Blog Night March in Standard - What It Is, Why It's Good, and How to Counter It

I think you're missing some heavy draw support in both night march decks. A staple to night march is the ability to be setup to do enough damage to OHKO in 1 turn. The problem I see with the DL you provided is you really only have 5 cards that will draw you more than 1 card (1x Shaymin, 4x Scyamore, 1x Giovonni). That doesnt seem like a lot to me, and I haven't tested your DL so I can't say for sure. This DL might be the perfect combination, I dont know. I'm just saying from initial looks, it doesnt look like enough. Also, why no unown's for the vespiquen DL? Those two seem to go together like lamb and tunafish. You get an extra card to draw and the added damage for having another pokemon in the discard pile. Anyway, I'm not picking apart your DL as much as asking how you came to the conclusion of the card combinations that you submitted as I'm interested in how these played.
 
PokeDad5 said:
I think you're missing some heavy draw support in both night march decks. A staple to night march is the ability to be setup to do enough damage to OHKO in 1 turn. The problem I see with the DL you provided is you really only have 5 cards that will draw you more than 1 card (1x Shaymin, 4x Scyamore, 1x Giovonni). That doesnt seem like a lot to me, and I haven't tested your DL so I can't say for sure. This DL might be the perfect combination, I dont know. I'm just saying from initial looks, it doesnt look like enough. Also, why no unown's for the vespiquen DL? Those two seem to go together like lamb and tunafish. You get an extra card to draw and the added damage for having another pokemon in the discard pile. Anyway, I'm not picking apart your DL as much as asking how you came to the conclusion of the card combinations that you submitted as I'm interested in how these played.
Click to expand...

On draw support, you can consistently get a Sycamore every turn with Battle Compressor and VS Seeker. Also, after the first turn or two, the deck will be rolling and your concern should be to get an energy if a Pokémon gets knocked out, which is a fairly easy task with 4 DCE and 4 Puzzle of Time. As for the Vespiquen, I completely forgot about Unown, but it is still good without it. For that list, Vespiquen is more of a counter than a main attacker. It's there to counter Toad and Jolteon-EX, but I totally get your point. If that deck were "more Vespiquen oriented" (hoped I worded it right), there would totally be 4 Unown.
 
Seismitoad-EX
If you get a turn of items usually you are fine. And they generally can't one shot you with a Fighting Fury Belt, which means even if you can't get more than 2 battle compressors off you still will two shot a Toad. And once you get items back mid game is when you can start using vs seeker, puzzle of time, etc.


Vileplume and Trevenant
They are good counters, but they both have some flaws of consistency. If Vileplume does not run hot they lose and if they miss a T1 trev they lose. Vespi and Trev have such low HP as well that even if you go second you should be able to hit 120 by turn 2 with sycamores alone. And you win the series if you go first anyways. They are the real tough matchup. And the break is annoying, but honestly you get 1 lysandre play for your items and you should be A-OK.

Crobat
Crobat is barely a threat in the meta. Even so, NM runs Fighting Fury Belt, so both pokemon now have 70 and 100 HP. Yes, Crobat can be paired with Toad, but again that is 1 turn NM has to dig through the deck for items before the lock.

Pyroar
Hex Maniac??? Literally you win the entire game with this. As well as Lysandre for their Shaymins. My list runs 2 Hex, not even for Pyroar but for Aegislash...the REAL hardcore NM counter. According to http://thecharizardlounge.com/tournament-results/2016-state-championship-results/ there are no accounts of Pyroar from the past 3 weeks of states, and I haven't heard of success of it since Nats two years ago. This deck isn't problematic in any way.
 
Just because hundreds of people aren't playing it doesn't mean someone can't or won't. I played a pyroar deck at cities and went 3-3 for just seeing it and playing it that day.
 
PokeDad5 said:
Just because hundreds of people aren't playing it doesn't mean someone can't or won't. I played a pyroar deck at cities and went 3-3 for just seeing it and playing it that day.
Click to expand...
I get that it can be unexpected sure, but it straight up loses to NM already. And the hundreds of people who aren't playing it is a sign that it much have some major autolosses in the current meta. Those loses would be Mega Manectric, Greninja, Vileplume, Toad, Trevenant, and definitely Night March. Basically the main decks right now.
Also I think you misinterpreted what I wrote. I did not say there was no Pyroar, but any reports of Pyroar doing well in States.
 
I agree with you completely that Pyroar would not be a good play right now, mainly because of the decks that are out there, and that it would not fair well against the ones that you listed. Which I'm kind of glad and sad at the same time. I do like myself some play of Pyroar, but at the same time I'm glad there's not 1 deck out there that can just completely destroy everyone's deck with 1 card or a combination of cards. Id rather play states and go 0-6 to 6 different decks than go 0-6 to all the same decks.
 
I'm sorry but to me Night march needs 3 shaymin minimum. i would toss skates for 2 more shaymin. need to explode t1
 
Most of the time, how a Night March deck does will boil down to how well it can manage its Energy. If it's just running DCEs, it's very easy for Night March to get stalled out with a combination of Seismitoad/Trevenant + Xerosic. Even with Milotics and Puzzle of Time, it struggles a lot with properly using its resources, and when it has to attack targets with high HP like anything holding a Fighting Fury Belt or Megas, Night March will find itself strapped for useful cards.

On a personal note, the strongest (or, at least, more consistent) variation of Night March would probably have to be the one using PHF Bronzong, mostly because it doesn't have to waste so much time worrying about if it can get enough Puzzles of Time that may or may not be usable.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top