Hey everyone, by the time this article releases the 2019 Pokémon World Championships will be completed, but I thought I would share the deck that the rest of Team Cut or Tap is going to play. First, shout out to Mike Morton Jr. as he came up with the initial concept of the deck and showed the team. Hale Obernolte made one of the initial lists and put a good amount of testing in before the rest of the team got on board. One disclaimer, this is my personal list and I will not be in attendance due to narrowly missing my invite this season. Don’t worry, I tested this deck extensively to help my team out, and their list is likely only a handful of cards off. I will first cover the complex and rather unique strategy of the deck. After, I will get into the card counts, possible techs moving forward, and finally, the match ups.
| Pokémon – 24 | Trainers – 29 | Energy – 7 | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | Inkay | 3 | Cynthia | 4 | Mysterious Treasure | 6 | Psychic | ||
| 3 | Malamar | 3 | Ingo & Emmet | 4 | Pokémon Communication | 1 | Recycle | ||
| 4 | Poipole (Knockout Reviver) | 3 | Lillie | 1 | U-Turn Board | ||||
| 2 | Naganadel GX (Conversion) | 3 | Lusamine | ||||||
| 2 | Naganadel GX (Stinger) | 2 | Brock’s Grit | 1 | Viridian Forest | ||||
| 2 | Nincada | 1 | Judge | 2 | Ultra Space | ||||
| 2 | Shedinja | 1 | Tate & Liza | ||||||
| 1 | Latios GX | 1 | Lt. Surge’s Stategy | ||||||
| 1 | Ditto Prism Star | ||||||||
| 1 | Espurr | ||||||||
| 1 | Giratina | ||||||||
| 1 | Mew | ||||||||
Strategy
Malamar
Right off the bat you’ll see that the deck has a Malamar line, a Giratina, and several other cards you would typically see in any Malamar variant. You can take six prizes and win the old-fashioned way very easily with the tried and true Malamar engine. On the first turn it is crucial that you get two Inkays (or an Inkay and Ditto Prism) up, as everything else revolves around the energy acceleration to get into some of the more extensive combos. The bench space is tight in this deck, so I would not bench three Inkays unless you think one will get knocked out.
Ultra Beasts/Checkmate
Similar to the ZoroCheckmate deck that took NAIC by storm, this deck has the Stinger GX package in order to have a more favorable match up against the speedy Tag Teams that seem to be dominating the format. However, with the new release of the ‘Ultra Conversion’ Naganadel GX, it is possible to now play a much thicker Poipole/Naganadel line in order to give the deck a nice draw engine that is similar to Zoroark GX. The new Naganadel GX also provides the deck with a nice snipe attacker, at a PCCC cost for 170 damage to any Pokémon on your opponent’s board. Nihilego is very powerful with the various attacks it can copy right now, and it is very easy to lead your opponent to two prizes remaining due to prize manipulation with Shedinja. I would try to set up one to two Poipole up on the first turn since Ultra Conversion is crucial to burn through your deck.
Stall/Prize Denial
Then we arrive at the “secret sauce” of the deck, and that is the Shedinja line, Lusamine, Brock’s Grit, and most importantly, four Poipole. For those who don’t know, there is a Poipole with the attack Knockout Reviver that reads, “During your opponent’s next turn, if this Pokémon is Knocked Out, your opponent can’t take any Prize cards for it.” With Guzma leaving the format there is limited forms of gusting options available right now. It is possible to deck out the opponent by continuously looping Knockout Reviver. The one major problem with this strategy is that it may take longer than 50 minutes to deck out an opponent, but we will address that issue in the next section.
Early Game & General Combos
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