Hey guys, Phinn here. This is my first article for Cut or Tap! I have been writing for other sites for about a year now, which is what inspired me to start this site. However, I have been so busy creating other content and running the site, that I haven’t had time to make an article until now.
Normally I would give you guys a description of myself here, but you can actually just look at my profile if you’re curious about my accomplishments. In short; I had a great season last year where I won a Regionals, made top 32 at both Nats and Worlds, and earned over 600 Championship Points.
This year I have been playing mostly for fun. However, I have been testing my butt off for Nationals.
Once I learned about the higher prize pool, I decided I wanted to win! YZG has been the focus for a lot of my testing. It has proven to be a strong choice in Standard for a while, and I think it is the most versatile option at the moment. The deck has plenty of room to either be built terribly, or very well. In this piece I want to talk about the different ways that YZG can be built. I will explore two options for the lists, and a third option that combines the two. To start, this is my YZG skeleton list:
| Pokémon -10 | Trainers -25 | Energy -11 | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | Yveltal XY | 2 | Professor Sycamore | 4 | VS Seeker | 7 | Darkness | ||
| 1 | Gallade | 1 | Lysandre | 4 | Ultra Ball | 4 | Double Colorless | ||
| 2 | Zorua BKT89 | 1 | AZ | 3 | Battle Compressor | ||||
| 2 | Zoroark BKT91 | 1 | N | 3 | Trainer’s Mail | ||||
| 2 | Shaymin EX | 1 | Maxie’s Hidden Ball Trick | 2 | Float Stone | ||||
| 1 | Yveltal EX | 1 | Xerosic/Startling Megaphone | 1 | Fighting Fury Belt | ||||
| 1 | (Fighting Fury Belt OR Muscle Band) | ||||||||
| 2 | (Stadiums) | ||||||||
| 14 | Open spots | ||||||||
I think these cards HAVE to be included in every YZG list, no matter how teched out you want your list to be. There could be an argument made for cutting AZ, however I feel the card is a staple.
With that being said, I want to talk about some of the ways you can fill up the remaining 22 spots, because we can take several routes. We’ll start with my favorite – Max Elixirs:
YZG w/ Elixirs
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