Diving Deep — Analyzing Complex Board States

PMJ

Silhouette Gloom of the Sundown Lands
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Hey PokeBeach readers, I hope your season has been off to a great start!
It is hard to believe we are already approaching the end of the first quarter of the season. I recently followed up my 2nd place finish at the Baltimore Regional Championships with a Top 8 at the Louisville Regional Championships! I played the exact same 60 card deck list at both tournaments, and was rewarded for continuing to put my faith in Lugia VSTAR!
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I actually wasn’t even planning on attending Louisville, but when more registration slots opened up I decided I should keep playing hot off of my Baltimore finish, and I’m very glad I did! If you want to read about my Lugia deck and it’s construction check out...

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Board one: dusknoir their dusclops and boss rotom after nest balling for a Pokemon(preferably duskull
 
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Board state 1: pop dusknoir to hit charizard, tjen use noctowl to get a recovery card, then buddy buddy to refill bench, knock out charizard, when it comes back to you, your opp likely knocked out your terapagos so they're at 1 prize, youre at 2, play ultra ball to either get noctowl and use it to get an 8th pokemon on the bench or just put another pokemon on the bench use quick search for double turbo energy, attach to terapagos, boss up rotom to win the game.
 
Board one: dusknoir their dusclops and boss rotom after nest balling for a Pokemon(preferably duskull
You would Dusknoir the Charmeleon, not the Dusclops. Dusknoir-ing the Dusclops leaves them a turn to evolve into Charizard ex, meaning you have to knock out a 2-prizer in the next turn to win. By popping the Charmeleon and boss'ing the Rotom, you make yourself Briar-proof, and they can't do anything about the vulnerable Dusclops.
 
Board state 1: pop dusknoir to hit charizard, tjen use noctowl to get a recovery card, then buddy buddy to refill bench, knock out charizard, when it comes back to you, your opp likely knocked out your terapagos so they're at 1 prize, youre at 2, play ultra ball to either get noctowl and use it to get an 8th pokemon on the bench or just put another pokemon on the bench use quick search for double turbo energy, attach to terapagos, boss up rotom to win the game.
This would be a mistake because you leave yourself open to Briar by being at 2.
 
You would Dusknoir the Charmeleon, not the Dusclops. Dusknoir-ing the Dusclops leaves them a turn to evolve into Charizard ex, meaning you have to knock out a 2-prizer in the next turn to win. By popping the Charmeleon and boss'ing the Rotom, you make yourself Briar-proof, and they can't do anything about the vulnerable Dusclops.
Exactly. They can't use dusk if you go to 1. In terapagos vs. zard it is essentially a race to 1 prize since you shut off dusk and briar. If you get to 1 prize in that matchup and your opponent has 3 or more, you seal the game.
 
1st Puzzle:
- Poffin for another Duskull
- Quick Search for DTE to attach to the Benched Terapagos
- Boss KO Dusclops

Briar + Cursed Blast + Counter/Prime Catcher wins next turn. They can do some combination of: bump your Stadium, disrupt your hand, and Defiance Band KO Pidgeot to give themselves the best chance to win.

I believe all other lines either lose to one of:
- Their own Briar
- Turo Rotom + evolve Charmeleon
- Poffin + Stadium bump to discard Rotom and anything with damage + evolve Charmeleon

If you know they can't Prime Catcher or bump the Stadium, there might also be a line with Pidgeot 𑄺𝘟 KO Dusclops because they can't Turo and gust.
 
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1st Puzzle:
- Poffin for another Duskull
- Quick Search for DTE to attach to the Benched Terapagos
- Boss KO Dusclops

Briar + Cursed Blast + Counter/Prime Catcher wins next turn. They can do some combination of: bump your Stadium, disrupt your hand, and Defiance Band KO Pidgeot to give themselves the best chance to win.

I believe all other lines either lose to one of:
- Their own Briar
- Turo + evolve Charmeleon
- Poffin + Stadium bump to discard Rotom and anything with damage + evolve Charmeleon

If you know they can't Prime Catcher or bump the Stadium, there might also be a line with Pidgeot 𑄺𝘟 KO Dusclops because they can't Turo and gust.
Ah, right. Turo evolve wasn't something I fully considered. My problem with that is turo evolve seems tough to pull off, while it seems pretty easy for your opponent to iono and mess you up while also easily finding counter catcher or collapsed. If they find iono/stamp and one of those things you might fall apart, especially because iono puts your noctowl on the bottom.
 
1st Puzzle:
- Poffin for another Duskull
- Quick Search for DTE to attach to the Benched Terapagos
- Boss KO Dusclops

Briar + Cursed Blast + Counter/Prime Catcher wins next turn. They can do some combination of: bump your Stadium, disrupt your hand, and Defiance Band KO Pidgeot to give themselves the best chance to win.

I believe all other lines either lose to one of:
- Their own Briar
- Turo Rotom + evolve Charmeleon
- Poffin + Stadium bump to discard Rotom and anything with damage + evolve Charmeleon

If you know they can't Prime Catcher or bump the Stadium, there might also be a line with Pidgeot 𑄺𝘟 KO Dusclops because they can't Turo and gust.
Just thought of another out to that. If they thorton rotom into dusk, then use dusk on hoothoot and ko they put themselves at 1 and you at 2, and you can't kill anything on their board except Charmeleon, which doesn't win the game since you have 2 prizes.
 
Board 1: Use Buddy Buddy Poffin to get a second Duskull set up. Use Pidgeot to search for DTE and attach it to the Second Terapagos. Then, use Boss on the opponent's Dusclops and knock it out. This makes it so that my opponent cannot win on their next turn, allows me to win on my next turn, and limits the ways in which my opponent can keep me from winning.
Oh nvm, someone else already said this before me 😓.
 
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Honest question: what defines a season, and how are quarters measured? I thought every new set release was a new “season” (at least for standard).
 
Can only see the first board like others I suspect, but I guess I would first quick search with pidgeot ex to see if any briar potentially in the deck is even present along with at least a rare candy and dusknoir or night switch; if it is, then grab briar, boss up their dusclops, bench another duskull with buddy poffin if it’s available, KO their dusclops and win next turn potentially. The only wrench in the plan potentially is if they Iono you down to 3 and take out your stadium, in which case you’ll need luck in trying to recover. This also assumes they feed into your bait of an easy prize KOing terapagos ex, they may well just take a 1 prizer and wait as well to see who blinks. Otherwise they can only take a maximum of 3 prizes.

If Briar is prized/not present I’d aim to dusknoir their pidgeot ex, drag it up with boss, buddy poffin 1-2 duskull to the bench, then KO the pidgeot ex with terapagos. Before that, Quick search out beforehand like a DTE to prepare for next turn, or night stretcher if dusknoirs aren’t present. If you can’t try to set up the whole 3 prize play with Briar, the next best option to me is to deny their way to search out their own potential Briar; sure they may have it in hand, but you’d be out regardless if you can’t Briar and take 2 prizes.

Last option would be to do as much damage by bossing up rotom ex, taking out charmeleon with dusknoir, then KOing the rotom ex, along with buddy poffin to get more duskulls benched. This stops them from using dusclops/noir and forces them to use Zard ex to KO something and hope you can’t turn your benched duskull into a dusknoir. Not viable if you don’t have any spare candies or ways to get another dusknoir out next turn.
 
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