Popular Decks You Should NOT Run at the Last Chance Qualifier
By HeyTrainer
Sad to not have any updates from /blog in a while? I am too, which is why I'm posting this short shpeel on a topic that's dear and dear to me: the Last Chance Qualifier!
Intro – Arguably more important than figuring out "the play" for an event is deciding on the anti-play; or in other words, that one deck you simply will not touch with a 49.5 foot pole. You're well familiar with several of these big names: Kingdra/Yanmega; Donphan/Machamp; Lostgar. But the sad truth is that these popular decks generally don't have what it takes to survive a big top cut tournament. Whether it's due to their matchups, their overall ineffectiveness, or their riskiness, I have decided to discourage any of you playing in the Last Chance Qualifier from using these.
[Note: this post does not assume that your decks are running fantastic, life-saving techs. In the event that you are, please disregard this article; however, for those 95% of you who aren't running silver bullets, it's wise to consider the following if you haven't made up your mind yet…]
#1: Kingdra/Yanmega (Kingmega)
Why it's popular: In a format where big attacks are everything, Kingmega's strategy deviates from the norm, opting to superbly dismantle setups with free damage every turn (Kingdra's Spray Splash), efficient attacks (Yanmega), and surprising tacitcs (Jirachi's Time Hollow). This build definitely rewards good playing, and under the right strategic mind, it's actually pretty potent.
Beyond that, Kingmega is well-liked by many players because in a format full of Yanmega variants, this has by far the strongest Target Attack out of them all.
Why it's bad for the Last Chance Qualifier: unless you have a silver bullet tech, then Zekrom will likely eat you alive. Consider, if you will, the very real threat of Zekrom against an average list of this deck…
1) It has few to no good Yanmega Prime snipe targets;
2) It's attacking by the first or second turn usually;
3) Everything you run is either brittle or x2 Lightning weak; and
4) Jirachi has no solid Time Hollow targets, seeing as how they run few to no evolutions.
Why is it such an issue in the grinder as opposed to the main event?
1) Unlike Worlds, whcih is run with a swiss and top cut, the LCQ is run with single elimination matches ONLY…Meaning that if you see Zekrom once, you'll most likely be finished;
2) Out of the many competitors in the LCQ, several will be relatives, friends, and other part-timers who don't play the game competitively. For msot of these people, they'll just want to run simple, easy decks, and you don't get much simpler than Zekrom.
3) Zekrom has a proven track record of success in Japan, Mexico, and Canada. In my opinion, it's a safe bet that the top tier foreign competitors without invites will mostly be bringing these decks.
Kingmega has respectable matchups against Typhlosion, Donphan, and Yanmega/Magnezone, which make it an effective deck in a highly competitive environment such as Worlds. Unfortunately, this strength does not carry over to the Last Chane Qualifier, where – in the course of seven rounds, you're quite likely to go up against Zekrom.
#2: Donphan/Machamp (Donchamp)
Why it's popular: For the record, I don't think that this deck is good…At all. I won't go into detail on why it's bad just yet, but if my thoughts are correct, then what makes a bad deck popular?
*It has obvious synergy (use bench damage to your advantage for Machamp Prime's Champ Buster), and obvious synergy decks are historically more popular than they should be (e.g., Gengar SF/Nidoqueen RR, Zapdos ex FRLG/Voltorb HL/Electrike DX).
*Machamp Prime and Donphan Prime are two historically competitive cards out of the most recent tournament season, so if people are struggling for ideas, then they will naturally huddle to something familiar.
*Machamp Prime and Donphan Prime haave a soft form of weakness coverage by virtue of them being weak to two different types: Psychic and Water, respectively.
*It's a relatively simple deck to function with…Not necessarily an easy deck to win seven matches in a row with, but simple.
Why it's bad for the Last chance Qualifier: Most importantly, its setup is easily dismantled by Yanmega Prime, the most popular attacker in the format. In a great many situations, even the most consistent Donchamp lists will be stuck with a damaged Machop prior to evolution. Yanmega exploits this via Target Attack or Pokemon Reversal/Sonicboom, thus destroying your beautifully synergetic combo by taking out a crucial player in your match. Obvious retorts include "but what if he gets tails on Reversal?" or the more popular "what if I have two Machops in play?" However, both of these are solved by the simple counter-argument of "what if they don't hit tails on Reversal, and/or what if you have only one Machop and/or Phanpy in play?" The answer, nine times out of ten, is that you lose miserably.
Furthermore, you have a very difficult setup to secure with relatively few resources to do it with. Even if your list runs eight draw cards and a 1-0-1 Magnezone Prime tech, the odds are not good that you will be able to get that powerhouse Machamp Prime going…Especially against a swarm of Pokemon Reversals, Pokemon Circulators, and more.
#3: Gengar Prime/Lost World (Lostgar)
Why it's popular: For starters, it holds great promise for winning faster than a great majority of the field; that is, if you successfully start Hurling into Darkness from the second turn-onward, you could win the game as early as turn five (approximately six Lost Zoned Pokémon from turns 2-4, and then the Lost World announcement after that). More importantly though, it circumvents the vast majority of issues that make this format annoying: its reliance on baby flips going your way is substantially less dramatic than it is with other builds, and Hurl into Darkness lets you get around the necessity of the prize war, thus making the opening coin flip far less significant.
Above all, Lostgar's method of winning is an alternate, fun, and effective diversion from what the rest of the field has to offer. So for players who are staking it all on the line at the LCQ, this looks like an attractive choice.
Why it's bad for the Last Chance Qualifier: This is by far the most painful deck to put up on this list of three, seeing as how Lostgar has been a pet deck of mine for months (Google "Lostgar deck list" and you'll see an old /blog result pop up almost instantly). However, I must do what I must…
First and foremost, your deck's win condition relies entirely on your opponent to have the right cards at the right time, which is effectively a major gamble in an event that requires consistency in order to succeed. What if your opponent Junk Arms away a healthy chunk of his or her Pokemon before you get a chance to Hurl into Darkness? Or what if you whiff on Hurl into Darkness or Spiritomb TM's Spooky Whirlpool even once? Worst of all, what if your opponent doesn't even run more than a dozen or so Pokemon to begin with (Zekrom)? The sad answer in all of those cases is that you lose.
Secondly, OHKOs are brutal to Gengar Prime, and as the metagame stands right now, most popular decks run some reasonable OHKO option (Magnezone and Dragons, for instance). This applies even more so to Mew Prime variants, which heavily rely on an attacker that gets one-shotted by Yanmega, which is – as previously stated – the most popular attacker in the format.
Conclusion – I know it's not always the best course of action to discourage people from playing certain decks, but in this instance, I feel that my best way to help you is subtract certain deck choices from your eleventh hour equation. After all, subtracting a negative yields a positive result, and that positive result might just be a Worlds invite!
Today's post was written by the HeyTrainer.org staff. If you liked this article and would like to read more of its kind, then please consider donating to /blog!
(Image credits go to PokemanDan.com and an unknown Deviant Artist)