New Rulings-X/Y Format

I just want to get this out of my system right now.

*takes a deep breath*

I LOVE the new upcoming format!! The new rule changes are going to be effective in Japan starting November 8th. 

For those of you that haven't heard the rulings, I'll go over them here, including my thoughts!

Balloon Party Redux!

As the first Fall Regionals of the season draws closer, the amount of testing that I've been doing has gone up. Since my finals have just finished (well, technically, it's over-I still have some tweaks to do and re-rendering and my "one week break" isn't really a break) I've had some time to rethink, re-test and re-play my Flareon deck. It's nice to step away from it for a bit and come back to it so I'm revisiting it with some more thoughts and insights.

Making the Case for Flareon

Observation 1: Flareon relies on Pokemon in the discard to hit what is known as the "magic numbers" or the OHKO's via it's first attack, Vengeance.

Conditions to help boost the damage output: Silver Bangle, LaserBank (Hypnotoxic Laser/Virbank) Deoxys EX

Observation 2: To make Plasma a more favorable match up, the deck needs certain techs to combat the speed.

Conditions to help the Plasma match up: Drifloon PLB, Driflblim DRX, Drifblim PLB, Enhanced Hammer.

Observation 3: To make the Blastoise match up more favorable, it needs a way to punish Energy commitment and big attackers

Conditions to help punishment: Leafeon PLF, Zoroark NXD, Garbodor

The list I'm testing currently has some really funky card choices but so far, it's somewhat improved my Darkrai matchup without having to sacrifice too much in the others.

Thoughts on Upcoming NorCal Regionals + Flytrap STOMP

I'm looking forward to the first Fall Regionals of the new season (even if I'm a tad bit sour faced about 20 dollars entry fee). Arizona already has one-uped the event by also providing Visa Gift cards as part of the prize pool which is so much more universally better than...tons and tons of cards. There's not much the folks in NorCal can do now as far as editing and upping their prizes, and some of their events and door prizes are shaping up to be pretty good, so I'll still give them a whirl. I'm still on the ropes about my deck (testing a weird variant that I'm close to perfecting as much as possible) and I'll post my updated list as the tournament draws near.

Traditionally, I never seem to do well in big tournaments and I blame this sometimes on my horrible luck but I guess it's also due to my inexperience in tournament settings. On top of people being more thirsty for their invites, I'll have to contend with my stage-fright-but-not-really-stage-fright.Oh well, it is what it is.

In the process of developing a new deck, I started looking through all our current sets and stumbled upon something that could actually have a huge impact if played right or with the right build. It's a gimmicky idea at best, and I'm not certain it can hold well against blazing hot starts, but I'd be a bit sad if I couldn't get the concept to work.

Popping Balloons And A Return Of The Deep Sea Guardian

Things didn't go so well with Flareon this past weekend (then again, it was a bunch of rouges that hit Flareon for Weakness + not a true next format prep tournament as it was Bo1 instead of Bo3) but I still felt rather bumed out by it.

WHAT did you say about me?

Maybe I really shouldn't, as they're decks that will never see that much play (I would hope at least-too much Suicune around for Flareon to enjoy itself) and the amount of non-special energy floating around rendered about 5-6 cards completely useless. For now while I test a different variant, I'll be taking a look at my old time friend that got crushed by the rotation-Lugia Donk!