Help League Cup This Weekend-What To Play

T

Trevman783

Aspiring Trainer
Member
Hey guys! So, I’m playing in an expanded cup this weekend and I’m losing sleep over four possible decks to play. I could use some opinions as to what to play. I cannot post deck lists at this time as I’m at work. Here are my four options:

Night March/Zoroark

As smooth as it has been on PTCGO and as it has survived many Karens, I personally think this deck has too big a target in its back and counters will be everywhere.

Sylveon/Gardevoir

No, not that deck, this one. Take the standard quad Sylveon, subtract Sylveon, add 1-1 ralts-Gardevoir. That’s it. Gladion in case a piece gets prized. If multiple are prized, either be aggressive with Sylveon or go the mill route. With Gardevoir, two options: use twilight to recycle resources to continue to mill and Acerola when it gets damaged, being sure to recycle the rare candy back in for a second go with Gardevoir, or add scramble switch and use it as a surprise powerful attacker.

Volcanion/Turtonator

Because blacksmith and vs seeker. #broken

Zoroark/Ninetales/Seismitoad

I love me some Ninetales and I want it to work in expanded as well. Metal isn’t that prevalent so I wouldn’t be worried about weakness as much as other decks. That being said, this would be the sky field variant. Sudowoodo is a must, seismitoad for item lock since I play 4 DCE anyway, Zoroark-GX and stand in zoroark for Trevenant, gengar-ex, etc. Trade ability with aqua patch is juicy. 4 puzzles because duh. Here I’m debating between computer search and scramble switch. While computer search is beast, using scramble switch going from a damaged Ninetales, assuming I used ice path gx, to another Ninetales to hit for 160-190 is a nice idea to keep the hits going.


There are my four choices. I want to know what you guys think. What experiences do you have with these decks, if any? What could be some good additions? The staples aka choice band, colress, ghetsis, N, sycamore, lysandre/ghetsis are implied by the way. Nothing quirky going on in these decks. I would love to know and hopefully get an idea as to what might be the deck with the best matchups in expanded. Thanks!
 
If there's one piece of advice I'd give to anyone, it would be to play what you want. I personally feel that playing a deck you are comfortable on is much better than playing one that is necessarily the hottest deck that month. If you're playing a comfortable deck, you don't have to worry about playing the deck right, and can think about more matchup-specific things. If you have a couple decks that you think are equally powerful, I'd pick the one you feel more comfortable with/have more fun playing. Keep in mind, of course, that this is just my opinion, which is highly biased and could very well be wrong.

Assuming you're comfortable with all of those decks, however, I would personally recommend Volcanion/Turtonator.
The Sylveon deck looks quite strong, but it probably won't fare well against the strong expanded decks. Plus, the Gardevoir might be hard to pull of what with most people playing 2-4 N and 3-4 VS Seeker.
Zoroark/Ninetales/Seismitoad looks pretty good, but the item lock might not be as strong as in the past, since Zoroark is non-item consistency that a lot of decks will be running. You'd have to either shut them down early before they can get a Zoroark, or hammer all of their energy away (if you play hammers in that deck).
Night March/Zoroark is definitely a strong deck, but like you said, it's THE deck to counter. Seismitoad/Giratina is coming back into popularity somewhat, and the more recent Mismagius deck would completely lock you out of the game unless you teched in either basic energy (which could be done with the Mew+Dimension Valley letting you night march for a basic energy) or played Pokemon Ranger.

Volcanion/Turtonator has a couple things going for it. First off, Volcanion can trade one for one with night march, so even if you don't play oricorio you have that going for you. Second of all, you have Blacksmit/VS Seeker, like you said. Paired with Volcanion's energy acceleration, you should be able to easily string attackers. On top of this, you can one shot Zoroarks with Turtnoator, if you use two Power Heaters.

Please remember that I have never actually attended a tournament (my league cup is in Standard so I don't play it), and could be completely wrong. I just thought I might be able to offer a couple things. I hope this helps, and good luck in the cup!
 
To piggyback on what Shfinx said, playing a deck that your comfortable with is (usually) the best option.

I'm currently running Night March/Zoroark-GX and it's incredibly consistent. As long as you're not mindlessly dumping all your resources away on your first couple turns, you can play around Karen and Oricorio.

I don't have much experience playing Quad Sylveon-GX, but I do have experience playing against it and I feel like it's inconsistent, and there are so many ways to recycle resources in Expanded.

Turbo Turtles would be a solid option. Sets up fast, very consistent, there's not much Water being played outside of Seismitoad-EX at the moment.

I have no experience with Zoroark-GX/Ninetales-GX/Seismitoad-EX, but I'd say this is probably more of a surprise factor, as I've never seen this deck in Expanded.

I would pick either Night March or Turbo Turtles personally. Both are consistent which is the most important criteria to me when picking a deck for a tournament.
 
Great advice guys! I really appreciate it!

I’m leaning towards turt/volcanion due to the speed of popping of 160+ damage each turn. I’ll have to test that and night March.

Considering the expansiveness of expanded, this the name, what are your thoughts on a limitation sableye/vileplume deck. Lock my opponent from using supporters and items then mill using a combination of team rocket’s handiwork and lusamine to bring them back. Every other turn I would use lusamine to bring back one team rocket’s handiwork while using handiwork in between. Energy denial would be a must so team flare grunt and xerosic would be required. A lot of rogue decks are out there and I still haven’t seen one with this sableye work yet but in expanded? Thoughts?
 
Trevman783 said:
Great advice guys! I really appreciate it!

I’m leaning towards turt/volcanion due to the speed of popping of 160+ damage each turn. I’ll have to test that and night March.

Considering the expansiveness of expanded, this the name, what are your thoughts on a limitation sableye/vileplume deck. Lock my opponent from using supporters and items then mill using a combination of team rocket’s handiwork and lusamine to bring them back. Every other turn I would use lusamine to bring back one team rocket’s handiwork while using handiwork in between. Energy denial would be a must so team flare grunt and xerosic would be required. A lot of rogue decks are out there and I still haven’t seen one with this sableye work yet but in expanded? Thoughts?
Click to expand...

I wouldn't run it for the League Cup. I feel like Zoroark decks would tear it apart since they can just use Trade to get what they need and also use Hex. I would go with something that's proven and consistent.
 
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