Playing Magma Basin in the Great Basin — A Look at Fire Decks for SLC

[PMJ]

Hello everyone! We’re coming up on our first Regional Championships in years, and whether you’ll be there or not, the very prospect of official competitive play is exciting. Online tournaments have been fun, but it’s hard to replace a good old fashioned Regional! At least in my area, there has been a resurgence of players coming back to the competitive game in a way not seen since early 2020. If you’re one of them, welcome back!
The preparation happening now for the Salt Lake City Regional Championship reminds me a lot of the preparation that was done for the 2019 World Championships. That event was the first time Worlds was played with an all-new format, yet even still players were coming with plenty of practice under their belts. In that sense, this Regional is similar; we’ve known since even before this set was released that this would be the grand opening of the 2022 season. It’s always unique when you’re at the first big event of a new format, and deck-building creativity and...

Continue reading...

 

[Andy Sheppard]

What are the possible weaknesses in these decks?

 

[Zakary Krekeler]

What are the possible weaknesses in these decks?

For the Victini deck, damage output against VMAXs can occasionally be a source of trouble, particularly if you miss an early attack (like with Moltres). Since you have to 2HKO them with this deck, that can give them an opportunity to take the lead, which will make things difficult if you're both playing from behind and needing to attack four times to win. Not impossible, but the deck certainly does better when it's able to be the first aggressor. Likewise, Big Charm on Arceus can be obnoxious; that wasn't as much a part of the meta when I wrote this article, but given the rise of Arceus/Inteleon, a Tool Scrapper or something to deal with that might be an important addition.
The Charizard deck doesn't have a damage output issue, which has made it a bit more of a robust deck in this current format. The main issue it has is that you don't have the non-V attackers like you do in Victini, so you don't have a path to victory if you end up falling behind in a matchup where you're trading OHKOs. Not many decks can OHKO you repeatedly, but it can be an issue on occasion.