The Fundamentals of Control

Hello PokéBeach readers! I’m Sander Wojcik, a new writer for the site! There wouldn’t be any better way for me to introduce myself besides starting off with an article on a subject matter that’s very close to my heart. Understanding the basics is the path to mastering any craft in life, so looking back at the fundamentals of what you’re doing is an essential practice for beginners and experts alike. Today, the fundamental question at hand is: how does a control deck work?

Most decks in the Pokémon TCG follow the logic that the anime show has prescribed us: trainers battle, KO each other’s Pokémon (represented in the card game by Prize cards) until a winner is decided. In the TCG, this translates to beatdown decks: outperforming your opponent at taking six Prizes. The intricacies to this are without end, and worthwile to discuss and examine some other time. There is a different approach to the game however, a strategy that diverges from the intended goal. Instead of fullfulling the win condition of taking six Prizes in a timely fasion, it aims to control the board and, by extension, the game; all to disrupt the opponent from reaching their win condition. Different opposing decks deploy different routes to their win condition, so this control strategy will need to be able to adapt to unhinge a variety of tactics. Control decks try to stop their opponent’s gameplan and eliminate their win condition. Since the game will naturally turn into a long game where both sides can’t meet a quick win condition, some kind of value engine is leveraged to make sure this long game benefits the side that initiated it. This approach is a contrast to what beatdown decks do. As such, control decks also operate on a different set of metrics. These metrics will be the center point of this article. And I will be using examples to illustrate them in motion.

Discussing these central points to control is meant to improve the understanding of this archetype for newer players. This is also a structured breakdown for people who already have an intuitive understanding, and even for people with experience with the archtype. These points can provide a guideline to fall back on when looking for direction. I review these whenever I’m faced with problems or dissatisfied with how decks play. I reconsider my knowledge of fundamentals and try to pinpoint a cause. Even without having an immediate interest in mastering this archtype yourself, knowing your enemy is key to tackle any strategy. Let’s get into what I consider the pillars of control, the four cornerstones each control deck is made out of.

Spot Removal / Mass Removal

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[cardimg name=”Enhanced Hammer” set=”Guardians Rising” no=”124″ align=”right” c=”none”][/cardimg]

In a strategy that revolves around dealing with our opponent’s cards, it’s easy to see how dealing with them one at a time is beneficial, and dealing with several at a time is also beneficial. Those are the most general definitions of spot removal: using one card of your own to remove one card from your opponent; and mass removal: using one card, or a combination of cards, to take out multiple cards from your opponent at once. Not only do these cards have up-front value, but also the interplay between these two types, which I believe is fundamentally vital to controling strategies to provide an extra dimension of interaction with the opponent’s resources.

The type of cards we care to remove can be defined more specifically. The goal of our gameplan is controling the board and eliminating our opponent’s win conditions, and the most prevalent path for our opponent to impact the board and to reach their win condition is to have a relevant attacking Pokemon as your Active. Since this is the case, the two types of cards that are the most relevant for our spot removal and mass removal to target are Energy cards and switching outs. Other instances do come up from time to time, like replacing relevant Stadiums and removing key Abilities, but constraining Energy on a relevant attacker or draining options to switch a relevant attacker into the Active position are the most common axis to fight a resource war.

However, there are two scales on which to accomplish this, and threatening to interact on either side of the scale makes the counterpart more effective. These complement each other, and the reason for this is how the counterplay against these play out. Big, sweeping effects are countered by not over-extending and minimizing board position to the point where adequate pressure is applied while leaving the fewest amount of threats vulnerable. Small, card-for-card interaction is countered by overloading on threats and maximizing board position to apply continious pressure while accumulating a buffer that can take the small hits as they come. I like to draw the lines of what encompasses “mass removal” a bit broader than the traditional definition when it comes to the Pokémon TCG. Since card draw and card search is so readily available, hand-locking a certain portion of those cards from your opponent’s hand can be categorized as a form of mass removal. By the parameters the Pokémon TCG is played, it serves the same kind of function with only a few subtle differences.
There’s an degree of reciprocity between these small, single target effects and overarching effects when both are present in a deck, that rises above the value these effects have as seperate entities. To illustrate this, I’ll go over some examples. The premise is that these two types of effects complement each other.

This is why Celestial Storm brought one of the most exciting cards for control in the modern era: [card name=”Articuno-GX” set=”Celestial Storm” no=”31″ c=”name”][/card]. This card is about as ideal as it gets for board-impacting mass removal; all in one card, with great maneuverability to boot. It ended up being one of the most game-defining ace cards in the [card name=”Steelix” set=”Celestial Storm” no=”89″ c=”name”][/card] deck I played at the Offenbach Regional, which brought Articuno-GX its first appearance in a regional Top 8.

Wailord-EX Control

[decklist name=”Wailord Control” amt=”60″ caption=”” cname=”Wailord-EX” set=”Primal Clash” no=”38″][pokemon amt=”10″]4x [card name=”Wailord-EX” set=”Primal Clash” no=”38″ c=”deck2″ amt=”4″][/card]1x [card name=”Shaymin-EX” set=”Roaring Skies” no=”77″ c=”deck2″ amt=”1″][/card]1x [card name=”Lugia-EX” set=”Ancient Origins” no=”68″ c=”deck2″ amt=”1″][/card]1x [card name=”Carbink” set=”Fates Collide” no=”50″ c=”deck2″ amt=”1″][/card]1x [card name=”Wobbuffet” set=”Radiant Collection 2″ no=”RC11″ c=”deck2″ amt=”1″][/card]1x [card name=”Hoothoot” set=”BREAKthrough” no=”119″ c=”deck2″ amt=”1″][/card]1x [card name=”Minccino” set=”Fates Collide” no=”86″ c=”deck2″ amt=”1″][/card][/pokemon][trainers amt=”47″]4x [card name=”N” set=”Noble Victories” no=”92″ c=”deck2″ amt=”4″][/card]4x [card name=”Team Flare Grunt” set=”Generations” no=”73″ c=”deck2″ amt=”4″][/card]3x [card name=”Lysandre” set=”Ancient Origins” no=”78″ c=”deck2″ amt=”3″][/card]3x [card name=”Pokémon Fan Club” set=”Generations” no=”69″ c=”deck2″ amt=”3″][/card]1x [card name=”Shauna” set=”Fates Collide” no=”111″ c=”deck2″ amt=”1″][/card]1x [card name=”Ace Trainer” set=”Ancient Origins” no=”69″ c=”deck2″ amt=”1″][/card]1x [card name=”Olympia” set=”Generations” no=”66″ c=”deck2″ amt=”1″][/card]1x [card name=”Delinquent” set=”BREAKpoint” no=”98″ c=”deck2″ amt=”1″][/card]1x [card name=”Team Rocket’s Handiwork” set=”Fates Collide” no=”112″ c=”deck2″ divide=”yes” amt=”1″][/card]4x [card name=”VS Seeker” set=”Roaring Skies” no=”110″ c=”deck2″ amt=”4″][/card]4x [card name=”Puzzle of Time” set=”BREAKpoint” no=”109″ c=”deck2″ amt=”4″][/card]4x [card name=”Max Potion” set=”BREAKpoint” no=”103″ c=”deck2″ amt=”4″][/card]4x [card name=”Float Stone” set=”BREAKthrough” no=”137″ c=”deck2″ amt=”4″][/card]2x [card name=”Enhanced Hammer” set=”Dark Explorers” no=”94″ c=”deck2″ amt=”2″][/card]2x [card name=”Crushing Hammer” set=”Emerging Powers” no=”92″ c=”deck2″ amt=”2″][/card]2x [card name=”Trainers’ Mail” set=”Roaring Skies” no=”92″ c=”deck2″ amt=”2″][/card]1x [card name=”Captivating Poké Puff” set=”Steam Siege” no=”99″ c=”deck2″ amt=”1″][/card]1x [card name=”Fighting Fury Belt” set=”BREAKpoint” no=”99″ c=”deck2″ divide=”yes” amt=”1″][/card]4x [card name=”Rough Seas” set=”Primal Clash” no=”137″ c=”deck2″ amt=”4″][/card][/trainers][energy amt=”3″]3x [card name=”Double Colorless Energy” set=”HeartGold and SoulSilver” no=”103″ c=”deck2″ amt=”3″][/card][/energy][/decklist] 

[cardimg name=”Wailord-EX” set=”Primal Clash” no=”147″ align=”right” c=”none”][/cardimg]

Before Articuno-GX’s existence, I found the spot/mass removal dynamic important enough to shape my deck around cards that could serve that purpose. The [card name=”Wailord-EX” set=”Primal Clash” no=”38″ c=”name”][/card] deck in the 2016-2017 Standard format wasn’t a common deck after [card name=”AZ” set=”Phantom Forces” no=”91″ c=”name”][/card] had rotated out. The spot removal the deck had access to was absolutely amazing: [card name=”Team Flare Grunt” set=”XY” no=”129″ c=”name”][/card], [card name=”VS Seeker” set=”Phantom Forces” no=”109″ c=”name”][/card], [card name=”Puzzle of Time” set=”BREAKpoint” no=”109″ c=”name”][/card] and [card name=”Enhanced Hammer” set=”Phantom Forces” no=”94″ c=”name”][/card]. These, in combination with the continuous healing from [card name=”Rough Seas” set=”Primal Clash” no=”137″ c=”name”][/card], was almost impossible to fight through head-on for most decks. This left opponents that wanted to solve this issue with one option: going over the top of the spot removal by charging up an attacker on the Bench with redundant Energy as buffer to soak up the stream of spot removal once Active. The classic solution to overly powerful single target removal. The card that brought me a lot of success in Wailord-EX was, to no surprise, a mass removal option to counteract this aformentioned strategy: [card name=”Lugia-EX” set=”Ancient Origins” no=”68″ c=”name”][/card]. Combined with smaller Pokemon from [card name=”Shaymin-EX” set=”Roaring Skies” no=”77″ c=”name”][/card]’s Sky Return, it could punish attackers that were overly commited to, such as a stacked [card name=”Yveltal-EX” set=”XY” no=”79″ c=”name”][/card] or [card name=”M Mewtwo-EX” set=”BREAKthrough” no=”64″ c=”name”][/card]. The spot removal the deck had access to was incredibly strong, and the one way to elevate this even futher was adding one form of mass removal to the mix to complement it. Playing around Lugia-EX wasn’t impossible, it only ment keeping your attackers out of range of an Aero Ball KO by keeping the Energy commitment low. This played into the strength of Team Flare Grunt, VS Seeker, and Puzzle of Time though! Even though Lugia-EX is weaker than Articuno-GX in its role, it served a role that absolutely needed to be filled: a clear example of the interplay between spot removal and mass removal covering each other’s weaknessess and pushing each other’s effectiveness.

Something in the same fasion was seen in [card name=”Sylveon-GX” set=”Guardians Rising” no=”92″ c=”name”][/card] lists by including a 1-0-1 line of [card name=”Gardevoir-GX” set=”Burning Shadows” no=”93″ c=”name”][/card]. Going as far as playing triple one-ofs and a Basic Pokemon that could lose the game when you were forced to use it as your starting Pokemon; just to tap into the potential of a mass removal-esque threat. Though the risk was high, arguably too high, I always found the underlying idea solid and the inclusion elegant.

While on the topic of that Wailord-EX deck, let me point out another instance of spot/mass removal present in that list, but in a somewhat different form. The ideas in question here are retreating resources and hand-limiting mass removal. These are especially helpful against decks that are built around some kind of Energy engine. Meaning they are naturally built to incorporate an Energy supply far above the norm, or have some kind of repetitive access to Energy. Since Energy-focused disruption will be a much weaker route to impose a limitation on these type of decks, having a dynamic of spot/mass removal for limiting retreating options is often important for control decks. In the Wailord-EX list, [card name=”Minccino” set=”Fates Collide” no=”86″ c=”name”][/card] could deal with in-play [card name=”Float Stone” set=”Plasma Freeze” no=”99″ c=”name”][/card] one at a time, which could slowly start to add up in conjunction with [card name=”Lysandre” set=”Flashfire” no=”90″ c=”name”][/card]. The opponent keeping Float Stone in hand to attach to any Pokémon only after it got hit with Lysandre into the Active would risk getting punished by [card name=”Hoothoot” set=”BREAKthrough” no=”119″ c=”name”][/card], locking them out of play forever. The looming threat of Hoothoot forced the game to process in a way that let Minccino perform its smaller interactions effectively. Hoothoot also had an interesting interaction with VS Seeker against [card name=”Volcanion-EX” set=”Steam Siege” no=”26″ c=”name”][/card] decks in particular. Volcanion-EX usually played both [card name=”Fisherman” set=”BREAKthrough” no=”136″ c=”name”][/card] and [card name=”Olympia” set=”Generations” no=”66″ c=”name”][/card], and VS Seeker could recover either one at any point. This left Volcanion-EX with the option to respond to Energy removal by getting back a Fisherman when needed, and pivoting back out of a Lysandre play by reusing Olympia, basically having the answers for any line of play the Wailord-EX player would chose to pursue. Hoothoot changes the dynamic here: the Volcanion-EX player sitting on VS Seeker to see whether more Energy or a switching option is better could result in the VS Seekers getting locked out completely and neither option being accessible anymore. This meant the VS Seekers had to be cached proactively to get back either Fisherman or Olympia, and now it was the Wailord-EX player that could adapt accordingly to whether they saw more of an oppurtinity on the Energy disruption front or drying up the switching options. The ball was back in their court to make sure the cards the opponent has lined up put them in the worst position possible. The pressence of Hoothoot made the single target interactions of Team Flare Grunt and Lysandre much more effective and game deciding.

To analyze these dynamics in a game at work, I’ll go over a match I played against the lovely Stéphane Ivanoff in Bristol. He was playing [card name=”Zoroark-GX” set=”Shining Legends” no=”53″ c=”name”][/card] / [card name=”Lycanroc-GX” set=”Guardians Rising” no=”74″ c=”name”][/card] with [card name=”Oranguru” set=”Ultra Prism” no=”114″ c=”name”][/card], a counterpoint to the inevitability control decks try to achieve (something I’ll go over later in this article), [card name=”Judge” set=”Forbidden Light” no=”108″ c=”name”][/card] and a [card name=”Pal Pad” set=”Ultra Prism” no=”132″ c=”name”][/card] to counteract the card selection (another subject that I’ll bring up later) and [card name=”Alolan Muk” set=”Sun and Moon” no=”58″ c=”name”][/card] to get through [card name=”Hoopa” set=”Shining Legends” no=”55″ c=”name”][/card]. The heads-up play at the time was to include a [card name=”Rainbow Energy” set=”BREAKthrough” no=”152″ c=”name”][/card] to enable your own [card name=”Acerola” set=”Burning Shadows” no=”112″ c=”name”][/card] as reliable switching options to prevent anything like a Alolan Muk getting stuck. Relying on [card name=”Guzma” set=”Burning Shadows” no=”115″ c=”name”][/card] alone had proven to be too conditional in the [card name=”Regigigas” set=”Crimson Invasion” no=”84″ c=”name”][/card] / Hoopa matchup as it needed the opponent to have a Bench to function at all. Of course Stéphane was smart enough to catch on to this trend and was prepared with the Rainbow Energy in his list. I was also aware of the trend of Zoroark-GX / Lycanroc-GX playing Rainbow Energy, or [card name=”Tate and Liza” set=”Celestial Storm” no=”148″ c=”name”][/card] to invalidate my Guzma and [card name=”Counter Catcher” set=”Crimson Invasion” no=”91″ c=”name”][/card] a great way to make these single target removal cards less effective. I elected to include a form of mass removal to alleviate this issue: [card name=”Sableye” set=”Guardians Rising” no=”80″ c=”name”][/card]. One of my favourite ways to solve these kind of problematic scenarios where decklists adapt to control decks in the format, is by improving the mixture of spot and mass removal I have available in my own list to complicate the issues opponents have when facing my control list.
In the game against Stéphane, the early game played out as it normally would. Zoroark-GX gets all the freedom to set up and cycle through their deck as they please. Regigigas / Hoopa has [card name=”Team Skull Grunt” set=”Sun and Moon” no=”133″ c=”name”][/card] to force Zoroark-GX to take action at some point, but as long as the game remains with both players having six Prizes, there’s no real threat of their Oranguru being contested by a [card name=”Lugia-GX” set=”Lost Thunder” no=”159″ c=”name”][/card], since Lugia-GX needs [card name=”Counter Gain” set=”Lost Thunder” no=”170″ c=”name”][/card] to reach the Energy requirement of Lost Purge GX in a single turn. This gives Zoroark-GX a lot of time to set up and use Trade to get through their deck, letting them find their Judge and also do some preemptive filtering. Time isn’t infinite, as the combination of Team Skull Grunt/[card name=”Girafarig” set=”Lost Thunder” no=”94″ c=”name”][/card] and [card name=”Faba” set=”Lost Thunder” no=”173″ c=”name”][/card] does slowly threaten permanent resource loss. But normally, Zoroark-GX gets to pick the timing when to transition into the attack for pressure and use Judge every turn during the midgame. In this game, I had Sableye and [card name=”Unit Energy FDY” set=”Forbidden Light” no=”118″ c=”name”][/card] to quickly threaten the Alolan Muk in play, even with Prizes still equal on six. Searching the Sableye, Guzma, and Unit Energy FDY as fast as possible had taken up all my first few [card name=”Steven’s Resolve” set=”Celestial Storm” no=”145″ c=”name”][/card] targets, and I wasn’t planning to let Stéphane set the pace and let him start using Judge, so I pulled the trigger while the Zoroark-GX side was still building towards thinning their deck enough for a continious Judge cycle. After bringing it up and stopping the Acerola and Rainbow Energy combo with Sableye’s Limitation, I wasn’t able to find Faba for three turns with my [card name=”Bill’s Analysis” set=”Hidden Fates” no=”51″ c=”name”][/card] and [card name=”Pokégear 3.0″ set=”Unbroken Bonds” no=”182″ c=”name”][/card], and he was able to manually retreat his Alolan Muk after attaching two [card name=”Double Colorless Energy” set=”HeartGold and SoulSilver” no=”103″ c=”name”][/card] to it without me getting to utilize my spot removal properly: Sableye’s mass removal had left an opening for my spot removal of Faba to shine, but I failed to capitalize on this opportinity. He retreated his Alolan Muk and was forced to KO my Sableye with a Zoroark-GX; using Oranguru and letting Sableye live risks Alolan Muk getting brought up immediately again, and manually retreating it a second time isn’t guaranteed.

[cardimg name=”Xerneas Prism Star” set=”Lost Thunder” no=”144″ align=”right” c=”none”][/cardimg]

After Sableye went down, I finally found a Faba to get rid of a Double Colorless Energy. On the following turn, Zoroark-GX was forced to retreat to let Oranguru recover the previously discarded Double Colorless Energy while also finally starting the Judge chain. The Judge chain is incredibly strong against control: it directly hurts one of their cornerstones, and doing it over and over continues being strong, as their need for card selection never decreases much. However, due to Sableye, the game hadn’t transitioned to the Judge phase on Zoroark-GX / Lycanroc-GX’s terms, but on Regigigas / Hoopa’s leisure, with a non threatening Oranguru active, resources already being lost by Zoroark-GX to Faba, and the Prize count already allowing Lugia-GX to be threatening a game-ending Lost Purge from the start. The Judge gameplay works out tediously: Regigigas / Hoopa tries to play and recover Faba as much as possible and otherwise thin their deck by playing out as many cards as they can, and can hope to draw a Lugia-GX combo (or [card name=”Rescue Stretcher” set=”Guardians Rising” no=”130″ c=”name”][/card] for Sableye, attach an Energy, and use Guzma/Counter Catcher in this case), while Zoroark-GX slowly applies pressure while pivoting into Oranguru every other turn to get back Judge. Zoroark-GX / Lycanroc’s Fighting-type attackers, [card name=”Lucario-GX” set=”Sun and Moon Black Star Promos” no=”SM100″ c=”name”][/card] and Lycanroc-GX, are crucial in applying pressure as they hit nearly every card for Weakness. This results in OHKOs compared to Riotous Beating’s 2HKO, which not only doubles the speed of taking Prizes, but also prevents Regigigas / Hoopa from utilizing [card name=”Max Potion” set=”BREAKpoint” no=”103″ c=”name”][/card] and Acerola to undo Zoroark-GX / Lycanroc-GX’s tempo. Lugia-GX can survive a hit from the Fighting attackers, but there’s some serious risk involved in using Lugia-GX for this purpose: Lugia-GX getting 2HKOed still gives up two Prizes, so without healing that’s just as tempo-negative as one [card name=”Regigigas” set=”Crimson Invasion” no=”84″ c=”name”][/card] getting OHKO’d. Lugia-GX itself is also a key mass removal card in the matchup, losing it to a KO infringes the access to it as a pivotal removal option. A fix I had in my list to patch up this defect was [card name=”Xerneas Prism Star” set=”Lost Thunder” no=”144″ c=”name”][/card]. This card’s main objective was to serve as a form of mass removal in some other matchups by attacking. The major appeal of the card was that it also sponged up pressure against Zoroark-GX / Lycanroc-GX and made Max Potion and Acerola live again. This provided the tempo equalizing effect I needed to enact my gameplan of using spot removal in the lull my initial mass removal had created.

The strain that Faba had now put on his Double Colorless Energy supply pushed the game into a direction where he had to commit to his Lucario-GX to apply reliable pressure. Lucario-GX having a one Energy attack and synergizing with Acerola bouncing (Zoroark-GX / Lycanroc-GX needs to rotate Oranguru into the Active position to recycle Judge anyway) makes it one of the better attackers to pressure and stack Energy on. This left an oppurtinity for the second form of mass removal to take the stage. Normally, using Lugia-GX on Oranguru is the line to take. With three basic Fighting Energy in Zoroark-GX / Lycanroc-GX builds, putting two of them in the Lost Zone is also game winning. Late game, I eventually found the Lugia-GX pieces, without a Counter Catcher, so I put the active Lucario-GX in the Lost Zone, which had two basic Fighting Energy attached to it; the final mass removal effect of the game. Pushed to the forefront by a series of spot removal, which in turn had gained a grip due to the mass removal of Sableye disrupting the flow of the game. After the Lost Purge had put two of the three basic Energy, spot removal can take over the game again: only one basic Energy is left for Oranguru, using [card name=”Plumeria” set=”Burning Shadows” no=”120″ c=”name”][/card] on it forces a Special Energy to be attached to Oranguru to recover the one basic Energy, and Faba takes out that Special Energy forever, rinse and repeat until all the Special Energy are gone and a last Plumeria on the remaining basic Fighting Energy makes it impossible to recover anymore. At this point, the game was over and Stéphane decided to concede the game instead of hoping to drag it out to a tie. A real act of sportsmanship, very commendable and classy by him.

The takeaway here is small interactions, bigger encompassing effects and the gameplay dynamic these create.

Our current Standard format has one of the strongest ‘mass removal’ effects the game has seen in a while, something almost impossible to overcome when pulled off. The hand discard/top deck lock is so strong from [card name=”Pidgeotto” set=”Team Up” no=”123″ c=”name”][/card], that most decks can’t afford to play into it. Circumventing it as much as possible is the counterplay, which results in games coming down to smaller scale interactions again, a common theme and central idea of this paragraph. Pidgeotto lists have already adapted by inlcuding cards like [card name=”Sky Pillar” set=”Celestial Storm” no=”144″ c=”name”][/card] and [card name=”Champions Festival” set=”Sun and Moon Black Star Promos” no=”SM78″ c=”name”][/card], cards to tilt the smaller interactions into their favor. Things like playing Faba to remove a [card name=”Spell Tag” set=”Lost Thunder” no=”190″ c=”name”][/card] from a opposing [card name=”Mew” set=”Unbroken Bonds” no=”76″ c=”name”][/card] so the KO is less costly, and learning the details of how to play around things like [card name=”Mimikyu” set=”Guardians Rising” no=”58″ c=”name”][/card] and [card name=”Victini Prism Star” set=”Dragon Majesty” no=”7″ c=”name”][/card] are what becomes most important to being succesful with Pidgeotto. The mass removal option is so strong against most meta decks that they have to diverge from the path that leads to it becoming effective. As the Pidgeotto player, taking this into account and preparing for that situation is how to stay on top of the dynamics going on. Isaiah Bradner’s Championship Festival in Knoxville’s Top 8 list is a perfect example of this being rewarded.

Card Selection

The role of control is to adapt and respond. Having the right answers within a deck, but also having access to the right answers within a game.

For any other deck that sets its own pace, it can be focused on a specific goal and be as streamlined as possible to accomplish this. Sometimes the option to take another path is warranted to solve a problematic situation, but problems can also be solved by performing “plan A” smoother, or by “out-muscling” the problem; by either being up in in tempo or resources enough that the given problematic situation can be mitigated enough to reach the finish line.

Control doesn’t function like this. The plan A is stopping the opponent’s gameplan. Having the wrong solutions for the problem the opponent presents you with can’t be overcome in any other way besides having the right answers to it. Not only does this have all kind of implications for deckbuilding, but it also shifts the evaluation of engine cards compared to proactive decks. Control decks love card selection. Since you’ll be spending most of games dealing with the different threats your different opponent will be throwing at you, seeing cards and picking out the specific right ones for the situation at hand is extremely valuable. Having access to hand refill or raw draw power is useful, mainly to restock on resources when your card quantity is low, but having effects that let you pick out cards for the situation is more beneficial for control than for any other deck.

[cardimg name=”Janine” set=”Unbroken Bonds” no=”176″ align=”right” c=”none”][/cardimg]

To illustrate the trade-off between card selection and drawpower, let’s consider a thought experiment. If you could chose, would you rather draw three cards, or look at the top four cards of your deck and draw two from those? Essentially, if you could play either a [card name=”Hau” set=”Shining Legends” no=”61″ c=”name”][/card] or a [card name=”Janine” set=”Unbroken Bonds” no=”176″ c=”name”][/card] on your turn, which would you go for? Janine lets you see one card more, but in return gives a card less in total. How valuable is seeing one card deeper, is it worth drawing one entire card less? There’s no difinitive answer to this question; it depends entirely on the deck you’re playing and the situation you’re in. If finding one single card in your deck will be the dealbreaker, seeing more cards has higher value. If developing and accumulating as much as possible, drawing more cards has higher value. Control decks lean more towards the preference of seeing more cards to chose from, as a result of their reactive nature discussed above.

There’s a second, more subtle reason for this. Slower decks tend to have more well defined phases, such as an early game, midgame, lategame and endgame. An intuitive example to see how these different phases can naturally impact gameplay, is a scenario that can occur in the current [card name=”Malamar” set=”Forbidden Light” no=”51″ c=”name”][/card] deck in Standard. On the opening turn, it’s conceivable you could use [card name=”Pokémon Communication” set=”Team Up” no=”152″ c=”name”][/card] to shuffle away a Malamar, and find a [card name=”Jirachi” set=”Team Up” no=”99″ c=”name”][/card] in its place, to futher dig for Supporter cards. Or to have a beneficial pivot target to promote that turn when using the [card name=”Switch” set=”Evolutions” no=”88″ c=”name”][/card] you have to move your unwanted starter out of the Active position. In the later stages of the game, you could conceivably use Pokémon Communication to shuffle in a Jirachi to find a Malamar instead, to use Psychic Recharge and utilize the Energy you need to win the game. Easy to understand why you would use the same card, Pokémon Communication, for opposite targets in these two scenarios: the different phases of a game evaluate the same cards differently.

Longer games accentuate this. Of course, every deck goes through these phases in a game, and prefers to see a different subset of cards at every juncture. Access to proper card selection in a deck has value in this aspect; it helps supply the right subset of cards for the state of development the game is in. The faster the deck, the shorter and more overlapping the phases can get, and moreover, the more likely it gets a percentage of games decided before certain phases get reached altogether. But a slower decks have more of an definable early, midgame, lategame, and endgame, as each step takes a larger amount of time. Being slower means each seperate stage usually gets stretched out more, making them easier to distinguish from a structural point of view. Sometimes in slow matchups, those get stretched out enough that it’s possible to subcategorize phases even futher. Slower decks, like control decks, will also have a relatively large number of games that go through all phases before reaching their conclusion. As such, another more subtle preferential factor gets added to the importance of card selection to control decks in particular. Better card selection will result in a smoother transition between game phases.

Consistency

A card like [card name=”Trainers’ Mail” set=”Roaring Skies” no=”92″ c=”name”][/card] is a great consistency card for any deck. It streamlines draws, enables combo reliant items, and generally improves the turbo factor of a deck. A control deck doesn’t take as much advantage of those benefits as tempo oriented decks do, but a card like Trainers’ Mail does shine in a different way when mixed into the strategy of control. Playing a Trainers’ Mail and getting to chose from [card name=”Team Flare Grunt” set=”Generations” no=”73″ c=”name”][/card], [card name=”Max Potion” set=”Guardians Rising” no=”128″ c=”name”][/card], [card name=”N” set=”Fates Collide” no=”105″ c=”name”][/card], and [card name=”Captivating Poké Puff” set=”Steam Siege” no=”99″ c=”name”][/card] isn’t strong because of speed or consistency; it’s strong because of adaptability. Which is why I never overlooked it as an inclusion in a deck like [card name=”Wailord-EX” set=”Primal Clash” no=”38″ c=”name”][/card], and was always happy to play at least some amount in my deck. A card like [card name=”Pokégear 3.0″ set=”Unbroken Bonds” no=”182″ c=”name”][/card] falls in the same category, it is a great consistency card that has additional benefits for a control deck due to its flexibility and the versatility it plays into when a deck has a diverse support kit. On release, [card name=”Bill’s Analysis” set=”Team Up” no=”133″ c=”name”][/card] was often seen as another way to dig towards more [card name=”Steven’s Resolve” set=”Celestial Storm” no=”145″ c=”name”][/card] (the pinacle of card selection in the Pokémon TCG) for control decks, but as an effect in itself, seeing the top seven cards of your deck and picking out the Trainers for the situation is already something control wants to be doing. A build like [card name=”Sylveon-GX” set=”Guardians Rising” no=”92″ c=”name”][/card] is a standout example of this principle: the entire Sylveon-GX deck was based around the fundamental strength that card selection has for a reactive archtype. Playing around 13 Energy, just to start one in hand in the opening turn, was a small price to pay for being as forthcoming as possible on the front of card selection.

This also work the other way around. Strong card selection allows any deck to take the sideroute of a more adaptive, responsive playstyle that disrupts the opponent’s gameplan. Decks that can take advantage of this fade in and out of Standard depending on the cardpool. Currently, this is why [card name=”Green’s Exploration” set=”Unbroken Bonds” no=”175″ c=”name”][/card] decks are the place they are in within the format. Card selection in its engine immediately gives it the option to take on a controling role. These aren’t control decks though, control is just one role they can chose to adopt depending on the gamestate and matchup, and good card selection is what allows them to segue into this mode. They are midrange decks in essence. Midrange is defined by the ability to take on the role of either aggressor or controler. One of the defining midrange cards of last format was [card name=”Zoroark-GX” set=”Shining Legends” no=”53″ c=”name”][/card]. Being able to peel back and play a defensive role, denying Prizes, and focusing on the board and resources. Or be the outright aggressor and setting the pace. Midrange is a very interesting archtype itself, but not something I’ll be expanding futher on in this article. Still, midrange decks do take into account the cornerstones of control since they dabble in the archtype to a certain degree. Card selection is the one cornerstone that’s the most important to them, since it also ties into their dual identity.

The latest breakthrough in control card selection is Jirachi in [card name=”Pidgeotto” set=”Team Up” no=”123″ c=”name”][/card]. While I looked towards [card name=”Hapu” set=”Unified Minds” no=”200″ c=”name”][/card], [card name=”Pokémon Fan Club” set=”Ultra Prism” no=”133″ c=”name”][/card], and Steven’s Resolve to increase the card selection quality and quantity of the deck even futher, Stellar Wish is right up this deck’s alley. Pidgeotto’s Air Mail Ability, Pokégear 3.0, and [card name=”Acro Bike” set=”Celestial Storm” no=”123″ c=”name”][/card] already pack Pidgeotto Control with a good amount of card selection, but control scales so well off of adaptability, access to options for different cards in different phases, and reactive maneuverability, that Stellar Wish on top of everything already present still doesn’t reach the point of diminishing returns. Jirachi also raises the lower threshold. Pidgeotto, the main card selection engine of the deck, is vulnerable as a Stage-1 with 60 HP that can be targeted down and takes time to redevelop. Jirachi can’t be simunlteniously targeted down with Pidgeotto, and works as a great pivot when your multiple Pidgeotto get pressured. It softens the blow decks can deal to the card selection engine which makes it more rebust, and increases the overal card selection the deck has at it’s disposure.

Lastly, having multiple Jirachi in deck as potential starter increases the odds of finding [card name=”Professor Elm’s Lecture” set=”Lost Thunder” no=”188″ c=”name”][/card] in the early game, something which drastically influences the speed of the deck. Using Professor Elm’s Lecture Elm in Pidgeotto Control makes it possible to keep up pace with any deck in the format. For this purpose Jirachi can also, to a lesser degree, be seen as a tempo addition to improve the deck’s ability to get developed quicker on average. This brings up another angle to consider: tempo.

Tempo

Tempo is a weird one. Not because it’s less important. In any turn based game, tempo will always be one of the most important aspects. However, the relation control decks have with tempo is a peculiar one. Just like any other strategy, the factor of time in which a controling gameplan can be executed is one of the most relevant indicators of its strength. Unlike any other archtype, a control players’ gameplan is fundamentally dependent on taking the opponent’s win condition apart. This being the case, the speed of the opponent’s win condition is the variable that control needs to match in terms of tempo. While most proactive strategies have a “the faster, the better” relation to tempo (put bluntly, there’s some intricacy), reactive control experiences tempo almost entirely as a function of the speed of the opposing strategy it’s trying to dismantle. In practice, this makes the precise value of tempo-to-control difficult to quantify; it continiously changes along with the metagame.

In general, control can afford to be one step slower than the speed of the opponent’s gameplan, but not much more. If the meta consists of slow set up focussed decks that get rolling once they have multiple Evolutions online, control decks in this meta can afford to trim on quick setup cards themselves, and can include a counter strategy that is slow and takes time to get in place. If the meta is full of turbo decks that focus on out-of-the-gate aggression, control needs to be set up to get a grip on the game in the first few turns as well, and be prepared to have an accessible counter-response in the midgame. Usually a metagame consists of a varying degree of both these kind of decks in the meta, as well as decks with all kinds of tempo in between. Finding the right amount of tempo a control deck is built to keep up with is difficult to find, but striking the right balance on this front can be the difference between having the perfect control deck to nullify the meta, or being wrongly setup and getting ran over or slowly grinded out at every turn.

Being slightly slower in making board impacting plays than the opponent is no downside for control: the board impacting plays you’ll be making will try to remove the threats and resources your opponent has put onto the field. As long as the tempo in which your opponent is playing stays within arm’s reach, playing your cards in a slower tempo but in a more efficient way is exactly where you want to be. Falling too far behind in tempo is devestating though. This is control’s core balancing act when it comes to tempo. Understanding this unique situation when it comes to the speediness of cards control allows itself to play, can help evaluate the strength of cards within the context of being used in a control strategy.

Steven’s Resolve is an inherently tempo inefficient card. The tempo problems this card has are twofold. Ending your turn after searching the cards hurts, as you will only get to be play them on your next turn. For a Supporter, this is a huge tempo sacrifice, compared to how other Supporters provide a huge quantity of cards ready to be played down onto the board. As if that wasn’t enough of a tempo deficit, missing an attack for the turn is enough for most decks to hopelessly fall behind in the race towards winning the game. Even for a deck focused on setup and outscaling, a penalty like this would only be acceptable on the first few opening turns in which it otherwise wouldn’t be reaching high damage output anyway. For a control deck, the story is entirely different. It’s not only that the card selection effect of [card name=”Steven’s Resolve” set=”Celestial Storm” no=”145″ c=”name”][/card] is absurd for the archtype. Steven’s Resolve tempo downside is designed to be the ‘trade off’ for the powerful search effect, this isn’t a huge deal for contol decks.

Analyzing how control can abuse it’s lack of a need for tempo positive effects to incorporate more powerful but slower options is useful, but there’s more to the tempo puzzle than this. As mentioned before, control needs to follow the speed of the rest of the meta. More often than not, the meta isn’t slow at all. In a game where explosive card draw is the norm and the way taking KOs snowballs games towards the most aggressive player, decks that exploit this gamedesign the best are often the front-runners. Having slower cards that fit in with control’s responsive nature is nice, but paying close attention to the extent you will need to speed up your control deck to disrupt the meta decks in adequate time is an important tuning process to take into account.

[cardimg name=”Crushing Hammer” set=”Emerging Powers” no=”92″ align=”right” c=”custom”]Tempo positive[/cardimg]

Quicker forms of card selection are one way to do this. Cards like [card name=”Bill’s Analysis” set=”Team Up” no=”133″ c=”name”][/card] and Steven’s Resolve are downright amazing, but adding cards like Acro Bike will improve the liquidity of your deck and make it easier for instantaneous responses. The same goes for Crushing Hammer. While Crushing Hammer is a resource denying card, it’s an ineffective card in that, compared to its Supporter contemporaries, it’ll only trade for half of an Energy card. Not the kind of trade to win long-term wars of attrition with, especially when taking Energy recovery cards into account. For example, [card name=”Fire Crystal” set=”Unbroken Bonds” no=”173″ c=”name”][/card] would equate six Crushing Hammers in a resource comparison. That isn’t the entire picture though, those Energy cards still have to be attached one at a time (not taking other effects into account), and six Crushing Hammer could be played all at once. This is the true value of Crushing Hammer, there’s a possibility to gain a time advantage and an edge in tempo. Though it is inefficient, it’s a card that transcends the “once per turn” rule that Energy and Supporters have to follow. It doesn’t hinder or clog up your one Supporter per turn; it’s a tempo efficient card. Fine tuning the number of Crushing Hammer and sometimes [card name=”Acro Bike” set=”Celestial Storm” no=”123″ c=”name”][/card] is a question of what amount of tempo is needed in a given meta. Standard, right now, is somewhat of an exception when it comes to Crushing Hammer’s functionallity compared to any previous format. It is close to the only spot removal available, and thus it gets to carry more than a tempo role and is promoted to the role of main disruption element due to one specific other card that exists along side it. Crushing Hammer’s inefficiency gets cancelled out by [card name=”Oranguru” set=”Ultra Prism” no=”114″ c=”name”][/card]’s abundant efficiency. Even with all of these being in [card name=”Pidgeotto” set=”Team Up” no=”123″ c=”name”][/card] Control, I wasn’t satisfied by its tempo game. I felt like a lot of the hardest games were the ones where I was bleeding too many Prizes too quickly without applying the proper attrition a control deck should, and couldn’t get any semblance of a board position in the early to midgame. Looking at spot/mass removal, the deck overrelied on [card name=”Articuno-GX” set=”Celestial Storm” no=”31″ c=”name”][/card]’s mass Energy removal along with the hand lock combo to remove all options from the opponent at once, but spot removal was clearly lacking. Card selection and inevitability looked fine. This was a problem of tempo that was caused by a lack of speedbumps, and the lack of sufficient spot removal in the format. To increase my win-rate a little bit, I decided to include [card name=”Mareep” set=”Lost Thunder” no=”75″ c=”name”][/card], this was not a card that was a necessity in every game, as you can follow your opponent’s pace ideally and lock them out eventually if everything goes according to plan. In games where the risk of falling behind in tempo could pose an issue, Mareep was a searchable solution for the otherwise lack of spot removal and tempo nullification the deck has. Mareep is a spot removal for switching cards of sorts, but with more of an eye towards solving tempo problems, in the same vein Crushing Hammer does this. With [card name=”Absol” set=”Team Up” no=”88″ c=”name”][/card] in the list, the absence of the switching Items that got forced out by Mareep could be punished hard futher down the line.

Survivability

To complete the topic of tempo, I’d like to discuss a vital part of control strategies that is best to mentally subcategorize under tempo. This could arguably be considered a cornerstone in its own right, but looking at this through the lens of tempo is the most logical approach. What I’m talking about is survivability. For a strategy that revolves around stopping your opponent from winning the game, surviving is integral. Control decks are often seen with a plethora of ways to weather the storm of aggression. The level of survivabilty at their disposal plays a role in how well positioned control decks can be. The phenomena of survivability is in itself a tempo concern. Disrupting the opponent’s win condition is the gameplan. How long you can survive indicates how much time you are going to have to reach this goal. Survivability is nothing more than the time factor of the gameplan. A card like [card name=”Max Potion” set=”Guardians Rising” no=”128″ c=”name”][/card] is great for survivability. It lets you enact your gameplan, which is a valuable attribute; Max Potion itself isn’t part of your actual gameplan, it’s a card that enables the tempo to perform the gameplan within an acceptable timeframe. Cards like [card name=”Wailord-EX” set=”Primal Clash” no=”38″ c=”name”][/card] and [card name=”Regigigas” set=”Crimson Invasion” no=”84″ c=”name”][/card] can be seen as the poster children of the control decks that bear their name, but their purpose is only to provide the vessel to survive and time to set the real gears into motion. These cards can be instrumental in what they do. The [card name=”Xerneas Prism Star” set=”Lost Thunder” no=”144″ c=”name”][/card] I mentioned earlier was a linchpin in the Fighting-type matchups like [card name=”Zoroark-GX” set=”Shining Legends” no=”53″ c=”name”][/card] / [card name=”Lycanroc-GX” set=”Guardians Rising” no=”74″ c=”name”][/card] for Regigigas / [card name=”Hoopa” set=”Shining Legends” no=”55″ c=”name”][/card]: it provided a target for Max Potion to redeem the tempo advantage it was in the deck for, which is exactly what the deck needed. But it isn’t what the game revolves around. In Pidgeotto this is visable in that it gives up one Prize per turn in the early and midgame, and this is enough survivability, as the actual gameplan of the deck is strong enough to make up for the weak survivability component in the lategame. This isn’t to say the suvivability of Pidgeotto is cutting some corners: [card name=”Espeon and Deoxys-GX” set=”Unified Minds” no=”72″ c=”name”][/card] can take advantage of the blindspot this deck has on this front. It’s no wonder I mentioned Mareep as a tempo consideration for Pidgeotto Control, improving survivability slightly is precisely the manner in which Mareep improves Pidgeotto’s net tempo (although potentially to too small of a degree). Cards like Regigigas and Max Potion can be seen as pure tempo cards, cards that undo the opponent’s tempo to be more specific, which allow the entire rest of the gameplan of control to take place. There are some cases where survivability trickles over into inevitability though. These are the cases were the surviving aspect can become so strong and gain a repititive nature that it becomes a way to stop the opponent’s win codition in itself. This is a difference between [card name=”Acerola” set=”Burning Shadows” no=”112″ c=”name”][/card] with [card name=”Lusamine” set=”Crimson Invasion” no=”96″ c=”name”][/card], [card name=”Rough Seas” set=”Primal Clash” no=”137″ c=”name”][/card] with [card name=”Float Stone” set=”BREAKthrough” no=”137″ c=”name”][/card], and one time usuable Max Potion. With an adequate recursion engine, survibability can transcend its purpose in the realm of tempo and become a win condition by itself. This happens when the survivability aspect, in combination with recursion, creates a board position where the game can’t be lost: decks that can’t 2HKO a [card name=”Steelix” set=”Celestial Storm” no=”89″ c=”name”][/card] anymore (which requires an output of 130 if Steelix has a [card name=”Metal Frying Pan” set=”Forbidden Light” no=”112″ c=”name”][/card]) can’t beat Acerola and Lusamine loops, attackers that can’t continiously hit higher than 120 eventually can’t overcome four Wailord-EX with Float Stone and Rough Seas. When this is the case, reaching these scenarios becomes a win condition for control, the endpoint of inevitability. Still, it’s important to keep in mind that on its own, these survivability cards’ main purpose is gaining a tempo foothing.

Inevitability

Inevitability is one of my favourite aspects of control decks to work out. It revolves around one question that control players always need to ask themselves: What are you waiting for? Disallowing our opponent from winning the game via control of the board state is our goal. It flows naturally from this, with our opponent being stopped from winning and us commiting effort into preventing them from winning; neither player has an easy route to a win condition. As long as neither player achieves victory, the game continues on. Control decks should be expecting to play lenghty games and be equiped for this. Since we are designed to play long games, we should make sure we are favored in long games. We want to aquire a form of inevitability.

Inevitability, as a concept, is something everyone who plays Pokémon has run into at some point. After developing in the early game, trading blows in the midgame, the endgoal for most decks is often clear: setting up a winning Prize-trade scenario. Even one or two turns ahead of time, a win can be imminent. The reverse can also be true, finding yourself in a situation where the opponent will be smooth sailing towards a victory a couple turns down the line. Setting this up and preventing this from happening to yourself is a puzzle most games come down to. A form of inevitability; a flow in which the game will come to a positive outcome for you if things continue in the way they’re going. In a game of chance and variance, and never knowing exactly what your opponent might be playing, there’s bound to be a degree of uncertainty. Aquiring inevitability doesn’t have to be a pure 100% change of winning, but rather a very high percentage to do so. Inevitability is a path to eventual victory; not immediate, but futher down the line as long as things progress within the boundaries of what you can expect to happen. If you are on the receiving end and it looks like your opponent will set up an inevitable winning board state, it might push you to take some extreme risks or make a line of play that takes the game into a drastically different direction. Inevitability can shift, but doing so is a tall order and puts a heavy burden on the person trying to do so. Understanding inevitability is something most Pokémon TCG players already naturally do, as it is one of the factors that influences their risk taking behavior and risk management.

[cardimg name=”Heatmor” set=”Burning Shadows” no=”24″ align=”right” c=”none”][/cardimg]

What does this entail for control? Our interest in inevitability lays on the very long term. While you can notice inevitability when it’s a turn or so away, it’s also possible for inevitability to be extrapolated much futher into the future. We are interested in setting up inevitability under the assumption that a game will be going on for a large amount of turns. Over a very long period of time, small resource advantages can accumulate into an insurmountable advantage, an advantage impossible to be overcome by foes without such a card advantage engine. A great example of incremental value and long term inevitability is [card name=”Heatmor” set=”Burning Shadows” no=”24″ c=”name”][/card] / [card name=”Raichu” set=”Burning Shadows” no=”41″ c=”name”][/card]. By itself, Heatmor’s Odor Sleuth will recover one card on average, and reusing Evoshock with [card name=”Devolution Spray” set=”Evolutions” no=”76″ c=”name”][/card] costs one card per turn. This reaches nothing more than an equilibrium. Adding [card name=”Victini” set=”Guardians Rising” no=”10″ c=”name”][/card] to the equation lets double tails be reflipped, which changes the expected outcome of Heatmor to 1.25 heads. This minor change of recovering a quarter of a card more per turn makes all the difference. It changes Heatmor from a static card to a resource engine. As long as you get enough time to leverage this small repetitive value, the extra resources gained can be put towards [card name=”Team Rocket’s Handiwork” set=”Fates Collide” no=”112″ c=”name”][/card], or building a buffer to freely use [card name=”Ninja Boy” set=”Steam Siege” no=”103″ c=”name”][/card] into [card name=”Durant” set=”BREAKpoint” no=”9″ c=”name”][/card] or [card name=”Xurkitree-GX” set=”Sun and Moon Black Star Promos” no=”SM68″ c=”name”][/card]. Victini’s addition is a small one, but this does give Heatmor a form of inevitability: if it gets to do as it pleases, it will take over the game, eventually.

This is a crucial part of playing control decks. We’ve seen this in Lusamine and [card name=”Oranguru” set=”Ultra Prism” no=”114″ c=”name”][/card]. These cards provide a low amount of immediate value, but their incremental value generation has no ceiling. The long term value these cards generate is unbounded, which alligns with the wishes of control to a tee.

Even when other decks also have a strong lategame, we have to be build to overcome this. Having inevitability is a necessity to succeed for control. While other decks can achieve win conditions via a proactive tempo advantage, control can only win by having inevitability built in. No matter the format or card pool, control decks are always looking for some form of inevitability. We want to commit as little as possible towards that since the main focus of a control deck should be to deal with whatever the opponent is focusing on. Include inevitability in a way that benefits our main objective of disrupting the opponent at least to some extent.

We have the advantage of being able to specialize for very long games. Other decks dont have this luxury. Some decks can focus on set up and deploy one or two lategame finishers in their list, but they have to worry about staying even or ahead in tempo against the meta along with being cohesive and consistent enough to function at all. We have great card selection, and are build to reach lategame, so a few lategame powerhouses with no other purpose besides taking over the lategame is what we can afford to include. What exactly is best is a compelling question. Effects that control the board, interact with out opponent’s resources, or recycling other cards are most appealing. Cards like [card name=”Lusamine” set=”Crimson Invasion” no=”96″ c=”name”][/card], Oranguru, and even [card name=”Munchlax” set=”Unified Minds” no=”173″ c=”name”][/card] can provide disuption by getting back disruption cards while retaining their inevitabile nature. Cards like: [card name=”Shaymin-EX” set=”Roaring Skies” no=”77″ c=”name”][/card], [card name=”Shrine of Punishment” set=”Celestial Storm” no=”143″ c=”name”][/card], and [card name=”Tapu Lele” set=”Ultra Prism” no=”94″ c=”name”][/card] have a more direct effect on the board and substantiate a safe form of pressure, but have a slow rate of impact. Shaymin-EX is a continious draw engine to add a factor of tempo on top of board presence. A card like [card name=”Chip-Chip Ice Axe” set=”Unbroken Bonds” no=”165″ c=”name”][/card] is purely in [card name=”Pidgeotto” set=”Team Up” no=”123″ c=”name”][/card] Control to push Oranguru’s inevitability to an absurd degree, making games unlosable in a way no other card can. In return for this feat, it is a card with no impact on the board, neither direct or indirect. as for [card name=”Unown” set=”Lost Thunder” no=”91″ c=”name”][/card], it was seen in [card name=”Regigigas” set=”Crimson Invasion” no=”84″ c=”name”][/card] / [card name=”Hoopa” set=”Shining Legends” no=”55″ c=”name”][/card] lists to a varying degree. While it gives a very palpable, definitive effect of inevitability, it doesn’t correlate with the main goal of disruption and board control at all. Fine tuning the counts of these card in a list is an art in itself, and sometimes finding new possible options can turn matchups on their heads.

It’s possible to include specific inevitability cards for specific matchups. Sometimes this is necessary. For instance, [card name=”Faba” set=”Lost Thunder” no=”173″ c=”name”][/card] and [card name=”Girafarig” set=”Lost Thunder” no=”94″ c=”name”][/card] in the Pidgeotto mirror match are what can break apart the opposing card advantage engine and put inevitability back on your side alone. Control mirrors have such a high tendancy to go to the lategame that having the better, rounded long term inevitability is stronger and more relevant in the control mirror than any other. A phrase like, “You only need to have the right cards in your list”, is common in regards to control mirrors. This is true; having the right long term inevitability puts you in a highly favorable position as the game will go towards the lategame. There’s some metagaming involved, though. Information warfare also plays a leading role. I won’t go into the specifics of how to metagame control mirrors here, but I’ll touch upon an interesting case in a bit.

[cardimg name=”Xurkitree-GX” set=”Sun and Moon Black Star Promos” no=”SM68″ align=”right” c=”custom”]An unlikely solution to a core problem[/cardimg]

In non-control mirror matches, incorporating the right cards to edge out late game scenarios is important to consider. Grinding out games, resource for resource, is what you have to be prepared to do, so better put yourself in a position where you can claim a favorable position when it comes to this. Heatmor / Raichu had a problem against [card name=”Gardevoir-GX” set=”Burning Shadows” no=”93″ c=”name”][/card] pre-Crimson Invasion. Heatmor / Raichu was setup to outlast multiple [card name=”Guzma” set=”Burning Shadows” no=”115″ c=”name”][/card] and did so well, taking favorable matchups to decks with four Guzma. Gardevoir-GX was printed with a relevant GX attack in the light of grindiness and inevitability. In the Heatmor / Raichu vs. Gardevoir-GX matchup, Gardevoir-GX could take an initial Prize by virtue of being an Evolution, then could use Guzma for its next two Prizes. The third and last Guzma Gardevoir-GX had could be used to get a Twilight GX off, shuffling back in three Guzma. These three would then be enough to take the final three Prizes, putting the ball in Heatmor / Raichu’s court to commit heavily to stop this at some point. Pre-Crimson Invasion, there was no reliable way to accomplish this. Saving up resources for an aggressive deck-discarding sequence as soon as Twilight GX was used (the % of cards in deck being Guzma is highest right after the Twiligt GX) to hope you hit one Guzma was the only way to contest Gardevoir-GX’s eventual win, but [card name=”Gallade” set=”BREAKthrough” no=”84″ c=”name”][/card]’s Premonition made the window to hit Guzma very small and unlikely to win. The scales of inevitability tipped ever so slightly in Gardevoir-GX’s favor, but this ruined the matchup for Heatmor / Raichu because it didn’t have a favorable position in the long term. The Crimson Invasion set brought a card that tipped the scales back in Heatmor / Raichu’s favor just enough: Xurkitree-GX. This card could make that six-Prize game that Gardevoir-GX could play not be enough, making them need a seventh Prize due to its Lighting GX attack. Taking the two-Prize Xurkitree-GX out of play by [card name=”Acerola” set=”Burning Shadows” no=”112″ c=”name”][/card] or Ninja Boy would mean the three Guzma into Twilight GX into another three Guzma was barely too little for Gardevoir-GX. This may seem like a lot of complicated work, getting Xurkitree-GX in and out of play just to spike the Prizes by one, but this meant the world to Heatmor / Raichu in the matchup. In a normally progressing game, inevitibility was back in its favor! I played Xurkitree-GX with Ninja Boy in [card name=”Heatmor” set=”Burning Shadows” no=”24″ c=”name”][/card] / [card name=”Raichu” set=”Burning Shadows” no=”41″ c=”name”][/card] in the EUIC 2017, the first event with Crimson Invasion legal, and went 6-0 against Gardevoir-GX throughout the event, a matchup I’d had major trouble with beforehand. All the deck needed was that small push in the back to cross the line, and regaining inevitability made all the difference for the deck’s validity.

Being well covered in this regard is something worthwhile to plan out well. Oranguru is a heavy engine by itself, Lusamine on the other hand is lighter, but on the positive side, needs hardly any building-around while Oranguru does. To make Lusamine decks pack a heavier punch, I played a [card name=”Necrozma-GX” set=”Sun and Moon Black Star Promos” no=”SM58″ c=”name”][/card]. Specifically for the [card name=”Zoroark-GX” set=”Shining Legends” no=”53″ c=”name”][/card] / [card name=”Decidueye-GX” set=”Sun and Moon” no=”12″ c=”name”][/card] / [card name=”Alolan Ninetales-GX” set=”Lost Thunder” no=”132″ c=”name”][/card] matchup, which was around at the time of Harrogate. Decidueye-GX can deal damage without energy, has an engine that doesn’t fall off lategame with Ninetales-GX and Zoroark-GX, and had a good GX attack. The matchup wasn’t awful, Hoopa being very strong, but on the long term front, the decks went toe to toe. Shrine of Punishment does as much damage to Decidueye-GX as Feather Arrow does itself, difference maker is tht it has energy to use attacks to do burst damage a few times while Regigigas / Hoopa has to sit and wait and try to outlast. To swap the lategame pressure into my favor, on top of Shrine of Punishment, I played Necromza-GX. I had [card name=”Double Colorless” set=”Sun and Moon” no=”136″ c=”name”][/card] and [card name=”Counter Gain” set=”Lost Thunder” no=”170″ c=”name”][/card] already in the build for [card name=”Lugia-GX” set=”Lost Thunder” no=”159″ c=”name”][/card] (it’s first ever tournament appearance; a clear upgrade from [card name=”Articuno-GX” set=”Celestial Storm” no=”31″ c=”name”][/card] as mass removal option in terms of raw power) so the space commitment was minimal. The longhaul games would favor me, as long as I could manage the tempo and removal dynamics.

Regigigas / Hoopa (SUM-LOT)

[decklist name=”RegiHoopa” amt=”60″ caption=”” cname=”Necrozma-GX” set=”Burning Shadows” no=”63″][pokemon amt=”12″]3x [card name=”Regigigas” set=”Crimson Invasion” no=”84″ c=”deck2″ amt=”3″][/card]2x [card name=”Hoopa” set=”Shining Legends” no=”55″ c=”deck2″ amt=”2″][/card]1x [card name=”Registeel” set=”Celestial Storm” no=”96″ c=”deck2″ amt=”1″][/card]1x [card name=”Solgaleo Prism Star” set=”Ultra Prism” no=”89″ c=”deck2″ amt=”1″][/card]1x [card name=”Goomy” set=”Forbidden Light” no=”91″ c=”deck2″ amt=”1″][/card]1x [card name=”Girafarig” set=”Lost Thunder” no=”94″ c=”deck2″ amt=”1″][/card]1x [card name=”Noibat” set=”Forbidden Light” no=”100″ c=”deck2″ amt=”1″][/card]1x [card name=”Lugia-GX” set=”Lost Thunder” no=”159″ c=”deck2″ amt=”1″][/card]1x [card name=”Necrozma-GX” set=”Burning Shadows” no=”63″ c=”deck2″ amt=”1″][/card][/pokemon][trainers amt=”46″]4x [card name=”Steven’s Resolve” set=”Celestial Storm” no=”145″ c=”deck2″ amt=”4″][/card]4x [card name=”Cynthia” set=”Ultra Prism” no=”119″ c=”deck2″ amt=”4″][/card]3x [card name=”Lusamine” set=”Crimson Invasion” no=”96″ c=”deck2″ amt=”3″][/card]3x [card name=”Acerola” set=”Burning Shadows” no=”112″ c=”deck2″ amt=”3″][/card]2x [card name=”Plumeria” set=”Burning Shadows” no=”120″ c=”deck2″ amt=”2″][/card]2x [card name=”Faba” set=”Lost Thunder” no=”173″ c=”deck2″ amt=”2″][/card]2x [card name=”Gladion” set=”Crimson Invasion” no=”95″ c=”deck2″ amt=”2″][/card]1x [card name=”Mars” set=”Ultra Prism” no=”128″ c=”deck2″ amt=”1″][/card]1x [card name=”Tate and Liza” set=”Celestial Storm” no=”148″ c=”deck2″ amt=”1″][/card]1x [card name=”Copycat” set=”Celestial Storm” no=”127″ c=”deck2″ amt=”1″][/card]1x [card name=”Pokemon Breeder” set=”Shining Legends” no=”64″ c=”deck2″ amt=”1″][/card]1x [card name=”Guzma” set=”Burning Shadows” no=”115″ c=”deck2″ amt=”1″][/card]1x [card name=”Team Skull Grunt” set=”Sun and Moon” no=”133″ c=”deck2″ divide=”yes” amt=”1″][/card]4x [card name=”Max Potion” set=”Guardians Rising” no=”128″ c=”deck2″ amt=”4″][/card]2x [card name=”Nest Ball” set=”Sun and Moon” no=”123″ c=”deck2″ amt=”2″][/card]2x [card name=”Enhanced Hammer” set=”Guardians Rising” no=”124″ c=”deck2″ amt=”2″][/card]2x [card name=”Crushing Hammer” set=”Emerging Powers” no=”92″ c=”deck2″ amt=”2″][/card]2x [card name=”Counter Catcher” set=”Crimson Invasion” no=”91″ c=”deck2″ amt=”2″][/card]2x [card name=”Ancient Crystal” set=”Ultra Prism” no=”118″ c=”deck2″ amt=”2″][/card]2x [card name=”Metal Frying Pan” set=”Forbidden Light” no=”112″ c=”deck2″ amt=”2″][/card]1x [card name=”Rescue Stretcher” set=”Guardians Rising” no=”130″ c=”deck2″ amt=”1″][/card]1x [card name=”Counter Gain” set=”Lost Thunder” no=”170″ c=”deck2″ divide=”yes” amt=”1″][/card]2x [card name=”Shrine of Punishment” set=”Celestial Storm” no=”143″ c=”deck2″ amt=”2″][/card][/trainers][energy amt=”2″]2x [card name=”Double Colorless Energy” set=”HeartGold and SoulSilver” no=”103″ c=”deck2″ amt=”2″][/card][/energy][/decklist] 

[cardimg name=”Unown” set=”Lost Thunder” no=”91″ align=”right” c=”none”][/cardimg]

This list adapoted another attempted upgrade on inevitability: trying to overcome the way other [card name=”Regigigas” set=”Crimson Invasion” no=”84″ c=”name”][/card] / [card name=”Hoopa” set=”Shining Legends” no=”55″ c=”name”][/card] decks attempted to achieve inevitability. This was done after considering two major components control mirror matches had. Control against control follows a very deterministic pattern whenever the disruption both sides utilize is ineffective. This was the case for Regigigas / Hoopa mirrors. This makes the side that can get better inevitability the favourite. And using [card name=”Unown” set=”Lost Thunder” no=”91″ c=”name”][/card] was seen as the perfect niche card to fulfil this. Second, in control mirrors, information is one of the most important resources. Knowing exactly in what kind of position you are in is harder to determine when you are constantly have to gauge what the possible outcome of things will be in the very distant future. Having the right information on what is going on can make all the difference in control mirrors. At the time, most control players would assume a mirror would come down to an Unown race when playing this matchup. This was the baseline knowledge that was accepted as being standarized information. Following these two focal points under which the mirror operated, David Roodhof and I came up with a way to undermine Unown inevitability and secure our own and doing this by taking advantage of how important information is in the mirror, and what was commonly assumed as universal information. Two Regigigas / Hoopa playing against each other would see both players using [card name=”Steven’s Resolve” set=”Celestial Storm” no=”145″ c=”name”][/card] to obtain 35 cards in hand, reusing Steven’s Resolve with [card name=”Lusamine” set=”Crimson Invasion” no=”96″ c=”name”][/card], and win by reaching Unown’s Ability requirement before the opponent could. Since this gameplan is so linear, falling a step behind would spell disaster; inevitability would mercilessly favor the opponent. This, in combination with the assumption that an Unown race is the turf on which this war is fought on, would lead players to not waste any cards at all in their pursuit of 35 cards. A massive bluff was possible: playing the exact same way as if you were participating in the Unown contest, but flipping the switch right before your opponent reached 35 cards, using [card name=”Girafarig” set=”Lost Thunder” no=”94″ c=”name”][/card] to put their Lusamine and [card name=”Noibat” set=”Forbidden Light” no=”100″ c=”name”][/card] in the Lost Zone and then discard their hand. I tested this idea with David, and decided it was a solid way to flip the oh-so-important inevitability in our favor. Information, or rather our opponent’s lack thereof, played a role in the effectiveness of this tech for this one tournament. This isn’t an illogical route to take in this particular matchup, as it coincided with the fact that information already plays a large role in the mirror. I was very happy to not play Unown. Noibat could be used in other matchups as well as mass removal option. If you’ve read this article up to this point, you might know why I was enamored by this prospect!

Inevitability is one of the most defining concepts to control and very cerebral to figure out. At the same time, it’s a concept that allows for a lot of ingenuity and creativity. It can be taken all kinds of directions and has subtle overlap with all of the other cornerstones. This makes entangling my decks with the most well adjusted form of finality one of the most interesting aspects of control to me.

Closing Thoughts

Hopefully this article has put some perspective on why certain elements of the game are strong and appealing to control. It should also help gauge certain tactics and cards that are good to deploy against control, and to what degree. A card like [card name=”Espeon and Deoxys-GX” set=”Unified Minds” no=”72″ c=”name”][/card] can be game winning against [card name=”Pidgeotto” set=”Team Up” no=”123″ c=”name”][/card]. It is as good as it is because it hits Pidgeotto in one of its cornerstones: its card selection engine. Taking three Prizes is unparalleled tempo, and it can do this by exploiting the lack of survivability Pidgeotto has. Finishing the game in a burst from three Prizes to zero also plays around Pidgeotto’s most potent form of mass removal: the complete hand-lock it has in its disposal. When the opponent has a low Prize count, all of these factors combine into making Cross Division GX effective against Pidgeotto. This is only one factor, and isn’t to say Pidgeotto can’t overcome Espeon and Deoxys-GX at all, but more acurate judgement is always valuable. Seeing it in this light can help quantify how strong control decks are more precisely. Things like this can inform judgement and help make metagame decisions, whether you play control or you don’t want to involve yourself with the archtype at all.

As for the perspective of control itself, a lot of the decision making in deckbuilding comes down to metagaming, min-maxing, and finding configurations that utilize the available options to the best extent. This article was meant to sketch the metrics by which I do those things by.

Note that while, at the start of this article, I went ahead and set control decks and beatdown decks out as seperate entities, the reality isn’t that black and white. The lines aren’t always all that clear, and beatdown decks take elements of control every now and then, and vice versa. There are general philosophies underneath that apply to both, so don’t be afraid to apply some of these ideas to other decks as well. And don’t be afraid to try out control if you never have; there are plenty skills and ideas that carry over from other archtypes.

I’ll go into more depth and specifics of the format, decks, and cards in the future. These are the fundaments on which I base myself and futher branch out my ideas. Hopefully it was helpful and see you for the next piece!

–Sander

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