Discussion Is Wailord-EX Viable?

bbninjas said:
The thing that I've heard from people who know the designers of the Wailord-EX deck is that you don't want to add any form of attackers/Energy as it messes up your deck's consistency. However, that isn't to say it is impossible.
Click to expand...
Actually, you have to run bunnelby and Flf durant to the deck. Durant makes it not a draw pass game and bunnebly is to mill when your opponent has few cards left in the deck.
 
Elbow said:
Many people played it this past weekend at cities. It is most certainly a viable deck as it took spots in top 16.
Click to expand...

Where?

I see one Top 8 finish over at The Charizard Lounge. That is for the 15+ bracket. Sometimes the younger age groups pull ahead of the Masters Division, but usually it is the other way around. If it is just the cut off point, where a bunch of Wailord-EX decks are making Top 9 through Top 16 then... how many people are playing them? Have we seen consistent week-to-week results. It is good that you looked at what actually happened instead of cruising on Theorymon, but there is a reason we don't chuck Theorymon; it isn't enough to know what happened, but we also need to know why and how.

As you can tell, I still remain skeptical. I am not a competitive player but seems like Wailord-EX is a difficult deck to run as most folks I did encounter using it didn't do so well.
 
Otaku said:
Where?

I see one Top 8 finish over at The Charizard Lounge. That is for the 15+ bracket. Sometimes the younger age groups pull ahead of the Masters Division, but usually it is the other way around. If it is just the cut off point, where a bunch of Wailord-EX decks are making Top 9 through Top 16 then... how many people are playing them? Have we seen consistent week-to-week results. It is good that you looked at what actually happened instead of cruising on Theorymon, but there is a reason we don't chuck Theorymon; it isn't enough to know what happened, but we also need to know why and how.

As you can tell, I still remain skeptical. I am not a competitive player but seems like Wailord-EX is a difficult deck to run as most folks I did encounter using it didn't do so well.
Click to expand...
It also got 1st place at France Regionals (or nats, but I think Regs). And I said top 16, which TCL does not post despite people having records of 5-2/6-2, which is very solid for states. I can only personally account for my own states, but other ones as well I had heard that Wailord was being played much more than usual. The thing about wailord is that in general it isn't a bad deck if no one is testing the newest variant of it. For example, it did well for 1/2 days at cities and then went away because it was then tested against after results came back in publicly. This was also the case at Nats where it came out of nowhere and then many Worlds decks ran Bunnelby to tech against Wailord. I think my wording of 'viable deck' was a little vague. I mean that it is a deck that deserves a tier, but can't be expected to be seen frequently week to week. It involves metagaming and knowing what won in prior weeks/tournaments.
Also IMHO Wailord is one of the most braindead decks to run in this format. As long as you know how much damage your opponent can do in a turn and what the cards in your hand do (AZ/Cassius/Max Potion/etc.) then it's easy to run. You don't have to worry about stadium wars, damage output, having enough energy, and all of the other problems a regular deck faces. All you have to do is pass.
 
Elbow said:
It also got 1st place at France Regionals (or nats, but I think Regs). And I said top 16, which TCL does not post despite people having records of 5-2/6-2, which is very solid for states. I can only personally account for my own states, but other ones as well I had heard that Wailord was being played much more than usual. The thing about wailord is that in general it isn't a bad deck if no one is testing the newest variant of it. For example, it did well for 1/2 days at cities and then went away because it was then tested against after results came back in publicly. This was also the case at Nats where it came out of nowhere and then many Worlds decks ran Bunnelby to tech against Wailord. I think my wording of 'viable deck' was a little vague. I mean that it is a deck that deserves a tier, but can't be expected to be seen frequently week to week. It involves metagaming and knowing what won in prior weeks/tournaments.
Also IMHO Wailord is one of the most braindead decks to run in this format. As long as you know how much damage your opponent can do in a turn and what the cards in your hand do (AZ/Cassius/Max Potion/etc.) then it's easy to run. You don't have to worry about stadium wars, damage output, having enough energy, and all of the other problems a regular deck faces. All you have to do is pass.
Click to expand...

Thanks for clarifying. I was unaware it did so well anyplace else.

Perhaps I define "viable" poorly. With respect to competitive play, I tend to read a bit more into it than the actual definition of "capable of working successfully; feasible." It might have been a long running misunderstanding or it might just be the usual instance where jargon almost contradicts (but not quite) the general usage of the term. So the short version (by my standards) is that when discussing a deck in this situation I am discussing how well it can win an event.

As you pointed out, Wailord-EX decks are more about your opponent losing than you winning. If your opponent knows what he or she is doing then it will mostly boil down to the various elements of luck in the game: what is drawn when, what is Prized, coin flips involved, etc. You still need to know what you are doing with it as playing it wrong will cost you the game, but playing it right seems like it does not carry you quite as far as some other decks.

I just really hate playing against it because while I want the pace of the game to be slowed, "Hurry and do nothing!" is not the same thing. XD
 
For those of you who don't know, Enrique Avila came runner up in last years US Nats with a unique deck that doesn't run any energy and just tries to stall your opponent out of energy, make them deck out and just frustrate them by healing all of your Wailords before they get KO'd. Do you guys think Wailord could still do as well as it did last year?

I am seriously considering running my own variation of Wailord for UK Nationals and I wanted to see what you guys thought.

Here's Enrique's genius deck http://www.pokemon.com/us/play-pokemon/nationals/2015/decks/masters/
 
Being that vespiquen would eat wailord alive, i would say play aegislash ex. That would counter vespiquen pretty well.
 
Vespiquen will use Hex Maniac to get around Aegislash. Wailord was only good because there were no Grass-type attackers. Not only does Vespiquen fit that role, but since Vespiquen doesn't even have to attach until it's ready to attack, he can set up at his leisure and then OHKO everything in the deck. Wailord is dead.
 
Latte1504 said:
Use ace trainer/N to take it out of their hand. If it's Vespiquen/Vileplume, they can only play one hex.
Click to expand...

You won't know it's in their hand until they play it. You're also assuming that Vespiquen needs Vileplume to beat Wailord. Wailord is stuck draw passing with the occasional hand disruption while Vespiquen sets up and attacks when he's good and ready.
 
In Standard Vespiquen / Vileplume is the only popular version of Vespiquen and it doesn't even play Hex Maniac. There are bigger issues.

Wailord isn't really played right now because:
  • It losses to Greninja.
  • Night March can beat it.
  • M Manectric-EX beats it.
  • The loss of Hugh really hurts and Durant is a weak replacement.
  • Bunnelby is played in some things.
  • It lost its surprise factor.
  • There is a slightly different version of VV running around that does play Basic Energy. It also plays Regirock and other cool stuff.
  • It can easily lose in top cut. Look at the finals of the last U.S. Nats for an example.
It definitely has the potential to do well in the right metagame or against the right matchups but in most areas it can't really shine right now.
 
Last edited:
One of the important things to remember is that some decks are more popular than they are effective. @Camoclone assures us that Vespiquen/Vileplume doesn't run Hex Maniac and is the only worthwhile Vespiquen build. On the other hand he also lists other problems for Wailord-EX decks.

I would just point out that when you play gimmick decks like this, they can fail simply because someone decided to just run [insert bad match-up]. Remember when Quad Sigilyph won the Southeast Asian Regionals in 2012? Maybe Tham Kennard was just being modest, but he pointed out how close he came to not making the Top 8 because of decks he faced that happened to either anticipate a deck like his or just naturally had some counters already.

So it just takes someone running Vespiquen in a slightly atypical manner (packing extra Hex Maniac, packing some basic Energy, Aegislash-EX being Prized or otherwise not showing up, etc.). If Wailord-EX had great match-ups across the board except for this one, maybe it wouldn't be worth considering but it doesn't so it is. ;)
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top