Blog Addressing the Bird in the Room — Yveltal's Impact on the Standard Meta

Awesome in-depth article. Thank you for explaining some of the nuances and ways to play the matchups, instead of just listing the odds of winning, as well as going through the skeleton list. I can't wait to build my Yveltal deck. I'm definitely going to be referring back to this!
 
Very informative article! I really enjoyed the fact that you went in-depth detail on all the common meta match ups. Even took it a step further and recommended cards to put in the open spots!

Keep up the awesome work!!! :D
 
Fantastic article! Even as a heavy, hard-core Yveltal player myself, I found a lot of your points illuminating, especially the tech-out section. I agree that Oblivion Wing Yveltal is surprisingly unnecessary these days, while EH despite being a little weird in a deck based on Evil Ball, undeniably works.
 
Thank you both! Curious @Jedithious - how many Enhanced Hammer are you choosing to run in your lists? I've been trying to decide between or two and I've been using Team Flare Grunt as well...what's it look like for you?
 
Serperior said:
Thank you both! Curious @Jedithious - how many Enhanced Hammer are you choosing to run in your lists? I've been trying to decide between or two and I've been using Team Flare Grunt as well...what's it look like for you?
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Personally, I've found 2 Enhanced Hammer to be indispensable. I've tested alot of different Yveltal variants this season, but whenever I've used lists that had less than 2 EH, I would often find myself losing to the likes of Rainbow Road, M Ray and even M Mewtwo. Thing is: Yveltal/Garbodor already easily wins against the decks that rely solely on basic Energy (Volcanion, Greninja, M Gardevoir...). So adding techs like Escape Rope or Reverse Valley only makes those already near slam-dunk matchups easier. But for the easy price of two tech slots, I've found that 2 EH outright brings up those matchups that are even-to-iffy all the way to favorable territory. I've tested using only 1 EH and I found the impact to be quite a bit less. Team Flare Grunt is great for similar reasons (as well as its impact in the mirror match). I also like Jirachi Promo to give myself an extra out to PlumeBox and M Ray. So for me at least, when it comes to Standard Yveltal, the more Energy disruption, the better.
 
Jirachi Promo was interesting until it was Prized or something I simply could not hit it at the right time. No doubt it's a cute tech, but it just dies to Greninja and Volcanion, arguably the two other top decks in the format. I like it against RaichuBats (which is starting to become a thing holy crap) and Bees/Zebstrika, but I feel like other than those matchups...it's kinda dead. Plus, they play Special Charge so the disruption isn't as hard-hitting as it used to be. Unless, of course you time a dirty N to one and they're left with nothing. Funny you mention PlumeBox, deck is completely dead around where I am. I also haven't hit any matchups against it online in some time, except maybe like once.
 
Serperior said:
Jirachi Promo was interesting until it was Prized or something I simply could not hit it at the right time. No doubt it's a cute tech, but it just dies to Greninja and Volcanion, arguably the two other top decks in the format. I like it against RaichuBats (which is starting to become a thing holy crap) and Bees/Zebstrika, but I feel like other than those matchups...it's kinda dead. Plus, they play Special Charge so the disruption isn't as hard-hitting as it used to be. Unless, of course you time a dirty N to one and they're left with nothing. Funny you mention PlumeBox, deck is completely dead around where I am. I also haven't hit any matchups against it online in some time, except maybe like once.
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After having played lot's of games with Jirachi in Yveltal/Garbodor, I can now completely agree with you. There are just way too many situations I've found myself in recently where I have a Max Elixir (or two) and a Sycamore in hand, and my only benched attacker is Jirachi. Or other situations where the deadness of Jirachi is harmful. I've recently replaced Jirachi with a Lugia-EX (My Pokemon line now stands at 3 Yveltal-EX, 1 Lugia-EX, 2 Yveltal BT, 2 Shaymin-EX, 2 Trubbish, and 2 Garbodor) and wow, what an improvement. You're right, Jirachi is almost always a dead card: theoretically nifty, but practically, pretty near incapable of changing the outcome of a given matchup. Yeah, it's true that PlumeBox is no longer a force in the Meta (even if it was, I've found Jirachi to be pretty useless in that matchup due to both the difficulty of drawing into it under item lock and cause of Magearna's Ability). But I feel that it's more because of the deck's high skill ceiling and the fact that a lot of players aren't patient enough with the deck rather than that it's not actually a good deck. PlumeBox is my second favorite deck in Standard (next to Yvel/Garb of course): It's surprisingly consistent and boasts good matchups across the field.
 
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