One Hit KO

Well State/Province/Territory championships are all over, and its time to see what we have learned from it.  This article well recap what happened at states, and try to give you a little view of what will come up next month at Regionals.

Overview

Well, things at States were fairly predictable this year.  Luxchomp again won most tournaments, while a couple other popular decks got a couple wins.  According to Pokegym.net this is the list of winners of States.

16 Luxchomp (1 w/Honchkrow)
4 Vileplume/Gengar
4 Gyarados
3 DialgaChomp
3 Sablelock (1 w/ Luxray SP)
2 Lostgar w/Vileplume
2 Machamp (1 w/ vileplume)
2 Chenlock
1 Arceus
1 Steelix
1 Scizor Prime
1 Vilegar / Dusknoir
1 Magnezone

From this list, we can see a couple cool rogue decks winning here; like Steelix, Scizor, Mangezone, and Arceus.  And, some second tier decks took some states as well,  with help from the good players that champion them.  We also see 6 Vilegar variants winning and 5 Sablelock variants winning.  This somewhat surprising showing by these decks show that they are strong contenders for the title of 2nd best deck.        

How Did the Rogues Do?

The rogue decks were out at full force at States.  However, we did not see a great showing by any true rogue deck.  We also did not see much of any “secret decks” doing well.  About 2 months ago I heard a lot about people making “secret deck” for States, but not wanting to share them, at states we didn’t see any of these decks doing anything.

One deck that saw a lot of play was Magnezone.  Magnezone saw almost no play until the Europeon Challenge Cup, just before States started.  Magnezone got paired up with Regirock La, for energy acceleration.  Magnezone did get 1 win at States, but with the amount of play it got, just 1 win isn’t all that impressive.  My impression of the deck is that it is just too slow to live in a world with Luxchomp running around. Perhaps after the rotation it will get better, maybe players can use Floatzel Ul instead of Regirock.

I am also pleasantly surprised with the showing of some other decks like Arceus, Steelix, and Scizor.  Arceus seems to be a deck that a few weird people can get to work on a lucky day.  When it works it can be a great deck, but it seems that Arceus is not reliable.  It wasn’t just the one win it had, at Michigan and Indiana states I saw that this deck did fairly well.  Steelix is a deck that I think is very good, especially with the drop in play that Blaziken FB has received.  I think that it can do very well if some decent players decide to play it.  Scizor Prime is one of those crazy cards, it doesn’t seem like it will be that good of a card, but yet people can get it to work.  To me it just seems like it can be easily played around, but when its played right on a good day it can have great results.  If you can get 3 Metal Energies on a Scizor, it is almost unstoppable against a Luxchomp deck.

Can Anything Stop Luxchomp?    

Well the short answer is no, but we have learned some bad news for Luxchomp.  Decks like Machamp, Vilegar, and Sablelock have had some good showing against the deck.  Before states I thought Machamp was going to get ran out of the format, but Machamp made a big comeback at States.  Vilegar and its many variants cemented its place in the format after Cities, after States it has shown that it is kicking butt and taking names.  It even won Michigan States, which had some of the better Luxchomp players around.  It is now one of the best decks in the format.  Sablelock has chosen this States to tell us all that it has not gone away.  For some reason Sablelock seems to disappear at small tournaments.  But, it did not dissapear at States.  The great Sableock players like Jwittz were out with it and did very well.  They proved that in the hands of a great player, Sablelock can be almost as good as a Luxchomp deck.

That being said, Luxchomp still dominates the format.  Nothing is faster or more versatile than Luxchomp.  It can kill almost every deck before the opponent gets going.   Even-though Vilegar and Sablelock have shown that they are great decks, Luxchomp still won the most tournaments by far.  I don’t see anything but a rotation stopping Luxchomp.

A Look Towards Regionals

I did mention the rotation, if we do get a mid-season rotation it will not be until after Regionals.  That means that I expect more of the same for Regionals.  We may still see some people get more familar with rogue decks, and give them a try.  But, for the most part since Regionals is only like 3 weeks away I don’t expect to see a big change.  Expect to see Luxchomp dominating with some tier 2 and 3 decks vying for some tournaments.  It could be different, but for the most part I think you can use States as a barometer for what will be at Regionals.

So long and thanks for all the fish!

Category: State Championships | Tags: Pokemon States 2011 recap