With Beach (hopefully and most likely) getting rotated next season, it doesn't matter, and until another big draw Stadium comes into format, Empoleon is one of the best decks to play Beachless, in my opinion.
Empoleon Variants
- Thread starter Blah
- Start date
Empoleon WOULD be one of the best decks to play Beachless If it wasn't for Garbodor, why TPCi felt the need to reprint it in Legendary Treasures is beyond me. God forbid If we get a functional reprint of Tropical Beach that's a Worlds Invite Promo, that was the worst mistake TPCi has EVER made for the Pokemon TCG and it's been hurting the game since it's release. The big reason why Garbodor is seeing more play than usual is to help Basic decks have a solid counter against Pyroar not just for shutting down Stage 2 decks that spam abilities like Empoleon.
Remember how people complained about the format being warped around Pokemon Catcher before it got errated? Now the same thing is happening with Tropical Beach, with the exception of Basic decks that run Lasers w/Virbank most Stage 2 decks can't afford to go Beachless unless you're running Miltank/Butterfree. If you're running a Stage 2 deck (except Miltank/Butterfree) and you want to compete for Regionals, Nationals, Worlds, etc. you run 4 Skyla and 1-2 Beach otherwise you'll lose. The power gap between Basics and Stage 2's is too much because of the amount of setup required to keep up with the meta.
Remember how people complained about the format being warped around Pokemon Catcher before it got errated? Now the same thing is happening with Tropical Beach, with the exception of Basic decks that run Lasers w/Virbank most Stage 2 decks can't afford to go Beachless unless you're running Miltank/Butterfree. If you're running a Stage 2 deck (except Miltank/Butterfree) and you want to compete for Regionals, Nationals, Worlds, etc. you run 4 Skyla and 1-2 Beach otherwise you'll lose. The power gap between Basics and Stage 2's is too much because of the amount of setup required to keep up with the meta.
@Card Slinger J: If you would like to talk about Empoleon in the current Metagame, I would suggest posting in TCG Competitive Play, or in the Rogue Deck Discussion thread. Empoleon is more of a rogue deck, and doesn't really belong in the NXD-On Metagame thread.