Hey everyone! The past few weeks have been pretty hectic with me finally getting a chance to log a pretty hefty number of games with all of the post Nationals data that we’ve had presented to us. This let me get a better overall picture of the information without the variance we get from an “actual tournament.”
Tournaments are the “real thing” and results from them cannot be overlooked, but at the same time, when analyzing the placement of decks, you really need to accept that extraneous factors have led to a good deal of those results. Often an undeserving deck will place higher based on play skill differences, or based on favorable matchups that are not indicative of how the deck would perform in any future events.
On the same note, often times great decks have a bad run, or catch suspect matchups and perform worse than would be expected.
As players, it is our job to collect the decks, then try to sift through the results and see if we can
“correct” any of the viability “inaccuracies” that we have thrown at us when merely looking at what decks came in the top 32, for example.
Now, of course, not everyone is going to have enough time to go through and test every matchup so when you are crunched for time, accepting results as accurate is often better than raw theory crafting (depending on how much you trust your judgment).
Luckily for me, I have had enough time to go through and test a good number of these decks, and while I haven’t tested every matchup (usually just enough key ones to realize whether I feel a deck is viable or not), I have gotten a good chunk of the work out of the way.
I’ve also worked on a few new tweaks on lists, and have a new take on Emboar Magnezone that I wanted to discuss. It isn’t “perfect” yet, but it has been putting up some pretty good results none the less! I’ll go through and address some of the my findings.
Tyranitar
I saw that Tyranitar Serperior managed to place in the top 8 of U.S. Nationals, and as a huge Tyranitar fan (back when I was 16 and posting on the PokeGym, my screen name was Tyranitar666 … because Tyranitar was awesome, and because when you are 16, adding 666 to the end of names was obviously edgy and cool).
I was really hoping it would be a great alternative heading into Worlds. In theory, the deck’s spread game would be strong against Magnezone Yanmega, and against the various fire decks, which would have an issue killing the 160 HP beast before it really got a lot of damage off.
I built a list, and had really depressing results. The list at Nationals relied on a large Twins engine. It either fell behind naturally, or fell behind as a result of not taking prizes as it used Darkness Howl to
rack up damage, so Twins was a great engine.
Unfortunately, as this was the case when testing LostGar as well, sometimes even Twins falls behind with being able to give you enough resources to keep going. Turns when they kill a Tyranitar can be pretty demanding on your set up, and if Twins is being used to help further the rest of your set up (Serperiors, etc.) and also getting you your next draw cards, it fails.
The lack of a draw engine like Ninetales or Magnezone Prime in a deck full of Stage 2s actually really shows its weakness in this deck, even if Twins is a useful tool. I found a number of games where I started off on even footing but was unable to keep up with the consistency of other decks and lost too much footing as I struggled to keep setting up.
Another one of the other big issues I’d found with the deck was that the bench damage adds up. You either fall behind too much by not using Tyranitar early enough (either because you don’t get it out, or because you are being conservative so as to not cripple your bench) or you start using it and get stuck putting a ton of damage on your bench before Serperior is able to get evolved.
