State Championship Deck Review

Ok!  Well, we've got a bunch of the results back from the first go-round of State Championship events.  Poink posted these earlier in the week, but I figured they were worth a really in-depth look.

Let's see what did what, and where!
 

Massachusetts:
15+: TM Zangoose/TM Groudon/Wobbuffet
11-14: Kingdra ex
10-: Ampharos ex/Shiftry

Missouri:
15+: Blaziken EX
11-14: Gardevoir EX
10-: Gardevoir EX

Michigan:
15+: Kingdra EX
11-14: Blaziken EX/BAR
10-: Team Aqua (Lanturn/Walrein)

Pennsylvania:
15+: Blaziken EX
10-: Ampharos EX

South Carolina: 
15+: Gardevoir EX
11-14: Blaziken/Rayquaza
10-: Blaziken/Rayquaza

Rhode Island: 
15+: Blaziken/Ampharos EX
11-14: Blaziken EX/Rayqyaza
10-: Ampharos EX/Magcargo EX

Colorado:
15+: Gardevoir w/ Wobbuffet
11-14: Swampert EX/Suicune EX
10-: Magcargo EX

Texas State Championships:
15+: RAMBO
11-14: BAR

First off, let's look at the decks that took top honors at these events.  Notice that some decks have numbers next to them in square paranthesis - in this case, the number indicates the number of championships won by the same deck.

Archetypical/Variant:
Blaziken EX [2]
Blaziken EX/Ampharos/Rayqyaza EX
Blaziken EX/Rayqyaza

Blaziken/Rayquaza [2]
Blaziken/Ampharos EX
Blaziken/Ampharos/Rayquaza

Ampharos EX/Magcargo EX
Ampharos EX
Ampharos ex/Shiftry

Magcargo EX

Gardevoir EX [3] (possibly with Wobbuffet) 
Gardevoir w/ Wobbuffet 

Kingdra ex [2]
 

Rogue:
TM Zangoose/TM Groudon/Wobbuffet
Swampert EX/Suicune EX
Team Aqua (Lanturn/Walrein)
RAMBO
 

So, we've got a whole lot of turbo-speed Blaziken, Ampharos, and Kingdra decks dominating in the environment.  Also a great deal of Blaziken/Blaziken EX being combined with Ampharos or Rayquaza successfully, but only one deck combining all three taking top marks in its metagame.  Nothing really that unforeseen after the results of most of the City Championships - it was established then that Blaziken/Ampharos/Rayquaza was too slow for most metagames, and indeed, the huge boom in focused turbo decks demonstrates that players took note of this as well.

Magcargo EX is starting to give a powerful showing, and really, why shouldn't it?  With its low-energy attacks it can dish out up to 100 damage with a commitment to offense on turn three, sometimes by turn two if Melting Mountain's effect gets used.  On top of that, Magcargo EX has my personal pick for the number one Basic Pokemon contributing to a top-notch Evolution line in the environment: Dragon Slugma.  With 50 HP, a 10-for-one-colorless attack, and a secondary attack that offers board disruption for just a Fire and a colorless, I don't really see how a Basic could reasonably be better without being broken.  Before the errata to Pokemon Reversal, this card was even seeing play in Blaziken variant decks WITHOUT Magcargo, simply because the board control is so valuable in the current high-retreat environment.  

Granted, the deck does choke when faced with Kingdra EX.  Still, watch for turbo variants of Magcargo to become very popular in the near future, especially if we see a highly splashable tech card for Kingdra in an upcoming release.

Frankly, I think Kingdra EX only taking two championships is a bit on the low side.  There was obviously a ton of Blaziken being played, and it's sort of interesting to see just how popular Ampharos and Ampharos EX were.  We're back to a situation much like the original modified - Gatr beats Typhlosion, Typhlosion beats Crobat, Crobat beats Gatr: Kingdra beats Blaziken, Blaziken beats Ampharos, Ampharos beats Kingdra.  Veeeeeery interesting.

If the formula holds true, we can assume that metagaming is going to play the massive role that it often has in the past in Pokemon Modified play - I wouldn't be surprised if I see players going into major events with two or even all three of the major deck types (or variants of them, of course), deciding only at the last minute which of the three to play.  That said, Magcargo is a very viable alternative to versions/combinations of the big three, and all three can fave the same problems against Gardevoir.

Gardevoir is an enigma, and in truth, could very well be the strongest deck in the environment right now.  Without a type-weakness to Blaziken, Ampharos, or Kingdra, the deck can go the distance, and with Sandstorm Wobbuffet teching out EXs the deck can take care of that large issue, hurting some Blaziken and Ampharos decks, while completely shutting down Kingdra EX.  Xatu can be an excellent addition and end up providing quite a significant amount of healing, as well - it actually makes a decent alternative to Delcatty.  The place where Gardevoir decks get crazy though is in the mirror match.  With a shared Psychic weakness between virtually everything in the deck, things can get nuts pretty fast and games can be lost easily.  Board control is going to be the breaking factor in such a game.

The apparent problem with Gardevoir is that it lacks the acceleration of some of the turbo decks.  If you can stall, great, but if not, you can be in trouble.  Still, I'm personally of the opinion that the fact it's not weak to the other three big Modified archetypes overcomes this - running Gardevoir/Gardevoir EX means you'll be far less at the victim of the metagame, and there won't be any decks that you'll sit down across from, see the first Basic of, and go "Crud, he's playing [Blaziken, Ampharos, Kingdra], I can't win".  Traditionally, this has always been the making of a winning deck in Modified - think Crobat.  Though it was easily hurt by a Typhlosion deck that went off quickly, that was only a matter of speed and damage potential - Crobat could take all comers in the original Modified, simply because the environment was virtually devoid of good Psychic decks.  By the time Dark Golduck/Muk/Promo Mewtwo came on the scene, the environment was only six weeks away from rotating - had that deck seen alot of play earlier in the environment's era, Crobat wouldn't have been nearly as powerful as it was (despite Murkrow being a staple of Crobat decks in most cases).

The rogue decks are all interesting.  Suicune EX will see a huge boom once Blastoise EX is released stateside, but for now, it's not bad.  Combined with Swampert, the deck can be very powerful in a Blaziken-dominated metagame.  It's a bit slow for my tastes, but it can definitely win games if played by someone who knows what they're doing, especially if Blaziken is played very, very heavily.

Team Aqua's Lanturn and Walrein find a very interesting synergy: Walrein takes out Blaziken and Magcargo, while Lanturn takes out the Water Pokemon in the environment that have been used to try to metagame Blaziken.  On top of that, Lanturn's power can be used to attach extra energy to it, which can then be used as fuel for Walrein's Hydro Reverse attack, adding ten damage per energy card.  Very cool.  The deck maintains a really good weakness set too, being weak only to Fighting and Steel types.  Barring the odd splash of Hariyama to take out EX Pokemon, neither of these types sees very much play in competitive tournaments in the current environment.

TM Zangoose/TM Groudon/Wobbuffet is an interesting deck.  It can accomodate the EX tech of Wobbuffet due to its relatively low specific-energy demands, while at the same time it can dish out 50, 60, or 70 damage by turn three with relative ease.  I'm not sure that Team Magma is really the way to go in most cases - I personally think Archie is far better than Maxie, and I think the Aqua's Pokemon are superior in general.  This deck has no reason to run Maxie, and 50-70 damage isn't all that much compared to something like Blaziken EX.  However, the deck is very fast at getting out the Pokemon it needs, since none of them evolve.  With the Magma Trainers that let you grab Magma-specific Pokemon from the deck, this can actually work really well.  The deck could easily be run with just 10 Basic Pokemon, 13 energy, and then a nice glut of 37 trainers, maxing out on things like Strength Charm, the newly-errata'd Pokemon Reversal, Relic Hunter, and Mr. Briney to keep everything going.  The deck really does have some potential, and though many (yours truly included) have tried to make Modified-format Haymaker decks, this is probably as close as we can get at this time.  It doesn't have the one-energy attacks a Haymaker should have, but the deck does consist purely of basics, and that gives a great deal of freedom that isn't common in the environment.  Oh, and Groudon destroys Ampharos pretty thoroughly.  Cool.  

Well, that's it for today's look at the winning State Championship decks so far.  Hopefully this article can give you a good overview of the environment, and help you to decide what to play in your metagame.

Thanks for reading!

-Gloom