where’s the best place to see what’s being played in expanded nowadays? What are your guys opinion of some of the better decks in the format? It’s been awhile since I’ve played. Last question does zoroark gx still see play in expanded? Thanks guys
Help Looking to get back into expanded
- Thread starter Justin Lamont
- Start date
Your current Tier 1 is this:
Pikachu & Zekrom-GX
Turbo Dark
Archie's Blastoise w/ Espeon & Deoxys-GX
Zoroark-GX / Garbodor
Shock Lock (although I think it's going to fade out soon)
Zoroark-GX is still very played. Zoroark-GX with eithe rGarbodor or Seismitoad-EX are still legitimate contenders.
The only big wildcard right now is Mewtwo & Mew-GX-centric decks. There's next to no play of them on Youtube or mention anywhere other than a bunch of hype surrounding it--of which I think is people seeing how it did at Worlds and thinking it'll take over Expanded.
Thanks for the reply! I assume turbo dark is ran with Greninja and Zoroark tag team? Also do you have a deck list for those 2 zoroark gx decks? This helps a ton
To be honest before I reached out I was thinking a deck built around Mew & Mewtwo gx, Zoroark gx and seismitoad might be something to play around with. Do those Zoroark gx decks still use skyfield?
I’m interested in what Espeon &Deoxys-GX does for Archie’s. Is it obvious and I just don’t see it?
You can get Cross Divide to work on your T1. As opposed to building for a Towering Splash GX that takes at least 3 turns.
Which means you get to totally kill setup-reliant decks or single prize attacking decks.
Notably, it can really hurt Stoutland Shock Lock to the point that if you can do it on your first turn, you win. How consistent you can Cross Divide GX T1? I don’t know the percentages. But I’ve heard some early numbers and it sounds scary enough.
The toad is really just a t1 stall in my mewmew deck, and I've actually swapped it for noivern gx
i would disagree with this, expanded meta is hard to define and it is usually based around hype and what youtubers are coivering. archiestoise and turbodark are strong decks, but with all the hype and coverage on them people will purposley be trying to beat them making them worse options. you're unlikely to find shock lock in swiss and reshizard is arguably better than pikarom. ability lock will probably be widely played to counter mew3 and zorotoad/garb and shock lock will probably be worse because of how popular archiestoise is poised to be. is it just me or does buzzwole seem like a good play for expanded?
Lot to unpack. Here we go!
Disagree. There is a definite tier-1 right now and it's hardly being manipulated by Youtubers. People saw the writing on the wall when Greninja & Zoroark-GX came out in Unbroken Bonds. Archies new upgrades came before the set dropped and people knew it would be good. If you know what to look for in Expanded, the tier-1 is easy to figure out.
Fighting-types decks are the new rogue aggro option. Hitmonchan / Wobbuffet seems to be the current go-to option, and baby Buzzwole packs a massive punch against things like Turbo Dark and Zoroark variants. I wouldn't count either of those decks out.
As far as Cup results since I posted my prediction, any time it showed up for a Cup, it has either won, or got REALLY close. It's still alive and kicking.
I knew Pikachu & Zekrkom-GX would suffer a bit with the likes of Mewtwo & Mew-GX decks and Turbo Dark; like, lower edge of tier-1. But I didn't expect it to drop off the map. It has made 0 Top 8 spots in any cups, and with Fighting Weakness, I don't see it coming back.
ReshiZard has made two Top 8 spots. One was Top 2, and the other was Top 4. Both used Welder as the only Supporter and Random Receiver to retrieve it. It's a decent aggro deck, but absolutely DIES to anything control based as well as virtually auto-loses to Archies. It's decent--like tier-2 decent-- but it's the most middle-of-the-road tier-2 deck in Expanded. I see a lot of Standard transplants using it, but it'll get fried in larger events.
Zoroark-GX / Garbodor is still a good tier-1 pick, but not at the popularity of Archies, Mewtwo & Mew-GX, and Turbo Dark. But you can never go wrong with Ability lock in a wide field of viable decks. At this point, the Ability lock helps, but I think you have to adjust the deck if you're expecting Mewtwo & Mew-GX / Vileplume.
I think Zoro Garb will be a good Regional pick, as will Shock Lock. Archies is good, but it's the only tier-1 deck using Mewtwo & Mew-GX without Jirachi-GX to erase it's Weakness, so it definitely has some gaps in it. It's a good pick, but far from this overwheming wave thats impossible to deal with.
Buzzwole is a good play. But it's like "rogue territory" at this point. If you think your Regional/Cup/Challenge meta is going to be saturated in fighting and psychic weak stuff (because it's usually paired with Garbodor/other stuff like UB box), then go for it. But do not count Fighting out yet.
Oh, and the new rule change is going to jack up Expanded
Disagree. There is a definite tier-1 right now and it's hardly being manipulated by Youtubers. People saw the writing on the wall when Greninja & Zoroark-GX came out in Unbroken Bonds. Archies new upgrades came before the set dropped and people knew it would be good. If you know what to look for in Expanded, the tier-1 is easy to figure out.
Fighting-types decks are the new rogue aggro option. Hitmonchan / Wobbuffet seems to be the current go-to option, and baby Buzzwole packs a massive punch against things like Turbo Dark and Zoroark variants. I wouldn't count either of those decks out.
As far as Cup results since I posted my prediction, any time it showed up for a Cup, it has either won, or got REALLY close. It's still alive and kicking.
I knew Pikachu & Zekrkom-GX would suffer a bit with the likes of Mewtwo & Mew-GX decks and Turbo Dark; like, lower edge of tier-1. But I didn't expect it to drop off the map. It has made 0 Top 8 spots in any cups, and with Fighting Weakness, I don't see it coming back.
ReshiZard has made two Top 8 spots. One was Top 2, and the other was Top 4. Both used Welder as the only Supporter and Random Receiver to retrieve it. It's a decent aggro deck, but absolutely DIES to anything control based as well as virtually auto-loses to Archies. It's decent--like tier-2 decent-- but it's the most middle-of-the-road tier-2 deck in Expanded. I see a lot of Standard transplants using it, but it'll get fried in larger events.
Zoroark-GX / Garbodor is still a good tier-1 pick, but not at the popularity of Archies, Mewtwo & Mew-GX, and Turbo Dark. But you can never go wrong with Ability lock in a wide field of viable decks. At this point, the Ability lock helps, but I think you have to adjust the deck if you're expecting Mewtwo & Mew-GX / Vileplume.
I think Zoro Garb will be a good Regional pick, as will Shock Lock. Archies is good, but it's the only tier-1 deck using Mewtwo & Mew-GX without Jirachi-GX to erase it's Weakness, so it definitely has some gaps in it. It's a good pick, but far from this overwheming wave thats impossible to deal with.
Buzzwole is a good play. But it's like "rogue territory" at this point. If you think your Regional/Cup/Challenge meta is going to be saturated in fighting and psychic weak stuff (because it's usually paired with Garbodor/other stuff like UB box), then go for it. But do not count Fighting out yet.
Oh, and the new rule change is going to jack up Expanded
On november 29th
How do we know this is coming overseas.
tropical beach
why would it not?
What about Beach?
Its hard to get, so not many people will play shock lock. KOSL lol
and its expensive
We don't...yet. But with the rumors of Japan syning with the rest of the world, this sort of change seems inevitable. Not an if, more of a "when".
In a Regional, Stoutland Shock Lock will make up about 1% or less of the meta populace. While it's not seen in big numbers, it is DEFINITELY taking advantage of predictable opponents and predictable patterns--like what all control decks do.
If your goal is to go REALLY high up in a Regional, you must take Shock Lock into consideration--and there are ZERO conventional tools you can use to beat them, it's either your deck naturally beats it (Item lock or Ability lock) or it naturally loses to it. There is no "one tech" that beats them, and they know this, and that's part of the deck's appeal.
As far as the meta goes right now, Zoro Garb saw a lot of play during August, but is waning a bit in recent play, so Ability lock is going down a bit. Wobbuffet is being played in some builds, but not en masse.
The only good Item lock is Mewtwo & Mew-GX / Vileplume and that shuts down Shock Lock. And that should be scary.
Looking at last season, Shock Lock went into 3 back-to-back Regionals knowing Zoro Garb AND Zoro Toad AND Trevenant were plays that could kill it and it made Top 8 twice and Top 4 once--by the same player and hardly a change in the decks construction.
The deck, its matchup spread, and the dynamics of Tropical Beach in the meta is a pretty neat thing to look at and analyze.
But if you have access to 4 Tropical Beach, Shock Lock should ABSOLUTELY be a top deck consideration because the meta right now is a serious control playground.
Would Mewtwo & Mew-GX DCE box not be good? It can Item lock with Quaking Punch, use Full Metal Wall to discard Energy, use Turbo Strike to get back Energy/do decent damage, Riotous Beating for high damage with Sky Field, Psychic Infinity for high-energy punish, and Unfair-GX to be unfair. With Dimension Valley, you have even greater options, from Power Cyclone to do damage & conserve energy, Lost Purge to yeet something out of existence, Destructive Cyclone GX for an essentially better Full Metal Wall GX, Stinger if you are feeling risky, Black Ray GX (Though you don’t need Mewtwo & Mew-GX for that), the entirety of Drampa GX, Emerald Break for 150, Ice Path GX, Magical Symphony, and alllllllllllll that. I think a plain DCE box even without Dimension Valley can work. Quaking Punch has obvious use, while you could be playing either Sky Field with whatever supporting you on the Bench (but mainly so Riotous Beating can hit higher), Parallel City because it is the most epic stadium card ever made, or Virbank in tandem with Koga’s Trap and/or Hypnotoxic Laser with possibly Sevipers to up the damage count more. Fighting Fury Belt is the obvious Tool of choice, letting you sport a nice 310 HP. A Pikarom that has already used it’s GX attack with 6 Energy dies to Psychic Infinity, while one that used it via Thunder Mountain does not, so watch out for that. Psychic Infinity is a little weird in the first place, since imo that works better outside of disruption and better with Energy acceleration. It’s basically a bigger, beefier toad at this point too. It has 90 more HP and can do a whole lot more, in exchange for taking a worse MU vs decks that can hit a Psychic weakness and decks with Ability lock.
im in seniors so its not like anybody has over 600 dollars to spend on tropical beaches, but zorogarb is my top pick right now. the only matchup i'm really concerned about is archiestoise. and zorogarbs wins against shock lock so...
Seniors (ans Juniors) is a different story then!
That said, I still wouldn't count the possibility out. My 1st round opponent at Dallas this year had a son in Juniors that was using his 4 Tropical Beach in a Beached Whales deck.
There are ways to beat Archies with Zoro Garb, but it depends on how serious you consider Archies a threat.