Super Battle Zone
Hopefully, there's still enough
players to make the Super Battle Zone tournaments worth it.
Unlimited. Interesting. Before Aquapolis, unlimited had stayed the
way it was for the past year- with Slowking/Murkrow, not necessarily
Sneasel, dominating the unlimited
scene.
I have preached the strength
of Murkrow and it became clear that a 3 ER/3 SER Slowking deck with Murkrow can
consistently take out almost any deck in unlimited. If you're one of
the players that still believe decks like Clefable/Muk are a "Slowking
metagame," then you're simply an idiot... if you believe unlimited is a format
where speed and first and second turn wins run, you're an idiot. Unlimited
is a slow, strategic game of evolutions and trainer conservation. Nothing
is more important than playing your trainers at the right time.
Unlimited is not what many people think it is- a second turn Wigglytuff- or an
unstoppable Rocket's Zapdos/Sneasel deck (which is a horrible, horribly
deck). Do you know what is good in unlimited? This is what's
good in unlimited:
1) Slowking/Murkrow (Slowking, Murkrow, various
metagame options)
It doesn't have to play more than 1 Sneasel.
You can even get away with zero. You play heavy removal, Pokémon Flute
and/or Erika's Perfume, and you make something vulnerable to a Mean Look that
wins the game. Simple as that. The deck is strong to the point that
Rocket's Zapdos, Electabuzz, Chansey, often Scyther and Sneasel often cannot
avoid a nasty Mean Look, especially with a Healing Fields in play. And if an
Unown or Slowpoke or something like that gets benched, oops, you pretty much
lose.
2) Focused Chansey (Chansey, Unown M, Scyther,
Igglybuff)
I talked about Alex Brosseau constantly about this.
Focused Chansey doesn't lose because the "Unown" gets Mean Looked, or the
Chansey for that matter. Against a low ER/SER Slowking, go for a quick
Chansey. Against a high ER Slowking, build Scyther, and maintain ER
control to prevent the Beat Up option. If you build Scyther with recycles
you should be able to avoid the Mean Look. But what has really helped this
deck, and other decks vulnerable to Mean Look is the new Warp Energy. This
card is amazing. It really hurts Murkrow. No cards stop you from
playing energy. But more importantly, regarding Scyther, it's new
evolution is amazing. In fact, you don't necessarily play Scizor in a
Chansey deck, you could play Chansey in a Scizor deck.
3) Scizor
(Scizor, Chansey, Igglybuff)
The Aquapolis Scizor, in unlimited, is a
better Steelix. This is because Scyther has so many advantages (mainly
free retreat) over Onix, and Aimed Grasp is great against Slowking. It's
second attack is simply better than Steelix's Tail Crush in every way, and
although it is 30 HP less than Steelix, the only KO options are basically
Double-Edge (assuming no metals on Chansey) and Beat Up (2+ dark) if YOU have no
metal attached. So basically, they'd have to remove your metals to KO you,
an obvious conundrum, especially with Eco in play, and you're in good
shape. Scizor is amazing. It should be a dominating unlimited
deck. That's how good it is.
4) Snechu (Sneasel, Pichu,
Tyrogue)
This deck can't die. It's good against Slowking and we
all know that Sneasel is simply broken. It can take down anything.
It is your modern day haymaker. It's the only good deck with no
evolutions.
5) Arithmetic (Rocket's Zapdos, Muk,
Tyrogue)
I don't even know if people play this deck. It's
sickeningly powerful because it works so well with Muk, a high ER/SER line, and
Pokémon Tower, which are drastically detrimental to the development of most
popular decks, including Slowking, Chansey, Scizor, etc. And don't
play Electabuzz- in any deck. It is too vulnerable to Tyrogue and it's 2
retreat hurts it.
6) Typhlosion
This deck working, I swear,
was a fluke. It shouldn't be able to beat Sneasel/Slowking or
Snechu. It does work well with Pokémon Tower, but it is difficult to make
the ER/SER line high enough to beat Sneasel while playing a stage 2. I
stressed that it worked in unlimited, and it does, sort of, but in general, I
believe that good players with good decks beat it. It does beat
Scizor.
7) Unremoveable Scizor (Brock's
Ninetales/Scizor)
This replaces Brock's Ninetales and Steelix
together. I guess you could always play at least 1 Steelix. Anyway,
if you don't expect Muk or Typhlosion, this deck dominates, and does very well
against Slowking.
Now, I didn't list Cleffa... all these should max
out, and I didn't list Tyrogue in decks that played only 1-2.
--------------------------
With Aquapolis, all of these decks and
nearly every modified deck should be playing Pokémon Fan Club- 2 of them.
The card is amazing in every deck.
And as for Super Battle Zone, any of
these decks can dominate the tournament. It's up to you what you wish to
play, but these are all good choices.
I'll be at the Chicago Pastimes
SBZ. Hopefully I'll see some of you there.
Thanks for
reading.
-Jason Klaczynski