Your Guide to Choosing a Solid Deck and My Top Picks for Cities

Hello again PokeBeach! Treynor here with another article to prepare you for City Championships. We’ve had plenty of excellent articles come out lately about all sorts of solid decks. Writers such as Jimmy Perdarvis, JW Kriewall, Nath Bramald, Ryan Moorhouse, and Andrew Mahone have written articles with incredible decklists that I have been testing. Be sure to check those out!

Our Cities format is diverse with tons of good decks out there. The hardest choice when it comes to Pokemon is always the first decision you make before a tournament, and that is what deck you’re going to play. The other writers and I are all facing this problem ourselves. There’s just so many good decks! I’m going to talk about the importance of deck choice, how to narrow down your choices, the different kinds of decks you can play, and my top choices for City Championships.

This article will cover Standard, since I am looking mainly at the early Cities. Cities dates haven’t been announced yet here in the Nebraska / Iowa / Missouri / Kansas area, so I’m testing Standard to prepare myself for the bulk of Cities.

[cardimg name=”Weakness Policy” set=”Primal Clash” no=”142″ align=”right” height=”250″ c=”none”][/cardimg]

The Importance of Deck Choice

Your deck is your ultimate toolbox. It contains all the cards that you need to take six Prizes and circle the win on the match slip. Decks have good matchups and bad matchups. Our current Cities meta is a very diverse format where just about every deck has a flaw or terrible matchup. You can lose games solely based on what your opponent is playing.

Among skilled players, deck choice is probably the number one deciding factor on who brings home the most Championship Points. Deck matchups are so critical, even a very unskilled player can beat some of the best in the game if they’re bringing the deck that is the weak spot for the skilled player’s deck. This is huge when it comes to Cities. In small tournaments, playing the deck that beats the popular decks in your metagame can win you City Championships no matter your skill level. Have you ever seen the odd or weird decks that somehow won Cities? Those outlandish and weird decks may have hit a stroke of luck and avoided certain decks all day, but most of the time they had an incredible matchup against the majority of the most popular decks.

I very rarely have gone to a tournament and performed well with a deck that I didn’t think was a solid choice. All of your testing and preparation before a tournament is for you to make the correct deck choice. I cannot stress enough just how important that solid deck choices win tournaments. Scoping the meta and making the correct call is one of the most important skills in Pokemon.

One strategy that you have when selecting a deck is thinking of how many rounds you have to play and how popular you feel a deck will be. How many rounds do you think you will play against that deck. Is your deck equipped to maybe beat it one of those rounds? Will you just accept those rounds as losses and try to reach top cut anyway?

Most Cities are also in a best of one format. Your deck has to consistently get set up every game so you have a chance to win that one game. You have to have a deck that can set up and get going more than two out of every three games. At Regionals and Nationals, those types of decks can work because you can take a loss in each best of three match. In Cities, a couple of bad games can lead you to losing your chance of making the cut.

When testing a deck, every game is important. Even when testing against people at your league, you’re witnessing how well your deck sets up, and the hands that you can get. You get comfortable playing your deck. However, you should be focusing the majority of your play testing on your deck’s bad matchup. How well your deck can overcome that matchup should be one of the things you consider when making a choice. The other thing to consider is how popular that deck’s bad matchup will be and if you’re going to be facing it the majority of the day. Some decks have multiple bad matchups. Our Cities format is so diverse right now, that you’re bound to have one or two matchups that aren’t in your favor. You should focus your testing against these, maybe add a tech card or two to beat them, and consider if those cards hurt your consistency against the decks you should beat. We will discuss that more later, but it should be how you play test and narrow down your list of decks.

Deck Types

I know some players that will scout out an area and will make a deck choice almost entirely based on what they see being played, regardless of their comfort with the deck. These players tend to win big at small tournaments, but the strategy hardly works at large tournaments such as Regionals and Nationals where there are a lot of rounds being played with a huge sample size of decks to play against. This works very well in small tournaments because it’s easier to hit all the popular decks in four to seven rounds and it’s easier to get a good gage of whats being played in that particular tournament.

The other side of the spectrum is to play a consistent deck that isn’t very techy at all. A deck that just does what it does well and wins games regardless of what the opponent is playing. Sure, you can fit in a tech card or two in response to matchups that aren’t so good, but it is usually not worth it.

Most skilled players that I know play test a lot, make a deck choice well before the tournament, and get very comfortable with that deck. Players that are fairly new and are lacking in some skills should strive to get comfortable with a deck and play it until they can apply the solid principles to many other decks. We’ve all heard of the player that built their deck in the hotel room the night before and won the whole tournament, but these situations are rare and it’s surprising when that happens. In the 2012 City Championships, I changed my deck almost every tournament, never establishing an identity, and did poorly as a result. You can surely change your deck every week due to the shifting meta of Cities, but you should always make sure you are very comfortable with your deck before you show up with your completed deck list. That Cities experience in 2012 was very humbling to me and it was a good lesson. Some players can do this well and can excel, but I really like to play a deck that I’m comfortable with and know my matchups extremely well.

I mentioned comfort earlier as a factor in your deck choice and I want to discuss this a bit more. Comfort to me is always knowing what to do. Being comfortable with your deck means that you know your matchups and you know what to do in any given situation. You also have confidence that your deck can win. You’ve done your testing and you’ve tweaked your deck list to fit your playstyle. You are very rarely stressed when playing your deck, you know what to do. You misplay very rarely. When fatigued, your instincts kick in and you know what you need to do in any given situation because you’ve faced it a lot in your play testing. This is what comfort feels like. You consider yourself an expert on your deck. I know players that have played the same deck an entire season because they are comfortable with that type of deck and it fits their playstyle.

I picked the brains of the other writers here, and almost all of the writers tend to agree that a comfortable and consistent deck choice is typically what the correct deck choice is for the first week of Cities. As the meta tends to establish itself, then maybe it’s time to bust out a rogue counter-meta deck that can do well at a local Cities where you have a very good idea of what is being played. New players should always stick to what they’re comfortable with. Good Pokemon habits and strategies don’t always translate to other decks for newer players until they’ve been playing for a while. I’ve seen fairly new players win tournaments and do very well since they’re comfortable with their deck. Over time, they apply these skills to other decks. So if you’re fairly new, I would suggest sticking with one deck and playing it a lot of times, and try to play it throughout the entire Cities season. Don’t be too discouraged with a poor result the first week. Staying the course is the key to bettering yourself as you learn the game.

[premium]

Narrowing It Down

When it comes to deck selection, there are probably a lot of decks you are considering. Most players share the same kind of strategies that help us narrow down, and eliminate some decks from our palette.

Elimination

[cardimg name=”Seismitoad-EX” set=”Furious Fists” no=”20″ align=”right” height=”250″ c=”none”][/cardimg]

The first strategy is elimination. Through whatever testing you may have done, you have decided that you will absolutely not play a certain deck. This can be for a variety of reasons, such as consistency, how popular a bad matchup is, or the fact that you dislike the deck. When eliminating decks, you’re saving yourself time when testing so that you can start focusing on other decks. You can go back to these decks later if you’re shown a more consistent build, or some new tech comes out that you think looks interesting.

When I say a deck doesn’t feel right, it mainly comes down to playstyle. I get really frustrated playing lock decks such as a [card name=”Seismitoad-EX” set=”Furious Fists” no=”20″ c=”name” c=”name”][/card] deck, since I don’t feel like I ever do substantial damage, and the disruptive Energy removal playstyle has never been my own. There may be formats where Seismitoad-EX is a clear favorite in exploiting other decks in the metagame, and that is where I may play that deck, but it’s not a very enjoyable deck for me. The key to Pokemon for me is winning and having fun while I’m winning. I hate when I hit a frustrating situation for myself in a game with a deck I don’t like. Sometimes I eliminate decks without even playing them since I know I will hate playing them and there are other options out there.

As far as consistency goes, I know a lot of players that use PTCGO and will play hundreds of games to determine if a deck is consistent or not. PTCGO is a great tool for this, as it allows you to play a lot of games whenever you want to test. What it doesn’t help you with, however, is testing against certain matchups. You will play a myriad of decks and players, and you will have a lot of situations that you may hit at a tournament, and you want to prepare yourself for them. These games will expose your decks weaknesses and strengths.
As far as bad matchups go, I know some players that will play a deck that they like the feel of, regardless of the metagame. You always have to have a good balance of a deck that fits your playstyle and a deck that doesn’t lose against all the most popular decks.

Making a List

Once you narrow your decks down, you may still have a lot of attractive options. I prefer to get my list narrowed down to about five decks a couple weeks before the tournament, and then eliminate my options as the tournament gets closer.

The broadest approach to this, is to take a minute or two to write down each deck name and then cross them off until you get to five decks. If you have the time, you can probably test more than five. A “consideration list” is something that I know a lot of players have, and they make it based on a cool deck list they saw, or saw a combination of cards they want to test in a deck together.

Personally, when I make these lists, I generally make a list of decks I could see myself playing and winning a tournament with, and then I look at each one and think about its bad matchups. The format is really scattered currently, with not a very clear cut best deck in format, and not a very established popular deck. Of course we can assume that [card name=”Yveltal-EX” set=”XY” no=”79″ c=”name” c=”name”][/card]/ Zoroark will be very popular, as will Vespiquen, so your deck has to have an answer to those two.

It also helps to determine if you want to go with one of these popular decks. If you do, are you okay with playing a lot of mirror matches? Have you tested enough mirrors to get to the point where you can consistently outplay the mirror? Would teching in a card swing that mirror in your favor?

The Importance of Jirachi

When discussing tech cards in your deck, we want a techy card that doesn’t hurt your consistency that much. Usually these are cards that take Colorless Energy, and can swing some bad matchups. [card name=”Shuppet” set=”Roaring Skies” no=”30″ c=”name” c=”name”][/card] is one of those cards that worked well in Night March decks in Expanded, allowing [card name=”Mew-EX” set=”Dragons Exalted” no=”46″ c=”name” c=”name”][/card] to have a matchup that wasn’t absolutely awful against Giratina-EX decks. This tech also worked well against other decks, such as [card name=”Donphan” set=”Plasma Storm” no=”72″ c=”name” c=”name”][/card].

Jirachi changes everything. I could probably write an entire article on the implications this card has. It is a Promo that came out at the same time as BREAKthrough, so it will be legal for all City Championships. This card is incredible in the current format since almost all decks attack using a Special Energy of some sort. Removing that Energy and forcing your opponent to have to get another Energy in addition to have to use [card name=”Lysandre” set=”Flashfire” no=”90″ c=”name” c=”name”][/card] to do damage during that turn is insane.

This is a single tech card that should not hurt the consistency of any deck very much since it has so many uses against so many decks. Of course, its most obvious application is against Giratina-EX decks, but it can be useful against any deck that uses [card name=”Double Colorless Energy” set=”Phantom Forces” no=”111″ c=”name” c=”name”][/card] as well. In decks that use heavy [card name=”Battle Compressor” set=”Phantom Forces” no=”92″ c=”name” c=”name”][/card] counts, it can even be dumped in matchups you don’t need it in. This wonderful tech Pokemon will be in a lot of different decks, but it will be most important for the speedy decks that rely on Double Colorless Energy to attack. These decks no longer have a terrible matchup against Giratina-EX and [card name=”Seismitoad-EX” set=”Furious Fists” no=”20″ c=”name” c=”name”][/card] decks. That makes these decks even better choices for Cities.

My Top Five

I’ve done enough explaining, and I want to back this up with some examples. I want to describe my own elimination process and how I narrowed down my list. Here is my current top five.

• [card name=”Wobbuffet” set=”Phantom Forces” no=”36″ c=”name” c=”name”][/card] / [card name=”Crobat” set=”Phantom Forces” no=”33″ c=”name” c=”name”][/card]
• Tyrantrum-EX / [card name=”Bronzong” set=”XY Black Star Promos” no=”XY21″ c=”name” c=”name”][/card]
• Magnezone / Raikou / Pikachu-EX
• Yveltal-EX / Zoroark
• Night March / Entei

All of the decks above fit my playstyle. None are very disruptive, and all are just solid decks with a single good game plan. I hate disruptive decks that try to deny my opponent resources, so I ruled out most [card name=”Seismitoad-EX” set=”Furious Fists” no=”20″ c=”name” c=”name”][/card] decks. Those decks can lose very easily to Vespiquen decks. Vileplume decks were also ruled out because I don’t enjoy decks that do not play Item cards. Most Vileplume decks try to attack using Regice as an attacker to deny Pokemon-EX from dealing damage. This is devastating against some decks, and is a good deck to play when you’re trying to counter a metagame, but that just isn’t my playstyle and is nothing I would ever be comfortable with. Plus it tends to have consistency issues.

[cardimg name=”Wobbuffet” set=”Phantom Forces” no=”36″ align=”right” height=”250″ c=”none”][/cardimg]

You all may be asking me, why isn’t Vespiquen on here? The [card name=”Flareon” set=”Plasma Freeze” no=”12″ c=”name” c=”name”][/card] Revenge decks have never felt right to me. These decks have to stretch pretty far to hit 180 damage on turn one, whereas Night March decks do not really have to. Vespiquen decks are very versatile however, but that’s not worth choosing it over Night March. With this deck being so popular, some mirror matches can just come down to whoever draws better. You can argue that some are skill based, which they are, but I don’t notice that in Vespiquen mirrors, and I’m going to assume my opponents prepared themselves for the mirror matches as well.

[card name=”M Manectric-EX” set=”Phantom Forces” no=”24″ c=”name” c=”name”][/card] are incredibly consistent and they’re some of my favorite decks to play, but I’m not too much of a fan of decks that don’t attack with attackers that are worth only one Prize. This deck was the sixth deck on my list, and it may end up being worth another look in the second or third week of Cities if Yveltal decks become incredibly popular.

Wobbuffet / Crobat

I’ve never been a fan of this deck in the past since I never felt like it could do enough damage in a single game, but [card name=”Wobbuffet” set=”Phantom Forces” no=”36″ c=”name” c=”name”][/card] is such a powerful card now since it shuts down the most powerful draw card in the game (Shaymin-EX). You can beat certain decks just by starting Wobbuffet and that is huge in a best of one format. Wobbuffet will cause some decks just to dead draw while you set up with your deck optimized to not play with Shaymin-EX. This deck also doesn’t have too many bad matchups and is a great take-all-comers deck. Here’s my decklist that I’ve been testing.

[decklist]
[pokemon amt=”16″]

4x [card name=”Wobbuffet” set=”Phantom Forces” no=”36″ c=”name” c=”deck2″][/card]

3x [card name=”Crobat” set=”Phantom Forces” no=”33″ c=”name” c=”deck2″][/card]

4x [card name=”Golbat” set=”Phantom Forces” no=”32″ c=”name” c=”deck2″][/card]

4x [card name=”Zubat” set=”Phantom Forces” no=”31″ c=”name” c=”deck2″][/card]

1x [card name=”Miltank” set=”Flashfire” no=”83″ c=”name” c=”deck2″][/card]

1x Jirachi (XYPR #67)
[/pokemon]
[trainers amt=”35″]

4x [card name=”Professor Sycamore” set=”XY” no=”122″ c=”name” c=”deck2″][/card]

2x [card name=”Lysandre” set=”Flashfire” no=”90″ c=”name” c=”deck2″][/card]

2x Judge (HGSS #78)

2x [card name=”Shauna” set=”XY” no=”127″ c=”name” c=”deck2″][/card]

1x [card name=”Professor Birch’s Observations” set=”Primal Clash” no=”134″ c=”name” c=”deck2″][/card]

1x AZ (PHF #91)

4x [card name=”VS Seeker” set=”Phantom Forces” no=”109″ c=”name” c=”deck2″][/card]

4x [card name=”Ultra Ball” set=”Roaring Skies” no=”93″ c=”name” c=”deck2″][/card]

4x [card name=”Trainers’ Mail” set=”Roaring Skies” no=”92″ c=”name” c=”deck2″][/card]

3x [card name=”Muscle Band” set=”XY” no=”121″ c=”name” c=”deck2″][/card]

2x Level Ball (AOR #76)

1x Super Rod (NVI #95)

4x [card name=”Dimension Valley” set=”Phantom Forces” no=”93″ c=”name” c=”deck2″][/card]

[/trainers]
[energy amt=”9″]

5x [card name=”Psychic Energy” set=”XY” no=”136″ c=”name” c=”deck2″][/card]

4x [card name=”Mystery Energy” set=”Phantom Forces” no=”112″ c=”name” c=”deck2″][/card]
[/energy]
[/decklist]

This deck has a lot going for it in Standard with a very good matchup against almost every deck except for [card name=”M Manectric-EX” set=”Phantom Forces” no=”24″ c=”name” c=”name”][/card], where it just gets clobbered. [card name=”Rough Seas” set=”Primal Clash” no=”137″ c=”name” c=”name”][/card] in addition to M Manectric-EX’s high HP make it almost impossible for you to consistently KO them. Fitting a [card name=”Banette” set=”Roaring Skies” no=”31″ c=”name” c=”name”][/card] line to shut off tools such as [card name=”Manectric Spirit Link” set=”Phantom Forces” no=”100″ c=”name” c=”name”][/card] is a solid option if you can find the room, however I haven’t really been able to. You may be able to cut [card name=”Trainers’ Mail” set=”Roaring Skies” no=”92″ c=”name” c=”name”][/card], but you really cut your consistency that way. I would rather just take the loss against Mega decks, and hope I don’t run in to them too often. The high Judge count is incredible when paired with Ability lock. They will be unable to use [card name=”Shaymin-EX” set=”Roaring Skies” no=”77″ c=”name” c=”name”][/card] to draw out of four card hands!

Jirachi is a solid counter to Giratina-EX, even though this deck doesn’t struggle against it that much. It also helps give you some time against Night March and Vespiquen decks. [card name=”Miltank” set=”Flashfire” no=”83″ c=”name” c=”name”][/card] is a good extra attacker to back up Wobbuffet when you have a Crobat out.