Happy Fourth of July! Before my full-blown tournament report later this week, I’d like to share with you an analysis of the list I used to place second in the Masters (adult) division of the 2017 North American International Championship. Since I know a lot of you are either grilling barbecue or blowing up a small part of the country, I’m gonna keep this short and sweet, so enjoy!
1 Lugia EX: As was the case in St. Louis, deciding to run a higher than average count of Lugia EX paid off big-time. Although you take a consistency hit by not investing this spot in another Item or third Tapu Lele GX, the benefit of Deep Hurricane more than outweighs it. Lugia’s presence on top of two Tapu Lele GX resulted in my list being extremely aggressive, and might have been a key factor for why my only loss to a Garbodor variant all weekend was in the finals.
(As a side note, Lightning Weakness is devastating when relevant.)
4-4-4 Decidueye GX: This thick line of the deck’s main Pokemon hasn’t changed, but I did want to point out that in some stranger lists, you might consider a 3-3-3 line if there’s a Stage One attacker you want to pay attention to in the future, such as Golisopod/Golisopod GX.
2-2-2 Vileplume: Unlike the Decidueye line, I feel this is the maximum you may ever want of Vileplume at this point. Anything less and you may as well just play the Ninetales variant; anything more and you’ll be drawing into useless Vileplume pieces all game.
2 Shaymin EX/2 Tapu Lele GX: Although I love three Shaymin EX to let me dig through half my deck every game, 2 Shaymin/2 Tapu Lele may be the perfect split between draw power and Supporter Search. The Guardians Rising list now has more consistency Pokemon for the same amount of spots.
4 Sycamore, 4 N, 3 Trainers’ Mail: In between February and now, I adapted two slight modifications made by other people. The first is the simple switch in count Aaron Tarbell made between N and Trainers’ Mail. The effect of this is that while you have a marginally slower, less probable “God” start, 4 N means you have more draw throughout a game. This is especially helpful in assisting the deck’s late game flow, because 4 N means you’re more likely to have it as a target for Wonder Tag, and you’re less likely to need to search for it via Hollow Hunt GX.
2 Lysandre: I love having three, but it’s just so much work to fit. The list was obviously tight with choices, so I decided the best route was to make the most out of my plays and try my hardest to conserve these each game.
1 Olympia: In addition to Lugia, this is the other major inclusion to the usual Decidueye/Vileplume formula I made, and arguably the most influential. It made a massive difference in several of my games, either as a tricky way to conserve Energy or to evacuate an active Vileplume. This is arguably the biggest difference a single copy of Olympia has made in a deck since Brad and Azul first used it in Florida.
2 Level Ball: The second modification is actually a dial-back to normal Vileplume lists from last year, encouraged in large part by when Azul Griego and Brad Curcio used the deck in Mexico City. This is purely a space-cutting measure, and it makes sense if you have a tight balance to make between other resources.
2 Float Stone: Because of Olympia, I actually came close a couple times to cutting a Float for something else, such as second Field Blower. However, Float Stone is simply too powerful and important in this list not to run at least two.
2 Revitalizer: I’ve messed around with smaller counts and splits with Rescue Stretcher, but c’mon folks…we’re trying to set up TWO Stage Two Pokemon here. That’s really hard, so we want the ability to grab multiple Grass pieces multiple times in a game, so two is still a good count.
1 Field Blower: This is the final piece to the anti-Garb trifecta which includes Lugia and Olympia. Field Blower is not only a card that shields you from Garbotoxin; it’s a useful little Item to shake off your opponents’ pesky Float Stones, allowing you to lock and drop…those Feather Arrows, that is.
4 Ultra Ball: No analysis necessary.
4 Forest of Giant Plants: No analysis necessary. Although a cute idea you may want to mess with is 3 Forest/1 Mallow.
4 Grass/4 Double: Oftentimes people will go one direction or the other with three Grass Energy against four. Since my list complements three very aggressive attackers in the form of Tapu Lele + Lugia, eight is clearly the correct call. It also seems like I have a bad habit of prizing three Grass Energy on stream, so it’s lucky I run the fourth. 😉
That’s all I got for today. Tune in soon for my feature-length Internationals report later this week!
-John