What’s happenin’, Cut or Tap readers? I am back with a shorter article today discussing a few experimental Decidueye lists to play in Toronto – or as we like to say, the 6ix! I have been building decks in the Expanded format with Sun and Moon cards for a while and I have hopefully cracked the format open again with a few of these lists. I have found our current Expanded format is really daunting and I want to provide some insight into how the metagame is shaping up in Toronto. My main goal of this article is to provide quality deck lists that I believe are all very strong plays in Toronto, some minor how-to’s and some advanced plays. Here are the decks that I will go over in this article in order:

• Decidueye/Vileplume
• The New Decidueye/Vileplume

I would like to note that while this article is completely based on a deck or a variation of that certain deck, it can still have potential in Toronto. I am covering a variety of decks in my testing that have come up on top or have the potential, in my opinion, to do well at the event. Every single player has their own playstyle and there may be more to this upcoming Regionals than I can predict. Hopefully you get some valid information that will help you out in the Expanded format for Toronto or a local League Cup, enjoy!

Also, it is key to note going into any tournament that you do not overthink your deck choice nor should you over-stress about matchups. Often, deck choices are a personal preference and top-level playing skill will allow you to soar to the top of any tournament. I have recently been trying to zero out my non-Pokemon thoughts when I am playing a game in order to give myself the proper resources to think clearly about a certain game state. Everyone has daily stresses going on, and perhaps nerves are getting out of hand, or you are paying too much attention to your friend’s game going on beside you. Believe me when I say you will prosper when you whittle those thoughts to just your game in front of you currently.

Decidueye/Vileplume

This is the deck that I wrote about in my last article and I completely regarded it as the best deck in the Standard Format. In the Standard Format, this deck is susceptible to a dead draw, sometimes it is in “top-deck mode” during mid- to late-game, and it may have a target on its back going into any event. In the Expanded Format, this deck gains a few more consistency crutches, it doesn’t deal with Wobbuffet GEN as often, and it doesn’t really worry too much about Garbodor, but it does gain a new slight weakness in the form of Archeops. Putting all of the deck’s slight weaknesses aside, we have a very functional powerhouse lock deck that can just steal games. Here is my personal list:

Well, let’s start with what makes this deck slightly different from my Standard Version of the list which you can check out right here.

Gloom BCR 
Gloom can now become a potential attacker in the wrong circumstances with its Foul Odor attack, or it can Poison a Pokemon with its Poison Powder attack. These attacks both don’t sound too crazy, but Gloom does have a sweet new (or old) -20 Resistance to Water Type Pokemon and can fight off a Seismitoad-EX FFI fairly well.

Oddish BCR
Similar to its Evolution Pokemon Gloom, Oddish benefits from its -20 Resistance to Water Type Pokemon and it totally has two usable attacks in the form of the healing Absorb or the really basic Acid attack.

Jirachi-EX PLB
You can use Level Ball or Ultra Ball to search out a Jirachi-EX instead of just using an Ultra Ball to search out a Shaymin-EX! This card is only used for its Stellar Guidance Ability and there isn’t really much else to say, but that Ability only adds in such a huge consistency crutch to the deck.

Computer Search
In Expanded, we have the option to run an Ace Spec card and I almost always default to the faithful Computer Search. This card helps out in multiple ways, searching your deck for any – yes any! – card in your deck and using it to discard cards to make room for a bigger Set Up from Shaymin-EX! I am sure we have always had that moment when playing Decidueye/Vileplume where we needed that one more card, this is that magic card that gets us there.

Professor Juniper
This is just a simple name change from Professor Sycamore to his female counterpart. Nothing else to see here.

So this deck list is a very vanilla Decidueye/Vileplume list, but its main focus is to take what we already know in the Standard Format, and improve its consistency potential going forward in Expanded. Your main goal is to set up a Decidueye GX and Vileplume up on Turn 1 in order to lock your opponent with Vileplume and to start using Decidueye GX’s Feather Arrow Ability. The deck has a few attacking options in terms of Lugia EX or even using Decidueye GX to swing with Razor Leaf, but I ultimately like setting my board up perfectly as the best option. You can optimally use Shaymin-EX as a damage sponge and then use Sky Return to send up another Shaymin-EX or a sacrifice one-prizer such as a Rowlet or Oddish. Overall, this is a super-consistent, super-vanilla list that is all about the lock.

If you are looking into more insight into this deck, check out my last article where I went more into depth with Feather Arrow placements and some reasonings on the individual card choices.

I wanted to start out with this list first because it is essential the most well-known kind of variant for this deck. This is my fall back list due to all of the already-aforementioned reasons and ultimately the ability to steal games in a larger tournament. I feel this deck can’t fail with its impressive results already in the Expanded format and hopefully I can add to that list of results upon the conclusion of Toronto Regionals. Let’s move onto something a little bit different…

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