ******

##Pokémon - 26

* 3 Turtwig UL 67
* 2 Grotle UL 31
* 2 Torterra UL 10
* 1 Torterra SF 11
* 1 Torterra LV.X DP 122
* 2 Trapinch SW 115
* 1 Vibrava RR 53
* 2 Flygon RR 5
* 1 Flygon LV.X RR 105
* 2 Baltoy GE 60
* 2 Claydol GE 15
* 1 Nidoran + RR 71
* 1 Nidorina MT 56
* 1 Nidoqueen RR 30
* 1 Azelf LA 29
* 1 Bronzong E4 RR 16
* 1 Spiritomb AR 32
* 1 Uxie LA 43

##Trainer Cards - 20

* 4 Rare Candy
* 3 Expert Belt AR 87
* 2 Pokémon Communication
* 1 Memory Berry PL 110
* 1 Luxury Ball SF 86
* 1 Night Maintenance SW 120
* 4 Roseanne’s Research SW 125
* 4 Bebe’s Search RR 89

##Energy - 14

* 4 Double Colorless Energy
* 4 G Energy HS 115
* 3 Call Energy MD 92
* 2 P Energy Energy 119
* 1 F Energy HS 120

Total Cards - 60

****** via SixPrizes: https://sixprizes.com/?p=80948 ******

Differences from David’s Decklist

• -1 Trapinch SW
  -1 Vibrava RR
  -1 Flygon RR
  -1 Baltoy GE
  -1 Claydol GE
  -1 Warp Point
  -1 Call Energy
• +1 Turtwig UL
  +1 Grotle UL
  +1 Torterra UL
  +1 Rare Candy
  +1 Expert Belt
  +1 Memory Berry
  +1 G Energy

I’ve kept the general skeleton of David’s list mostly intact. I think his choices in 1-of Pokémon were correct, and I still find Bronzong E4 to be an essential card in this deck. This list prioritizes attacking with Torterra UL, since tanking with Giga Drain is the most effective strategy for winning games. As such, I’ve thickened the Torterra line while trimming down the Flygon line. 3 Expert Belt is crucial to the tanking strategy, both granting Torterra an extra 20 HP and healing an additional 20 with each Giga Drain attack. This list takes tanking and grinding out games to heart, and there is more that we can do to follow this strategy than merely using Torterra UL.

Looking back at that Flygon Stall archetype that was so successful at the 2009 World Championships, we can adopt that deck’s strategy and apply it to Flyterra. Torterra LV.X’s Forest Murmurs Poké-Power is actually better than Palkia LV.X’s Restructure, and all it takes is an Active Flygon LV.X and a Memory Berry to possibly mill your opponent away. I have found this strategy to be the deck’s X factor against other slow matchups, allowing you to pull out a win in situations where the game feels out of your hands. Your opponent will have to scramble to find their Warp Point, Warp Energy, or Switch, because Memory Berry can be utterly crippling if your opponent has no way to answer the Sand Tomb. In particular, any opponent that has a Spiritomb in play or a Nidoqueen on the Bench will likely lose the game on the spot without an answer.

Gardevoir

The main strategy against Gardevoir is the main strategy of the entire deck: set up Torterra and tank. Gardevoir’s greatest strength is its potential to place a stranglehold on the game as early as turn two. In this matchup in particular, the Gardevoir player’s goal should be to attempt to lock you out of the game ASAP. If they can disrupt your setup, they can prevent you from ever reaching the critical mass necessary to tank out a victory.

Gardevoir decks like to start with Spiritomb. While the Trainer lock is disruptive, Spiritomb is ultimately a slow card, and setting up behind Darkness Grace means your opponent is unlikely to get Gardevoir online immediately (barring having the perfect hand of Gardevoir, Moonlight Stadium, Psychic, and Double Colorless). If the Gardevoir player is setting up slowly, you have the best opportunity to establish a Torterra, and possibly even get a Cosmic Power or two before the lock starts.

Once Torterra gets online, Psychic Lock proves to be too weak of an attack. You will be able to heal off potentially all damage that Gardevoir deals to you each turn, which will force the Gardevoir player to abandon Psychic Lock. Be sure to keep a Claydol on standby even while getting Psychic Locked, because the Gardevoir player will be forced to abandon Gardevoir, opening up the use of Poké-Powers to you. The most logical and common response to a Torterra is Gallade SW, Gardevoir’s partner in crime.

Gallade’s Psychic Cut attack is typically the Gardevoir player’s best chance at taking care of a Torterra. Psychic Cut has a maximum damage output of 180 without an Expert Belt, which is enough to KO a Belted Torterra LV.X! Psychic Cut is the perfect answer to Torterra, but luckily for us there are several flaws in this attack. A maxed out Psychic Cut can only be used once, as the attack requires the player to flip over their upside-down Prize cards, preventing those same Prizes to be flipped again. If you respond to a Psychic Cut with a second Torterra UL, it should spell game over for Gallade. Another counter to Psychic Cut is to let the Gardevoir player take Prizes early on. If the Gardevoir player has already taken some Prizes, they will not be able to reach high enough of a damage output to KO Torterra. This strategy also works well if they do establish an early Psychic Lock, as you can sacrifice Basics in the Active while setting up a Torterra on the Bench. So, while Psychic Cut is a potential solution under the Gardevoir player’s belt, it is only temporary and can be worked around.

I used Jay Hornung’s list as a baseline for my decklist’s matchup, as it has become one of the most popular Gardevoir lists out there. However, Jay’s list certainly isn’t the only list being used, and some lists will have more outs for this matchup than Jay’s. The biggest out missing in Jay’s list, and the one you are most likely to run into, is F Energy.

The likeliest place to find a Gardevoir deck running F Energy is alongside the inclusion of Machamp SF, such as in Michael Pramawat’s second place Worlds list. While we shouldn’t be worried about Machamp’s role in this matchup, the inclusion of F Energy enables Gallade’s other attack: Sonic Blade. By dropping your Torterra down to just 50 HP, suddenly healing off damage with Giga Drain won’t necessarily be enough to get out of the range of a Psychic Cut. If you have an Expert Belt and no Nidoqueen, you will leave yourself with 110 HP going into the Gardevoir player’s turn, where they can then Psychic Cut you for the knockout while flipping over a substantially smaller amount of Prize cards (three if they don’t have a Belt, two if they do).

With F Energy giving Gallade a more potent response to Torterra, the best answer is not to try to tank out with Giga Drain, but to instead try to Knock Out Gallade as quickly as possible. Flyterra does not have an easy way to 1HKO Gallade, especially against Pramawat’s list. The inclusion of Dusknoir caps Flygon’s base damage output to 90, leaving Nidoqueen and her Ruthless Tail attack as our only option. With Gallade’s +30 Psychic Weakness, the opponent must have a full Bench for Nidoqueen RR to reach that 100 damage mark. If Gallade has an Expert Belt, then Nidoqueen will also need an Expert Belt. Fortunately for us, Pramawat only ran two Expert Belt in his list, but a player who is experienced in this matchup will know to save a Belt for Gallade.

I have spent the majority of this section explaining how to overcome the hurdles that Gardevoir variants could present. That is because while Gardevoir typically commands that its opponent finds answers to its lock, what makes Flyterra different is that the deck places the burden on the Gardevoir player to try to find an answer to Torterra UL. The inclusion of Dusknoir in Jay’s and Michael’s decklists is what gives them a chance against Flyterra, but not all Gardevoir variants run Dusknoir. There are some Gardevoir variants that simply fold to Flyterra with little potential for winning. In particular, healing variants that emphasize Nidoqueen and Poké Healer + will not be able to out-tank Torterra, while also lacking the deck-space to dedicate to running Dusknoir. The Gardevoir/Giratina variant also does not run Dusknoir, and Giratina LV.X’s spread attack shouldn’t be enough to take out your board before you are able to Giga Drain your way to victory.

While Gardevoir is capable of having tricks up its sleeve to try to combat Flyterra, this list is well-suited to overcome Gardevoir a majority of the time, ultimately leaving you with a highly favorable matchup against the best deck in the format. Of course, Gardevoir is not the only other deck that exists in this format, so let’s briefly analyze how Flyterra performs against the rest of the metagame.

Matching Up Against the Rest of the Meta

Luxchomp

Luxchomp is aggressive and disruptive and was once hailed as the undisputed best deck in the format. Luckily, Flyterra was built specifically to beat Luxchomp, as evident by David Sturm going undefeated against it in his Nationals and Worlds runs. Bronzong E4 shines in this matchup, preventing your opponent from chaining Cyrus’s Conspiracy every turn by resetting their hand while also walling with its bulky 90 HP. Torterra SF is a direct Luxray GL counter, allowing you to Knock it Out with a single Crash Impact just for one Double Colorless! Don’t be afraid to give up a few Prizes, because Torterra UL should be able to take you home to victory after you’ve exhausted Bronzong E4 and Torterra SF, especially if you have Forest Murmurs online. Avoid playing Flygon if you can due to its Colorless Weakness. Watch out for possible inclusions of