Hello Cut or Tap readers! Little bit about myself; my name is Carter and I’ve been playing Pokémon for just over 3 years. Some of my accomplishments include making day two at 5 consecutive regionals I attended last year in addition to earning my Worlds invite. I live in SoCal and have been with Cut or Tap since April. We have our first expanded regional … Continue reading Expanded Turbo Dark

We all need a little guidance in the new Expanded format with multiple new sets released and about 4 months since the last major Expanded event. This article is here to give you a look at some of the decks that are predicted to be in the Top Tier. This piece is meant to give veteran Expanded players a refresher on the format and an … Continue reading First takes on Expanded – Mewtwo variants, ZoroGarb, Archie’s Blastoise, and Turbo Dark

“Introduce a little anarchy. Upset the established order and everything becomes chaos. I’m an agent of chaos. Oh and you know the thing about chaos, it’s fair.” – Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight, 2008) If you have been playing Pokemon since the rotation before Worlds, you should be acutely aware of the fact that the format is very luck-based. Pokemon feels like gambling. I don’t … Continue reading Joker – using Blowns to find order within a chaotic format

Hello cut or tap readers, its Hunter back again with another article on a special deck poised for success at the upcoming Atlantic City Regional Championships. The meta two weeks out from AC has shifted slightly with an influx of Non-GX Ability Fire Box and a slight increase in Malamar hype. For the most part the top five decks are still the same: Mew3Box, PikaRom, … Continue reading Shaggy Quaggy: a new look on NagQuag

The biggest issue I have with decks like Mewtwo Box and Ability Zard are that they run almost entirely on Welder and Dedenne, leaving your match results largely up to drawing those at the right time. Discarding too many of one card or another off Dedechange, or prizing two Welder, can easily lose you games. That is exactly why I prefer Green’s; this variant of … Continue reading Green’s ReshiZard – the fire variant that gives you control

The main problem players have with Dark Box is bad variance. They can win four games in a row and feel like the deck beats everything, then lose four in a row and feel like the deck is garbage. I kept this in mind when building my list. If Dark Box can be consistent, it is without a doubt a very powerful archetype. The match … Continue reading Dark Box – an approach focused on consistency

Malamar lost it’s reputation for being a consistent powerful deck after it was played at Worlds. The deck saw very high numbers taking up around one third of the meta in Masters Day 1 and despite the popularity, not a single Malamar deck made it to Top 8…It didn’t even make Top 16! I felt the need to explain where competitors (including myself) went wrong … Continue reading Redeeming Malamar

Now that Worlds is over there are tons of new ideas and lists to work with. I am testing decks daily, but need a couple more days to write another piece and post it. For the time being I figured posting a short list of the decks I am testing might be helpful for you all. It also helps to have this piece out because … Continue reading Current Lists

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 … Continue reading Infinity Stones

My overall opinion on a few things have change significantly. I need to make this quick because we’re almost out of time. I also felt the need to tell you all that I will not be playing a deck list I posted on the site. My teammates came up with an excellent idea for a deck and as usual I do not post other people’s … Continue reading Final Worlds Lists

In this article we are going to take a look at: match ups between the commonly accepted top five decks, my lists for everything even remotely viable, and my tier tist. This piece includes updates on much of the information discussed in the last piece, especially in relation to card changes in the lists. A section at the end has updated lists for every deck … Continue reading Top plays for Worlds 2019

Since posting An Archetype Collage I have done far more testing and coaching, leading me to condense and then expand the number of deck choices for Worlds. In the process of trying to cut out the bad lists and concepts, I ended up building new decks and exploring different variants of those decks. It’s been a while since the last article. That extra time allowed … Continue reading New ideas & revisions to the previous ideas

The last two pieces have been solely focused on one archetype each, but at that pace I will only be able to talk about half the decks I am considering for Worlds. This post is about a variety of archetypes, which can help to make the playable options for Worlds a little more clear. With each deck I explain how much potential I believe it … Continue reading An archetype collage

Yo! As promised in the last piece, this article is covering the Malamar variant I prefer. The formatting is pretty similar to the last article with details about the list, techs, and other Worlds info. I also cover the general strategy of the deck, but this time with descriptions of match ups. Towards the end I briefly explain another variant of the deck focused on … Continue reading Garchomp Giratina Malamar in the Worlds format

The first deck that should be on all of our minds when preparing for 2019 Worlds is PikaRom. The deck has a track record that outperformed any of the other archetype throughout this last season, it adapts to the coming format very well, and gains some new tricks. In practice the deck has only confirmed what my colleges and I had theorized: PikaRom sweeps close … Continue reading PikaRom in the Worlds format

The North American Intercontinental Championship is starting in just a couple days and I have my top picks ready. No deck feels like it is a clear cut best option because of how diverse and open the meta seems to be. I have a different approach to how I feel the meta is changing for NAIC, which means my mentality for the event is not … Continue reading Top picks for NAIC – Zapdos Buzzwole, Gardevoir, and ZoroGong

This is a short piece where I have the lists for decks I either am sure I won’t play or doubt I will play. It’s not that any of these decks aren’t good; it’s just that I feel I have found better options. I will be talking about those other decks later (already did with PikaRom) but for the time being I just wanted to … Continue reading Decks I don’t want to play that you might like

If you have kept up with my content from articles, to features on meta forecasts, to the IRL footage, you are probably very aware with my opinion on PikaRom. Recently I have been convinced to change my mind. The deck is consistent, hard hitting, and a solid meta-call. Once it became clear to me that ReshiZard actually is not a negative match up, my eyes … Continue reading PikaRom – Cut or Tap’s forgotten archetype

Hey reader! Madison Regionals is coming up very soon and I wanted to update you all with my current lists for my top picks. This article goes over my exact lists for ZoroPersian, Granbull, Nidoqueen Meganium, and Zapdos. Why Granbull? The main issue Granbull has run into in the past was a terrible PikaRom match up, which is still present to a degree. The difference … Continue reading Updated options for Madison

We have already covered Zapdos, Zoroark, and ReshiZard recently, so going into Madison there is not a whole lot of new info to talk about in that department. The meta we predicted was the meta we saw (with the exception of Shedninja) which means all of those articles are still quite relevant. It’s time to talk rogue! Most people think of the Tag Team when … Continue reading Gardevoir GX Swampert: Rogue option for Madison