Cold as Ice — Chien-Pao ex’s Position for Toronto and Beyond
Hello PokeBeach readers! Isaiah here and I am happy to be writing another article for you all! Last time, I talked about the Lost Zone decks, which continue to be some of my favorite archetypes in the game. Following the recently completed Sacramento Regional Championship, I feel like many players have been left asking more questions about the format than the event was able to provide answers. Many of the basic questions that we have had about the format were answered quite easily, such as if Kyogre is going to remain a meta threat, which based on the results of the event, where both Kyogre builds were in the Top 8, I would say the deck is certainly going to continue being one of the top threats in the metagame so long as top players continue playing it.
The State of the Meta
Two other big questions that I felt were common after the Peoria Regional Championship were if Charizard ex and Lugia VSTAR were still as good as people thought they would be. After all, despite their huge meta proportions, the decks both put up pretty abysmal results in Peoria. After the Sacramento Regional Championship, the future of Charizard ex continues to be questionable, as the deck still has yet to make a Top 8 at a Regional in North America. Lugia VSTAR, on the other hand, showed that it certainly still has what it takes at the Sacramento Regional Championship, making up half of Top 8 and even going on to win the entire tournament in the hands of Alexander Flatos. With all four Lugia VSTAR decks in Top 8 being the “Colorless” variant with Snorlax and Wyrdeer V, one has to wonder if the Single Strike variant has seen its last bits of success.
Despite all of this, no surprise from the Sacramento Regional Championship comes even remotely close to the remarkable resurgence of Arceus VSTAR. The highest-placing Arceus VSTAR deck in Sacramento was second place in the hands of Niccolo Abate, who played an extremely unique Arceus VSTAR / Gyarados VMAX deck. Not only that, but former Milwaukee Regional Champion Braiden Elfert took an Arceus VSTAR / Duraludon VMAX deck to ninth place, barely missing out on being in the Top 8. Due to this random resurgence, one does have to wonder if Arceus VSTAR decks are back, considering that they have a reasonably strong matchup spread, or if this event was a complete fluke and Arceus VSTAR decks will sink back into mediocrity. A few more decks that have been doing well lately also had surprisingly weak results in Sacramento, such as Mew VMAX, which peaked at 25th or Miraidon ex, which peaked at 11th, while neither of these are bad results by any means, they both bring to question how strong these decks’ place in the meta truly is.
One last deck from the Sacramento Regional Championship that I wanted to address is Chien-Pao ex / Baxcalibur. At both the Pittsburgh Regional Championship and the Peoria Regional Championship, Chien-Pao ex was able to produce a Top 8 finish, and in Sacramento, it peaked at 12th. While this is certainly a dip in performance, it is only a slight one, and it likely can be best explained by the deck’s occasionally shaky Lugia VSTAR matchup rather than it being a question of the deck’s quality. Chien-Pao ex has proven itself in the format lately, escalating from being a fringe deck that was borderline a joke archetype to now being one of the strongest decks in the format, resting solidly at the high end of Tier 2, and maybe even approaching Tier 1. Between a limitless damage ceiling and the Radiant Greninja plus Canceling Cologne combo, the deck has pretty much all it needs to take on any threat that you can throw at it. In my opinion, the deck is even better than its results are showing so far, and I would not be surprised to see it win a Regional Championship sometime soon. Currently, I think that the best list, by far, is Grant Shen’s list that he used to finish in the Top 8 of the Peoria Regional Championship as well as getting 12th at the Sacramento Regional Championship. This list is the epitome of consistency for the Chien-Pao ex / Baxcalibur archetype, and with just the right amount of techs, the deck is able to be a potent meta powerhouse.
This concludes the public portion of this article.
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