The combination of Alolan Ninetales-GX and Tapu Koko means no Pokémon can hide, allowing Zachary to make quick work of his opponent's Benched Pokémon. He has added a Karen into his deck, letting him recover all Pokémon from his discard pile back into his deck. This allows him a second chance to draw his Pokémon, as well as provide defense against any late-game Oricorio his opponent might use.

Michael won the North American International Championships with a Greninja BREAK deck, so it's not shocking to see him continue to find success with it at Worlds. He plays a Jirachi with the Stardust attack, which both knocks off a Special Energy from his opponent's Active Pokémon as well as prevents a retaliatory strike on Jirachi during his opponent's next turn. This card was pretty popular a while back, but enough players have forgotten about it that Michael has been able to keep surprising his opponents.

With all the great Grass-type Pokémon in the field, Takumi has opted to include Flareon in his deck to counter them. Flareon can add the Fire type to his Stage-1 Sylveon-GX, allowing the Pokémon to hit the likes of Decidueye-GX and Golisopod-GX for weakness.

Yuu has decided to include Magearna-EX in his Garbodor deck for extra protection with the aid of Rainbow Energy—when attached to his Pokémon, it can become Metal Energy, giving them immunity to side effects of attacks. What’s more, the Rainbow Energy works well for adding a small amount of damage to his own Pokémon to boost Drampa-GX’s Berserk attack. Yuu also uses Multi Switch, a card that allows him to move any Energy up to his Active Pokémon—a useful skill when running eight Special Energy.

Nick's goal with this deck is to do a little damage to all of his opponent's Pokémon with Tapu Koko's Flying Flip attack. Then the real damage gets going with Alolan Ninetales-GX, which hits for a much harder 50 damage to any single Pokémon on his opponent's side. Nick uses the Mallow Supporter card as an interesting way to manipulate his deck before using Octillery's Abyssal Hand Ability.

Justin built a Gardevoir-GX deck with the Gallade and Octillery combination for getting the cards he wants into play. As a fallback, he also included Mallow—they serve mostly the same purpose, but in different ways. The Wonder Energy in his deck is to prevent the effects of attacks such as getting Confused by Espeon-GX's Psybeam attack, or having an Energy knocked off by Garbodor's less-heralded Acid Spray.

Sustaining his success as the runner-up at the 2016 World Championships last year, Connor has shown he has what it takes to make it to the top. His Garbodor deck is one of the very few running the new Tapu Fini-GX from the Sun & Moon—Burning Shadows expansion. It’s Tapu Storm-GX attack is brutally effective at slowing down his opponent by returning his or her Active Pokémon and all the cards attached to it back into the deck.

Tanner’s Decidueye-GX and Vileplume deck has few twists to it, but his skill in managing the game has vaulted him into the Top 8. His deck doesn’t include a lot if Item cards, but he has to be aware of which ones he has played so he can get the timing right on his Vileplume—bring Vileplume out too early and he’ll shut down his own progress.