[City League Top 16] Rowlet & Exeggutor GX Venusaur
Please find the original Japanese-language article here. Note my translation is not a perfect translation and I have rearranged and reworded some parts of the original article for clarity and readability. Find also some explanatory comments inside square brackets, italicised.
Hello, everyone. This is Shishamo.
On the 19th of May (Sunday) I played at the City
League hosted in Tokyo Bay, achieving a result of top 16 after being the first
seed.
I would like to discuss the deck I played at the tournament,
which was Rowlet & Exeggutor Venusaur.
Meta Predictions
To explain my deck choice of Rowlet & Alolan Exeggutor
Venusaur, you will need to understand my prediction of the meta.
I thought that Reshiram & Charizard and Zoroark were the
two strongest decks.
Reshiram & Charizard had been largely unchanged since
its release in Double Blaze, and it has performed consistently well at City
Leagues all over the country. The “Uon-Tei” variant was particularly strong. [Note:
From my understanding, Uon-Tei is a player who piloted Reshiram &
Charizard to a top 16 finish at the Kyoto Champions League.]
Zoroark has been strengthened significantly with the release
of Sky Legend, gaining access to Jessie & James. It is easy to increase
your card advantage with Trade, and if you can combine Reset Stamp with Jessie
& James in the late game you can reduce your opponent’s hand size down to
0. The list of a professional player, Alice-san, was released the other day.
Other decks which were successful at City Leagues include
Ryujin-san’s Jirachi Zapdos (City League Osaka Winner Jirachi Zapdos Magcargo | Ryujin | note)
and Ultra Necrozma, which dominated PokemonCardMemo Cups (18th PokemonCardMemo Cup Successful Decks). I wanted to pick a
deck that was not disadvantaged against these four decks.
After analysing various decks, I thought a viable deck would
be one that used Rowlet & Alolan Exeggutor GX which could also win against
Reshiram & Charizard.
Deck Commentary
My deck list is as follows:
The skeleton of the deck was Webirio-san’s idea, and in
order to improve upon it I played opening hands. Basically, the idea is to set
up Venusaur on the first turn with Rowlet & Alolan Exeggutor GX’s Super
Growth attack and continue attacking with two Rowlet & Alolan Exeggutor GXs.
Vileplume is used only in specific matchups and is often discarded with Ultra
Ball. Therefore, the deck is essentially made up of 54 cards. On top of being
able to heal with your own attack, we use Choice Helmet, Gardenia, Aether
Paradise Conservation Arena and Life Forest Prism Star to increase Rowlet &
Alolan Exeggutor GX’s durability.
This deck has more space than the Vikavolt based variant.
With Vikavolt, you must run Lightning Energy and Energy Recycler and you cannot
fit in the Vileplume line. The Vileplume gives us a chance against Reshiram
& Charizard, so we opted to run the Venusaur variant.
Now, I will explain how to approach each matchup.
Reshiram & Charizard
Set up a Vileplume with Super Growth. If your opponent runs
a card which can defeat Vileplume you lose, but if they don’t, you win. Due to the
popularity of Zoroark, Vileplume has decreased in popularity so I don’t expect
many Reshiram & Charizard decks to run measures for Vileplume.
Zoroark
Your ideal board state is two Rowlet & Alolan Exeggutor
GXs, Venusaur and Shaymin. Since Rowlet & Exeggutor GX cannot be knocked
out in one shot, you can use Gardenia to continually heal. Save your GX move for
knocking out Persian GX.
Jirachi Zapdos
One option is to tank with Rowlet & Alolan Exeggutor GX
and the other is to prevent your opponent from even attacking with Vileplume.
Both routes are fine and you can decide which to take by considering the cards
in your hand and which cards are Prized. When you tank, be careful of Tapu
Thunder GX and make sure you attach Energy to your second Rowlet & Alolan Exeggutor
GX at the right time.
If you decide to block with Vileplume, you must knock out the
2-2 line of Magcargo. If you use Gardenia, you can survive Magcargo’s attack
twice. With either route, make sure not to play Shaymin, as it may be taken
down by Beast Game GX.
Ultra Necrozma
This matchup is a bit tighter than the three above. Firstly,
set up a Vileplume and attach Energy to it. On the next turn, if your Rowlet
& Alolan Exeggutor GX survives, set up another Vileplume. Else, set up a
Venusaur. Once Rowlet & Alolan Exeggutor GX is knocked out, it will become
a battle with Malamars. As you can heal with Gardenia, you should be able to
win with two Vileplumes. Conversely, if you have only one Vileplume, it will be
very difficult to beat Malamars. Hence, a second Rowlet & Alolan Exeggutor
must be set up when a Malamar is knocked out, and the match will become one of
endurance.
Pikachu & Zekrom
You are disadvantaged. To win, you must:
- Set up two Rowlet & Alolan Exeggutor GXs
- Not Prize any part of the Vileplume line
Before your opponent can get off Full Blitz -> Tag Bolt
you need to set up two Vileplumes. If you try to tank with Venusaur, your
opponent will use Full Blitz -> Tag Bolt to knock out both Venusaur and
Rowlet & Alolan Exeggutor GX and you will not be able to make a comeback.
Gardevoir & Sylveon
This is a match between tanky Tag Teams, but the GX of
Rowlet & Alolan Exeggutor is very powerful. If you have Venusaur, if you
attach three Energies you can use the additional effect of the GX move, shuffling
your opponent’s Energies back into their deck. Use this when your opponent has
five or more Energies on their board. As Gardevoir & Sylveon tends to run
Secret Hood, there is no point in using Vileplume.
Other than these decks, you will generally want to set up
Venusaur. Against Unown HAND, Gourgeist and other Stage One decks you are unfavoured,
but I don’t think they will be played much.
Tournament Report
I will explain my matches at the City League below.
Qualifying Rounds
Round 1: Rinrin-san (Articuno Naganadal) Second, Win
I struggled to set up Venusaur in the early game and could
not attach Energy, while my opponent continually attacked with Articuno.
I used Gardenia to recover, using my GX move in the middle
of the game to shuffle my opponent’s Energies back into the deck, and I was
able to gain enough time to win.
Round 2: Nagi-san (Jirachi Zapdos Ultra Beasts),
Second, Win
I set up both Vileplume and Venusaur, knocking out my
opponent’s Magcargo with Calming Hurricane. My Rowlet & Alolan Exeggutor GX
was knocked out by two Elegant Souls, but I was able to knock out the second
Magcargo with Vileplume and won.
Round 3: Pie-san (Jirachi Zapdos Ultra Beasts), Second,
Win
Similarly to the second round, I set up Vileplume. My Rowlet
& Alolan Exeggutor GX was knocked out by Tapu Thunder GX but I was able to
knock out Magcargo and won.
Round 4: Kikukawa-san (Articuno Quagsire), Second, Win
My opponent was unable to find Energy in the early game and
hence couldn’t attack. I just used Rowlet & Alolan Exeggutor GX to attack
and won.
Round 5: Mocchi-san (Pikachu & Zekrom), First,
Win
I proposed to ID, but it was rejected so we played as
normal. My opponent could not use Full Blitz on their first turn and I was able
to set up two Vileplumes so I won.
I was in first place at the end of the qualifying rounds
with a record of 5-0.
Main Round
Round 2: Koji349-san (Gourgeist Zebstrika) First,
Loss
My opponent was able to set up very well and naturally, I
lost. It is impossible to deal with a Gourgeist deck that sets up perfectly.
With that, I ended up in the top 16. To be honest, I wanted
to win more rounds as this would put less stress on me for the JCS, but I think
the result is reasonable as I had a lot of bad matchups in the field.
Thank you for reading thus far.
Please find the original Japanese-language article here.
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