Turn 1: Altered Creation GX — ADP Decks in Expanded

Expanded season is upon us, and by “us”, I mean North Americans and a few international players (I might be one of them!) planning on making the trip to Dallas regionals in January — the last North American event before the release of the Sword and Shield set. That said, there are still Regionals in the current Standard format coming up in Germany, Brazil and Malaysia, as well as a Special Event in Chile, so expect more Standard content in the near future.

I want to talk a little bit about Expanded for now. Partly because we just saw two Regionals in a row won by unexpected decks (Gardevoir and Sylveon-GX, and then Garchomp and Giratina-GX / Mismagius), so I want to take some time to get a better grasp on the format and have an idea of where it’s headed next; and partly because it’s always fun to tackle a new format. With the huge sets we’ve been getting since Lost Thunder, and the quickly increasing banlist, there’s always a bunch of new decks to approach in Expanded, and of old decks to revisit.

The Current Expanded Meta

This concludes the public portion of this article.

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