Hi everybody! Well, now that the East Coast STS is all wrapped up, I thought I’d do a quick analytical survey of the Top 24 decks. What was hot? What’s not? Which cards are more powerful under Prop 15-3C? Which cards are useless? I’m sure you’ve formed your own opinions by now, but the following report might surprise you. ;)

For those who haven’t check it out yet, the main Wizards wrap-up on the STS is here:

And why are there 24 people total who placed 1^st-8^th? Well, the Top 8 winners & decks were split into three age categories. If you want to see all those decklists, check out these sub-pages!

(And, as I’m sure most of you know, you can’t under-estimate a young, skilled player just because she’s "Just a kid"; do that, and you’re likely to get your butt kicked. So of course, the decks of the youngest players are just as important as the decks played by adults!)

What I did was this: I analyzed all 24 of these decks, and I took a close look at which players used which specific cards in their decks. Since these 24 people could easily be considered some of the best players in the world, their opinions on which cards to use, and which to ignore, are pretty interesting, IMHO.

Then, I set up a matrix to calculate what percentage of players decided to use each card. So, for example, 12 of the Top 24 players played with Jiggly & Wiggly; that means that both of those cards scored 50% in this survey. The higher the percentage score, the more players relied on that card. Simple!

To look at the results, and what they mean, I’ve split this report into three parts… Basic Energy, Colorless Stuff & Trainers, and finally, Colored Pokemon. Let’s take a look, eh?

This is important, because it shows us which color everyone had the most success with, and which colors were rarely used. Whether that means the #1 color is better than the #6 color, that’s up to you; but it does mean that you can expect to see the #1 color player against you a lot more than the #6. ;)

(This totals more than 100% because most people used 2 colors.)

So what can we say in favor of the mix?

• Every single color was represented!
• Why is this good? Well, it’s when you see an entire line of Energy dropped from championship decks that you start to see the game environment totally degenerate. Why? Well, because that means that every single card that requires that Energy will never be "seriously" used. If you cut out 1 of the 6 colors, then 1/6^th of the game’s variety just crumbles away before your eyes!
• In more good news, almost everyone used 2 colors in their deck. That tells us that Weakness and Resistances still count for a lot! This is important, because it means that everyone agrees that every color has at least 1 color it needs to worry about. When every single color has at least one enemy, then every color has a reason to be in the game, because you can’t always use just 1 color and get away with it. (The sole exception seems to be the almighty Raindance deck, but with Lightning and Fire everywhere, you have to be careful, and probably use some Colorless Pokemon if you go "straight blue.")

A few problems:

• Lightning is king, closely followed by Fighting. Everything else was rarely used. It would have been nice to see a more equal spread among the 6 colors, but there’s the sad reality.
• It’s interesting to see Fire surge up into 3^rd place, but a little dismaying to see old powerhouses like Water and Grass at the bottom of the heap. Remember this is Grass ENERGY we’re talking about, though; lots of players used Grass POKEMON in their decks, if only in the form of Scyther.

I piled these 3 categories of cards together for a very important reason – every single player has access to them, no matter what color they’re playing. No matter what your strategy, you can use these cards to fill in the holes. And, it’s when you see a specific card being played by ALL players, no matter what their strategy is, that you can start to scream "Broken!" and have people believe you. ;)

Computer Search and Professor Oak (100%): Literally everyone used these. That’s a problem, because it IMPLIES (but does not prove!) that these cards are hopelessly overpowered. The good news is that, under Prop 15-3C, Super Energy Removal (the card voted "most degenerate" by almost every player earlier this year) is not in the 100% bracket. Since all of these cards are controlled by the limit of 3 each, and no more than 15 Trainers per deck, the reality hurts less; but still, it’s not good. What is most interesting, though, is to note that these are not "kill cards"; they’re both Deck Manipulation cards – meaning they’re both used to get specific cards out of your deck. That implies that the single most important Trainer strategy to every player, under Prop 15-3C, was to control the randomness of their deck, and draw specific cards. (Why? Because it’s so much harder to get the cards you want when you don’t have 40 Trainers!) So, at least we don’t see SER or PlusPower here!

**Good News**: No Pokemon scored 100%, and only 2 Trainers did. That’s pretty cool. ;)

Full Heal Energy (63%): At 63%, this made a very strong showing. Why? Well, with the Trainer crunch, everyone found that their Pokemon were MUCH more vulnerable to status effects. Full Heal Energy was the overwhelming answer to this problem.

Ditto (50%), Clefairy & Clefable (25%): Since the Trainer limit makes it a lot harder to give your deck versatility, lots of players liked the "doppelgangers" – those Pokemon that copy the abilities and attacks of their rivals. But, these Pokemon didn’t appear everywhere, even though everyone had the chance to use them! They seemed especially popular with the older players, however.

Jigglypuff & Wigglytuff (50%): Many players swore by these cards; but taken as a whole, only 50% of the players used them. That shows us that even though J&W are extremely powerful, they aren’t so overpowering that everyone feels compelled to use them. In other words, there’s more than 1 deck type out there. ;)

PlusPower (38%): All the way down at 38%, and obviously weakened by the fact that you can only have 3! They take up valuable Trainer slots, and the odds of drawing 2 or 3 in your first hand are slim indeed. This is all good news, because it means that PP is still a good surprise card, but is virtually useless if all you’re trying for is a cheesy 1^st-turn win.

Super Energy Removal (33%): Only 33%! Yay! No Removal Gym and the 15-Trainer limit put a nice wrestler’s hold on the merciless Energy Removal strategy.

Bill (21%): Clearly, under Prop 15-3C, few people thought that the extra deck manipulation was worth the crucial Trainer slots. Everyone vastly preferred Search and Oak to Bill.

Dodrio & Doduo (13%): Old favorites return! Hardly anyone expected to see these guys tearing up the field; it almost makes you nostalgic enough to wish there was a Farfetch’d!

Rocket’s Sneak Attack (13%): Just like PlusPower, an unfair 1^st-turn game "hoser" has been effectively neutralized. It’s still great in specific tactical situations, but it no longer allows you to beat your opponent over the head before they even get out of the ring!

Aerodactyl (4%): Clearly not the threat that some people thought it would be; probably due to Scyther and the vulnerability of the Mysterious Fossil.

These are Pokemon that belong to a specific color, which means of course that fewer people used them. The exception being Scyther, of course… heheh…

Scyther (83%): Obviously the clear favorite in this category, because he’s deadly no matter what color of Energy you’re using. I chose not to list him in the Colorless section because you can "flame" him pretty easily!

Electabuzz (67%): IMHO, the strongest Pokemon in the game. This guy was single-handedly responsible for the preponderance of Lightning decks.

Rocket’s Zapdos (58%): Clearly, this one is deadly; but the Energy investment involved kept him from popping up everywhere at once.

Hitmonchan (42%): Since day 1, he’s been the champ; but since he is clearly more specialized in the early game than Electabuzz, he’s a much more balanced card.

Mewtwo (17%): Good ol’ Movie Promo M2 makes a relatively weak showing, simply because if you can’t cram your deck full of Trainers, he’s not nearly as easy to support.

Blastoise (13%): One of the biggest problems with Prop 15-3C is that it makes it VERY difficult to play with Stage 2 Pokemon. But since some classic Raindance decks made it into the running, it’s obvious that you can still win with Stage 2s and only a few Trainers – IF you devote your entire deck to making your strategy work.

Everything at 4%: This was the most encouraging thing for me. Look at all the different Pokemon that people experimented with, and they all made it into the Top 8! One of the best signs of a healthy environment.

No one deck type beat all of the other decks. The 1^st-Place finishes went to:

Jonathan Brooks – 1^st Place, 10 and under, using Raindance

Rudy Rodriguez – 1^st Place, 11-14, using Wiggly/Lightning

Tom Hanley – 1^st Place, 15 and up, using BBPs and "doppelgangers" (Ditto, Clefairy, etc.)

Three Champions, three different decks.

And, since every kind of Energy was used, we can see that there is a lot of variety possible, even at the highest level of competition.

A few Trainers and a few Pokemon were used by almost everyone. That’s not healthy for a fun, balanced game environment! Even more troubling, only 76 different cards were used, in total, by these 24 players. That’s a dangerously narrow field of top card choices.

Prop 15-3C is not the ultimate solution; it limits the use of Stage 2 Pokemon, encourages the use of Basic Pokemon, and somewhat limits deck design. We’re still stuck with some of the same old problems.

BUT, (and this is huge), Prop 15-3C is obviously much better than the pre-existing environment, in which exactly 2 deck types (Haymaker & Wiggly) were viable. There were LOTS of "2^nd-tier decks" (meaning, decks that could win against most things, but not very often against Hay & Wiggly), but only 2 real choices. So, since things couldn’t get much worse, Prop 15-3C is clearly a MAJOR success – when you consider it from the point of view, "Yup, the environment’s variety sucked really bad before we tried this."

Overall, I would give the "no limit" game environment (4 of any card, any number of Trainers) a D- for fun, creative strategy and variety; and I’d give Prop 15-3C a C+ in the same areas. Better, but we have a long way to go.

So what do I think this all means? I think that Prop 15-3C is a major step in the right direction – WotC need to encourage the play of as many different deck types as possible. It’s great to see the environment improve, and some diversity at the top levels. But Prop 15-3C is not the "Be All, End All" way to play Pokemon; it is, shall we say, an important Evolutionary Stage in the play of tournament Pokemon. Things can only get better.

Has the game environment reached its ultimate stage of evolution? Of course not! And is there any better system of deck design and fairness? Do we need to resort to Bannings and Restrictions? More on that later, I have an article in the works if anyone wants to see a wild solution. It could be the answer, or it could be a disaster. The players will decide! Heheheh…

Goodnight all,

KDK