What a weekend. Another set of Regionals are in the books, and ironically, the top tables look eerily familiar to the 2012/13 season. New partners for old friends have created a format that feels like a time machine’s work. I’ve now been hearing “Night Spear” for longer than I care to remember — or admit.

With Winter Regionals in the books, we’re now looking forward to State Championships, and a bit further out on the horizon, Spring Regionals. While XY-BKP is the immediate concern of much of the player base, in the interest of the long game I’m going to start today by recapping my BLW-BKP experience this weekend. BLW-BKP will again rear its head for the first two weekends of May events, and I’d like to offer some thoughts while it’s still fairly fresh in our minds.

After that, we’re going to move full-on ahead into the pressing matter of State Championships. With only a few short weeks until the first events in the series take place, there isn’t much time before players will need to be relatively proficient in the format. My goal today is to help accelerate that transition.

Sabl-why?? — Explaining the Unmet Hype

The biggest headline of the weekend was probably Sableye’s non-existence. Sure, it saw a degree of representation, but it failed to lock up a single spot in the top cut of either Florida or Portland, which is a dramatic fall for a Deck that was hyped to absurd heights. Personally, I believe the key reason for Sableye’s no-show was this extreme hype: rather than playing Sableye, players decided to counter it, and as a result, the amount of play it saw was minuscule. Moreover, the Sableye that was played fell victim to the natural plethora of counters that were seen at the event. It was a perfect environment for Sableye’s failure.

In the void left by the theoretical champion we saw the emergence of a few new faces. Obviously, the (literal) big winners of the weekend were Trevenant BREAK and Primal Groudon-EX. Both decks had impeccable Sableye matchups, which I’m sure weighed on their pilots as they made these choices for the weekend. Trevenant’s focus on a quick Item lock and potential Bench-out win condition contrasts with Groudon’s focused approach to the long game (and in Groudon mirror’s case, the really long game).

Both had potential problems in the room — Virizion/Genesect’s reemergence threatened to neuter the Groudon movement in its infancy, and Yveltal poses a consistent threat to Trevenant no matter how it’s sliced. In reality, the strength of these decks was in their abilities to overcome those theoretical bad matchups: I’m aware of a Virizion/Genesect that fell to Groudon in Top 32 play in Florida, and the world watched as Aaron Tarbell took the win over Stephen Bates’ Yveltal during Florida’s final Swiss round. (1 2 3 4 5)

Both of these decks had inherent strengths beyond the metagame they were used in — Item lock and durability, respectively. Those inherent strengths allowed them to pull away in both events this weekend, and it’s no surprise that such an outcome transpired in the shadows of a metagame that was so unclearly defined. It’s these deck qualities that transcend individual matchups that I believe have become essential in picking a deck for Regionals.

In fact, I believe that employing any level of serious matchup metagaming this past weekend would’ve been unwise. Sure, it would have been ill-advised to take a loss to Sableye/Garbodor, but to have bet on any deck’s non-appearance would have been a foolish decision. If I’ve learned anything over the past month, it’s that the first few rounds of an Expanded event are truly a matchup lottery — with so many players in the room and so many options in the card pool, it’s impossible to count anything out.

Chosen One: Detailing My Deck Selection

In that vein, I chose Raikou BKT/Eelektrik NVI for my Florida experience. My brother Top 4’d St. Louis Seniors with a list that was literally the result of us taking the Virginia one, looking at it for about 5 minutes to fit an Archeops counter, and writing it on a deck list. Simply, such a performance convinced me of the raw power in the deck.

The other significant choice in that list was the inclusion of Brigette and Tropical Beach. In a deck where nothing is done on Turn 1 other than searching for Basics and attaching Energy, this combo struck me as too good to exclude. I was also attracted by the opportunity to play Tropical Beach as a soft counter to Delinquent; it’s much easier to discard 3 cards from a hand of 7 than it is a hand of 4 or even less.

The raw power of Raikou is staggering: [C][C][C] 50 + 20 is an attack with an increasingly lengthy history in the game, with Keldeo-EX’s Secret Sword having defined a number of formats. That attack on a non-EX with a defensive Ability is already strong. Coupled with Fighting Fury Belt, which both elevates Raikou’s effective HP to a crazy 180 and allows for easier attacks for “even” numbers of damage, it was hard to argue with Raikou in either my testing or my theory.

I had no read on the proportions of the metagame, only the knowledge that I needed to be concerned about foes such as Virizion-EX/Genesect-EX/Max Elixir, Sableye, and the inevitably omnipresent Seismitoad-EX. Primal Groudon factored into my decision making, but my past experience with that deck is that its sheer inconsistency can often be its downfall. Moreover, I knew that Tropical Beach was a necessary inclusion in a good Groudon list, and while Beach access is often an exaggerated problem in metagaming, it is something to keep in mind. I was very willing to take a worse Groudon matchup in exchange for beating Yveltal, Seismitoad, and other key contemporaries.

Thus, I elected to make the raw strength of Raikou for my choice. The deck has a number of weaknesses, including a disturbing knack for not attacking before Turn 3 far too often, and a general lack of mobility if Keldeo-EX + Float Stone isn’t achieved relatively early. The pitfalls of Hex Maniac are obvious. However, forcing your opponent take a full 6 Prizes is truly invaluable, and was another aspect of the deck that made it so attractive. Decks that only feature resources to take exactly 6 Prizes (Night March, Vespiquen) often struggle against pure non-EX decks, which was yet another intangible asset that drew me to Raikou.

Here’s the list I landed on:

For all of what I just said, I did still feel that teching out the list was the better call. I don’t think I spoke to a single individual before Florida who didn’t mention Virizion/Genesect as a top choice of theirs (or a friend’s) for this weekend’s events. Good matchups against Sableye (supposedly; I am a bit skeptical), Groudon (theoretically), and Yveltal (purportedly, depending upon who you ask) all made that allegation make sense. A few resulting notes on the list:

1 Spiritomb LTR

Perhaps you can sense my feelings toward Grass by the number of reservations I just expressed. Nevertheless, my testing of the Virizion/Genesect matchup dictated that Spiritomb strongly improved it. Spiritomb disables their ability to OHKO a Raikou, preventing them from being able to strategically remove Eelektrik from my board before wiping out my remaining attacking force with G Booster extensions. By disrupting that strategy by even a single turn (spent KO’ing my Spiritomb), I found the matchup was very strong for me.

It would be questionable to dedicate a slot in my deck to tech for a single matchup that may or may not show up at all at the tournament. Fortunately, Spiritomb has more use than that. With the advent of Puzzle of Time, ACE SPECs have gone from once-per-game boosts to potentially being usable two or three times per game. This has far reaching implications to say the least. I grew concerned that Rock Guard being used with Super Scoop Up and Seismitoad-EX with Time Puzzle was potentially troublesome for Eels; Groudon potentially being able to reuse Scramble Switch and Max Potion would absolutely shatter any chance I had of winning the matchup. I determined that Spiritomb added an invaluable and unique layer of disruption potential to the deck, and in my theme of adding broadly-applicable techs to the deck, it fit well.

1 Seismitoad-EX

Seismitoad-EX was less of a broad spectrum cure and more of a targeted attack on Sableye. I had a hunch Sableye may fail to appear in high numbers, and I could’ve easily hit one all day based on the observations I made of my neighboring players, but I couldn’t have predicted that I’d face zero throughout the entire day. It turned out to have application in my matches against the mirror and Seismitoad-EX/Crobat, but otherwise, the infamous Toad was a relatively dead card for me.

1 Pikachu-EX

Truly, I’m a bit perplexed at this card’s omission from others’ lists. Obviously, it’s not an ideal scenario to start dropping fragile EXs in a deck that relies on the Prize trade, but in the greater battle of board control, Pikachu is an invaluable option to achieve a sudden, surprise knockout to shift a game’s flow. It was intended for the Virizion/Genesect and Groudon matchups (“Spark” Tynamo to break Focus Sash was the other part of the anti-Groudon teching), but served the broader purpose of eliminating the cap on damage that the deck otherwise suffered from. Fighting Fury Belt also turns Pikachu from a liability to a legitimate EX attacker, and it won me a decent number of games that I would’ve otherwise lost.

In hindsight, the 2nd Brigette was an objectively poor inclusion. Seismitoad and Spiritomb didn’t help me in their intended matchups, but the broad strengths helped me win games that otherwise would’ve been lost causes. I could’ve just as easily hit any number of different matchups (I was paired up/down for a third of my rounds — a highly variable affair — and sat next to Virizion/Genesect and/or Sableye over half of them), so I don’t regret their inclusions in the slightest.

Something Else: FL Report

My Florida run so, so embodied the craziness of Expanded. If I was told that I was going to see Rayquaza-EX DRX, Magnezone BKT, Night March, and Trevenant BREAK all as parts of my day, I would’ve expressed utter disbelief and probably listened to none of whatever came out of that conversation after that prediction. Who knew?

Florida 2016

R1: Magnezone BKT/Raikou BKT (1-1)
R2: Yveltal-EX/Maxie’s Archeops NVI + Gallade BKT (2-0)
R3: Yveltal/Maxie’s Archeops NVI + Gallade BKT (2-0)
R4: Eelektrik NVI/Rayquaza-EX DRX/Zekrom BLW/Mewtwo-EX NXD (2-0)
R5: Trevenant BREAK/Wobbuffet PHF (1-2)
R6: Seismitoad-EX/Crobat PHF (2-0)
R7: Darkrai-EX BKP/Yveltal XY (0-2)
R8: Eelektrik NVI/Raikou BKT (2-1)
R9: Night March/Archeops NVI (1-1)

Final Record: 5/2/2, 51st

The day started in a very bizarre manner, as while I expected to play Raikou mirror at least once or twice, I did not anticipate my foe to be Magnezone. A rough matchup —Magnezone produces hefty Raikous with ease — was exasperated by some terrible Colresses for 8+ cards in both complete games. My confidence in the deck was failing until I set up very well in Game 3. Unfortunately, I perhaps lingered a bit too long in Game 2, and time was called on my third turn of Game 3. Nevertheless, I recovered and fought my way up the tables heading into the midpoint of the tournament. I will say: Rayquaza-EX DRX had me very surprised, and Pikachu more than put in his worth in the matchup.

Afterwards, needless to say, it was discouraging to fall from an encouraging 3-0-1 start to end mired in the middle of the pack. My day started to unravel once I encountered the eventual winner, Aaron Tarbell, during one of my multiple pair-up/pair-down experiences of the day. I somehow took Game 2 of that match (with a little help from Pikachu-EX’s Iron Tail …), but otherwise, Item lock makes it hard to access the theoretically game-breaking Rough Seas. He cleared my field of relevant Pokémon extremely effortlessly in both of his victorious games.

I discovered very quickly in Round 7 that the new “Turbo Dark” deck offers a terrible matchup for Raikou. Simply, while they possess the ability to easily mow through Raikou, there is little capability in the deck to effectively and consistently mitigate the threat that particular Darkrai offers. I didn’t help myself by failing to set up a solid Eelektrik contingent in either game, but I had no business winning the match anyway.

After that match, I was in a win-out position for the remainder of the tournament. Nathaniel McDonald, my Round 8 opponent, was great to play against, but the match was a testament to me of just how ludicrous the time environment is. I scooped Game 1 so fast that he felt compelled to comment on my decisiveness, and yet we still only narrowly reached a conclusion in Game 3.

Looking back on the weekend, I erred in playing a completely non-EX deck and not being willing to immediately scoop unfavorable games — with my opponent laboring to take individual Prize cards, the conclusion was often quietly inevitable despite whatever setup I managed to achieve throughout the rest of the game. Not scooping Game 1 of R1, Game 1 of R8, and the game I dropped in R9 within my first two turns was my most significant fault on the weekend — I simply allowed a game state to go too far even though the odds were heavily stacked against me. Comebacks simply don’t happen often enough in a format with such ultra-consistency to justify playing out games like the ones I let drag on.

As I just hinted, my Round 9 result fell victim to the time rules. I was paired down to an opponent who had remarkably come back from 0-3 to land at 5-3 going into the final round. I don’t honestly remember which game I won and which went to him, but in either event, my opponent was a deliberate player and I was unfortunately confident from the very beginning of the match that we wouldn’t finish 3 games.

This article — “Surprise! Surprise!” – Sabl-why??, FL Regionals Report, and Suddenly Standard — was originally published on SixPrizes.