All about Whimsicott

This is the first of a two part article series outlining my journey at the 2022 Indianapolis Regional Championships. In this article, I will go over the deck list used by my testing group (including why we played certain cards) as well as how to play some of the matchups we felt would be the most popular at the tournament. The second article will be a tournament report and some of my personal takeaways from the event.

Frank's List vs Our List

Frank Percic put Whimsicott on the map with his impressive 2nd place finish at EUIC in Frankfurt. We tested with his list, and with no disrespect meant to him, we continually ran up against a number of problems that his list couldn't handle. First, we were unable to keep up with the Mew VMAX decks because of how aggressive the deck is. If you go second in that matchup, Mew can very easily use Bosses Orders to bring up your lone Whimsicott with Energy. The second problem we found in our testing was just how prone to a lackluster start you are. With cards like Avery as a draw card, you often found yourself in situations where you didn't have the combo pieces in hand when you needed them.

We tried to address the first concern in two ways - by including Raihan and Zacian. Raihan is a better EXP Share in many ways because it can't be disrupted. The opponent can't disrupt Raihan in any way...unless they don't take a KO which is great for us anyway! Raihan was also super necessary for us to find that last piece of the lock be it a Double Turbo or Path to the Peak.

Zacian V was also a necessary inclusion and should be a staple in Whimsicott from here on out. It was the best card in the deck on T1 without a doubt. If you can get two Whimsicott V into play alongside a Zacian V, you can guarantee that you have two Whimsicott ready to go for the next turn - lessening the impact of having on KO'd. Zacian's "Roar of the Sword" Ability is crucial in the Mew, Urshifu, Arceus / Beedrill and mirror matchups. Against Mew, it gives you that second ready to go Pokemon in case the opponent is able to KO one on their turn. Against Urshifu, it allows you to more easily keep pace against Urshifu VMAX which can't be OHKO'd without using the VSTAR Attack Fluffball Star. Finally, against Arceus Beedrill, you can nullify the effects of Beedrill by going in with a T2 Whimsicott with 3 Basic Energy - and build up another 3 Basic Energy attacker with Raihans later. This is still a terrible matchup, but the route is still there. Finally, it gives you an advantage in the mirror which is usually won by the player who can get the most basic Energy into play the soonest. Zacian V was the crucial innovation we needed to really push this deck over the edge.

To address the issue of poor starts and overall lack of draw power, we decided to cut all draw supporter cards that weren't Research and Marnie as well as include Lumineon V. We figured the benefits of searching for an early Research of a clutch Raihan were well worth the risks of starting it or having the play the card down early. We figured that if we were able to get the lock going with Whimsicott VSTAR, there would (hopefully) be little the opponent could do to capitalize on having a Lumineon on the bench. With these changes to Frank's original list, we felt that the deck gained a consistency it was missing.

You may also be wondering where the Ordinary Rod is - we also concluded that this card was simply unnecessary. Again, if we could establish the lock with Whimsicott VSTAR, the gave should never make it to the point where we needed to recycle the amount of resources that Ordinary Rod can get back.

Cards we had considered the week before Indy that were ultimately cut were: Tool Scrapper, EXP Share, Avery, Evo Incense, Judge, and Collapsed Stadium. There was some talk about shifting our Stadiums entirely from Path to Collapsed Stadium as the Mew matchup was still favorable without, but the Paths proved effective against Arceus to deny an early Starbirth as well as to try and block Mew from popping off every turn.

Look out for part two tomorrow for a round by round tournament analysis and please feel free to leave comments with any questions you have on the list!