Good morning, Cut or Tap readers! I’ve recently been on Christmas vacation and generally just enjoying the atmosphere that the holidays have to offer, but with some heavy Regionals around the corner, I figure it’s about time I act on my call to action. You can only take so much time off from the game before you get rusty, and before you know it you’ll be sitting at the bottom of the tables wasting your day away. Since our shared goal as players is to constantly strive for greatness at the higher tables, let’s continue on with reading this article!

I’ve recently jumped into coaching once again, and it’s graciously upped my level of training ten-fold. When you coach somebody, it strengthens your foundation as a player by allowing you to correct the plays that are wrong. Rather than learning the right thing to do, your student’s mistakes can actually aid you in correcting your own plays. As I’ve stated in my previous articles, in college I’m currently studying Advertising and Marketing Communications, and one key attribute of an entrepreneur is his/her ability to teach; this is so key, in fact, that teachers retain 90% of knowledge that they pass on to students. By teaching somebody, your body builds confidence in its own knowledge, and then crafts it to become part of you – try this next time you’re at a league! You never know when a newer player might need a hand, and in turn it’ll benefit your skill.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• i. A SAMPLE LIST
• ii. WAYS TO WIN
• a. ENERGY DENIAL
• b. DELINQUENT
• c. POKEMON CENTRE LADY/OLYMPIA
• d. THE OPENING COIN FLIP
• iii. THE COUNTER
• iv. CONCLUSION

After the recent events of both San Jose and London, the results of Yveltal have been merciless and show no signs of slowing down. This article will show you the inner workings of the mirror match, as well as ways to take down the beast with an interesting play. As we all know, Yveltal is the best deck in the format because of its ability to counter any deck’s strategy, as well as executing a near-flawless setup. The deck is as consistent as Standard can truly get, and packs a punch. With no solid counters, it’s free to run around Standard winning large events globally. Luckily for us, Yveltal is a very skillful deck to pilot, and requires a significant amount of insight to close out a series against every deck in the format. Each play must be crafted diligently in order to push out positive results, and in the mirror, failure isn’t an option! The Standard format will continue to be the same for a few Regionals to come, so I’d suggest becoming very familiar with this deck. Let’s go into some of the intangibles of the mirror:

A SAMPLE LIST [YVELTAL/GARBODOR]

I’m simply using Michael Pramawat’s list as a basis for this article, because people deem his list to be the best currently available online, and I fear for anybody who isn’t expecting to play against these exact sixty cards! Most Yveltal players will execute the same strategy each game, beginning with Yveltal BKT using Pitch-Black Spear (which will be referred to as PBS from now on in this article) to spread 60 damage to multiple Yveltal EX. Then, following a PBS, Yveltal EX will then promptly clean up the opposing board by taking on several weakened opposing Yveltal EX. This strategy is simple enough to fulfill for anybody playing the mirror match, but the main differences between a good Yveltal player and a legendary one lies not within one’s strategy – it’s almost entirely based on how you get from Point A to Point B.

ENERGY DENIAL

Most current lists are playing heavier amounts of energy removal. This energy removal currently takes form in cards such as Enhanced Hammer, and Team Flare Grunt (TFG). In Pramawat’s list, he runs two copies of Hammer along with a singleton TFG, which is an extremely important count to be aware of! The sole concept behind this is to gain leverage on your opponent by controlling the board state: Yveltal requires energy in order to manipulate damage, and if you’re behind in attachments, then you’re most likely losing the game.