The Clock is Ticking…
2 days away. Everyone panicking yet? Surprisingly, no one I’ve talked so far seems very confident in any deck with this format. Every year I have a number of close friends come to me for deck advice (contrary to what some may believe, I do, in fact have friends) and for the first time in forever, I cannot give them a definitive deck choice for the tournament.
Usually I can narrow it down a bit, and the more I test, the less confident in anything I become. If you’ve read my work for a while, you’d know by now I am opinionated in my stances involving this game, and have never had any issue with staking claim to what I feel is a good deck choice, even if it is unorthodox.
I’m not going to tell you that I have that answer because doing so would be dishonest to you as a reader. If I suggest a deck to play as being a good choice, I honestly believe it is one. Am I always right? No. Sometimes I make mistakes, but I feel I’ve had a pretty good track record so far. (LuxChomp was still the best pre-BW deck by a large margin, Magneboar was proven a good deck by winning Worlds, and Yanmega Magnezone put up more than a fine performance at Worlds, including an at least break even showing against Typhlosion Reshiram.) So I would rather come out and tell you that I don’t have a great suggestion right now.
What’s the play?
I suggested Yanmega Magnezone Zoroark in my last article, and if anyone read the coverage from the big tournament in Prague, that exact deck wound up going 8-0 in the Swiss portion of that tournament in Masters. Yanmega Magnezone as a whole put up some good numbers at the event. Yet the big winner from that tournament was in fact ZPS. The deck wound up sweeping the event, winning all 3 age groups.
Of course, the validity of this is called into question due to the fact that the event was held with a 45 minute time limit for their 2/3 Match Play rounds. I mentioned previously that time is a huge factor in how viable certain deck choices will be, and what I felt to be a fringe contender (ZPS is tier 1, but I feel it has a number of iffy matchups, and while it can be built to try and deal with some of these, it has an issue overcoming ALL of them, so it is a bit of a crapshoot) made it the best deck for top cut.
No deck can match the speed of ZPS, and considering that even if it got mauled in game 1, all it had to do was be ahead in game 2, and then be a huge favorite for game 3. Basically, it had to win 0 legitimate games, and it clearly was able to walk all over the competition that tournament. I guess “run” all over it would be better with the speed analogy, but you get the point.
ZPS on the Radar
Now, this means two big things. Remember what Canadian Nationals did to US Nationals? It took a fringe deck, with minimal exposure, and thrust it into the spotlight. This caused a spike in its play. I expect an increased number of ZPS decks at Regionals, even if the fact the deck did so well was a bit slanted in causation.
This also means people will respect the deck as more of a threat. Not only do people fear a deck which has proven to win something large, but they also hate losing illegitimate games, and the fact that ZPS brings such a large threat of stealing games by god starts or donks makes people take notice.
A lot of times, the default answer to “how do I beat this deck” will be to simply outplay a weaker opponent, but ZPS brings a scary trait to the table that when it goes off, it wins games despite a huge skill gap. And this makes people nervous.
I expect a lot of players to test heavily against ZPS this week, and bring decks that are more prepared for the menace then they would have had this event happened a week prior to Prague, not after.
