Eye on Japan: The metagame

BCIF! (you heard it here first)

Hello everyone!


I bombarded you with Eye on Japan articles last month, but that’s what you wanted! You better be careful what you wish for, haha. Anyways, this is my last Eye on Japan –article in a while (unless something worth mention happens in Japan) as I’ve pretty much depleted all the experience and information I got on my trip to Tokyo and I want to do well at Nationals.

Today I’ll be looking deeper on the current metagame of Japan. We all know that Thundurus EX/Deoxys EX is the biggest deck in Japan at the moment, but what about the other top tier contenders? I will look at the decks that don’t exist in our format yet, but I’ll also mention the current decks that we have and are still thriving in Japan as well. This should be interesting for anyone who is already looking at the future and for our upcoming Nationals’ and Worlds’ format.

Lots of interesting decklists incoming, so be prepared! And in case you don't know what the cards do, remember to check out the translations from:

Exeggcute/Weavile/Electrode

This is by far my favorite deck of the upcoming set, because it’s just so much fun to play with!

Pokémon:

4x Exeggcute (BW8)
4x Sneasel (BW8)
4x Weavile (BW8)
2x Voltorb (BW8)
4x Electrode (BW8)
1x Audino
=19


Trainer:

4x Professor Juniper
2x N
4x Cheren
3x Colress
4x Level Ball
1x Ultra Ball
1x Computer Search
3x Pokémon Catcher
4x Dark Patch
4x Super Rod
=30


Energy:

11x Darkness Energy
=11


Strategy and the most important card choices

This will probably be my favorite deck of the upcoming metagame. It’s simply fun, doesn’t require EX-Pokémon AND uses Electrode. I love all these things in the deck. As you can see, the strategy of the deck is very simple. Get those Exeggcutes to the discard pile as soon as possible and start attacking with Weavile hopefully in T2. Thanks to Exeggcutes’ Ability, you’re able to hit at least 120 every turn. The question is how often can you hit for the needed 180, because you will be running a few prizes behind against the quickest decks of the format. Let’s take a quick look at the most important cards of the deck.

Sneasel

The new Sneasel is very important for this deck. Why? It has 70HP! And this can and will save in many situations. Hitting 60 in the upcoming will be just too common and easy due to Landorus EX and Thundurus EX/Deoxys EX.

Super Rod

Obviosuly you will be discarding a lot of Pokémon cards with Weavile, so you will need something to get it back with. Without Super Rod, you would be too often run out of Pokémon and you really don’t have any other choise, but to run 4 Super Rods in the deck.

Electrode and Cheren

Electrode is a poor man’s Claydol and to be honest, I believed I would never see a deck where it would function. But when I saw the Japanese list and tested the deck, I understood that Electrode is perfect for this deck. It increases your basic count, it makes your deck more consistent and it increases your deck’s overall Pokémon count. When combined with Cheren, Electrode is just like a Juniper, in the best case scenario you’ll be drawing 7 cards each turn, which is huge!





Absol/Sableye/Darkrai EX

Pokémon:

4x Sableye
4x Darkrai EX
1x Keldeo EX
2x Absol (BW8)
=11


Trainer:

4x Professor Juniper
4x N
2x Bianca
2x Colress
1x Random Receiver
4x Ultra Ball
1x Computer Search
4x Dark Patch
4x Pokémon Catcher
3x Enhanced Hammer
2x Eviolite
4x Poison Hypnotic Beam
2x Virbank City Gym
=37


Energy:

12x Darkness Energy
=12


Differences?

As you can see, this deck is a pretty normal Darkrai EX deck, but it has Absol in it. As you can see from Absol’s translation, it’s only good if your opponent has a big bench, but as decks such as Thundurus EX/Deoxys EX, Eelektrik and Blastoise are popular in Japan, their bench is often very full! Absol is a non-EX Pokémon, which can hit 150 damage with only 2 energy! (With Dark Claw and Virbank City Gym). It’s really a force to reckon with and I’m sure that it will be a very decent Thundurus EX/Deoxys EX counter. Also, notice the 3 Enhanced Hammers, which really show against what deck is this deck designed against.



Kyurem/Deoxys EX/Keldeo EX

Pokémon:

4x Kyurem (BW8)
3x Deoxys EX (BW8)
2x Keldeo EX
1x Lugia EX
=10

Trainer:

4x Professor Juniper
2x N
2x Bianca
3x Colress
3x Skyla
2x Plasma Ball
2x Ultra Ball
1x Scramble Switch
4x Colress Machine
4x Pokémon Catcher
4x Hypnotoxic Beam
2x Virbank City Gym
2x Float Stone
2x Enhanced Hammer
=37


Energy:

4x Plasma Energy
3x Prism Energy
6x Water Energy
=13


Strategy and the most important card choices

As you can see, this deck is pretty much just a non-EX version of Thundurus EX, which makes it more difficult to win, because there are really no easy prizes, BUT it also makes the deck so much weaker against all kind of Hammers. A pure Hammerspam is enough to beat this deck, which of course makes it a risky play. However, in a format full of Thundurus EX/Deoxys EX I see a spot for this deck, because it doesn’t run any EXs and it’s a notable advantage.

Water Energy

The invulnerability to Enhanced Hammers is a must if this deck wants to win anything serious. Since you don’t run Thundurus EX, you can’t afford running Special energy-only. However, you probably don’t want to rely on the Water energy only, because Deoxys EX can work as a great attacker from time to time.


Enhanced Hammer

Since this deck doesn’t run Thundurus EX, it has space. To fill that space, you want Enhanced Hammers to counter the Thundurus EX/Deoxys EX match-up!To fill that space, you want Enhanced Hammers to counter the Thundurus EX/Deoxys EX match-up.  In my opinion, this deck could easily run 4 Enhanced Hammers if it had enough space.


Keldeo EX/Float Stone

You have lots of Pokémon with a retreat cost of more than 1, so you need this combo in order to keep your deck mobile. It’s far easier to play these cards in this deck than e.g. in Thundurus EX/Deoxys EX, because this deck is more straightforward and has more space on the bench as well. This combo will also become a staple for many and many more decks, because it saves you space and no deck has to worry about retreating after this.  



The decks we are already familiar with



Blastoise/Black Kyurem EX


Pokémon:

4x Squirtle
4x Blastoise
3x Keldeo EX
2x Black Kyurem EX
=13

Trainer:

4x Professor Juniper
4x Skyla
3x N
2x Colress
2x Tropical Beach
4x Ultra Ball
1x Heavy Ball
1x Crystal Wall
4x Rare Candy
3x Pokémon Catcher
3x Super Energy Retrieval
1x Energy Retrieval
=32

Energy:

13x Water Energy
2x Lighting Energy
=14


What’s new?

This is pretty much a copy of the current format’s Blastoise, but with two exceptions. For, there is no Computer Search or Dowsing Machine. This list was crazy enough to play Crystal Wall. The reason? With the help of Super Energy Retrieval, which really makes Blastoise work SO much better, you are able to energy accelerate Black Kyurem EX every single turn. With 300HP Pokémon, which is able to hit 200 every, who can stop you? No one, if you get the set-up.



Rayquaza EX/Eelektrik


Pokémon

2x Victini EX
2x Rayquaza EX
1x Rayquaza
1x Mewtwo EX
4x Tynamo
4x Eelektrik
1x Ditto
=15

Trainer

4x Professor Juniper
4x N
3x Bianca
2x Colress
1x Skyla
4x Ultra Ball
1x Level Ball
1x Computer Search
2x Skyarrow Bridge
4x Switch
4x Pokémon Catcher
1x Super Rod
1x Max Potion
=33



Energy

5x Fire Energy
8x Lighting Energy
=12


What’s new?
 
Some of you may be familiar with this deck, because I introduced in the SixPrizes UG a few weeks back. However, as it is from Japan, I had to show it here as well. I love it, because in my opinion it does what I thought would never be possible – this list makes RayEels viable even in MY opinion. I have always hated all Eelektrik decks, but thanks to Victini EX, you are able to energy accelerate your attackers while set upping your Eelektriks.

Your opponent must concentrate their early game on the Victini EX or otherwise, they will be OHKOed very quickly by Rayquaza EX. Granted, Victini EX is too easy prizes, but the cost you have to pay for getting a set-up and your Rayquaza EXs ready for attack is much more than the two prizes you have to lose, so it’s a very good trade for you.

Conclusion

What I thought was especially interesting in these lists, was that Ghetsis saw no play. After I saw that Japanese players don’t play Ghetsis, I started testing it. And quickly, I came to the same conclusion as the Japanese. It’s just a mediocre disruption card, but it really can’t even be counted as draw card. In most cases, if your opponent is going to use Juniper the next turn, you’ll just help them by shuffling their Catchers to the deck!

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this entry even though I didn’t get that deep to the decklists. What I wanted to do with this entry was just to introduce the interesting concepts of the upcoming metagame. I still think that even though these are fun concepts, the western metagame won’t be affected that much by these decklists. I myself have a few nice concepts ready for Nationals and Worlds, but they are still in the prototpye process, and I’m also sure that other western players also have cool rogues coming from the BW8.

Feel free to comment or ask anything! Thanks for reading!