Discussion What Are People Actually Playing???
- Thread starter EmiThorne
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At my local league, there are a few Metal variants using Dialga and Aegislash, a lot of Raichu/Bats, and I along with a few others use Manectric/Mega Man variants. I use Toad/Manectric/Bats, and there's also MegaMan/Toad/Various healing shenanigans and MegaMan/Yveltal. A few people play Vespiquen/Eeveelutions as well. This is only for Standard, mind you.
Expanded, I was thinking about building Trevenant/Virizion/Sceptile PRC. The only other expanded deck I currently know of is LandoBats with Lucario EX, but we generally don't play expanded at my local league. Well, and the Shiftry deck that just got an article here. Though, my friend is building Mega Ampharos/Eelektrik.
To answer your question, yeah, the metagame does involve non-EX cards. Obviously Raichu gets used in those Raichu decks, Eelektrik is great in expanded with a lot of different cards, and Bats are a great partner to a lot of things. Plus, even in those metal decks, Bronzong and Heatran are used to supplement the EX hitters; heck, in the right circumstance, they're a lot better than those EXs. Vespiquen doesn't even use EXs and it's a great deck. Certain cards are really good; it just depends on how you use them.
Expanded, I was thinking about building Trevenant/Virizion/Sceptile PRC. The only other expanded deck I currently know of is LandoBats with Lucario EX, but we generally don't play expanded at my local league. Well, and the Shiftry deck that just got an article here. Though, my friend is building Mega Ampharos/Eelektrik.
To answer your question, yeah, the metagame does involve non-EX cards. Obviously Raichu gets used in those Raichu decks, Eelektrik is great in expanded with a lot of different cards, and Bats are a great partner to a lot of things. Plus, even in those metal decks, Bronzong and Heatran are used to supplement the EX hitters; heck, in the right circumstance, they're a lot better than those EXs. Vespiquen doesn't even use EXs and it's a great deck. Certain cards are really good; it just depends on how you use them.
A deck I've been playing online with a lot of success in Versus mode is Speed Cacturne for Expanded. You use Cacturne PLF on turn one to do 60 damage and 30 to the bench. Giant Plant Forest is the card that makes this deck because Cacnea and Cacturne can be searched out with Level Ball meaning that a turn one Cacturne is really easy to get consistently. You do the 30 to a Cresselia-EX so it can heal itself between turns and you can use Virizion-EX to avoid Lasers and Gengar and most inportantly, Accelgor. For standard I think we all know the big decks are Giratina/Vileplume, Vespiquen(Eeveelutions or friends), Metal decks, and Raichu(I play it with Eeveelutions.) Right now I'm not sure how BatMan and Camurupt x2 will fare against everyone else with the lock deck and powerful non-EX decks.
As for expanded, I've been trying out Rayquaza EX (Dragons Exalted) with Reshiram (Roaring Skies) by simply benching Reshiram's down and using their ability to simply power Rayquaza up and quickly hit that 180+ damage. It's a pretty simple deck and is fun to play. It's a whole lot easier to play than Ray/Boar in my opinion due to the fact that Emboar is a stage 2, but this doesn't mean though it doesn't work at all. Archie's Blastoise won Worlds and things like Klingklang is still used in expanded.
I've seen a lot of metal ray, toad, a regice deck that did incredibly well, a couple of very strong lucario/bats, quite a few vileplume decks with mixed results and a few vespiquen decks too. A few people I know are hyping Manectric/Sceptile, but I think trying to run two 3-3 mega lines could be asking for trouble with so much EX hate around still. (regice, hippowdon/eeveelutions, giritina/vileplume)
I'm testing M sceptile/shiftry atm. I've seen gardevior, ray, and a few other meh decks.
For Standard, I am using Gardevoir/Lugia, and some decks my friends are using include AT Gyarados (damage on benched karps = more damage for dos) defensive mega tyranitar, vileplume/regice (actually not to bad), vileplume/giratina EX, beeveelutions (vespiquen with type changing eeveelutions), and possibly a Mega Ampharos/Vileplume deck (auto paralyze and then prevent switches), and also possibly Charizard/Zoroark when that set comes out (combustion blast charizard, rush-in retreat like keldeo for constant combustion blasts).
For Expanded, I am running a forretress donk (trying to build something similar to shiftry but make it so it's not an auto loss if I go second or of the opponent has a baltoy). My friends haven't come up with expanded stuff yet.
For Expanded, I am running a forretress donk (trying to build something similar to shiftry but make it so it's not an auto loss if I go second or of the opponent has a baltoy). My friends haven't come up with expanded stuff yet.
For Standard probably GiraPlume maybe later if people find a way to make it work, Vanilluxe/Vileplume. Also some kind of Steel deck perhaps and Vespiquen.
For Expanded, Mega Manectric/Garbodor with Ancient Trait Articuno and Regice. Another one would be Primal Kyogre with Keldeo, Suicune and maybe a fire attacker like Entei.
For Expanded, Mega Manectric/Garbodor with Ancient Trait Articuno and Regice. Another one would be Primal Kyogre with Keldeo, Suicune and maybe a fire attacker like Entei.