Jesper Eriksen has wasted no time in crafting a successful deck out of the recently introduced Yanmega BREAK. Yanmega BREAK’s 100-damage Barrier Break attack typically costs 3 Colorless Energy, but thanks to the underlying Yanmega and its Sonic Vision Ability, a skilled player such as Jesper can fire off Barrier Break for no Energy cost.

Seismitoad-EX seems to have been around longer than anyone can remember, and as Connor Pederson has proved, it’s still one of the best cards so far in the XY Series. Seimsitoad-EX is not built for major damage, so Connor also runs Crobat to peck away at the opposing Pokémon, and Lugia-EX to provide extra damage, especially against Energy-heavy decks.

Raphael Souto reached the semifinals with his straightforward take on the Trevenant BREAK deck. He did include some Trainer cards to disrupt his opponent’s progress, particularly Xerosic, Team Flare Grunt, and Crushing Hammer. All three of these cards can force your opponent to discard a Special Energy from one of your opponent’s Pokémon.

Calvin Connor reached the top-8 with a Night March and Vespiquen team. Calvin also included four Unown to boost Vespiquen’s Bee Revenge atatck, as well as turn over his deck a little bit faster. Despite devoting a lot of space to Pokémon in his deck, Calvin still managed to include 16 different Trainer cards in his deck. This deck gets more powerful fhe more Pokémon are in the discard pile, so cards such as Professor Sycamore, Ultra Ball, and Battle Compressor are all very important to Calvin’s success.

Putting a new twist on the typical Night March deck, Attar Ricco included Galvantula in his deck. This dual-type Pokémon from the XY—Steam Siege expansion evolves from the Joltik that this deck already includes. Both of its attacks have low Energy cost and do just enough damage to cause major problems in the mirror match against other Night March decks.

Mega Manectric-EX wasn’t quite as popular at Worlds as it had been at previous competitions, but Spencer Perez-Dormitzer showed that it was still strong enough for a top-8 finish. Raikou is a good match for this Mega Manectric-EX, as it gets stronger every turn that Mega Manectric-EX uses Turbo Bolt to pull Energy out of the discard pile and onto a Benched Pokémon.

Tanner Hurley took advantage of the powerful new Talonflame from the XY—Steam Siege expansion, a Stage-2 Pokémon that you can put into play right away as your Active Pokémon if it’s in your hand at the beginning of the game. Not only does it do decent damage, it can draw extra cards to help Tanner get Greninja BREAK quicker into play.

Kim Hyeok included Mew from the XY—Fates Collide expansion in his Night March deck, giving him another way to use the Night March attack if necessary. Mew can also help set up quickly at the start of matches with its Encounter attack, letting you grab a Pokémon from your deck and put it into your hand.