I've read that at the championships this year people will have to compete in both the Standard and Expanded formats. By including the sets BW thru BW: Dragons Exhaulted in the Expanded format, what are the best of the additional cards that people will be able to use? It seems like the vast majority of cards in any given set aren't very useful, so I'm guessing that there's just a handful of cards that you'd considering adding to your Standard deck? Can anyone with knowledge of the metagame tell me what the gems are from the Expanded sets? Thanks!
Expanded Format, What Are the Best Cards?
- Thread starter michachu
- Start date
I'm sure there's others I'm not remembering, but let me make a list of the highlights as far as I can recall..
Dark Patch is a very influencial card for Expanded. It returns Yveltal to the amazing speed that it had last year. Coupled with Battle Compressor, this can make turn one Evil Balls very likely, allowing you to hit for massive damage in the early game. Despite M-Manectric hampering the deck's ubiquitous nature of the past, I can see a lot of people playing it in Expanded. Shadow Circle can also negate this weakness to an extent (it's not too hard for the opponent to play a different Stadium). This deck can also benefit from the return of Sableye DEX, which can recover Item cards and let them be used again.
Level and Heavy Ball also return, and were played in many decks in the past format. You can expect Metal decks to run a lot of Level Balls for pulling out Bronzor / Bronzong with else, as well as Aromatisse, Pyroar, or anything that plays Jirachi-EX.
The infamous Tropical Beach is playable in Expanded, but the pool of decks that rely heavily on it has decreased drastically. Stage 2s in general are not viable due to the prevelance of Seismitoad. Item lock hurts these too much. Still, the Beach could be seen in decks like Metal, Eels (see below), even Donphan for early game draw power.
Eelektrik NVI (Eels) proved to not be strong enough to win big at Regionals. However, the similar Metal deck seems pretty reliable, and with help from Battle Compress and VS Seeker, this deck could have what it takes (maybe). Time will tell.
Skyarrow Bridge gives free retreat to pretty much everything that's run in a Virizion/ Genesect deck. This card was definitely key to VirGen's massive success at Worlds, as well as the Expanded portion of fall Regionals.
Prism and Blend energies are helpful in both Aromatisse (well, not Blend for this) and Plasma decks, and contribute to their high versatility. In Aromatisse especially, having eight "wild card" energies in your deck makes it a lot more feasible to run non-Fairy attackers and not worry about Enhanced Hammer.
Dark Patch is a very influencial card for Expanded. It returns Yveltal to the amazing speed that it had last year. Coupled with Battle Compressor, this can make turn one Evil Balls very likely, allowing you to hit for massive damage in the early game. Despite M-Manectric hampering the deck's ubiquitous nature of the past, I can see a lot of people playing it in Expanded. Shadow Circle can also negate this weakness to an extent (it's not too hard for the opponent to play a different Stadium). This deck can also benefit from the return of Sableye DEX, which can recover Item cards and let them be used again.
Level and Heavy Ball also return, and were played in many decks in the past format. You can expect Metal decks to run a lot of Level Balls for pulling out Bronzor / Bronzong with else, as well as Aromatisse, Pyroar, or anything that plays Jirachi-EX.
The infamous Tropical Beach is playable in Expanded, but the pool of decks that rely heavily on it has decreased drastically. Stage 2s in general are not viable due to the prevelance of Seismitoad. Item lock hurts these too much. Still, the Beach could be seen in decks like Metal, Eels (see below), even Donphan for early game draw power.
Eelektrik NVI (Eels) proved to not be strong enough to win big at Regionals. However, the similar Metal deck seems pretty reliable, and with help from Battle Compress and VS Seeker, this deck could have what it takes (maybe). Time will tell.
Skyarrow Bridge gives free retreat to pretty much everything that's run in a Virizion/ Genesect deck. This card was definitely key to VirGen's massive success at Worlds, as well as the Expanded portion of fall Regionals.
Prism and Blend energies are helpful in both Aromatisse (well, not Blend for this) and Plasma decks, and contribute to their high versatility. In Aromatisse especially, having eight "wild card" energies in your deck makes it a lot more feasible to run non-Fairy attackers and not worry about Enhanced Hammer.
Durant Mill was a notable deck when HGSS was in the format. It relied on using Pichu (HS)'s Playground attack to rapidly fill the bench with Durant and start milling very quickly. I wouldn't expect to see it in Expanded though for a variety of reasons. That Pichu is out of the format, and there isn't anything currently legal that can substitute for it. There's technically other ways to work this, but there's so many ways to recycle things from the discard now, including Lysandre's Trump Card, which will render the Durant player's hard work all for naught.
My Little Keldeo said:
Yes, but that's assuming it has not been devoured yet.
Remember to stay on topic, guys... If LTC gets Devoured you can VS Seeker it back, js.
My Little Keldeo got pretty much every card. However, he did miss a few cards:
Tool Scrapper I think is the biggest one. It can get rid of Teal Flare Tools on your Pokemon, and if you're using it on your opponent, you don't have to discard Team Flare Tools you've played on their Pokemon. Much better than Megaphone in this format.
Accelgor DEX is still a deadly card. With Trevenant, the lock the form is truly deadly. Its only issue is still cards that prevent Special Conditions, which are big issues, but if you avoid them in Top Cut rounds, you should be good.
Super Rod is also a great card. Vir/Gen decks especially love to get those Energy back into the deck to Emerald Slash. Besides Lysandre's Trump Card, there's no other way to recover Energy in a similar way to Super Rod.
Some other random cards are Ho-Oh EX, Terrakion EX, Victini V-Create, Musharna NXD, and Roserade DRX.
My Little Keldeo got pretty much every card. However, he did miss a few cards:
Tool Scrapper I think is the biggest one. It can get rid of Teal Flare Tools on your Pokemon, and if you're using it on your opponent, you don't have to discard Team Flare Tools you've played on their Pokemon. Much better than Megaphone in this format.
Accelgor DEX is still a deadly card. With Trevenant, the lock the form is truly deadly. Its only issue is still cards that prevent Special Conditions, which are big issues, but if you avoid them in Top Cut rounds, you should be good.
Super Rod is also a great card. Vir/Gen decks especially love to get those Energy back into the deck to Emerald Slash. Besides Lysandre's Trump Card, there's no other way to recover Energy in a similar way to Super Rod.
Some other random cards are Ho-Oh EX, Terrakion EX, Victini V-Create, Musharna NXD, and Roserade DRX.
If it weren't for Garbador, Dragon Call Gabite could see some big plays.
...One card I see Metal Decks using quite a bit, though? I'm feeling like they may tech in an Experience Share or two; if you only have two Bronzong on bench, get your next attacker up sooner than later. That might just be me, though.
...One card I see Metal Decks using quite a bit, though? I'm feeling like they may tech in an Experience Share or two; if you only have two Bronzong on bench, get your next attacker up sooner than later. That might just be me, though.
There's also Tool Scrapper, which will allow you to attach Flare Tools and then discard everything else, unlike Megaphone.
Super Rod was the most reliable card to recycle Pokemon & Energy, although some people might leave it out in favor of a LysandreTC.
And for the few brave people that go for PlasmaKlang Metal decks, there's the Shift Gear Klinklang.
Super Rod was the most reliable card to recycle Pokemon & Energy, although some people might leave it out in favor of a LysandreTC.
And for the few brave people that go for PlasmaKlang Metal decks, there's the Shift Gear Klinklang.
Ho-Oh becomes insane with Battle Compressor and you can easily tech it out to handle nearly every matchup. Accelgor has always been ridiculously good. You can run it with Flareon or Sigilpyhs/Robo Sub to handle VirGen. Apparently Donphan/Accelgor also works. Accelgor handles Seismitoad and Yveltal decently well.
Well I only own a few cards from dragons exalated through black and white and the only one I would ever consider using from my collection is Registeel EX because if it's on the bench it can be charged up in two turns by either a Bronzong from phantom forces but 2 metal energy would need to be In the discard pile for it to work or just a double colourless energy and a metal