Future Sight — Looking Ahead to Shrouded Fable
Hello everyone! The North America International Championships just concluded in New Orleans. Congratulations to Andrew Hedrick for taking the whole event down with Lost Zone Toolbox! Many players now are looking ahead to the World Championships happening in Honolulu in August, especially after a ton of players locked up their invites in New Orleans. Last year in Yokohama, the format for the World Championships was the same as the format for NAIC. But things are slightly different this year — there will be a new expansion! Shrouded Fable releases on the second of August, so it will be legal to play at the World Championships on the 16th of August. The Japanese equivalent of Shrouded Fable only has 64 cards, but there are still options that could impact the format for Worlds so let’s get stuck in!
Firstly, it’s worth going over the structure of the World Championships as this is significantly different from any other tournament’s structure in the past. In short, if we have 1025-2048 players in the Masters Division, eight rounds will be played on Day 1 and four rounds on Day 2, with each player earning 18 or more match points advancing to Day 2. Wins are still worth three points, a tie is one point, and a loss gives you zero points. This makes the format of the whole tournament similar to what it was like on Day 1 of the last few World Championships, making ties extremely punishing for any player. In the current system used for International Championships, you can qualify for Day 2 by getting 19 match points or going 6/2/1 (six wins, two losses, and one draw), whereas at Worlds you have to go 6/2/0. If you ever get a tie with a loss, you still need six wins to make Day 2. I think that this will affect the kinds of decks that will be heavily played at the World Championships, reducing the play rate of decks like Gardevoir ex or various Comfey decks, which tend to be prone to ties and will likely increase the popularity of decks like Raging Bolt ex / Teal Mask Ogerpon ex and Lugia VSTAR. This will create a very interesting metagame for this tournament, especially with NAIC being dominated by Gardevoir ex and Lost Zone Toolbox decks, with both comprising the entirety of the Top 8!
When discussing Shrouded Fable, I’m only going to touch on cards that I believe will have an impact on the metagame, so I’ll be skipping through a lot of the cards that essentially do nothing. I’ll also be grouping cards that work together with each other, instead of touching on them separately. There are a few cards that seem strong in this set, and a lot that will likely have some application in various situations.
Slither Wing
This Pokemon has the Iron Buster attack, which seems to be targeted directly at Iron Hands ex as it has a Fighting-type Weakness. Slither Wing can take a one-hit Knock Out for just two Energy. While many decks can also just include Bloodmoon Ursaluna ex as a solid answer to Iron Hands ex, I believe that Slither Wing will slot nicely into the Ancient Box deck. Ancient Box already has an excuse to play Fighting Energy with Koraidon , and struggles to use Bloodmoon Ursaluna ex, so Slither Wing functions as an easy way to answer an Iron Hands ex from a Future Box deck, shoring up a weak matchup. Whether this will be enough to put make Ancient Box a top tier deck remains to be seen, but it does gain a good answer to Iron Hands!
Dusknoir Line
The whole Dusknoir line presents with a very interesting way to approach the game. Historically, Pokemon that Knock Out themselves have been very strong in the Pokemon TCG, with cards like Mismagius and various Electrode seeing competitive success. The Dusknoir line gives you an aggressive option, as you can use them to directly damage opposing Pokemon. The numbers that they hit are also very strong, with Dusclops being able to KO the most commonly played Pidgey and Dusknoir being able to KO Bibarel, Kirlia, or Cinccino . While I don’t believe that a dedicated Dusknoir deck can exist, I do believe that these will slot very nicely into the existing Charizard ex deck, perhaps as a 1/1/1 line. Charizard ex seems incredibly well positioned for this new format, as it has a very strong chance against most of the aggressive decks thanks to its high HP and it has the ability to close games quickly with its Burning Darkness attack. The bane of Charizard ex decks in the Temporal Forces format were decks such as Pidgeot ex control or Origin Forme Dialga VSTAR, which often presented high HP in front of Charizard ex without taking too many Prize cards early. Dragapult ex is also an issue for Charizard ex thanks to the spread damage of Phantom Dive. The Dusknoir line is very strong into all of these matchups, as you force your opponent to take Prize cards early and place damage on their main Pokemon, increasing the damage output for Burning Darkness. You can also combine the Dusknoir line with Counter Catcher, Iono, and Defiance Band. Disrupting the opponent and putting a ton of pressure on their Active Pokemon has typically been the way Charizard ex has won games in the past, and Dusknoir allows to you execute that game plan against opponents who are taking a trickier game plan and playing around Burning Darkness. Being able to force your opponent to take Prize cards and power up your Burning Darkness seems like a great way to tackle some of its tougher matchups, so maybe Charizard could make a resurgence at Worlds!
This concludes the public portion of this article.
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