Don’t You Know That You’re Toxic? — Recapping My Atlanta Regionals Finish

Hello PokeBeach Readers! Isaiah here, and I am happy to be writing another article for you all! Last time, I gave a sort of preamble to the new Standard format that we just recently played at the Atlanta Regional Championship, and now that the event has happened, it is probably best to discuss the accuracy of my assessments in that article. One of the core ideas that I discussed in that article was that decks like [card name=”Gholdengo ex” set=”Paradox Rift” no=”139″ c=”name”][/card], [card name=”Dragapult ex” set=”Twilight Masquerade” no=”130″ c=”name”][/card], and [card name=”Raging Bolt ex ” set=”Temporal Forces” no=”123″ c=”name”][/card]would continue to be top tier threats, and I think that I hit the nail on the head with those assessments. Raging Bolt ex did not really make a super deep run, making it the definite worst of these three, but it still put up some solid finishes. The biggest story of the weekend was, of course, the sheer dominance of Dragapult ex in the new format. I think it was pretty easy to predict that Dragapult ex was going to be good, and maybe even the most played deck in the event. Some people even predicted that the deck would be pretty dominant, but I do not know that anyone would have predicted that Dragapult ex decks would be five of the Top 8, with three advancing to Top 4 and one placing second overall. Not just that, but the deck was by FAR the most played deck in Day 2, with Dragapult ex decks making up an astounding 29.41% of Day 2. As far as I can remember, there has never been a deck that has converted so well since [card name=”Lugia VSTAR” set=”Silver Tempest” no=”139″ c=”name”][/card] was at its peak in late 2022 and early 2023. Additionally, if you look at the list of players who chose to bring Dragapult ex, the lineup consists of almost every single top player who attended the event.

However, there was a fairly large group of top players that also chose to play one of Dragapult ex’s biggest counters, [card name=”Gardevoir ex” set=”Scarlet and Violet” no=”86″ c=”name”][/card]. I have missed the mark a few times in my Pokemon career when it comes to predicting what decks would be good for an upcoming event, but never in my life have I missed the mark as badly as I initially did with Gardevoir ex. I, like many others, assumed that Gardevoir ex was going to be something along the lines of “good but not great” in the new format, but as the Atlanta Regional Championships were approaching, my opinion did shift a bit, and it is clear that other players came to the same conclusion, the most notable of which being Henry Chao, who was able to win the entire event with Gardevoir ex with a thin N’s Zoroark ex line for a little extra draw power. I am a huge fan of this deck, actually, and I wish I had put some time into the idea when I had it a few days before the event, but I typically am not a huge fan of Gardevoir ex, so I decided to stick with what I had tested the most.

In that last article, I also talked about a few new decks, namely Walls (e.g. [card name=”Farigiraf ex ” set=”Temporal Forces” no=”108″ c=”name”][/card]or [card name=”Milotic ex” set=”Surging Sparks” no=”42″ c=”name”][/card]), [card name=”Feraligatr ” set=”Temporal Forces” no=”41″ c=”name”][/card], and [card name=”Noctowl” set=”Stellar Crown” no=”115″ c=”name”][/card] decks. The first two of these had a disastrous weekend, going 0/33 and 0/24 on making Day 2, respectively. The unfortunate reality is that neither of these decks were particularly great into the expected metagame for this event, and even worse, the decks that did well also are really bad matchups for both decks, so they probably will never get their chance to shine. Noctowl’s weekend was a bit weird. I think that, initially, a lot of players expected Noctowl Tera Box to do really, really well, but the highest finishing one only got 39th. It’s kind of hard to say what went wrong for the deck this weekend, but I think it was mostly just everyone being almost too prepared for the deck that it just drowned into a field of everyone being teched for it. This is one deck that I would definitely expect to pop up and do well at a future event, though, even if it did not have a great weekend in Atlanta.

A big part of why Tera Box had a rough weekend was also because of the emergence of the [card name=”Terapagos ex” set=”Stellar Crown” no=”128″ c=”name”][/card] / [card name=”Bouffalant” set=”Stellar Crown” no=”119″ c=”name”][/card] variant emerging which is naturally very, very good against Tera Box. Because of that favorable matchup, a lot of players switched to it, allowing it to overtake traditional Tera Box in the overall meta share. I do not think this deck is very good (although, I did lose to it on the official stream this weekend, so maybe that’s a bit ripe coming from me) and I really do not expect it to do much going forward with its typically poor matchup into Dragapult ex. Finally, there was also a Flareon ex / [card name=”Sylveon ex” set=”Surging Sparks” no=”86″ c=”name”][/card] / Noctowl deck that did pretty well, but I am not sure what to think of it. It seemed pretty good when I sat by it a few times, though, so maybe it has a future in this format.

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The one other deck that has much of a major story this weekend was [card name=”Archaludon ex” set=”Surging Sparks” no=”130″ c=”name”][/card]. I think that a lot of people expected Archaludon ex to see a decent amount of play, and maybe even a few would do pretty well, but I do not think that anyone had particularly high expectations for the deck in terms of it winning the event or something like that. With a few different tanky variants floating around, such as Hop’s Dubwool (which peaked at 74th) and N’s Zoroark (which peaked at 43rd), I think most people expected that style to see the most success, but instead it would be the Poison version with [card name=”Brute Bonnet” set=”Paradox Rift” no=”123″ c=”name”][/card] that did the best, peaking at 12th in the hands of myself. Quite frankly, I have no idea how I pulled this one off. Usually, I feel pretty good about the deck that I played following an event where I did well, but in this case, I really feel like I got lucky to get where I did, so how about I dive a bit deeper into what guided me to the conclusion to play the deck in the first place.

Why Poison Archaludon ex

[cardimg name=”Archaludon ex” set=”Surging Sparks” no=”130″ align=”right” c=”none”][/cardimg]

As we were approaching rotation, one of the main decks that I was playing was Feraligatr, but that was largely because I was not super seriously testing for anything yet. I played a few games here and there with other decks, but since I was not originally going to go to Atlanta, I was operating with the thought process of letting everyone else do the work and copy some lists from Atlanta after the event to figure out what I liked for Milwaukee. That was until there was a post about registration re-opening for the event (I only was not going because it was full), so I decided I would try to register and see what happened. Luckily, I was able to get into the event fairly seamlessly, so my approach immediately switched from not caring to now desperately needing to figure out what decks were good and how to prepare for the event. Early on, I gravitated toward Gholdengo ex and Raging Bolt ex, but after some conversations with my friend Dalten Cross, he convinced me to try Tera Box, which I had previously denounced as not being a very good deck. However, to do my due diligence, I spent an entire day playing probably 30 or more games of Tera Box, and I quickly shifted my opinion on the deck.

During this process, I also started looking into some other decks that I had originally called bad and that brought me to Poison Archaludon ex, partially because of a tweet that I had seen from Anthony Fantano, a prominent YouTube creator. I had heard mention of this deck around, but I did not really know what it did and had not seen any lists. I threw together a rough idea of what I wanted, as the way the deck was described to me seemed very different from what I wanted, but I was surprised to see that some deck lists from Japanese City League events (similar to a League Cup) were pretty similar to my initial idea. Using some of those deck lists as inspiration, I finalized a list and started playing some games with it.

While I had to force myself to play Tera Box all day two days prior, I was immediately really enjoying Poison Archaludon ex. The ability to get a turn one win (commonly called a “donk”) with Pecharunt was really enticing, and even in games you did not get the donk, the ability to manipulate Poison damage in a way that you can usually take Knock Outs without giving the opponent access to [card name=”Fezandipiti ex” set=”Shrouded Fable” no=”38″ c=”name”][/card] was really able to sell me on the deck being one that I liked. After a day or two straight of just playing the deck, it had already surged to being my top pick for the event, and it would never fall below that point again. Over the next week, I made three total changes to the deck from my initial deck list, adding in a [card name=”Kieran” set=”Twilight Masquerade” no=”154″ c=”name”][/card], a second [card name=”Iono” set=”Paldea Evolved” no=”185″ c=”name”][/card], and a third [card name=”Night Stretcher” set=”Surging Sparks” no=”251″ c=”name”][/card], but I was really impressed by how close my initial deck list was to being exactly what I wanted with the deck. After some more testing and a few rotten days of testing with Tera Box, I had settled on absolutely playing Poison Archaludon ex for Atlanta. The final week before the event was disastrous, though, as I had some nightmarish losing streaks with the deck and I almost scared myself off of it, but I finally decided on it for a few reasons.

1. I was most practiced with it.
2. I was really confident in my deck list.
3. I was extremely confident that I would beat Raging Bolt ex, Gholdengo ex, and Tera Box with it, so if I could scrape together a few wins against Dragapult ex, Gardevoir ex, and Terapagos ex, I probably could do decent, even if I would not do great.

Those first two points were by far the biggest factors, though, and I recommend considering those two points when deciding the deck for your next Regional. With that decided, I finally ended up locking in my final deck list after I ultimately decided to exclude Pal Pad.

[decklist name=”arch poison” amt=”60″ caption=”” cname=”Archaludon ex” set=”Surging Sparks” no=”130″][pokemon amt=”15″]2x [card name=”Archaludon ex” set=”Surging Sparks” no=”130″ c=”deck2″ amt=”2″][/card]3x [card name=”Duraludon” set=”Stellar Crown” no=”106″ c=”deck2″ amt=”3″][/card]2x [card name=”Brute Bonnet” set=”Paradox Rift” no=”123″ c=”deck2″ amt=”2″][/card]2x [card name=”Toxicroak” set=”Sword and Shield” no=”124″ c=”deck2″ amt=”2″][/card]1x [card name=”Latias ex” set=”Surging Sparks” no=”76″ c=”deck2″ amt=”1″][/card]1x [card name=”Squawkabilly ex” set=”Paldea Evolved” no=”169″ c=”deck2″ amt=”1″][/card]1x [card name=”Fezandipiti ex” set=”Shrouded Fable” no=”38″ c=”deck2″ amt=”1″][/card]1x [card name=”Pecharunt ex” set=”Shrouded Fable” no=”39″ c=”deck2″ amt=”1″][/card]1x [card name=”Bloodmoon Ursaluna ex” set=”Twilight Masquerade” no=”141″ c=”deck2″ amt=”1″][/card]1x [card name=”Budew” set=”Diamond and Pearl” no=”43″ c=”deck2″ amt=”1″][/card][/pokemon][trainers amt=”39″]4x [card name=”Carmine” set=”Twilight Masquerade” no=”145″ c=”deck2″ amt=”4″][/card]3x [card name=”Professor’s Research” set=”Shining Fates” no=”60″ c=”deck2″ amt=”3″][/card]3x [card name=”Boss’s Orders” set=”Brilliant Stars” no=”132″ c=”deck2″ amt=”3″][/card]2x [card name=”Iono” set=”Paldea Evolved” no=”185″ c=”deck2″ amt=”2″][/card]1x [card name=”Kieran” set=”Twilight Masquerade” no=”154″ c=”deck2″ divide=”yes” amt=”1″][/card]4x [card name=”Nest Ball” set=”Sun and Moon” no=”123″ c=”deck2″ amt=”4″][/card]4x [card name=”Ultra Ball” set=”Dark Explorers” no=”102″ c=”deck2″ amt=”4″][/card]3x [card name=”Pokégear 3.0″ set=”Unbroken Bonds” no=”182″ c=”deck2″ amt=”3″][/card]3x [card name=”Night Stretcher” set=”Surging Sparks” no=”251″ c=”deck2″ amt=”3″][/card]2x [card name=”Earthen Vessel” set=”Paradox Rift” no=”163″ c=”deck2″ amt=”2″][/card]1x [card name=”Secret Box” set=”Twilight Masquerade” no=”163″ c=”deck2″ divide=”yes” amt=”1″][/card]3x [card name=”Ancient Booster Energy Capsule” set=”Paradox Rift” no=”159″ c=”deck2″ amt=”3″][/card]3x [card name=”Binding Mochi” set=”Shrouded Fable” no=”55″ c=”deck2″ divide=”yes” amt=”3″][/card]3x [card name=”Perilous Jungle ” set=”Temporal Forces” no=”156″ c=”deck2″ divide=”yes” amt=”3″][/card][/trainers][energy amt=”6″]6x [card name=”Metal Energy” set=”HeartGold and SoulSilver” no=”122″ c=”deck2″ amt=”6″][/card][/energy][/decklist]To my surprise, I pretty much exactly called my shot about how my matchups would go during the tournament, with my rounds going as follows:

1. W vs. Gholdengo ex
2. W vs. Poison Archaludon ex
3. W vs. Charizard ex / Noctowl
4. W vs. Gholdengo ex / Dragapult ex
5. W vs. Raging Bolt ex / Noctowl
6. W vs. Gholdengo ex
7. L vs. Terapagos ex / Noctowl
8. T vs. Dragapult ex / Dusknoir
9. W vs. Tera Box
10. W vs. Terapagos ex / Noctowl
11. W vs. Dragapult ex / Dusknoir
12. L vs. Dragapult ex / Dusknoir
13. W vs. Dragapult ex / Dusknoir

I went undefeated against everything that I expected to beat, and was able to scrape together some wins against my tough matchups, though I did a bit better in the hard matchups than I expected to, and as a result I was able to walk away with a Top 16 finish. While I do think I would certainly double down and play the deck again if I could redo the tournament, I do think I got pretty lucky to finish how I did. What would ultimately be the downfall of me, though, was that the top tables were just too heavily concentrated with decks that my deck struggles against, and my run was pretty much just decided by the fact that it is not realistic to get lucky against Dragapult ex four times in a row. The biggest question that I have been asked, though, is about if I would consider the deck for upcoming events, and while I am not entirely sure of what the answer is to that question, I do think that it would be best for me to talk about my thought process here.

How to React to Atlanta

[cardimg name=”Dragapult ex” set=”Twilight Masquerade” no=”130″ align=”right” c=”none”][/cardimg]

I think the most obvious claim about this event is that Dragapult ex and Gardevoir ex are by far the best two decks in the format right now. As a result, there is sure to be a ton of them at upcoming Regional Championships, which is insane considering that Dragapult ex was already at a pretty high play rate. I would not be surprised if these two decks were at least 35% of the Milwaukee Regional Championship, if not closer to 40%. This means that any deck that wants to even be considered reasonably competitive has to at least be decent into both of these decks, and probably needs to be favored against at least one if not both. This immediately shrinks the pool of competitive decks by a lot. One of the main decks that I do not think is competitive because of this is Terapagos ex / Noctowl which has a nearly unfixable Dragapult ex matchup and is also slightly unfavored into Gardevoir ex. On the other hand, Gholdengo ex stands out as a deck that is distinctly favored against both Gardevoir ex and Dragapult ex, though it can lose to a tech [card name=”Genesect” set=”Shrouded Fable” no=”40″ c=”name”][/card], so it is important to be weary of that. Decks like Tera Box and Raging Bolt ex feel like they are decks that fall in the category being “good enough” against the top decks to be passable, but Tera Box in particular seems to be a deck that is struggling in the other 65% of the room, so I am not entirely sure that I would play it going forward. This is also where Poison Archaludon ex needs to be mentioned. It is pretty much exactly good enough against Dragapult ex and Gardevoir ex that it can be reasonably considered viable, but this is mainly because of the chance of donking your opponent which is bound to award a handful of free wins in these matchups. Additionally, Poison Archaludon ex does have the unique distinction of being extremely good against pretty much every other deck that is considered to be competitively viable currently, which is a massiver point in its favor, in my opinion. I think that this alone does make Poison Archaludon ex a pretty strong deck going forward, but I am unsure if I am going to be willing to play it myself for Milwaukee. However, if you do not have a ton of time to prep, it is absolutely worth looking into the deck as it is not super hard to navigate most games and it is extremely powerful right now.

Now, to face reality, there really is barely a good reason to play any deck other than Gardevoir ex or Dragapult ex. Both of these decks are just ridiculously broken and pretty much untouchable in the current metagame apart from a few super specific decks. They offer an absurd amount of outplay potential for top player, and for the decent players just looking to get their first Day 2, they are so far ahead of anything else that you are bound to get free wins off of just having a better deck than your opponent and little other factors. If I was unsure of what to play, I would probably just resubmit either Henry Chao’s Gardevoir ex or Andrew Hedrick’s Dragapult ex / Dusknoir deck from the Atlanta Regional Championships and hope for the best, and you will probably get a pretty good result out of it. These decks are not for the faint of heart, though, as they have super complicated mirror matches in games that are not just decided by an Itchy Pollen shutout, which is probably one of the most frustrating aspects of the current format, but if you have the time to practice, you will certainly reap great rewards in the long run.

Conclusion

As I have been playing the game for 13 years now, I have been lucky enough to see a lot of different rotations with varying impacts, and like I said in the last article, this rotation is probably one of the most impactful in the last decade. Seeing the outcomes from the first event of these post-rotation formats is always super interesting, and the Atlanta Regional Championship was no different in this regard. I was able to have a lucky break with a bit of a weirder deck in the format that I could see becoming a larger part of the format going forward, but if it does not, Dragapult ex and Gardevoir ex will certainly stick around as two of the most reliable decks in the game currently and you are simply bound to succeed if you play either of them.

With that said, this article comes to a close. As always, I hope you enjoyed giving this article a read, as I really like writing this style of article where I just talk about my thoughts rather than a specific deck. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out in the comments or on Social Media.

Until next time!

– Isaiah

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