Hello SixPrizes nation, 6P’s newest Underground writer here to deliver some juicy UG information for your reading pleasure.
First I should introduce myself to the newer generation of players who haven’t heard of me yet. My name is Kent, and I’m from Toronto, Canada. My Pokemon accomplishments include State and Regional championships, National top 4s as well as double-digit City and Battle Road wins. I own a lifetime winning percentage of over 80%, and I’m generally considered to be one of the most consistent players out there.
I have been out of the game for the last 3 years focusing on school, but have quickly acquainted myself with the new format and currently sit in the top 20 globally in terms of CP after Fall Battle Roads, despite 3 X-1 whiffs.
My aim here is to provide you with entertaining articles and analysis that covers niches which the high quality roster of writers that Adam has assembled here have not covered as part of their excellent contributions. Just like my fellow writers, I will offer up top tier deck lists and analysis of current metagame matchups and look-ins on how I approach certain matchups, but I will also eventually tackle issues that are different from what you have seen already, such as Pokemon financial analysis looking at prices of cards and speculation on what cards I believe will go up in value or drop in value.
In future articles, I will also be taking a critical look at the current Championship Point system, and how it affects all of us as competitive players.
Since this is my first article, any feedback is appreciated. If you like or don’t like the way I format things, please shoot me suggestions and I’ll work on it for next time. Any other questions regarding the format or decks or anything in general just shoot at k.shen0@gmail.com. Your feedback is greatly appreciated.
Without further ado, here we go:
General Thoughts and Tips about this Format
As someone who has been away from the game for so long, I came into this format very surprised, seeing it as totally different from what I was used to 3-4 years ago. It took me a while to get used to such things as the new Rare Candy rules, the new first turn rules and other such rules that you are most likely already aware of.
I made a few misplays of my own simply by not knowing what anything in the format does, but I adapted very fast and it took me just two tournaments before I picked up my first tournament win since I last played.
I won’t go over rules and commonalities that you are probably well aware of by now, so I’ll get straight to the more advanced stuff that will help you guys become better players in this format. Let’s begin with the most important card of the Battle Road season.
The TRUE Impact of Pokemon Catcher
When Catcher was first spoiled, there were many people quickly assuming that Stage 2 decks would be dead and the format would move to a fast paced format full of nothing but rush decks. As you all know by now, the death of Stage 2s was greatly exaggerated, with some of the most popular decks at BRs running Stage 2s as integral part of the decks.
Decks relying on Typhlosion, Gothitelle, Reuniclus, Magnezone and Vileplume head many BR top cut reports, shattering the myths that Catcher would “ruin” the format. So despite all I just said, how can Catcher still be the most important card of battle road season? Because Catcher has had an enormous impact on how the game has been played, even if it isn’t the effect most people had assumed.
More than ever before, the metagame is a fluid, answer driven one
The most notable impact of everyone and their mother running Catchers is that Pokemon has turned into a more answer driven game, differing from the past when many matchups involved decks setting up and playing through their strategies, rather than responding to board position and game state.
I liken this to the NCAA’s overtime rules for College Football, in which each team gets one possession to try to get points, either a touchdown or a field goal. When the first team gets a touchdown, the team going second has no choice but to answer with a touchdown, and when the first team slips up and gets either a field goal or no points, the second team has a chance to take over and win the game.
What this means is Pokemon has become a much more reactive game, and many players still haven’t adapted to the change, and are misplaying accordingly. While not all matchups play out this way, many of the matchups between top decks have, and I’ll go through those and the ones that don’t in the metagame specific write-up later on.
Utility cards are more important than ever
This is a very common mistake among lower tier players, in terms of deck building and game play. Due to the reactive nature of the metagame, utility cards such as Catcher, PlusPower, and Defender are more important than they have ever been in the modern era. These are the cards that create the “answers” to the attacks that an opponent’s deck can throw at you.
This means that it is even more essential to not run useless cards in your deck, as doing so will make you run out of answers at the end of games, causing you to lose a game you could have won had you had that extra knockout.
This effect creates an ever bigger gap between well-tuned, top-tier lists and lists played by lesser players – for every Energy Search, extra Pokegear 3.0, extra energy, and random marginal tech they run is an extra possible answer you run, which will lead to more consistent wins in the long run.
