Hey Cut or Tap readers, my name is Jon Eng. I am a player from Maryland finishing up my last year in Seniors. I have been playing for just under seven years now and some of my more notable accomplishments are: Top 4 at U.S. Nationals 2014, Top 8 at Worlds 2015, 10th place at Nationals 2016, 9th place at Worlds 2016, and Top 8 at the Internationls in London. Recently I placed in the Top 8 of Dallas Regionals, so in this article I will be going over my experience there, and my thoughts going into Georgia Regionals soon coming up. With that being said, I am very happy to be a part of the CoT staff – let’s get into the article!
Pre-Tournament
Heading into Dallas I had a decent idea of what I wanted to play. Whether it was Expanded or Standard, all of my finishes this year have been with some form of Yveltal. I was almost convinced to switch to the deck that won the whole thing in seniors – Darkrai EX/Yveltal piloted by Connor Pedersen -but at the time I just thought Yveltal was superior to it.
The List
The list I used at Dallas didn’t really have anything special to it. By now most Yveltal EX/Garbodor lists seem to have at most a 2-3 card difference, so this list won’t be much different from the ones you usually see. That being said, looking back I would’ve probably wanted a second Fright Night Yveltal due to the amount of Mega Gardevoir EX decks I ran into at the event, but otherwise, I think the list was fine.
Yveltal/Garbodor
| Pokémon – 11 | Trainers – 36 | Energy – 13 | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | Yveltal EX | 4 | Professor Sycamore | 4 | VS Seeker | 9 | Darkness | ||
| 1 | Yveltal BKT | 3 | N | 4 | Max Elixir | 4 | Double Colorless | ||
| 2 | Shaymin EX ROS | 2 | Lysandre | 4 | Ultra Ball | ||||
| 2 | Trubbish BKP | 1 | Team Flare Grunt | 3 | Fighting Fury Belt | ||||
| 2 | Garbodor BKP | 1 | Pokemon Center Lady | 3 | Float Stone | ||||
| 2 | Enhanced Hammer | ||||||||
| 2 | Trainers’ Mail | ||||||||
| 1 | Escape Rope | ||||||||
| 2 | Parallel City | ||||||||
The Tournament
Round 1: Mega Gardevoir EX
Going into the event I expected to see a lot of Mega Gardevoir EX decks, especially with the recent spike in popularity the night before of Mega Mewtwo EX decks. However, I didn’t think that seniors would be quite up to date on the meta unlike masters so the reasoning for my expectation of Mega Gardevoir to be played isn’t solely based on Mewtwo.
Game 1: This game starts off really well for me as my opponent started Hoopa EX which handicapped him quite a bit at the beginning. It also didn’t help him that I started my 1 and only Fright Night Yveltal. He plays 2 Hoopa EX however, so he is able to find it and set up rather fast. I manage to set up Garbodor after he commits wasting a turn to Mega Evolve with my Fright Night active and then finally he begins attacking with Mega Gardevoir. He got down to 1 prize card and I just proceeded to N him into nothing and I’m able to win from there.
For those of you who don’t know this matchup: the Yveltal/Garbodor player aims to establish Garbotoxin at the correct time, and N the Gardevoir player to a smaller hand in hopes that they have few-to-no resources to use under Garbodor lock. Once you get them with N, the rest is simple.
Game 2: This game is a bit more rough as both me and my opponent start with Shaymin EX. This game is pretty uneventful because he’s able to set up very quickly and I’m left with few cards to work with. That being said, I scooped within maybe 5 minutes.
Game 3: This game starts rather well as I start Yveltal EX to his Shaymin EX. I do the same thing as game 1 where I N him to a low amount with Garbodor in play, hope he misses usable resources, then win from there. WLW 1-0
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