Knoxville Regionals Meta and List Drop

Welcome back readers. After a short introduction with my thoughts on the meta for Knoxville Regionals, I’ll get into two decks that I would be considering for the tournament if I was attending the event. 

Meta Discussion

Green’s Reshizard

Pikarom

Expected Performances

List Drop

Meta Discussion

Atlantic City Regionals and Cologne Regionals were both won by Mewtwo Box variants. The similarities between these archetypes include both lists playing 4 Dedenne-GX for max consistency and several attackers like Magcargo-GX, Latios-GX, and Espeon & Deoxys-GX appearing in both lists. The differences are rather important between Azul Garcia Griego’s AC winning list and Tord Reklev’s Cologne winning list. Azul played a fairly basic Mewtwo Box list with consistent counts of cards and only 4 Welder as Supporter options. Tord however, played a very unique creation that looks like kind of a mess - but the master deck builder made it work. I would expect both of these lists to influence Mewtwo Boxes for Knoxville. I don’t expect many players to be able to replicate Tord’s success with his exact list however due to the intricacies of the deck and the unique strategy that Tord created himself. 

AC and Cologne also had the same archetype take 2nd place at each event which was really surprising to see. Pidgeotto Oranguru Control was the runner up to Mewtwo at both events, and out of the two lists I favor Grant Manley’s list which included Jirachi TEU for added consistency. Since a weak early game is one of Pidgeotto Control’s only disadvantages, I think Jirachi TEU was a wise inclusion to the list. 

Ability Reshizard had a very underwhelming performance in both Cologne and Atlantic City. Going into the weekend hyped as one of the best decks in the format, I believe that the field was very prepared for the archetype while pilots of the deck overteched their lists and gave up consistency in the process. If you peruse the results of Atlantic City on Limitless, you might also notice that there were many notable players in Day 2, none of which piloted Ability Reshizard. There were 10 Reshizard in day 2 so do not overlook this or undermine the results of the archetype or players that piloted it, but none of the “elite” players that attended the tournament and performed well did so with Ability Zard. 

This meta is swirling and has shifted several times due to the post-rotation format starting at world’s instead of after. Ability Zard was the fresh, new deck at worlds, and then later it was modified and successful yet again. Once being revered as the best deck in the format, it was seemingly strayed away from, countered, and over-hyped. I definitely consider it as a strong meta deck and do not take this one poor weekend for the archetype as a total defeat. I completely expect it to perform well in Knoxville this weekend and I also want to highlight that 10 day 2 spots in Atlantic City is not anything to laugh at. The deck still performed reasonably well, it just did not hold up to the hype that the community had produced. 

The hyped decks going into Knoxville are Mewtwo Box and Pikarom, with Pidgeotto Control somewhere close by now garnering more respect from players than before. In my personal opinion which is influenced by testing and tournament play, Mewtwo Box is somewhat reliant on Welder and can also leave itself in terrible board positions on turns where an important Welder is whiffed. If I were to pilot Mewtwo, I would 100% choose one of the Jirachi TEU lists like the one that Tristan Macek piloted to 4th place in AC. 

In preparation for Mewtwo, I expect Malamar variants to include Latios-GX for its Clear Vision GX attack which can turn the matchup in Malamar’s favor if Clear Vision is used on Malamar’s first turn attacking. I think Malamar is actually a well balanced and strong deck for the event, but the sequencing and micro-decisions rooted in the deck’s functioning are commonly underestimated which results in poor results when the archetype is piloted by uninitiated players. 

Green’s Reshizard

Above is a 55 card skeleton for Green’s Reshizard which would be my top choice for the weekend if I was attending. Some possible card choices to fill in the 5 spots that I suggest include: 2 Judge Whistle, 2-3 Great Potion, 1-2 Mixed Herbs, 3rd Switch, 1 Bill’s Analysis, 4th Power Plant, 1 Judge, 1 Lysandre Labs, and 1 Stealthy Hood. The Malamar matchup is very rough without any healing, but with 2 Great Potion it is very manageable and once you get up to 3 Great Potion it begins feeling like a great matchup. The Judge Whistles are amazing consistency boosters, but are effectively empty slots since they are just a draw one card affect. Adding just 1 Mixed Herbs for the first effect of healing a special condition is reasonable if you want a better option of getting out of paralysis vs Alolan Raichu & Raichu or burn/confusion vs Blacephalon. 

Pikarom

The above list is close to the list created by Will Jenkins and piloted by Ryan Antonucci and Benjamin Branch to Top 8 finishes at Atlantic City Regionals. I added a 3rd Lysandre Labs since it has multiple uses: replacing Power Plants, negating Spell Tags, negating Shedinja in Tord’s Mewtwo, and negating fairy charms. I also added Absol TEU since Jirachi TEU is quite popular again and will usually use Escape Board to retreat for free.  

Expected Performances

I expect Pidgeotto, Malamar, and Mewbox to all find success again this weekend. Pikarom’s success is volatile both due to the deck’s nature and who exactly ends up piloting it. I expect Pikarom to have several Day 2 appearances, but I couldn’t guarantee it will make top 8. I expect the Top 8 at Knoxville to include at least 1 Mewtwo, 1 Green Zard, 1 Pidgeotto, and 1 Malamar (if Michael Catron and players of similar skill levels pilot the deck). 

Pidgeotto is a very strong deck, but if it was an unstoppable force I think we would see it populate Top 8 and Top 16 more than it has and more elite players would have stuck to the deck. The deck’s early game is fragile and literally just one misplay can send the deck into an unwinnable situation. I do think the deck is good and one or two players will see success with it, but I don’t expect it to take up more than 5% of the meta. 

Now that we’re all done throwing Stealthy Hoods into our decks, I think that Ability Zard will do better this weekend and I would not be surprised if one made Top 8. Regardless of its reliance on Welder, the deck had previous results for a reason and should continue to do well if pilots have both skill and luck.

List Drop