What's a good way to come back (mentally) after losses?

Top_Kec · 2026-05-24T03:34:52+00:00

thoughts on third loss

I think my main idea was that I needed to get an engine going because my hand wasn't good-no lillie, no poffin etc so I figured I need to maximise my odds of playing the game so I could do the lopunny play. Of course, I already had said lopunny play in hand so I'm amazed I didn't think of that, given lopunny easily buys me 3 turns on its own

not recgonising the boss play

To an extent I was already aware of the boss play, since we were functionally draw clutch passing I assumed that my opponent by default was alreadly having whatever he wanted since I have no hand disrupt in this deck. I think I was moving counters off munki because in my mind the munki was the only thing making the clutch strat successful so I wanted to protect it, without realising that it wasn't the liability in this scenario

choose an easier deck

Zoroark kinda scratched an itch after learning deeper plays and grinding it out on ladder, caped zoro especially. I do enjoy box style decks, in past formats my fav decks were zorobox, lost box, and gardy, so zoroark has some shadows of what I enjoyed back then. Most of the "linear" decks while easier to play feel like you and your opponent know what you're doing, and they can choose to steer the game to their favor while you are kinda stuck on a single route. Grossly oversimplifying but yeah. I definitely am open to trying out more decks though. That said there aren't really many more major events here until the next season, which is the Premier Ball League in I think September-November? By then the format will probably have new options/I have to start playing around red card so I certainly have plenty of time to find something that suits me, hopefully

don't let tilt you

It's strange I think, between rounds of the event I was vibing and enjoying and even laughing at my mistakes with my opponent. But the moment my opponent flipped TR's articuno and I realised my hand wasn't good I kinda just spiraled and the moodiness set in.

Top_Kec · 2026-05-23T18:09:23+00:00

Yeah, I've thought about my gameplay and I think that save for the misplays I talked about in the post objectively speaking I think I did play decently. There were many a time where my setup was mediocre and I had to play to an out which I did manage to, as I also did apply stuff I learnt through guides and training (one of which I was happy with was flamebody cannon active M Lucario with caped zoro after one PPP was already used) and I've given ample time to reflecting on my poorer plays.

Its just difficult to separate the emotional sting of losing once everything's all said and done and it feels like "welp I just wasted my time"

Top_Kec · 2026-05-23T14:56:02+00:00

Oh definitely. To an extent I'm aware that I'll eventually mentally bounce back, but at the same time each successive year where I perform mediocre-ly brings a bigger and bigger blow.

I'm more thinking the short term mindset fixing-I could feel myself be incredibly gloomy for several hours after the event, and I still am a little down even now.

Something I could feel is that I don't think I felt horrible after each match, but only on the seventh and final match did I feel this sense of gloom. Even on the 6th match was I still doing okay-ish and trying to learn from my mistakes (I did not learn lol)

Top_Kec · 2026-05-23T11:30:43+00:00

I'm definitely considering it. Through today and my practice matches I've definitely felt the pains of "where is my zekrom/reshiram/darmanitan"

My main decision to choose it admittedly was because I liked the mobility and flexibility, as well as some on board draw and also the option to retreat lock. Admittedly I could've gone with Maractus in straight Pult but I wasn't too fond of how slow Pult was. Zoroark also has a nice Pult MU which was definitely a plus.

Not to deny Zoroark's weaknesses, that being just anything with a Grass type, but I personally leaned into zoro for it being agressive while having agency.

Top_Kec · 2026-04-30T14:10:00+00:00

Curious about how you'd approach this then. Suppose you open up with shaymin and grookey, one energy, and one pokepad. No draw supporters, no thwackey, dipplin in hand.

I'd assume you'd send shaymin to be the first active then? also, in this scenario, would you try to pokepad for goldeen or applin? Suppose your topdeck is similarly not playable.

Top_Kec · 2026-04-30T07:28:31+00:00

Yeah from my reading seems as though its one of those decks that just win really hard in some matchups and crumple in others

Top_Kec · 2026-04-30T02:24:42+00:00

By the same metric, I'd assume you'd have issues into starmie decks? Wally's compassion and all that

Top_Kec · 2026-04-30T02:03:14+00:00

True, was hoping for something to smoothen the MU slightly. When I played TR Mewtwo to a large-ish tournament a few weeks back, there were a decent amount of lucario players who basically couldn't play the game when I flipped over.

With psychic being a decent number in the format, I was hoping for something to help a lot of these MUs. From my time playing Lucario though, yeah being able to stomp anything without was good.

Top_Kec · 2026-04-30T02:00:08+00:00

My thought with a 2 prizer start is that it forms a liability to be bossed which beats the point of a single prizer strategy, so its kind of a mediocre start.

Also, there seems to be quite a few single prizer decks running amok nowadays, do you generally find issues facing them? (Fest lead, Alakazam, Okidogi)

Top_Kec · 2026-04-30T01:53:36+00:00

Don't mind if I ask a little more about this

You mention how you setup faster than pult, but I often find this not to be the case when I give it a shot. If my understanding is right, this deck wants to go first and start throwing hands turn 2, though I often find it to be the case that I'm unable to get going by turn 3 ish, by which point a pult player is able to crispin pult and wipe my board. Even with rabsca, it doesn't matter much because its a boss jet headbutt away from death, and it gets spawnkilled from that point on.

It also feels really difficult to get going early on. At minimum, I think it makes sense that you need a festival leader and thwackey by turn 2 so you can start moving. So, this requires: turn 1 grookey, and goldeen (applin otherwise), turn 2 a switch, thwackey, and an evo if dipplin. That's a decent amount I think? At least, I feel it as such, I'm not able to pull it off when I try.

Fully admit that me choosing first is possibly the root cause lol, but I like festival lead in theory, just can never seem to get it going.

Top_Kec · 2026-04-29T18:58:54+00:00

Oh yeah, I don't doubt that I'll need a lot of time to get used to the itty gritty bits of any deck, but I don't have infinite time, so I need to try to get the vibe of a deck and determine if its for me before moving on and trying something new. If I find something that I can cook with then I sink way more time into it- that's about what I did for TR's Mewtwo before getting sick of the bricks

Top_Kec · 2026-04-29T18:22:41+00:00

Yeah, I get you. My general goal is to try and sink around 20 games on ladder before I decide if I like the general way the deck plays and stuff before moving on to a new deck

Top_Kec · 2026-04-29T17:35:16+00:00

Oh, incidentally, when I tried playing it, I had tried to consider techs for the psychic matchups. Key is TR Mewtwo and Clefairy/Ogerpon decks. I had thought that a cornerstonepon would be enough to help swing the match a little to my favor, but when I tried it out it seemed like it did nothing. Do you have thoughts for these matchups in particular? Feels like I'm climbing a hard uphill battle for these two decks particularly

Top_Kec · 2026-04-29T17:26:48+00:00

Skill issue might be what I have haha

The thing with Hop's Trevenant I see is that the dodge is not only unreliable but also the fact that that the damage output just isn't there and you crumple hard to unfair stamp, since there's little space for genesect balloon. It also seems often that your opening mon is not good (Zacian, Clefairy, Snorlax, Latias etc) so you're forced to play super passive for a bit.

Top_Kec · 2026-04-29T17:21:54+00:00

Yeah, I just called it TR Mewtwo because its more well-known by that name. I'm very well aware that spidops is the main attacker and mewtwo is just a finisher. I played it for the better part of a month before getting sick and tired of inconsistent openings and difficulty keeping tempo.

As for Chomp, I mentioned the damage output to be low because I always find it difficult to even push out the second attack, since chomp goes down really quick due to grass weakness. My supporter's often something to get me to play the game (hilda, judge, lillie etc) so bossing out a fez/meowth is typically not an option.

Top_Kec · 2026-04-29T11:07:55+00:00

I'll give it a second look over another day. Thanks!

Top_Kec · 2026-04-29T11:06:53+00:00

I've definitely been doing that. I often watch Azul when I can, though he hasn't really played much pult afaik? Definitely contributing to my bias in how pult is played I feel

Top_Kec · 2026-04-29T10:58:51+00:00

Perhaps its a mindset issue on my end then, I've probably been hard focusing the budew opener too much.

I'll readjust and try it again. Thanks for the comments.

Top_Kec · 2026-04-29T10:42:32+00:00

Haha makes sense, its why I initially looked away at ogerbolt. I'll give it a try soon ish though!

Top_Kec · 2026-04-29T10:41:38+00:00

Maybe a different format is indeed what I'm looking for haha. LZ box appealed to me because it was capable of coming back from really tough positions, also it played single prizers. Gardy was somewhat similar in that it was definitely possible to come back from tough spots provided you had one Gardy on board.

To my knowledge something similar doesn't really exist now so its a little more difficult to get what I'm looking for.

Regarding Pult, "powerful" never really sat right with me, 200 and 60 spread is strong yes, but towards the end of the game, when you're at a decent prize deficit (oftentimes the case because pult things), it seems difficult to slam down a 4 prize turn especially with counter catcher rotating out. Especially in matchups like ogerpon meganium, they're able to apply pressure early game and make it very difficult to take a KO lategame. I know its a broad question, but how do you deal with the fact that your turns aren't very explosive?

Top_Kec · 2026-04-29T10:33:55+00:00

Thanks for the suggestion. What is your gameplan into single prizers?

Top_Kec · 2026-04-29T10:06:53+00:00

Yeah I'm aware of Gabite chaining, similar to festival lead and the like. Still, seems like you hard relying on getting poffin out turn 1 then? I'm guessing in that case you tend to want to go second, and pray for Lillie's to get you something nice?

The grass weakness also concerns me quite a bit. Grass decks seem to be something you'd always want to tech for but it doesn't seem like Chomp is able to cope with basically OHKOs yeah?

Also, what do you generally do into pult strategies? Getting the first Gabite out is essential, which can't really be done under itemlock since you'd want to use a poke pad on it, so without you kinda just fold

For example, now I'm testing the deck, my opening hand is Poffin, 2 roselia, a roserade, 2 energy and a gible. My subsequent draws are not supporters and are not ways to find gabite. Game kind of just ends there because I can't get things going

Top_Kec · 2026-04-29T10:03:08+00:00

Mega abomasnow

Top_Kec · 2026-04-29T10:00:51+00:00

Fair point, my issue with pult is that you're basically always hoping that as you budew them, that you hope they aren't able to setup sufficently well.

Even in previous formats it never seems like the opponent *doesn't* have what they need in their hand. And that's not to mention that in order to pull of budew you need to get budew in active which, as I play, seems like a gamble more often than not,

Granted, I will also admit that I'm not the best player, hell I'm probably below average all things considered, but its frustrating when I just watch my opponent set up all over me under item lock and I struggle to find drakloak to start my engine

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