Learning from Japan, Zoroark-GX/Lycanroc-GX with Weavile

Recently there has been some talk around the results of the 1300 person Tokyo Championship League which took place this past weekend. The most talked about decks were the finalists, Malamar/Giratina and Blacephelon-GX/Naganadel. These are both great new decks that will be coming out with Lost Thunder in November. However, the best performing deck overall at the event was Zoroark-GX/Lycanroc-GX, a deck that is also very popular in our meta game. That is the deck I'm going to be discussing today. Particularly with the Ultra Prism Weavile that can be found in seven of the nine Zoroark-GX decks from the event that have had their lists made public (Including the best performing list, the 6th place Zoroark-GX/Lycanroc-GX deck). Credit goes to limitlesstcg.com for the results and lists from the event.

To begin, I'll just quickly touch on Weavile. Weavile is known to be a very powerful card in this meta game. Buzzwole decks have started playing it to help their Zoroark matchup and before Brazil Regionals Zoroark-GX/Weavile was seeing a spike in play to counter the ability heavy Vikavolt/Rayquaza-GX and Malamar decks. Weavile is not a very useful card against Buzzwole decks so most people stuck with Lycanroc-GX, because it is not only good against those decks but is also pivotal against Buzzwole; however Malamar and Rayquaza-GX both continued to do very well at Philidelphia Regionals and those matchup are very notably better with a thin Weavile line to take big knockouts.

Yosuke Kato's 6th Place List

Shinya Iwamura's 14th Place List

I wanted to bring up both of these lists because I think that in adapting this deck into our meta there are aspects of both lists that should be taken into account. Kato's list chose to only play a 1-1 line of Weavile in favor of also playing a 1-1 line of Magcargo. I believe this is because of the Ditto Prism Star that is in the deck. Ditto Prism Star can evolve into any stage 1 Pokemon, which most notably allows Kato to bench Ditto in addition to whichever stage 1 he'd like to get out without being afraid of an opponent's Guzma to pull one of them up. Since we don't have Ditto, I don't think you can afford to play so many evolution lines, nor can you afford to only play 1 Sneasel since that allows your opponent to knock it out before Weavile becomes a threat. For this reason I think building off of Iwamura's deck list would be a lot stronger in our format. On the other hand, Shinya's early game is based on setting up with Professor Elm's Lecture, another card that is unreleased in North America; whereas, Kato's trainer line is much more like our lists, with the exception of a max count of Judge and a low count of Nest Ball. When adapting this archetype into our format I considered all of these aspects, and the tech card choices from both lists. Then did some testing against some decks that Japanese lists do not seem to account for, such as Shrine of Punishment decks, and Vikavolt/Rayquaza-GX.

The Standard Format List

3 Rockruff and 1 Diancie Prism Star

I added a third Rockruff and a Diancie because of the deck's reliance on Lycanroc-GX's Claw Slash attack for 130 damage in its match-up against Buzzwole/Shrine of Punishment.

0 Buzzwole

I cut the regular Buzzwole because it very useful against Shrine of Punishment decks. The card felt dead in the match-up and room had to be made for other tech cards.

1 Tapu Lele UPR

This deck is already playing Unit Energy for Lycanroc-GX and Weavile and the only reason this card was not an inclusion in the Japanese lists is due to the lack of Rayquaza-GX. Against Rayquaza-GX, this card is a huge momentum swinger. 4 Nest Ball and 1 Friend Ball

Unfortunately we do not yet have Professor Elm's Lecture, so we need a way to get are basic Pokemon out in the early to mid game. The fairly proven supplement, heavy Nest Ball. The Friend Ball was an inclusion made by some players from Team Dead Draw Gaming, including Poet Larsen who piloted the deck to a Top 8 finish in Philadelphia this past weekend. In the mirror match or Friend Ball can search out almost anything you want, against Buzzwole/Shrine of Punishment decks you can search out pieces of your Lycanroc-GX line which, as I mentioned is the key to the match-up; you can even search out your Zoroark line against them if they play Weavile. Against any other deck you can often still use Friend Ball to search out Tapu Lele-GX if you need to.

2 Weakness Policy

I decided to play Weakness Policy instead of the Bodybuilding Dumbbells in Kato's list. This is simply because of the relevance of Buzzwole, Marshadow-GX, Golisopod-GX, and even Tapu Bulu-GX or Dhelmise in our meta game.

Matchups

Buzzwole/Garbodor/Weavile/Shrine of Punishment

This matchup is one of the decks more difficult matchups, but not by much. Your game plan is to set up with as few items as possible, capitalize on Acerola, and Claw Slash. If your opponent only has one Buzzwole in play, or only one Buzzwole with an energy attached when you are about to go down to four prizes, make sure you take advantage of that and knock it out for your second prize. Later in the game is usually when you want to knockout Garbodor or Weaviles before they can do big damage; however, if you know they need multiple cards to seal the game knocking out Magcargo or Oranguru can be the correct choice.

Vikavolt/Rayquaza-GX

Taking a one hit knockout on Grubbins or Vikavolts can win you the game early if you are confident your opponent will have trouble setting up another one. Weavile is really big and really important in this matchup. You can utilize Weavile and Tapu Lele in the same game to try to force an awkward prize trade from your opponent.

Psychics/Malamar

In this matchup you need to commit to commit your Weakness Policies at the right times, and be conservative about evolving into Zoroark-GX to avoid giving easy prizes to Marshadow-GX. Your general strategy is to set up for big knockouts on GX Pokemon with Weavile and Lycanroc-GX and to disrupt your opponent by knocking out Malamars in the early game.