Public Enemy #1 — Beating Grimmsnarl at NAIC

PMJ

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Hello PokeBeach readers, Isaiah here and I am happy to be writing another article for you all!
Last time, I talked about my group's successful Eevee Box deck that we played at the Milwaukee, Melbourne, and Portland Regional Championships. As we enter the Destined Rivals format, I do not have super high expectations for this deck to continue to succeed, but I certainly have high hopes.
One of the biggest issues that the deck is going to have to face is Team Rocket's Watchtower, which stands to shut down your Noctowl engine, crippling your deck in its entirety. Honestly, though, this is a bit more manageable to handle than the deck's other big issue, which is the format's new big bad: Marnie's Grimmsnarl...


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I think you meant to say “Gardevoir”.


I personally don’t like Grimmsnarl but if it can control Gardevoir then I can’t hate it to much
 
I think you meant to say “Gardevoir”.


I personally don’t like Grimmsnarl but if it can control Gardevoir then I can’t hate it to much
Agreed. We’ve needed a Gardevoir counter with a decent-or-better matchup spread for a while now, and this deck doesn’t seem that broken (fingers crossed). It also has pretty clear counters. It’s early days, but I like this addition to the metagame so far
 
I've seen this deck quite a few times and it is naturally a nightmare to tackle as a damage spread deck. This comes at the consequence of not having reliable healing in the format on top of Grimmsnarl being completely self sufficient for setup. Fortunately, a good handful of top decks can play around or counter it without too much issue and the Grass weakness lets Ogerpon and Iron Leaves beat it into the ground when ready.

That being said, they really need to add reliable healing in this game as we get closer to one-shot decks getting ready to vanish come next year if damage spread continues to gain traction. Fennel in BB/WF is a start, but not a very good one.
 
I've seen this deck quite a few times and it is naturally a nightmare to tackle as a damage spread deck. This comes at the consequence of not having reliable healing in the format on top of Grimmsnarl being completely self sufficient for setup. Fortunately, a good handful of top decks can play around or counter it without too much issue and the Grass weakness lets Ogerpon and Iron Leaves beat it into the ground when ready.

That being said, they really need to add reliable healing in this game as we get closer to one-shot decks getting ready to vanish come next year if damage spread continues to gain traction. Fennel in BB/WF is a start, but not a very good one.
Which decks counter it, besides ones with Ogerpon ex?
 
Which decks counter it, besides ones with Ogerpon ex?
Joltik Box plays Galvantula and Iron Leaves which gives it a pretty big advantage against Grimmsnarl.

I don’t think the deck’s a hard counter like Raging Bolt but the matchup should be good.
 
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