Hi guys, I’m back again today to talk about Palmerston North Cities that happened on the 27th of February. Firstly we’ll talk about the tournament itself and then I will also discuss a deck I considered playing right until 2am that morning. Once again I played Night March for this event, but it wasn’t without testing other decks that I felt were good in the meta game. This event was the first time we see the new set, Break Point, legal for competitive play. With the introduction of new cards such as Trevenant Break, Puzzle of Time, and Greninja Break , the meta game was sure to shift away from Night March. Or so I initially thought..
Trevenant Break was hyped leading up to the event making Night March a really bad deck choice due to Night March’s inherent weakness to item lock. Therefore I started my testing with a Yveltal/Zoroark deck which I believed would beat both Trevenant Break and Night March. Eventually I realised that everyone probably had the same idea in mind, therefore no one would play Trevenant and a majority for players would opt for Yveltal as the play. This meant that Night March was once again a decent play for this event, along with Manectric EX/Bats being both solid options. I was also quite worried about Seismitoad EX/Giratina EX due to the deck doing well at the European Championship Cup (ECC) the week before with 3 Seismitoad EX variants making top 8. Seismitoad EX/Giratina EX usually beats Night March quite easily due to Giratina EX’s Chaos Wheel which stops the Night March player from attaching their Double Colourless Energy to attack. Weirdly in testing, Night March was able to consistently beat both Manectric EX/Bats and Seismitoad EX/Giratina EX, so at 2am I decided on playing Night March and went to sleep.
Round 1: Manectric EX/Bats (WL)
I started off pretty slowly game one which allowed my opponent to snipe off all my Night Marchers early with Golbat and Crobats. I also prized both Professor Sycamore this game so had to resort to using Battle Compressor on a Judge turn 1 to get going. Game 2 I opened a lot better and was able to continuously stream knock outs on EXs with my Night Marchers. Unfortunately game one took around 35 minutes so this match ended in a tie.
Round 2: Yveltal/Yveltal EX/Seismitoad EX/Zoroark (WW)
I believe I streamed knockouts on three EXs in a row in both games. Some people say that with Yveltal XY, the match up against Night March is good due to fact that it can one hit knockout both Joltik and Pumpkaboo but with the inclusion of Fighting Fury Belt from Break Point, they can no longer do so. With Night March the idea now is to take knockouts on EXs as often as you can through the use of Lysandre, so we don’t mind the prize trade even if they can KO my Night Marchers.
Round 3: Palkia EX/Auroras EX/Seismitoad EX/Manaphy EX/Huntail (WW)
Crazy rogue deck. I definitely did not expect to see this at this event. I feel it could be good in a meta without Night March, but the heavy dependence on EX Pokemon made the prize trade fairly easy for me.
Round 4: Lucario EX/Hawlucha/Bats (WW)
I feel this was a pretty easy match up since Pumpkaboo hits Lucario EX for weakness and Hawlucha can’t touch my Night Marchers. Bats were stopped by Hex Maniac too, which made the match fairly lopsided. I remember my opponent purposefully did not bench any Shaymin EX in the second game, but I was able to Target Whistle the Shaymin EX from his discard pile and Lysandre it up for multiple prizes.
Round 5: Yveltal XY/Yveltal EX/Darkrai EX/Zoroark (WL)
I win game 1 by knocking out multiple EX with a positive prize trade. Game two there was a situation where he had an active Zoroark with a Burst Balloon and a Darkrai EX on the bench. In hindsight I should have conserved my resources on that turn and simply Sky Returned with one of my Shaymin EX. Instead I played my Puzzle of Time to get Startling Megaphone and a Pumpkaboo which I benched. Adding and benching the Pumpkaboo was a misplay as Darkrai EX had resistance to Psychic type Pokemon. Next turn my opponent attached a Fighting Fury Belt to his Darkrai EX and I was unable to knock it out with one hit. I still had a chance to win, but I misplayed incredibly badly and just threw it away. I Sky Returned so that I could knock it out with one of Night Marchers next turn but I needed to promote my Pumpkaboo. For some reason, I promoted a Shaymin EX which he was able to one hit knockout which cost me the game.
Round 6: Night March (W)
My opponent is a friend of mine who wasn’t playing for points and was playing for fun this season. He told me the day before that if we matched up, he’d let me have the win. I was very thankful as my deck bricked on me when we played a fun game.
Top 8: Manectric EX/Bats (LL)
I just never get going both games. I struggled to get Night Marchers in the discard pile and he opens with 4 Zubats on the bench. My opponent cleverly uses his Head Ringers and traps one of my Shaymin EX active while sniping my bench with his Bats and Manectric EX. This happened again in game 2, and I lost the match. It was still good to get 20 points towards the World Championships in August, but I would’ve loved to get more. Unfortunately, you win some you lose some.
Today we’re also going to talk about another deck that I was considering for the event. We’ve talked about Night March enough in the past (article can be found here), so today we’ll talk about Manectric EX/Bats, which was my second option for this tournament.
The reason why I thought Manectric EX/Bats was a good play was due to the fact that it has positive or 50-50 matchups against the majority of the top tier decks of this format. There weren’t any new cards in Break Point which I thought would have helped the deck, but there weren’t any cards that would hurt it either (I didn’t feel Garchomp was a legitimate threat at the time). A friend of mine also made top 8 in the ECC the week before with the deck, so it was definitely a good deck.
The idea of the deck is to use Manectric EX as the main attacker. Manectric EX has attacks Overrun and Assault Laser. For a colourless energy, Manectric can do 20 damage to the active pokemon and another 20 to the bench. Assault Laser requires a Lightning and a Colourless energy and has does 60 base damage. This damage doubles if the opposing Pokemon has a tool attached to it. In conjunction with Head Ringer, you are able to do 120 damage to an EX Pokemon. The Golbat and Crobats will be used to help finish off the EX Pokemon by dropping extra damage as they hit the field.
This was the list card for card that I was going to play for cities. I decided to play 3 Level Balls as getting as many Zubats out on the first turn was vital. Even in the following turns, they are able to fetch your Golbats. I chose to play a Double Colourless Energy because in the mirror, Head Ringers are a big threat. With a Double Colourless Energy, I am still able to attack despite the Head Ringer. Another card you might be wondering about is the inclusion of Delinquent, from Break Point. This card was highly discussed in conjunction with Red Card. Red Card puts your opponents hand down to 4, and Delinquent makes them discard 3 of the 4 cards. I felt this was the wrong way to play the card, and opponents could easily just keep their Shaymin EX or Professor Sycamore as the last card in their hand. Instead, I felt this card is great mid to late game to finish off your opponent. After a few turns have exchanged, your opponent would play his hand down, conserving only a supporter or a VS Seeker to get a supporter along with an energy or something along those lines. This would be the perfect time to play Delinquent as it forces you to top deck in a critical moment of the game and could shift the momentum of the entire game. It really reminisces the way N was played in previous formats during the late game with opponents unable to top deck their way out of a bad hand.
Against Night March, the matchup is 50-50. As long as you can get your Zubats down on the first turn, Night Marchers just become food for Golbats and Crobats to feast on. Shaymin EX is also weak to Manectric EX and they often Lysandre them for the two prizes to keep up with the prize trade.
Against Yveltal, the lightning weakness is too much for them to handle and should be an easy matchup as long as you can play around their Gallade or Regirock if they play them.
Against Seismitoad/Giratina, the matchup goes down to whether your opponent is good at flipping heads. If all the Crushing Hammer and Super Scoop Up flips go their way, you will struggle for knockouts. As long as the flips are 50/50, so should be the matchup.
I felt the only four viable decks for this event were Night March, Yveltal, Seismitoad/Giratina and Manectric/Bats. Everything else in my mind had too many bad matchups, lost to itself, or couldn’t beat Night March. Try this deck out for yourselves and let me know what you think. Once again, let me know if you guys have any questions or comments on the decks!
Article was written by current national champion, Louis Chi. Don't understand some of the terms in this article? Read our glossary here. Most cards have been linked to a scan so you can see what the card does. If you have any comments, make sure you let us know below!
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