Analysis of Four Popular Decks

~Intro~

With National Championships already over, the next tournament in line will be Grinders (the Last Chance Qualifier, for those without Worlds invites), and finally the World Championship itself.

Judging by the deck usage in the recent United States National Championships’s Master Division Top 128 cut, Luxchomp again showed it was a deck that always be played in very large numbers. Next in line for popularity would be Sablock, Plox, and Jumpluff. Other decks made a great showing including Cursegar, Dialgachomp, Donphan, Flygon variants, Garchomp SV, Gengar C, Gengar Queen, Gyarados, Kingdra, Machamp, Palkia Lock, Shuppet Donk, and Tyranitar. A single Glistomb, Regigigas, Gechamp, Manectric/ERL, and the most original one out of all Top 128 cut, Sableye Lock with a Blaziken FB LV.X twist – dubbed as Chenlock (or if you like, Blaze Sablock).

For those who wanting to know the all Top 128 decks and who played them, here is a visual bracket: http://x.warnabrother.net/tc/tc.html

For those who wanting to know more about Chenlock (Blaze Sablock), here are two links to Jason Chen’s 2010 National Championships report.
Day 1: http://www.sixprizes.com/tournament-reports/jasons-nationals-2010-report-day-1/
Day 2: http://www.sixprizes.com/tournament-reports/jasons-nationals-2010-report-day-2/

A majority of the Luxchomp decks used a number of different techs for different reasons, mainly strong anti-SP counters, a Mewtwo counter or a quick win tech. A quick rundown of techs used were – Entei & Raikou LEGEND, Donphan Prime, Honchkrow SV, Mismagius SF, and Banette PL were the main techs seen in the tournament.

Sablock was seen in two main varieties – some ran Honchkrow as their main Mewtwo counter, and some ran the good old Giratina/SSU version. You may ask what’s the difference between the two variants? The truth is, Honchkrow SV can turn a number of bad matchups into favourable ones, especially against Mewtwo techs, Dialga G, Machamp, and anything that known to be tough to take down – all thanks to a damage output range from 30 at the lowest to 150 at the highest – depending on both yours and your opponent’s playing field.

Jumpluff on the other hand remained the same as always – reliant on consistency and speed, yet its low 90HP always feels fragile against certain decks.

Lastly, a number of Plox deck were ran with the standard tech options such as Dusknoir, Nidoqueen, Mewtwo LV.X, Mespirit, Giratina, and Azelf LV.X – but a few of them have managed to fit in all 3 Level X forms of Azelf, Mespirit and Uxie in the same deck as well as Gardevoir itself. With a wide variety of techs to choose from, Plox is one strong candidate to think about.

Now time for decks and their deck lists!

~Luxchomp~

Ever since Battle Roads, Luxchomp has become a very powerful and popular deck with few bad matchups. This deck focuses heavily on Luxray GL LV.X, a very powerful and effective card which allows you to gust up a weak Pokemon for a quick kill, or allow its secondary partner Garchomp C LV.X to snipe around the gusted Pokemon causing your opponent to waste resources trying to switched out the trapped active.

Garchomp C LV.X doesn’t only have an amazing 80 damage snipe, but also has an impressive healing power. Whenever your field is heavily damaged, a single Healing Breath could turn the tides, crippling your opponent’s odds of winning.

Luxray GL LV.X and Garchomp C LV.X are not the only core cards in the deck. There are a number of techs and options which the deck needs to manage well, especially against mirror matches, or bad matchups.

Keep in mind when testing the matchup, that not all Luxchomp lists are the same; some run different techs, slightly different trainer lineups, some do not run Entei & Raikou LEGEND, and some run only one Luxray GL LV.X – that player was probably only able to get ahold of one.

Here is a standard Luxchomp deck list:

~Sablock~

Ever since States and Regionals, this new surprising deck made popular amongst many trainers all around the world created quite a stir at Nationals. The main concept of the deck is to donk with Sableye. If the deck can’t donk, its secondary strategy is hand disruption with Cyrus’s Initiative, Judge and Giratina’s Let Loose Poke-Power.

There are two distinct deck lists that you could use, depending if you like to keep Giratina and flippy cards or instead a tech that turns a lot more matchups favorable. Some lists might opt to run Chatot G, less Crobats, omit Ambipom G, or even use a slightly different trainer lineup. Once again, like Luxchomp – the deck lists are often varied, a good portion of the cards being the player’s preference in how they would like to run the deck.

Here is a standard Sablock decklist with Giratina & Super Scoop Ups:

And here’s a list with Honchkrow SV tech:

~Jumpluff~

Still as fast and as consistent as it ever was, but like every deck, it has some flaws. The main strategy for Jumpluff decks is to set up a Jumpluff on the very first turn and try to take six prizes in 6 turns by keeping a steady swarm of Jumpluff. Some lists run Mespirit LA and Azelf MT to deal with matchup issues, and some just run classic tech choices such as Chatot MD and Regice LA.

Here is a really no-frills Jumpluff list. In case you may want to know what’s the best to take out for Mespirit LA and Azelf MT tech, switch out Chatot MD for Azelf MT and/or Regice LA for Mespirit LA.

~Plox~

Now in its third season, Plox is still going strong. Once an overpowering deck when Double Rainbow Energy and Scramble Energy were legal, Power Lock is not quite as deadly but is still difficult for most decks to deal with in this format. With the aid of Gardevoir’s Telepass, it can set up, disrupt and lock down your opponent from as early as Turn two.

Sometimes a Psychic Lock may not be fast or strong enough but hey – there’s always techs to make it better, such as Mespirit LA and Giratina PL. Stage two techs including Dusknoir DP and Nidoqueen RR may be used to give the deck power mid to late game. As I stated earlier in the article, AMU have been became more popular amongst Plox just to handle matchups better – with the aid of all three Level X’s of Azelf, Mespirit and Uxie!

Right now, here’s a list of Plox AMU (at this time of writing, untested).

Or if you prefer a more classic Plox feel, that’s the decklist:

~Conclusion~

With Grinders and Worlds coming around the corner (less than 7 weeks away), playtesting and choosing the right deck will be very important as well as knowing all of your matchups – especially against the top decks as well as a number of expected decks, such as Cursegar, Donphan, Gyarados, Kingdra, Shuppet, Tyranitar, etc.

Stay tuned for another article soon about more decks!