Caleb Gedemer and Hale Obernolte have put players Germany competitors in an uncomfortable position. There is a necessity to deal with these denial decks that did well in Denver, but tech’ing for these decks will most likely force your chances of beating other archetypes down. There are a few solutions to this dilemma.

The easy fix to this problem is simply finding a new archetype that inherently deals with control well. Jose Marrero played a Rayquaza Vikavolt deck to win the Guatemala Special Event, showing that the energy acceleration of the archetype is too much for denial decks to handle. Another somewhat forgotten archetype is Malamar, which has the energy acceleration aspect as well as strong mobility. Either of these decks may be in a good position for Germany because of their inherent answer to ZoroControl and RegiStall.

Another route would be to find techs that help with these denial decks and provide utility against other archetypes. An example of this may be the Buzzwole/Basic Energy/Viridian package present in the Cut or Tap Zapdos variant. Not only does this package work well against PikaRom and ZoroRoc, but it provides an attacker that hits for weakness against Zoroark in ZoroControl and Regigigas. Personally I would stick with this deck going into Germany because one or two cards are probably all that need to be changed to adapt. I will discuss my updated variant of the deck in this piece.

If you are the type of player to go with what is already doing well, rather than finding counters, you might find a ZoroControl list that deals with counters to be your best bet. This would involve answering cards like Oranguru (UPR) and the energy acceleration decks aforementioned.

The last route to take would be simply betting on seeing few denial decks played, with the assumption that they will be countered. If you can beat the decks that are already countering denial archetypes, it could be your best shot at winning the event. If we assume there are few or no denial decks in day two because of counters to those decks in day one, then the archetype that has the best match ups against decks other than denial is the best play for those who want to win the event. With that being said, maybe the denial decks still see enough play and adapt well enough to be in day two once again.

This article goes over the four options I have found that fit these descriptions. The first deck is Malamar because it has favorable match ups to RegiStall and ZoroControl. Next is Zapdos Buzzwole with it’s already present answer to ZoroControl (with a few new techs). My version of ZoroControl that Cameron Shenoy and I have been working on is the third deck. I finish the article with an updated variant of ZoroRoc; it seems to be the most well rounded deck in the current format, making it a great option for a day two lacking in RegiStall.

Ultra Necrozma Malamar

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