pokemonjoe said:
Actually, I believe google was very open with the deck online. No one really knew about the final product until the minutes before worlds, but I think he shared earlier versions of the deck online.
google doesn't mind showing his decklist. His entire league knows about all of his decks and he'll share his builds with many of his friends. Most people laugh off his decks... because they usually kinda suck. Once he hits the sweet spot-deck, he's a seriously scary player. Until then, you can kinda ignore most of his decks.
I've worked personally with many of the great rogue players. The majority are very open with their decks. They want perfect decks. The surprise value will only carry you a short way to a victory. A strong, consistent deck will allow you to win. You, my friend, clearly don't understand the true competitive spirit of the game.
First off, you seem to be playing rogue for the sake of playing rogue... which is absolutely the wrong thing to do if you want to win. Play the best deck you have. Don't "be different" because you want to be different. Be different because it will bring you the win. Secondly, the majority of people have unique spins on popular decks. Trainer and Pokemon lines are often very unique in winning decks. They might have the same strategy as Xtrillion other people, but good players will often build their lines from the group up and win because of those lines. Many CMT players, for example, had 1 shaymin. I had 2. That was my unique spin to the CMT deck (along with other things), and it won me AT LEAST 4 games at regionals, 3 games at nationals, and 3 games at worlds.
You said that rogues often become meta... when they're good. The meta is a fluid thing that changes shape based on what's good. If a rogue is legitimately a good deck, it won't take long to become meta. That's most certainly true. If you want to play the best deck, go for it. If you are playing the best deck, it won't be unknown for very long. Even so, you always need second and third opinions on builds to be able to perfect any build.
You also said that there's a sense of astonishment when respected players flip up uncommon pokemon. That's... kinda... true, but I think you misunderstand why. Respected players are highly consistent and often choose the best deck option they have. When someone brings something unique, such as the Lafonte group with Mismagius at nats, we always have to wonder why. Did they make a blunder, or did they discover something that we never figured out? It is less a sense of astonishment than a sense of questioning. Tournament results will confirm or refute the pro players' decision to play this rogue deck. Often, players can have lapses in judgement, but other times, they've truly discovered something great. Good players focus on decks that can consistently win in the current metagame (the whole metagame... not just a subsection). Most of them, save a few, will not play something rogue for the sake of playing rogue.
tl;dr: Play the best deck you have. Don't play rogue just because you want to play rogue. Find a group of players that you can respect and have them critique your deck. Don't tell them to keep quiet... they'll talk if they want to talk. Your deck won't become popular unless you're important (which you aren't) or you win something with it. Either way, you'll remain relatively unknown for a while. If you think you've discovered something that will break the metagame, you're usually wrong... but sometimes you're right. Run a few gauntlets and make sure you're super well tested when playing rogue. Triple the amount of testing you're doing when playing rogue. Don't cling to your deck if it ends up failing.
Hope that helped
