Can Marnie’s Grimmsnarl ex Stop the Best Decks and Win Worlds?
Hello, PokeBeach readers! Gabriel Semedo here again with another Pokemon TCG article. This time, I want to talk about Marnie's Grimmsnarl ex and how this deck has a solid chance of beating the two best decks in the format — Dragapult ex and Gardevoir ex— giving it a real shot at reaching the top tables of the most important Pokemon TCG tournament, the World Championships at Anaheim happening in August.
I usually come up with the article title after finishing the content, but this time I already knew what it would be. Marnie's Grimmsnarl ex's favorable matchups against Gardevoir ex and Dragapult ex are just too good. Another reason I felt compelled to write about Grimmsnarl is that, even though it performs well against the format's top two decks, I still found it difficult to consider it on par with other Tier 1 contenders. Raging Bolt ex has a good matchup against Grimmsnarl and can be considered a Tier 1 deck alongside Gardevoir and Dragapult. But theoretically, having two favorable matchups and one tough one isn’t that bad. Here in the West, we’ve only seen Grimmsnarl shine in one major tournament — the North America International Championships — where the deck had a decent showing, partially confirming its already demonstrated potential. However, in my view, it still performed below expectations.
Before Marnie's Grimmsnarl ex came into the picture, many believed Gardevoir ex's competitive run was over. But what we saw at NAIC was a matchup that played out close to 50/50. A decent Gardevoir player might struggle against Grimmsnarl, but top Gardevoir players who succeeded had a specific strategy in place. Additionally, despite being the fourth most popular deck in Day 2 of the competition, Grimmsnarl had relatively few Top 64 appearances, indicating the deck faced several other challenges in the metagame.
Marnie's Grimmsnarl ex's biggest advantage, as I mentioned, lies in its favorable matchups against Gardevoir ex and Dragapult ex. The issue, however, is that — beyond Raging Bolt — it also struggles against lesser-played decks in the metagame, such as Joltik Box, Eevee Box, and Toedscruel ex. In massive tournaments like NAIC and Japan Nationals, which attract around 4,000 players, the deck diversity is immense. Even though Gardevoir and Dragapult are the top two decks, chances are you’ll face each of them only once or twice. In other words, if you play nine rounds and encounter them in only half, that still might not be enough. It's also entirely normal to lose to Gardy and Pult. What I’m saying is, beating the two best decks often isn’t enough — you also need to perform well against Tier 2 decks. Especially in the current format, where the gap between Tier 1 and Tier 2 isn’t all that wide.
It’s this blend of notable strengths and weaknesses that inspired me to write today’s article about Marnie's Grimmsnarl ex. Not only is it the most recent deck to break into Tier 1, but it’s also one that still raises a lot of questions for me. Of course, if I’m choosing a deck to win the World Championships, it must at least have even or favorable matchups against Gardevoir ex and Dragapult ex. But I also need to know exactly what price I’m paying for that. In today’s article, I’ll break down the Grimmsnarl list I’m currently using, based on inspiration from both the NAIC and Japan Nationals lists.
This concludes the public portion of this article.
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