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Not What You'd Expect

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Not What Youd Expect

By Jay Ho rnung | April 16, 2013 | Wo rds: 6,661 | Views: 2,910 | Rating: +39 | UNDERGROUND

Its already the middle of April and States and Regionals are in the past. Many of us (myself included) are ready to put this format in the rearview mirror and start looking forward to the format for Nationals and Worlds (which I hope to be a much more skill based format). A large portion of this article is going to focus on the new set and the new meta. I hate set reviews so instead Im only going to discuss a few key cards and how I feel they impact our meta. Im also going to discuss some older cards that I feel get considerably better with new set, so it would probably be a good idea to make sure to have a playset of them. Lastly, Im going to discuss what I feel is going to be major decks in the new format along with my own list for each of them. I feel many of my lists are still rough, but Im happy with the direction theyre heading. Despite wanting to keep this article mainly focused on the new set and new meta, I do want to briefly recap my experiences at both Iowa States and Wisconsin Regionals. I played what I felt was a very unique Darkrai list for the 3rd week of States, and the list went against a lot of things I was used to with deck building. It got me thinking outside the box a bit more and hopefully got
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Ghet on with the new format already!

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me to not instantly write a deck off as being bad if it looks less than standard. For Regionals I played a deck I never thought I would ever consider playing and walked away with a solid finish.

Table of Contents
Iowa States Wisconsin Regionals Why to Tinker with Winning Decks Notable Cards of Plasma Freeze Decks Post-Plasma Freeze Tier 1 Darkrai Blastoise Team Plasma Tier 2 Weavile PLF/Exeggcute PLF Chandelure PLF/Reshiram BLW/Reshiram EX/Laser/Virbank Eeveelutions Meta Predictions Spring Battle Roads US Nationals Worlds Conclusion
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Iowa States
I played Big Basics the first few weeks of States, but wanted to switch things up heading into Iowa. Usually Iowa is where we see players heavily try to metagame against one another. Many of the better Iowa players knew a majority of the cards in my Big Basics deck, which meant they also knew I had a near auto-loss to Klinklang. In my mind this made playing Big Basics again far too risky without heavily teching for Klinklang, which I felt would then kill my consistency in other matchups. Its no surprise that Ive always liked Darkrai, but I couldnt find a list that clicked with me in this current format. Mainly on a whim I built this its only a few cards off from a list that was posted in a public 6P article a few weeks ago. You can check out the original here.
Hello from Iowa.

Pokmon 8 4 Darkrai EX 3 Sableye DEX 1 Keldeo EX

Trainers 43 4 Professor Juniper 3N 2 Skyla 2 Random Receiver 4 Bicycle 4 Ultra Ball 4 Hypnotoxic Laser 4 Dark Patch 3 Pokmon Catcher 3 Crushing Hammer 2 Energy Search 2 Energy Switch 2 Dark Claw 1 Max Potion

Energy 9 9 Darkness

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1 Computer Search 2 Virbank City Gym

I changed a few cards around from the original idea before I even played a game. On paper this honestly looks to be one of the worst Darkrai lists Ive ever seen. Originally I built the deck wanting to use it as a starting point with the plans to make major changes to the list. However, after a few games I realized the list was pretty close to what I wanted and I only made minor adjustments from the original. I dont really want to take the time to break down the whole deck because I feel Jerome did an amazing job of doing this on his own (so check out his article). However, I do want to take a moment to discuss Bicycle.

Bicycle
Until I actually played this deck I never quite realized just how strong Bicycle was. In most games with Bicycle I was burning through a majority of my deck by T3/T4. I felt like I was playing Speed Kingdra from the 09 season. While I loved Bicycle in this variation of Darkrai, I wouldnt play it in any other deck and even after my win Im not 100% sure I love a full 4 copies in Darkrai. When playing such a high count of the card you really have to build the entire deck around Bicycle. This forced me to play fewer copies of other key cards like Energy Switch. While I dont feel like this ever caused me to lose a game, there were plenty games where I did miss having extra copies of Energy Switch, Max Potion, Catcher, etc. Looking back I think Pooka might have had the right idea of only playing a single tech copy of Bicycle in his Darkrai build.
I like to ride my bicycle

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Here are some of my observations of the list after the tournament.

The Good
Burns through deck quickly (higher chance at T2 Darkrai, lower chance of bad Ns late game). Stronger early game Junk Hunts. Flows more smoothly.

The Bad
Decking out became an issue in several games. Energy count was too low (I would not play less than 10 in the future). 3 N was not enough (I would play 4 in the future). I ran out of Supporters a few times. A lot of coin flips. No real tricks/attack options outside of Night Spear and Laser.

Match Summary
Round 1 Landorus EX/Mewtwo EX/Garbodor L Round 2 Darkrai EX W Round 3 Landorus EX W Round 4 Blastoise W Round 5 Darkrai/Mewtwo W Round 6 Darkrai EX L

I finish Swiss at 4-2 and barely made top cut at 8th seed. My little brother narrowly missed cut at 9th seed, which was too bad since if our resistances were a little better we might have been going in at 7th and 8th seed which could have set up a really nice finals for us.
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Top 8 Big Basics WW Top 4 Klinklang WLW Top 2 Big Basics WW

I got insanely lucky in Top 2 and won a match that should have been much harder for me than what it ended up being. I hit just about every coin flip I could with Lasers and Hammers and my opponent missed quite a few sleep flips.

Wisconsin Regionals
Thursday afternoon Sam Chen throws the idea of Klinklang at me. It was something I was tossing around, but couldnt really settle on a list I felt good about. Below is the list I ended up running which differed from Sams a bit. The two biggest things I stole from him were 2 Pokmon Catcher and the 3 Tropical Beach. I had 3 Beach originally, then dropped it down to 2 and then Sam convinced me back up to 3 was the right call.
Hello from Wisconsin.

Pokmon 13 4 Klink DEX 3 Klinklang PLS 1 Klinklang BLW 2 Cobalion EX 1 Registeel EX 1 Cobalion NVI 1 Durant DRX

Trainers 36 4 Professor Juniper 4 Skyla 3N 2 Colress 4 Rare Candy 4 Heavy Ball 3 Switch 2 Ultra Ball

Energy 11 11 Metal

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2 Pokmon Catcher 2 Max Potion 1 Escape Rope 1 Super Rod 1 Dowsing Machine 3 Tropical Beach

Most of this list was theorized on the drive up to Regionals and I think I played 2 games total with it beforehand. However, I feel like after playing this deck at Regionals I could write a good portion of an article alone on building and playing Klinklang. The deck is far more complex than it looks on paper. However, to keep this article more focused on upcoming sets Ill give more a condensed deck explanation. Id be more than happy to go into more detail on the forums or perhaps in a future article if the interest exists.

Why I Played Klinklang

All throughout States I hated the deck since I felt there was no skill to it (I was partially wrong on this) and it had too many auto-losses in the field. However, as we started to get closer to Regionals I expected a meta far more focused on Big Basics and Darkrai. I hoped both of these decks would decrease the amount of Garbodor (because of its horrid Bad Basics matchup) and RayEels (for fear of getting donked/having a hard Darkrai matchup). At the very least I figured the larger amounts of Big Basics and Darkrai decks would increase my odds of not seeing RayEels or Garbodor in the later rounds of the tournament. My other option was Darkrai which I felt had slightly
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Rivaling the Steelers Steel Curtain defense.

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favorable mirror, RayEels, and Garbodor matchups, slightly unfavorable Big Basics and Blastoise matchups, and a near auto-loss to Klinklang. I figured playing Darkrai Id probably take 1 or 2 losses to Klinklang in Swiss and didnt want the pressure of having to win all my 50/50 matchups the rest of the way. Klinklang on the other hand had a near auto-win against Darkrai and Big Basics, even mirror and Blastoise matchups, and auto-losses to Garbodor and RayEels. I decided it would be better for me to have auto-wins against the biggest 2 decks in the format and even matchups with the next 2. This left my 2 auto-losses to be what I felt would be the least played tier 1 decks at Regionals.

I decided I would rather have auto-wins all day and just hope to not play against more than 2 of my auto-losses. In my head the probabilities worked out better.

Of course with my mind shifting to Klinklang I had to read Marks latest UG article to see if I thought it would have any last minute shifts on the metagame. After reading the article, Marks thoughts were very similar to mine at States and he discussed many of the same counters I was using and to be honest he was using better and harder counters than I was to beat Klinklang. This reassured me that I was on the right path as far as what I should watch out for when playing against these matchups. The problem with the counters is they are fine if youre playing against average players or PokMoms and Dads with Klinklang. The problem is they just dont work against people that know what they are doing. If youre playing against a good Klinklang player youre never going to lock a Virbank in. Its near impossible to Hammer Lock them with Darkrai. In Big Basics, Tornadus EPO and Bouffalant DRX are weaker attackers than Cobalion NVI and Cobalion EX. Even if you play V-create Victini in Darkrai or Big Basics its too hard to set up early and they can easily deal with 1 random Victini by the time you get it out. After playing the deck this weekend I can say without a doubt in my mind these soft counters to Klinklang dont work. You either tech hard for Klinklang and hurt your consistency in other
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matchups or dont bother to tech at all and simply take the auto-loss and devote more of your tech spots to winning other matchups.

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Thank you for reading this free Underground preview we hope you enjoyed it! Filed Under: Regional Championships, State Championships, Tournament Reports, Underground Content | Image Credits: Bulbapedia, Bill Whittaker, Pokemon Paradijs, Wikipedia, pokeca-japan.ocnk.biz

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Meet Jay Hornung

Articles Written: 29 Total Score: +750 Average Score: 25.86 Message Jay Hornung Bio + More Articles

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The card links within this article redirect to eBay listings pages where you can buy the cards. Purchases made through these links help support SixPrizes and the author of this article.

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