How to Build a Hive: A New Deck for Roanoke

By: Zakary Krekeler · Posted Nov 22, 2018 at 8:20 PM · 0 Comments

Hello everyone! We’ve entered into quarter two of our 2019 Pokemon season, and have finally reached the end of our long information-lacking July. The holiday season is also about to begin! This Thanksgiving weekend has almost certainly brought to mind feasts, football, and, for those of us traveling to Roanoke, Pokemon! Lost Thunder is also finally legal for tournament play, and while the LAIC has given us our first taste of the new format, most of us still have yet to play it ourselves. Despite its newness, weeks of theorycrafting and testing have given us a solid idea of where the format is going, and what we can expect going forward. Even so, there are still plenty of yet unexplored and underrated options available to us – the format is still rather new, after all!

For this article, I’ll be going over one of those rogue concepts which I would consider one of my top choices going into Roanoke. More importantly though, I’ll be giving a thorough look into the process of creating this deck, with an eye to how you can use that process to evaluate new and possibly overlooked cards.

Initial Deck Creation

Step One: Find the Card to Build Around

Before we can even begin to build a deck, we first want to start with what card we want to try and build the deck around. This is the most open-ended part, where we decide “I want to try and build a _____ deck!” As such, there’s not much strategy, just a decision to make. The criteria to decide which card to spend your time building around can be entirely up to you as well. Does the card look particularly competitive? Does it have unique attacks or abilities? Does it look fun? This deck-building process works in pretty much the same way for any card, regardless of that card’s innate usefulness, so don’t feel limited to only building around “good” Pokemon — not only is that a bit more boring, it can also lead players to overlook strong deck concepts.

Once you’ve found the card you want to try to build around, the first thing to do is to brainstorm the various ways in which the card can be played. What kind of deck will the card fit into — an aggressive deck, a slower, tankier deck, a disruption deck, or maybe something else? From there, you can start to look at what other Pokemon and Trainer cards can combo well with it. You can generally (but not always) get a feel for what kind of deck you want to build by looking at the base stats for the Pokemon you want to build around: its attack costs and damage output, its HP, its Ability (if any), its Stage, and whether or not it is a GX. HP is one of the biggest factors — if your Pokemon in question has lower HP, then it will be necessary for your deck to play faster to ameliorate your opponent’s ease of getting KOs. Whether it is a Basic, Stage 1, or Stage 2 Pokemon will also affect how quickly you can get it into play, while attack costs and damage output will affect how quickly and efficiently you can attack with the card (that is, if you want to — the card might be suited to a support role, rather than an attacking role).

Let’s look at how my example fits into this. In this case, the card that I’ve chosen to build around is Vespiquen, a new card from Lost Thunder. I’ve chosen Vespiquen not only because it allows me to write about yet another Pokemon with a March attack (in this case, Combee), but for its potential competitive value. Vespiquen is a quick, non-GX with low Energy costs and high damage output for those costs. A Stage 1 that can do 120 damage for only one Energy — that’s quick! As such, my initial design for Vespiquen will be that of a fast, aggressive deck.

Step Two: Potential Partners

At this point, we have the basics of our deck — we know one Pokemon that we want to try and build around, and we have a general idea of how we want the deck to play. Now, we want to fill in the rest of the deck, starting with what other Pokemon we want to put in. If the Pokemon you’re trying to build around functions best as an attacker, then you want to consider Pokemon that can assist it. On the flipside, if the Pokemon you’re trying to build around is more of a support Pokemon itself, then you want to consider other Pokemon which can function as the deck’s attacker. Look for cards that synergize well with the unique aspects of the card that you’ve chosen.

Choosing Vespiquen as our card of choice makes this step quite a bit easier, since it naturally restricts that list to only other Grass-type Pokemon. After all, including any other type of Pokemon makes Vespiquen useless as an attacker! A quick go-over of the Grass-types in Standard brings us to this list of potential Pokemon to include in a Vespiquen deck:

[card name=”Decidueye-GX” set=”Sun and Moon” no=”12″ c=”name”][/card]
[card name=”Lurantis” set=”Sun and Moon Black Star Promos” no=”SM25″ c=”name”][/card]
[card name=”Lurantis-GX” set=”Sun and Moon” no=”15″ c=”name”][/card]
[card name=”Alolan Exeggutor” set=”Forbidden Light” no=”2″ c=”name”][/card]
[card name=”Golisopod-GX” set=”Burning Shadows” no=”129″ c=”name”][/card]
[card name=”Leafeon-GX” set=”Ultra Prism” no=”13″ c=”name”][/card]
[card name=”Cherrim” set=”Ultra Prism” no=”11″ c=”name”][/card]
[card name=”Tsareena” set=”Sun and Moon” no=”20″ c=”name”][/card]
[card name=”Shiinotic” set=”Sun and Moon Black Star Promos” no=”SM10″ c=”name”][/card]
[card name=”Shiftry-GX” set=”Celestial Storm” no=”152″ c=”name”][/card]
[card name=”Victreebel” set=”Celestial Storm” no=”3″ c=”name”][/card]
Ninjask and Shedinja (Lost Thunder)
Dustox (Lost Thunder)
Shaymin (Lost Thunder)
Grovyle (Lost Thunder) and [card name=”Sceptile” set=”Celestial Storm” no=”10″ c=”name”][/card]

While all of these Pokemon have theoretical potential in a Grass deck, most aren’t going to be all that helpful in our goal of a fast, powerful deck focusing on Vespiquen as a main attacker. We can quickly whittle this list down, eliminating all of the cards that would be other attackers — the Lurantis-GX, Alolan Exeggutor, Golisopod-GX, and Shiftry-GX — as well as those that don’t seem to fit in with the relatively low-HP Vespiquen, such as Cherrim, Tsareena, and Shaymin. That remaining options can be placed into three groups: Pokemon that increase our damage output (Decidueye-GX, Lurantis, and Dustox), Pokemon that help us search out more Pokemon (Grovyle and Shiinotic), and other supporting Pokemon (Victreebel, Ninjask and Shedinja).

Since Vespiquen requires a constantly full Bench in order to have any damage output, including one of the “search” Pokemon would work well with our intended deck goals. Both Grovyle and Shiinotic have effectively the same Ability, but playing Grovyle also opens up the option to include Sceptile and / or Sceptile-GX, a possibility we don’t get with Shiinotic. Since Sceptile in particular could be a strong tech against decks such as Blacephalon-GX or [card name=”Buzzwole-GX” set=”Crimson Invasion” no=”104″ c=”name”][/card], Grovyle is the clearly stronger option.

If we decide to include Grovyle, that still gives us six different ways to build Vespiquen, assuming we have room for one more Pokemon line. For increased damage output, Lurantis appears to be the best of the three options, since it’s a Stage 1, and thus can increase our Vespiquen’s damage as early as turn two. While Decidueye-GX might have a bit more flexibility, it is also a slower option, as well as one that uses up more deck space, a problem it shares with Dustox. The other two options are both intriguing, but appear to have less synergy with Vespiquen than a Pokemon that can modify damage.

[premium]

Step Three: Finding a Starting Point — Look for Existing Examples!

At this point, there’s a good chance that this sort of deck seems familiar to you. [card name=”Lurantis” set=”Sun and Moon Black Star Promos” no=”SM25″ c=”name”][/card] and Grovyle have already proven to be a robust combo, both in Sceptile-GX decks, as well as in [card name=”Alolan Exeggutor” set=”Forbidden Light” no=”2″ c=”name”][/card] decks. Knowing that, we can take a look at some of the existing successful decks that utilize those Pokemon, in order to get a feel for the various counts included in those decks. This can go a long way in helping us to figure out the most effective way to build our own deck. For example, when building Vespiquen, this list from the Tokyo Champion’s League caught my eye:

[decklist name=”Alolan Exeggutor” amt=”46″ caption=”” cname=”Lurantis” set=”Sun and Moon Black Star Promos” no=”SM25″][pokemon amt=”19″]4x [card name=”Exeggcute” set=”Forbidden Light” no=”1″ c=”deck2″ amt=”4″][/card]4x [card name=”Alolan Exeggutor” set=”Forbidden Light” no=”2″ c=”deck2″ amt=”4″][/card]1x Sceptile-GX (Lost Thunder)1x [card name=”Sceptile” set=”Celestial Storm” no=”10″ c=”deck2″ amt=”1″][/card]2x Grovyle (Lost Thunder)2x Treecko (Lost Thunder)1x [card name=”Lurantis” set=”Sun and Moon Black Star Promos” no=”SM25″ c=”deck2″ amt=”1″][/card]1x [card name=”Fomantis” set=”Sun and Moon” no=”14″ c=”deck2″ amt=”1″][/card]2x Shuckle (Lost Thunder)1x Ditto Prism Star (Lost Thunder)[/pokemon][trainers amt=”29″]4x [card name=”Cynthia” set=”Ultra Prism” no=”119″ c=”deck2″ amt=”4″][/card]4x [card name=”Lillie” set=”Ultra Prism” no=”151″ c=”deck2″ amt=”4″][/card]2x Sightseer (Lost Thunder)2x [card name=”Guzma” set=”Burning Shadows” no=”115″ c=”deck2″ amt=”2″][/card]1x [card name=”Tate & Liza” set=”Celestial Storm” no=”148″ c=”deck2″ divide=”yes” amt=”1″][/card]4x Net Ball (Lost Thunder)3x [card name=”Ultra Ball” set=”Dark Explorers” no=”102″ c=”deck2″ amt=”3″][/card]3x [card name=”Choice Band” set=”Guardians Rising” no=”121″ c=”deck2″ amt=”3″][/card]2x [card name=”Rescue Stretcher” set=”Guardians Rising” no=”130″ c=”deck2″ divide=”yes” amt=”2″][/card]4x [card name=”Shrine of Punishment” set=”Celestial Storm” no=”143″ c=”deck2″ amt=”4″][/card][/trainers][energy amt=”12″]7x [card name=”Grass Energy” set=”EX Ruby and Sapphire” no=”104″ c=”deck2″ amt=”7″][/card]1x [card name=”Metal Energy” set=”Diamond and Pearl” no=”130″ c=”deck2″ amt=”1″][/card]1x [card name=”Fighting Energy” set=”EX Ruby and Sapphire” no=”105″ c=”deck2″ amt=”1″][/card]1x [card name=”Water Energy” set=”EX Ruby and Sapphire” no=”106″ c=”deck2″ amt=”1″][/card]1x [card name=”Fire Energy” set=”EX Ruby and Sapphire” no=”108″ c=”deck2″ amt=”1″][/card]1x [card name=”Fairy Energy” set=”XY” no=”140″ c=”deck2″ amt=”1″][/card][/energy][/decklist]

This decklist may not contain Vespiquen, but it give us an excellent example of an already successful deck which has utilized the Grovyle search engine. It may be by coincidence, but this deck also happens to already meet one of the important criteria for Vespiquen — it doesn’t rely on any non-Grass Pokemon! One of the biggest obstacles to building a list for Vespiquen comes from the all-Grass Bench requirement, which effectively eliminates the possibility of including any Pokemon-based draw in the deck. While many decks rely on either [card name=”Tapu Lele-GX” set=”Guardians Rising” no=”60″ c=”name”][/card], [card name=”Oranguru” set=”Sun and Moon Black Star Promos” no=”SM13″ c=”name”][/card], Zebstrika, or [card name=”Magcargo” set=”Celestial Storm” no=”24″ c=”name”][/card] for added consistency, Vespiquen can’t play any of those cards. With this list, we already have an example of a Stage 1 Grass-type deck that can perform consistently without any of those cards. Rather than start from scratch, we can take an existing decklist like this one, cut out the unnecessary cards, and add in our own Pokemon. In this case, that means taking out all of the pieces dedicated to the Alolan Exeggutor strategy — after all, we won’t have any need for them, since we won’t be playing Alolan Exeggutor! We replace the Alolan Exeggutor with Vespiquen, and cut the Ditto Prism Star and Shuckle, as well as all of the non-Grass Energy cards. This gives us a starting skeleton list, which now looks like this:

[decklist name=”Vespiquen” amt=”33″ caption=”” cname=”Lurantis” set=”Sun and Moon Black Star Promos” no=”SM25″][pokemon amt=”16″]4x Vespiquen (Lost Thunder)4x Combee (Lost Thunder)1x Sceptile-GX (Lost Thunder)1x [card name=”Sceptile” set=”Celestial Storm” no=”10″ c=”deck2″ amt=”1″][/card]2x Grovyle (Lost Thunder)2x Treecko (Lost Thunder)1x [card name=”Fomantis” set=”Sun and Moon” no=”14″ c=”deck2″ amt=”1″][/card]1x [card name=”Lurantis” set=”Sun and Moon Black Star Promos” no=”SM25″ c=”deck2″ amt=”1″][/card][/pokemon][trainers amt=”29″]4x [card name=”Cynthia” set=”Ultra Prism” no=”119″ c=”deck2″ amt=”4″][/card]4x [card name=”Lillie” set=”Ultra Prism” no=”151″ c=”deck2″ amt=”4″][/card]2x Sightseer (Lost Thunder)2x [card name=”Guzma” set=”Burning Shadows” no=”115″ c=”deck2″ amt=”2″][/card]1x [card name=”Tate & Liza” set=”Celestial Storm” no=”148″ c=”deck2″ divide=”yes” amt=”1″][/card]4x Net Ball (Lost Thunder)3x [card name=”Ultra Ball” set=”Dark Explorers” no=”102″ c=”deck2″ amt=”3″][/card]3x [card name=”Choice Band” set=”Guardians Rising” no=”121″ c=”deck2″ amt=”3″][/card]2x [card name=”Rescue Stretcher” set=”Guardians Rising” no=”130″ c=”deck2″ divide=”yes” amt=”2″][/card]4x [card name=”Shrine of Punishment” set=”Celestial Storm” no=”143″ c=”deck2″ amt=”4″][/card][/trainers][energy amt=”7″]7x [card name=”Grass Energy” set=”XY” no=”132″ c=”deck2″ amt=”7″][/card][/energy][/decklist]

We now have eight slots to fill in. Since Vespiquen is much more reliant on having a full Bench than Exeggutor, the first thing I did was to increase the Grovyle and [card name=”Lurantis” set=”Sun and Moon Black Star Promos” no=”SM25″ c=”name”][/card] lines, to 3-3 and 3-2 respectively. I also increased the count of [card name=”Ultra Ball” set=”Sun and Moon” no=”161″ c=”name”][/card] up to four, so as to further aid in getting our board set up. For the last two slots, I added in a third [card name=”Guzma” set=”Burning Shadows” no=”115″ c=”name”][/card] and an eighth Grass Energy, to shore up those counts a bit. Now, we have our initial list!

[decklist name=”Vespi2″ amt=”40″ caption=”” cname=”Lurantis” set=”Sun and Moon Black Star Promos” no=”SM25″][pokemon amt=”21″]4x Vespiquen (Lost Thunder)4x Combee (Lost Thunder)1x Sceptile-GX (Lost Thunder)1x [card name=”Sceptile” set=”Celestial Storm” no=”10″ c=”deck2″ amt=”1″][/card]3x Grovyle (Lost Thunder)3x Treecko (Lost Thunder)3x [card name=”Fomantis” set=”Sun and Moon” no=”14″ c=”deck2″ amt=”3″][/card]2x [card name=”Lurantis” set=”Sun and Moon Black Star Promos” no=”SM25″ c=”deck2″ amt=”2″][/card][/pokemon][trainers amt=”31″]4x [card name=”Cynthia” set=”Ultra Prism” no=”119″ c=”deck2″ amt=”4″][/card]4x [card name=”Lillie” set=”Sun and Moon” no=”147″ c=”deck2″ amt=”4″][/card]3x [card name=”Guzma” set=”Burning Shadows” no=”115″ c=”deck2″ amt=”3″][/card]2x Sightseer (Lost Thunder)1x [card name=”Tate & Liza” set=”Celestial Storm” no=”148″ c=”deck2″ divide=”yes” amt=”1″][/card]4x [card name=”Ultra Ball” set=”Dark Explorers” no=”102″ c=”deck2″ amt=”4″][/card]4x Net Ball (Lost Thunder)4x [card name=”Choice Band” set=”Guardians Rising” no=”121″ c=”deck2″ amt=”4″][/card]2x [card name=”Rescue Stretcher” set=”Guardians Rising” no=”130″ c=”deck2″ divide=”yes” amt=”2″][/card]4x [card name=”Shrine of Punishment” set=”Celestial Storm” no=”143″ c=”deck2″ amt=”4″][/card][/trainers][energy amt=”8″]8x [card name=”Grass Energy” set=”XY” no=”132″ c=”deck2″ amt=”8″][/card][/energy][/decklist]

Even if you can’t find a decklist that closely resembles your idea, looking at existing decklists can still be a great way to figure out a starting point for your Trainer counts. Look for a deck with similar attributes as your idea. For example, a [card name=”Shrine of Punishment” set=”Celestial Storm” no=”143″ c=”name”][/card] deck would be a good example for a new Shrine of Punishment concept, a Stage 2 heavy deck would be a good example for a new Stage 2 concept, while a deck that focuses on certain kinds of Abilities (such as Energy acceleration) would be a good analogue for a deck that focuses on similar Abilities. Even if it isn’t exact, you can still always change it during the next few steps of the deck building process.

Revise, Revise, Revise

Step Four: Initial Testing

[cardimg name=”Buzzwole-GX” set=”Crimson Invasion” no=”57″ align=”right” c=”none”][/cardimg]

Now that we have the starting list, we want to test it out against a variety of decks, to try and figure out what things we may have overlooked. For the initial games with a new deck, I recommend playing a few games against multiple different “straightforward” decks from the projected meta. For the Lost Thunder format, that means picking out a few from Blacephalon-GX, a [card name=”Zoroark-GX” set=”Sun and Moon Black Star Promos” no=”SM84″ c=”name”][/card] variant, Buzzwole-GX, Lost March, [card name=”Malamar” set=”Sun and Moon Black Star Promos” no=”SM117″ c=”name”][/card], Granbull, Magcargo-GX, Sceptile-GX — basically, the meta decks you would expect to see at a Regional Championship, not random or anti-meta decks. You’ll want to see how it goes against both non-GX and GX decks, but at this point, you don’t need to go too in depth with regard to how the deck does against particular matchups. If you or your local group doesn’t have all of those decks built, you can generally get a decent feel from PTCGO testing, since this part is more about seeing how your deck runs, as opposed to figuring out specific matchups or how it fits into the meta. This initial testing is especially important when you’ve started from a different decklist, as it can be easy to overlook a tech card that might now be useless in the deck, or forget something important that might be critical to the success of the new deck.

For example, it only took a few games with the above list to identify a big problem with our initial Vespiquen list! That big issue that was the lack of recovery cards. Since Vespiquen relies on continually having a full bench to attack, and is a bit easier to Knock Out than [card name=”Alolan Exeggutor” set=”Forbidden Light” no=”2″ c=”name”][/card], there was a common problem in the early games where the deck would get set up, get ahead on Prizes, and then struggle in the later stages of the game when the Vespiquen began to pile up in the discard. This also made prized cards an issue, as not having access to a prized [card name=”Rescue Stretcher” set=”Burning Shadows” no=”165″ c=”name”][/card] and Vespiquen would exacerbate the late-game problems. This is the sort of thing that the initial Alolan Exeggutor list wouldn’t have faced, since it has much different attacking requirements, but a few quick test games revealed as a major problem for our Vespiquen list. To solve this, I simply increased the [card name=”Rescue Stretcher” set=”Burning Shadows” no=”165″ c=”name”][/card] count up to a full four.

Once you revise the deck, keep up that initial testing, until you’ve got the deck’s various issues sorted out and are winning games at a decent pace. Test out various tweaks, such as adjusting Energy counts, Supporter counts, and Pokemon counts. For the Vespiquen deck, I’ve tested Energy counts ranging from six to eight, cutting and adding more Supporters, cutting down on the Shrine of Punishment, and adjusting the various Pokemon lines. I’ll skip over the monotony of all of that testing — the end result looks something like this:

[decklist name=”Total Cards: 1/60 Deck Caption:Vespiquen final” amt=”39″ caption=”” cname=”Lurantis” set=”Sun and Moon Black Star Promos” no=”SM25″][pokemon amt=”21″]4x Vespiquen (Lost Thunder)4x Combee (Lost Thunder)1x Sceptile-GX (Lost Thunder)1x [card name=”Sceptile” set=”Celestial Storm” no=”10″ c=”deck2″ amt=”1″][/card]3x Grovyle (Lost Thunder)3x Treecko (Lost Thunder)3x [card name=”Fomantis” set=”Sun and Moon” no=”14″ c=”deck2″ amt=”3″][/card]2x [card name=”Lurantis” set=”Sun and Moon Black Star Promos” no=”SM25″ c=”deck2″ amt=”2″][/card][/pokemon][trainers amt=”31″]4x [card name=”Cynthia” set=”Ultra Prism” no=”119″ c=”deck2″ amt=”4″][/card]4x [card name=”Lillie” set=”Ultra Prism” no=”151″ c=”deck2″ amt=”4″][/card]3x [card name=”Guzma” set=”Burning Shadows” no=”115″ c=”deck2″ amt=”3″][/card]2x Sightseer (Lost Thunder)4x [card name=”Ultra Ball” set=”Dark Explorers” no=”102″ c=”deck2″ amt=”4″][/card]4x Net Ball (Lost Thunder)4x [card name=”Rescue Stretcher” set=”Guardians Rising” no=”130″ c=”deck2″ amt=”4″][/card]3x [card name=”Choice Band” set=”Guardians Rising” no=”121″ c=”deck2″ divide=”yes” amt=”3″][/card]3x [card name=”Shrine of Punishment” set=”Celestial Storm” no=”143″ c=”deck2″ amt=”3″][/card][/trainers][energy amt=”8″]8x [card name=”Grass Energy” set=”XY” no=”132″ c=”deck2″ amt=”8″][/card][/energy][/decklist]

Step Five: Matchup and Strategy Testing

Now that we have our revised list, the next step is to see how well the deck does against the established or predicted meta decks. This is the “in-depth” part of testing a deck, where you want to try and figure out not only the optimal strategies against the various meta decks, but also your approximate winning percentage against those decks. When it comes time to make the decision on whether or not to play your deck for a tournament, knowing that it can actually win against the meta is obviously important.

Deck Strategy

[cardimg name=”Lurantis” set=”Sun and Moon Black Star Promos” no=”SM25″ align=”right” c=”none”][/cardimg]

Since the number of attacking options in this deck are fairly limited, the strategy for Vespiquen doesn’t change all that much by what you’re matched up against. Against any deck, you want to get to a full Bench and attack quickly with Commanding Queen, while adding damage, if needed, with [card name=”Lurantis” set=”Sun and Moon Black Star Promos” no=”SM25″ c=”name”][/card] and [card name=”Shrine of Punishment” set=”Celestial Storm” no=”143″ c=”name”][/card]. It’s a fairly simple, yet effective gameplan.

The early-game decision-making in this deck revolves around figuring out the best way to set up to that full Bench. You have three options for your Bench Pokemon in Combee, Treecko, and Fomantis. Against a generic opponent, you typically want to get down two of each if possible. By getting down two of each, you can be prepared for your opponent to Knock Out any one of them, since you’ll be able to evolve the other one. In matchups where Lurantis isn’t as useful, I generally like replacing that initial spot with another Treecko, so that you can aim to get out two Grovyle. You always want (at least) two Combee or Vespiquen in play — one to attack with, the other to send up and attack with once that Vespiquen gets Knocked Out. With that said, you rarely need three of them in play, since they don’t do anything to advance your board state, whereas Grovyle and Lurantis do. The exception to this is if you start with it, in which case you can quickly get to a full bench via Bee March, or if you need to play one down to fill your Bench, in which case you obviously should. If you start with Treecko or Fomantis instead, then you can typically get by with only having down two Combee at a time.

If you find yourself playing against a deck reliant on Ultra Beasts (such as [card name=”Buzzwole-GX” set=”Sun and Moon Black Star Promos” no=”SM69″ c=”name”][/card] or Blacephalon-GX), then you generally want to get your Sceptile in play as fast as possible. Against other matchups, then it is best to keep Grovyle out, since you can constantly use Sunshine Grace to search out the Vespiquen pieces that you need, as well as to thin your deck on turns when you aren’t looking for anything in particular. Likewise, against GX-based decks, you want to be cautious about discarding your Shrine of Punishment, whereas you can discard them with abandon against most non-GX decks (unless of course you need a counter-stadium).

Final Step: Evaluation

At this point, we’ve done a thorough job of putting together this deck. We’ve gone from initial concept, to initial decklist, and revised it through multiple iterations to create a deck that is efficient and competitive. We’ve also tested it against the format, and have a general idea of how it stacks up when playing against the decks that we might expect to see at Roanoke. Now, we have to ask ourselves two important questions. First, is the deck we’ve created better than the initial \Alolan Exe\ list we used as our basis? Second, if it is, is it “the play”? To answer the first question, we want to evaluate and compare the two decks, both in a vacuum, as well as in terms of advantages and disadvantages they might have against the other decks in the Lost Thunder meta.

First, let’s compare Alolan Exeggutor and Vespiquen themselves. Alolan Exeggutor has a decisive advantage in terms of tankiness, sporting 40 more HP than Vespiquen, enough to survive attacks from quite a few common attackers, such as [card name=”Deoxys” set=”Celestial Storm” no=”67″ c=”name”][/card], Giratina, [card name=”Zoroark-GX” set=”Sun and Moon Black Star Promos” no=”SM84″ c=”name”][/card], and [card name=”Buzzwole” set=”Forbidden Light” no=”77″ c=”name”][/card]. Where Vespiquen has the advantage is in its attacking speed; once it gets set up, it doesn’t need any additional resources to attack, whereas Alolan Exeggutor requires multiple discarded Energy to reach the same damage output. In practice, this means that Vespiquen has an advantage over Alolan Exeggutor in the early game, but Alolan Exeggutor has an advantage in the later stages of the game. Since it can devote more resources to the setup, Vespiquen naturally sets up a bit faster than Alolan Exeggutor, and can do so more consistently; in testing, this generally meant that Vespiquen had a one-turn advantage over Alolan Exeggutor. In matchups where speed was key (such as against other non-GX decks), this one-turn advantage made Vespiquen the stronger play. In other matchups, where Exeggutor was able to gain an advantage with its extra HP, Alolan Exeggutor was the stronger play.

Opposing Techs

Both Alolan Exeggutor and Vespiquen have one other unfortunate weakness: there are single-card tech Pokemon that can easily give an opponent a decisive advantage against these decks, regardless of what they’re playing. These two techs are different for each deck; Alolan Exeggutor will struggle against an opposing Girafarig, whereas Vespiquen will have tremendous issues against an opposing [card name=”Sudowoodo” set=”Guardians Rising” no=”66″ c=”name”][/card]. While both decks do have other options in case those techs show up, the mere inclusion of them will be enough to tilt even highly favorable matchups into difficult ones. To decide which deck has the advantage in this case, we have to look at the prevalence of each of those tech cards in the meta. If one is seeing consistent play, while the other is not, then that will give a tremendous meta advantage to the deck that doesn’t have to deal with those pesky tech cards.

[cardimg name=”Sudowoodo” set=”Guardians Rising” no=”66″ align=”right” c=”none”][/cardimg]

The good news for both Alolan Exeggutor and Vespiquen is that neither Girafarig nor Sudowoodo appear to be common inclusions in the meta. In the shared decklists from the Tokyo Champions League tournament, not one of the Top 32 decks contained either tech card. It remains to be seen if they saw any play at the LAIC, as we don’t currently have decklists from that event (at least, not at the time of my writing this article); I would recommend paying close attention to the lists that come out of Brazil, to see if the prevalence of these techs increases.

Against the Meta

So, with all of this, how does Vespiquen actually do against the decks we might expect to see in Virginia? Blacephalon-GX, Buzzwole-GX / Alolan Ninetales-GX, Zoroark-GX variants, and Granbull were the big winners at the LAIC, and I would expect to see all four of those decks in large numbers at Roanoke. Unfortunately, we don’t have the total deck meta information yet from Brazil (or more accurately, I don’t have it at the time of writing this article), but the results did seem to show an expectedly diverse meta, one that I would expect to be diverse for the near future.

Against Blacephalon-GX and Buzzwole-GX, Vespiquen had a decisive advantage in my testing, due to the inclusion of [card name=”Sceptile” set=”Celestial Storm” no=”10″ c=”name”][/card]. Spread damage from Alolan Ninetales-GX is an obstacle, but Vespiquen can manage so long as you evolve your Pokemon quickly. While I wouldn’t expect to see many Ultra Beast decks outside of those two, any other UB decks should prove pretty simple.

Against Zoroark-GX variants, the key to winning is to stick [card name=”Shrine of Punishment” set=”Celestial Storm” no=”143″ c=”name”][/card] in play, and then not miss an opportunity to attack. If you can get multiple Lurantis in play, that can go a long way, as those two plus a Shrine of Punishment means that Sceptile-GX can now one-shot Zoroark-GX, while Vespiquen can do so against any Zoroark-GX that already had a damage counter on them. This matchup is one of near-constant Knock Outs, typically starting from turn two — but your lack of GXs make this matchup slightly favorable.

Granbull is a more difficult matchup, which typically comes down to whoever can get the first Knock Out. You need to get (and keep) your Lurantis in play, so that you can continue to get OHKOs; at the same time, you should expect your opponent to target those Lurantis for KOs. If you can, aim to KO their Magcargo, as that will drastically increase the odds of them missing an attack at some point in the mid-game. For this matchup, getting ahead and staying ahead will be your key to victory!

As far as bad matchups for Vespiquen, spread matchups are brutally difficult, since you can’t stagger your attackers in the way you might with another deck. This is the main matchup where Sceptile-GX comes into play, as it can heal your board completely with Jungle Heal GX, so long as you can get enough Energy in play. A bigger issue can be if they can continually KO your Combee and Vespiquen at the same time, a common play for [card name=”Decidueye-GX” set=”Sun and Moon” no=”12″ c=”name”][/card] decks. Against those matchups, you’ll want to try and get your Vespiquen into play as fast as possible, though once they start racking up Knock Outs, that may not be enough. Finally, other non-GX matchups can be a bit tricky, and will often come down to whether or not you can outspeed them. While a 50/50 coinflip might not sound like an atrocious matchup, you don’t have a ton of options to come back against such decks if you end up falling behind.

Overall, Vespiquen appears to be in a decent position going into Roanoke, especially if the meta ends up looking like it did at the LAIC. The deck is fast, efficient, and straightforward — a good combination. Personally, I’ll be testing it thoroughly against the lists that come out from the LAIC — if it does well against those lists, then it will certainly remain one of my front-runners for Virginia.

With that, we’ve come to the end of today’s article! Whether you decide to play Vespiquen or not, hopefully this article has given you some insight into how I approach the deck-building process, as well as some ideas on how to make some of your deck concepts into reality! As always, if you have any questions, ask away!

Thanks for reading!

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