Worlds 2019 Top 8 Decklists Breakdown

Hello readers! I hope you all enjoyed World Championships 2019 whether you competed, spectated, or watched the matches and results from home. What is new about this year’s World Championships is that we have the exact format for the beginning of our new season as we had for World’s. So you might just be looking at the top decks for the next couple Regionals and your League Cup Weekends. I will be going over the top 8 decklists from the Masters Division and highlighting the more interesting inclusions from the most successful decks of the World Championships. 

1st: Mew Box - Henry Brand

Mewbox can be built a few different ways and we saw two unique builds in the Masters division Top 8. Brand’s Mewbox omitted defensive options like Venomoth-GX + Janine and Altaria-GX to focus on consistency and aggression. 

Notable Cards

There is a lot of buzz about this card being included in Brand’s list. Cobalion-GX was a known tech in Mewboxes that play rainbow energy, but without rainbow energy the inclusion is a bit puzzling. Because of Cobalion-GX’s ability that removes special conditions from all of your Pokémon with steel energy attached, Cobalion is a sensible inclusion in the rainbow energy builds.

Cobalion-GX’s GX attack costs one colorless energy and reads “your opponent’s Pokémon cannot attack next turn”. Is this attack worth including it in the deck and worth a GX attack? Henry Brand thought so and he won the World Championships, so it’s hard to argue with his decision. 

To paraphrase Brand’s responses in Heyfonte on the topic, it was included for the mirror match to stop Latios-GX's Tag Purge for a turn, and for nuanced situations where it would be advantageous to stop your opponent’s attacks for a turn to better set up your own board. 

Moving forward, I have removed Cobalion-GX from the list myself in favor of Blaziken-GX or Dragonite-GX or any other attackers I would like to try out to adhere to the offensive nature of the list. I suspect Channeler to find its way into some archetypes as the meta progresses, which is another reason to consider discarding Cobalion-GX from the list. 

Magcargo-GX acts as a two-for-one inclusion in this list. Its Lava Flow is a non-GX attack with OHKO potential and is fulfilling a purpose that Blaziken-GX or Dragonite-GX could also be used for. Magcargo’s Burning Magma GX mills the top 5 from your opponent’s deck, which is an incredible utility to have at your disposal versus a Shedinja that has either prized Latios GX or omitted it from their list. 

Latios-GX has the attack Clear Vision GX which prohibits your opponent from using a GX attack for the remainder of the game. While this uses your own GX attack for the game, this means you can stop overwhelming GX attacks like Dark Moon GX on Darkrai & Umbreon, Gigafall GX on Mega Sableye & Tyranitar and Double Blaze GX on Reshiram & Charizard. Latios is also extremely useful for its Tag Purge attack, which swings for 120 damage and then prevents damage done by Tag Team Pokemon next turn which effectively lets your Mewtwo & Mew tank against opposing Tag Team decks. 

Going into World’s Mewtwo & Mew Box was not considered a Tier 1 Archetype, but was widely acknowledged to be strong and potentially a contender for winning the event if a good player went in with a well-prepared list. Tiers are arbitrary, but I do think this archetype will see a ton of play at upcoming competitive events. 

2nd: Blacephalon - Shintaro Ito

Shintaro Ito is known for his spicy concoctions like his world’s winning Mega Audino-EX deck from 2016. His World’s 2019 finalist deck however, is not very off-the-wall. Ito went with a Blacephalon-GX based deck with Naganadel for energy acceleration and Naganadel-GX for draw support. There are a few unique inclusions in his list which I will go over. 

Notable Cards

Ito included 2 Heatran-GX in his Blacephalon-GX deck, so I posit that it was an integral part of his end-game plan in addition to an efficient attacker versus single prize Pokemon. Heatran-GX can utilize awkwardly placed Beast Ring attachments and extra Charging Up energy in the late game because of Heatran-GX’s ability that can collect fire energy from your board onto Heatran when it becomes your active Pokemon. Heatran’s attack Hot Burn GX does 50 damage for each fire energy attached to Heatran, so this can do a considerable amount of damage from using Burning Road to gather energy onto Heatran-GX. 

Heatran-GX’s Steaming Stomp does 130 damage for 3 energy and is much more efficient versus low HP Pokemon than Blacephalon-GX’s Mind Blown is. Heatran-GX is also a non-Ultra Beast attacker, which means a Gardevoir & Sylveon player would not have an answer to multiple Heatran-GX in Blacephalon, which would otherwise be a very favorable matchup for Gardeon. 

The Psychic Energy is included for Naganadel-GX’s Venom Shot which has the energy cost of 1 psychic and 3 colorlesss. Venom Shot does 170 to any of your opponent’s Pokemon, so this is a very good option if your opponent has retreated a damaged threat to the bench or has a Dedenne-GX that you can pick off for two prizes. 

Blacephalon-GX/Naganadel has been a popular deck since the release of Blacephalon-GX and that is surely going to remain a constant with Shintaro Ito placing 2nd at the World Championships with the trusty Squid / Cake Pop… thing. I prefer this build of Blacephalon-GX over any of the other variants since Naganadel-GX fits into the deck so nicely with Ultra Space, Mysterious Treasure, and already playing Poipoles in the deck. 

3rd: Green's Reshizard - Blaine Hill

The Green’s Reshi decks are pretty vanilla, but I will give my opinions on differences on the margins for each list. Hill played a Lusamine which I really like and tried myself, but it was often too slow in a deck that is already too slow. I prefer 2 Power Plants in my Green’s Reshi, but this archetype has a lot of room for player preference and that is one of the best things about it. 4 Great Potion is one too many in my opinion unless you planned to play more Malamar than anything else. With Malamar having a poor performance at World’s, I would expect the Malamar variants to see less play and for Lysandre Labs and Great Potion to carry less value in response.  

4th: Jirachi Reshizard - Tord Reklev

I was quite confident that Limitless and friends would be bringing Ability Reshi to World’s due to the notions I saw online from Robin Schulz on the power of Ninetales and his favor of Ability-based Reshi over Green’s Reshi. I am a huge fan of Ability Reshi and also of the list that Reklev placed in the top 4 with. Although very different from the lists myself and friends tried prior to World’s, the concept is the same and is easily executed with this streamlined list. 

Notable Cards

Ninetales is an incredible card and is integral to this build of Reshizard since it allows a player to infinitely “gust” the opponent’s Pokemon as long as the player has fire energy at their disposal. 

Turtonator has been one of my favorite cards to include in Reshi builds since NAIC and I am stoked to see it have mainstream success. Turtonator can take big knockouts while only giving up a single prize card. Of course it has the downside of discarding energy to take the knockout, but Victini Prism doesn’t mind some extra energy in the discard pile. 

Victini Prism has one simple attack that is so good in this deck. Infinity does 20 damage for each basic energy in your discard pile and then you shuffle all of the basic energy back into your deck. Since this list has 18 Fire energy in it, Victini can hit very high numbers while also replenishing your deck with energy in case you didn’t just win the game with Infinity. 

We are all aware of Green’s Reshi’s healing capabilities, but what can a Reshizard deck manage to heal without the searching help of Green’s Exploration? The deck builders behind this top 4 deck decided on Super Scoop Up as a worthy inclusion. I rather like Super Scoop Up in this deck since I don’t think Mixed Herbs would be realistic to pull off consistently and Great Potion might not do enough. 

5th: Pikarom - Kaiwen Cabbabe

Pikarom was expected to be at the top of the meta and so to see it in Top 8 is not a surprise. Kaiwen Cabbabe had some very cool inclusions in this mainstream deck, so I am sure he took a fair amount of opponent’s by surprise on his way to Top 8.

Notable Cards

Sigilyph-GX cannot be used as an attacker in this deck since there are no Psychic energies, so we can deduce that it was used as a wall with its punishing Mirror Counter ability. Sigilyph-GX could be switched into after a Lightning Ride GX by Alolan Raichu & Raichu or just stuck into the active while you set up, forcing your opponent to either hit into its ability, gust around it, or play down a Power Plant. 

Cyrus is a supporter that has never seen much competitive use, but it is always a fringe option when you put Jirachis into your deck since it can only be played if your active Pokemon is Water or Steel type. Cyrus can be used against set up heavy decks like Dark Box and Malamar to really put them back a couple of turns, which will usually allow you to take off with the game if you are set up yourself. 

6th: Green's Reshizard - Paco Vilchez Barea

In Paco's Green’s Reshi we see the complete omission of Great Potion and the inclusion of Hoopa UNM. Hoopa was a popular attacking tech Pokemon at World’s for the likes of Giratina LOT. Hoopa both resists attacks from Psychic Pokemon and hits Giratina LOT for weakness making it a very powerful tech attacker. Although I do not like including additional Pokemon into Green’s lists, Hoopa does not have an ability and is a very strong attacker versus a matchup which was forecasted to be popular at World’s. 

7th: Mew Box - Ryota Ishiyama

Another Mewbox, but this one has less techs and is more streamlined towards copying a few specific attacks each game. It has two ideal early attacks, one from Flareon-GX and one from Solgaleo-GX. I like the streamlined nature of this list, but I dislike the omission of Latios-GX. 

Notable Cards

Flareon-GX’s first attack works really well with the game plan of attacking with Magcargo-GX for a lot of damage. It can also accelerate into an early Cross Division GX for 20 damage counters to blow a Malamar deck out of the water before it has gotten set up. 

The other two attacks on Flareon-GX are quite usable as well. Bright Flame is a good mid-range attack that deals 190 and discards 2 energy,  so that you don’t have to overextend for a smaller knockout. Power Burner GX does 20 damage for each basic fire energy in the discard pile, and since this list plays 16 Fire energy that means this attack can do a considerable amount of damage for just one energy. 

Oranguru is a stall / control counter that wasn’t included by 6 of the other top 8 lists, but I understand the safety of running it. I think I’d rather run a Channeler to remove the effect of the opponent’s Latios-GX’s Clear Vision GX and then use Magcargo’s Burning Magma GX to win. 

8th: Pidgeotto Control - Isaiah Williams

Pidgeotto Control is not an archetype name I ever thought I’d be writing… but here we are and DDG are the culprits. I could honestly include every card in this list as something notable since the deck had no stereotype to compare to from prior to the weekend.

The strategy of the deck is to allow your opponent to take prize cards until you can Reset Stamp them down to a low hand and then control their hand and their draws with Lt. Surge + Mars + Mars + Chip-Chip Ice Axe and then remove their established energy on board with Crushing Hammers and Articuno-GX’s GX attack. You have to do this while keeping yourself from decking out with Oranguru’s Resource Management and keeping the exact cards you need in your hand and deck. The skill level for successfully piloting this deck is off the charts and even when played perfectly it can be overrun by aggressive decks. Isaiah spoke with Trainer Chip about the deck extensively if you want to learn more. 

All in all, Worlds 2019 was a really exciting tournament and gave us our first glimpse at the format for the season and what seems to be a diverse format. No one would have expected Pidgeotto control, so who knows what else the format has in store for us. You can check out more of my work at Celio's Network!