Zoroark

Definitely.

Any other Day 2 decks here you think we should take a look at? There's kind of a surprising amount of Zoroark, honestly, in the top 16.

Three Zoroarks there.

Two of them are Punk Helmet builds.

I'm sure Marco Cifuentes inspired.

Fernando, world champ in the top 16 there.

And then the other one is a Mochi build.

Yes, Zoroarks, they almost showed up.

It's kind of a shame.

I love Zoroar and I love Zoroark, but I did not like this community day.

I thought the sequences where, you know, you obviously...

Like, Zoroar obviously disguises itself as your buddy.

But with Sucker Punch, it went up to, like, eight and 35.

So it, like, had one matchup difference over just having Shadow Claw.

So Sucker Punch, sadly, does not benefit Zoroark, but...

I think it's fine to have one, especially if you are a PvPer, just in case they do become useful in, like, limited metas, maybe.

Um, one Arbeliever, one Seeking.

Okay, so it is two Festival Leads 'cause there's one Seeking Lead, one Festival Lead, and then it is two Big Basics 'cause there's Big Basics and then Mew box One Drill, one Absol or Deino, [laughs] one Sharpedo, only one Zoroark, and then Dragapult, Dudunsparce I think is Tord's one.

So yeah, um, another Pult in there.

But that's pretty wild, eh? That like for all the percentage of like regular Zam, it's not made a cut.

[laughs]

Yeah.

And they were like Zoroark's strongest soldiers, right? They were really backing it.

So, uh, yeah, I think it's, it's really weird that it feels like it's ...

It's under Dragonpulp Blaziken.

It's under Zoroark.

Zoroark is a deck that's just dead in my eyes.

It's like less played than Zork dude.

Like no one should be playing in Zork.

Is that how that should go?

I feel like

I don't I don't necessarily disagree I'm just trying to think through a matchup that I haven't thought through at all I'm just trying to think what makes it you know maybe that you know it's such a small sample size that it's not really that that conclusive but what would make it you know highly favorable for Zoroark is it just because like you can pivot between guys

I think the conversation that we had was just incredible surrounding his approach to the game, the differences between him and his world champion brother, Fernando, and his And just the way he thinks about the game, I think, is so unique and different from other players.

And so when he top 32'd Worlds and then top 4'd Recife and is playing the Zoroark deck that all these top players that had played it for the past year are seeming to abandon, I really wanted to get him on just to talk more about the deck that he is stuck with despite so much adversity and so much online criticism and so many struggles at other major tournaments.

Now, before I kick it over to the actual interview itself, I will say you can click a follow button up at the top.

It's one button.

Mark, you got to start doing worse or I'm going to have to keep having you on.

But this just adds to his legacy as a regional champion, someone who's made top eight at the World Championships.

And in a game, in a world where the great players in our game have stopped playing Zoroark, glad to say Marco has been, I think we can say now, Zoroark's strongest soldier.

Yeah, well, I'm happy to be called that.

Um, but that came in at 205 players, just right basically at 7%.

And Zoroark continued to be played, but this time a little bit down, 150 players at 5.14. And then Mega Exadrill, not expecting this-

Mm-hmm

... right around, right at 5%.

The attack is obviously good into Crustle.

It's, like, nichely good into Arpedo and Zoroark.

That didn't work out.

And it's good to kill Ogre Pawns, obviously.

... uh, through phase two.

Slowking 8.2%, though, had a little bit of a jump in there, and Zoroark at six per- 6%.

Alakazam to Dunsparce at 4.7%, so one of the decks that kinda dropped a little bit in the play percentage.

And then the festival lead, Sean, your, one of your favorites, coming in at the fifth place spot in the, uh, top played decks in phase two at 4.2%.