Seriously, what happened? The power creep from lost thunder to team up made me think unbroken bonds would have 160 hp basics hitting 160 for 1 energy attachment.
They look good at first, on paper, but when you play them, you just get beat by the team up decks, and even the lost thunder decks.
One major thing you might not notice at first is no copycat. LOT decks had 1x, and TEU had 2x, and it is a very powerful catchup card in theme format.
Second, the stage 2s in these decks are not the main attacker. This was true of blaziken and ampharos, except they had unique spread attacks that gave you so many more options.
Also, there is zero pokemon recovery in the UNB decks! What? Each deck has a basic main attacker, that can be ohko'd by all sorts of things, and you only get 2 copies of it. If one is prized, GG.
I think the meta shapes up like this at the moment:
Tier 1
Relentless Flame (ridiculous deck thinning, massive damage output, and rapidash coinflip game stealing)
Tier 2
Torrential Cannon (decent deck thinning, just enough damage output, and hope they don't get rapidash)
Storm Caller (great onboard draw, and the only recent deck with a solid answer to rapidash)
Blazing Volcano (magcargo, energy accel, and guzma that ponyta before they get a rapidash)
Hydro Fury (best onboard draw, magcargo, escape rope gets you one rapidash-free turn)
Tier 3
UNB decks (just not that good)
Leaf Charge (having a fire BDIF is rough, oranguru isn't great draw in theme format, do have guzma though)
Tier 4
Other
I am only part joking about rapidash too, that card is broken. Can you imagine if victini was in that deck?
They look good at first, on paper, but when you play them, you just get beat by the team up decks, and even the lost thunder decks.
One major thing you might not notice at first is no copycat. LOT decks had 1x, and TEU had 2x, and it is a very powerful catchup card in theme format.
Second, the stage 2s in these decks are not the main attacker. This was true of blaziken and ampharos, except they had unique spread attacks that gave you so many more options.
Also, there is zero pokemon recovery in the UNB decks! What? Each deck has a basic main attacker, that can be ohko'd by all sorts of things, and you only get 2 copies of it. If one is prized, GG.
I think the meta shapes up like this at the moment:
Tier 1
Relentless Flame (ridiculous deck thinning, massive damage output, and rapidash coinflip game stealing)
Tier 2
Torrential Cannon (decent deck thinning, just enough damage output, and hope they don't get rapidash)
Storm Caller (great onboard draw, and the only recent deck with a solid answer to rapidash)
Blazing Volcano (magcargo, energy accel, and guzma that ponyta before they get a rapidash)
Hydro Fury (best onboard draw, magcargo, escape rope gets you one rapidash-free turn)
Tier 3
UNB decks (just not that good)
Leaf Charge (having a fire BDIF is rough, oranguru isn't great draw in theme format, do have guzma though)
Tier 4
Other
I am only part joking about rapidash too, that card is broken. Can you imagine if victini was in that deck?