Top Tier Decks

[meganium45]

Draggy is a "holdover" great deck.

Rock-lock is the "new fangled" great deck.

But, to be on point. States are over, Regionals are next. There will be a new set out between now and then.

Speculate all you want, we are doing NO new deckbuilding until after Emerald.

M45

 

[Professor_Chris]

Speculate all you want, we are doing NO new deckbuilding until after Emerald.

Same here, I've already been asked to help people prep for Regionals. I told them its pointless to start testing new decks until EX Emerald.

Personally, Rock-Lock is too fragile for my likeing. :x And with Miloex coming out...
Draggytrode on the other hand is pretty stable, reliable, and quick.
Metattack is pretty cool as well. It can certainly hold it's own.

But its pointless to talk about the best decks right now when there is a new set right around the corner.

 

[dragontaimer]

wat is this vodoo?i believe that tier one is zapdos ex....... ive played in an enviornment full of rock lock and dark draggy, and at states zapdos ex went to the top and took first in both 11-14 and 15+. its jus tooo fast... thats my opinon

 

[pokeguru]

at our league, bird decks are doing well at the moment. our league leader's hasn't lost a single game since firered leafgreen! they work well with their respective combos as well.

My feeling on the combos are...
Arti/Zappy/ Draggy ex (Dragon)
Zappy/Moltres/Rayquaza ex
Moltres/Arti/Salamence ex

give it a try.

 

[BigChuck01]

We'll I'm bored at work, so I'll give my analysis of the Tier 1 decks pre-Emerald:

1. Rock-Lock: This deck is the Feraligatr of the new modified. Without a doubt, the most popular deck, and IMO, the strongest at the moment. People who don't tech against it or play it themselves get to watch top 8 from the side lines. The biggest problem with the deck though is the inability to do a lot of damage, and the HUGE weakness to a Pidgeot that is evolved via Pidgeotto before Amphy gets out. Holding things in your hand like Rocket's Scyther EX or Rayquazza EX in your hand ready to KO the Ttar also puts the deck in bad shape due to it's low amount of attackers.

2. Dragtrode: The king of consistancy, usually. Before Deoxys, this was the best deck in my opinion. Nothing can really hold it's own against a Strike and run for Dratini, Pidgey, and Voltorb, and then an Evo Light turn 2 to get the rest of your evolutions out. The decks biggest strength is it's synergy with Rocket's Sneasel EX. Sneasel can easily get to the 120 damage mark, KOing any non EX pokemon in the game. So why is it not the top deck? It's close, but a properly teched Rock-Lock has a slight advantage. The shard can handle the Draggy, and a well timed larvitar-candy-ttar-scramble can take away your fresh 4 Darked Sneasel that you just used to KO another Ttar or Amphy.

3. Blaaaaaze: Matt Tennis-Getter showed everyone last saturday that Blaze's is DEFINATELY not an auto loss to Rock-Lock. He went 11-1 against some of the best in the US, with a deck that everyone thought was dead (including me). The thing is though, I DO still believe Blaze is still dead. Matt is a great player, one of the best I now know, but for some reason, the word "Fluke" just keeps on jumping into my mind. I believe that Blaze was successful at states for the same reason Magma was successful at Worlds: People ignored it because they didn't consider it a threat, or just forgot about it completely. Obviously Magma was NOT the best deck, the element of suprize is what did everyone in. I am confident now that both my Rock-Lock and Dragtrode can take 7 out of 10 from the best blaze deck. Rayquazza is the biggest threat in the deck, so just be sure to pack a shard and charm (Shard for the main attackers, charm for pidgeot to OHKO ray), and you should be OK. Blaze's attack is pathetic, and BEX has trouble with 120HP stage 2's.

Those are the only Tier 1 I believe. Things that would fall in to Tier 2 would be Metagross varients, Zapdos varients, Vileplume EX Varients, and all the other rogue stuff. VooDOo, or w/e, is simply a deck that loses to everything that's teir 1 (Voodoo vs a Rocket's Sneasel EX? Good Luck Paris ), so I'd put that in Tier 3 .

J M H O LOL ROFL!

 

[ultimatedra]

i am very suprised that blastoise hasent been mentioned (WPM, why havent you told everyone?)

Blastoise, or at least my blastoise, beats draggy fast, even if it does get the set-up.
it also has the potential to out-speed zap-turn-dos, but not likly.
kills blaziken, and discards all of the metal energy from metagross to make it useless.

-professor ultimatedra

 

[BigChuck01]

i am very suprised that blastoise hasent been mentioned (WPM, why havent you told everyone?)

Blastoise, or at least my blastoise, beats draggy fast, even if it does get the set-up.
it also has the potential to out-speed zap-turn-dos, but not likly.
kills blaziken, and discards all of the metal energy from metagross to make it useless.

-professor ultimatedra

Lightning Weakness can't cut it in this format. Dark Amphy and Dark Electrode send Blastoise home in a hurry.

 

[coolmanderzx]

Lightning Weakness can't cut it in this format. Dark Amphy and Dark Electrode send Blastoise home in a hurry.

true but if you run blex w/ quag fully powered you can easily take out dark electrode and dark amphy in a rock lock deck can easily go down to quag

 

[ShadowCard]

I don't remember seeing any Blastoise decks at Virginia's State championships. If there were any, there were only a few. The area is dominated by Rock-lock, Dark Dragonite, and Zappy ex (though in decline, I think). Vileplume-ex is rising in power in the area.
I don't remember if there were any Blastoise at Maryland's State Championships.

 

[Physics Squirrel]

Blastoise, or at least my blastoise, beats draggy fast, even if it does get the set-up.

Blastoise ex decks in general are not fast enough to keep up with decks like Draggy or Rock Lock, especially since both Dark Electrode and Dark Ampharos easily OHKO Blastoise ex the moment it hits the active position. He's weak to Lightning. It's the same reason Ludicargo doesn't see play.

And the continuous assertions that Zapdos ex is a good deck are getting old...It's not Tier 1, people. Plus, it's also weak to Lightning =P

I'm pretty much in total agreement with Chuck's tier list. I have never seen a Rock Lock list that is fast or consistant enough to beat my Draggy, but I don't doubt that such a one exists. I would put Draggy above Rock Lock because of its greater consistancy and speed.

Blaze has staying power in an environment that can't OHKO Blaziken ex, but it's not as fast as it needs to be and it's vulnerable to ATM Rock. The version with Jirachi to avoid getting Rocked certainly seems more viable, but even then it might not deserve the Tier 1 position.

I don't remember seeing any Blastoise decks at Virginia's State championships. If there were any, there were only a few. The area is dominated by Rock-lock, Dark Dragonite, and Zappy ex (though in decline, I think). Vileplume-ex is rising in power in the area.
I don't remember if there were any Blastoise at Maryland's State Championships.

I don't think there were any at either event. Even if there were, they didn't top 8, and they would've been crushed by just about everything if they had. My Draggy list took both States in 15+, so I'd say that's the most powerful deck in MD/VA at the moment

 

[GrandmaJoner]

Physics Squirrel, it's not that Blastoise isnt fast, it's just that it's weak to lightning, and it DAMAGES ITSELF, which is already a no no when you're playing a rock lock environment, esepcially with a deck with 2 stage 1s, and uses rare candy to get to blastoise. Blastoise folds to rock lock in so many different ways, but speed isnt really one of them, if you can get a delcatty out turn 2 you can get set pretty quick.

 

[SLOW DECK]

Well, per What Won in the States

# of Wins / Deck / Ages (15+)-(11-15)-(10-)

16 Rock Lock 8-6-2
8 Dragonite 4-1-3
7 Blaze 3-2-2
5 red face paint's 0-1-4
3 Zapdos 0-2-1
3 Sally EX 1-0-2
2 Voodoo 1-1-0
2 Gardevoir 0-0-2

I don't want to say which deck is better, but what has won. It takes two things to win a state championship, a decent deck, and a great player. Don't let us forget that.

 

[Bobby]

To put it simply, ..... NO! LOL.

Why not? It's only huge weakness is Rock-Lock, and supposedly it will be weaker with Milo ex (assuming it works from the bench)...

 

[SuperWooper]

Blastoise ex decks in general are not fast enough to keep up with decks like Draggy or Rock Lock, especially since both Dark Electrode and Dark Ampharos easily OHKO Blastoise ex the moment it hits the active position. He's weak to Lightning. It's the same reason Ludicargo doesn't see play.

And the continuous assertions that Zapdos ex is a good deck are getting old...It's not Tier 1, people. Plus, it's also weak to Lightning =P

I'm pretty much in total agreement with Chuck's tier list. I have never seen a Rock Lock list that is fast or consistant enough to beat my Draggy, but I don't doubt that such a one exists. I would put Draggy above Rock Lock because of its greater consistancy and speed.

Blaze has staying power in an environment that can't OHKO Blaziken ex, but it's not as fast as it needs to be and it's vulnerable to ATM Rock. The version with Jirachi to avoid getting Rocked certainly seems more viable, but even then it might not deserve the Tier 1 position.

Blastoise ex decks are most likely fast enough once they get running, Jon, but the problem is that they usually don't get running until it's too late. With 3 Skitty and 3-4 Magemite, and 3 Squirtle, your odds of starting with Dunsparce or Jirachi are pretty slim, and Blastoise is very basic intensive.

Yeah, Zapdos ex sucks. You need to rely on your opponent getting a really crappy start and you a good one to win the game, which is 90% of Sean's success. WTG CFK. ;p

I think if there ever was a Tier 1.5, that would be the Tier Blaziken is in right now. It stands a better chance against Sceptile ex and Vileplume ex, which are becoming more and more popular to play against Rock-Lock, than Rock-Lock does. Blaziken has an okay win percentage against Dragonite, and it's not as bad against Rock-Lock as people make it out to be. Rock-Lock loses to random n00b decks, but Blaziken destroys them.

Magma rulz ur lyfe as usual, of course. It's in Tier 6.9!

 

[Cyrus]

(Voodoo vs a Rocket's Sneasel EX? Good Luck Paris )

t3h r0x0rz 33sh t3h hedgE!!!! Slowking+shard+2 discard+darknes=ggn0re

j/k, but hedge's deck is pretty good. Not as good as STITCH tho ;x

Chuck's got the tier one down pretty well. At first I thought Sally had a place in the 1st tier, but not even the best with it have found true success, solely due to sally's shortcomings, so I gotta hand blaze a seat at tier one.

If you had to limit tier two to only 3 decks, here is what I'd choose. My personal tier 2 are powerful decks that only the japanese seem to have had success with:

-Magma: This deck is shaky vs the tier 1. IMO it can go 50/50 with blaze (maybe just barely less than 50), beat rocklock 55-60% of the time, but ahem...unless your opponent doesn't play scyther, you just outright lose to Dragonite. I would trust Magma in a high-class event, but not as much as another deck IMO.

-Salamence: Salamence has a "lock" effect that ttar/amphy does, only to a different level. As opposed to slowly wearing down your opponent's entire field, you just outright smack any card of your choice. It's an efficient deck that is also a decent choice at a big tournament, but doesn't auto-win vs blaze by any means, is inconsistent vs rocklock, can lose to a very very solid draggy list, and just get outswarmed by Magma.

-????: Honestly I'm not sure. So many decks could have claim to this slot, including Vileplume, stage 1 decks, zapdos, and raytrode.

 

[the_sniper]

We'll I'm bored at work, so I'll give my analysis of the Tier 1 decks pre-Emerald:

1. Rock-Lock: This deck is the Feraligatr of the new modified. Without a doubt, the most popular deck, and IMO, the strongest at the moment. People who don't tech against it or play it themselves get to watch top 8 from the side lines. The biggest problem with the deck though is the inability to do a lot of damage, and the HUGE weakness to a Pidgeot that is evolved via Pidgeotto before Amphy gets out. Holding things in your hand like Rocket's Scyther EX or Rayquazza EX in your hand ready to KO the Ttar also puts the deck in bad shape due to it's low amount of attackers.

2. Dragtrode: The king of consistancy, usually. Before Deoxys, this was the best deck in my opinion. Nothing can really hold it's own against a Strike and run for Dratini, Pidgey, and Voltorb, and then an Evo Light turn 2 to get the rest of your evolutions out. The decks biggest strength is it's synergy with Rocket's Sneasel EX. Sneasel can easily get to the 120 damage mark, KOing any non EX pokemon in the game. So why is it not the top deck? It's close, but a properly teched Rock-Lock has a slight advantage. The shard can handle the Draggy, and a well timed larvitar-candy-ttar-scramble can take away your fresh 4 Darked Sneasel that you just used to KO another Ttar or Amphy.

3. Blaaaaaze: Matt Tennis-Getter showed everyone last saturday that Blaze's is DEFINATELY not an auto loss to Rock-Lock. He went 11-1 against some of the best in the US, with a deck that everyone thought was dead (including me). The thing is though, I DO still believe Blaze is still dead. Matt is a great player, one of the best I now know, but for some reason, the word "Fluke" just keeps on jumping into my mind. I believe that Blaze was successful at states for the same reason Magma was successful at Worlds: People ignored it because they didn't consider it a threat, or just forgot about it completely. Obviously Magma was NOT the best deck, the element of suprize is what did everyone in. I am confident now that both my Rock-Lock and Dragtrode can take 7 out of 10 from the best blaze deck. Rayquazza is the biggest threat in the deck, so just be sure to pack a shard and charm (Shard for the main attackers, charm for pidgeot to OHKO ray), and you should be OK. Blaze's attack is pathetic, and BEX has trouble with 120HP stage 2's.

Those are the only Tier 1 I believe. Things that would fall in to Tier 2 would be Metagross varients, Zapdos varients, Vileplume EX Varients, and all the other rogue stuff. VooDOo, or w/e, is simply a deck that loses to everything that's teir 1 (Voodoo vs a Rocket's Sneasel EX? Good Luck Paris ), so I'd put that in Tier 3 .

J M H O LOL ROFL!

I can see why your one of the best out there. This is VERY well said. I pretty much agree with all of what you said Chuck. I won Florida w/ a blaze deck. I wouldn't call it a fluke, but i assure you i wont be playing it at regionals. It can be good " under the right circumstances", but after the next set i doubt we'll c a blaze deck win anything. I only played it because there was green cards everywhere Sat. Teching the lock i guess.

 

[PojosamaWannabe]

Why isn't anyone giving Zapdos ex credit? It can beat anything with a semi good setup. There are so many cards that will get you that t2 zapdos...

 

[Bobby]

Why isn't anyone giving Zapdos ex credit? It can beat anything with a semi good setup. There are so many cards that will get you that t2 zapdos...

The point is anything has a chance against Zappy as long as they survive the initial onslaught. Zapdos CAN beat anything if it gets a decent setup, but that doesn't mean it will. A decent/good start from the other deck will run over Zapdos. While you kill of their Dunsparces and sacrificial basics, even the deck with a mediocre start will get powered up and eventually beat you. And lightning just plays pwns zappy. As well as Wobb if they can't draw the Space Center, and that extra turn or two can likely get them the setup that they need to beat zappy.

 

[Pokekid]

random rougge decksare good also

 

[Darkash]

Through my experience, I have found that Vileplume EX can be a very consistent deck, and is at least better then tier two decks, if not in the top tier. Here are how that matchups play out, again in my experience:

Rock-Lock 75-80%
Rock lock is obviously the best matchup for this deck. They can't play ATM Rock , obviously, with Plume active, and you do 100+ status to their main attacker. However, their main strength against Plume is their speed, you need a fast start to keep up with rock lock. Once that Plume hits the table, however, it's normally over for the lock.

Dark Heart 45-55%
Dark heart, the other big deck in the enviroment, is another story. The speed and resistance to grass that Dragonite provides is tough to beat. However, a locked Mt.Moon can play havoc with their energy, plus it keeps them from using Evolutionary light to get some evo's. To get around resistance, use Pidegot if you are really desprite, since they will get to play all those trainers they have been hoarding. Of course, a wise Plume player will keep a Shard or three around for a rainy day. :wink: Still, this is certainly the toughest tier one matchup, and it takes a skilled player to trimuph.

Blaziken: 65-75%

Blaze's largest asset has always been its immense speed. Delcatties and Rare Candies are a large part of that speed, and shutting them down with Moon and Plume goes a long way towards a win. Speed is essencial in this matchup as well. (Notcice a pattern here?) As always, the quicker you kill Blaze, the better. Blaze is the comeback king, and if you give them enough time they will come roaring back with a vengence. 6-1 comebacks are not unknown against Blaze, so be careful. However, if you shut them down quick enough, a win is likely.

That is my (very brief) view on how Vileplume EX matches up against some of the top decks, plus or minus about 5-10%, depending on the indivedual decks involved.