The Best in the Game

[ColdCoates90]

I'll have to disagree with Bullados as well. If your "niche" is a certain type of deck, you need to start learning how to play other decks and stop limiting your options."The Best in the Game" don't limit themselves, so if you want to emulate them, don't do it yourself either.

 

[Articjedi]

Exactly, you can only maximize your strengths so far until you hit a wall. Eventually playing the same deck tops out and you're left handicapping yourself while everyone else has adapted to an ever changing metagame.

 

[PokeDaddy]

This thread is truly great. Prob the best thread I've read on the Gym.

I would like to offer a different perspective to what has been posted here. The Judge perspective (if you know me, you know my experience).

Card Rulings:
In the spirit of Magnechu's thread, knowing your deck inside and out is so important. Take it to the next level, have you schooled yourself on the rulings from the Compendium on every card in your deck? And it is not just your deck you should know all the rulings, but know the rulings of anticipated cards in metagame decks. This is not rules lawyering, just being knowledgeable.
Damage & Between Turn Affects:
Become an expert on calculating damage and on determining between turn effects. The sequencing of damage and between turn effects can potentially give a slight edge in a tight match. Especially if your opponent believes the calculations are one way and in reality they are wrong.
Penalty Guidelines:
Know them inside and out. If you get a questionable ruling/penalty from a floor judge, politely asking for an appeal to the HJ to explain yourself is totally within your rights. Never be disrespectful to a judge.
SOTG:
Be the SOTG. The brains, cunning, and execution of a match you all have. The players that rise above the rest have the SOTG tattooed on their DNA.​

Thanks for reading.
Steve

 

[yoyofsho16]

Be the SOTG. The brains, cunning, and execution of a match you all have. The players that rise above the rest have the SOTG tattooed on their DNA.

Well, MOST of them... I know a high up player who doesn't have very good SotG...:nonono:

A lot of good players use the BARE NECCESSITIES when building, for example when Ness had only 3 Psychic energy, while most decks ran somewhere like 6 in Plox.
I think choosing the right deck and build is the MOST IMPORTANT when it comes to tournaments. There are a LOT of good players who just don't win because of it.

Back to back posts merged. The following information has been added:

^ My advice is to not think too hard about the up-coming meta. It is almost impossible to determine what decks will be at states at this point in time. I'm sure that no one would have thought that regigigas was good until jayson started winning CC's left and right with it. I would say to just look over the translations on pokebeach, look at a couple of threads on the gym about the new cards, and just try to see anything that might majorly affect the current meta. That way, you might not know exactly what is coming, but you can know that you have a decent deck to fall back on if what you try out of the new set doesn't work out. However, I wouldn't listen to me if I were you, so yeah...

Actually, Brady1 is what made the deck popular... I think he was one of the first to win with it...

ANYWAYS

The Metagame is the NUMBER 1 THING TO FORGET ABOUT when going to the first tournament in a set's block....

When you have no knowledge of your metagame yet, tech against everything, but only use CONSISTENT TECHS that would benefit you even in other matchups.

EXAMPLE: I teched in Breloom and loads of Moonlight as a Mewtwo tech in AMU at BR in fall... and it SMASHED consistency because I worried about Mewtwo so much... and no one turned up playing it!

 

[Magnechu]

There was a whole slew of people who won with Gigas the first week, no one person made it or made it popular. Jayson and I both won with it on the first day of Cities, Brady1 won with it the 2nd day.

I agree with Fulop and the posts after. I thought about that once, what decks have I consistently won with? And they WEREN'T one type of deck. I won tournaments with Blaziken, Crobyss, Lanturn HL, BLS, Banette, Delta, Regigigas, Pow Block, etc. SO many different decks from speed to energy accel to disruption. Of course I prefer some styles to others, but I never limit myself. I play what I think the best deck is and what I think I'll play best.

 

[smacktack15]

I'd first like to add my kudos to a very informative thread. I will be sharing quite of few of your insights with my senior daughter. For Poke Parents reading this: My daughter has profited a great deal this year from me building every deck in our metagame that I can find a decent net list for. She played 2 decks thruout BR and CC: Dusknoir and Magnezone. She knows them inside and out. And several nights a week we'll sit down and play. I play well enough to give her an idea of how a deck will run. We talk about choices and options. We play "take-back" .... as in she can take back any play she makes if she realizes it wasn't the best play. And sometimes she will play one of the decks I've built. But I don't ever play her tournament decks against her ... I don't want to affect her play style. But I will redshark quite a bit, mostly against myself with various builds, sometimes on-line to check for consistency.

Now my question, based on the above quote. It was not too difficult to get a handle on the New England metagame for BR and CC. But, ith the new set coming in, how do you gauge the metagame? We're playtesting some ideas already using proxies, but are the decks that will start showing up at leagues in a few weeks going to be a decent barometer? I think the "best players" will have a solid handle on this as I can assume they are quietly playtesting the heck out of the new anticipated cards. That's why they are so good. So any advice or thoughts on how the rest of us can tune into the metagame would be much appreciated.
:redface:

For the new metagame it is a system of educated guessing...

Some people will continue to play their CCs decks so you must think of Dusknoir, Kingdra, Gigas, etc. but, with new techs (if any). You then have to see what counters those decks. You then have to see what new archtypes are coming out in Platinum. You then have to find counter decks for those. Find overall counters for the new metagame, the CC Metagame and you can make some decisions from there on.

 

[SteveP]

First and foremost, build a winning deck. Without it, you'll always perform less than optimally.

Second, know your deck. Read earlier posts on this.

Third, know the metagame. Anticipating and scouting what your opponents will be playing is very important. That's why some feel that it's essential to keep decks secret.

Finally, practice-practice-practice.

Once you've mastered these items, there are plenty of other tweaks such as:

- Monitor the internet boards for ideas.
- Playtest with friends.
- Play online.
- Study the cards.


One final note. Some players do better with certain styles of decks. Versatility is nice, but you should always stick with what you know best, when competing.

 

[gallade]

i have to agree with da' steve, thanks for that post

 

[Scizor]

1. Conversing with good/great players. You can only get good to a certain extent without playtesting with players who are better than you. You are able to learn the attributes which make them good/great players, how the top decks are played and constructed, etc.

2. Not limiting yourself to what deck(s) you will use for tournaments. I haven't read all this thread, but people who claim they are better with one deck than another and refuse to use another type of deck just aren't great players. A great player can pick up any deck and be proficient with it within 5 games, like Fulop said.

3. Knowledge of the metagame. Scout what people use, whether it's one tournament, two, all season, etc. If you know a player prefers to play certain types of decks for tournaments, make a note of it. Know what to expect, or at least have an idea. Even when a set hasn't hit tournament play (like Platinum now), think about what players around you used beforehand. Past history often makes a huge difference among the overall field. Often you are able to at least scale down what people will use, unless you live in California like me and have to deal with 100 possible opponents every tournament ;p.

4. Knowing the rules. You don't have to be like Pokepop or BDS or even a Professor, but know the basic rules and how they are applied to tournaments. Some of this comes from experience, some of it comes from just following up on things. Rules, penalties, etc., know when, why, and how they are used in tournaments. Do not think just because we have judges that you don't need to know the rules and regulations.

5. Confidence. I personally never go into a tournament thinking, "I'll be happy with a 5-2 whiff cut today". If you have playtested, and done your homework, you should be confident in your abilities enough to win the tournament. Of course, the more time you spend testing, the more tournaments you go to and the more tournaments you do well in, your confidence will rise, but never have a loser mentality if you want to be a great player.

 

[PTCGplayer]

Qualites you need in a battle


S elf Confidence
T raining
R elaxation (lol couldnt think of anything) or R un a dusknoir line HAHAHA
E xperience
N owing your deck??? rofl
T rainers (lolz)
G et ready (prepare)
H ave fun....

Help with that please...

Concentration

 

[Martin]

I think the most vicious weapon in any winning players arsenal is the ability to adapt to whatever the metagame calls for. Your deck choice might even change depending on the state you are playing in on that given weekend. What would be great in California might not fly well in Florida or the Midwest. Scoping the competition region by region through surfing the web and simply doing your homework will get you ahead of the curve in no time.