Impact Crater: Next Destinies

Just can't get enough of Blue Flare

Hey all The Deck Out followers!


Today is the time for 3rd part of the Impact Crater – series (10 points to anyone who guesses where the name is from). As everyone knows, the release of the new set – Next Destinies – is just right around the corner. In the Impact Crater series, I analyze all the new cards that will have an impact on the format when released. If you want to check out my last Impact Crater –series articles and see how well I’ve predicted the impact of the cards, you can check them out here: Emerging Powers / Noble Victories.

Thanks to Pokebeach now having all the scans, I could finally make this entry because there is no more need to guess, which cards are printed in the Next Destinies and which are not. Next Destinies is a set that most of us have been waiting for a long time and I’m very excited about the comeback of the EX cards – it brings a bit more versatility in the format, I hope.

We all know that the hyped Mewtwo EX will be in the set but there are so many other good things in the set that have been completely forgotten because of the over-the-top hype of Mewtwo EX (Which I take the blame for). Let’s see what cards really have an impact on our upcoming format.

Featured Writer: Matijs Moree - Tyranitar & Dragons

Hi to all The Deck Out followers!


As promised, my first featured writer ever will make his debut for my blog. Matijs is a Dutch player and a very good friend of mine. He loves to play rogue decks and we often brainstorm with each other about the rogue decks since I share the same interest in rogue decks as he. Matijs' best achievements in tournaments have also been with rogue decks. He won Benelux Cup in 2009 with my own rogue invention - Dialga G LV.X/Dusknoir LV.X. He also placed in the top8 of the last year's ECC with Regigigas being the only Regigigas in the whole tournament.


Since Matijs loves rogues, I decided that he could very well write about one. I haven't been able to produce you enough Rogue deck articles so I was happy when Matijs said that he had been playing a rogue that even the Dutch CP leader was afraid of (since he was playing Chandelure). Let me know what you think about this entry so I know what kind of entries and featured writers I can use in my blog. For now I give you Tyranitar & Dragons by Matijs Moree.

Double CC - with or without Chandelure?

Hey all The Deck Out followers!

Haters gonna hate

As promised, today is a time for a double CC report once again. I thought, I wouldn’t play Chandelure anymore but once again I was wrong. Also, I changed my deck for the second Cities so in the other tournament I didn’t play Chandelure. Well, what did I play? That you must find out on your own by reading this entry.

Anyways, I still needed at least 2 Top4 placements from my 3 remaining Cities so after these tournaments I only have one CC left. I can say that, I didn’t reach my goal this weekend but I’ll surely do it in my last Cities. I have no other choice. After the last Cities, I’ll tell you why I need to get this many CC points.

So without further chit-chat, let’s get into the tournament report.

Power Player interview: Adam Capriola

Hey all The Deck Out followers!

Today is a interview time once again! In today’s interview I am proud to ton interview one of the persons that have single-handedly affected the game a lot while most people haven’t even realized it. He is Adam Capriola – the founder and administrator of the famous Pokémon TCG SixPrizes.com website.

As you may know “Power Player” has a double meaning and therefore Adam certainly belongs to this category. Even though, he isn’t that active player anymore he is a very strong force behind everything that happens in the competitive Pokémon TCG scene. I believe that most of you have found your way through to my website via SixPrizes and have read the famous Eye on Japan: Part1 from Sixprizes.com as well.

In the “Power Player” interviews I want to bring forth the top players of the world but I also want to bring forth the forces that affect and develop the game widely while most people don’t even notice it. That’s why you’ll be seeing interviews of also top TOs, Judges and etc. in the future. I hope you enjoy the interview!

Eye on West: Cobalion/Kyurem/Electrode & 6 Corners

Hey all The Deck Out followers!


It’s been a long time since I released my first Eye on Japan article, which changed the whole world’s metagame radically and caused the extreme Mewtwo EX hype. However, I thought I could change the point of view a little bit and this is what I came up with. I thought that since I‘ve done Eye on Japan it would be a good idea to combine two things in this entry that are both related to the Eye on Japan entries and the deck analysis I’ve made:

1) How the western metagame has been affected by the decks from Japan
2) How the western players have developed the basic lists and ideas I gave in the first Eye on Japan

There are two decks that I focus mainly on; 6 corners and Cobalion/Kyurem/Electrode. This both decks caused a lot of skepticism once I revealed them but they have claimed their spot in the top tier of this format. However, they both have been changing radically in the hands of western players so this is a combined entry of deck analysis and a look at the differences between Japan and rest of the world.

Magnezone/Eelektrik - the BDIF? Not really.

Good ol' times

Hey all The Deck Out followers!


Today I’m reviewing what I think is the last metagame deck I have yet analyzed – Magnezone/Eelektrik. In my opinion Magnezone/Eelektrik was the biggest surpriser of the City Championships even though there is a clear synergy. To be the most winning deck of the City Championships season through the whole Cities is a sign that the deck can’t be a completely horrible one.

Magnezone/Eelektrik’s success is still a small mystery to me. It’s a decent deck with ok match-ups but it still has too many problems to be a top deck in my opinion. Every time I play with it I bump into the same problems and never seem to get it right. I’ve wondered what I’ve done wrong and checked the lists of players worldwide. I’ve also looked the videos of games of top-cutting Magnezone/Eelektriks from The Top Cut and they always lose due those same problems I’ve personally always dumped it.

I’ll try to be as objective as possible in this review but my opinion of this deck might show in this entry so I hope anyone doesn’t get offended by this. Last time when I was very negative towards a metagame deck was in my BR analysis, where I said stage1s weren’t playable. I even got comments like “I didn’t like this article because you don’t think my deck has a future”. Well, as we all know stage1s are already dead as I predicted and there is one more reason why I don’t want anyone to get offended by my opinion: I don’t say that the deck isn’t as good as it seems because it’s fun to hate on a deck but to help you to improve and understand that the deck might have many weaknesses even if it has won the most Cities. 

Power Player interview: Kyle "Pooka" Sucevich

Hey all The Deck Out followers!

Today I have something very special for you – my second interview ever. This time I had the privilege to interview the founder member of TheTopCut.net and multiple U.S. National Championships Top4er Kyle “Pooka” Sucevich. Kyle is considered one of the Worlds’ best player since his success in the U.S. Nationals is outstanding. I’m very glad that I could keep the interviewee quality as high as before and I’ll try to keep it that way in the future as well.

As I said, he is also the founder member of TheTopCut.net which releases game videos straight from the tournaments. If you aren’t yet familiar with TheTopCut, be sure to check their website out! I have always admired his work with TheTopCut and his achievements as a player so I was very glad when he agreed to do an interview for my blog.

Anyways, I don't think Kyle needs any more introduction so let's start with the interview.

Tournament report w/ Chandelure and more

I didn't help Esa at all.

Hello all The Deck Out followers!


As you know if you follow me on Facebook or Twitter, I was in a CC this Saturday. As I said in the Chandelure article, I didn’t want to play it anymore. However, it turned out that I didn’t have time to do any testing or deck building between last Cities so I was forced to play Chandelure once again. I was pretty frustrated by this because playing the same deck 4 full tournaments (6 rounds of Swiss and 3 top matches in each tournament) straight was too monotonic for me.

Chandelure was fun to play when it wasn’t considered as a metagame deck and when I haven’t played every match-up with it. However, going to this tournament I knew every match-up inside out and I could’ve played the games with my eyes bind. Anyways, I wanted to do some changes to the list if I was going to play with it in the tournament once again. This time the list looked like this.

Vanilluxe/Vileplume/Victini - let the flipping begin

Two scoops of ice cream anyone?

 Hey all The Deck Out followers!

Today, it's time for the last trainer locking metagame deck I haven't yet analyzed – Vanilluxe/Vileplume/Victini. I'm not a fan of flipping decks but I like the way this deck minimizes the flipping factor. It feels almost like you don't have to worry about the flips at all. However, when this deck fails to deliver the one heads out of 4 flips, you always feel frustrated and swear that you never again play a flip deck like this.

Vanilluxe is a fun deck with decent match-ups all over the field but it also has a lot of bad match-ups. I'll try to explain the reasons why Vanilluxe hasn’t done well even though it received some hype during the release. I have been playing this deck and I also included the top4 Cities finishing list of Vanilluxe to this article so be sure to check at least  that out if you want to build your own decent Vanilluxe deck. Anyways, let's see what makes Vanilluxe to do well and what gives Vanilluxe a hard time.

Eye on Japan: Cinccino/Beartic w/ Rocky Helmet

Cinccino doesn't get any love from me
even though it'scute

Hello all The Deck Out readers!


Today’s deck analysis is about Japanese deck. I have gotten requests to review this deck so that’s the number one reason I’m analyzing this deck. I’m surprised that many of you were interested in this deck because I didn’t think it was that unique or even weird, it’s just one variant of stage1 decks, which are almost extinct at the moment. However, I think that there reason why people were interested in this deck is because it includes one of the most discussed cards from Noble Victories – Rocky Helmet. Is it really playable in a competitive level in this kind of deck? I’m here to give you an answer to that and many more questions.

I have gotten this article ready for some quite time already but the reason I release this so late is that I think it was more important to look at the true metagame decks. Who knows if this is going to be a metagame deck just like 6 corners or Cobalion/Kyurem/Electrode but I have my doubts about that.

New year, new tricks

Interesting fact about me:
My favorite Pokémon is Moltres

Hi everyone and happy new year!

I know it isn't a new year everywhere yet. However, it's midnight in Finland so it's time to look at what new things The Deck Out will offer you in this new year of 2012!

- The Deck Out is finally ready to go global

I'm still waiting for a few people to send in their answers about their countries but I have most of them so I can start writing things and I can hopefully be able to start The Deck Out goes global - series in late January/ early February.

- Interviews of "Power Players" worldwide

I'll try to get interviews from both Yuta Komatsuda and Tsuguyoshi Yamato. I'll try to get interviews from other top players around the world as well. I'll also try to get interviews from top Judges / TOs of Pokémon Organized Play. I really think they are the people that deserve as much appreciation as the top players. I'm glad to say that one of the top Organizers in the game ever- BigDaddySnorlax - already agreed to an interview!