National Championships Recap — Understanding the Hive Mind

By: Andrew Mahone · Posted Jul 15, 2016 at 3:14 PM · 0 Comments

Hola Beach goers! I have just returned from Columbus, Ohio where the U.S. National Championships were held. Unfortunately, things didn’t quite pan out for me, but a couple of my friends were able to do very well. I also got to watch an iteration of the [card name=”Vespiquen” set=”Ancient Origins” no=”10″ c=”name”][/card] / Night March deck I have been working on since State Championships win the whole tournament! Congrats to Nick Robinson for his National title!

[cardimg name=”Combee” set=”Ancient Origins” no=”9″ align=”right” c=”custom”]This little Bee had better luck with others than it did with me.[/cardimg]

I’d also like to give quick shout outs to my friends Andrew Wamboldt and Jimmy Pendarvis for their strong finishes. I roomed with both of these guys at the tournament and it was exciting to watch their runs unfold even though I had dropped from the main event. Wamboldt was able to finish 36th with the Night March / Vespiquen list that we had been developing together since States. Wamboldt suffered a rough day two, but began the tournament with a stunning 7-0-2 record during day one Swiss. Fellow PokeBeach writer Jimmy Pendarvis finished 14th with his own Water Box list after a gut wrenching tie with Sorina Radu during his win-and-in to Top 8 match. Congrats to Wamboldt and Jimmy for their outstanding finishes!

Many consider U.S. Nationals to be the most challenging Pokemon TCG tournament of the year. Aside from Jason Klackzynski’s 2015 win with [card name=”Seismitoad-EX” set=”Furious Fists” no=”106″ c=”name”][/card] / [card name=”Garbodor” set=”Plasma Freeze” no=”119″ c=”name”][/card], the trend has been for relatively lesser known players to take the title, which continued this year with Nick Robinson’s breakout success. In this article I will analyze data that I have collected from National Championships participants and discuss why I consider it to be the most challenging tournament of the year, even more challenging than Worlds! My hope is that this article will better prepare you for large-scale National Championships in the years to come. So put your phone down, take a break from Pokemon Go, and let’s get to it!

Post Nationals Survey

The post Nationals survey that I conducted was simple, but the results from the survey will be valuable towards understanding what happened at this year’s National Championships. I was fortunate to have 200 respondents to my survey, giving me a sizable pool to extract data from. Though I could have limited the survey to people that participated in U.S. Nationals only, I decided against it, opening the survey up to anyone that competed at a National Championship across the world. My survey was composed of six questions as follows:

What deck did you choose to play during the main event?
Why did you choose your deck?
How was the meta compared to what you anticipated?
How far in advance did you have your deck picked out?
How did you finish?
If you could go back and select a different deck for Nationals, what deck would you choose?

My goal in conducting the survey was to gather data on which decks players chose to play at Nationals, why they chose those decks and how they felt about their choice after the tournament was complete. U.S. Nationals is a hard tournament to read. With over a thousand attendants, predicting the direction of the hive mind can be quite a chore. Now I’m no statistician, so have mercy on me here. I took a class in stats over a decade ago. A decade ago! I’m old! So please forgive my lack of formal statistics education. I’m just a special education teacher trying to piece together some facts. First, we’re going to take a look at what players played at Nationals compared to what succeeded at U.S. Nationals.

What Decks Did Players Bring To the National Championships?

Of the 200 players that responded to my survey, an overwhelming 27% played Night March at their National Championships, out representing the next most popular deck by double digits. The next most popular deck was Water Box, representing 10% of my respondent’s choices. Beyond that, no deck made up more than one tenth of the meta according to my survey’s results.

27% played Night March
10% played Water Box
8.5% played [card name=”M Manectric-EX” set=”Phantom Forces” no=”24″ c=”name”][/card]
7.5% played [card name=”Darkrai-EX” set=”BREAKpoint” no=”118″ c=”name”][/card] / [card name=”Giratina-EX” set=”Ancient Origins” no=”57″ c=”name”][/card]
5.5% played Metal
5.5% played [card name=”Greninja BREAK” set=”BREAKpoint” no=”41″ c=”name”][/card]
5% played [card name=”Trevenant BREAK” set=”BREAKpoint” no=”66″ c=”name”][/card]
4% played [card name=”M Rayquaza-EX” set=”Roaring Skies” no=”76″ c=”name”][/card]
4% played [card name=”Vespiquen” set=”Ancient Origins” no=”10″ c=”name”][/card] / [card name=”Vileplume” set=”Ancient Origins” no=”3″ c=”name”][/card]
4% played [card name=”Vespiquen” set=”Ancient Origins” no=”10″ c=”name”][/card] / alternative attackers
2% played [card name=”Wailord-EX” set=”Primal Clash” no=”147″ c=”name”][/card]
2% played [card name=”Darkrai-EX” set=”BREAKpoint” no=”118″ c=”name”][/card] / [card name=”Garbodor” set=”BREAKpoint” no=”57″ c=”name”][/card]
2% played [card name=”Zygarde-EX” set=”Fates Collide” no=”54″ c=”name”][/card] / [card name=”Vileplume” set=”Ancient Origins” no=”3″ c=”name”][/card]
2% played [card name=”Yveltal” set=”XY” no=”78″ c=”name”][/card] / [card name=”Zoroark” set=”BREAKthrough” no=”91″ c=”name”][/card]
2% played [card name=”Tyrantrum-EX” set=”XY Black Star Promos” no=”XY70″ c=”name”][/card] / [card name=”Giratina-EX” set=”Ancient Origins” no=”57″ c=”name”][/card] / [card name=”Bronzong” set=”XY Black Star Promos” no=”XY21″ c=”name”][/card]
1% played [card name=”Carbink BREAK” set=”Fates Collide” no=”51″ c=”name”][/card] / [card name=”Medicham” set=”Primal Clash” no=”81″ c=”name”][/card]
1% played [card name=”M Mewtwo-EX” set=”BREAKthrough” no=”64″ c=”name”][/card]
1% played [card name=”Seismitoad-EX” set=”Furious Fists” no=”20″ c=”name”][/card] / [card name=”Giratina-EX” set=”Ancient Origins” no=”57″ c=”name”][/card]
1% played [card name=”Carbink BREAK” set=”Fates Collide” no=”51″ c=”name”][/card] / [card name=”Zygarde-EX” set=”Fates Collide” no=”54″ c=”name”][/card]

After reviewing my results, everything seems about right compared to what I saw at U.S. Nationals. The only stat that doesn’t quite fit with my experience was the amount of [card name=”Trevenant BREAK” set=”BREAKpoint” no=”66″ c=”name”][/card] reported. I feel like [card name=”Trevenant” set=”XY” no=”55″ c=”name”][/card] was very well represented at Nationals, contending with Water Box for the second most popular deck. Nonetheless, this info gives us a decent picture of our Nationals metagame.

Night March dominated the field, representing over a quarter of the player base while all other decks made up a tenth of the metagame or less. My greatest error heading into the National championships was underestimating how much Night March would see play. I assumed that the deck’s popularity would have taken a hit with Giratina-EX and Water Box stepping into the picture, but players were largely unfazed when it came to piloting their favorite archetype.

How Does This Compare to How Decks Finished in the Top 64?

[cardimg name=”Joltik” set=”Phantom Forces” no=”26″ align=”right” c=”none”][/cardimg]

Thanks to the data collected by my friend and teammate Andrew Wamboldt we are able to compare the data of what decks showed up to Nationals listed above with the data of what decks finished in the Top 64. According to Wamboldt, 25 Night March decks finished in the Top 64 of U.S. Nationals, making up over a third of the day two meta share at 39%. This is over a 10% increase compared to the amount of players that reported bringing Night March to Nationals in my 200 player survey.

The next most popular deck in Top 64 was none other than [card name=”Trevenant BREAK” set=”BREAKpoint” no=”66″ c=”name”][/card], with six placements in day two and a 9% meta share. This is a few points higher than the percentage of players that reported using Trevenant in my post Nationals survey, but more representative of the proportion of players that I saw using Trevenant at the tournament. The next most successful decks were Water Box and [card name=”M Manectric-EX” set=”Phantom Forces” no=”24″ c=”name”][/card], with four Top 64 finishes a piece, each representing 6% of the day two field. The only other deck that was represented more than twice in day two of competition at U.S. Nationals was [card name=”Carbink BREAK” set=”Fates Collide” no=”51″ c=”name”][/card] / [card name=”Zygarde-EX” set=”Fates Collide” no=”54″ c=”name”][/card], solidifying three placements in Top 64, representing 5% of the day two field.

Despite Night March’s dominance, 19 different decks ended up in the Top 64 at U.S. Nationals. This blew my mind. I am realizing that I tried to read too far into what players would choose to pilot at the National Championships. I thought Dark decks would show up like Night March showed up, especially with their strong representation at the Origin’s Win-a-Trip Tournament. I thought Metal would be huge, especially with its strong finish at Canadian Nationals. But I am coming to realize that with a meta as established as this one, going largely unchanged since State Championships, many players will show up to Nationals with the deck that they are most comfortable with.

In fact, looking back, the most successful year that I ever had at Nationals was my first Nationals in 2013. In 2013 I brought [card name=”Blastoise” set=”Plasma Storm” no=”137″ c=”name”][/card] / [card name=”Keldeo-EX” set=”Legendary Treasures” no=”45″ c=”name”][/card] to Nationals, the same list that I had been working on all year. I played well, making my way to 6-2 before losing my win-and-in match to the mirror. I ended up bubbling out of cut at 6-3, and I haven’t had a Nationals run that strong in the three years since then.

Oddly enough, I think it’s easier to predict the decks that people will play at the World Championships than it is to predict a field of 1,000 players. Being a Worlds competitor myself, it’s easier to tap into what 300 other Worlds competitors might be thinking than it is to predict what over 1,000 people across the country, across all different skill levels might be thinking on a given day. The difficulty of predicting a Nationals field got me wondering why players selected their decks for the biggest tournament of the year, which conveniently leads me to my next survey question!

[premium]

Why Did Players Choose the Decks They Did for the National Championships?

In my survey, I gave players five options when responding to the question, “Why did you choose your deck for the National Championships?” They could pick:

I thought it would give me the most even all around matchups against the predicted field, giving me an opportunity to defeat everything I play.
I thought it would give me the best chance of beating Night March.
It was my favorite deck or the deck I was most comfortable playing.
I thought it would give me favorable matchups versus the few decks I anticipated I would encounter.
Other (please specify).

Players overwhelmingly favored the first option. Of the 200 respondents to my survey, 45% indicated that they thought their deck gave them all around even matchups versus the projected field. I consider this to be the most reasonable way to choose a deck for a large scale tournament, so I am not surprised by the results. It was also option number one, meaning that positioning bias could have influenced a few players’ answers.

The next most popular choice was option four. 22.5% of players indicated that they thought their deck gave them favorable matchups versus the few decks they anticipated playing against. All together, this means that 67.5% or roughly two thirds of Nationals competitors chose their deck because they thought it gave them all around positive or even matchups.

Favoritism Versus Success

I was most interested to see how many players chose their deck because it was their favorite deck. A larger than expected, 20% of respondents selected their deck because it was their favorite deck to play or they were most comfortable playing it. This stat is significant because I would wager that far fewer Worlds competitors would select a deck because it is their favorite deck. This contributes towards my thinking that Worlds is an easier tournament to metagame than Nationals. Metagames are generally easier to predict when player choices are based on empirical evidence rather than personal biases.

This stat is more intriguing when we relate it to our top National finishers. Of the 14 survey respondents that finished in the Top 8 of their respective National Championship, zero of them selected their deck because it was their favorite deck. Of the 23 players that finished in the Top 16 of their National Championships, only two of them or 8% selected their deck because it was their favorite. Of the 38 players that reported finishing in the Top 32 of their National Championship, only five or 13% of them selected their deck because it was their favorite or they were the most comfortable with it. This seems to point to the idea that the most successful players tend not to pick their deck because it is their favorite or they are the most comfortable with it. The most successful players have more definitive matchup based reasons for their deck selections.

Why Did People Choose Night March?

[cardimg name=”Pumpkaboo” set=”Phantom Forces” no=”44″ align=”right” c=”none”][/cardimg]

After reviewing my initial data, I was also interested to see what percentage of Night March players chose Night March because it was their favorite deck. Of the 40 respondents that said they selected their deck because it was their favorite, 13 of them were Night March players. When you consider that 54 of my 200 survey respondents played Night March, this means that roughly one in four Night March players selected the deck because it was their favorite deck to play.

13 Night March respondents said that they thought their deck gave them positive matchups versus the few decks they thought they would play while 27 thought that it gave them even matchups across the board. It’s significant that 50% of Night March players thought that their deck gave them generally even matchups. In my experiences, Night March’s matchups were a little more polar. According to my testing, straight Night March struggled against Water Box, [card name=”Greninja BREAK” set=”BREAKpoint” no=”41″ c=”name”][/card], [card name=”Trevenant BREAK” set=”BREAKpoint” no=”66″ c=”name”][/card], and [card name=”Darkrai-EX” set=”BREAKpoint” no=”118″ c=”name”][/card] / [card name=”Giratina-EX” set=”Ancient Origins” no=”57″ c=”name”][/card]. I thought that the existence of these decks would be enough to scare off anyone considering straight Night March for Nationals. This is the reason that Wamboldt and I decided on Night March / [card name=”Vespiquen” set=”Ancient Origins” no=”10″ c=”name”][/card] for the big day. With the Vespiquen variant, you improve your Water Box and Greninja BREAK matchups. From there, you can tech for [card name=”Giratina-EX” set=”Ancient Origins” no=”57″ c=”name”][/card] with [card name=”Enhanced Hammer” set=”Dark Explorers” no=”94″ c=”name”][/card] and [card name=”Xerosic” set=”Phantom Forces” no=”110″ c=”name”][/card], then leave Trevenant up to fate, since that’s what you’re doing by playing Night March anyways. This is the path that Wamboldt and our National Champion, Nick Robinson, took to great degrees of success. They decided to sure-up a couple matchups with Vespiquen while slightly hindering their straight Night March matchup overall. This was a gamble that paid off for Robinson while it ended up keeping Wamboldt out of Top 8, even after starting 7-0-2 during day one of competition.

I was also interested to see how many players prepared for Nationals with the explicit intent of defeating Night March. Only eight respondents or 4% of the people that took my survey indicated that they selected their deck with the specific intent of defeating Night March. Most players don’t make their deck selection with the intention of beating one deck, especially for a National Championship, so this makes sense. But I wonder if players knew ahead of time that Night March was going to compromise over a fourth of the field, if this response would have garnered more attention. I’ll be taking a look at how the Nationals meta compared to people’s expectations in my next section.

When pursuing the “other” write in responses to this selection, I stumbled across a few amusing responses. One player arrived at Nationals at the last second and simply borrowed a deck. Someone else ran out of time and couldn’t make a decision. Another player indicated that they unabashedly net decked their Nationals choice while another stated that they played their deck for fun and didn’t care how they did during the main event at all.

There were also a few more serious write-ins. Jimmy Pendarvis exclaimed that Water Box was favored versus everything while another respondent said that they haven’t missed a top cut with their choice since November. Andrew Wamboldt maintained that Night March / [card name=”Vespiquen” set=”Ancient Origins” no=”10″ c=”name”][/card] was the clear BDIF, making his choice an obvious one, while another player decided on Night March because it was by far the most consistent deck in format, and a deck they trusted most to secure their day two World Championship invitation.

I could probably write an entire article about the psychology of selecting decks for tournaments. Some people play decks for fun or because it’s the only deck they have while others make choices based on the results of extensive testing. And despite many of us testing the same matchups, we still show up to big tournaments with different decks. This is a topic that I’d like to touch on again in the future, perhaps with a more in-depth survey.

How Did the Nationals Meta Compare to What Players Expected?

I was completely thrown off by the distribution of decks represented at this year’s U.S. National Championships. I expected far more Water Box, Metal, [card name=”M Rayquaza-EX” set=”Roaring Skies” no=”76″ c=”name”][/card], [card name=”M Manectric-EX” set=”Phantom Forces” no=”24″ c=”name”][/card], and Dark to show up. I also expected far less Night March and [card name=”Trevenant BREAK” set=”BREAKpoint” no=”66″ c=”name”][/card] to be at the tournament. Upon looking around the room after round one, I instantly wished I had selected a deck with more neutral matchups like Water Box.

For this question, I gave players six canned responses that I thought might be popular and also allowed them to write in their own experience if they chose to. I allowed players to select multiple responses for this question, allowing them to give more detailed feedback on their experience. The selections were as follows:

There was more Night March than I anticipated.
There was more [card name=”Trevenant BREAK” set=”BREAKpoint” no=”66″ c=”name”][/card] than I anticipated.
I thought there would be more [card name=”Darkrai-EX” set=”BREAKpoint” no=”118″ c=”name”][/card] / [card name=”Giratina-EX” set=”Ancient Origins” no=”57″ c=”name”][/card].
I thought there would be more Metal.
I thought there would be more [card name=”Greninja BREAK” set=”BREAKpoint” no=”41″ c=”name”][/card].
The field was exactly what I thought it would be.
Other (please specify).

Apparently I was not alone in thinking that more Night March showed up than expected. 62 respondents or roughly one third of my survey takers agreed that more Night March showed up than anticipated. The only response more popular than selection one was selection six with 63 respondents stating that the field was exactly what they thought it would be. With nearly a third of my survey takers knowing exactly what the meta was going to be, you would think that I’d have a few of them as friends! It would have been nice to have one of those people tell me what was up before the tournament!

Only 14 players or 7% thought that more Trevenant BREAK showed up than they anticipated. I swear I was sitting next to a dozen Trevenant players during round one, but that could have just been variance. I am probably having an adverse reaction to Trevenant because of my heart wrenching loss to it round one of the biggest tournament of the year.

18.5% of my survey respondents thought that there would be more Darkrai-EX / Giratina-EX at Nationals while 14.5% thought there would be more Metal and 18% thought that Greninja BREAK would be better represented. Aside from Night March showing up in droves, the next biggest surprise was that Darkrai-EX / Giratina-EX wasn’t better represented. Darkrai-EX / Giratina-EX was the secret deck that was supposed to overthrow the U.S. National Championships. It was exposed two weeks ahead of time at the Origins Win-a-Trip Competition and players largely dismissed it despite its success. None of the Michigan players that top cut Origins with it stood by the deck and the majority of players that did decide to play Darkrai-EX / Dragons chose to do so without [card name=”Garbodor” set=”Plasma Freeze” no=”119″ c=”name”][/card]. Axing the Garbodor was an excellent call. Cutting Garbodor speeds the deck up immensely while allowing room for techs like [card name=”Enhanced Hammer” set=”Phantom Forces” no=”94″ c=”name”][/card] to make the Night March matchup even more favorable. Additionally, Greninja and Metal were not very well represented at U.S. Nationals, making the Garbodor cut a great wager.

How Players Finished Compared to How Far in Advance They Selected Their Deck

Wambodlt and I had both selected our deck over a week before U.S. Nationals. After Origins, Wamboldt began testing our list against [card name=”Giratina-EX” set=”Ancient Origins” no=”57″ c=”name”][/card] with an [card name=”Enhanced Hammer” set=”Dark Explorers” no=”94″ c=”name”][/card] and a [card name=”Xerosic” set=”Phantom Forces” no=”110″ c=”name”][/card], the same techs that Nick Robinson used to defeat Giratina-EX in the finals, to great success. I was testing a single copy of [card name=”Jirachi” set=”XY Black Star Promos” no=”XY67″ c=”name”][/card] and one Basic Energy in order to keep the Pokemon count high in our deck. I was worried that without at least 25 Pokemon, Vespiquen would lack the OHKO power it needs to take down Mega Pokemon and occasionally topple Pokemon-EX with [card name=”Fighting Fury Belt” set=”BREAKpoint” no=”99″ c=”name”][/card] attached. Ultimately, I decided that I didn’t like Jirachi / Basic Energy because prizing one of the pieces ruins the whole strategy. At the end of the day, I predicted that I probably wouldn’t play against any Giratina-EX decks anyways, and forewent the direct counter in favor of a pair of [card name=”Pokémon Catcher” set=”Emerging Powers” no=”95″ c=”name”][/card] in hopes that I would sweeten my matchups versus most decks and the Night March mirror by doing so.

[cardimg name=”Enhanced Hammer” set=”Phantom Forces” no=”94″ align=”left” c=”none”][/cardimg]

With a week to go until Nationals, Wamboldt told me that he wasn’t going to do any more testing and he wasn’t going to question his list at all. He had decided to cut our fourth [card name=”Vespiquen” set=”Ancient Origins” no=”10″ c=”name”][/card] and third [card name=”Unown” set=”Ancient Origins” no=”30″ c=”name”][/card] in favor of Xerosic and Enhanced Hammer, and that was that. I found this absolutely astounding. Not questioning the list! I was going to be stressing and questioning the list full time until round one started on Friday. Wamboldt made a great argument though. He told me that his testing up until this point was valid, and any change he made at the last minute would likely be under-teseted and would probably be a mistake. This got me wondering — do the most successful players tend to have their decks selected ahead of time? Or do they keep their decisions up in the air until the last minute? I’ll be comparing player’s results with how they selected their decks in order to interpret this data.

Upon analyzing the data, deck decision seems to be based on player preference with no specific trends amongst top players. Of the 200 survey respondents, 38.5% chose their deck over a week in advance, 36.5% chose their deck the night before Nationals, and 25% selected their deck the week of Nationals.

When we narrow our audience to only for those that finished in the Top 32 of their respective Nationals, 36.8% selected their deck over a week in advance and 36.8% picked their deck the night before while 26.3% selected their deck the week of Nationals.

If we narrow our audience even further, looking only at those that finished in the Top 8 of their respective Nationals, we still don’t see any significant trends. 42.8% of the 14 that finished in their Top 8 picked their deck over a week in advance while 35.7% picked their deck the night before and 21.5% picked their deck the week of. The difference in this data isn’t significant enough to pick out any trends, so what does that mean?

It means that top players seem to have a system that works best for them and there’s no overarching rule to successful deck selection. Some top players will get together with friends at Nationals and come to a conclusion the night before after scoping out their scene while others lean on weeks of testing and trust their decision ahead of time. Based on my data, neither strategy seems superior. My best advice then would be to know yourself and know how you operate optimally. I personally tend to operate better with weeks of testing under my belt. Because I have only been playing card games for four years, I still make misplays when handed a brand new deck. Some players can play decks flawlessly without experience. I’m not that type of player yet. For me, I like to run my deck through every situation that I can imagine before bringing it to a tournament so that I feel prepared for everything I might encounter.

What Players Would Have Played If They Could Have Done It Again

After having a chance to step back and watch Nationals play out, I wanted to see if other players wished they had played a different deck for Nationals if they got to do it again. Given the opportunity for a re-do, I would have chosen Water Box. I think the deck is amazing, consistent, and gives skilled players an opportunity to outplay their opponents.

Not surprisingly, even more players would have played Night March if they could compete in Nationals a second time. 63 respondents or 32% said that they would have played Night March in a re-do situation, a five-point rise from the number of players that showed up with the deck.

The next most popular decks in a re-do situation would have been Water Box and [card name=”Trevenant BREAK” set=”BREAKpoint” no=”66″ c=”name”][/card]. Each received a boost in popularity. Water Box jumped up a point to 11% and Trevenant BREAK doubled in popularity, rising from 5% played to 10%. Trevenant’s boost is pretty expected. Many players probably opted to pass on Trevenant with Dark being the hyped deck heading into the National Championships. This opened the door for straight Night March to go largely unchecked. Ironically, Dark represented an insignificant portion of the meta relative to its hype, leaving many players wishing that they had played Trees instead!

Despite [card name=”Darkrai-EX” set=”BREAKpoint” no=”74″ c=”name”][/card] / [card name=”Giratina-EX” set=”Ancient Origins” no=”57″ c=”name”][/card] earning a Top 4 placement at Nationals, many players decided they wouldn’t play it again. According to my survey, the deck’s popularity dropped a point, falling from 7.5% to 6.5%. Surprisingly though, Metal got more popular after Nationals, with 8% wishing they had played it compared to the 5% that brought it to the tournament.

Looking into Water Box

[cardimg name=”Seismitoad-EX” set=”Furious Fists” no=”106″ align=”right” c=”none”][/cardimg]

Going into Nationals, I had strong feelings that Water Box was the ultimate play for the tournament. The deck seemed to be well poised, boasting positive matchups against Night March and [card name=”Trevenant BREAK” set=”BREAKpoint” no=”66″ c=”name”][/card] while holding even across the rest of the board. I thought that the rest of the country would see this, especially with Water Box’s strong Top 4 finish at the Origins Win-a-Trip Competition, and attempted to one up the meta by piloting [card name=”Vespiquen” set=”Ancient Origins” no=”10″ c=”name”][/card] / Night March myself.

After seeing the field at Nationals, I expected Water Box to have a field day and couldn’t figure out why more players didn’t play it. But then I realized that a significant portion of Night March decks were packing Vespiquen in their lists. Had Andrew Wamboldt and I really made that heavy of an impression on the metagame with our Night March / Vespiquen deck that topped Origins, or were other players coming to the same conclusion as us independently?

Because of my interest in Water Box, I produced a questionnaire for players who chose Water Box at Nationals. I was interested to see what decks Water Box players lost to, since I consider it to be the most well rounded deck in Standard Format. I was also interested to see how the deck performed against Night March and Night March / Vespiquen specifically, since those would have been the deck’s most high profile matchups at Nationals.

Water Box Versus Night March

I was lucky enough to have 45 Water Box players chime in for my Water Box survey! Wow! That’s a huge pool of data to pull from. This survey should give us a clear view as to what kept Water Box from being the best deck in format at Nationals while also providing us with some hard numbers on how the deck performed against Night March and Night March / [card name=”Vespiquen” set=”Ancient Origins” no=”10″ c=”name”][/card].

Of the 45 players that responded to my survey, 37 of them played against Night March at their National Championships and 20 had the misfortune of playing against Night March / Vespiquen. Amongst the 37 players that played against Night March, they reported a combined record of 42 wins, 23 losses, and six ties versus Night March. My personal testing shows that Water Box is slightly more favored versus Night March than this, but nonetheless, we do see a definitively positive matchup here with Water Box winning about 70% of the matches reported. I know that Russell LaParre, who finished 10th with Water Box, played an [card name=”Enhanced Hammer” set=”Dark Explorers” no=”94″ c=”name”][/card] as well as a [card name=”Team Flare Grunt” set=”Generations” no=”73″ c=”name”][/card] to sweeten his Night March matchup even further.

With a 70-30 matchup versus the most popular deck in format, Water Box seemed pretty well poised for a Nationals takeover! Unfortunately, Water Box suffers a disastrous Night March / Vespiquen matchup. After all, it was Nick Robinson’s Night March / Vespiquen deck that halted Paul Johnston’s excellent Top 4 run with Water Box. Lucky enough for Paul, he did not have to play against Night March / Vespiquen until his Top 4 match! Amongst the 20 Water Box players that played against Night March / Vespiquen, they reported a combined 4 wins, 20 losses, three ties match record against the deck, essentially converting to an 80 / 20 matchup in Vespiquen’s favor. This is to be expected, and there is not much that even a talented Water Box player can do to protect against back-to-back Bee Revenge attacks. If Vespiquen / Night March was Water Box’s only issue, I suspect the deck would have still been better represented in Top 64 at U.S. Nationals. But there were a number of other decks that Water Box players found troublesome. Across the 45 survey respondents, 106 match losses were reported. Let’s take a closer look.

What Did Water Box Lose to the Most?

Paul Johnston’s only other losses during his Top 4 run were to [card name=”M Manectric-EX” set=”Phantom Forces” no=”24″ c=”name”][/card] and a [card name=”Trevenant BREAK” set=”BREAKpoint” no=”66″ c=”name”][/card] deck. Paul told me that he would have defeated the Trevenant player, but suffered a match loss because of a gameplay error. We can chalk that one up to a fluke, but Paul’s not the only player who had issue with M Manectric-EX while playing Water Box. Amongst the 45 Water Box players that reported their matches, there were six reported losses to M Manectric-EX. This makes sense, since many M Manectric-EX decks teched [card name=”Trevenant-EX” set=”Primal Clash” no=”145″ c=”name”][/card] into their lists specifically to deal with Water. In many cases, M Manectric-EX is just too difficult for Water Box to take down, especially since Manectric can benefit from [card name=”Rough Seas” set=”Primal Clash” no=”137″ c=”name”][/card] as well. The [card name=”Aurorus-EX” set=”XY Black Star Promos” no=”XY102″ c=”name”][/card] that showed up in Chilean Water Box decks may have helped this matchup a little bit, trading better with the Mega Pokemon with its massive Crystal Breath attack, but no one in the U.S. seemed to play Aurorus-EX in their list.

In the grand scheme of things, six losses across 45 players is nothing compared to the substantial 20 losses reported from [card name=”Vespiquen” set=”Ancient Origins” no=”10″ c=”name”][/card] / Night March. In fact, there were five additional losses reported from Vespiquen / Tech decks and three more reported from Vespiquen / [card name=”Vileplume” set=”Ancient Origins” no=”3″ c=”name”][/card] decks in my survey. If we lump all of these together, we get 28 total losses to Vespiquen centered decks out of the 106 total reported losses. That means that Vespiquen was responsible for roughly a quarter of Water Boxes losses at Nationals while M Manectric-EX was only responsible for 5%.

Funny enough, the next largest threat to Water Box was Water Box itself, reporting eight total losses in the mirror out of 106 total losses, comprising about 7% of the decks defeats. It’s reasonable that Water Box would bring itself down since it was the second most popular choice at Nationals. I can only imagine what stats on Night March would look like! I’m positive that Night March was its own worst enemy at Nationals.

Next in line are [card name=”M Rayquaza-EX” set=”Roaring Skies” no=”76″ c=”name”][/card] and [card name=”Darkrai-EX” set=”BREAKpoint” no=”118″ c=”name”][/card] / [card name=”Giratina-EX” set=”Ancient Origins” no=”57″ c=”name”][/card], each claiming seven Water Box victories for themselves and accounting for about 6% of Water Box’s total losses a piece. According to my survey, Water Box also lost six matches to Metal, six to [card name=”M Sceptile-EX” set=”Ancient Origins” no=”85″ c=”name”][/card], four to [card name=”Greninja BREAK” set=”BREAKpoint” no=”41″ c=”name”][/card], two to [card name=”Yveltal” set=”Radiant Collection 2″ no=”RC16″ c=”name”][/card] / [card name=”Zoroark” set=”BREAKthrough” no=”91″ c=”name”][/card] / [card name=”Gallade” set=”BREAKthrough” no=”84″ c=”name”][/card], two to [card name=”Trevenant BREAK” set=”BREAKpoint” no=”66″ c=”name”][/card], and seven to a random assortment of decks from [card name=”Wailord-EX” set=”Primal Clash” no=”38″ c=”name”][/card] to [card name=”M Alakazam-EX” set=”Fates Collide” no=”118″ c=”name”][/card].

This all seems relatively expected considering what I said about Water Box from the beginning. The deck boasts great Night March and Trevenant matchups while going toe to toe with everything else. Despite having a great Night March matchup, Water Box still reported 21% of its losses to Night March. But that’s because Night March made up such a significant chunk of the field. We need to keep in mind that Water Box also reported 42 wins versus Night March. Vespiquen, though bad for Water Box, wasn’t the most represented deck at Nationals and I would have been comfortable going to bat versus anything else the meta had to throw at me.

Conclusion

I hope you all learned as much from reading this article as I did from writing it. This was a different experience for me, but I really enjoyed it. I know I’m not the best number cruncher out there, but hopefully I’ll get another opportunity to write something like this soon so I can improve!

My biggest regret from this Nationals experience was underestimating the prominence of Night March. I wish I could have seen this coming. Things ended up working out for Andrew Wamboldt and Nick Robinson, and even though I think that Vespiquen / Night March had all the tools it needed to win Nationals, which it clearly did, it was a risk that just didn’t pan out for me.

For those of you that are curious, this is how my tournament went:

Round 1: [card name=”Trevenant BREAK” set=”BREAKpoint” no=”66″ c=”name”][/card] WLL 0-1-0
Round 2: Brandon Smiley with Water Box WW 1-1-0
Round 3: Night March / [card name=”Vespiquen” set=”Ancient Origins” no=”10″ c=”name”][/card] WW 2-1-0
Round 4: Ryan Sablehaus with Night March LL 2-2-0
Round 5: [card name=”Greninja BREAK” set=”BREAKpoint” no=”41″ c=”name”][/card] WLT 2-2-1

My first round was brutal. I started off going first and swiftly win game one, but then my opponent locks me game two and wins just as easily. I go first game three and am looking for another swift win but I open an unplayable hand and lose the series in a matter of minutes.

As you can see, I had to square up against both Brandon Smiley and Ryan Sablehaus in my first four rounds. Talk about rough! And even though I think Brandon made a stellar call for the tournament, he got very unlucky in his first two rounds and started his Nationals run 0-2 because of some bad matchups.

[cardimg name=”Greninja” set=”BREAKpoint” no=”40″ align=”right” c=”none”][/cardimg]

I move on to defeat a less experienced Night March player before having to face Ryan Sablehaus round four. I was not excited to play Ryan as I knew that he would know exactly how to play the mirror and would not be giving me any openings to jump ahead with my slightly slower and less aggressive Vespiquen list. Sure enough, Ryan goes second both games, netting a turn one attack without leaving any vulnerabilities on board. Both games come down to [card name=”N” set=”Fates Collide” no=”105″ c=”name”][/card]’s that I just can’t bury, and I realize that my tournament is already on life support.

Things seemed to be going fine when I beat my final opponent playing [card name=”Greninja BREAK” set=”BREAKpoint” no=”41″ c=”name”][/card] in a long game one, but then he [card name=”N” set=”Noble Victories” no=”92″ c=”name”][/card]’d me to four dead cards early in game two. I was abysmally stuck and could not draw out of the situation whatsoever. He stuck me with an N to four! Unbelievable! I scoop game two after he establishes his board and I fall too far behind but there is not time to complete game three despite my speedy play. I realized that I would be out of contention for a day two spot and scooped to give him the series. There wasn’t a clear winner in game three, so I figured I would give him the go ahead and drop for myself.

After dropping I still had an amazing time at Nationals and was able to see lots of friends. I also succeeded in picking up additional cards for my Base Set – Jungle decks from the various vendors nearby. I’ve been having a lot of fun with that format lately. It has been an entertaining side project to pursue and has kept me from stressing too much about our Standard format.

Next time I’ll be joining you, I’ll be talking more about our upcoming set, Steam Siege, and what it means for World Championship competitors. So look out for me at the end of the month!

I hope that you all had a wonderful Nationals experience and that you are catching loads of Pokemon on Pokemon Go! Team Instinct all the way! But until next time, I’m out!

Later Trainers,

Andrew Mahone

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