Initialization — A New Era for Iron Thorns ex
Hello PokeBeach readers, Isaiah here, and I am happy to be writing another article for you all! Last time, I discussed my thoughts on Gholdengo ex and its sudden meteoric rise to become one of the best decks in the current format, at least in my opinion. As of writing this, the Toronto Regional Championships is yet to happen, so it’s hard for me to say if the deck will continue to see success in the same way it has been. I imagine it probably will, though. Since that last article, not a lot has changed in the space of competitive Pokemon. The main difference is that two major tournaments were held this past weekend, both relatively small as major events go: the Perth Regional Championships and the Bogota Special Event. Perth was won by Gardevoir ex and Bogota by Regidrago VSTAR, neither of which was a particularly surprising result.
Bogota didn’t have much going on in the Top 8, barring the appearance of Ancient Box and Roaring Moon ex, both of which have been on a slow rise lately. There’s not much to take away from the event. Perth, on the other hand, was a little stranger, with two Klawf appearing in Top 8. This suggests that the deck might become a more permanent part of the metagame. There was also a Quad Iron Thorns ex in the Top 8, which was a bit surprising to see after a rough couple of months for the deck. I think now might be the time for Quad Iron Thorns ex to shine once again — if not in the traditional sense, then maybe with a good enough partner.
What Makes Iron Thorns ex Good Again?
It should come as a surprise to nobody that Iron Thorns ex is solely playable because of its Initialization Ability, which is one of the strongest Abilities in Standard right now. Pretty much every good deck in the format relies on the Abilities of Rule Box Pokemon, whether as a core part of their strategy, like Teal Mask Ogerpon ex and Charizard ex, or as more of a supporting role, like Fezandipiti ex and Radiant Greninja. As a result, it’s almost impossible for Iron Thorns ex to be a bad card to have in your Active Spot, especially if you’re capable of attacking with it. At the North America International Championships, we saw Andrew Hedrick use Iron Thorns ex in his Lost Zone deck to take down the entire tournament, and other players, such as Ian Robb, using it as a tech card in Miraidon ex. At that point, I assume most people thought the idea of a Quad Iron Thorns ex deck was a bit of a joke, but Fernando Cifuentes proved at this year’s Worlds Championships that Iron Thorns ex is certainly a winning strategy. In the subsequent months, Iron Thorns ex had sporadic good finishes, albeit never really at the same level that it had for the first two tournaments of its lifespan. That is, until now.
Lately, the format has sped up, and it feels like it keeps accelerating rather than ever balancing out. Historically, the pace of formats has progressed like a wave, where it speeds up and gets slowed down before picking up the pace again, because of midrange decks typically losing to aggressive decks. However, because the best midrange deck in the format right now, Regidrago VSTAR, has a reasonably good matchup against fast decks like Miraidon ex and Raging Bolt ex , the format has not slowed back down in the way prior formats have. Iron Thorns ex aims to solve this, acting as a sort of midrange deck that forces decks to play at its own pace. With Initialization, some decks completely lose any advantages that they may otherwise have over the rest of the field, such as Miraidon ex losing the ability to seamlessly hit the turn-1 attack. This gives Iron Thorns ex the opportunity to chip away at those decks’ resources and win a slow game. Cards like Crushing Hammer are especially strong in this role, essentially making your opponent lose a turn in certain situations, which is obviously incredibly strong.
Reiji Nishiguchi, Top 8 finisher at the 2017 World Championships, was able to take Quad Iron Thorns ex to a third-place finish at Perth, where he was unfortunately mauled by Klawf in his elimination match. This does unfortunately seem like a fairly poor matchup if they are able to set up past Initialization. Aside from this matchup and the frustrating Gardevoir ex matchup, one look at the meta for the Perth Regional Championships makes it very apparent that the deck was poised to make a deep run, and it is no surprise that Reiji Nishiguchi was able to make it to the Top 4. His deck list does look a bit different than Fernando Cifuentes’s deck list from August, so let’s take a look at his list first.
This concludes the public portion of this article.
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