Hey everybody, this is Aziz Al-Yami from New York City! This is my first article for 6P, so I figured I’d introduce myself.
I’ve been playing the Pokemon TCG (and formerly, video game) competitively for nearly a decade. Through the game, I’ve met lifelong friends, developed numerous life skills, and had fantastic experiences. If it wasn’t for the first-class community that this game has, I would not still be playing today.
As a writer, I intend to give back to this community to the fullest extent that I can. I believe that as Underground members, you are all entitled to all of the knowledge possessed by 6P writers. Hence, I’m not going to hold anything back in any of my articles.
I plan on revealing every tech I ever happen to test or consider, as well as every deck list I experience success with, even if doing so decreases my chances of winning tournaments.
To establish some credibility for myself, here are some of my accomplishments at Nationals/Worlds:
- 2004-2005 (Senior Division): Worlds Competitor
- 2007-2008 (Senior Division): 3rd at US Nationals, 5th at Worlds
- 2008-2009 (Senior Division): 22nd at US Nationals, LCQ Survivor, Worlds Competitor
- 2009-2010 (Masters Division): LCQ Survivor, 18th at Worlds
I started off strong during the 2010-2011 (Masters Division) season, winning 3 City Championships and going into States with a ~1790 Play! Pokemon rating. Unfortunately, subpar luck at larger events such as Regionals and Nationals limited my rating to 1802; short of a Worlds invite.
I’m beginning with an article about Yanmega Prime/Magnezone Prime because I feel that there are many common errors being made in most deck lists. There also seems to be an enigma surrounding the I ran at US Nationals that I plan on unmasking. Without further ado…
My US Nationals testing began during the Battle Roads/Sabledonk era that I rightfully chose not to participate in. I simply assumed a midseason rotation would occur as it would be the only way to have a healthy metagame for Nationals, and so all games that I played were HS-on.
Initially, I was given the choice of either MagneBoar, the supposed BDIF, and DonChamp, the supposed runner-up. I despised both of these decks for various reasons, and figured it would be a rough Nationals if I had to choose between them.
While both decks had powerful late games, they were extremely vulnerable to Judge, as well as Pokemon Reversal/Junk Arm, which I correctly predicted would all be prevalent cards in the format. I knew from the get-go that Stage 1 decks would be superior to their Stage 2 counterparts this time around.
Weeks go by, and I along with many others have long since acknowledged Yanmega Prime/Magnezone Prime as the best deck in the format. My testing group had been pushing the deck to its limits, coming up with techs such as Kingdra Prime long before they were common knowledge.
Needless to say, we were extremely disappointed when we saw a Yanmega variant 7-0 Canada Nationals’ Swiss rounds. We weren’t surprised in the least bit; we knew how potent the deck was. We were just disappointed to see all of our hard work slip away.
With only one week to turn the tide back in our favor, we made several final tweaks that managed to remain unique to our lists come US Nationals. We tried our hardest to formulate a list different from any other Yanmega/Magnezone, as we did not want Nationals to be a series of 50-50 mirror matches entirely dependent on luck.
We tested and considered all of the following cards in an attempt to have positive matchups versus the entire format, without sacrificing consistency.
