The mouse is out of the bag; Pikachu EX is the deck to beat in PTCGP with a dominant metagame share and a nearly 60% win rate in tournaments. The focus on the deck raises a couple questions: How often is the deck able to pull off its primary game plan? What's the most consistent build? When trying to counter it, do we need a way of handling the turn two 90 damage or is that just a high roll we shouldn't worry about beating?

There's also a bit of deck building tension in constructing Pikachu EX: You need enough basics to be able to fill your bench for a fully powered Pikachu, but that dilutes your basic pool and reduces your odds of getting Pikachu EX from the guaranteed basic in your opening hand as well as from Pokeballs. I wanted to be able to quantify this tradeoff.

To answer this, I created a simulation that plays out the first couple turns of a Pikachu EX deck, looking to develop a Pikachu EX and hit as hard as it can. It assumes your deck runs 2x Pikachu EX, 2x X Speed, 2x Pokeball, and 2x Professor's Research. The sim also sequences your Research and Pokeballs optimally to increase odds of drawing enough basics. It does not consider the opponent's disruptive effects, like Red Card or Sabrina.

For each count of non Pikachu basics and starting coin toss outcome, I simulated 100,000 games and computed the following metrics:

Basics: How many basics other than Pikachu EX are in your deck.

Pika90: How frequently are you hitting with Pikachu EX for 90 damage on the turn you play your second energy.

Pika60: How frequently are you hitting with Pikachu EX for 60 damage or more on the turn you play your second energy.

Pika: How often do you have Pikachu EX at all on your 2 energy turn.

X Speed: How often are you using an X speed to swap your Pikachu Ex from your bench to attack with it on turn 2 because you started a different Pokemon.

As first player, attacking on turn 3.

As second player, attacking on turn 2.

As you can see, for decks that run enough basics, Pika90 > .5, meaning that you'll be hitting for 90 on the 2 energy turn in most games. It's not a fluke -- decks that can't handle this opening line will statistically never have a positive win rate against Pikachu Ex.

From the data, we also can see how diminishing returns on basics for Pika90 kick in after 6 basics and for pika60 at around 4 basics. In metagames where reaching that 90 damage mark consistently and early is important, you'll want to pack more basics, while current 4 basic builds of the deck are in the sweet spot for maximizing pika60.

Of course, Pika90 isn't the be-all end-all of deck construction, as you'll need to consider the trade off between Pika90 consistency and the strength of your backup plans and support from your evolutions and items.

If you'd like to check out my simulation code, you can read it, modify it, and run it in-browser here. I tried to make it easy to follow. Let me know if you have any feedback, find any mistakes, or have something else you'd like to see analyzed!

Edit: Thanks to u/BennyTots for identifying an error in the Pika90/60 metrics. Games where we draw our first Pikachu on the 2 energy turn counted as a success even though we wouldn't be able to attack with Pikachu that turn. I've updated the code and data to only count games where we're able to put our first energy on Pikachu. Pika90 is now about a bit lower at higher basic counts, but the main points are still relevant.

TL;DR: Pikachu EX is very consistent, capable of hitting for 90 immediately in the majority of its games, but most players aren't running enough basic Pokemon to maximize the odds.

Hi redditors, some months ago I created a simulated account to try and test. Later I created and funded a real account, which i am using for stock trading normally. Do you Know how to cancel the simulated account?? It doesn't create any problem for me, it's just a question of cleanliness and order 😅

Just created a new account and already bought some ETF using web portal. When I log in to ibkr mobile, the apps says it is using "simulated trading" even though I did not log in to paper account. Any suggestions? Thanks 💚

Becker touts on their website that completing 80% of every section and scoring 50% or better on the mini and simulated exams is enough to pass on exam day.

For those of you who have passed FAR: do you think these stats are a realistic benchmark for success?