At this point it seems pretty clear what the top tier decks are:

• BuzzRoc
• ZoroGarb
• ZoroCargo
• ZoroPod
  
• Rayquaza GX

The first three are clearly top tier and ZoroPod is not an obvious top tier deck, but I firmly believe it should be there. My testing has been focused around beating these and finding alternatives to playing the mainstream options. In this piece I cover which three decks I am considering for Worlds. Although I have tried to find alternatives, my top options actually are all top tier decks. The best decks in this format are extremely powerful and really nothing else has been able to contest them. This article briefly covers the decks that did not make the cut and why. The rest of the piece is focused on BuzzRoc, ZoroPod, and ZoroGarb. I also update my ZoroCargo list, but I don’t cover it much because I have not had as much testing using it.

Decks that didn’t work out

Mismagius Garbodor

As much as I tried to make this deck function, I continually ran into issues with bricking/dead drawing. The deck does not seems to be able to fit all the cards it needs, which means consistency is a problem. Ultimately I decided to give up on Mismagius for this single reason. Other rogue options ended up more promising.

Zoroark Gallade

This deck shows more promise and I still think it could be a good option but frankly I don’t want to try to make it work anymore. The other options I have right now are more attractive to me and have fewer hurdles to overcome, which suggests to me that it is better to invest all my time into those decks instead of trying to make this one work. If you are having success with the deck, I say don’t give up on it; most of the reason I quit with it is just being more interested in other decks.

Oranguru Garbodor

I felt like too many games ended up out of my control. Too often I found myself hoping my opponent didn’t draw something specific because they would win the game if they did. The deck is a ton of fun, but it is not an archetype that I would be willing to play for either day of Worlds. On a side note, Hiker is a card I did not know about, which could make the deck a lot better.

Rayquaza

A friend of mine has a build for this deck that I am obliged to keep a secret, but even with the incredibly creative and forward thinking build of his, I still do not see Rayquaza overcoming the major obstacles of fragility and resource destruction. The way Rayquaza is commonly built at the moment does not work and it is not top tier in my opinion. I remain optimistic about the deck post-rotation, but for Worlds I would not recommend it to anybody.

Decks that did work out

BuzzRoc

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