From California to Texas — A Testing Guide for January

[cardimg name=”Seismitoad-EX” set=”Furious Fists” no=”20″ align=”right” c=”none”][/cardimg]

This past weekend, we had plenty of excitement throughout the Pokemon world. In Anaheim, we got our first look at the impact of Lost Thunder in Expanded, while our Standard meta became further refined and yet even more diverse in Harrogate! Jimmy Pendarvis continued his dominant season by winning his third Regional Championship in a row, and once again proved the power of [card name=”Zoroark-GX” set=”Shining Legends” no=”77″ c=”name”][/card]. With all of this great new information, there is plenty to go over — not to mention prepare for! After all, we are only one month away from the Dallas Regional Championships — and while that may be an eternity compared to the quick pace of events at other times of the year, that time will be over before you know it.

This time, I’ll be using this article both as a recap of last weekend’s tournaments, as well as a guide to show how to use these recent results in your own quest for tournament success. If you are planning to attend either the Dallas Regional Championships, the Mexico City Special Event, or the Oceania International Championships, then you’ll want to pay particular attention to these recent tournament results, since the results of Anaheim and Harrogate will have an effect on the expected metagame. Even if you aren’t planning on attending any of the upcoming major events, you’ll want to be able to use this info to try and predict the upcoming meta at any League Cups or Challenges you might attend.

Gathering Results

Immediately after a large Regional Championship, the first thing to do is to check out the results and gather the answers to any questions you might have about what happened at the event. What won? What was the Day 2 composition like? What matchups were people commonly running into? Were there any neat rogue decks? The more available information you can gather at this point, the better. In an ideal situation, you’ll be able to scrounge together both top-performing deck lists and an idea of the meta composition, which you can then use to get a good feeling for what did well, as well as what didn’t.

Nowadays, the amount of data one can obtain from large Regional Championships can be massive. In addition to the normal Top 8 deck lists, the new norm for many of the US events also includes Day 2 deck lists, a complete breakdown of what decks were played, as well as other gameplay insights that can be gathered through the livestream of the event. Unfortunately, Anaheim was not a tournament from which that full meta information was made available — we’ll have to make due with incomplete information. What we do have is most of the Day 2 deck makeup, to go along with a smattering of lists and matchup information that individual players have shared themselves via social media.

Without the full meta information, we won’t quite be able to see which decks under-performed and over-performed, nor can we get a good sense of decks were prevalent. What we can do, however, is compare the results to the pre-tournament “hype” that those decks had, and get a feel for what decks were dominant. Additionally, we can compare the results of Anaheim and Harrogate to previous tournaments — namely, the Portland and Roanoke Regional Championships — to see how they compare. While the Portland:Anaheim comparison won’t be quite one-to-one like the Standard event comparison, the slow-changing nature of Expanded makes the impact of a single set generally less, to the point that we can anticipate which of the changes in tournament results were due to new cards from Lost Thunder, and which were due to fluctuations in the existing meta. From there, we can try and put together a picture of what the metagame looked like, and use that to try and determine what we need to prepare for going forward into the Dallas and Mexico City events.

Anaheim Results

Spoiler: Zoroark-GX is a good card. In addition to winning the tournament outright, Zoroark-GX variants made up four of the Top 8 spots in the tournament, while also making up a whopping 30 of the 48 decks in Day 2. Most of these variants were control based, rather than aggression based; 18 were paired with [card name=”Garbodor” set=”Dragons Exalted” no=”54″ c=”name”][/card], five were with [card name=”Seismitoad-EX” set=”Furious Fists” no=”106″ c=”name”][/card] (including the winning variant), and a few others were based around hand disruption, with only four being paired with attackers such as [card name=”Weavile” set=”Ultra Prism” no=”74″ c=”name”][/card], [card name=”Golisopod-GX” set=”Burning Shadows” no=”129″ c=”name”][/card] and [card name=”Lycanroc-GX” set=”Guardians Rising” no=”138″ c=”name”][/card]. Indeed, there were as many Zoroark-GX / Garbodor decks alone in Anaheim’s Day 2 as there were all Zoroark-GX variants in total in Portland’s Day 2!

Overall, control decks appear to have been incredibly dominant in Day 1, as they made up the majority of the non-Zoroark deck in Day 2, though they were less dominant in Day 2 itself. All four of the non-Zoroark decks in Top 8 were more aggressive decks: [card name=”Lucario-GX” set=”Forbidden Light” no=”122″ c=”name”][/card], [card name=”Buzzwole-GX” set=”Crimson Invasion” no=”104″ c=”name”][/card], [card name=”Rayquaza-GX” set=”Celestial Storm” no=”160″ c=”name”][/card], and my personal favorite of the four, [card name=”Vespiquen” set=”Ancient Origins” no=”10″ c=”name”][/card] / [card name=”Flareon” set=”Plasma Freeze” no=”12″ c=”name”][/card].

[cardimg name=”Blastoise” set=”Boundaries Crossed” no=”31″ align=”left” c=”none”][/cardimg]

Compared to tournament results from before Lost Thunder, the Anaheim results come off as rather centralized, and that is how I would expect Expanded tournaments to be going forward. Of particular note, [card name=”Trevenant” set=”XY” no=”55″ c=”name”][/card] and [card name=”Blastoise” set=”Plasma Storm” no=”137″ c=”name”][/card] decks both failed to make an impact — quite a surprise, given that those two decks finished second and third respectively in Portland, and together made up over 20% of the Portland Day 2 meta. Other decks that were missing in action include Night March, [card name=”Sableye” set=”Dark Explorers” no=”62″ c=”name”][/card], [card name=”Alolan Exeggutor” set=”Forbidden Light” no=”2″ c=”name”][/card], and [card name=”Sylveon-GX” set=”Guardians Rising” no=”92″ c=”name”][/card], all decks that managed multiple Day 2 spots in Portland, but failed to achieve those spots in Anaheim. While those decks may have been a bit more fringe, and thus simply didn’t see a ton of play, the utter lack of success for Trevenant and Blastoise drastically contrasts with the pre-tournament hype those decks received. Both of those decks were widely considered to be tier one, and most players, including myself, would have expected them to make up a decent percentage of the meta, especially since both performed well in Portland, and neither appeared to be heavily impacted by any cards coming out of Lost Thunder. I wouldn’t expect either of these decks to vanish going forward — both are still incredibly strong, but both may be diminished if their matchups have become less than favorable.

As far as the impact of Lost Thunder, [card name=”Girafarig” set=”Lost Thunder” no=”94″ c=”name”][/card] and [card name=”Faba” set=”Lost Thunder” no=”208″ c=”name”][/card] were both solid performers in control decks including Pendarvis’ winning list, as was [card name=”Ditto Prism Star” set=”Lost Thunder” no=”154″ c=”name”][/card] in Stage 1 decks such as Zoroark-GX / Garbodor and [card name=”Zebstrika” set=”Lost Thunder” no=”82″ c=”name”][/card] in Vespiquen. While nothing from Lost Thunder ended up truly taking Expanded by storm, there is no doubt that the new techs proved to be useful. One final thing about this event is that any pre-tournament concerns about [card name=”Unown” set=”Lost Thunder” no=”90″ c=”name”][/card] DAMAGE were soundly put to rest, as the card proved to be unworthy of playing, much less banning!

Harrogate Results

As much as Anaheim’s results appeared to be boring and centralized, Harrogate’s results were the opposite. While Harrogate wasn’t the first Regional Championship of the SUM-LOT format, we did get a good number of deck surprises out of its results. Attacking [card name=”Steelix” set=”Celestial Storm” no=”89″ c=”name”][/card] and Zoroark-GX / [card name=”Gyarados” set=”Burning Shadows” no=”33″ c=”name”][/card] were both solidly outside the box and incredibly successful, as was the resurgent [card name=”White Kyurem” set=”Lost Thunder” no=”63″ c=”custom”]White Kyurem[/card], a deck that most had written off prior to this event. While we did see the expected smattering of [card name=”Blacephalon-GX” set=”Lost Thunder” no=”199″ c=”custom”]Blacephalon-GX[/card], [card name=”Granbull” set=”Lost Thunder” no=”138″ c=”custom”]Granbull[/card], Buzzwole-GX, [card name=”Malamar” set=”Forbidden Light” no=”51″ c=”name”][/card], and more traditional Zoroark-GX variants, the success of more rogue concepts shows that there is still a great deal of room for innovation in Standard. In the Top 8, only Blacephalon-GX / [card name=”Naganadel” set=”Lost Thunder” no=”108″ c=”name”][/card] took up more than one spot. Even better, there were an incredible 20 different deck variants in Day 2, with even more that ended up missing the Day 2 cut. Diversity is the name of the game in Standard.

I find it worth noting that those 20 deck variants didn’t even include several successful decks from Roanoke, such as the victorious [card name=”Gardevoir-GX” set=”Burning Shadows” no=”159″ c=”name”][/card] / Solgaleo-GX.

Overall, this field did absolutely nothing to help determine a clear BDIF in Standard, which, given the state of Expanded, might be a good thing!

[premium]

Meta Picture

Whether the meta is centralized as it seems to be in Expanded or diverse as it seems to be in Standard, it will be critical to have a decent understanding of what the expected meta should be when you begin testing to beat that meta. After all, you’re going to want test against the decks that you will actually play against!

I’ve compiled two lists of decks that I will be planning to do my initial Regionals testing against, one for Expanded, the other for Standard. The decks on these lists include the ones that I expect to make up the majority of decks at any upcoming event that I would go to, be it a League Cup or a Regional Championship, as well as new variants that I think people might try out. When making these lists, I’ve tried to strike a balance between the most recent results and past hype.

One key here is not to overreact to the results of any one tournament by ignoring decks that struggled at that event. In Pokemon’s history, there have been plenty of examples of decks that have struggled when the meta turns against them, only to roar back to strength once the meta becomes more favorable. An excellent example of such a situation would be the performance of Zoroark-GX itself toward the end of last season. In that case, Zoroark-GX had a string of poor performances due to the emergence of non-GX focused [card name=”Buzzwole” set=”Forbidden Light” no=”77″ c=”name”][/card] decks; at Regional Championships in Madison and Mexico City, the deck failed to obtain even a single Top 8 spot. As players began to prepare more for Buzzwole decks, however, Zoroark-GX was able to reestablish itself as a competitor, and was able to take five of the Top 8 spots at the NAIC!

I expect that this is happening to both Trevenant and Blastoise. Trevenant in particular tends to have cyclical success, and I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see it do well if people begin to move away from Zoroark-GX decks to decks designed to counter Zoroark-GX, many of which have bad Trevenant matchups.

Expanded

For Expanded, this is where I would start, from most anticipated to least anticipated:

  • Zoroark Control
  • Zoroark-GX / Garbodor
  • [card name=”Drampa-GX” set=”Guardians Rising” no=”115″ c=”name”][/card] / Garbodor, other Garbodor variants
  • Buzzwole-GX / Lycanroc-GX
  • Trevenant
  • Archie’s Blastoise
  • Vespiquen / Flareon
  • Rayquaza-GX
  • Lucario-GX
  • Night March

[cardimg name=”Zoroark-GX” set=”Shining Legends” no=”53″ align=”right” c=”none”][/cardimg]

Without a doubt, Zoroark-GX has become the deck to beat in Expanded. When a deck wins two Regionals in a row, it’s almost certain to draw attention — and with that attention, an increase in the number of players playing it. In the past, plenty of players have tried to develop a counter to Zoroark-GX only to fall short. Because of how flexible Zoroark-GX is, its decks have a tendency to be rather adaptive to changes in the meta — so even if counter-decks become more popular between now and Dallas, I would expect the deck to continue to see heavy play. Since it is likely that you’ll end up facing the deck multiple times, I wouldn’t recommend playing a deck with a negative matchup against any of the Zoroark-GX variants; likewise, it is against those variants that you should begin your testing.

After testing against Zoroark-GX decks, I would then focus on the other various control decks in the format, starting with Drampa-GX / Garbodor. Garbodor control decks have had a consistent performance in both Portland and Anaheim, though they were more Zoroark-focused in Anaheim. Now that [card name=”Hex Maniac” set=”Ancient Origins” no=”75″ c=”name”][/card] is no longer in the format, Garbodor decks have been one of the few counters to Ability-focused decks. Likewise, Garbodor has become a go-to strategy to use against Zoroark-GX to shut off Trade and get them into a unplayable hand. With Zoroark-GX being so popular, I would expect more players to try Garbodor decks to counter them — and thus you should make sure that you don’t get countered as well! If your deck is Ability-reliant, then you’ll want to make sure you have enough ways to remove Pokemon Tools, particularly in the late game after a combination of Garbotoxin and N.

In a similar vein, it would not surprise me if there was a drastic uptick in the popularity of Fighting-type focused decks as a direct response to the dominance of Zoroark-GX. Thanks to [card name=”Max Elixir” set=”BREAKpoint” no=”102″ c=”name”][/card] and [card name=”Strong Energy” set=”Fates Collide” no=”115″ c=”name”][/card], it remains one of the few decks strong enough to both take on multiple varieties of Zoroark-GX, as well as the non-control Expanded decks. Even with many of the Zoroark-GX decks utilizing Garbodor, Fighting decks managed to perform decently in Anaheim, snagging two of the Top 8 spots between Buzzwole-GX and Lucario-GX, despite having low representation in Day 2. Unlike Zoroark and Garbodor decks, testing against Fighting decks will show how well your deck deals with aggressive decks. Even if you don’t run into Buzzwole-GX, testing against it can give you a decent idea of how to approach other, less common aggressive decks, such as [card name=”Volcanion-EX” set=”Steam Siege” no=”26″ c=”name”][/card].

From there, I would focus on Trevenant, Archie’s Blastoise, and Night March, three decks that have plenty of past results, but faltered this weekend. Like I said above, I wouldn’t expect any of these decks to vanish from the meta — they have far too much intrinsic strength for that to happen — but I also wouldn’t expect them to have quite the same amount of meta share as Zoroark-GX, Garbodor, or Buzzwole-GX. Trevenant may have a poor matchup into Zoroark-GX, but it remains one of the best decks in the format against non-Zoroark decks thanks to its excellent combination of turn two disruption and spread damage. While some players may avoid playing Trevenant in anticipation of high levels of Zoroark-GX, others will likely stick with it, aiming to target the favorable non-Zoroark matchups. Blastoise also struggled in Anaheim, but it remains the go-to deck for straight damage, as it is one of the most consistent options for those who aren’t looking to play nine grueling rounds with a control deck. Night March is in a similar boat, and may be one that actually benefits from its poor performance in Anaheim if counts of [card name=”Oricorio” set=”Guardians Rising” no=”56″ c=”name”][/card] and/or [card name=”Karen” set=”XY Black Star Promos” no=”XY177″ c=”name”][/card] decrease. Blastoise and Night March are matchups I always enjoy testing against, as the decks generally have little-to-no means of disruption. This means that, like Buzzwole-GX, you’ll get a good idea of what your deck can do when your opponent actually lets you do everything that you planned! Trevenant is just about the opposite, and so can give you an idea of how your deck performs under less-than-ideal circumstances — especially important given the rise of Seismitoad-EX. 

Finally, I would take a look at the top finishers from Anaheim that didn’t have a ton of hype coming into this event. While none of these decks were high on the radar prior to Anaheim, it’s difficult to ignore their results — generally, one does not make Top 8 without doing something right! I expect quite a few players to start to pick up these decks at the local level in an effort to try and figure out what exactly that “something” is. With that said, I wouldn’t necessarily expect Vespiquen, Rayquaza-GX, or Lucario-GX to start to dominate in terms of percentage of the meta quite yet, simply due to their newness and the general lack of familiarity with them. While they may be solid decks, I wouldn’t consider any of the three strong enough to immediately draw players away from more familiar concepts. So, while there is a good chance you may run into them, even at a higher table, it probably won’t be more than once. Test against them so that you have familiarity with them and the matchup, but try to avoid focusing on them too much, lest that distort your view of how your deck performs against the rather centralized Expanded meta.

Standard

For Standard, this is where I would start, from most anticipated to less anticipated:

  • Blacephalon-GX / Naganadel
  • Buzzwole-GX / Lycanroc-GX / Alolan Ninetales-GX
  • Zoroark-GX variants ([card name=”Decidueye-GX” set=”Sun and Moon Black Star Promos” no=”SM37″ c=”name”][/card], Lycanroc-GX, Weavile, Gyarados)
  • Granbull
  • Malamar variants ([card name=”Necrozma-GX” set=”Burning Shadows” no=”63″ c=”name”][/card], [card name=”Ultra Necrozma-GX” set=”Forbidden Light” no=”95″ c=”name”][/card], Spread)
  • Stall variants ([card name=”Shuckle-GX” set=”Lost Thunder” no=”17″ c=”name”][/card] decks, [card name=”Hoopa” set=”Shining Legends” no=”55″ c=”name”][/card] / [card name=”Regigigas” set=”Crimson Invasion” no=”84″ c=”name”][/card] decks)
  • Shrine of Punishment decks (Buzzwole / Weavile, White Kyurem, Attacking Steelix)
  • Lost March
  • Gardevoir-GX
  • Sceptile-GX / Shuckle-GX
  • Glaceon-GX

[cardimg name=”Blacephalon-GX” set=”Lost Thunder” no=”52″ align=”left” c=”none”][/cardimg]

In Standard, the top decks remain as Blacephalon-GX, Buzzwole-GX, Zoroark-GX, Granbull, and Malamar. Variants of these five decks made up roughly two thirds of the Day 2 field in Virginia, and continued that performance in Harrogate, making up ~71% of the decks in Day 2. Between the nine variants of those decks, you’ll have plenty to start with! All five of these decks are certainly worthy of their tier one status. Each of the five decks represent some of the best that the Standard format has to offer; Granbull is arguably the strongest and most consistent non-GX deck, Malamar and Zoroark-GX decks are both versatile and insanely consistent, Buzzwole-GX has incredible speed and damage output, and Blacephalon-GX has the highest damage output of any deck in the format while also being fast and consistent! While there are certainly decks that can be strong against one or a few of these decks, such as, say, [card name=”Quagsire” set=”Dragon Majesty” no=”26″ c=”name”][/card] against Blacephalon-GX, any deck that dedicates itself too thoroughly will find itself struggling against the rest of the format due to a lack of versatility. Given the inherent strength of all five of these decks, I’ve found it no surprise that they have maintained a consistent meta share in both Harrogate and Roanoke, and I would expect that to continue going forward.

You should anticipate at least two thirds of your matchups in any Standard event to be against some combination of these five decks. Likewise, you should dedicate most of your testing to developing your strategy against them. Thankfully, unlike in Expanded, all five of these are rather lacking as far as their disruption capabilities, making the matchups at least somewhat similar in the sense that you can anticipate your deck’s resources being available in all of them. Even so, your deck’s approach will slightly differ in each matchup, so you’re going to want to have familiarity with all of them. Take particular note of how you are matching up against the GX-focused decks compared to the non-GX focused decks. There isn’t any one deck here that I would say is overwhelmingly more popular than the others, and so, unlike Expanded, there isn’t a deck that I would say you need to have a positive matchup against — but your deck of choice should be testing positively against the majority of these five.

After testing against those, Stall variants and Shrine of Punishments are what I would test against next, as both will remain rather popular, and require completely different approaches than when playing against the big five.

Against Shrine of Punishment decks, you may have to approach your Bench and setup situations slightly differently so as not to fall victim to eventual Shrine damage. Decks focused around Shrine of Punishment have been difficult to stop since the card’s release, as it is rather tough to balance both limiting one’s own GX usage while maintaining enough of a draw and search engine to compete with the rest of the decks in the format. Now that [card name=”Alolan Ninetales-GX” set=”Lost Thunder” no=”132″ c=”name”][/card] has become nearly a staple card in Stage-2-focused decks and [card name=”Buzzwole-GX” set=”Crimson Invasion” no=”57″ c=”name”][/card] decks, I would expect Shrine of Punishment decks to continue to see play as a counter to these powerful GX-based search engines. If you are struggling against Shrine, you may also want to consider changing around your deck list to more easily remove Shrine of Punishment from play, or to become less focused on GXs.

Stall variants can have many similarities with Shrine of Punishment decks, namely a focus on non-GXs and possibly on using Shrine of Punishment to inflict damage, but are notably different in their gameplay approaches. Against these matchups, managing your resources well is the key to success – and it may not be immediately obvious how to go about doing that if you haven’t prepared for this kind of game. Stall decks were also popular in both Roanoke and Harrogate, so I would expect them to continue to see play going forward. Try and figure out the strategy for beating them, and if your deck is struggling, consider adding cards such as [card name=”Oranguru” set=”Ultra Prism” no=”114″ c=”name”][/card] to impact their resource denial strategy.

Finally, I would turn my focus to the other, less popular decks in Standard that have nonetheless managed to make a continuous impact.

[card name=”Gardevoir-GX” set=”Burning Shadows” no=”93″ c=”name”][/card], while not a Day 2 finishing deck in Harrogate, is still a top contender after winning in Roanoke. So, just as [card name=”Trevenant” set=”XY” no=”55″ c=”name”][/card] and [card name=”Blastoise” set=”Boundaries Crossed” no=”31″ c=”name”][/card] remain in the Expanded testing list, Gardevoir-GX should certainly remain in our list of Standard decks to test against. The deck is flexible and consistent, and has a strong matchup against many of the successful decks from Harrogate — so I would consider its lack of success more of an anomaly than a long-term pattern.

Rounding out this long list, Lost March, [card name=”Sceptile-GX” set=”Lost Thunder” no=”196″ c=”custom”]Sceptile-GX[/card], and newcomer [card name=”Glaceon-GX” set=”Ultra Prism” no=”141″ c=”name”][/card] all performed well in Harrogate, and have all had varying amounts of hype before the event. While you might not see these decks quite as often as the decks mentioned above, their continued finishes mean that they will still see a good amount of play from dedicated players. However, all three of these decks are somewhat matchup reliant, and can be rather linear in their strategies. The decks have just enough differences to stand apart from the five tier one decks, but their limitations place them squarely in the tier two range — a range that will have a naturally limited ceiling with regards to meta percentage. I wouldn’t expect to match up against any of these decks more than once, but I also wouldn’t expect to go through a tournament without matching up against any of the four. As such, none of those four should be completely ignored, although given that they are less popular, I would focus more on getting a feel for what to do in these matchups as opposed to worrying about how well your deck performs against them.

All in all, the diversity of Standard means that there is much more to choose from as far as what to play, but also requires a great deal of testing to gain full mastery of the format.

Testing Strategy

[cardimg name=”Jumpluff” set=”Lost Thunder” no=”14″ align=”right” c=”custom”]Weren’t planning on playing me? Too bad.[/cardimg]

Now that we’ve got an idea of what to expect going forward, we want to try and put together a game plan for how to test for our upcoming events. Your first order of business should be to build every deck you consider meta, even if you have no intention of playing them in an event. In general, if a deck is on the above list, it is one that you have a decent chance of running into at an upcoming event, and thus should be one that you have at least some experience playing against. If you need to, don’t be afraid to utilize PTCGO or use proxies — proxies make up most of my testing decks, with the real cards saved for a select few decks that I anticipate actually playing in tournaments. If you can, try and find the top lists from Anaheim and Harrogate, and copy them card for card. While there may be a stigma from some players against netdecking, most of the decks you encounter will end up going off of these lists in one way or another, so those lists will be perfect for testing against.

Once you have them built, play at least one match against all of the listed decks, as well as one match with each of these decks against the deck that you plan on playing. By playing against your own deck, you can start to get a better idea of what your opponent will be trying to do, allowing you to “get inside the head” of your future opponents. For example, you might notice that, when playing one of these opposing meta decks, it comes to your attention that you don’t want a particular one of your Pokemon to be Knocked Out, or one of the strategies that your testing partner uses proves to be incredibly effective against you. Then, when you then play against that deck, you’ll have another perspective on how to beat it! This is even better if you can play against multiple testing partners; their differences in playstyle may reveal to you strategic options that you hadn’t considered previously. If you want to play a deck which has a variety of strategic options, or a control deck in which you have to continually make decisions based on your opponent’s moves, then I highly recommend this style of testing, as it can give you a much clearer indication of what actions to prioritize.

The goal of this part of the testing should be to simply get a feel for each of the matchups. When playing, don’t focus as much on wins and losses. Rather, take note of how the matchups play out. You’ll want to take notes on which aspects of the opposing meta deck seem strong, as well as which aspects of the deck seem weaker, such as cards the deck has difficulty playing around, or various frustrations you might have when playing the deck. You’ll also want to get a feel for the scenarios in which the decks win and lose. What does winning seem to come down to? Are the two decks close, or does one seem to consistently gain an advantage — and why? The more you can notice about a matchup, the better you’ll be at figuring out the keys to victory in that matchup.

Doing this for all of these decks may seem a bit daunting; after all, with nine decks in our projected Expanded meta, simply playing a single match both with and against each deck would require 18 matches, whereas the same effort for Standard would require 40 matches — the equivalent of over four Regional Championships. Even so, it is absolutely worth it to do as much broad testing as you can. By getting the information that I’ve pointed out above, you can gain a huge advantage in terms of figuring matchup strategy.

For those of you who find yourselves strapped for time, deciding what to prioritize testing against can be tricky; after all, you don’t want to waste your time testing against something that you won’t encounter, but you also don’t want to be caught unaware when your opponent flips over something unexpected. If you already have a pretty solid grasp on your deck’s matchups, focus on the ones that are closer to 50-50 so that you can try to turn them in your favor. Otherwise, focus on the matchups that are more complex, and thus will require more nuance in terms of your gameplay; for Expanded, that means focusing on [card name=”Zoroark-GX” set=”Shining Legends” no=”53″ c=”name”][/card] and [card name=”Garbodor” set=”BREAKpoint” no=”57″ c=”name”][/card] — for Standard, on Zoroark-GX, [card name=”Shrine of Punishment” set=”Celestial Storm” no=”143″ c=”name”][/card] decks, and Stall decks. For local League Cup metagames, some of those listed decks may be absent, in which case you can temporarily ignore them if your goal is to test for that Cup. When in doubt, start from the top of the above lists, and work your way down.

Making Revisions

[cardimg name=”Giratina” set=”XY Black Star Promos” no=”XY184″ align=”right” c=”none”][/cardimg]

In order to have tournament success, there are two parts of your deck choice that you’ll want to be perfect. You’ll want to know your ideal matchup strategies, and you’ll want your deck list to be perfectly tuned to the expected metagame. Luckily, this gauntlet of testing should help you get both of them down. While perfection in these regards might be realistically impossible, you can certainly try and get close!

Once you’ve gotten a general idea for how each of the matchups work, focus your testing on finding the ideal strategy to beat each of them. This is where all of those hows and whys from above come in, as your answers to those will point you toward the ideal strategy.

At the same time, this is where you’ll want to start altering your list so as to improve your odds against the expected meta as best you can. This is also where our meta predictions become incredibly important. Any tech card you include will have the upside of improving certain matchups and the downside of removing another card to make room for the tech. Almost certainly, the impact of any card isn’t going to be the same as any other — removing a card that is important to your deck’s success in most matchups for a card that only benefits the deck in a particular fringe matchup isn’t a good call. Likewise, you’ll want to evaluate how effective a tech is. Does it only improve the matchup slightly, or does it do so drastically?

To get an idea of what to add, take those notes on how you tend to be losing certain matchups and try to find a card that solves the problem. Likewise, to get an idea of what to remove, look for cards that you aren’t relying on to win. Consider the prevalence of the matchups as well. A card that is critical to beating Zoroark-GX decks will be far more useful than a card that is critical to beating [card name=”Vespiquen” set=”Ancient Origins” no=”10″ c=”name”][/card] simply because you will likely face Zoroark-GX decks far more often. The goal here is optimization — to try and maximize the net increase in expected win percentage as a result of the list alteration. Obviously, this is a rather difficult problem — if it was simple, building and fine tuning lists would be easy!

Here are some options you can try and aim for:

  • Tech for all bad matchups, reducing your win percent in your good matchups to do so
  • Make the good matchups even better, reducing your win percent in your bad matchups to do so
  • Focus on techs for improving the 50-50 matchups, while reducing win percent in the bad and good matchups

Sometimes, the optimal way to go will end up giving you a bunch of close, 50-50 matchups, while at other times you may find yourself reliant on hitting a bunch of positive matchups for your deck to succeed; none of the above options can be applied to every list for every tournament.

Final Preparation

Once you get to the final stages of the testing process, you’ll want to see how you do against as much “random” stuff as you can. If you have time, test against more of the fringe options you might see, such as hot rogue decks or obscure techs. You can also try altering the versions of the other decks you are testing against to include techs or strategies that you might have overlooked. League Cups are excellent for this sort of thing. They not only provide the random assortment of decks to test against, but also let you know if there’s any different strategy or approach against your deck that your testing partners might not have taken, but proves to be rather effective. When it comes to testing, the more, the better!

With that much thorough testing, you’ll be incredibly well-prepared and ready to face anything your opponent can throw at you. While the luck factor of Pokemon may mean that there still isn’t a guarantee of success, your odds will certainly be higher than those of someone who’s testing was less thorough. So, if you can, do as much testing as you can! We’ve now reached the end of this article, so if you’ve got any still unanswered questions about testing, the Standard or Expanded meta, or anything else Pokemon, feel free to comment, message, or ask away in our PTCG Subscriber’s Hideout!

Best of luck testing!

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