There is something extraordinary about the art of surprise and unfamiliarity in battle. The Trojan Horse, the German collapse in the freezing Russia, Muhammad Ali’s rope-a-dope—all tactics that allowed the expected underdog to conquer a champion.
It’s psychological. You simply cannot expect what you haven’t prepared for. This same concept applies directly to Pokémon. Let’s take a look at some recent past successes:
Worlds 2010—Yuta’s Luxchomp: Warp Energy? Dragonite FB? PONT?
These were all fairly unexpected cards for even bigger players. For example, Michael Pramawat (2nd place by a hair) didn’t even know what PONT (Professor Oak’s New Theory) did when Yuta played it for the first time—you can even see him question it in the short video that Pokemon.com released of their match.
Now I’m not saying that Pramawat still didn’t avoid all of the misplays he could, but it’s impossible to say that Yuta’s unorthodox style of Luxchomp was a huge contributing factor to his 12-0 accomplishment.
Nationals 2010—Con Le’s Honchkrow SV
This decision was one that surprised many players, and proved to be hard to play around for the players that had never seen it before. In top 64, Matt Alvis had a Mewtwo LV.X down and thought he won the game—but after seeing Honchkrow SV, knew he had the loss. Honchkrow was also arguably the only reason he was able to beat Kyle “Pooka” Sucevich.
States 2010—Stephen Silvestro/Aaron Curry’s Sablock
This deck is about as unexpected and rogue as it gets. The concept alone of hand disruption decks was very rare, and leave it to Silvestro and Curry to innovate yet a second Pokémon SP hybrid. Its build was kept under wraps well, leaving everyone raving like mad on the forums to learn its secret.
Because they did such a good job of concealing the list, I was still able to carry a little bit of the surprise factor along with me into Regionals.
Worlds 2009—Stephen Silvestro’s Raybees
Beedrill was an established archetype, and so were SP builds featuring Luxray GL LV.X. However, combining the two Frankenstein-style was clearly innovative and original. Nobody knew how to play against him. The Palkia players didn’t know if he even ran the Energy Gain or Lightning, and were dumbfounded when they lost their Palkia G LV.X fairly quickly.
The deck wasn’t perfectly consistent—and these issues caused him to lose games early, putting him at 1-2—but the surprise factor was well on his side and allowed him to escape with the prestigious title of World Champion.
Worlds 2009—Fabien Garnier’s Gyarados (from France!)
While Gyarados did see some talk in small circles, and did have one small spot in the top 64 at that year’s nationals, it was Fabien’s drive to 5th place (only losing to Stephen Silvestro himself) that caught the attention of the Pokémon public.
The idea of setting up an attacker for 0 energy to do 90 damage fairly quickly was one that we were surprised we overlooked in the US—it led Fabien to an impressive world’s run, and the establishment of a popular archetype.
These surprises aren’t all of the same magnitude, and many of them are innovations that will define a player’s career. As players coming into State Championships, I’m not telling you to lock yourself in a lab and discover the next winning rogue combination.
Honestly, this format has had so little added to it that there isn’t much else to create. Majestic Dawn is entering its 4th season of competitive play, with many other sets hitting their 3rd. With only a few new elements added to our format (probably not enough good cards to count both hands) within the last few sets, I’m not expecting a deck out of left field.
The way I see it, there are three tiers of surprise in the Pokémon TCG, and today, we can at least tackle the 2nd. Here’s how I see it:
