Hello all! The world is on fire, so it appears. If not the crisis it has been made out to be, the coronavirus–and more specifically the resulting contagion of COVID-19, has been a massive disruption to the lives of all. My college has moved toward online classes for the remainder of the year, so I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to move back in … Continue reading In Tha Pen: On the COVID-19 Crisis and Creatively Keeping Keen in the Meantime

Introduction: Hello everyone! For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Adler Pierce, and I am a player from Columbus Ohio as well as a member of Team Gas. With Charlotte coming up in a couple of weeks, I thought it would be a good opportunity to share a little bit about the deck I piloted to a top 32 finish as … Continue reading Expanded Wall Stall

Hello everyone, I hope I’ve found you all well today! The last time we spoke was shortly before Collinsville, where I did a bit to classify each of the expected decks. If I recall correctly, every deck that I mentioned in that article saw some degree of success but, somewhat unsurprisingly, the winners of the weekend seemed to be Stall Decks and Trevnoir. Stall was … Continue reading The Entire Cinematography of one Cramuel L. Jackson

Hello everyone! I’m Kiernan Wagner and I’m so excited to be back for my first Cut or Tap article in almost four years! Due to my local events being almost exclusively expanded and the way my schedule has worked out for larger events this year, I’ve been particularly focused on the format in juxtaposition with standard–a format I’ve played exactly one league cup in. Considering … Continue reading The Enigmas of Expanded and Asides on Teching

What’s up guys! Welcome to my first article for Cut or Tap. Since it’s my first article for this site, I’ll provide some background information about myself. My name is Jacob Chen, and currently I am a Junior in high school and live in Northern California. I was pretty successful as a Senior, and although I took a bit of a break, I decided to … Continue reading Malamar in Expanded

Above is an audio recording of the article. Normally these recordings will be behind a paywall, but this was my first attempt at recording an article. The last two pieces have been about rogues and I want to give the meta-believers some content before Dallas. The three described decks are consistent, safe picks, with solid match ups. This piece focuses on the general strategy of … Continue reading Meta Options for Dallas: ZoroGarb, Dark, and Ultra Necrozma Garbodor

Before San Diego Regionals I had come to the conclusion that Persian Checkmate was the only deck I truly cared about and wanted to play. In my preparation for Dallas Regionals I have found that the same concept behind Persian in Standard can easily be applied in Expanded, but with more options and a higher level of consistency. The most significant additions are VS Seeker … Continue reading The Birds and the Bees: Expanded Vespiquen Checkmate

The next major event is Dallas Regionals, which of course will be Expanded. Several bans along with a new set becoming legal means we will be playing in a dramatically different format from Portland. ZoroGarb took a big hit from the bans with the loss of Lt. Surge, Reset Stamp, and Red Card. However, the archetype that lost more than any other is Control. If … Continue reading Controlling Expanded: Seismitoad Zoroark

As much as I enjoy a good rogue deck, sometimes I need a break. Recently I have been enjoying Mewtwo Mew more than any of the other meta decks and I felt it was time someone made an article about Mewthree in the current format. We have to acknowledge that Gardeon winning this past weekend makes things harder for Mewthree, but that is actually less … Continue reading Standard Mewthree

Some of you may have seen my recent post on the lists page where I have a section on Persian and why I believe the deck is now viable. With the almost endless number of ways that Cosmic Eclipse has made it possible for Persian to be played, I was (and I still am) sure that at least one build is tier one. In preparation … Continue reading Persian variants in Standard

Brazil Intercontinentals is this coming weekend and there is plenty to unpack with the introduction of Cosmic Eclipse to Standard. This piece covers information on several decks and how they can adapt to the new format. I start by going over information about the format in a general sense. The new Tag Engine is interesting and powerful, the impact of Pidgeotto is very real, and … Continue reading Options for Brazil: Dark Box, Malamar, Oranguru Pidgeotto, Persian Box, Gardeon, and PikaRom

Before we get into this article, I want to make you aware that this post has a small library of my current lists. Recently I have been working hard on improving many of these lists and making the post easier to navigate. There are deck for current Standard, current Expanded, and Standard + Cosmic Eclipse. Check it out! Many of our subscribers have explained that … Continue reading Expanded guide to match ups for Blastoise, ZoroGarb, and ZoroControl

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