Toad You So: Daytona to Hartford Expanded Meta Speculations

Caleb Gedemer just won Daytona Regionals with ZoroToad; his list was a new iteration of an already established deck from the past. Zoroark-GX/Seismitoad-EX winning an Expanded Regionals is reminiscent of ZoroToad winning two Expanded Regionals earlier this season and placing 2nd at another this year so we have some history to help us pinpoint where the meta might go in theory.

Earlier This Year…

Jimmy Pendarvis won Portland Regionals with a control version of ZoroToad focused on removing opponents’ energies while prohibiting their item usage. This was not a singleton placement for the archetype as notable players Joey Ruettiger, Azul Garcia Griego, and Michael Pramawat also placed well with ZoroToad. The archetype seemingly had the potential to control any deck not properly prepared for it, which very little decks were in Portland.

Moving on to the next Expanded Regionals 2 months later in Anaheim, CA, Jimmy Pendarvis won again with ZoroToad. With Lost Thunder now released, the list adapted to prepare for the threat of Faba by playing 2 basic water energy and a Faba of its own. Aside from a single Zoroark Golisopod, a single Golisopod Garbodor, and a single Drampa Garbodor out of the 48 players in day 2, there were little counters to ZoroToad knowingly present. Unfortunately, RK9 Labs’ services were not used for this tournament and thus the day 1 meta is not available for analysis. Upon researching the archives of article sites leading up to Anaheim Regionals, PokeBeach writers Caleb Gedemer covered Night March and Zoroark Control / Unown Hand and Stephanne Ivanoff covered Zoroark Garbodor - 60cards writers Jose Marerro covered Zoroark Golisopod and Daniel Altavilla covered Blacephalon. I was unable to find any articles focusing on ZoroToad leading up to Anahiem Regionals, but Marerro’s ZoroPod article was insightful of a strong adversary of ZoroToad.

The next expanded regionals… was not won by ZoroToad! But, it did place second piloted by Caleb Gedemer. So while it was not run out of the meta by any means, at least some players prepared for this powerful control deck. Out of 81 Day 2 players, 17 players included Oranguru UPR in their decks (5 of those players being ZoroToad pilots). Oranguru could have been preparation for ZoroToad, Zoro Control, or Stall, but with their intentions unknown we can assume that at least some of these players had ZoroToad in mind when including this card into their lists. ZoroToad was ultimately defeated by ZoroPod piloted by Dean Nazam. Leading up to this regionals many writers were vocal about ZoroToads strength (Zach Lesage as an example) and I wrote an article featuring ZoroPod as a strong deck myself.

So why have I reviewed the earlier success of ZoroToad? Because we can look to these past regionals as an indicator of meta progression and player behavior. I am going to go over 4 possible scenarios that could play out in Hartford next weekend at the last expanded regionals of the season and use prior knowledge from the season’s past expanded format events.

Looking To Hartford

Below are 4 hypothetical scenarios that I believe are real possibilities for the meta in Hartford Regionals in relation to Zoroark/Seismitoad and a counter meta prepared or unprepared for Zoroark Seismitoad. These scenarios are laid out to help you make an educated decision for yourself and improve your meta speculation skills. These 4 scenarios are each a lens you can use to drive your deck selection. The two variables we're playing with are the amount of counters played specifically for Toad and our expectation of Toad to be successful and convert into Day 2's.  

Scenario 1 - No Counters / No Success

In scenario 1, players do not widely counter ZoroToad with single card inclusions like Pokemon Ranger and Scoop Up Block Mr Mime TEU. Players will also not play decks that are naturally favored versus ZoroToad like Zoroark Golisopod unless that was their choice for other reasons. In this situation we are assuming that the community understands that Zoroark Seismitoad is a powerful archetype as it won the most recent Expanded Regionals. A common mentality for this response is that someone else will counter Toad, and it is not the individual’s responsibility. If players believe that ZoroToad is a threat, but do not counter it, this is an example of Diffusion of Responsibility. Diffusion of Responsibility will often happen when one expects someone else of the crowd or group to take care of an issue: “Simply put, when a task is placed before a group of people, there's a strong tendency for each individual to assume someone else will take responsibility for it—so no one does” (Lickerman M.D, 2010). Another possible reason for lack of Seismitoad-EX counter meta is that players will be scared off of Toad because of the possibility of counters waiting for them in the tournament.

In the past, when Toad wasn't respected, it did well and was played without fear. In this scenario, Toad isn't directly countered but we don't expect to see a lot of it on Day 2. How could this happen? One reason could be that players are expecting this counter meta I talked about and do not want to play into a hostile meta of poor matchups. Another could be that players moved on to a new deck is better versus the counters for ZoroToad. Of course, some Toad decks will make day 2 regardless; the deck is too powerful to be completely shut out.

If the scenario of less counters to ZoroToad are played and ZoroToad does not make up a huge part of day 2, then focusing on the rest of the Day 2 meta from Daytona Regionals besides Toad would make the most sense.

Scenario 2 - No Counters / Neutral to Increased Success

This scenario would entail no one respecting Toad and it having success. The counter meta for Toad would again be absent as in Scenario 1 but instead of failing, Toad hypothetically succeeds and crushes it. How could this happen? Self Serving Bias is an interesting psychological term that could be present in the possible lack of counter meta like we saw in Anaheim, CA Regionals when ZoroToad won a 2nd regionals in a row. Self Serving Bias is any cognitive distortion or process that an individual has that encourages their own beliefs or preserves their self-esteem but has potentially negative external effects. Players often blanket themselves in this confirmation bias which ends up hurting them in the long term because they aren't identifying and learning from their mistakes.

Now, to relate this to Pokemon TCG, an example of Self Serving Bias in Pokemon TCG would be if an individual tells themself that it is ok that their deck has a very unfavorable ZoroToad matchup because A) nobody is going to play the deck that just won, B) they’ll probably just dead draw if I play against it, or C) I won’t play against them anyway, its a large tournament. These are cognitive distortions because we have proof that the deck is good, some people will play the deck that just won, and the random chance of playing or not playing against someone piloting the deck is actually another form of bias called Optimism Bias.

The second part to this scenario is that ZoroToad is played and is successful, which is the difference between Scenario 1 and Scenario 2. Oftentimes, players will select a deck weeks before a tournament and stick with it regardless. Other cases like Caleb Gedemer and his teammates performing very well with the deck may cause them to stay with the archetype and just make some minor list changes.

If this is the scenario you think is most likely and would like to prepare for, I believe that taking a loss to ZoroToad in day 1 will not be a huge deal, but having an answer to Toad would likely be worth it if you would like to be well-prepared for Day 2.

Scenario 3 - Counters Present / No Success

In the event that people do choose to prepare their decks for the ZoroToad matchup, I imagine popular tech choices would be Pokemon Ranger, Mr. Mime TEU, Oranguru UPR, and Faba. Decks that could be considered because of their usual favor vs ZoroToad are Zoroark Golisopod, Rayquaza-GX, and Zoroark Control.

In this scenario, there could be two main reasons that ZoroToad is not successful. Reason number 1 is simple: it is not played by many people. If the deck is not played enough and by good enough pilots, then it has a lesser chance for success. Reason number 2 is correlated with the first part of this scenario, the counters. The second reason would be that the counters worked and beat out the ZoroToads.

If there are counters for Toad and a similar amount of Toad present, then the meta in theory would be wide open with several decks teched for Toad, several decks being played to counter Toad, and then ZoroToad itself.

Scenario 4 - Counters Present / Neutral to Increased Success

Just as in scenario 3, the same counters and decks are present but this time we think Toad will do well and convert well onto Day 2. 

The difference in this possible scenario is that ZoroToad has repeated success either at a neutral level where a handful make day 2 or at an increased level where day 2 is overrun by ZoroToad. With counters present I find it highly unlikely that its success increases, but it wouldn’t be too far out of possibility for its success to remain neutral in my opinion. Just because counters are being played, does not mean they will be piloted correctly and/or perform well against the rest of the field. Creative Toad deckbuilders may even find counters to the targeted techs and be one step ahead of the competition. If you think this is the reality we live, Toad itself isn't a bad choice. 

Conclusion

As of now, I think the most likely scenario of the four is scenario number 3: counters for ZoroToad are present and the deck sees little to no Day 2 success and much less play. I think that the community wants to avoid a repeat of Pendarvis’ rampage with ZoroToad and is adamant on countering the deck which could cause players to not play ZoroToad themselves. I expect the Team DDG and friends group (DDG + Michael Pramawat) who played the deck in Daytona to either stick to ZoroToad and make list changes like possibly adding Alolan Muk SUM or switch to Zoro Control which has arguably just as good of a matchup spread but has a favorable Zoro Toad matchup. I’ll be back next week with more concrete thoughts and also decklists as it gets closer, thanks for reading!