Thought Waves Part 1: Gedemer’s Worlds Testing Journal

By: Caleb Gedemer · Posted Aug 10, 2018 at 10:22 PM · 0 Comments

I played my first game in preparation for Worlds on the ninth of July. It’s been an arduous road of testing — a barrage of thought experiments and goals set for myself to determine the best deck for the World Championship. I will not be giving a definitive answer to the common question of “what’s the play?”, but rather I will go over my time testing in somewhat of a refined journal form: this piece will serve as a synopsis of my testing with some key points highlighted to help guide you to your own decision. Ultimately, your deck choice is up to you.

First Wave — Finding the Best Decks

I started by playing a quick set of games with [card name=”Zoroark-GX” set=”Shining Legends” no=”53″ c=”name”][/card] with disruption cards against an [card name=”Yveltal BREAK” set=”Steam Siege” no=”66″ c=”name”][/card] brew I cooked up with a friend. The Yveltal deck utilized [card name=”Shrine of Punishment” set=”Celestial Storm” no=”143″ c=”name”][/card] to activate Baleful Night. Some thought this deck would struggle against healing, but even the disruption style of the Zoroark-GX deck could not handle it. With that, I set my sets primarily on that deck.

Yveltal BREAK with Shrine of Punishment is strong and can easily handle Zoroark-GX decks

Next, I began to try out [card name=”Rayquaza-GX” set=”Celestial Storm” no=”109″ c=”name”][/card], a fan favorite and a powerful menace. It proved to be incredibly strong and gave Zoroark-GX a wild ride, absolutely thrashing it. Buzzwole decks played a close game with Rayquaza-GX themselves, but could fall behind if the Rayquaza-GX deck hit hard enough right away.

I had an epiphany somewhere in here, realizing that [card name=”Malamar” set=”Forbidden Light” no=”51″ c=”name”][/card] could at long last find the rejuvenation it needs to beat Zoroark-GX decks. [card name=”Necrozma-GX” set=”Burning Shadows” no=”63″ c=”name”][/card], Tapu Lele, and Shrine of Punishment seemed to finally be the answer… but not quite. The games where it won were scarily close, and it got dominated in every other game. While Malamar may have found a slightly better matchup against Zoroark-GX, it wouldn’t be enough to propel it to continued success.

Malamar, while slightly improved, doesn’t beat Zoroark-GX consistently even with the additions of Tapu Lele and Shrine of Punishment

So in this moment, it looked like Rayquaza-GX and Yveltal BREAK were the two best decks I tested so far. Of the two, Yveltal BREAK was looking like the better of the two, boasting strong matchups against Buzzwole, Rayquaza-GX, and Zoroark-GX; I had yet to find a blemish on the deck’s matchup spread.

Now it was time to test Rayquaza-GX against its “new counter” of [card name=”Sylveon-EX” set=”Radiant Collection 2″ no=”RC21″ c=”name”][/card]. I’ve been a big hater of Sylveon-EX unfortunately, and I think rightfully so. It needs a three-card combination against Rayquaza-GX just to get a one-hit Knock Out. You’ll need Sylveon-EX, [card name=”Choice Band” set=”Guardians Rising” no=”121″ c=”name”][/card], and a [card name=”Double Colorless Energy” set=”Shining Legends” no=”69″ c=”name”][/card] every time. The biggest issue for me is first and foremost just finding that, and from there being able to still keep up with Rayquaza-GX once the Sylveon-EX gets Knocked Out, which it likely will immediately. I tested Sylveon-EX in a variety of Zoroark-GX decks only to confirm my suspicions.

Zoroark-GX needs far too much to consistently chain use of Sylveon-EX, especially in the early game; it’s nearly impossible when you’re trying to Brigette and set up Zoroark-GX to Trade

From here I moved a little bit away from Zoroark-GX. I love Zoroark-GX — it’s always clicked with me — but I shy away from playing it in formats where it’s faced against a variety of poor matchups, and Rayquaza-GX was turning out to be a major thorn in its side.

Now it was time to focus on improving the Rayquaza-GX deck, hoping it would pan out to be something that could beat even the toughest matchups, and right now that was looking like Yveltal BREAK. [card name=”Mr. Mime” set=”BREAKthrough” no=”97″ c=”name”][/card] was tossed around as an option, but Shrine of Punishment still allowed Yveltal BREAK to dominate the game.

Rayquaza-GX has a bad matchup to Yveltal BREAK, but not much else (at this point)

Zoroark-GX / [card name=”Garbodor” set=”Guardians Rising” no=”51″ c=”name”][/card] won the North American International Championship, and while it was unexpected, I expect it to be popular moving forward into the World Championship. Many players like to pick up successful decks in new formats and test those first to have a fallback in case their new ideas don’t pan out. I had to test the dominate Rayquaza-GX against this deck; I had been thinking that Rayquaza-GX quite literally could not beat decks with Trashalanche. I learned this the hard way, and couldn’t win a game.

Trashalanche beats Rayquaza-GX decks with a focus on speed

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Second Wave — The Tier-one Arena

From here I wanted to focus on the decks I thought were best.

The best decks are Rayquaza-GX, Yveltal BREAK, and Zoroark-GX / Garbodor

These aforementioned decks had all tested well, and they all had unique strengths and weaknesses. At this point I thought the meta might be similar to a rock-paper-scissors triangle again, so I attempted to “break” the bad matchups for each of these decks respectively.

I found quickly that Mr. Mime was not enough to beat Yveltal BREAK on the Rayquaza-GX side of things, and there was quite literally nothing to be done about Garbodor — more specifically Zoroark-GX / Garbodor. [card name=”Pokémon Catcher” set=”Sun and Moon” no=”126″ c=”name”][/card] and even [card name=”Xurkitree-GX” set=”Sun and Moon Black Star Promos” no=”SM68″ c=”name”][/card] were futile attempts to curb a brutal loss.

Rayquaza-GX is mainly a one-trick pony, still taking losses to Yveltal BREAK and Zoroark-GX / Garbodor regardless of what you do

Now it was on Yveltal BREAK to take a turn at “beating” hard matchups. In this case, Zoroark-GX / Garbodor was the big problem. You would think that with a lower Item count this might not be the case, but the interaction between the two decks makes all the difference. With Trashalanche as a threat, the Yveltal BREAK deck must operate slowly to ensure that it doesn’t get overwhelmed by one-hit Knock Outs. For this reason, it gives Zoroark-GX / Garbodor more time to dodge attacks and heal with [card name=”Acerola” set=”Burning Shadows” no=”112″ c=”name”][/card], [card name=”Max Potion” set=”Guardians Rising” no=”128″ c=”name”][/card], or [card name=”Parallel City” set=”BREAKthrough” no=”145″ c=”name”][/card] (depending on the list).

Yveltal BREAK is undoubtedly at a severe disadvantage against Zoroark-GX / Garbodor

All of this was making Zoroark-GX / Garbodor look more and more like the best deck. I took a small break from the norm to investigate some new decks like the revamped [card name=”Naganadel-GX” set=”Forbidden Light” no=”56″ c=”name”][/card] / [card name=”Stakataka-GX” set=”Celestial Storm” no=”102″ c=”name”][/card] Beast Box deck, but it was horrendously bad, so nothing new there.

As I moved back to testing Zoroark-GX / Garbodor more again, I noticed something: a large [card name=”Enhanced Hammer” set=”Guardians Rising” no=”124″ c=”name”][/card] count and [card name=”Oranguru” set=”Ultra Prism” no=”114″ c=”name”][/card] should swing your mirror matches. While Tord Reklev piloted a strictly denial-based Zoroark-GX deck, this blend that I created with some friends fancied me. Opponents had to choose between being aggressive and losing to Trashalanche, or being passive and losing to disruption and Oranguru in the end.

Zoroark-GX mirrors can be “broken” with an Oranguru and a small disruption package

Third Wave — Expanding the Pool Pt. 1

[cardimg name=”Buzzwole-GX” set=”Crimson Invasion” no=”57″ align=”right” c=”custom”]Buzz is back![/cardimg]

I hadn’t looked heavily into Buzzwole decks up to this point, but now it was time, and, conversely, also time to explore how well [card name=”Zoroark-GX” set=”Shining Legends” no=”53″ c=”name”][/card] / [card name=”Garbodor” set=”Guardians Rising” no=”51″ c=”name”][/card] does against the deck in its new form. Buzzwole had mixed results against [card name=”Rayquaza-GX” set=”Celestial Storm” no=”109″ c=”name”][/card] as I said before, but seemed to go 50-50 with Zoroark-GX / Garbodor. I began to explore other ways to go about it, including dropping the baby [card name=”Buzzwole” set=”Forbidden Light” no=”77″ c=”name”][/card] count and upping the [card name=”Buzzwole-GX” set=”Crimson Invasion” no=”57″ c=”name”][/card] regime back to three. This improved Zoroark-GX matchups slightly, and improved the deck a little against Rayquaza-GX since you could more easily trade Prizes with a [card name=”Beast Ring” set=”Forbidden Light” no=”102″ c=”name”][/card] focus instilled in the deck.

Buzzwole-GX / [card name=”Lycanroc-GX” set=”Guardians Rising” no=”74″ c=”name”][/card] is about even with Zoroark-GX / Garbodor, and the deck should play three Buzzwole-GX and four Beast Ring to improve the Rayquaza-GX matchup

I turned back to [card name=”Malamar” set=”Forbidden Light” no=”51″ c=”name”][/card] for a second, just to double check my earlier findings. [card name=”Shrine of Punishment” set=”Celestial Storm” no=”143″ c=”name”][/card] seemed like such a great fit in the deck that it was hard not to keep trying. It did not go well, again, and Zoroark-GX / Garbodor especially was a disastrous time to try to beat. I made a final conclusion…

Malamar cannot consistently beat Zoroark-GX decks, so it’s time to stop testing it

This was a random “wave”, as I also tried [card name=”Metagross-GX” set=”Guardians Rising” no=”85″ c=”name”][/card] with the new [card name=”Metagross” set=”Celestial Storm” no=”95″ c=”name”][/card] for a minute. It was ravaged by Buzzwole decks and didn’t do well against Zoroark-GX either, so I called it a day on that one too. While it could have potential in the future with [card name=”Steven’s Resolve” set=”Celestial Storm” no=”145″ c=”name”][/card], that day is not today.

Metagross is still really bad

After this testing cycle, my revised thoughts were as follows:

Buzzwole is a well-rounded, solid pick
Rayquaza-GX feels like a fallback deck if I get lost in thought and can’t come to a solid decision in time for Worlds
[card name=”Yveltal BREAK” set=”Steam Siege” no=”66″ c=”name”][/card] beats most popular decks; it “feels bad” conceptually, but is actually quite solid
Zoroark-GX / Garbodor is arguably the best deck

Fourth Wave — Refining Tier One

[cardimg name=”Oranguru” set=”Ultra Prism” no=”114″ align=”right” c=”none”][/cardimg]

Upon ruling out some up-and-coming decks like Malamar / Shrine of Punishment and Metagross, it was time to crank down on the decks I knew without hesitation to be solid and iron out lists.

I had an epiphany somewhere in here about the way Rayquaza-GX decks should be built. [card name=”Marshadow” set=”Shining Legends” no=”45″ c=”name”][/card] with Let Loose is insane… I’ll get more into this in part two of this article, but for now let me just tell you that I think I began to develop the best list for this archetype on the planet. Rayquaza-GX felt like it could beat everything aside from Yveltal BREAK and Zoroark-GX / Garbodor, and while I tried to fix those a little bit more I couldn’t come up with anything solidified.

Rayquaza-GX is convincingly strong, and even beats [card name=”Gardevoir-GX” set=”Burning Shadows” no=”93″ c=”name”][/card] rather consistently; it would be a great play if Garbodor isn’t expected to be popular

While I thought I had cracked the format with Zoroark-GX / Garbodor with a disruptive focus, I couldn’t have been more wrong. More people got wind of this idea, and began to popularize it in content-creation and on the online game. It seemed obvious that people would come up with this independent of me at some point: [card name=”Oranguru” set=”Ultra Prism” no=”114″ c=”name”][/card] is broken. With a new problem on my hands of countering very similar mirror matches, it became apparent that some serious testing of that nonsense would be necessary, even though it would be endless hours of misery…

Time to find out how the disruptive Zoroark-GX decks and random Zoroark-GX decks with Oranguru stack up against each other

Fifth Wave — Expanding the Pool Pt. 2

Still thinking that Buzzwole might be the most well-rounded deck, I played it against the gauntlet some more and found out the same stuff. It does what it wants to most of the time, but can suffer from bad draws and can occasionally lose to Zoroark-GX decks with Psychic techs as well as Rayquaza-GX decks that run well. It’s as close to a 50-50 deck as I was going to get out of these format.

Buzzwole-GX / Lycanroc-GX is the “50-50 matchups or better” deck of this format

Here I tried some more wonky ideas, like a [card name=”Garbodor” set=”Guardians Rising” no=”51″ c=”name”][/card] / [card name=”Tapu Koko” set=”Sun and Moon Black Star Promos” no=”SM30″ c=”name”][/card] build with [card name=”Sudowoodo” set=”Guardians Rising” no=”66″ c=”name”][/card] to Roadblock Zoroark-GX and hopefully buy more turns of Flying Flip. I was losing to it frequently with Zoroark-GX / Garbodor, until I realized I was doing some things very wrong: I wasn’t playing aggressive enough. With my change of play, I didn’t lose another game. This compelled me to cast this deck aside for good as well. The biggest advice I can give for someone faced with one of these decks is simply to not be phased by the damage that begins to accumulate. You still should be able to take enough Prizes before your opponent wins the game if you do things right.

Spread strategy decks are too slow for this format, and too easy to play around by decks with healing capabilities like Zoroark-GX

I finally got around to testing Zoroark-GX / [card name=”Magcargo” set=”Celestial Storm” no=”24″ c=”name”][/card] in a variety of ways. I had been meaning to do this for a while but never got around to it. I deemed the disruption version of the deck to be the best, simply sliding a line of one [card name=”Slugma” set=”Celestial Storm” no=”23″ c=”name”][/card] and one Magcargo into the deck Tord Reklev used at the North American International Championship. It seemed to beat everything, with the exception of Rayquaza-GX, which I adamantly tried to change. I tried a ton of things, including [card name=”Bodybuilding Dumbbells” set=”Burning Shadows” no=”113″ c=”name”][/card]; [card name=”Crushing Hammer” set=”Sun and Moon” no=”115″ c=”name”][/card]; [card name=”Choice Band” set=”Guardians Rising” no=”121″ c=”name”][/card], [card name=”Professor Kukui” set=”Sun and Moon” no=”128″ c=”name”][/card], and [card name=”Reverse Valley” set=”BREAKpoint” no=”110″ c=”name”][/card]; and [card name=”Sylveon-EX” set=”Radiant Collection 2″ no=”RC21″ c=”name”][/card] and Choice Band. None of these worked consistently, although I did neglect to try [card name=”Dedenne” set=”Forbidden Light” no=”88″ c=”name”][/card] and Tapu Koko, but I had my doubts about that package. I also noticed that my Zoroark-GX / Garbodor concoction went about 50-50 with this deck as well. I suspect [card name=”Team Rocket’s Handiwork” set=”Fates Collide” no=”112″ c=”name”][/card] will become a staple in this deck to combat opposing Oranguru.

Rayquaza-GX is a bad matchup for Zoroark-GX / Magcargo

Sixth Wave — One Last Look for Something New

Here I had a random idea of the new [card name=”Regirock” set=”Celestial Storm” no=”80″ c=”name”][/card] / [card name=”Lycanroc-GX” set=”Guardians Rising” no=”74″ c=”name”][/card] deck without [card name=”Buzzwole-GX” set=”Crimson Invasion” no=”57″ c=”name”][/card], using [card name=”Fighting Fury Belt” set=”BREAKpoint” no=”99″ c=”name”][/card]. I tried it for a bit and it was underwhelming, proving to just be a worse [card name=”Buzzwole” set=”Forbidden Light” no=”77″ c=”name”][/card], mainly because it didn’t have the speed to keep up with [card name=”Rayquaza-GX” set=”Celestial Storm” no=”109″ c=”name”][/card] via [card name=”Beast Ring” set=”Forbidden Light” no=”102″ c=”name”][/card].

[cardimg name=”Gardevoir-GX” set=”Burning Shadows” no=”93″ align=”right” c=”custom”]Back in the binder…[/cardimg]

Buzzwole is the best Fighting variant out there in this format

Gardevoir-GX deserved another brief shot, and brief it was; it lost to Buzzwole and Rayquaza-GX consistently, forcing me to turn the other cheek to the Fairy princess.

Gardevoir-GX is bad, and not a suitable counter to Rayquaza-GX, or a strong play in this meta

Against my own inhibition, I tried Rayquaza-GX against [card name=”Zoroark-GX” set=”Shining Legends” no=”53″ c=”name”][/card] / [card name=”Garbodor” set=”Guardians Rising” no=”51″ c=”name”][/card] even more. I thought perhaps an early [card name=”Latias Prism Star” set=”Celestial Storm” no=”107″ c=”name”][/card] strategy would work well. It didn’t. Here, though, I discovered the potential of Oranguru with Resource Management in the Rayquaza-GX deck, serving as a pseudo “second Latias Prism Star” and giving you a decent out to Trashalanche by putting Item cards back in your deck with the first attack. I also discovered that [card name=”Mew” set=”Fates Collide” no=”29″ c=”name”][/card] with Memories of Dawn was crazy good in this deck by copying Latias Prism Star to attack with Dreamy Mist in another way.

Zoroark-GX / Garbodor might not be an instant loss anymore for Rayquaza-GX with Oranguru, but it’s still difficult

I played more Zoroark-GX / Magcargo here as well, finding much of the same: a loss to Rayquaza-GX, and great matchups elsewhere. Zoroark-GX / Garbodor with disruption proved to be extremely potent as well.

Zoroark-GX will still be successful at Worlds, almost definitively with disruption

Seventh Wave — Putting it All Together

Here’s where I’m going to begin to wind down my discussion. Up to this point I had played over two-hundred games in this format, and had an extremely strong grasp on its tendencies. Let me go over a few last-minute additions…

I tried [card name=”Yveltal BREAK” set=”Steam Siege” no=”66″ c=”name”][/card] more, this time with a different list using Tapu Koko and [card name=”Double Colorless Energy” set=”Shining Legends” no=”69″ c=”name”][/card]. While it did spit out a slightly better matchup against Zoroark-GX / Garbodor, it felt weaker than my aggro version with [card name=”Golbat” set=”Generations” no=”31″ c=”name”][/card], and ultimately fell on the wayside as something I wasn’t interested in playing.

I made another Rayquaza-GX breakthrough, this time something even more powerful than before: the addition of [card name=”Random Receiver” set=”Fates Collide” no=”109″ c=”name”][/card] to the deck. This absolutely breaks the deck for me, creating an endgame scenario where you flood the deck with [card name=”Guzma” set=”Burning Shadows” no=”115″ c=”name”][/card] via [card name=”Pal Pad” set=”Ultra Prism” no=”132″ c=”name”][/card] and have Random Receiver as another way to find them, creating many different ways to win the game.

Zoroark-GX / Garbodor with [card name=”Oranguru” set=”Ultra Prism” no=”114″ c=”name”][/card] was pushed through the gauntlet of Zoroark-GX decks playing Oranguru themselves and came out slightly favored based on what I had found. The Zoroark-GX / Magcargo deck was also in there, as the matchup between Zoroark-GX / Magcargo and my Zoroark-GX / Garbodor was very close.

Lastly, Buzzwole still proved to be strong, holding its own against most decks and only truly suffering from poor draws and overly lucky opponents, again painting a picture as a “50-50 or better matchups” kind of deck.

Buzzwole-GX / Lycanroc-GX; Rayquaza-GX; Zoroark-GX / Magcargo (Control); Zoroark-GX / Garbodor (Control); and Yveltal BREAK / Golbat are the best decks

Now What?

I would go to Worlds today feeling very confident. I’ve played a lot of games and feel I have a mastery of this format’s intricacies. I haven’t decided on a deck, but I have my eyes set on one of the aforementioned five decks. In “Thought Waves” Part 2, I’ll be sharing my updated lists of most of those five decks, and going a little more in detail about the cards, strengths, and weaknesses of each.

See you soon, take care in the meantime.

~Caleb

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