Kyle Sucevich

Every year the Worlds metagame provides a unique challenge to its competitors; you only get one chance to choose your deck, and your decision will determine how you do in the tournament. Choose correctly, and you could win up to $7500 and the title of World Champion. However, make a bad decision, and you may be eliminated from the tournament before you know it. How does someone make a decision on something this important? Well, let's look into the process most players go through.

Normally a good starting point is US Nationals. Without a doubt, US Nationals is the toughest tournament of the year due to its sheer number of players and high number of great players. Because of that, people pay very close attention to its results. In fact, the results can completely influence the Worlds metagame.

Luxray GL
Set:	Rising Rivals
Card Type:	Lightning
HP:	110
Number:	109
Rarity:	Holo Rare

For example, let's examine this year's results. Almost all of the decks in the Top 8 were SP variants, with Luxray GL LV.X being the common theme. In fact, the top three decks were Luxray GL/Infernape 4, Luxray GL/Manectric, and Luxray GL/Palkia G. By looking at this, every player knows they probably need to either play Luxray at Worlds or be able to beat it. Here's where you begin.

What decks have the best chance to beat SP decks? Well, Flygon and Machamp are probably the two strongest cards to combat Luxray, so those are your best bets for countering it. In addition, Mewtwo LV.X can single-handedly take down an SP deck if they don't have an evolution to attack it (or Dialga G LV.X to shut off its Poke-Body). Overall, these cards are your best bet.

Machamp
Set:	Stormfront
Card Type:	Fighting
HP:	130
Stage:	Stage 2
Weakness:	P+30
Retreat Cost:	2
Number:	20
Artist:	Masakazu Fukuda
Rarity:	Rare
Attacks:	[F] Knock Out (40) If the Defending Pokemon isn't an Evolved Pokemon, that Pokemon is Knocked Out instead of damaged by this attack.

Keeping this in mind, any player using an SP deck knows that they will have to deal with the anti-SP cards like Machamp and Mewtwo LV.X. How much of a backlash against the winning decks do you think there will be? How many spots in your deck do you dedicate to beating these anti-SP cards? If you're expecting to run into anti-SP decks every round, should you even play it? You may just be setting yourself up to lose.

In addition to SP and anti-SP, there are other decks that you will run into. Throughout the season, decks like Kingdra, Beedrill, and Gengar had been fairly popular. Do you have to be able to beat those, too? Instead, maybe you want to use one of those decks; after all, they won't be paid much attention to. Boy, this is getting complicated!

After you go through the process of predicting what other people will be using, you have to take another factor into consideration: consistency. Because they setup nearly every game, SP decks are a solid choice. If you can setup every game, you'll always have a chance to win. As a tournament goes on, you will need to be able to setup round after round. Even though Stage 2 decks are very powerful when they manage to setup completely, they will fail to achieve what they want from time to time because they need to get so many things into play. Here is where your dilemma comes in. Do you go with the sure bet that has a little less strength (SP), or take a risk with the big hitters (Stage 2)? Honestly, it's a personal decision and not an easy one.

Before you decide on a deck, you have to remember one more thing. Year in and year out, the biggest factor that seems to make an impact is the element of surprise. Back in 2004 and 2005, decks that nobody had seen before won the World Championships. In reality they may not have been the best decks, but they had an advantage because nobody knew what to expect. Always remember, a little surprise can go a long way. Still, you don't want to play a deck solely because it hasn't been seen before. A surprise deck has to be tested extensively to make sure you have a chance to win with it even after people figure it out. For every surprise deck that works, I'm sure there are at least double that don't work. While the payoff could be huge, you could also fall flat on your face.

Taking everything into consideration, I figured most of the Worlds metagame would be SP decks. I was under the impression that Stage 2 decks were too inconsistent and slow to keep up with SP, and I thought most others felt the same way. I was torn between two decks – Luxray GL/Infernape 4, the deck I had used to win US Nationals, or a Flygon deck that my friend Sebastian had been using against me for a few weeks. His build of the Flygon deck was centered on “locking” the opponent and making them deck out with Flygon LV.X's Poke-Body, Wind Erosion. While the concept was very good and had the surprise factor, the natural inconsistencies of a Stage 2 deck had me worried. On top of that, I had a very good record with LuxApe, so I couldn't turn my back on it. In the end, I just went with my same list from US Nationals, but added in Sunyshore City Gym to adapt to the increasing number of decks using the Toxicroak G Promo. To mix things up, I also added a Roserade GL to the deck, a card that most people didn't even know existed. So, my deck had the consistency of an SP deck, Luxray GL LV.X (the best card in the format), and a little surprise in Roserade GL – three factors I covered earlier. I figured I had all my bases covered.

Infernape 4
Set:	Rising Rivals
Card Type:	Fire
HP:	110
Number:	108
Rarity:	Holo Rare

Well, I turned out to be pretty right about my metagame predictions... until the talk of a new idea got people worked up. A few days before the tournament, people had started hyping up Flygon with Machamp. The idea was simple: combine the two cards that are most effective against SP decks. While I paid no attention to the idea, at least a quarter of the field had decided to switch over to this anti-SP monstrosity. What impact did this have on the tournament? Well, the easiest way to find out is to take a look at the results. Here are the Top 8 decks from the 2009 World Championship.

1st) Beedrill/Luxray GL
2nd) Flygon/Machamp/Nidoqueen
3rd) Flygon/Machamp/Nidoqueen
4th) SP Toolbox
5th) Gyarados
6th) Flygon/Palkia LV.X/Mewtwo LV.X/Nidoqueen
7th) Palkia G/Mesprit
8th) Flygon/Weavile

Flygon
Set:	Rising Rivals
Card Type:	Colorless
HP:	120
Number:	5
Rarity:	Holo Rare

We see four Flygon decks, two SP decks, and two “other” decks. As I stated earlier, Flygon got a huge popularity boost a few days before the event, which propelled its results and hampered SP's. In turn, however, it opened the door for the “other” decks – Beedrill and Gyarados. Even though Flygon has a distinct advantage over SP, it simply loses to certain other decks (ones that have problems beating SP). So, the mass amount of Flygon decks happened to eliminate all of the SP decks (for example, I went 4-3, losing to two Machamp decks and one with Mewtwo LV.X), allowing decks like Beedrill and Gyarados to do well and actually win the event. (In fact, if the Beedrill and Gyarados decks did not have to face off in Top 8, I believe they would have ended up meeting in the finals.)

What happened here was a complete reversal of the metagame. If you want to think of it in other terms, consider the game Rock-Paper-Scissors. For a long time, Rock dominated the tournament scene because Paper was nowhere to be found, and Scissors was crushed. Then, people decided to counter Rock with Paper, eliminating Rock – but then the few people who stuck with Scissors got to take down the people who had switched to Paper. It certainly was not that clear-cut, but you get the idea.

Definitely the biggest surprise of the tournament was Beedrill/Luxray GL winning the event. Not only was Beedrill written off as a non-contender, but also the build of the deck was completely different. Often people would add in Crobat G and TGI Poke Turn to generate extra damage, but this is the first instance of a true hybrid deck doing well. Essentially the deck is a mesh of two contrasting styles – Stage 2 and SP are working together. Beedrill itself is very strong when it sets up completely, dishing out 120 damage for one Energy if all four are in play. Combine that with the incredible ability of Luxray GL LV.X to snag easy prizes, and you have one formidable deck. The only drawback of a build like this is that it can yield inconsistent starts because it combines the engines of Stage 2 and SP decks. Still, when you get the right start, the deck is nearly impossible to stop.

Beedrill
Set:	Great Encounters
Card Type:	Leaf
HP:	110
Stage:	Stage 2
Weakness:	R+30
Number:	13
Artist:	Kouki Saitou
Rarity:	Rare
Attacks:	[G] Band Attack (30x) Does 30 damage times the number of Beedrill you have in play.

So, where do we go from here? Normally what happens at Worlds has very little effect on the popular decks for the next year because several sets are rotated out. However, no sets are being rotated out this year, meaning we have the exact same format as Worlds – just new sets are being added on. What this means is that all the same decks are still around!

How will the metagame change with the results of Worlds? Will anti-SP still see heavy play, or will the decks like Beedrill become more popular? Don't forget, Supreme Victors will bring about new decks and ideas, but will they impact the tournament scene much? All of these questions will be answered at Battle Roads!

-Pooka