One Hit KO

A big hello to all members of Omar-Nation, this is Pikkdogs here.  I hope everyone had fun at Regionals this year.  Because of school, I was not able to make it to my regionals, but the high gas prices made me not so mad about not having to drive over 6 hours.

Even though I did not make it to regionals, other people did.  Regionals were full of a lot of people running a lot of different decks.  This article will give you a short Regionals wrap-up, and give you some tips for testing for Spring Battle Roads.  Regionals will not be a great indicator of what will happen at BRs and Nationals, this is because of new rule changes, but we should still review it anyway.

What won Regionals?

It was no surprise to see what won Regionals.  Here is what won:

7 Luxchomp
2 Vilegar
1 Sablelock
1 Machamp/Vileplume
1 MagneRock

Thanks to Pokegym for the results.  As you can see Luxchomp won again, with a couple wins from the other popular variants.  Beyond of what won regionals, we can see other trends.  Decks that weren’t extremely popular like Magnezone were played a lot.  Other rogue decks like Scizor, Steelix, and Regigigas were also very important to the tournament.  This shows that as the format is changing, rogue decks still were fairly popular.  Other metagame decks like Gyarados and trainerlock variants were also fairly successful and popular.  Gyarados (which suffers from the Luxchomp matchup) and Trainerlock (which also struggles with SP, especially in the Top Cut rounds) showed real promise despite some unfavorable matchups.  Also, I gotta say something about that Machamp Trainerlock deck.  Someone took it from basically a joke deck on Sixprizes.com, to a regionals winning deck.  It shows us that there are a lot of possibilities out there, you just gotta put down your Luxchomp deck and find them. 

The Future              

I usually would talk about the results more, but since the rules change turns the whole format on its head, there is no reason to.  In all modified tournaments you will now be able to use trainers on the first turn.  This means that trainer heavy decks, like Uxie donk, will be very popular.  In order to start first, most people will include Sableye SF (with his “Over-Eager Poke-Body) to start first and be able to knock everything out on one turn.

Most decks will be Uxie donk type decks that include Sableye.  Other people will try to add Sableye into other decks.  But, I feel that if the “other decks” don’t knock everything out on the first turn they will not be as successful as Sabledonk.  It looks like the best way to win is to use a Sabledonk deck.

But, you can also try to win by countering Sableye.  There are 2 ways to do this: play a boat load of basic Pokemon so you almost always start with 5, or play Spiritomb Ar; which shuts off the use of Trainers thanks to his “Key Stone Seal” Poke-Body.  Without trainers it will be impossible to knock out a deck that starts with 3 or more Pokemon.

So, when you are making your new decks you have two options: make a fast Sableye deck or make one that can stop it.  It seems like playing a deck with around 30 basic Pokemon will not be very effective, so it will probably be better to try to stop a Sableye deck.  It is also possible to mix in 4 Sableyes with 4 Spiritombs,  this would let you start with Spiritomb (preventing the donk), but retreat him for Sableye.

Pretty much any deck can add a Sableye and the trainer engine in.  Just take out the cards that help you later game (warp energy, twins, Bebe’s Search) and add in Handy 910’s Pokedex, Poke Drawer +, and Super Scoop Up.  Try to focus on non Lv.X cards that let you load up a Pokemon in one turn, and then attack for at least 80.  Decks like Rampardos, Gyarados, and Yanmega Prime are no brainers to use with this engine. 

I also see a lot of people giving up on Sabledonk, thinking that it is just a cookie cutter deck that takes no skill to play.  This is not correct, you can tech out your deck and make it your own.  Maybe try a build that gives you a better advantage against Spiritomb. 

Good luck to all those trying to make new decks.  There are  a lot of good ideas out there to stop Sableye, you just gotta think of them.

So long and thanks for all the fish!

Category: Regional Championships | Tags: Pokemon Regionals, Sableye SF