Just like most of you, I am in the process of deciding on a deck to play for Fall Regionals. (For those who are interested, I’ll be in St. Louis.) The way that I approach the deck selection process for any event is almost always the same: I try to find something that not only can handle the majority of the expected metagame, but is also in some way unique or unexpected.
I don’t look for uniqueness or the unexpected just for the sake of it, or because I feel compelled to always be “original” or because I love gimmicks; I simply want to find that precise combination of cards that has an edge on the format and that most people aren’t going to be prepared for. Many times I do not find anything, but I rarely neglect to search.
Pursuing that magic deck or list or techs that somehow eluded the rest of the community may not always end in a winning rogue masterpiece, but it often will give you valuable exposure to less common cards and decks that you nevertheless might run into at large events like Regionals. It pays to be curious, and to search.
If all you do to prepare for a tournament is practice against the big, established decks, you are making yourself susceptible to opponents who have been spending their time devising ways to beat whatever top deck you decided to play with under-the-radar decks/techs/lists.
The greatest weapon in a successful rogue player’s arsenal is the ignorance of his opponents—to the deck’s concept, to its key components, to how to approach playing against it. For example, consider Ross Cawthon. His rogue Worlds 2011 deck was designed to counter all of the top decks, no one saw it coming in the slightest, and most of his opponents had no idea how to optimally approach the matchup.
Spending a lot of time becoming familiar with the card pool and all kinds of “fringe” ideas is what led to Ross’ creation, and even if it doesn’t lead you to the same success, it can give you an edge against players who are banking on your ignorance to their curveball decks. The more familiar you are with the card pool, the better prepared you will be for an event, which is what I am getting at here.
A big field always means that you should expect to encounter a good variety of decks, even in a seemingly stagnant format in which one or two of those decks are winning more than the rest. In other words, just because Zekrom and Reshiphlosion are the two most successful decks from Battle Roads doesn’t mean that you will only be facing those decks round after round at Regionals.
If all you do is prepare for the big Tier 1 decks that everyone has written encyclopedias on by now, you leave yourself open to some unpleasant surprises. For example, what are you going to do when you sit down round 1 with Reshiphlosion and discover that you’ve been paired against Magneboar, or perhaps Samurott/Feraligatr? If you’ve failed to devote any time or thought to those matchups or at least the major cards in those decks, you will probably be in trouble.
In this article, I am not going to talk about the well-established Tier 1 decks that already have an abundance of literature devoted to them—which will only increase in the near future as we get closer to Regionals. Instead, I am going to be speculating on some of the “fringe” cards and decks that I think have potential to do well at Fall Regionals.
This will not only potentially alert you to some additional options to choose from, if you haven’t settled on a deck yet, but it will also help you avoid being caught off-guard by these “other” decks that you may not currently be prepared to take down.
I want to start off with a Pokemon that has risen and fallen repeatedly in both popularity and effectiveness since the debut of the HGSS-on format, and that is Emboar.
