"Battle Compressor and Bunnelby," - A Nationals Report and My Favorite Expanded Deck
Nationals
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| Image Credit: AutobotTesla |
League Challenge, Chicago IL, Night March, 15
CC, Countryside IL, Night March, 10
CC, Springfield IL, Night March, 30
Missouri States, Donphan/Groudon, 100
Iowa States, Donphan/Groudon, 20
League Challenge, Copenhagen DK, Night March, 15
League Challenge, Sprang-Capelle NL, Night March, 15
These are the events that I did not earn points at:
Philadephia Regionals, Donphan
Ft. Wayne Regionals, Donphan/Raichu
CC, Bloomington IN, Night March
CC, St. Louis MO, Donphan
CC, Chicago IL, Night March
CC, Avon IN, Night March
St. Louis Regionals, Night March
Kentucky States, Donphan/Groudon
Tennessee States, Donphan
Ontario Regionals, M Manectric EX/Virizon EX/Trevenant EX
You may notice a pattern there. For every tournament (with one notable exception), I either played a deck focused around Donphan or the Night March Pokemon. I don't claim to have invented either of these decks by any means, but I "discovered them for myself", in that no one told me that either was a Tier One deck. I played Donphan with the Outrage dragons in September and brought the deck to Philadelphia Regionals. I had several people ask if I tested with Dylan Bryan, but unfortunately I had not. I missed the memo that Hawlucha was a strong card in the deck, and I thus had a 1-2-1 record against Yveltal at Philadelphia.
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| Image Credit: GhostyRaptor |
I took Night March with me when I went to Europe. It was deeply flawed, and I felt like it still lost to Seismitoad/Trump Card, but I felt like it could beat anything else. During eight rounds of Swiss across two League Challenges, I faced two Seismitoad decks: one Yveltal/Seismitoad and one Seismitoad/Shaymin. I lost to Yveltal/Toad and the Toad/Shaymin player drew dead, so that was good enough for a 3-1 first place finish and a 4-0 first place finish. It was at this point that the ban of Lysandre's Trump Card was announced, so all of a sudden Night March was an actual viable option.
Two weeks before Nationals, I hadn't done much real "testing" at all. I'd been messing around online with a variety of different decks, like M Manectric, Trevenant, Bunnelby/Ninjask, and Yveltal, but I didn't really feel comfortable playing anything other than Night March. I drove three hours to spend the weekend in St. Louis, where Vince was running a cash tournament. The entry fee was $20, and the winner would go home with $200. The intent of the tournament was to prepare Yeti players for Nationals, I really wanted to be prepared, and my lovely friend offered to let me crash on an extra bed in his basement for the weekend, so it was a no-brainer to head down there.
Here is how that little tournament went:
Gengar WW
Donphan WLT
Kyle Haverland w/Toad/Bats LL
Andrew Wamboldt w/ Kyogre LL
Pyroar WW
It became quickly apparent that Night March was not the best deck in the format, and that it wasn't even the second-best deck in the format. The top four consisted of two Toad/Bats and two Kyogre decks, and both Toad/Bats won their top four matches to make it to the finals. I quickly decided to dump Night March, and Andrew Krekeler was kind enough to share his M Manectric/Ninetails list with me. But as I drove back home to Champaign, I knew that I would end up playing Night March.
I messed around with the list a little that week and I was consistently winning every testing game at home. But then Canadian Nationals hit and the bats hit.
When I posted this on Virbank City, I wasn't necessarily going to play what was commented. I knew that there was no hard counter for Crobat, because it sits on the bench and rarely attacks. Some of the responses on that thread were very good though, namely Garbodor. I wasn't at the point where I could switch decks, but I wanted to see what people were thinking, and I got a good idea of that.
-Assumption #1: Crobat was going to be very popular at Nationals
-Assumption #2: Night March has a poor matchup against Crobat-based decks
-Assumption #3: I was going to play Night March no matter what.
-Assumption #1: Crobat was going to be very popular at Nationals
-Assumption #2: Night March has a poor matchup against Crobat-based decks
-Assumption #3: I was going to play Night March no matter what.
We had five days until Nationals, and with these three assumptions under my belt, I decided to just test the heck out of the Crobat matchups. My wonderful friend Brandon Flowers stayed up late with me every night that week from about 7 PM to 1 AM. We spent three nights testing Night March vs. Raichu/Bats, which he then decided that he would play for Nationals. We spent two nights testing Landorus/Bats. During that last night of testing we also built Toad/Bats to test against as well but we only ended up getting a couple games in with that. The Raichu/Bats matchup seemed pretty challenging in terms of keeping the energy flowing, because if we traded knockouts every one of my double colorless would get knocked out of play before I could take all six prizes. The matchup got easier if I got Empoleon out and harder if my opponent could get through the game without benching EXes.
Around this time I switched lists. I saw the results of the Arena Cup, and Ryan Moorhouse's list looked very similar to mine, except for the fact that he didn't run Acro Bike. A little light bulb went off in my brain, because I thought that Acro Bike had lost a lot of strength with the ban of Lysandre's Trump Card. Often, I would find myself having to decide which important card to discard. With\ Ultra Ball and Shaymin EX, it's easy to draw into what you need without discarding too many cards. Ultra Ball does discard cards, but you have more control over what you end up getting rid of. Ryan Moorhouse's list was from the Arena Cup, which was run in the Expanded format, but the only card that was released before BCR that he included was Super Rod. I debated over what to replace that with, and I ended up settling on a fourth water energy.
While testing with Brandon, we found that Raichu/Bats was a 40/60 matchup, Landorus/Bats was a 45/55 matchup with Empoleon, and Toad/Bats was an absolutely awful matchup. It was possible to win a game here or there, but it wasn't easy to win a series at all whatsoever. It was ironic that we spent those five nights testing against Crobat because I only played against one Landorus/Bats and two Toad/Bats during the whole tournament; there was much less bat presence than I expected!
Here is the list I used for the tournament:
4 Joltik
4 Lampent
4 Pumpkaboo
2 Mew EX
2 Shaymin EX
1 Mr. Mime
1 Empoleon
1 Jirachi EX
=19
4 Trainers' Mail
4 Ultra Ball
4 Professor Sycamore
4 Dimension Valley
2 Muscle Band
4 Battle Compressor
1 Town Map
1 Archie's Ace In The Hole
1 N
2 Lysandre
4 VS Seeker
1 Switch
1 Computer Search
=33
4 Double Colorless Energy
4 Water Energy
=8
I have posted a lot of Night March lists on this website, so you can check one out here or here if you want to see explanations of what each card is for. There are some differences between this list and the list that I have run in the past.
Shaymin EX
I wasn't running Shaymin EX before, but it is really helpful, especially in the Seismitoad matchup. Against Seismitoad, you only have one turn to "go off". This isn't necessarily as important in other matchups, but when you only have one turn to go through your whole deck, you have to make that first turn count. With Shaymin EX, every Ultra Ball gets you a few extra card to help draw into your Battle Compressors. I wouldn't turn down a third Shaymin if there was more bench space but space is already pretty tight as it is.
Town Map
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| This card can show the correct route to victory |
Mr. Mime
With Crobat-based decks doing so well in Canada, I threw Mime in there because it helps a lot. A Joltik is never safe on your bench in that matchup, but without Mr. Mime Crobat can use Surprise Bite on a Pumpkaboo and follow that up with a Skill Dive to knock it out. Besides blocking that play, Mr. Mime also makes Hammerhead a significantly less effective attack.
Switch
In past lists I have been using Float Stone as my switching card in Night March because it gives me a lot of flexibility when a Pokemon is knocked out. I can just promote the Jirachi or Empoleon that I threw Float Stone onto and then later I can choose what to attack with after I draw a card and play my Supporter etc. However, in my testing, I was getting put in a lot of silly situations where I was losing because I couldn't wake up from sleep or because my opponent was able to successfully nuzzle me with a Pikachu. Having Switch in the deck gave me an out for situations like that if I didn't discard it too early in the game.
A big thank you is order to Ryan Moorhouse because this list is largely based off his. Again, the only card that I changed was cutting one Super Rod for a water energy. The list was already pretty close to mine, as there aren't a lot of different things you can do with a Night March deck, but it was his idea to get rid of Acro Bike completely and I can't take credit for that at all.
I filled out my decklist on Thursday afternoon as we made the two hour drive out to Indianapolis. I preregistered and confirmed that I had my Round 1 Bye from States, and then my dad drove me back to our hotel room. I woke up the next morning, turned in my decklist at the Players Meeting, and then the tournament started!
Round 1 vs. Bye
I was very fortunate this year to have a first round bye from winning Missouri States in March. I wander into Jimmy Ballard's store where he has some tables set up for people to play. I played a Night March mirror against someone who didn't have enough play points to play in the main event, and then I got in a couple games against Lance Bradshaw who was playing Kyogre. We each took a game before it was time to go look at pairings again.
1-0
Round 2 vs. Dominic Bargardi with Seismitoad/Crobat
I met Dominic once before at Fall Regionals in Ft. Wayne where we played a very exciting Donphan mirror match. We spent about a minute figuring that out. I went first and he flipped over a Zubat, which could have meant several things. At that point I had to play conservatively, because if he was playing Raichu then I would automatically lose if I benched Shaymin EX. I got four or five Night Marchers in the discard pile and then I had to pass. He benched Seismitoad and Quaking Punched me, and I just couldn't keep up from there.
In the second game, since I knew what he was playing, it was a lot closer. I actually would have tied up the series but a Hypnotoxic Laser flip kept me asleep and I could not draw a card to start my turn. If I had been awake I had Lysandre in hand to take my last two prize cards! I wasn't too bothered though, because in the limited testing we had done, this was a pretty impossible matchup anyway.
1-1
Round 3 vs Jack Dockendorf with Metal Rayquaza
I hadn't tested much against Metal Rayquaza, but it turned out to be quite a good matchup. I knocked out Rayquaza because it was weak to Joltik. I took down an Aegislash with a combination of Mew EX, a water energy, a benched Joltik, and Dimension Valley. I believe that I grabbed my last couple of prizes off of a Shaymin or something. Game two went very similarly.
2-1
Round 4 vs. Sonny Gandhi with Landorus/Crobat
He won the flip, but these games were almost comical. He went first with Zubat, drew, and passed. I got four Night Marchers in the discard pile and took the win right there! In game two he started with Landorus, drew, and passed! I got nine Night Marchers in the discard pile and knocked him out with a Pumpkaboo. I apologized for not giving him any real games, and we went to the open gaming room to play for real and he clobbered me. That was a matchup that I tested poorly in, and he said that usually his deck worked for him much better than that, as was demonstrated in our reconciliation match. It was a pleasure meeting you Sonny, and I'm sorry that you didn't draw anything when we played the first two times!
3-1
Round 5 vs CJ Conti with Metal Rayquaza
This was another good matchup for me. Our first match went very similarly to my games against Jack Dockendorf where I won pretty handily. In game two on his first turn he plays down Colress and starts drawing cards, and he was about five cards in when I realized that there were only two Benched Pokemon! He had to reveal those three cards on top of his deck and put them back, and he just had a dead hand at that point. I benched him out in the next two or three turns.
4-1
Round 6 vs Steven Bates with Landorus/Raichu/Garbodor
This was a match in which I did not play to the best of my abilities at all. I totally missed the Archie's my first turn, as in I ended up using VS Seeker for Sycamore as my only card in hand when I used a Battle Compressor earlier, and I messed up on other minutiae like that during this game. However If I had played this game perfectly, I don't necessarily believe that I would have won the match as Steven played a great game. He won game one by a turn or two, as I couldn't get Mr. Mime down early enough. I won game two pretty handily if I remember correctly, but game three was a nightmare. I made a large misplay when time was called and I go to attack with a Mew EX but I forgot that Garbotoxin was activated. I had to retreat and pass, and I N'd him into nothing on the following turn to stop him from taking his last two prizes.
The match ended in a tie, and I have no doubt that I would have lost if it had continued. I played the game at my normal pace, and I am not a slow player by any means. My opponent, however, was shuffling my deck every time that I shuffled it. I have no problem with this because it's well within the rules of the game and it's his right to do that. Heck, I even shuffled my opponent's deck every time in one of my earlier matches. But I do believe that without using that extra time, my opponent would have had enough time to win the whole match decisively, as I just barely tied on time as it was.
4-1-1
Round 7 vs Brandon Salazar with Seismitoad/Crobat
This is a scary matchup. I knew that another loss would put me on the bubble, so I was really disappointed when I realized that I was playing against another Toad/Bats. In game one, I managed to get enough Night Marchers in the discard pile on turn one (eight Night Marchers?) to put enough early game pressure on him to take the win. In game two I only got four or five in there, so he took an easy win there.
In game three, I got eight Night Marchers in the discard pile again, but this time I had a few in my prize cards. I don't think my opponent used Quaking Punch once this whole game. He just attacked with Crobat and Golbat to get rid of all my Night Marchers. I unfortunately had discarded Mr. Mime too early in the game, so I lost this series 1-2.
4-2-1
Round 8 vs Peter Kica with Reshiram/Rayquaza/M Rayquaza
I'm not completely sure, but I think that Peter ran both types of M Rayquaza, although I only ever saw the colorless one. He ran the dragon Basic Rayquaza EX, and the Turboblaze Reshiram to accelerate energy. This matchup was pretty simple, because Joltik hit M Rayquaza for weakness. In game one he tried to load up a Reshiram to attack with on the bench but I just Lysandre'd where the energy was, and then took my last couple of prizes off EXes. Game two went pretty similarly, except that at the end I had a Joltik with Muscle Band and ten Night Marchers in the discard threatening a KO on anything he could possibly throw at me.
5-2-1
Round 9 vs Michael Natto with M Manectric/Ninetales
At the beginning of the match, my opponent mentioned that he was friends with Andrew Krekeler, and at that point I knew what he was playing, since I had his M Manectric/Ninetales list built at home as a possible option for Nationals. He was also a super nice guy, and a big pleasure to play against. I took game one handily, but game two was moving much slower and just a few turns in I scooped because I knew that I couldn't win. I got going pretty hot again game three, and on his last turn I show him that I have the win no matter what. My hand is VS Seeker, VS Seeker, Trainers' Mail, and Mew EX, and my deck is two Double Colorless. On my field I had two Joltiks with Double Colorless energy, and ten Night Marchers in the discard pile with two prizes left. I was able to take the win from there!
6-2-1
The results for the Ruby flight took way too long to go up, but once they went up I saw that I sneaked in at spot number 28! I needed to finish Nationals in the top 32 to receive an invitation to Worlds, so I knew that I could still do it. My dad drove me back to the hotel where I tried to get some sleep, although I was pretty restless with anticipation.
I got up in time to get to the convention center a few minutes beforehand and resleeve my deck. It was announced that Ruby and Sapphire would be split for the first round but combined after that. This meant that I might have to play Wailord unfortunately, but I ended up not having to worry about that at all.
Round 10 vs Ryan Grant with Seismitoad/Garbodor
He mulliganed, and I saw Double Colorless, Water, and Head Ringer in his hand. I assumed that he was playing Seismitoad/Bats, but turned out to be Garbodor instead.
That matchup comes down to how many Night Marchers I can get in the discard pile before I get Quaking Punched. Against Ryan I was not able to get very many Night Marchers into the discard pile, and he handily 2-0d me.
6-3-1
Round 11 vs Brandon Cantu with Klinklang
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| Image Credit: Yilx |
I don't remember exactly how the second game went. I do remember that I got set up and used Lysandre to knock out a couple of Klinks, but he benched his third and fourth at the same time so I had to give up on that strategy. Eventually I was in a position where I needed to use Ultra Ball and Computer Search to stay in the game but I didn't have enough cards in hand to play both, so I just drew and passed until I eventually conceded. Good series Brandon! By making Top 64 he was able to cement his spot in Day Two of Worlds.
6-4-1
Round 12 vs Jacob Van Wagner with Metal Rayquaza
My opponent had two byes from Regionals in Portland, Oregon. Unfortunately for him my Metal Rayquaza matchup was pretty good, and I managed to win the second game before time was called.
7-4-1
Round 13 vs Brit Pybas with Seismitoad/Garbodor
I knew that Seismitoad/Garbodor wasn't a great matchup, but on the first turn of Game One I got an Empoleon into play along with eight Night Marchers in the discard pile. The next turn I used Quaking Punch with Mew EX to put 30 on the Seismitoad, and on the following turn I used Night March for 160 to knock it out. My benched Joltik had a Muscle Band attached, so I was able to knock out a Seismitoad on the following turn as well. I managed to pull out a win to finish that first game.
In game two, I only got four or five Night Marchers into the discard pile on the first turn, and I scooped about three turns in, as I could tell that I was not going to win that game. This ended up being a fantastic decision, as the third game went to time.
In game three, I had a godly start once again, getting eight Night Marchers into the discard pile on my first turn. I don't remember exactly how this game went, but I know that I won after time was called on Turn One I believe. If I had not scooped game two so early, I would not have won this match.
8-4-1
Round 14 vs Benjamin Sauk with Metal Rayquaza
This unfortunately was where my great run ended, but it couldn't have ended against a nicer guy. Ben was very friendly and a genuine pleasure to play against. Metal Rayquaza is a good matchup for Night March, but based on what I saw, I'm fairly sure he played a list very similar to Geoffrey Sauk's top eight list. That list played a 3-2 line of Rayquaza, and it was more like a metal deck with Rayquaza teched in than a Metal Rayquaza deck. Ben led with an early Aegislash and I couldn't find my Basic Energy early, so I scooped to save time.
In game two I took four early prizes, but he got an Aegislash going and Nd me, leaving me in a rough spot. I drew and passed for a few turns until I had only one turn left before he took his last prizes, and I topdecked... Computer Search! I Computer Searched for Shaymin and with that and a Sycamore I was able to draw Mew EX + Water Energy + Joltik + Switch + Dimension Valley + Muscle Band to win the second game. That was close!
I did lose the third game as I just couldn't deal with the constant stream of Aegislash. I forgot about Resistance when I attacked Heatran with Pumpkaboo, and I forgot that there was no Dimension Valley when I was attacking with Mew EX, and I drew dead off of an N. All three of these factors (mostly just the last one though) led to me decisively losing this match.
8-5-1
Round 15 vs Stephan Blake with Donphan
I have played the Night March vs. Donphan matchup a lot. When I first built Night March, the only deck I had built to test against was Donphan. I believe that the matchup is in favor of Donphan, but that it all comes down to whether or not Night March can stream Lysandre a lot. When Donphan was more popular, I ran a Hard Charm or two which meant that Donphan needed two Strong Energy and a Muscle Band to knock out a Pupmkaboo. However since I didn't expect to see any Donphan at Nationals, the Hard Charm had been long since cut from the list. I had Empoleon though, which could still swing the matchup.
Against Stephan, I unfortunately never did get out an Empoleon. I used Night March with Pumpkaboo every turn, and he used Spinning Turn every turn with a Strong Energy and a Muscle Band, but since he had Robo Subs and I didn't have Lysandre, he won that prize trade.
In the second game I had to bench EXes, so he took all six prizes by using Lysandre on three benched EXes.
8-6-1
I took 56th place overall, and I would have needed four more match points to even have a shot at Top 32, which would have netted me my Worlds invitation. I think that Night March was the perfect deck to get me into Day 2 of Nationals, but once I got there players had enough skill to beat it, plus there was a lot of Aegislash to give it trouble. I don't think I had enough experience to play with any other deck. A huge shout-out to Andrew Krekeler for being kind enough to share his Manectric/Ninetales list with me. Andrew finished in 20th place, which is awesome. M Manectric loses a lot of power next year when it loses Max Potion, but it might still have enough healing power with Rough Seas.
This was the largest tournament that we've had since Lysandre's Trump Card was banned, and a couple of new strategies were shown at Nationals. The first of course was Wailord, which everyone got to see on the big screen during the finals. The goal of Wailord was just to heal Wailord and make your opponent run out of cards in their deck. This simple strategy was extremely successful as it took both 2nd and 9th place at the tournament. Another similar strategy that wasn't quite as successful was to use the Bunnelby with the Ancient Trait.
Bunnelby has two very strong attacks since Lysandre's Trump Card left the format. The first is Burrow, which discards the top card of the opponent's deck. The second is Rototiller, which shuffles a card from your discard pile back into the deck. Bunnelby can attack twice, so it can use two in any combination of both of these attacks. Burrow provides a milling strategy which is viable since the loss of LTC. Rototiller lets you recycle any resource, which is a huge plus without LTC to do that for you.
Bunnelby has two very strong attacks since Lysandre's Trump Card left the format. The first is Burrow, which discards the top card of the opponent's deck. The second is Rototiller, which shuffles a card from your discard pile back into the deck. Bunnelby can attack twice, so it can use two in any combination of both of these attacks. Burrow provides a milling strategy which is viable since the loss of LTC. Rototiller lets you recycle any resource, which is a huge plus without LTC to do that for you.
Bunnelby saw play in Stefan Tabaco's Top 16 Groudon deck, and also in Harrison Leven's Top 64 deck. Harrison's deck focused entirely on Bunnelby, using it as the main attacker to mill the opponent. Bunnelby decks can run Life Dew and put it back into the deck with Rototiller. Against Wailord, Bunnelby can use Rototiller to recycle energy back into the deck. This guarantees that Wailord will not be able to deck you out. Once you have all of your energy back, you can use Burrow to effectively deck out the Wailord deck!
I personally have been working on a Bunnelby list in the Expanded format that I would love to share with you all. The deck combines energy denial, prize denial, and milling:
4 Bunnelby
2 Diggersby XY
4 Sableye DEX
3 Corphish
2 Crawdaunt
1 Jirachi-EX
3 VS Seeker
4 Trick Shovel
1 AZ
1 Enhanced Hammer
4 Crushing Hammer
1 Life Dew
4 N
4 Professor Juniper
1 Skyla
1 Switch
2 Devolution Spray
4 Level Ball
4 Trainers' Mail
4 Double Colorless Energy
6 Darkness Energy
Crawdaunt, however, is absolutely fantastic in the Expanded format because Level Ball can grab the 90 HP Crawdaunt to use Unruly Claw to discard energy in the early game. Crawdaunt decks in the Standard format use Super Scoop Up or AZ to reuse Unruly Claw, but a much better option exists in Expanded: Devolution Spray. In the late game, you can use your Junk Hunt on Trick Shovel and Devolution Spray to keep milling while also discarding your opponent's energy.
There are so many other cards I would like to include in this decklist. Head Ringer, Silent Lab, Lysandre, and Shaymin EX come to mind, but there just simply isn't room right now. However, this is one of the most fun decks I've played all year. Against decks that center around Eels and Bronzong you'll have to focus on Trick Shovel and Life Dew, but against most other decks discarding all energy in play is a legitimate option as well. Feel free to leave your variations of the list in the comments!
That's all for today, but thanks for reading! Good luck to anyone testing for Worlds, and have a great day!
CR
ReplyDeleteGreat article with excellent idea! I appreciate your post. I like ur blog nd thank u..!!!!
Compress Part