Discussion Do All Expanded Decks Need Oricorio?

[JGB146]

I do reasonably well keeping up with the standard meta, but it seems likely that being good in expanded will become more and more necessary. To that end, I'm trying to up my game there. I often see people talking about Night March running wild in expanded (alongside Toads, Trev, Yveltal, etc).

Is it enough of an issue to run Oricorio in all of my expanded decks? For reference I'm currently running a fire box deck.

 

[uncleyuri]

It's not a terrible card to have even if you're not up against night march so I play it.

 

[FlavorfulPineApl]

Night March isn't as big as you think, but you did forget about Vespiquen; which as as much a threat as Night March is.

I don't want you to play it, as Vespi/Flareon is my favorite deck now that VespiPlume lost forest. But as advice, you should play it, because as @uncleyuri said, its decent even against something that isn't things that run from the discard pile.

 

[jessalakasam]

I personally prefer Karen over Oricorio personally, as it has a use if you aren't playing against March/Bees

 

[Alphahitman4]

Karen is the way to go because u can also reuse it with VS Seeker

 

[JGB146]

I personally prefer Karen over Oricorio personally, as it has a use if you aren't playing against March/Bees

I've heard over and over from interviews with Top players (most notably Rahul Reddy when talking about Vespiquen) that decent NM / Vespi players are pretty well equipped to deal with Karen. When he says that Oricorio is harder to deal with, I tend to listen.

 

[jessalakasam]

I've heard over and over from interviews with Top players (most notably Rahul Reddy when talking about Vespiquen) that decent NM / Vespi players are pretty well equipped to deal with Karen. When he says that Oricorio is harder to deal with, I tend to listen.

How would you pay around Karen? If you used most Ultra Balls/Compressors/Sycamores/Seekers you can't really come back

 

[FlavorfulPineApl]

How would you pay around Karen? If you used most Ultra Balls/Compressors/Sycamores/Seekers you can't really come back

That's why you don't overextend, you hit for the exact amount of damage you need.

 

[JGB146]

That's why you don't overextend, you hit for the exact amount of damage you need.

Given that you list Vespiquen as your favorite deck, would you agree that Oricorio is a stronger counter for Vespi and NM than Karen?

 

[jessalakasam]

That's why you don't overextend, you hit for the exact amount of damage you need.

It's hard to hit bigger numbers, like say Gardy's 230 without using tons of those items, that's 22 pokemon in Quen and 11 marchers plus a band/belt to hit that

 

[FlavorfulPineApl]

It's hard to hit bigger numbers, like say Gardy's 230 without using tons of those items, that's 22 pokemon in Quen and 11 marchers plus a band/belt to hit that

I've never seen Gardevoir in exapanded, and also, once you knock out one you can steamroll them from there. That is my past experiences with Mega/GX decks. I also run. copy of Super Rod to get back attackers if needed.

Given that you list Vespiquen as your favorite deck, would you agree that Oricorio is a stronger counter for Vespi and NM than Karen?

Oricorio, is definitely better, but all I've seen in expanded is Karen. I've seen 1 Oricorio, that's it. Oricorio is better than Karen though.

 

[josie0001]

It depends on the deck you're playing, of course - some decks actually want to play Karen as part of their strategy, like Eel Varients, so playing Karen over Oricorio in those decks is a no brainer. If you're playing a Fire Toolbox deck, you're probably packing several different EXs and GXs, so you probably don't have a great Night March or Vespi matchup as you're trading 2 prize attackers for 1 prize attackers (upping your counts of baby Volcs would definitely help this matchup, but that's for another post). I wouldn't run Karen in that particular case, because with Toolbox decks, you're trying to ditch unwanted attackers in your discard so you can keep your deck as thin and consistent as possible. The nice thing with Expanded too is you can more easily run tech Pokemon and just ditch them with Compressor when they're not needed. Which, incidentally, brings us to Oricorio's second biggest strength: being a one-energy attackers that can come down late and potentially win you games by sniping wounded Mons on the bench or piling a bunch of counters on a Shaymin (still played a lot in Expanded).

 

[JGB146]

It's hard to hit bigger numbers, like say Gardy's 230 without using tons of those items, that's 22 pokemon in Quen and 11 marchers plus a band/belt to hit that

I suck at Vespiquen and Night March, but in my mind the reasons you outline here are the reasons you would adjust your play in those matches to focus on outspeeding them, disrupting their setup, KOing alternate attackers, and pulling off 2HKOs.