Zoroark is the clear best deck in the format and there are very few decks that do a good job of countering it, meaning we should give a lot of attention to the ones that legitimately do. So, what are those decks?
The more recent option that players seem to be favoring is Greninja and for good reason. In testing so far it does seem to be a decent counter. I was coming around to the idea that Greninja was the best option, but a tech in Zoroark and a better strategy against Frogs has lead me away from it. Yes, I state that tech in this article; no, it is not Giratina PR.
Donphan is another cool option that ended up 9th at Stuttgart Regionals. The issue with this deck is that it’s a “beat only one deck” archetype. Donphan is a pretty weak option when you face it up against pretty much anything other than Night March and Zoroark, with bad mathups against Greninja, Toad, Garbodor, and anything else that doesn’t rely much on abilities.
Drampa Garbodor is a very explored option. The consensus is that Drampa Garb has about a 50/50 against Zoroark Eggs, which is not extremely impressive. The way I see it, Zoroark has a 50/50 Zoroark matchup and is more consistent that Drampa Garbodor. So why play Drampa Garb? Maybe you can see a more positive matchup or a few of them, but I would argue that the consistency of Zoroark outweighs any slightly better matchups.
Just like many of the other so-called counters, Glaceon is an inconsistent option that does has a favorable matchup against Zoroark. It probably has the best Zoroark matchup out of all the counters, but the cost of this is the fact that it is more inconsistent than any other commonly played deck. personally, there is no way I would play Glaceon, but I could see why some people would be interested in the deck.
Seismitoad Garbodor is one of the weaker options now that players understand how to play against it a little better. I do think the deck can make day two in this meta, but it is not a deck that will win the event. The issue is that if the Zoroark player does not misplay, it will beat Toad Garb about 65% of the time, which is concerningly high. The other huge flaw is that Drampa Garb is a very bad matchup for Toad Garb. Together, These reasons are more than enough for me to lose interest in the deck.
Here’s what I have for lists currently.
Lists
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Awesome article!
Are there plans on having an article for Toronto? I’m looking on what are viable options.
I’ve actually tested a lot of toad garb and I have seen it almost never loses to zoroark
1. with a heavy line of fury belt zoroark can never one shot it, because caps at 210 and cant use blower
2. with 4 enhanced hammers and 4 energies zoroark will just run out of energies, and cant play items to return them
3. those 4 energies wont put in their full worth with acerola, and hammers taking them away.
however, this can change with the inclusion of a pokemon ranger, but with unremovable garbo lock, n, and no items, zoroark is basically relying on its topdeck without lele and vs to get the ranger.