✎ Tate Whitesell (@twhitesell42)
Click to view rankings + statistics Google doc
(You can always view the current week's rankings and statistics at the Weekly Cup Data tab, and can check back on previous weeks with the archive.)
Notes
Click to view rankings + statistics Google doc
(You can always view the current week's rankings and statistics at the Weekly Cup Data tab, and can check back on previous weeks with the archive.)
Notes
- Mewtwo & Mew-GX Toolbox is back on top, after dominating the rankings earlier on in this format before briefly surrending the #1 spot to Gardevoir & Sylveon-GX and then Malamar. Mewtwo & Mew-GX's consistency, flexibility, and fairly high skill level have ensured that it's remained a top-three deck in the rankings for basically this entire format, as well as the previous one. It's worth noting that MewMew gained 172 CP (38.83% of its total in this sample) from a single Cup in Australia, where players such as Matthew Burris, Jack Millar, and Brent Tonisson--some of the best-known MewMew players in the world--all took it into Top 8.
- Malamar dropped a spot to #2 but was still a very strong play. This weekend's Cup attendees no doubt took into account the explosion of Blacephalon UNB variants at the recent Bochum Regionals, and made their deck choice accordingly. Malamar is known as having perhaps the strongest matchup of any meta deck against both Blacephalon UNB variants, while also having a good chance against Mewtwo & Mew-GX.
- Interestingly, after dropping seven spots in the previous week's rankings and apparently surrendering the title of "best ADP variant" to the Bird Trio build, ADP/Keldeo-GX has shot back up to the #3 spot this week. Perhaps the novelty of ADP/Bird Trio has worn off a bit and some players have decided the older variant is better; perhaps Keldeo-GX was a specific meta call that paid off at a variety of Cups this weekend; or perhaps it is just random variance, as there was only a 43-CP difference between the Keldeo-GX and Bird Trio builds in the rankings.
- Coming off that surprisingly dominant Bochum performance (Stéphane Ivanoff's Green's Exploration build defeated Brennan Kamerman's Pidgeotto build in the finals), both variants of Blacephalon UNB moved up several spots from the previous week's rankings. The Green's Exploration build was technically ahead of the Pidgeotto build--but only by a tiny 3-CP difference! While the Green's build does offer slightly improved matchups against Mewtwo & Mew-GX, Malamar, and ADP/Bird Trio (decks that could pick off Pidgeotto with spread damage), I think it is a bit harder to play optimally (due to the need to constantly think several turns ahead and build one's hand with Green's), so perhaps some players simply fell back on what they were comfortable with and still succeeded with the Pidgeotto version.
- Garchomp & Giratina-GX/Roxie saw a bit less success than it had in the previous couple of weeks. This is one trend that could explain the revival of ADP/Keldeo-GX, since Keldeo-GX plus Chaotic Swell is pretty difficult for the TinaChomp deck to handle.
- This is the first time in several weeks that control/stall archetypes did not perform particularly well. Oranguru/Pidgeotto Control fell out of the top ten for the first time in nearly a month, while Doll Stall had only a single placement in the sample. While I don't necessarily think people hard-countered control/stall this week, Mewtwo & Mew-GX, Malamar, and Blacephalon UNB/Pidgeotto can all be rough matchups, so that is likely a big part of why those archetypes didn't succeed.
- There was only one Expanded Cup in this week's sample, so that's not really worth talking about. Nothing unexpected: two Archie's Blastoise, a Zoroark-GX/Garbodor, and an Ultra Necrozma/Octillery.
