Rotation

So the new rotation is officially confirmed to be BW-on!

Since I will not go to worlds (like i had a shot at it) my season will start with the rotation being implemented already.

Staple trainers like PONT and Junk Arm get rotated out. This is also a bummer for straight Darkrai decks since we also lose our consistency card, Smeargle, not to mention the special darkness energy. Other cards like Dual ball and collector will be gone, meaning everyone has to shift to the ball engine. Trainer lock misses out on Twins and will have a harder time setting up.

So what do you think will happen to the metagame? Will Zeels still be popular or will the Hammertime version of Darkrai deck shine? Maybe new decks from Dragons Exalted arise quickly with card like Hydreigon and Rayquaza EX? And of course, which cards will replace the soon to be left out cards? Will perhaps Bianca see play? discuss ;)
 
Darkrai gets a realistic monopoly on Sableye, the only way to re-use the broken Trainers we have. This alone makes it a tier 1 deck, whether it's used with Dark Trans Hydreigon or not. Eelektrik remains the most solid Energy acceleration, and while Junk Arm is a heavy loss for it, it can still discard with Ultra Ball and Juniper.

I'm glad Smeargle, Celebi, and Junk Arm are gone. Such explosive cards Vileplume I'll kind of miss, but without Junk Arm it's not as necessary anymore.

Expected viable/top decks:
Hydreigon/Darkrai/Sableye/Max Potion
Garchomp/Altaria
Zekrom/Eelektrik
Accelgor/Gothitelle/Darkrai
Terrakion

Deck building becomes very different without Junk Arm. Small amounts of copies of Switch, PlusPower, Super Rod and other such Items need to be considered carefully. Bianca gets a role as the second anti-N supporter (Juniper being the first one), and has more potential with discarding cards like Ultra Ball, but Cheren is more consistent.
 
I would probably add Empoleon/Terrakion to the list of viable decks. Primarily just because it has built-in consistency, and trades 2HKO's with other decks. Though if the Hydreigon/Darkrai Player opts to run Psychic Energies, they can 1-shot an Empoleon at the cost of 2 Dark Energy.

I was expecting it to become a more viable deck upon rotation, when Eel decks start running Rayquaza instead of their standard electric attackers, giving Empoleon less enemies in the format. I'm sticking to that. It can also abuse Max Potion just like Darkrai/Hydreigon can thanks to having only 1 energy cost to attack.

I question if anyone would bother running Aerodactyl as a "this pokemon is worth 2 pokemon on the bench" kind of thing for Attack Command, preventing your opponent from limiting your damage cap as much without burning through Pluspowers.

Other than that, yeah, that list of decks looks pretty spot on Mekkah.
 
I would probably add Empoleon/Terrakion to the list of viable decks. Primarily just because it has built-in consistency, and trades 2HKO's with other decks. Though if the Hydreigon/Darkrai Player opts to run Psychic Energies, they can 1-shot an Empoleon at the cost of 2 Dark Energy.

I was expecting it to become a more viable deck upon rotation, when Eel decks start running Rayquaza instead of their standard electric attackers, giving Empoleon less enemies in the format. I'm sticking to that. It can also abuse Max Potion just like Darkrai/Hydreigon can thanks to having only 1 energy cost to attack.

I question if anyone would bother running Aerodactyl as a "this pokemon is worth 2 pokemon on the bench" kind of thing for Attack Command, preventing your opponent from limiting your damage cap as much without burning through Pluspowers.

Other than that, yeah, that list of decks looks pretty spot on Mekkah.
Many Darkrai/Hyd lists will play blend energy, meaning that they can take KO's on Empoleon, and avoid getting return KO'ed by terrakion without a catcher.
The deck will be ok, but still unable to reach the sky's of tier 1, much like it is currently.
There will still be Zekrom in Rayquaza, too good to not play.
No idea on Aero, but it's not the best at the moment, and seeing as Terrakion arguably gets better after rotation, I think it is unlikely.
 
I also think most deck will opt to run more Ultra Ball, especially with Energy Acceleration like Zeels. Running more Ultra Ball also gives Bianca a time to shine, since it is basically Magnezone's Magnetic Draw in supporter form and can fill your hand back up after using many cards. It is also very good for N, to fill up your hand again.

Darkrai can be with and without Hydreigon but with Hydreigon would be better imo, since you can abuse the power of free retreat and ofc Max Potion. Too bad we lost rainbow energy for Hydreigons Dragon Blast, but mabe there is special energy in Dragons Exalted so we'll see. Zeels does have a somewhat better matchup against this deck if they run Rayquaza wince it can one shot Hydreigon thanks to the weakness.

Speaking about Zeels, using Ryaquaza can be devastating since they can easily run Prism Energy for the Fire energy and at the same time maybe tech a Terrakion with the same Prism Energy. I will definitely test this for a better Darkrai matchup and mirror matchup.

Accelgor/Gothitelle/Darkrai sounds interesting, as Gothitelle is the only trainer lock pokemon bar Zebstrika. Darkrai then brings the free retreat right so Gothitelle can switch to Accelgor?

I looked at the janapene scans for Garchomp and Altaria and it looks very promising, doing 100 for FW. Then for every Altaria in play, you do 20 more damage with each Dragon pokémon. 120 or 140 for just 2 energy is just ridiculous, even though it is a Stage 2. 140 HP is also very nice, even above the Bolt Strike + PP mark. And ofc it knocks out every Dragon pokémon in one hit.

I think your deck list is pretty accurate Mekkah and i really want to test with some of these decks already (mainly darkrai, zeels and altaria/garchomp).

EDIT: ooooo blend energy :D:D:D
 
Many Darkrai/Hyd lists will play blend energy, meaning that they can take KO's on Empoleon, and avoid getting return KO'ed by terrakion without a catcher.
The deck will be ok, but still unable to reach the sky's of tier 1, much like it is currently.
There will still be Zekrom in Rayquaza, too good to not play.
No idea on Aero, but it's not the best at the moment, and seeing as Terrakion arguably gets better after rotation, I think it is unlikely.
Forgot about Blend Energy. Right. Dark and Psychic are part of the same blend. And yeah, I don't think it'll ever rise to tier 1, but I would say Empoleon will sit in the awkward "Clearly better than other decks, but not as good as tier 1" zone.

You know what might make a fun project for Smogon, creating a standardized tiering method. Actually having a quantifiable way of tiering decks.

As for Accelgor/Gothitelle. Mew EX will play a big part in any potential success that the deck has. But without appropriate support (many good draw supporters will be gone, consistency pokemon will be gone), it might have some trouble.

I've actually thought of using Empoleon as a bench-sitter for the deck once BW-on rotates. It can discard useless cards while increasing draw power. I know of a list running Musharna that did well at one of the Battle Carnivals in Japan. Empoleon would just be a superior Musharna. And with Rare Candy already run in high numbers for Gothitelle, I don't think it'd be too hard to find a Candy for Empoleon.
 
I agree Empoleon has potential to be up there, but for a somewhat complex reason: Special Dark Energy rotates. What this means is that Darkrai needs Dark Claw or PlusPower to do 100 to a Terrakion to get that key double KO, and if it uses Dark Claw it can't use Eviolite to stop Terrakion from OHKOing it. The loss of Junk Arm makes consistent use of PlusPower and Catcher much harder, and thus makes EXP Share Terrakion much easier to utilize. For the same reason, Terrakion is better against Eelektrik decks, since Zekrom has a harder time OHKOing it.

Another reason I really did not like Empoleon is because opponents could limit their bench by a lot, Eviolite some EX attacker like Tornadus-EX, and take as little as 60 damage per turn while ravaging Piplups with Catcher. Now that Catcher is limited to four times per match for non-Sableye decks, it might not be able to do that.

You know what might make a fun project for Smogon, creating a standardized tiering method. Actually having a quantifiable way of tiering decks.
This might be a nice way for Smogon to stick out over established TCG sites, but since tiering is so subjective in general I don't know how successful it'll be.

Eels being able to utilize Rayquaza and Rayquaza-EX is very key. I think the match-up against Dark Trans for most decks will be all about whether you can score an OHKO on Darkrai or Hydreigon, and Eels can do both without too much trouble. Rayquaza also gives it a nice way to apply turn 1 pressure without committing to an EX right away.

I don't know about everyone else, but I really look forward to testing this format and I definitely plan to host a tournament about it. The problem is that Dragons Exalted's release is long ways away and it will not be on PlayTCG for a long time. So I'm thinking about hosting a limbo format tournament (BW-on, without Dragons Exalted), just to get more used to the lack of certain old cards.
 
My league is hosting a BW-on (No legendaries, EX's) tournament on Thursday.

Been trying to think of good deck idea, Zoroark and Empoleon look pretty good.
 

zero2exe

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is a Contributor Alumnus
My league is hosting a BW-on (No legendaries, EX's) tournament on Thursday.

Been trying to think of good deck idea, Zoroark and Empoleon look pretty good.
The problem with zoroark is its low HP count which caps at 100 so it is no match for a turn 2 tornadus Ex which certainly are becoming dominant along with Darkrai, so Terrakion makes the better partner for the iron penguin. On the other hand, at least for my list, tornadus ex has been the biggest problem so far so that's why I've included a couple of enhanced hammers along with a Zekrom and DCE to keep them checked
 
Zoroark keeps the same problems that it had before:
- Similar to Mew in the sense that it uses a Turn 1 attack to get going, and missing that is a huge problem.
- Can only use Dark Pokemon, and most of those are bad. With free retreat Sneasel and Weavile rotating out, the turn 1 Ascension got a lot harder.
- Hard to get out a ton of Dark Pokemon ASAP.
- 100 HP still gets KO'd by quite a few things. Darkrai-EX has a harder time with it, but Tornadus-EX is still there.
 
Also when Zeels uses Rayquaza EX, they have to use prism energy right? Then adding a Terrakion wouldn't be a bad idea since the prism energy is there already.
would an energy spread like:
9 lightning
3 DCE
3 Prism
be suffucient with 1 Terrakion and 1 Rayquaza EX?

Really interested in this set :D
 
They don't have to use Prism, they can use basic Fire instead which has a couple of advantages. If Rayquaza EX survives the turn, you get to keep the Fire (you have to discard Prism, always), Fire can be Super Rodded and can't be Enhanced Hammered away, etc. Of course it has disadvantages as well, but you don't need Prism per se.
 
They don't have to use Prism, they can use basic Fire instead which has a couple of advantages. If Rayquaza EX survives the turn, you get to keep the Fire (you have to discard Prism, always), Fire can be Super Rodded and can't be Enhanced Hammered away, etc. Of course it has disadvantages as well, but you don't need Prism per se.
Good point. I will indeed test with Fire energy as well. And if prism is the fire energy, how can it be discarded as one of the lightning energy from Rayqyaza? Good think i have some fires left ;)
9 lightning
3 DCE
3 Fire
or something from that sort should do then, DCe being a switch essetially.
Another point to adress for the new Zeels is Skyarrow bridge. Now i think it is still good in this deck, giving all tynamos thundurus and rayquazas free retreat. What do you think?
 
A rainbow-type energy states

"provides any type, but only one at a time."

Since it's providing lightning at the same time as fire, it must be discardedby rayquaza.
 
And now we have Rayquaza's text, and it excludes special energies, so Prism will be safe.

http://pokebeach.com/2012/06/dragons-exalted-giratina-ex-rayquaza-ex-and-garchomp-revealed
oh that is nice to hear. Then teching in terrakion might be handier, but you can still get fire energy back with super rod more easily, so i'm not sure which route to go yet ;)

And do we get rescue scarf or not, which is a tool type rescue energy? That is good to get knocked out stage 2s back and maybe even other pokemon.
 
We know from looking at Japan that Hydreigon/Darkrai and Garchomp/Altaria will most likely tier 1, with Zeels/Eelektrik box. I'm excited for some less prominent deck choices though, notably Empoleon/Accelgor/Mew-EX (possibly with terrakion?), Ninetales/Amoonguss (better than Leafeon!), and some kind of Drifblim variant (possibly with Garchomp for its Mach Cut and having a consistent attacker? Either way Sableye and Hammers would be a solid choice). All in all, the metagame will get a lot more interesting I think.
 
Zekrom just isn't any good in this format. It's OHKOed by Hydreigon and Garchomp, and can't utilize eviolite as effectively because of tool scrapper.
I don't think Rayquaza EX is that great either. The fact that it needs two different energy types makes it inconsistent. It can ko everything in the format, but needs FOUR energy to do so. If you're using it with Eelektrik, you either have to have two in play or retreat+switch to get Rayquaza powered up. Eelektrik will most likely be only providing two energy per turn, and if your opponent decides to start catchering and KOing Eelektriks, you're in big trouble. It can be OHKOed by other dragons, giving up two prizes. I don't think it's a bad card, it's just definitely over-hyped. I personally think Rayquaza EX will be much better with Emboar than with Eelektrik, since Emboar can attach unlimited amounts of energy per turn and isn't OHKOed by Darkrai.
As far as Eelektrik decks go, I think Raikou EX, Mewtwo EX, and Zekrom EX will be the best attackers in this format. Zekrom EX now has the ability to OHKO the two most popular dragons, so I think it'll see much more play in this format than it did before.
Just my thoughts ;)
 
Top Decks of BW-on:

Darkrai/Hydreigon: The combination of manipulable Energy and free retreat is too difficult to ignore.
Garchomp/Altaria: High and fast damage output, even for a top tier deck.
Emboar/Rayquaza EX: Can OHKO everything in format.
Eelektrik/Rayquaza EX: ^
Possibly Ninetales/Amoonguss: This deck can cripple things and is a pain to fight.

Notice how all these decks are based on at least 1 Ability? Now you see why Garbodor is going to be the anti-meta.
 

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