“Dear Diary…” — Gedemer’s Final Thoughts on Dallas

Going to Dallas? Pull up a chair, let’s talk about some of the final considerations and trends moving into the first American Regionals in 2020. First, there’s the decks; here’s the metagame for this tournament by my count:

• Primary Threats
  • Mewtwo and Mew-GX Toolbox | Article
  • Turbo Dark | Article
  • Ultra Necrozma
  • Zoroark-GX / Garbodor
• Secondary Threats
  • Aromatisse/ Gardevoir and Sylveon-GX
  • Blastoise/ Archie's Ace in the Hole | Article
  • Vileplume / Rowlet and Alolan Exeggutor-GX
• Tertiary Threats
  • Durant Mill
  • Hitmonchan
  • Lucario-GX / Fighting
  • Moltres and Zapdos and Articuno-GX | Article
  • Night March | Article
  • Reshiram and Zekrom-GX
  • Shock Lock
  • Wall Stall

Follow the listed links for my most recent Expanded format articles on each respective deck. For this article, I’ll be analyzing what’s left.

First, Mewtwo and Mew-GX is one of the decks to beat. Easy techs like a Pokémon Ranger to get around Noivern-GX‘s Distort and Sonic Volume might not be enough, but they can improve your chances. If you’re a setup deck with frail Basic Pokemon, Mr. Mime can get around Venusaur and Snivy-GX‘s Solar Plant GX. A Psychic Pokemon tech if you’re playing Counter Energy or anything that could use Mew, Mew-EX, or Mewtwo and Mew-GX can give you type advantage, barring Jirachi-GX. Conversely, Mewtwo and Mew-GX can be teched to beat anything. A new Pokemon-EX / Pokemon-GX addition can make or break a matchup, you need to know how to pick ’em. This is one of the decks I want to beat for sure in Texas if I’m not playing Mewtwo and Mew-GX myself.

Turbo Dark is the linchpin of the format. The metagame revolves around it, decks are made viable because of its existence (Fighting / anything). The mirror matches are extremely luck-based to the point of frustration, so perhaps the mirror matches will limit the amount of success the deck can have without running into itself. Random bad matchups in the form of Fighting decks can hurt and some matchups are closer due to things like Mega Lopunny and Jigglypuff-GX. Turbo Dark has dominated, and will continue to do so because so many players are playing the deck. I’ve covered both Turbo Dark and Mewtwo and Mew-GX in length in past articles which you can view through the links provided above. My current lists for each deck are as follows:

This concludes the public portion of this article.

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