Happy New Year Beachbums! Here’s my data analysis for December and rotation to date.
In case you don’t know, please be aware that I only play TCG online, and I'm sure that there are differences between online and reality.
I played 554 matches in the month of December. I won 54% of those matches (297 – 257). I only played 18 different decks this month, and more than half of them were two decks (200 matches with Yveltal and 109 matches with Rainbow Road). I made a conscious effort to play A LOT of Yveltal. I really wanted to play one deck and see how my opinion of it changed after so many matches. I’ll say that after about 65 matches, I felt that I had a good idea of what challenges I was having with the deck, and I significantly improved my win percentage after making adjustments. So I guess my takeaway from that is to focus more on fewer decks and be patient. It was difficult to play the 65 matches and struggle, but I kept notes on every match and had a very clear roadmap of what I needed to do to improve the deck.
But I don’t want to make this all about my month with Yveltal (that might be for another posting). Continuing on to the hard and fast data, opponents ran energy disruption cards (specifically, Crushing Hammmers, Enhanced Hammers, and Team Flare Grunt) in their decks 21% of the time (116 out of 554). As you might expect, my win percentage was better against decks that did not carry energy disruption cards than those decks that did. I won 54.1% of the matches against decks without disruption versus 51.7% against those that did. Guess it’s time to start teching in the hammers more.
As far as special energy, my opponents ran special energy 63% of the time. This has been a very interesting trend to watch: in September and October, my opponents ran special energy 54% of the time. In November and December, that jumped by almost 10% to 63%.
And here’s the real kicker: I lost almost 54% of the matches I played against decks that ran special energy. It was about a 50 50 split for the three months prior, but I really struggled against decks with special energy in December. I don’t know if it was because I played so much Yveltal and Rainbow Road, but it’s a huge issue for me personally. You can bet I’m teching in Enhanced Hammers into my decks next month.
Opponents played pokemon with abilities other than Shaymin, Hoopa, and Talonflame 76% of the time in December. This is consistent with September (77%) and November (75%). Not sure what happened in October (64%), but it appears to be an irregularity.
The most common pokemon I saw in December:
Garbodor _ 70
Volcanion EX _ 51
Octillery _ 51
Volcanion _ 47
M Mewtwo EX _ 45
Yveltal _ 38
Yveltal EX _ 37
Greninja Break _ 37
Rainbow Road _ 28
Darkrai EX _ 25
Manaphy EX _ 24
M Gardevoir EX _ 23
Regice _ 22
Ariados _ 21
Talonflame _ 21
Giratina EX _ 20
Yanmega Break _ 17
Lugia EX _ 17
Dragonite EX _ 17
Carbink Break _ 16
Jolteon EX _ 16
Typhlosion _ 16
M Rayquaza EX _ 16
Vespiquen _ 15
M Scizor EX _ 15
Unown _ 14
Raikou _ 14
Glaceon EX _ 14
Zoroark _ 14
Mew EX _ 14
Mew _ 14
Raichu _ 12
M Glalie EX _ 11
M Sceptile EX _ 11
Jirachi _ 11
Xerneas Break _ 11
Flareon EX _ 10
Vileplume _ 10
Magearna EX _ 10
Garbodor again (to no one’s surprise I’m sure) is the MPP (Most Popular Pokemon). I’m a little surprised that Volcanion and M Mewtwo are still more common than Yveltal, but maybe it’s just me.
So keeping in mind that I played 200 matches with Yveltal and 109 matches with Rainbow Road, here are the major decks and their record against me (W _ Total _ Pct):
Jolteon EX _ 13 _ 16 _ 81%
Glaceon EX _ 11 _ 14 _ 79%
Garbodor _ 49 _ 70 _ 70%
Greninja Break _ 25 _ 37 _ 68%
M Mewtwo EX _ 30 _ 45 _ 67%
Yveltal _ 25 _ 38 _ 66%
Darkrai EX _ 14 _ 25 _ 56%
Regice _ 12 _ 22 _ 55%
Rainbow Road _ 15 _ 28 _ 54%
Volcanion _ 23 _ 47 _ 49%
Yanmega Vespiquen _ 8 _ 17 _ 47%
M Scizor EX _ 7 _ 15 _ 47%
M Rayquaza EX _ 7 _ 16 _ 44%
M Gardevoir EX _ 7 _ 23 _ 30%
Honorable mention goes to Starmie (6 _ 7 _ 86%), Salamence EX (5 _ 6 _ 83%), and Houndoom EX (4 _ 5 _ 80%) for good performances but in too limited sample sizes to be included with the above decks.
Jolteon is not surprising considering the types of decks I’m playing, and Glaceon was probably teched in with him in many of those decks. What surprised me was that Mewtwo got good again, although maybe I should have seen this coming after his improvement to 57% last month. At any rate, M Mewtwo definitely appears to be arrow pointing up.
So that’s how everything stacks up. Hopefully this provides you with something to think about. Let me know if you have seen similarities or if something here strikes you as being odd.
In case you don’t know, please be aware that I only play TCG online, and I'm sure that there are differences between online and reality.
I played 554 matches in the month of December. I won 54% of those matches (297 – 257). I only played 18 different decks this month, and more than half of them were two decks (200 matches with Yveltal and 109 matches with Rainbow Road). I made a conscious effort to play A LOT of Yveltal. I really wanted to play one deck and see how my opinion of it changed after so many matches. I’ll say that after about 65 matches, I felt that I had a good idea of what challenges I was having with the deck, and I significantly improved my win percentage after making adjustments. So I guess my takeaway from that is to focus more on fewer decks and be patient. It was difficult to play the 65 matches and struggle, but I kept notes on every match and had a very clear roadmap of what I needed to do to improve the deck.
But I don’t want to make this all about my month with Yveltal (that might be for another posting). Continuing on to the hard and fast data, opponents ran energy disruption cards (specifically, Crushing Hammmers, Enhanced Hammers, and Team Flare Grunt) in their decks 21% of the time (116 out of 554). As you might expect, my win percentage was better against decks that did not carry energy disruption cards than those decks that did. I won 54.1% of the matches against decks without disruption versus 51.7% against those that did. Guess it’s time to start teching in the hammers more.
As far as special energy, my opponents ran special energy 63% of the time. This has been a very interesting trend to watch: in September and October, my opponents ran special energy 54% of the time. In November and December, that jumped by almost 10% to 63%.
And here’s the real kicker: I lost almost 54% of the matches I played against decks that ran special energy. It was about a 50 50 split for the three months prior, but I really struggled against decks with special energy in December. I don’t know if it was because I played so much Yveltal and Rainbow Road, but it’s a huge issue for me personally. You can bet I’m teching in Enhanced Hammers into my decks next month.
Opponents played pokemon with abilities other than Shaymin, Hoopa, and Talonflame 76% of the time in December. This is consistent with September (77%) and November (75%). Not sure what happened in October (64%), but it appears to be an irregularity.
The most common pokemon I saw in December:
Garbodor _ 70
Volcanion EX _ 51
Octillery _ 51
Volcanion _ 47
M Mewtwo EX _ 45
Yveltal _ 38
Yveltal EX _ 37
Greninja Break _ 37
Rainbow Road _ 28
Darkrai EX _ 25
Manaphy EX _ 24
M Gardevoir EX _ 23
Regice _ 22
Ariados _ 21
Talonflame _ 21
Giratina EX _ 20
Yanmega Break _ 17
Lugia EX _ 17
Dragonite EX _ 17
Carbink Break _ 16
Jolteon EX _ 16
Typhlosion _ 16
M Rayquaza EX _ 16
Vespiquen _ 15
M Scizor EX _ 15
Unown _ 14
Raikou _ 14
Glaceon EX _ 14
Zoroark _ 14
Mew EX _ 14
Mew _ 14
Raichu _ 12
M Glalie EX _ 11
M Sceptile EX _ 11
Jirachi _ 11
Xerneas Break _ 11
Flareon EX _ 10
Vileplume _ 10
Magearna EX _ 10
Garbodor again (to no one’s surprise I’m sure) is the MPP (Most Popular Pokemon). I’m a little surprised that Volcanion and M Mewtwo are still more common than Yveltal, but maybe it’s just me.
So keeping in mind that I played 200 matches with Yveltal and 109 matches with Rainbow Road, here are the major decks and their record against me (W _ Total _ Pct):
Jolteon EX _ 13 _ 16 _ 81%
Glaceon EX _ 11 _ 14 _ 79%
Garbodor _ 49 _ 70 _ 70%
Greninja Break _ 25 _ 37 _ 68%
M Mewtwo EX _ 30 _ 45 _ 67%
Yveltal _ 25 _ 38 _ 66%
Darkrai EX _ 14 _ 25 _ 56%
Regice _ 12 _ 22 _ 55%
Rainbow Road _ 15 _ 28 _ 54%
Volcanion _ 23 _ 47 _ 49%
Yanmega Vespiquen _ 8 _ 17 _ 47%
M Scizor EX _ 7 _ 15 _ 47%
M Rayquaza EX _ 7 _ 16 _ 44%
M Gardevoir EX _ 7 _ 23 _ 30%
Honorable mention goes to Starmie (6 _ 7 _ 86%), Salamence EX (5 _ 6 _ 83%), and Houndoom EX (4 _ 5 _ 80%) for good performances but in too limited sample sizes to be included with the above decks.
Jolteon is not surprising considering the types of decks I’m playing, and Glaceon was probably teched in with him in many of those decks. What surprised me was that Mewtwo got good again, although maybe I should have seen this coming after his improvement to 57% last month. At any rate, M Mewtwo definitely appears to be arrow pointing up.
So that’s how everything stacks up. Hopefully this provides you with something to think about. Let me know if you have seen similarities or if something here strikes you as being odd.