Pokémon’s North American International Championships took place at the weekend, from June 13 – 15. While the psychic deck featuring the all-star Pokémon card Gardevoir ex proved itself to be the best strategy by far, not only taking first place but also second and fourth, we’re far more interested in the unexpected deck that came in spot number five.
A Toadscruel ex/Ogerpon deck piloted by US player Ray Chen made it to the top 5 in the NAIC. This deck isn’t entirely brand new – Chen took it to 12th place in the Portland Regionals last month – but it has never been a serious contender up to now. According to Limitless TCG, it makes up only 1% of the current meta – a tiny fraction.
So what’s so great about this grass-type deck? Does it feature the best Pokémon cards? Some exciting fresh tech card from the newest Pokémon set? Well, being grass type is in itself no bad thing. Having the grass type Toasdcruel ex as its main attacker gives this deck the type matchup advantage against not just terastal Charizard, but also Marnie’s Grimmsnarl. Grimmsnarl is the favorite Pokémon TCG deck since Destined Rivals released, but in this competition, it actually performed pretty poorly.
Toadscruel ex has an ability that shuts down the effects of your opponents’ attacks, which is pretty nice by itself, but its attack also deals more damage for each benched Pokémon you have with grass energy attached.
Just like how it acts as a battery for the Raging Bolt deck, Teal Mask Ogerpon is the key to this strategy. The Pokémon’s Teal Dance ability attached energy each turn, and you can use trainer cards like Energy Switch to ensure everyone’s loaded up. The good thing is that unlike Raging Bolt, you don’t care how much energy is attached to each of your Pokémon, just so long as they all have one.
As well as a superior type matchup, there are some other key ways Toadscruel ex counters the current meta. Its ability makes Dragapult decks less threatening because their Phantom Dive attack can no longer decimate your bench. Meanwhile, a copy of one-prize Toadscruel also negates some of the best trainer cards like Night Stretcher and Superior Energy Retriever.
While Chen was ultimately knocked out by Dragapult while facing four-time IC-winner Tord Reklev, we have to applaud her for rocking up to a major tournament with a deck that no one else believed could be good and kicking ass.
Did you catch the tournament live? Let us know about the experience over on our Discord. You can also check out our pieces on the rarest Pokémon cards and each Pokémon set in order of release.
Source: Wargamer
