The shape of the Unified Minds – Tops decks for the format
Hello everyone! This is Elena from Gaia Storm TCG and welcome to another article. It’s been a while since we last reviewed what was happening in the metagame and significant changes have happened in the last month and a half. Which decks are currently in the top positions? Is there a cheap option to play at high level? Let’s see how the competitive scene is currently shaped!
The first and most important thing you need to know is that we are in a Welder-based format. Two of the tier 1 decks, Mew & Mewtwo and Reshiram & Charizard, are strategies that rely around this supporter. While it is true that Mewtwo is a bit less dependent -given that it runs other energy acceleration tools-, Reshiram needs to continually hit this supporter in order to win the game. In fact, modern Reshiram builds are entirely built with just 4 Welders and a myriad of drawing cards like Dedenne and Jirachi in order to access it as quickly and consistently as possible. The most popular deck right now is Ability Reshichard, a version that has been refined since it made its debut at Worlds and focuses on the fire type cards’ aggression capabilities, combining different GX and non GX attackers with the deadly ability of Ninetales.
On a second step in the ladder there are decks like Blacephalon, Malamar and PikachuZekrom. Blacephalon is a deck that no matter what it is playing against, the power of beast rings will always be a thing. Now, Blacepahon builds have evolved and have more diverse gameplan options as before with the inclusion of Heatran GX and the drawing power of Naganadel GX. Malamar is a deck that didn’t perform well at Worlds but has proved to be something to take into consideration when going to tournaments as the Giratina loop is still powerful against many decks. Lastly, Pikachu Zekrom has seemed to decline in play, pretty much because it struggles keeping pace against the aggression of Reshiram and Mewtwo. Very interestingly, some late versions are exploring a control side of the deck with the inclusion of Power Plants and 4 copies of judges to solve this issue.
And what about stall? Is it no longer relevant with that many aggressive decks in the format? I am afraid it is still a thing! Gardevoir & Sylveon Tag Team just won Sheffield Regionals, mainly thanks to some favorable match ups across the board and the fact that there is nothing apart from Reshizard capable of comfortably KO it in one hit. If only there were a fire charm card… And them, we have Pidgeotto Oranguru, a deck with potential in the correct hands and probably the best deck currently in terms of budget. While it can struggle a bit in the first turns of the game, the deck is able to deck out every opponent by locking them in different ways.
I hope this small article helped to gain some insights about how the metagame is articulated. Of course, there are many more viable strategies and versions but that will be the topic for next entries. Thanks for reading!