Discussion Possibly The Best Deck in Standard - XY8

GengarGuys

"Pickle Enthusiast"
Member
Hey Pokebeach! Its been a while since I posted an article, so I decided to take advantage of the 3 day weekend and tell you about probably the best deck in Standard that has been giving MASSIVE amounts of success at my league, and I wanted to share it with you, so this is how I found and made the deck.

In my second city tournament of the season, I was up against a skilled player named Alexander. (I don't remember his last name.) He was playing a Regice, Bunnelby, Jirachi deck, and I was playing Giratina/Seismitoad. He completely destroyed me with Jirachi and I thought that if I could make a deck like that, I could win a state tournament. So I was at the drawing board for about 2 weeks until I saw the scans of XY8. A good pal of mine, Garbodor, was coming back! So I was thanking Arceus for sending this evil card! So here is pretty much what Garbodor does with Regice and such.

Garbodor/Regice/Jirachi

Ability Denial - Garbodor
Shuts Down:
Shaymin
Giratina
Zoroark
Keldeo
Golduck
Greninja
Just to name a few!

Energy Denail - Jirachi/Hammers
You need energy to play a deck right...?

Damage Denial: Jirachi/Regice
You need to take prizes right...?

So my challenge to the people of Pokebeach is to think of a deck that could beat this deck. I have only thought of one so far. Durant. Decking out is a huge problem for this deck. So yeah I won't give away my list, but please test this deck out! It is super fun! Here are some cards that have given me success.

Assault Vest
Fighting Spirit Belt
Bunnelby
Delinquent

Thanks for reading! Sorry if the article is written oddly. Please ask Questions! Bye!

ATTENTION I SAID XY8 BUT I MEAN XY9 AND I AM TALKING ABOUT THE GRASS DURANT SORRY
 
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By mentioning Durant, my assumption is that you are playing mostly in Expanded. As you've noted, this will soon be playable in Standard since Garbodor is receiving what I'll refer to as a "spiritual reprint." The concept is interesting, and you should definitely have a major advantage against decks that rely heavily on Pokemon-EX, and/or Special Energy, such as Seismitoad, M Manectric, and Tyrantrum.

Non-EX decks, or decks that can find ways around Jirachi and Regice can pose a problem. Dark builds come to mind, as one of the most popular decks in both Standard and Expanded. Yveltal XY is a lot more powerful in Expanded, thanks to Virbank/ Laser and Dark Patch, but Zoroark BKT can also become a big threat in Standard, able to easily one-shot both of your attackers unless your Bench is extremely tight. (As in, no more than two Benched Pokemon for Regice to survive). Jirachi, while a powerful card is one that can be played around, especially in Expanded. You can simply pass a turn without attaching any Energy, or Lysandre around it to void Stardust's effect. Blacksmith engines can also post a problem. Regice takes two turns to power up, and can be taken down by an Entei or Flareon PLF (Garbodor will stop Flareon AOS from making Vespiqueen a valid Blacksmith target) with little trouble. Again, you do have Jirachi to deal with Double Colorless Energy and as a stall tactic, but remember that it's not a perfect defense. Night March can also be problematic if they player is savvy enough and not drawing deck.

All in all, I think there are some very positive and very negative matchups here. As I have yet to test the deck myself, I am curious to see more results. I think there's fewer threats for it in Standard. "Hit or miss" decks can have surprising results in the right metagame, but facing too much up a bad matchup can be a problem. If your local meta doesn't favor non-EX decks, then it could make for a good surprise play. My only suggestion right now would be to have Crushing Hammers and/or a Team Flare Grunt, if you aren't already running them, to deny Basic Energy attachments, since that might be the deck's biggest weakness. Some decks are really fast, and you need to slow them down
 
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I am sooooo sorry! I meant XY9 in the article! Also the grass Durant! Thanks for the input and I'll try to implement ways to get around Zoroark in this deck! Thanks!
 
Entei can beat this horrible monstrosity. It outspeeds regice and even then, assault vest makes regice less of a problem. It also has blacksmith for energy acceleration and that cant be shut down by garbodor. The deck can also not have to rely on double colorless energy because of blacksmith. I want to test this deck now because I love lock decks.
 
This deck wouldn't be too bad for Mman/Articuno/Regice or
Yveltal gallade or any number of other decks, those are just two that I play.
 
This deck really hates Bronzong. Since tons of decks run startling megaphone Garbodor can be shut down as well as being lysandre'd out. Also it hits for weakness it could be a pain
 
Entei can beat this horrible monstrosity. It outspeeds regice and even then, assault vest makes regice less of a problem. It also has blacksmith for energy acceleration and that cant be shut down by garbodor. The deck can also not have to rely on double colorless energy because of blacksmith. I want to test this deck now because I love lock decks.

I 100% agree. I did not take this deck into account. I would just have to hope on them not playing assault vest.

This deck wouldn't be too bad for Mman/Articuno/Regice or
Yveltal gallade or any number of other decks, those are just two that I play.

I'm going to assume you mean the deck would lose against both of those decks. So Mman can't attack Regice and therefore wouldn't give the speed the deck needs to over power it. Yveltal/Gallade/Zoroark is killed by my deck since all mons rely on special energy in that deck Zoroark could use darkness but it would get killed if I manipulate my benchspace and I can 2hit KO Gallade. Hammers also get rid of your precious DCE making it harder for you to setup attackers.

This deck really hates Bronzong. Since tons of decks run startling megaphone Garbodor can be shut down as well as being lysandre'd out. Also it hits for weakness it could be a pain

Not tons of decks run Startling Megaphone. Infact it is a rarity. I think it will become better when XY9 comes out though. Also you forget that I can take down metal decks that only run 1 heatran. I could streamline attackers to KO it. Or it could even be prized.



So far decks that beat me are:

Entei
Durant (XY9)
Nightmarch (55/45 matchup imo)
 
Zoroark being dependent on DCE? Cute cause it's so inaccurate. Baby Yveltal is in the list to accelerate dark energy from the discard pile, making energy a breeze. DCE exists to speed up the deck since any attacker can take advantage of it for a quick attack, but the deck in no way relies on it. Don't even try calling a deck the BDIF before you've even tested it.
 
The new promo jirachi discards special energy and prevents all damage done to jirachi
 
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