1. no call is bad- period. It decreases your ability to use the early power spray, the earlier garchomp/luxray/uxie level up, and virtually ALL of your attackers use colorless.
2. 3 warp is bad- period. Not even dialgachomp uses that many- and there is no claydol or anything particularly heavy to drag up in this matchup.
3. 2 lightning is bad, and is asking for (as prime notes) ambipom to wreck you, and to have prizing issues.
4. the list, at times, seems ‘good’ for mirror, and at other times bad. Mostly bad. PONT is not the worst play- having supporter draw is amazing, and was very popular in JP mirror games. After burning through cyrus- or trying to resist power sprays on uxies, or snipes on claydols having that is usually a great option. I would probably use a Cynthia, or maybe try to use 2 draw/1 VS seeker or something (more versatility and utility)- but it isn’t TERRIBLE. However, he only used the PONT ONCE during the THREE games against Pram- showing it as virtually useless against GG (as mikey notes). On this note, using dragonite OVER ambipom is decent. I think that ambipom is technically slightly better- I would honestly try to use both (and a lot of American players did just that). Dragonite is a worse starter (start with it against tomb some time
), is worse against any non-mirror, and even in mirror is susceptible to problems and difficult usages (three energy is a lot to use!) but it is really really nice against garchomp. Forcing the opposing garchomp (because they cant use croak to retaliate like they can vs ambipom) is nice, because you can simply return a KO. Dragonite also can’t be dragon rushed on the benched like ‘pom can, so he makes a better bench sitter to promote after they KO with chomp. If they snipe your benched chomp instead, you simply OHKO again. Ambipom’s two attacks, however, adds a little more versatility and makes me give it the slight edge, even in mirror and DEFINITELY versus the field. All in all, ambipom seems to be the better choice- both would be great, and if you foresee all mirror, dragonite probably better. Regardless, his mirror choices weren’t too bad. No promocroak is also pretty lame too- lack of psychic (as dark toxicroak notes) makes azelf useless as an attacker too (when he can be quite breaking).
5. dialga seems inferior as a m2x counter to mismagius (who doubles as a cursegar and GG counter- both of which made top 4).
6. no one is trying to discredit the guy’s skills. He is obviously a good player, in-game. The people attacking the list are doing just that- attacking the choices made on paper, not in game.
Overall, it seems to be a mirror-centric list, but even then seems inferior to other options. Running both pom and dragonite would’ve been a great play (and many Americans used this). No promocroak is also disheartening. Call is also great in mirror. I think a better mirror list could be made. This seems like a half-hearted mirror list. No call/croak/pom/Q etc are obvious mirror cards, moreso than PONT or dragonite.
If I saw this list laying on a table, I would trash talk it. If this list gets printed- I will still trash talk it. It looks horribly inconsistent and muddled in conception. Mirror-centric… in some ways.
That final game of the Masters was the verry best single game I have ever witnessed. HUge Momentum changes. At first it looked like LuxChomp had it when it went up 2-0 then all the suddend a machamp gemoes down from nowhere and it looks like Luxchomp is going down. Then when Gardy comes up and locks, they next card is Uxie X and the OHKO with Lucario SP on the bench. Then the undamaged Machamp comes up. He lookers the Luxchomp players hand, and takes out to tie the game 1-1. Then he gets everything he needs in the next 6 cards draws (5 for lookers and one for his turn) Boom throws down an energy. Levels up to Luxray X, brings up the uxie and trashbolts for the win. He needed the Luxray X and two energy in 6 cards to win the World Championship and he got it. What a fantastic finish to the best final match in Pokemon World Championaship history.
Prizes were 3 left for Pram, 2 for his opponent. Pramawat with an Uxie, Machamp (fresh), and Gardevoir (fresh) in play. His opponent has a luxray benched, a lucario GL, and an uxie with a DCE attached. Pramawat uses Looker’s and sees a warp, metal in his opponent’s hand- with nothing else really good (besides a spray and luxray X/energy gain which he knew was there due to poketurn) or reliable to access an Uxie X. Pram shuffles himself in, and retreats machamp to psychic lock his opponent’s sacrificed Azelf for a KO to tie the prizes.
His opponent promotes Luxray GL, and slowly draws his card and slaps it onto the table quickly once he realizes he god-drew into the uxie X he needed to KO the active gardevoir. He attaches the warp energy from hand to retreat the luxray GL and promotes uxie with DCE, levels up and KOs the gardy to take the lead 2-1 prizes (and draws a prized lightning energy [one was already in the discard, and to be fair he used azelf to look at his prizes early so he knew it was there, but to have it prized and ‘accessible’ was a tad lucky]).
Pramawat now has 2 lone pokemon- the uxie and fresh machamp, and he promotes Machamp for a clean takeout to tie the game at 1-1 prizes. The entire time he has yet to draw a night maintenance or expert belt (either of which would give him the win in these last two turns- NM allowing the fetching of a dead gardy X via bebe, and expert belt to give additional HP to either gardy or benched uxie the turn after).
It was definitely an emotional rollercoaster, and the end result is that I think the inferior list ended up winning out due to drawing better than the opponent. Luxray not using ambipom, call, psychics (for azelf to least lock up a champ and set up a KO) or unown G were all poor decisions in my book, but his topdeck and luck ability proved to be too much for Pramawat.
