The Buzz in Sydney — Thoughts on Standard

Hey PokeBeach readers, if you haven’t guessed it by now, I am in an airplane right now. Obviously the flight is Pokemon related, so I am on my way to Dallas, TX to play in an Expanded Regionals. While I want to be successful this weekend, I am thinking ahead to a much bigger tournament — the 2018 Asian Pacific International Championships in Sydney, Australia. I have been going back and forth deciding if I wanted to discuss this already well explored format instead of diving into Ultra Prism decks, but this format will still be used for Standard League Cups. In this article, I will go through our current metagame, share my thoughts on the format currently, and showcase my brainchild of a deck that should answer the format. Without wasting time, let’s peer into my thoughts as we look towards Sydney:

Lookin’ Towards Sydney

As we look towards Sydney, we need to look at the information that is available to us and that takes place in the form of looking at major events that have taken place in this Standard format. These are the events completed with the Top 8 results for each event from the Master’s Division:

London Internationals – United Kingdom – November 2017

Brisbane Regionals – Australia – December 2017

Memphis Regionals – United States – December 2017

Turin Special Event – Italy – December 2017

Sao Paulo Regionals – Brazil – January 2018

Leipzig Regionals – Germany – January 2018

With all of these results, the decks that placed more than once are:

• Buzzwole-GX  / Lycanroc-GX
• Zoroark-GX  / Golisopod-GX
• Zoroark-GX / Lycanroc-GX
• Tapu Bulu-GX  / Vikavolt
• Greninja BREAK
• Gardevoir-GX
• Volcanion-EX

I think that all of those decks seem like strong deck choices heading into Sydney because they all have well-defined lists that top players have perfected over the past few months. After looking at these results, if I don’t end up playing one of those decks, I will need to play a deck that does a great job countering those decks.

What I Want in a Deck

Continuing on my thought of a counter deck, I need to find a deck that can do multiple things, and do them well. It might not be easy, but here is my list:

• Consistent deck that sets up more games than not
• Can do enough damage to KO a Gardevoir-GX, the most played Pokemon with the highest amount of HP
• Can either Knock Out opposing Pokemon who use Abilities or block them entirely
• Can take Prizes quickly to set games up for success
• Has favourable typing or has a lack of bad matchups

With all of those factors in mind, I am experimenting with a Buzzwole-GX / Lycanroc-GX / Garbodor deck that seems to be a hidden gem in the format. I have taken inspiration from my older Buzzwole-GX / Lycanroc-GX from League Cups earlier in the season and I have mixed it with the concept of Frank Percic’s Buzzwole-GX / Garbodor list that allowed him to make day two at Memphis Regionals. I decided that I wasn’t a fan of playing Garbodor from Guardians Rising in the deck because I found it almost entirely useless when I played it at a League Cup a few weeks ago. Overall, I am going to playtest the below list extensively heading into London so expect me to play something extremely similar. Let’s peep this list out:

This concludes the public portion of this article.

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