Discussion Noob going to Memphis - Drampa/garb or Fire?

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TheJollyFlyingMan

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Been playing TCGO for a year , and just got started at local league in the past month. A friend invited me to go to Memphis so this will be my first ever regionals.

The decks I own the cards for are Volcanion , Ho-oh/Salazzle and Drampa/Garbodor.

I feel like I made a mistake not investing in newer archetypes like Buzzwole and Zoroark/Golisopod when I ordered my cards , but with regionals approaching in under a week , these are the decks I've practiced the most with. Wondering what people think is the best bet in the current meta.

From my experience with (mostly online) testing:

Volcanion:
- decent Zoropod and Zoro-owls matchup good silvally/metal matchup due to fire weakness and Ho-Oh OHKOs on 210s with band
- Mirror matches are difficult and often decided by who gets their volc set up first
- struggles with Garde and frogs
- All basic energy is great because of all the hammers running around

Ho-Oh /Salazzle:
- fire weakness advantage (see above)
- Probably the most fun deck of the three to my play style
- Amazing late game because of Salazzle
- inconsistent compared to straight Volc because of reliance on Kiawe early game, lowest win ratio of the 3 decks


Drampa/garb:
- Better Garde matchup but still struggles if they get Gallade early
- Pretty good Volc matchup due to Drampa's reliable 180 damage
- Ability lock shuts down a lot of things and is less expected since zoroark took over the meta (but heavy blower counts can make it hard to keep up)
- Usually beat Frogs due to Po Town and their massive item count
- Buzzwole/Lycanroc is a bad matchup unless I'm running Espeon and even then their GX's can KO it early
- Zoroark usually beats me unless I can get them into the late game with a big discard pile, or deplete their special energy
 
Don't play Ho-oh/Salazzle, there's a reason the deck never places well. I'm personally playing Drampa Garb for a few reasons, a big one being that it has good matchup to decks that aren't Gardevoir, and Celesteela and Jirachi (XY67) do that deck good. Volcanion has more or less, the same explanation except no Jirachi. It has E-hammers, but Gardy just Max Potions, and knocks you out. I think Brokenvoir is the best deck going into the event, and I think it'll be at least 30% of the field. If I find a reason, I might switch to that deck last minute
 
gumball51321 said:
Don't play Ho-oh/Salazzle, there's a reason the deck never places well. I'm personally playing Drampa Garb for a few reasons, a big one being that it has good matchup to decks that aren't Gardevoir, and Celesteela and Jirachi (XY67) do that deck good. Volcanion has more or less, the same explanation except no Jirachi. It has E-hammers, but Gardy just Max Potions, and knocks you out. I think Brokenvoir is the best deck going into the event, and I think it'll be at least 30% of the field. If I find a reason, I might switch to that deck last minute
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I'm considering sticking with the Garb theme but making the switch to Buzzwole/Garbodor to make deal with the rampant Zoroark decks which Drampa has trouble OHKOing, while not dropping Garbotoxin as an underrated option since fewer people are expecting it to make a comeback.
 
TheJollyFlyingMan said:
True, but Garde being the top deck could mean it's harder to make it to day 2 if half or more the rounds I play end up being Garde
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A good volcanion player can beat gardy, just focus on your turtonator, and do 230 damage with 2 steam up. Next turn, attach an energy and shell trap, enabling you to one shot them with a volcanion with a fury belt. when you do this, you can attach another energy onto turt, powering it up again.
 
The Last Shaymin said:
A good volcanion player can beat gardy, just focus on your turtonator, and do 230 damage with 2 steam up. Next turn, attach an energy and shell trap, enabling you to one shot them with a volcanion with a fury belt. when you do this, you can attach another energy onto turt, powering it up again.
Click to expand...

True but to ohko garde with a Turtonator, you need both two steam ups , and a belt/band or third steam up on turtonator. I wish there was a usable spread attacker for Volc (closest you get is Ho-Oh's sacred fire)

edit: I should test Po Town and Espeon EX in Volcanion
 
TheJollyFlyingMan said:
True but to ohko garde with a Turtonator, you need both two steam ups , and a belt/band or third steam up on turtonator. I wish there was a usable spread attacker for Volc (closest you get is Ho-Oh's sacred fire)

edit: I should test Po Town and Espeon EX in Volcanion
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Espeon EX and Po town dont really work with volcanion. You can try it, there are just better stadiums and bench space is tight.Dont forget you have baby volcanion chipping away at thier gardy or sylveon, so you can easily kill the gardy after with turtonator. Also, Turtonator tends to die after the 2 attacks noted above, so you can just attach an energy to turt and use the bright flame attack, which will knock out without any steam ups. Or you can use a
767501d2216ffc9fb47a163846c7adfc38aef88c_128.jpg
and promote a volcanion to knock it out. It all depends on what is in your hand!
Also, you said something about the hammers running around, and volcanion is one of the reasons they are so popular right now. Volcanion is the deck that runs them! One of the cards in volcanion is the enhanced hammer.
 

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The Last Shaymin said:
A good volcanion player can beat gardy, just focus on your turtonator, and do 230 damage with 2 steam up. Next turn, attach an energy and shell trap, enabling you to one shot them with a volcanion with a fury belt. when you do this, you can attach another energy onto turt, powering it up again.
Click to expand...
exactly what i do
 
The Last Shaymin said:
Espeon EX and Po town dont really work with volcanion. You can try it, there are just better stadiums and bench space is tight.Dont forget you have baby volcanion chipping away at thier gardy or sylveon, so you can easily kill the gardy after with turtonator. Also, Turtonator tends to die after the 2 attacks noted above, so you can just attach an energy to turt and use the bright flame attack, which will knock out without any steam ups. Or you can use a
767501d2216ffc9fb47a163846c7adfc38aef88c_128.jpg
and promote a volcanion to knock it out. It all depends on what is in your hand!
Also, you said something about the hammers running around, and volcanion is one of the reasons they are so popular right now. Volcanion is the deck that runs them! One of the cards in volcanion is the enhanced hammer.
Click to expand...
Ha ha, a Switch. I get it
 
gumball51321 said:
So how'd you do in Memphis?
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3-4-2

I actually ended up running Buzzwole/Garb , bought the cards there and removed Drampa and Espeon when I realized how much fighting there was. I had two ties (against ZoroPod and Decidueye /Zoroark), my wins were Quad Sylveon, Ninetales Zoroark and Volcanion.

3 of my losses were to Buzzwole/Lycanroc which just outsped me with access to Max Elixirs while I was running rainbow for Trashalanche. One was to Gourgeist which I had no answer to due to psychic weakness and more one prize attackers than I had Trashalanche garbs. I did place somewhere I'm the bottom of the top 256 (224th I believe) which is still better than I expected for my first regionals. One thing I learned was I needed to play fast or learn to scoop because I think I could have won one of my ties.

I'll post my list in the Deck Garage later.
 
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gumball51321 said:
3-4-2 Couldn't have made top 256, since you'd need at least 15 match points. Also, It's not possible because I went 4-2-3 and ranked 251st, having exactly 15 match points, and a lot of 5-3s bubbled
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[/QUOTE]

I was surprised at seeing that too. I probably didn't refresh and was looking at the ranks after an earlier round. so obviously must be lower. Are the full day 1 results still up anywhere?
 

I was surprised at seeing that too. I probably didn't refresh and was looking at the ranks after an earlier round. so obviously must be lower. Are the full day 1 results still up anywhere?[/QUOTE]
Not as far as I know
 
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