Anyone keeping track of the 2016 Pokémon TCG Standard format knows how dominant Night March decks were for nearly the entire year. Players at Worlds can’t be faulted for expecting the same thing to happen at the World Championships, and many accepted the philosophy of “use a Night March deck, or use a deck that can beat it.” However, the 2016 Pokémon TCG World Championships ended up being one of the most exciting and unpredictable tournaments in years. Among the three different age divisions, six different decks made it to the finals—and not a single one was a Night March deck.

A Truly Magical Performance

The big story of this year’s event was the surprise deck out of Japan: Shintaro Ito took the World Championships Masters Division by storm with a never-before-seen Mega Audino-EX deck. Viewers got a glimpse of this style of deck on the first day of the World Championships when Tomoya Sakurai defeated the Night March deck of Kristy Britton, a former Regional Champion and a Top 8 competitor at the 2015 US National Championships. But players may not have taken it too seriously after Tomoya failed to advance to Day Two. As the tournament progressed, that feeling slowly changed as Shintaro continued to dismantle his opponents with Mega Audino-EX one by one. Perhaps there was more to this deck than met the eye.

The winning deck was simple yet extremely well designed. Mega Audino-EX’s Magical Symphony is excellent at two things—taking down Shaymin-EX and taking down low-HP Benched Pokémon such as Joltik or Combee—and it does both at the same time. Combining that attack with Mega Audino-EX’s massive 220 HP makes it a great weapon against Night March decks, the most popular style of deck at the tournament. Throw in Absol’s Cursed Eyes Ability to move damage counters around, and it’s even easier to target specific Pokémon for easy Knock Outs.

Some popular Pokémon that can cause problems for Mega Audino-EX are addressed with clever tech cards. Glaceon-EX and Regice both have attacks that can prevent damage from Mega Evolution Pokémon, but a common Weakness to Metal-type Pokémon makes Cobalion a perfect response. Magearna-EX’s Mystic Heart Ability provides protection against all sorts of attacks, including Trevenant BREAK’s Silent Fear and Froakie’s Bubble. Greninja decks already struggle against Mega Audino-EX’s high HP, and it’s an even bigger task with Pokémon Center Lady to heal damage and Parallel City to reduce the damage from the Water-type Pokémon. Don’t think it’s a fluke that this deck with so many cute Pokémon won the World Championships Masters Division: it was a methodical, well-orchestrated masterpiece designed to pick apart the most popular decks.

XY—Steam Siege Surprises

The wild card of this year’s event was the announcement that XY—Steam Siege would be legal for use. The impact was larger than anyone could have imagined, ranging from minor Trainer card tweaks to entirely new strategies. Besides the Magearna-EX and Cobalion in Shintaro’s deck, Pokémon Ranger and Special Charge made an appearance in a wide variety of strategies. Ninja Boy caught opponents off guard, as players such as Sam Hough used it to great success, switching among a wide variety of Pokémon.

Some Pokémon from the newest expansion had immediate success. Jesper Eriksen used a Vespiquen deck that also focused on using the new Yanmega and Yanmega BREAK, and it was powerful enough to win the World Championships in the Senior Division. Thanks to the Forest of Giant Plants Stadium card, all of these Grass-type Pokémon can evolve immediately. Then, Yanmega’s Sonic Vision Ability allows it to attack with no Energy attached, leading to a quick Barrier Break attack from Yanmega BREAK. As the game progresses and more Pokémon go into the discard pile, Vespiquen’s Bee Revenge attack swoops in for massive damage to finish things up.

There was a lot of hype around Volcanion and Volcanion-EX leading into Worlds, and at least a few players from Japan put the full power of the Steam Pokémon on display. Viewers of the Pokémon TCG live stream got to see Kazuki Kasahara (11th place in Masters) put this new deck into action. Volcanion-EX’s Steam Up Ability gives an incredible damage boost to Basic Fire-type Pokémon, allowing the deck to put pressure on the opponent from the get-go. A swarm of hard-hitting, high-HP Basic Pokémon is difficult for most decks to deal with, and it’s likely that we’ll see this strategy show up more in next season’s Standard format.

Another big surprise of the weekend was the resurgence of Greninja BREAK. Most considered this deck too fragile and unreliable for tournament play, but it was popular at the World Championships. The unpredictable Talonflame made a huge difference over previous iterations of this deck. The Gale Wings Ability allows a player to set up this Stage 2 Pokémon as their Active Pokémon to start the game if it’s in their opening hand, giving this deck an excellent Pokémon to lead off with. Usually the 60-HP Froakie doesn’t last very long in battle, but the 130-HP Talonflame can buy some time to set up all the Evolutions that this deck needs. Aero Blitz is an excellent attack for the early game as well, giving the player the resources to get going. This Pokémon was uniquely poised to boost a struggling deck to incredible success at the World Championships, including Cody Walinski’s 2nd-place finish and Bert Wolters’s 5th-place finish.

A Variety of Strategies

The remarkable diversity we saw at the 2016 Pokémon TCG US National Championships certainly continued into the World Championships. Among the three age divisions, more than 10 different decks were used by Top 8 finishers, and nearly 20 different strategies finished in the Top 32. In a season that was dominated by Night March decks, only one made it to the Top 4 in any age division. Not only did different kinds of decks have success, but completely different styles did, too. The three winning decks used different mechanics to win: Shunto Sadahiro’s Pokémon­-EX deck, Jesper Eriksen’s BREAK Evolution deck, and Shintaro Ito’s Mega Evolution deck. Opportunity for creativity and innovation in the Pokémon TCG environment is huge, and that was proven at this year’s World Championships.

Looking ahead to the 2017 Play! Pokémon season, the metagame seems wide open. With the Night March deck and many other top strategies phasing out of the Standard format, there’s an opportunity for new combinations of cards to emerge in tournament play. If players learn anything from this year’s World Championships, it should be that there’s always something new to discover. Perhaps this year’s results will inspire players to push even harder to find the next big thing. Maybe the next Mega Audino-EX deck is out there, but nobody has put all the pieces together yet.

Be sure to follow along at Pokemon.co.uk/Strategy all season long for the latest updates on strategy, tournament results, and more. We’ll see you at the next big tournament, Trainers!