Diving Deep — Analyzing Complex Board States
Hey PokeBeach readers, I hope your season has been off to a great start!
It is hard to believe we are already approaching the end of the first quarter of the season. I recently followed up my 2nd place finish at the Baltimore Regional Championships with a Top 8 at the Louisville Regional Championships! I played the exact same 60 card deck list at both tournaments, and was rewarded for continuing to put my faith in [card name=”Lugia VSTAR” set=”Silver Tempest” no=”139″ c=”name”][/card]!
[cardimg name=”Lugia VSTAR” set=”Silver Tempest” no=”211″ align=”right” c=”none”][/cardimg]
I actually wasn’t even planning on attending Louisville, but when more registration slots opened up I decided I should keep playing hot off of my Baltimore finish, and I’m very glad I did! If you want to read about my Lugia deck and it’s construction check out this article I wrote last month. Even though we had Stellar Crown come out since Baltimore, nothing has really changed for Lugia. I still think the deck will continue to be a strong play for the rest of the format!
Besides myself in the Top 8 of Louisville there were some other cool decks. I ended up losing to a re-imagined Lost Box deck piloted by Michael Davidson, who himself lost to a unique take on Raging Bolt. A pair of [card name=”Dusknoir” set=”Shrouded Fable” no=”20″ c=”name”][/card] decks also cracked the Top 8, one with [card name=”Origin Forme Palkia VSTAR” set=”Astral Radiance” no=”40″ c=”name”][/card] and another with [card name=”Terapagos ex” set=”Stellar Crown” no=”128″ c=”name”][/card]. To round it out were the familiar [card name=”Regidrago VSTAR” set=”Silver Tempest” no=”136″ c=”name”][/card] and [card name=”Charizard ex” set=”Obsidian Flames” no=”125″ c=”name”][/card]. All in all there were seven unique decks in Top 8, which shows that there is a wide variety of decks you can pick from and see success.
Heading into the rest of the Stellar Crown format I expect a fairly wide metagame. It seems like a safe bet that [card name=”Raging Bolt ex ” set=”Temporal Forces” no=”123″ c=”name”][/card]will continue to be the most popular deck, but after that there are a plethora of decks making up the rest of the meta share. I think it is exciting that we aren’t in a metagame where there is a clear best deck, and there are six to eight decks that I think could compete for a major tournament victory!
Moving on from Louisville, I wanted to talk about the focus of today’s article. Back in July I wrote an article about approaching your turn and going over some board states. I thought today I would write a continuation of that concept and go over some board states/puzzles I’ve made. I personally think analyzing positions in other games or even your own is a great way to get better. I consistently pull out board states from my own practice and when I watch stream games. While playing games of Pokemon is a great way to improve, taking a step back and diving deeper into complex positions is a fantastic way to improve your critical thinking and pattern recognition skills!
I’m going to go over some complex positions I’ve made up and show you my thought process and how I approach them. Hopefully you can take away a thing or two on how I think through my turns to plan ahead and come to the conclusion of what play is best in different situations! I did my best to test a concept in each one such as Prize mapping, understanding opponents’ win conditions, and check mates! I recommend you try on your own before reading my approach so you can practice the concepts on your own! I built each board in ptcgsim.online so feel free to use the links I provide to try out solutions!
Board 1: Terapagos Vs Charizard
This first board came from a game I played myself when testing for a tournament. In this board you are the [card name=”Terapagos ex” set=”Stellar Crown” no=”128″ c=”name”][/card] player who just had your previous Terapagos ex Knocked Out by your opponent’s [card name=”Charizard ex” set=”Obsidian Flames” no=”125″ c=”name”][/card]. You can’t win on this turn, but try to figure out how to finish this turn in the strongest position possible!
The first thing to note is that the deck is still full of a lot of resources and we have [card name=”Pidgeot ex” set=”Obsidian Flames” no=”164″ c=”name”][/card]’s Quick Search as well as a [card name=”Noctowl” set=”Stellar Crown” no=”115″ c=”name”][/card] in our hand if we want to use Jewel Seeker. I think this turn we should be able to access pretty much everything in the deck! The question becomes do we need to?
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When looking at our opponent’s side of the board we want to identify strengths and weaknesses in their position. The first strength that I notice is the [card name=”Dusclops” set=”Shrouded Fable” no=”19″ c=”name”][/card] sitting on the Bench. That Pokemon is threatening to evolve into a [card name=”Dusknoir” set=”Shrouded Fable” no=”20″ c=”name”][/card] next turn which can take out all of our small HP Pokemon. They also have a Pidgeot ex on the Bench that can give them access to any card and a [card name=”Charmeleon” set=”Paldean Fates” no=”8″ c=”name”][/card] ready to evolve into a Charizard ex. The main weakness I can identify on my opponent’s Bench is the [card name=”Rotom V” set=”Lost Origin” no=”58″ c=”name”][/card]. That is an easy two Prize cards for our deck to take without needing to use Dusknoir.
[cardimg name=”Briar” set=”Stellar Crown” no=”171″ align=”right” c=”none”][/cardimg]
Now let’s look at our side of the board. Our position looks quite strong. We have a Dusknoir ready to go, a Pidgeot ex established, and two [card name=”Hoothoot ” set=”Temporal Forces” no=”126″ c=”name”][/card]ready to evolve into Noctowl. While our board is strong, we have to consider where we could falter. One thing about the Terapagos ex deck is that it relies fairly heavily on [card name=”Briar” set=”Stellar Crown” no=”132″ c=”name”][/card] and Dusknoir to manipulate the Prize trade. The deck also caps out at 220 damage with a Terapagos ex or 240 damage from a [card name=”Bloodmoon Ursaluna ex” set=”Twilight Masquerade” no=”141″ c=”name”][/card]. If our opponent can get to one Prize card remaining on their next turn or only has Pokemon in play with large amounts of HP that could be an issue for us. Understanding the general weaknesses of your deck is super important when figuring out what to do. In a similar vein, understanding common weaknesses of other meta decks is very important for coming up with disrupting plays to your opponent’s strategy!
Let’s start off with the most obvious play of taking out our opponent’s Rotom V. We have [card name=”Boss’s Orders” set=”Rebel Clash” no=”154″ c=”name”][/card] in our hand and already enough Pokemon on the Bench to use Terapagos ex’s Unified Beatdown for enough damage to Knock Out the Rotom V. Next turn we can use Dusknoir to help us take down a Charizard ex or maybe even Pidgeot ex. Seems like a pretty simple solution right? Well we always need to ask what our opponent might do in response. I think the most obvious vulnerability is that we will be at two Prize cards remaining, which activates [card name=”Briar” set=”Stellar Crown” no=”132″ c=”name”][/card] for our opponent. A Briar and a Dusknoir on one of our smaller HP Pokemon lets our opponent win next turn!
Maybe we can play around this by using Dusknoir to go down to one Prize card remaining after we Knock Out Rotom V. This way our opponent can’t use a Dusknoir of their own or play Briar! It would be logical to use Cursed Blast on their Charmeleon and then Knock Out the Rotom V, leaving the Dusclops in play for us to clean up next turn. This seems like a better play, but let’s think if there is counterplay available for our opponent.
In this scenario we are giving our opponent a Prize card when using Cursed Blast so they will be at three Prize cards remaining. If they Knock Out Terapagos ex then they go down to one Prize card, and we can’t use Dusknoir any longer. Knocking Out our opponent’s Dusclops or Dusknoir if it evolves is the only way for us to win. Is there a way for our opponent to remove that liability from the board? What happens if our opponent just uses Pidgeot ex’s Quick Search and grabs [card name=”Professor Turo’s Scenario” set=”Paradox Rift” no=”171″ c=”name”][/card]? They can pick up the Dusclops and then their board only has massive HP Pokemon that we can’t Knock Out! For that reason I think this line of play does not work!
Let’s see if we can play around our opponent going down to one Prize card. Any solution where we pop our Dusknoir this turn leads to a scenario where we allow our opponent to jump to one Prize card left easily. Any solution where we leave our opponent’s Dusclops alive also allows for them to easily get down to a single Prize card left. What if we gusted the Dusclops and took it out with Terapagos ex? This would still leave us with three Prize cards remaining, but we avoid triggering Briar or giving our opponent an easy way to get down to one Prize card. Importantly their [card name=”Thorton” set=”Lost Origin” no=”167″ c=”name”][/card] is in the discard pile so we don’t have to worry about a Dusknoir being played out of nowhere! At best our opponent can get down to two Prize cards next turn.
So we have now solved for all the loss conditions we identified earlier, but how are we going to win on our next turn? Since we are going to be at three Prize cards, we need some combination of Briar and Dusknoir to win. If Rotom V stays in play then the most obvious play will be to just use Briar and gust it up with [card name=”Prime Catcher ” set=”Temporal Forces” no=”157″ c=”name”][/card]or [card name=”Counter Catcher” set=”Crimson Invasion” no=”91″ c=”name”][/card]. However, like we discussed earlier our opponent could use Professor Turo’s Scenario to get it out of play, or maybe a [card name=”Collapsed Stadium” set=”Brilliant Stars” no=”137″ c=”name”][/card]. It is important when analyzing plays we ask what our opponent has to forgo or do in order to do a certain play. If they use Turo then we know our hand isn’t getting disrupted and we get to keep the Noctowl and the Pokemon search cards in our hand. If they want to use Collapsed Stadium then they need to bench two small HP Pokemon or something like [card name=”Fezandipiti ex” set=”Shrouded Fable” no=”38″ c=”name”][/card] that we can take advantage of. Either way, if Rotom comes off the board we know there is counter play for us.
Our opponent also might try and use [card name=”Iono” set=”Paldea Evolved” no=”185″ c=”name”][/card] to disrupt us. In this case they probably try and [card name=”Counter Catcher” set=”Crimson Invasion” no=”91″ c=”name”][/card] Pidgeot ex as well. They would need a [card name=”Defiance Band” set=”Scarlet and Violet” no=”169″ c=”name”][/card] for the Charizard ex to pull this off so it is unlikely they can get all three cards, even with Pidgeot ex, but it is something to keep in mind. In this scenario we are still ok since we have two Hoothoot on the Bench that can evolve to Noctowl. If our opponent uses Iono then we know Rotom V is probably still on their Bench, so a Noctowl can turn in to [card name=”Prime Catcher ” set=”Temporal Forces” no=”157″ c=”name”][/card]plus Briar for game!
One other option our opponent has is to Knock Out our Dusknoir. For this reason I would look to use the [card name=”Buddy-Buddy Poffin ” set=”Temporal Forces” no=”144″ c=”name”][/card]in our hand to get another [card name=”Duskull” set=”Shrouded Fable” no=”18″ c=”name”][/card] down. Remember, if our opponent Knocks Out Dusknoir, then Pidgeot ex is still in play and we should easily be able to setup another Dusknoir!
Regardless of what line of play our opponent goes for we have a chance to win our next turn. While not guaranteed we have put ourselves in the best position to win!
While this board looks very simple on the surface, hopefully I helped illustrate the level of depth it contains, and how one slight misstep can ruin what seems to be a winning position. This is personally one of my favourite boards I’ve made since I think it requires a lot of thought about what plays the opponent has available, and you need to plan multiple turns in advance!
Board 2: Regidrago Mirror
This second board comes from a game I had against one of my students whom I coach. The scenario is that last turn your opponent used their VSTAR Power to grab [card name=”Energy Switch” set=”EX Ruby and Sapphire” no=”82″ c=”name”][/card] and a [card name=”Prime Catcher ” set=”Temporal Forces” no=”157″ c=”name”][/card]the latter of which they held in their hand. This board is going to require you to monitor both your own and your opponent’s resources so make sure to open up the board and explore that! Importantly, you still have your VSTAR Power available to yourself!
When analyzing this position, let’s start off with our opponent’s board. The strengths for them are that they are down to their final two Prize cards remaining, and we are still stuck at four Prize cards. For weaknesses, hopefully you identified that all four copies of their Energy Switch are in the discard pile! Our opponent is actually incapable of powering up a [card name=”Regidrago VSTAR” set=”Silver Tempest” no=”136″ c=”name”][/card] next turn. To me this is the biggest opening for us. Our opponent has a [card name=”Radiant Charizard” set=”Pokemon GO” no=”11″ c=”name”][/card] on their Bench, which currently needs three Energy if it wants to attack. If we let that Pokemon attack, we know our opponent has Prime Catcher waiting for us in their hand! Any solution we come up with probably needs to avoid allowing our opponent to attack with Radiant Charizard next turn.
Turning our attention to our board, I think the biggest weakness we have currently is the lack of Energy on our board. If we want to attack with Regidrago VSTAR this turn, we need to find two Energy Switch. If you took a look through our resources, we actually only have one left in the deck. So if we want to attack, we need to use the VSTAR Power, which is definitely less than ideal. Looking at the strengths of our position, I think we have far more resources available to us than our opponent, and we have our VSTAR Power. We also can attack with Radiant Charizard for only one Energy if we decide to.
I think whatever solution we decide this turn we want to avoid taking two Prize cards, and thus avoid the possibility of our opponent using their own Radiant Charizard. We also need to find a way to win in two turns since our opponent can start manually powering up their Regidrago VSTAR if we are too passive.
[cardimg name=”Radiant Charizard” set=”Crown Zenith” no=”20″ align=”right” c=”none”][/cardimg]
Let’s start off by looking at plays that conserve our VSTAR Power. I think the best way to attack this turn is using our Radiant Charizard. We can leave our opponent’s Regidrago VSTAR at 30 HP remaining and conserve our VSTAR for next turn. Let’s figure out how we can win on the following turn. We want to take four Prize cards in one attack so we probably need to gust something on our opponent’s Bench. We could maybe use [card name=”Dragapult ex” set=”Twilight Masquerade” no=”130″ c=”name”][/card] to finish off the Regidrago VSTAR, but we would be 10 damage counters short of Knocking Out a [card name=”Teal Mask Ogerpon ex” set=”Twilight Masquerade” no=”25″ c=”name”][/card] or our opponent’s [card name=”Fezandipiti ex” set=”Shrouded Fable” no=”38″ c=”name”][/card]. Looking at our hand we have [card name=”Hawlucha” set=”Scarlet and Violet” no=”118″ c=”name”][/card], so maybe we can put that onto the Bench this turn to place 10 damage counters on a Teal Mask Ogerpon ex and the Fezandipiti ex! This way we can win next turn if we can gust and attack with Regidrago VSTAR!
So we have our plan, let’s try and optimize to pull it off over two turns! We already have the Fire Energy and Hawlucha, so we need to figure out how to pull off the gust and attack with Regidrago VSTAR next turn. We have Prime Catcher left in our deck so that is probably a key piece of the puzzle. We can also use our VSTAR Power to grab a piece or two if needed. I think this turn we want to try and thin our deck as much as possible and draw our last Energy Switch if possible to start getting Regidrago VSTAR ready.
A couple questions I would ask is what Supporter should we play, and when should we use Fezandipiti ex’s Flip The Script? While [card name=”Iono” set=”Paldea Evolved” no=”185″ c=”name”][/card] seems like the obvious play here to limit our opponent’s hand and shuffle their Prime Catcher to the bottom of the deck, does it actually make sense? Remember, we are the ones in control of this game. As long as we pull off our strategy we will win in two turns no matter what our opponent does on their turn. We actually don’t care if their hand is large, we just need to thin our deck as aggressively as we can and set up for next turn. For that reason I would choose to use [card name=”Professor’s Research” set=”Celebrations” no=”23″ c=”name”][/card]. Before we use Professor’s Research, I would also use [card name=”Ultra Ball” set=”Brilliant Stars” no=”150″ c=”name”][/card] so we can thin another Teal Mask Ogerpon ex from our deck, we don’t need it anymore. I would also wait to Fezandipiti ex until after Professor’s Research. I wouldn’t want to draw our Prime Catcher and then be forced to hold off on playing a Supporter.
Depending on what you draw from the Professor’s Research, you can thin your deck/hand accordingly, and the odds of being able to win next turn are extremely high! I think this board does a good job of illustrating when it is important to pay attention to your opponent’s resources and what plays are available to them. By understanding what their deck is capable of you can conclude they aren’t able to attack for a turn and play accordingly!
Board 3: Give Yourself a Chance
This last board is going to be a bit simpler, and I actually think the optimal solution still puts you in an unfavoured position, but it prevents your opponent from making a checkmate board!
When looking at our opponent’s side of the board I don’t think they have many weaknesses. It’s mainly just the [card name=”Duskull” set=”Shrouded Fable” no=”18″ c=”name”][/card] and [card name=”Charmeleon” set=”Paldean Fates” no=”8″ c=”name”][/card], but that can evolve into a [card name=”Charizard ex” set=”Paldean Fates” no=”234″ c=”name”][/card]. Our side of the board looks like it’s on life support. We are down to one [card name=”Archeops” set=”Silver Tempest” no=”147″ c=”name”][/card], and very little Energy left in the deck. We have no way to do big damage anymore in this game. The most obvious route to winning is to take two Knock Outs on smaller HP Pokemon such as the Radiant Charizard and Duskull on our opponent’s Bench.
The obvious play here is to use [card name=”Archeops” set=”Silver Tempest” no=”147″ c=”name”][/card] Primal Turbo to attach some Energy to [card name=”Lugia VSTAR” set=”Silver Tempest” no=”211″ c=”name”][/card] and then just Knock Out the Radiant Charizard. We have [card name=”Boss’s Orders” set=”Rebel Clash” no=”189″ c=”name”][/card] in our hand to finish the game next turn on the Duskull or Charmeleon if it doesn’t evolve. That play, however, allows our opponent to completely lock us out of winning! Similar to the first board we went over, our opponent can use [card name=”Professor Turo’s Scenario” set=”Paradox Rift” no=”171″ c=”name”][/card] to pick up the Duskull and then just evolve Charmeleon in to Charizard ex. This would make it so we have no way to Knock Out anything on our opponent’s board next turn.
[cardimg name=”Iono” set=”Paldea Evolved” no=”269″ align=”right” c=”none”][/cardimg]
Let’s try and find a better play that guarantees we at least have a shot to win next turn! We have Boss’s Orders in our hand so maybe we can use that. We can use Boss’s Orders to target the [card name=”Pidgeot ex” set=”Obsidian Flames” no=”225″ c=”name”][/card] or Charizard ex and try to take them out over two turns. While this play ensures an [card name=”Iono” set=”Paldea Evolved” no=”269″ c=”name”][/card] is less harmful, it doesn’t work for a similar reason to the first play we discussed. Your opponent using Professor Turo’s Scenario on whoever you damaged just ruins your plans. I think the best play is to use Boss’s Orders on Charmeleon. By doing this we leave Radiant Charizard and Duskull in play, ensuring at least one will stick around next turn for us to try and Knock Out. We have Ultra Ball in our hand to get [card name=”Lumineon V” set=”Brilliant Stars” no=”40″ c=”name”][/card] and Boss’s Orders next turn if our hand isn’t disrupted!
I think the most obvious response to this play is for our opponent to use Iono to try and lower the odds of us getting Boss’s Orders. If you put a [card name=”Gift Energy” set=”Lost Origin” no=”171″ c=”name”][/card] on the Lugia VSTAR, your opponent would also need to find a [card name=”Counter Catcher” set=”Crimson Invasion” no=”91″ c=”name”][/card] to avoid triggering it! I think it makes sense to put [card name=”Bloodmoon Ursaluna ex” set=”Twilight Masquerade” no=”141″ c=”name”][/card] onto the Bench we need a new attacker if Lugia VSTAR gets Knocked Out. We also have a [card name=”Jet Energy” set=”Paldea Evolved” no=”190″ c=”name”][/card] left so it can’t get trapped. We also have a [card name=”Mesagoza” set=”Scarlet and Violet” no=”178″ c=”name”][/card] in play so our opponent would need to draw something like [card name=”Collapsed Stadium” set=”Brilliant Stars” no=”137″ c=”name”][/card] to take away our 50-50 flip to get a Lumineon V. If our opponent can successfully play Iono and avoid triggering Gift Energy, we need to get lucky to win; otherwise, we have no chances of victory.
Hopefully, this board showed you that sometimes the obvious play doesn’t work and that you should always challenge yourself to think through every possible way your opponent can stop you from winning!
Conclusion
That will bring today’s article to a close, I know it was a bit different than a normal deck breakdown article. I think learning how to analyze positions and have a detailed approach to turn planning is super important for becoming a great Pokemon TCG player! Hopefully you learned a thing or two and enjoyed the boards I put together.
If you have any questions or alternate lines feel free to put them down in the comments below. I am getting ready for LAIC next month, so if any of you will be there, please feel free to come say hi! I look forward to writing for you all again soon, but until then, I wish you the best of luck in all of your games!
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