A Look Back at the 2014-2015 Season
The 2014-2015 season was a turbulent one – each set released new archetypes that saw a lot of success. Sometimes these new decks were immediately powerful, and other times they took a while to be fully optimized. As a result, the meta was constantly shifting around from tournament to tournament. From extremely aggressive decks to…
“Game Over” – A Lost Combo Deck From 2011’s MD-COL Format
Let’s talk about alternate win conditions. Other than taking prizes, Pokemon has had a few different ways players can win the game. While most of the time, they just kind of “happen” depending on how the match plays out, sometimes, there are entire decks devoted to winning through these strategies. Running the opponent out of…
The Sideboard – Plox (2008)
Looking back on 2008 as a format, it’s very easy to see why many players weren’t (and still aren’t) the biggest fans. When Mysterious Treasures released in August, the format was actually pretty healthy and diverse. A wide variety of strategies were viable, with some (such as Infernape/Delcatty or Machamp/Lucario) carrying over from 2007, while…
The Sideboard – Flygon (2009)
Historical Context As somebody who was in their last year of seniors, and only their 2nd full season playing the game competitively, I don’t think I ever really appreciated just how impactful every new set of 2009 was. Legends Awakened released early, and we saw a metagame where Kingdra and AMU were extremely strong. Then,…
The Sideboard – SableLock
Hey everybody! Sorry it’s been a while since I’ve posted my last article – as many of you would expect, real life got in the way, and I also wanted to take a bit of a break since I had been working on the site pretty much non-stop since booting the website up for the…
Looking Through the Mirror
Since the beginning of the newfound interest in Retro Deck formats, Mirror Matches have been one of the most popular and interesting ways to play the game. Playing a deck against a copy of itself is one of, if not the ONLY way to ensure an absolute 50-50 matchup. While non-mirror matchups are of course,…
The Sideboard – Empoleon (2008)
2008 was an interesting time in the history of the Pokemon TCG – it was one of the very few formats that was absolutely defined by a true “tier 0” archetype that stood alone above the rest. Gardevoir/Gallade (also known as GG or Plox) ran the format once Secret Wonders released in November, and Great…
Picking Matchups for 2007
Hey everybody. Shorter post today – I wanted to give some insight on the year of 2007. The era of Delta Species pokemon is probably my favorite in the history of the TCG, and 2007 is arguably the most diverse metagame that the game has ever seen. I think I have more archetypes for this…
The Sideboard – Flygon (2007)
2007 probably takes the cake for being the most diverse and wide-open metagame in the history of competitive Pokemon TCG. Not only were there an obscene amount of different archetypes that were played, but also saw success at the highest level of events. Even after Diamond & Pearl Base released, many of the older archetypes…
The Sideboard – Gyarados (MD-CoL)
The year of 2011 is one of the craziest and most turbulent in Pokemon’s competitive history. After a historic move before the 2010 season, where TPCI announced there would NOT be a rotation, the beginning of 2011 marked the rotation of the very first Diamond and Pearl expansions – and later in the year, two…
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