Lycanroc GX rocks Memphis Regionals

Hello everyone and welcome to another article just in time for the festive season. This past weekend we saw a huge amount of Pokemon action to round off the year and I want to take a look at these results and try and analyse them a little bit rather than discuss a specific archetype in detail.

This weekend using limitlesstcg.com, I have compiled all of the top cutting decks from this past weekend and put them into a pie chart below. This includes the 35 from Memphis, 8 from Brisbane and 8 from Turin. It’s worth noting that all of the lists from the 35 Memphis decks are available on their website, it’s a fantastic resource for keeping up to date with the latest lists that are doing well right now.

13 Buzzwole-GX/Lycanroc-GX

9 Zoroark-GX/Lycanroc-GX

9 Zoroark-GX/Golisopod-GX

3 Greninja BREAK

3 Vikavolt/Tapu Bulu-GX

3 Gardevoir-GX

3 Decidueye-GX/Zoroark-GX

2 Volcanion-EX/Turtonator-GX

1 Buzzwole-GX/Garbodor

1 Drampa-GX/Garbodor

1 Solgaleo-GX/Metagross-GX

1 Wishiwashi-GX/Hoopa

1 Golisopod-GX/Garbodor

1 Shining Genesect/Venusaur/Lurantis-GX

First off, as we can see there were a total of 22 decks with Lycanroc-GX as a support Pokemon that made top cut this weekend. Considering there were only 2 decks with Lycanroc-GX that made top 32 in London (despite them both actually making it to top 8 as well) this is a huge uptrend for the card overall. People clearly saw how well the card did in London due to its 100% conversion rate from top 32 to top 8 and decided to try and mimic this. With card draw and a gusting effect both as abilities, this frees up space for the use of supporters like Professor Kukui, Mallow and Acerola in the Zoroark-GX/Lycanroc-GX deck. And the combined pressure of Buzzwole-GX’s Jet Punch and being able to choose your target on turn 2 with Bloodthirsty Eyes means that the Buzzwole-GX/Lycanroc-GX deck can stop your opponent from ever really setting up.

Zoroark-GX/Golisopod-GX was the next most popular archetype which is pretty expected as many people considered this the best deck in format before this weekend and its super consistent set up is very appealing for these larger events.

Gardevoir-GX, Vikavolt/Tapu Bulu-GX, Greninja BREAK and Decidueye-GX/Zoroark-GX were all the joint next most popular decks which is incredibly interesting on the whole. Gardevoir-GX was still a deck that I think was on a lot of people’s radar and hence that could be why only 3 made it into the top cut of these events. However, this was still a very low showing in top cut overall which was very surprising as I still believed it to be one of the best decks in the format, if not still Tier 1. The success of Vikabulu was personally rather unsurprising as the deck performs relatively well against the likes of Zoropod and Buzzwole on the whole I feel but I think a lot of people have a large stigma around stage 2 decks in general so despite it being it what seems to be a good position in the meta right now, it may have been underrepresented on the whole. Similarly, Greninja BREAK always has the stigma around it that may put people off, and in general I believe this may have happened as 2 of the 3 Greninja decks that cut this weekend were by players that have been playing Greninja exclusively for a very long time from what I understand (Carl may also have been playing Greninja exclusively too but I am far more familiar with European players so wouldn’t want to misquote). Finally, another personal favourite, Decidueye-GX/Zoroark-GX also felt relatively underrepresented as it seemed like a lot of people were talking about this deck too. I think its one of the best decks to counter Gardevoir with the Devolve strategy so with that seeing less play, this may have meant that the Decidueye players had a harder day overall against the Stage 1 decks and that may have pushed them down the rankings overall.

Volcanion saw 2 placements with one of the lists being super interesting with 4 Professors Letter. I think Volcanion is in a really good place right now and want to talk about it a little later on to take on the meta.

Finally, we have the 1 of placements. Azul’s Golisopod-GX/Garbodor deck with 4 Enhanced Hammer was a fantastic meta call as the amount of special energy being played right now is super high and this is a very exploitable part of the popular decks in the format. Similarly, the Wishiwashi-GX/Hoopa deck was another deck that really abused the way the format is right now. Many of the decks in the metagame can be stalled out pretty easily and this is exactly what the deck aimed to do. The success of Wailord in Expanded was likely a contributing factor in the deckbuilding process and it worked out well overall. Drampa-GX/Garbodor made a slight comeback in Europe this week with a list that included Celesteela-GX and Buzzwole-GX. It’s been a while since Drampa has seen major success so its nice to see that the deck still has legs and maybe Drampa isn’t completely dead after all. Buzzwole-GX/Garbodor was the other Garbodor deck that saw some success and it included the Trashalanche Garbodor as a late game attacker too. This was another deck that seemed well placed in the meta but I personally was not playing Trashalanche in my list so it was interesting to compare the deck again with more of a focus on Garbodor.

1 Metagross-GX/Solgaleo-GX deck made cut which is one of the more surprising decks to me as there doesn’t seem to be many reasons to play the deck other than the decks fantastic Gardevoir-GX matchup. However, in general I think the deck isn’t in a good place right now as this is the only super favourable matchup and Solgaleo-GX is the only out the deck has to dealing with all of these 210HP Pokemon right now so the thinner line becomes more and more reliant in various matchups. The most interesting deck, Venusaur/Shining Genesect was one of the talking points of the weekend and was an archetype that many people thought would see play when Shining Legends first was released. I was sceptical but someone saw potential and took it all the way to day 2 this weekend. However overall I think this was just the right weekend for this kind of deck and this isn’t going to change much overall as this was the perfect weekend where Garbodor wasn’t seeing much play at all which let this type of deck really shine. I hope that the format will soon be slow enough for more of these kinds of decks but I think we may still be a way off before we can start looking at similar archetypes super competitively.

How to Counter

To finish things off I just want to talk about a couple of trends that we can see in the decks, looking for the types of things we want right now to be a competitive deck in this metagame.

It seems that the number to hit right now is 190 and 210, so aiming for 210 will cover both the Stage 1 archetypes and Buzzwole variants all at once. Since all of these Pokemon have a different weakness, being able to hit a base of these numbers without weakness will cover all of these archetypes overall. Abilities aren’t being overly countered right now and a lot of the popular decks that are doing well are ability reliant and therefore either using very strong abilities yourself or being able to ability lock in some way is also very useful.

With that being said, I think 3 really good picks for the current metagame are Vikabulu, Volcanion and Buzzwole/Garbodor. Vikabulu is one of the only decks that really doesn’t struggle to hit 210 and can live through both Zoroark and Golisopod’s regular attacks. However, the deck does inherently have some consistency issues since it’s a Stage 2 deck but self-thins which can really help with the consistency in the late game. If you really want to pray on the fact there isn’t ability lock really in the format right now, you can take a look at a Vikabulu list with a 2-2 Octillery line on the Omnipoke social media, its seriously worth a try! Again the fact there isn’t much Ability lock around right now makes Volcanion another fantastic option as Gardevoir is definitely seeing less and less play also. And playing Choice Band over Fury Belt is a potential tech choice that can really increase the aggression of the Fire decks that can also push them further up the tier list, being able to take on the high HP Stage 1 Pokemon far easier. Finally, Buzzwole-GX/Garbodor I think is also in a really good spot right now but rather than playing the Trashalanche Garbodor, playing a heavy Max Elixir build in order to try and attack with the second attack against things that aren’t righting weak. Fighting is an incredibly good type to be and combining that with the fact that people aren’t teching for Ability lock right now can be a formidable combo. I think all three of these decks are in really good positions in the metagame right now and despite there not being any bigger tournaments until the end of January, there will be plenty of League Cups to try these decks out and see what you think for yourselves.

Thank you for taking the time to real my articles throughout the year, I’ve really appreciated the support that you guys have given me and the opportunity that Flipside Gaming has given me to chat about Pokemon even more than I already do! Make sure you check out Omnipoke on all the various social media and make sure you have a fantastic festive period. Have fun, stay safe and make sure to spend some time playing Pokemon over the next couple of weeks!