Hello fellow Beachbums,
Last month, I gave you my data on what I experienced in the first month of the new rotation. Well, it's time to update that and let you know what I've come cross in the 2nd month of the rotation.
And boy how things changed.
Before we dig into it, please be aware that I only play TCG online, and I'm sure that there are differences between online and reality.
Also, I measure deck performance as well as wins and losses. Obviously, we all know we can have a great match and still wind up on the wrong side of the decision (although the opposite seems to rarely occur!). When I mention that a deck had a good performance, that means that it drew well, was consistent, took several prize cards, and was competitive at least in part the match.
I played 457 matches in the month of October. 51% of the time, my decks had a good or better performance. This is down from last month when I was at 53%. I think I can attribute this to trying out several new decks, some of which failed miserably (I tried a Trevenant Break, Aegislash combo that had 1 win in 12 matches). I played 32 different decks in October, twice as many as the 16 I played in September.
My opponents' decks had a good or better performance against me 39% of the time. This is down from 43% last month. I'll get to this a little later, but this is emblematic of the mystery I'm experiencing this month: I just don't know why some of the decks that did so well in September did so much worse in October.
54% of the decks I faced played special energy. 55% of the decks that performed good or better against me used special energy. What is definitely worth noting is that last month, the good performing deck number was 64%. The list of most common pokemon I faced is below, all I can say is that most of the Greninja decks did not use Splash Energy, Mega Gardevoir, Typhlosion, and Volcanion don't use special energy either. Other than that, I don't really have an explanation why the good performing number dropped so significantly.
63% of decks I faced (67% of good performing decks) used a pokemon with an ability OTHER than Shaymin, Hoopa EX, and Talonflame (I eliminate these pokemon because they usually are played before Garbodor can come into play). This is again much different than last month when 78% of all decks (83% of good performing decks) used at least 1 pokemon with an ability. Again, I don't really have an explanation for this. Gardevoir, Mewtwo, and Typhlosion were 3 of my 5 most common opponents, and Gardevoir and Typhlosion never used a pokemon with an ability, and I only rarely saw Garbodor with Mewtwo.
Just a quick note on that: I have heard that at competitive, real life tournaments, Garbodor can frequently be found. In my experience with PTCGO, I only come across him about 5% of the time, barely once in every 20 matches.
The most common pokemon that I encountered this month and the number of times I played them:
Greninja Break 35
M Gardevoir EX 34
M Mewtwo EX 34
Yveltal 24
Typhlosion 23
Volcanion 21
Darkrai EX 21
M Rayquaza EX 21
Yveltal EX 20
Xerneas 17
Volcanion EX 17
Regice 17
Giratina EX 16
Zoroark 16
M Scizor EX 16
Lugia 15
Rainbow Road 14
Mew EX 13
M Alakazam EX 12
Raichu 11
Glaceon EX 10
Yanmega Break 10
Lugia EX 10
Garchomp 10
The first thing I will note is that if you take out Greninja, I won 59% of the matches I played against the other top 5 most common pokemon. In the aggregate, I think that tells a little bit of the story as to why my opponent deck performance overall decreased significantly between September and October: overall, I just didn't play as many good decks in October.
Obviously, these are a little distorted as Volcanion EX was unavailable for almost half the month. I would have expected Volcanion to be up in the high 20's and Rainbow Road to be at least at 20 had big daddy Volcanion been available.
Now for what you've been waiting for: what decks did the best against me? That's where things get really crazy.
Last month it was pretty clear. Here's the link to what I posted last month:
http://www.pokebeach.com/forums/thr...mon-for-the-new-rotation.135275/#post-2830948
It was very easy to see Volcanion, Darkrai EX, and Mega Ray were the three top tier decks. Rainbow Road and Yanmega Break were doing well, and Gardevoir, Scizor, and M Mewtwo were ok but probably not tier 1 quality.
There is only 1 deck that consistently won against me in October, and it's not on the list above: Greninja Break.
Greninja Break: I was 13 wins and 7 losses against it in September, and I had written it off with the rotating out of the Shuriken Greninja. However, I realized around the middle of October that it was doing really well against me. I looked at my data and saw that I had lost 14 out 15 matches against it in October. That's when I built my own Greninja deck, and my deck went 21-8 (72%) over the second half of the month. Greninja decks overall went 26-9 (74% - no deck was better) against me in October, and there is no doubt in my mind that it has reestablished itself as a top tier deck.
Beyond that, I am completely at a loss to explain why so many of the top decks in September had significantly less effective performances in October. For example, Darkrai EX was 13-3 against me in September. In October, it was 12-9. I knew it would come down some from the 81% in September, but I didn't think it would drop to 57%.
It's the same with Volcanion and Mega Ray. Volcanion actually fell to 8-13 (38%)against me, but I have an explanation for that. Flareon by far is the best partner with Volcanion, but I only came across that duo 3 times in those 21 matches, and I lost all three of those matches. My Flareon Volcanion deck won 43 out of 61 matches (71%).
Mega Ray fell from 80% in September to 52% (11-10) in October. I don't have an explanation for that, but my Mega Ray deck has won 75% of the matches I've played with it. Maybe I need a better way to track it, because I know from experience that the decks that are loaded with Shaymins and Hoopas frequently hit for 240 turn two. Mega Ray is extremely fast and is one of the hardest hitting decks in the meta. Like I said, my Mega Ray wins 3 out of 4 matches; I can't explain why my opponents' win percentage is so much lower.
Other than Greninja Break, the other two decks that stood out in October were Machamp EX and Yanmega Break. I didn't encounter either of these decks very often, but they did very well against me. Machamp won 5 of 7 matches against me, but that's a very small sample size. Yanmega beat me 7 of the 10 times we went up against each other (Vespiquen was paired with it only 3 of the 10 times). I will definitely be looking at my own versions of these decks in November to see if they can maintain this level of success.
Another newcomer (sort of) was Mew EX. I came across Mew EX 13 times and it won 9 of the 13 matches. It had no consistent partner - it was splashed into several different decks - it obviously can't be a deck unto itself. It's a great way to add another attacker to a deck that needs help getting attackers out (for example, Talonflame or Garchomp). I actually run it in my Mega Ray deck. It definitely helps me when I can't find spirit links or one of my Megas is prized.
Rainbow Road went 9-5 against me (64%), and Scizor has still also done well against me with a 10-6 record in October. I think a lot of people have hopped off the Scizor bandwagon, but I wouldn't write that Pokemon off quite yet. My Rainbow Road went 65% (32-17) overall, but it was 30-10 (75%) after I adopted the list that I found on Poke Fam's youtube channel.
So I would just basically say that the waters are a lot muddier than they were a month ago.
I think that Mega Ray, Volcanion, Greninja, and Rainbow Road are the top tier decks.
In my opinion, Mega Ray is the easiest to play, fastest to set up, and can 1 shot anything in the game.
I think Scizor, Yanmega, and Darkrai are good as well, but probably not the same level as the first three.
However, this is just my opinion at this point, and I don't have good data supporting this. It'll be very interesting to see where the meta goes in November, especially with how some of the new cards from Evolutions will impact it.
Last month, I gave you my data on what I experienced in the first month of the new rotation. Well, it's time to update that and let you know what I've come cross in the 2nd month of the rotation.
And boy how things changed.
Before we dig into it, please be aware that I only play TCG online, and I'm sure that there are differences between online and reality.
Also, I measure deck performance as well as wins and losses. Obviously, we all know we can have a great match and still wind up on the wrong side of the decision (although the opposite seems to rarely occur!). When I mention that a deck had a good performance, that means that it drew well, was consistent, took several prize cards, and was competitive at least in part the match.
I played 457 matches in the month of October. 51% of the time, my decks had a good or better performance. This is down from last month when I was at 53%. I think I can attribute this to trying out several new decks, some of which failed miserably (I tried a Trevenant Break, Aegislash combo that had 1 win in 12 matches). I played 32 different decks in October, twice as many as the 16 I played in September.
My opponents' decks had a good or better performance against me 39% of the time. This is down from 43% last month. I'll get to this a little later, but this is emblematic of the mystery I'm experiencing this month: I just don't know why some of the decks that did so well in September did so much worse in October.
54% of the decks I faced played special energy. 55% of the decks that performed good or better against me used special energy. What is definitely worth noting is that last month, the good performing deck number was 64%. The list of most common pokemon I faced is below, all I can say is that most of the Greninja decks did not use Splash Energy, Mega Gardevoir, Typhlosion, and Volcanion don't use special energy either. Other than that, I don't really have an explanation why the good performing number dropped so significantly.
63% of decks I faced (67% of good performing decks) used a pokemon with an ability OTHER than Shaymin, Hoopa EX, and Talonflame (I eliminate these pokemon because they usually are played before Garbodor can come into play). This is again much different than last month when 78% of all decks (83% of good performing decks) used at least 1 pokemon with an ability. Again, I don't really have an explanation for this. Gardevoir, Mewtwo, and Typhlosion were 3 of my 5 most common opponents, and Gardevoir and Typhlosion never used a pokemon with an ability, and I only rarely saw Garbodor with Mewtwo.
Just a quick note on that: I have heard that at competitive, real life tournaments, Garbodor can frequently be found. In my experience with PTCGO, I only come across him about 5% of the time, barely once in every 20 matches.
The most common pokemon that I encountered this month and the number of times I played them:
Greninja Break 35
M Gardevoir EX 34
M Mewtwo EX 34
Yveltal 24
Typhlosion 23
Volcanion 21
Darkrai EX 21
M Rayquaza EX 21
Yveltal EX 20
Xerneas 17
Volcanion EX 17
Regice 17
Giratina EX 16
Zoroark 16
M Scizor EX 16
Lugia 15
Rainbow Road 14
Mew EX 13
M Alakazam EX 12
Raichu 11
Glaceon EX 10
Yanmega Break 10
Lugia EX 10
Garchomp 10
The first thing I will note is that if you take out Greninja, I won 59% of the matches I played against the other top 5 most common pokemon. In the aggregate, I think that tells a little bit of the story as to why my opponent deck performance overall decreased significantly between September and October: overall, I just didn't play as many good decks in October.
Obviously, these are a little distorted as Volcanion EX was unavailable for almost half the month. I would have expected Volcanion to be up in the high 20's and Rainbow Road to be at least at 20 had big daddy Volcanion been available.
Now for what you've been waiting for: what decks did the best against me? That's where things get really crazy.
Last month it was pretty clear. Here's the link to what I posted last month:
http://www.pokebeach.com/forums/thr...mon-for-the-new-rotation.135275/#post-2830948
It was very easy to see Volcanion, Darkrai EX, and Mega Ray were the three top tier decks. Rainbow Road and Yanmega Break were doing well, and Gardevoir, Scizor, and M Mewtwo were ok but probably not tier 1 quality.
There is only 1 deck that consistently won against me in October, and it's not on the list above: Greninja Break.
Greninja Break: I was 13 wins and 7 losses against it in September, and I had written it off with the rotating out of the Shuriken Greninja. However, I realized around the middle of October that it was doing really well against me. I looked at my data and saw that I had lost 14 out 15 matches against it in October. That's when I built my own Greninja deck, and my deck went 21-8 (72%) over the second half of the month. Greninja decks overall went 26-9 (74% - no deck was better) against me in October, and there is no doubt in my mind that it has reestablished itself as a top tier deck.
Beyond that, I am completely at a loss to explain why so many of the top decks in September had significantly less effective performances in October. For example, Darkrai EX was 13-3 against me in September. In October, it was 12-9. I knew it would come down some from the 81% in September, but I didn't think it would drop to 57%.
It's the same with Volcanion and Mega Ray. Volcanion actually fell to 8-13 (38%)against me, but I have an explanation for that. Flareon by far is the best partner with Volcanion, but I only came across that duo 3 times in those 21 matches, and I lost all three of those matches. My Flareon Volcanion deck won 43 out of 61 matches (71%).
Mega Ray fell from 80% in September to 52% (11-10) in October. I don't have an explanation for that, but my Mega Ray deck has won 75% of the matches I've played with it. Maybe I need a better way to track it, because I know from experience that the decks that are loaded with Shaymins and Hoopas frequently hit for 240 turn two. Mega Ray is extremely fast and is one of the hardest hitting decks in the meta. Like I said, my Mega Ray wins 3 out of 4 matches; I can't explain why my opponents' win percentage is so much lower.
Other than Greninja Break, the other two decks that stood out in October were Machamp EX and Yanmega Break. I didn't encounter either of these decks very often, but they did very well against me. Machamp won 5 of 7 matches against me, but that's a very small sample size. Yanmega beat me 7 of the 10 times we went up against each other (Vespiquen was paired with it only 3 of the 10 times). I will definitely be looking at my own versions of these decks in November to see if they can maintain this level of success.
Another newcomer (sort of) was Mew EX. I came across Mew EX 13 times and it won 9 of the 13 matches. It had no consistent partner - it was splashed into several different decks - it obviously can't be a deck unto itself. It's a great way to add another attacker to a deck that needs help getting attackers out (for example, Talonflame or Garchomp). I actually run it in my Mega Ray deck. It definitely helps me when I can't find spirit links or one of my Megas is prized.
Rainbow Road went 9-5 against me (64%), and Scizor has still also done well against me with a 10-6 record in October. I think a lot of people have hopped off the Scizor bandwagon, but I wouldn't write that Pokemon off quite yet. My Rainbow Road went 65% (32-17) overall, but it was 30-10 (75%) after I adopted the list that I found on Poke Fam's youtube channel.
So I would just basically say that the waters are a lot muddier than they were a month ago.
I think that Mega Ray, Volcanion, Greninja, and Rainbow Road are the top tier decks.
In my opinion, Mega Ray is the easiest to play, fastest to set up, and can 1 shot anything in the game.
I think Scizor, Yanmega, and Darkrai are good as well, but probably not the same level as the first three.
However, this is just my opinion at this point, and I don't have good data supporting this. It'll be very interesting to see where the meta goes in November, especially with how some of the new cards from Evolutions will impact it.
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