Analysis of the current theme-deck metagame

[Oldschool1990]

Hello there,
time to share some information about theme deck tournaments and the decks beeing currently played most.
Therefore, I will present you a tier system. Whether you agree or not is up to your personal amount of experience in the current theme deck metagame.

I will focus on tournament games only, as they are the only profound source for a meta analysis. Versus-matches statistics are beeing stained with daily-questers, ladderpoint-farmers and unexperienced players, thus not sufficent for a reliable competitive insight.

Note: this ranking only covers the pokemon TCG Online metagame.
Note2: you can look up the specific decklists on bulbapedia or other sources.


Tier1: The king tier; the one deck to rule them all.

-Blue basic deck: Allrounder, concepted as a Ramp deck, mono water
No surprise, this deck is the most played deck as it is the most overpowered one, beeing good in any situation, providing lots of different strategies, beeing reliable for comebacks late in a seemingly lost game, but also known for efficient aggro strategies that end the game very fast. It has no junk cards at all, every card in this deck is good. So many draws and fetches really get you the cards you need. It dominates the entire format. If you want to win some boosters, you'll usually play with this deck. However, people are adapting to this and playing counterdecks, such as Iron Tide or the Green basic deck to gain some advantage of the steel and grass weakness. This deck alone has caused several rock-paper-scizors chains of deck choice when entering a theme deck tournament.


Tier2: The competitive tier; those decks are strong all around and see lots of play.

-Iron Tide: Ramp deck, water+steel+basic types
This deck was very often played over the last few month, due to it's ablitiy to control swap with Metagross and it's overall reliable parahax and damage output. This deck has quite alot of options and is concepted for longer games. It will be a stall match untill you ramp up.
It also has no junk cards, providing full game value with every card. The steel-types also deal with half of the blue basic deck, thus it's often played as a counter-deck.

-Dark Hammer: Aggro-deck with lategame-potential, dark+fighting+basic types
This deck provides fast pressure on your opponent. It has quite some energy-control, so you'll get your sweepers up fast. Hitmonlee can kick your opponents magikarps right off their bench if need be, Pangoro often comes at turn 2 and hits for 70. Hariyama actually stalls water types and is often a prefered check against the water-type decks above.
The trainer-pool features card draw and fetching and makes the deck viable in most situations. It has a check-matchup against Mental Might, where you should focus on your dark-types and protect your fighting-types. Also, no junk-cards. It's moderately played and provides enough power to compete.

-Mental Might: Another ramp deck, gets out of control when let be, psychic+basic types
This deck is one of the more often played decks as it is one of the free basic decks you get at the start. It provides great card draw, so you'll get up that Gallade fast, aswell as energy-supplement to have a constant flow of high damage. However, this deck is to centered on Gallade. If they get prized or defeated, this deck does nothing at all, as your Miltanks just grow worthless without them. Still, it has 3 parahaxers (7 pokes with parahax in total) and is able to stall and accelerate into lategame. If not beeing dealt with, this deck snowballs out of control. It is rather weak at the start as it needs time to build up, so hit it early on to keep it low. No junk cards here either.

-Red basic deck: Aggro deck that can ramp up in earlygame, fire+basic types
This deck focuses on pokes with high HP, hard charms and massive energy ramp.
Blacksmith and Entei supply your sweepers with enough amounition for 80 damage flamethrowers every turn. You can also try stalling and ramping up in lategame, but given that the most-played decks are water-types, I recommend going aggro with the deck. It can even beat water-types if you just get the energies up fast enough. That said, it feasts on slower decks with fire weakness, such as the green basic deck and Iron Tides steel types.
To play this deck efficienty, you'll need to be ready to take a gamble. Sometimes, Magcargo and Entei mill away your best cards instead of giving you the energys you need. No thrash cards here either. It sees less playing time, but it's nontheless very strong and can compete with the other decks.


-Green basic deck: Ramp deck with massive healing +Shiftry+Lysandre, grass+basic types
This deck has seen an enormous rise within the last week. It comes with high-HP pokemon which can drive quite alot of damage. It actually has Shiftry legally in it, which destroys everything with 1 hit, and a Lysandre + vs. seeker so you can nuke down your opponents main sweepers and thereby their game plan. The trainer-pool features alot of healing, so your stalling mons will survive long enough to dish out quite some damage. A surprise sis-joy can often win games. It even has double-colorless energies to cope for the high energy costs. Simisage blocks 1 attack, preferably the strongest/only attack of your opponents active poke, thus beeing able to stall even more, giving you all the time in the world to ramp up your sweepers. The overall durability of this deck is what makes it playable. Especially having that double Lysandre made it rather popular these days, where people tend to play rather passively, ramping up their bench. No junk cards in this deck.


Tier3: The casual tier; those decks are playable, but very specific.

-Storm Rider: Aggro deck with high damage output, electric+grass+dragon+basic types
This deck features Zapdos as the main strategy. Put 3 energies on it, hit for 120 and 40 to one of your benched pokes. Or you can try to go for a fast turn2 dragonair, which has a 3 energy double coinflip for 2x60 damage and can evolve into dragonite to hit for 150. Unfortunatelly, the deck only has 1 double dragon energy. However, the well-balanced trainerpool makes up for that at it has a Steven and different supporters to go along with that. Together with 2 letters and 2 Tiernos, you should get the energy cards you need. Overall, that would make for a very consistent deck, if not for the pile of junk pokes in this deck. It has lots of inefficient cannon ******* that is just there to take attacks and damage from your Zapdos. Just play those to ramp up Zapdos and Dragonite on your bench. Also, 2 switches help getting your sweepers out of danger.
With the high HP of both Zapdos and Dragonite, it's not really necessary to hide them on your bench. Once they are ramped, you'll take 2,3,4 prices for sure, so going aggressive is the better choice over letting your oppoent build up more threads.

-Night Striker: Ramp deck with tons of threads, dark+psychic+dragon+basic types
This deck is without question one of the strongest Tier3 decks, it could be Tier2 if people would start playing it more. With the type advantage over psychic types, and the general variety of threads is deck can actually compete against higher ranked decks. The featured Noivern is actually not the main sweeper of this deck, but more of a drawing utility. This is especially strong against draw-heavy decks. It is considered to be the counter-deck to Mental Might, which only has 4 real sweepers, meanwhile Night Striker has 7 (Cresellia, 2x Noivern, Gengar, Zoroark, 2x Ursaring). Ursaring can draw out any benched poke and hit it for 50, Zoroark has Stand-in and can switch in instantly to do the shiftry-thing. Gengar kills every poke that has atleast 30 damage counters on it. Do you see how things come together now? The bench-control in combination with the instant kill damage is similar to Iron Tide, actually even a bit better. However, this deck also contains quite some junk pokes that you don't need. This makes games kind of inconsistent, especially as most of your sweepers are evolutions, you'll end up with the basic of one and the phase1 of another more often than not. Wobbufett and Haunter provide some stalling capabilty to get to lategame, where this deck snowballs over other lategame decks due to the amount of sweepers and bench-control. Keep in mind that this deck will efficiently do nothing before you set up your first sweeper, so facing aggro-decks is the real challenge here.

-Resilent Life: Fastramp deck with extreme energy fetch and own field control, fairy+psychic+basic types
This deck features Xerneas to fetch your fairy energys out of your deck and ramp your bench with them, meanwhile Aromatisse has Fairy transfer, that lets you rearrange your fairy energies as often as you want, basically giving you the ability to freely move around your fairy energys. This is extremely strong, as you can directly move your ramped energys to Xerneas and hit for 100 turn2. Going aggro is actually possible with this deck, but it requires the right cards, which are difficult to get, as there are just to many junk cards in this deck. The deck also comes with a Fairy garden, giving you free retreat, and a Slurpufff that nullifies special conditions like parahax or sleep. It actually has the Dodrio trick to provide some stalling against experienced players, as they should get suspicious when there is a Duodo lying around waiting to get hurt for the revenge hit. And that times 2. Also, Mr.Mime can heal 1 benched poke for 60, which can be a free sis-joy in the best scenario and provides more durability for your sweepers.
So much about the fairy side. The deck also has the Scolipede-line, beeing able to poison early on, and then growing dangerously huge. It deals with such pokes that you can't simply nuke down with Xerneas. Keep in mind that Xerneas attack discards 1 energy, so you may not want to waste those just to dish out some last 10 damage of a 110 HP poke. In general, you need to be aware of the amount of energies remaining in the deck, since once you run out of them, it's game over. In lategame, you will notice the rather high consume of this deck. You won't really go aggro fast, but therefore ramp up your sweepers fast and dominate the midgame, trying to take 6 prices before you are out of ammo. So far, so good, it's a very strong deck overall, but unfortunatelly, as mentioned above, it contains lots of junk cards, Ekans beeing the worst of them, so the chance to draw the cards you need is reduced by those. Those junk cards also tend to ruin your starting hand, giving you a bad start and therefore losing your the game.


-Enchanted Echo: Allrounder-Aggro deck with some control/disrupt and heal/stalling, fairy+grass+basic types
This deck goes off really fast with eevee's ability to freely evolve upon energy attachment, so you put an energy on it, evole it turn1, and start doing evil stuff.
If you evolve it into Sylveon, you can deal 30 and move their energy to a benched poke, which is a pretty strong earlygame disrupt preventing both attacks and retreat in most cases. If you evolve it into Leafeon, you can deal 30 and sleep. Not as strong due to the sleep-coinflip, but the better choice if your opponent didn't bench up.
For 3, Sylveon can hit for 50, then boosts its next attack to 100 damage. However, that buff is lost when it gets switched to your bench. For 3, Leafeon can flip to either hit for 80, or for 50 and 30 selfheal. The deck also got a Victreebell evoline to add some poison and more stall-by-selfheal into the mix. However, this might be a rather slow approach for an aggro deck, so 2x Accelgor help out on the fast damage part, hitting for 60 for 10 upon evolving. Clefable and Tornadus provide some bench-control to switch out whatever your opponent throws at you. Tornadus is also your highest hitter, but that requires a same-amount-of-handcards-check, which is luckily not difficult to get with 2 battle reporters, 2x maintenance and 2 skates. The trainerpool also has 2 potions to help out with stalling. There is quite an amount of junk cards in this deck, which makes the card draw stuff really neccessary. Also, the overall strategy is rather unclear. It's an aggro deck with early field control, but low follow-up damage, and lots of stall-heavy cards that don't really belong into an aggro-deck. The best way to play this deck is to go for early disrupt with Sylveon and try to boost it to 100 damage hits, so you can get some prices before beeing forced into stalling. Because once you stop the pressure, you drift more and more into lategame, where your aggro pokes grow worthless over time, so you'll need that Tornadus to deal with that problem. However, if that get's priced, you'll have a stallfest in the best case, or tons of junk-pokes as sitting ducks in the worst case. Not really consistent, rather an allrounder deck that can do everything a bit, but nothing really good.


-Burning Spark
-Aurora Blast
-Ocean's Core
-Stone Heart
-Burning Winds
-Bolt Twister
-Earth's Pulse

Tier4: The no-go tier; those decks see almost no play because they are to weak.
Descripions to be continued another day...
-XY Kalos starter decks
-Mystic Typhoon
-Brilliant Thunder

Not yet categorized: (need more games for my statistics)
Descripions to be continued another day...
-Wave Slasher
-Electric Eye


Hope that could help.
I'll be completing the deck analysis over time, please stay patient for more to come.

[GonzoMD1993]

Tier lists huh? Very interesting idea. I think you actually made a very good analysys of the most played theme decks in tournaments. I think this will be very helpful for people trying to get into the tournament dynamic.

[deevoh]

Uhm, I use Destruction Rush A lot. What Tier would you classify that into ?

[Metleon8]

I honestly haven't found much of a reason to use anything other than Basic Green. Shiftry and Chesnaught are pretty much guaranteed wins if you get one of them out, which is fairly easy with Sycamore, Ultra Ball, Lucky Helmet, and Pansage's Collect. I've done quite a few tournaments where the finals end up being a mirror match of Basic Green.

[Xensor]

Uhm, I use Destruction Rush A lot. What Tier would you classify that into ?

yveltal it self tier 2 to 3 depending. other ones tier 1 so that deck  a tier 2. i have it and it can be op if used right. if you can get yveltal and do its move everytime without it being tails

[Gaylen50]

You also forgot about Basic Orange.

 

This is how I would tier them personally, with the years of experience using all of the Theme Decks. The only deck I can't tier yet is Daybreak, as it's the only one I don't own.

 

The 3rd and 4th tiers are just groups, not made in a certain order. 

 

 

Tier #1 - The 3 decks that dominate the metagame

 

1) XY Basic Blue - Gyarados, Articuno, Greninja, and Walrein, it has a lot of good Pokemon at its disposable. Simipour with its Recycle attack pretty much sets this deck over all others all around in consistency. 

 

Deck Weaknesses - Psy Crusher, XY Basic Green 

 

Semi-Weaknesses - BW Basic Green, Iron Tide, and Basic Orange at its peak.  Conkeldurr is a challenge to take down for XY Blue, especially more so if Gigalith is already in play. 

 

Decks it does best against - XY Basic Red, BW Basic Red, HGSS Basic Red, Fennekin Deck, and pretty much every other water-weak deck.

 

--------

 

2) XY Basic Green - Chesnaught, Shiftry, and Tropius; 3 very powerful Pokemon in its disposal. One thing that sets it back from Basic Blue is that it has less overall Pokemon depth. Many of the Basics and Stage 1s have low damage output, and rely on getting Chesnaught, Simisage, and Shiftry as soon as possible.

 

Deck Weaknesses - XY Basic Red, Psy Crusher, BW Basic Red

 

Semi-Weaknesses - XY Basic Blue. As mentioned before, with the ability to power up in attacks quickly; Green can get overwhelmed at times.

 

Decks it does best agains - XY Basic Blue, BW Basic Blue, HGSS Basic Blue, and pretty much and Grass-weak deck. 

 

----------------

 

3) Basic Orange - Type coverage, N, Pokedex, Conkeldurr with the highest possible HP in the metagame, and Gigalith place Basic Orange among the three elite. At Orange's best, Psy Crusher is the the only deck able to take the Conk/Gigalith duo down. Against Basic Green, it can instead use the Conkeldurr/Excadrill duo.  Throh, Excadrill, Gigalith, and Conkeldurr all help counter a multitude of the different Theme Decks, regardless of their type.  

 

The one thing that sets it below the other two, is that it doesn't quite have the same amount of consistency. These three decks are grouped altogether because they dominate the metagame in general.

 

Deck Weaknesses - Psy Crusher

 

Semi-Weaknesses - XY Basic Green, XY Basic Blue.  

 

Decks it's best against - Voltage Vortex, (only one card in the entire deck doesn't take a Super-Effective move from every card lol) Mental Might, XY Basic Yellow, Earth's Pulse, Dark Hammer, Power Relay, Burning Spark, and Storm Rider.

 

===============

 

Tier #2 - Decks that dominate much of the metagame, but not at the level of the top 3

 

1) XY Basic Red - It has one dominate card in Delphox, but it does tend to struggle against the top tier Theme Decks if Delphox is prized. It has energy acceleration, a Sniper Pokemon in Rapidash, and two Pokemon that can hit for 80 damage. Like with Basic Blue, it has a Set-up accelerating card in Furret.

 

Deck weaknesses - XY Basic Blue, BW Basic Blue

 

Decks it counters best - All Grass type Theme Decks.

 

------------

 

2) Dark Hammer - Strong Pokemon, Hitmonlee as a sniper, and solid trainer cards. Its fatal flaw, which many decks can exploit is that it has zero switching cards. It relies on being able to retreat.

 

Deck Weaknesses - Basic Orange, Psy Crusher

 

Semi-Weaknesses - Mental Might, Aurora Blast, Night Striker, Destruction Rush

 

Decks it's best against - Raiders, XY Basic Yellow,  HGSS Basic Yellow, Burning Sparks

 

---------------

 

3) Iron Tide 

 

Deck Weaknesses - XY Basic Green

 

Semi-Weaknesses - BW Basic Green, Fire Type decks, Grass Type decks, and Basic Orange

 

Decks it's best against - Resiliant Life, Enchanted Echo, and Mind Bend.

 

-----------------

 

4) Raiders - Like a couple of the above decks, it has a Pokemon Sableye that speeds up set up.

 

Deck Weaknesses - Destruction Rush, Dark Hammer

 

Semi-Weaknesses - Basic Orange, Earth's Pulse

 

Decks it's best against - Psy Crusher, Mental Might, Toxic Tricks

 

-----------------

 

5) Destruction Rush

 

6) Psy Crusher

 

7) Mental Might

 

8) Night Striker

 

9) Ocean's Core

 

==========================

 

Tier #3 - The middle of the pack Theme Decks, not overly powerful, but not really weak either

 

1) XY Basic Yellow

 

2) Earth's Pulse

 

3) Aurora Blast

 

4) Resiliant Life

 

5) Storm Rider

 

6) Burning Winds

 

7) Burning Sparks

 

8) Toxic Tricks

 

9) Cold Fire

 

10) Voltage Vortex

 

11) Explosive Edge

 

12) Enchanted Echo

 

13) Frost Ray

 

14) Ice Shock

 

15) Plasma Claw

 

16) Bolt Twister

 

17) Wind Wipe

 

18) Solar Strike

 

19) Power Play

 

20) Brilliant Thunder

 

21) Rallying Cry

 

22) Plasma Shadow

 

24) Shadows

 

25) DragonSnarl

 

26) BW Basic Blue

 

27) BW Basic Red

 

28) BW Basic Green

 

29) Red Frenzy

 

30) Green Tornado

 

=========================

 

Tier #4 - The lowest tier, decks that should be used Sparingly   -

 

1) Stone Hart

 

2) Mystic Typhoon

 

3) Furious Knights

 

4) Fast Daze

 

5) DragonSpeed

 

6) Blue Assault

 

7) Electric Eye

 

8) Wave Slasher

 

9) Froakie Deck

 

10) Chespin Deck

 

11) Fennekin Deck

 

12) Claw Barrage

 

13) Mind Bend

 

14) Night Hunter

 

15) Power Relay

 

16) Verdant Forest

 

17) Royal Guard

 

18) Nightfall

 

19) HGSS Basic Yellow

 

20) HGSS Basic Green

 

21) HGSS Basic Blue

 

22) HGSS Basic Red

 

23) Eon Strike

[weather-trio]

I agree with Metleon. Basic Green is the best overall IMO, and is definitely above Blue (not just for the typing advantage).

It has the best trainer engine through Sycamore, Tierno, Professor Birch, Ace Trainer, VS Seeker, Ultra Ball, Roller Skates, and Lucky Helmet so that you can draw through your deck much better than any other theme deck, with the possible exception of Basic Red once Delphox is set up. If you start off Collecting with Pansage and using the trainers, you'll set up Shiftry very quickly and be ages ahead of your opponent, which pretty much guarantees a win as long as you don't recklessly waste his extreme attack and draw power. Shiftry is the heart of the deck and it's strongest attacker, but you don't need to get it out immediately by force, just use other attackers and wait until the opportunity presents itself, which won't be long with ultra balls and all the draw trainers. Also, once Shiftry is out, it is important to conserve it; don't attack with Shiftry if you have any other attackers set up. Shiftry should be the attacker you use as your last line of defense, in case your opponent manages to power up a large threat and take out your active. It is important to keep Shiftry on the bench because it can OHKO any theme deck Pokemon, but it can be knocked out itself by strong attackers like Dragonite, which the deck would have no check to if Shiftry didn't swoop in and OHKO it. Starting off with Pansage puts you in a great position because it attacks for only one energy so you can start investing in a bulky attacker sooner, makes your set up faster, especially with a helmet on, and you have two options once you want to go on the offensive: evolve to Simisage, a respectable attacker, or let Pansage get knocked out and immediately Ace Trainer. Of course drawing into Pansage in the opening hand is not something you can depend on, but the deck functions just fine with any other starter.

The deck has plenty of alternate attackers like Simisage with Torment to buy time or completely shut down your opponent, Tropius, the big basic with strong but costly attacks, Dodrio, which hits hard for one energy if the opponent can't OHKO it, and Chesnaught, who is almost another autowin condition when set up. Keep in mind that your opponent can't use the strategy of sacrificing a couple of mons to buy turns to power up an attacker that could eventually take out yours because of Lysandre, and how easy it is to draw into it through repeated Leaf Draws and the strong trainer engine. Also, there is energy acceleration through DCE, which is useful on every Pokemon except Simisage, and can heal off high hp Pokemon with PC Lady. In fact there is a great selection of Supporters like Lysandre, PC Lady, or Professor Birch for VS Seeker to target later in the game. Obviously, it is still a theme deck with 20 energy, so it is prone to having unplayable hands, but the chances of drawing poorly are lesser compared to the other theme decks due to the abundance of draw trainers, which, combined with the array of powerful Pokemon, is exactly what makes Basic Green the best theme deck available at the moment.

My personal tier list is similar to your own, but I would put Basic Green and Basic Red in Tier 1, and put Basic Blue perhaps borderline Tier 1/2, as it hasn't been as strong as it's 2 partners since the nerf, but as you explained, it takes out just about any other deck. Please feel free to comment what you agree or disagree on, by no means do I have the definitive answer.

[JimiCobain27]

I agree with Metleon. Basic Green is the best overall IMO, and is definitely above Blue (not just for the typing advantage).

It has the best trainer engine through Sycamore, Tierno, Professor Birch, Ace Trainer, VS Seeker, Ultra Ball, Roller Skates, and Lucky Helmet so that you can draw through your deck much better than any other theme deck, with the possible exception of Basic Red once Delphox is set up. If you start off Collecting with Pansage and using the trainers, you'll set up Shiftry very quickly and be ages ahead of your opponent, which pretty much guarantees a win as long as you don't recklessly waste his extreme attack and draw power. Shiftry is the heart of the deck and it's strongest attacker, but you don't need to get it out immediately by force, just use other attackers and wait until the opportunity presents itself, which won't be long with ultra balls and all the draw trainers. Also, once Shiftry is out, it is important to conserve it; don't attack with Shiftry if you have any other attackers set up. Shiftry should be the attacker you use as your last line of defense, in case your opponent manages to power up a large threat and take out your active. It is important to keep Shiftry on the bench because it can OHKO any theme deck Pokemon, but it can be knocked out itself by strong attackers like Dragonite, which the deck would have no check to if Shiftry didn't swoop in and OHKO it. Starting off with Pansage puts you in a great position because it attacks for only one energy so you can start investing in a bulky attacker sooner, makes your set up faster, especially with a helmet on, and you have two options once you want to go on the offensive: evolve to Simisage, a respectable attacker, or let Pansage get knocked out and immediately Ace Trainer. Of course drawing into Pansage in the opening hand is not something you can depend on, but the deck functions just fine with any other starter.

The deck has plenty of alternate attackers like Simisage with Torment to buy time or completely shut down your opponent, Tropius, the big basic with strong but costly attacks, Dodrio, which hits hard for one energy if the opponent can't OHKO it, and Chesnaught, who is almost another autowin condition when set up. Keep in mind that your opponent can't use the strategy of sacrificing a couple of mons to buy turns to power up an attacker that could eventually take out yours because of Lysandre, and how easy it is to draw into it through repeated Leaf Draws and the strong trainer engine. Also, there is energy acceleration through DCE, which is useful on every Pokemon except Simisage, and can heal off high hp Pokemon with PC Lady. In fact there is a great selection of Supporters like Lysandre, PC Lady, or Professor Birch for VS Seeker to target later in the game. Obviously, it is still a theme deck with 20 energy, so it is prone to having unplayable hands, but the chances of drawing poorly are lesser compared to the other theme decks due to the abundance of draw trainers, which, combined with the array of powerful Pokemon, is exactly what makes Basic Green the best theme deck available at the moment.

My personal tier list is similar to your own, but I would put Basic Green and Basic Red in Tier 1, and put Basic Blue perhaps borderline Tier 1/2, as it hasn't been as strong as it's 2 partners since the nerf, but as you explained, it takes out just about any other deck. Please feel free to comment what you agree or disagree on, by no means do I have the definitive answer.

 

 

Ok, I only read the first sentence or 2 because you seemed to have trouble using paragraphs and I refuse to read a wall of text like that if it isn't separated properly, please edit it or very few people will read it.

 

As for what I did read, all I can say is that anyone thinking Basic Green trumps Basic Blue just hasn't played against any good players using Basic Blue, it's that simple. I'd say I beat Green with Blue at least 85% of the time, even if they get Chesnaught or Shiftry out, there are many ways around them, I'd actually say my biggest problem against that deck is Simisage, since a lot of the Blue pokemon only have one good attack and not being able to use it is a game changer, but still, all you have to do is power up a bench pokemon, retreat, and destroy that Simisage, simple.

[Oldschool1990]

Hi all,
thanks for all the replys so far.
Good to see that the idea is beeing well-recepted.
 

Uhm, I use Destruction Rush A lot. What Tier would you classify that into ?

 

In my list, Boarderline between tier2 and tier3. It's actually very decent, but needs to see more play to really affect the meta.
 

You also forgot about Basic Orange.



This is how I would tier them personally, with the years of experience using all of the Theme Decks. The only deck I can't tier yet is Daybreak, as it's the only one I don't own.

....

Right, adding this tomorrow, thanks for the hint.

Also, your list is also very interesting, gonna do some comparisons tomorrow.
 

I agree with Metleon. Basic Green is the best overall IMO, and is definitely above Blue (not just for the typing advantage).

...

As for what I did read, all I can say is that anyone thinking Basic Green trumps Basic Blue just hasn't played against any good players using Basic Blue, it's that simple. I'd say I beat Green with Blue at least 85% of the time, even if they get Chesnaught or Shiftry out, there are many ways around them, I'd actually say my biggest problem against that deck is Simisage, since a lot of the Blue pokemon only have one good attack and not being able to use it is a game changer, but still, all you have to do is power up a bench pokemon, retreat, and destroy that Simisage, simple.

 

Based on my personal experience with encountering so-and-so-many of those, blue seems to be the more popular choice. It's simply the most played deck so far, thus tier1.

If it's really stonger then the green deck or not is a different thing that can be debated on; I do agree with Jimi there.

Despite the grass weaknes, the blue deck goes off way faster and got better deck-control with 1000 ways to draw or fetch cards, so it's more reliable to get you the cards you need. Also, weakness guard is a thing.

So much from me today, hope to see you around tomorrow.

[awesome_guy]

personally I've found the green deck much more powerful late game than blue.

 

often with blue i'm found lacking in a ko by 10-20 damage, but with the late game sweeping power of green, I just have to side with it..

 

don't get me wrong- I play blue quite a bit as well.. just that I cannot find anything in any deck that can rip apart a team as well as shiftry/chesnaught

 

and the best part of green is that you have great support to getting it out- seedot can gather basics, and ultra ball and sycamore are great help.. one of the two out is more often than not a game won (sweeping power of shiftry and heal+retaliation damage of chesnaught)