The Diggersby's Knees

What’s in a “Meta”?

Well, it depends on who you ask. Some might tell you a meta is defined by its most popular deck, or maybe the most popular strategy. A Standard player these days might say that the Standard format’s meta is defined by Dragapult ex, while a GLC player might say that it’s a Psychic meta. Others still might say that “Meta” is that one Facebook company, but who in the world calls Facebook that?

Anyway, metagames are hard to define by a singular force. But if you had to, you might say that DBF is in something of a breakout “Diggersby Meta” in a way. Diggersby is an aggressive, flexible pick that creates a dangerous board state for little investment, and high combo potential. This card can go into many different decks as a strong side-attacker, and can set up excellent cards like Munkidori, and Hisuian Arcanine with damage on the board.

Can you dig it?

You can see right off the bat why it might be strong. Swinging for a solid 140 damage for a single energy of any type, Diggersby can OHKO most midrange targets in the format with relative ease — and with a little help from a partner Pokemon on the board, it might even be able to OHKO late-game stuff as well (more on this later). This Energy cost lends itself to its flexibility for many decks in the format, but there’s much more to this Pokemon than meets the eye.

And, sure, it isn’t as durable as something like Steelix from last format (although it’s about as mobile), or as high-damage as a Stage 2 sweeper like Annihilape or Kingambit, but it’s big enough to require some devoted damage-dealing to take down, and does more than enough damage to be a threat. It’s a strong, potentially devastating main attacker, or partner to other Pokemon in your deck.

Beyond that, and almost paradoxically, one of the most exciting parts of this Pokemon is that Earthquake damages your own benched Pokemon. Because of this, you can use cards like Pidove (TEF 133) to evolve into the ever-useful Unfezant line, or Munkidori (TWM 95) to deal extra damage and OHKO larger targets, or Hisuian Arcanine (TWM 100)’s attack that requires damage on your benched Pokemon in order to do extra damage.

But that’s not all that makes Diggersby strong — it actually has something just as important beneath it.

Bunnelby is just about the most generic Basic Pokemon you could possibly have. It does 10 damage for a single Energy, 70 HP, and has one Retreat cost. It does nothing special — but it doesn’t need to do much.

The fact that it has 70 HP means that it can be searched with Buddy-Buddy Poffin — and even better, it’s a Normal-type Pokemon, which means you can search out Bunnelby using Fan Rotom’s Fan Call ability if your fancy is suitably tickled. This means you can use Fan Rotom to not just set up by grabbing multiple Bunnelby, you can also attack alongside Diggersby quite easily.

But don’t just take my word for it. Let’s take a look at an example list below!

Pokémon — 19

Qty	Card	Set
2	Bunnelby	POR 64
2	Diggersby	POR 65
2	Hisuian Growlithe	TWM 99
2	Hisuian Arcanine	TWM 100
2	Pidove	TEF 133
2	Unfezant	BLK 73
2	Munkidori	ASC 99
1	Frillish	WHT 44
1	Yveltal	MEG 88
1	Hop’s Cramorant	ASC 177
1	Audino	BLK 74
1	Fan Rotom	SCR 118

Trainers — 32

Qty	Card	Set
2	Lillie’s Determination	MEG 119
2	Boss’s Orders	MEG 114
2	Team Rocket’s Petrel	ASC 207
2	Brock’s Scouting	JTG 146
2	Crispin	PRE 105
2	Harlequin	WHT 83
2	Team Rocket’s Venture Bomb	DRI 179
2	Poké Pad	ASC 198
2	Buddy-Buddy Poffin	PRE 101
2	Night Stretcher	SFA 61
2	Ultra Ball	MEG 131
2	Pokégear 3.0	BLK 84
1	Energy Switch	MEG 115
1	Repel	MEG 126
1	Secret Box	TWM 163
1	Switch	MEG 130
1	Air Balloon	BLK 79
1	Hop’s Choice Band	JTG 148
2	Risky Ruins	MEG 127

Energy — 9

Qty	Card	Set
5	Basic Psychic Energy	MEE 5
4	Basic Dark Energy	MEE 7

You’ll notice that this deck has a little bit of everything. It’s part combo, part aggression, and it can even run Frillish and Unfezant quite easily. The main strategy would be to use Risky Ruins to evolve Unfezant to set up alongside Frillish, and then swinging afterwards with a stream of Diggersby and Hisuian Arcanine.

Fan Rotom and Audino serve as alternate setup attackers, both to draw cards with Audino, search out Pokemon with Fan Rotom, and to deal early damage with both as well. They don’t swing particularly hard, but they’re absolutely worth considering early-game in order to take early KOs versus Budew or the errant Volbeat.

This strategy went 4-0 at our last tournament! This isn’t the exact list that was used, but it’s a good case to be made for the strategy.

So, how do we beat it?

How indeed! Well, you can’t be a more efficient attacker — not easily, at least — but what you can do is take advantage of the fact that it sets up damage on the board. The deck lives and dies on whether Munkidori is getting value, as it both sets up damage for Diggersby and Arcanine to finish off, but it also prevents Diggersby’s benched damage recoil from knocking out its own benched Pokemon. Without consistent healing of its own recoil, the deck is often overwhelmed and “clogs” with Earthquake damage.

This damage is fairly easily taken advantage of, with lower-cost attackers being able to finish off previously-damaged Pokemon, or even spread to them.

Team Rocket’s Sneasel is a good example of a way to punish this benched damage. Strike the Sleeper effectively triples the damage on a benched Pokemon, dealing 20 x the number of damage already on them. So, if Diggersby’s player benches a Pokemon under Risky Ruins, then spreads 30 to it via Diggersby’s Earthquake, Strike the Sleeper can deal 100 damage to it — 150 in total, counting the damage already on it.

Not bad for a single Rocket Energy, if you play it. But that’s just one option.

Punishing the bench damage is probably the best way to counter this strategy, but you can also lock Diggersby in the Active using Klefki. Klefki can prevent Earthquake from being used, and Diggersby’s monstrous 4 retreat cost means that it’s not going to move out of the Active. Your other Active is now free to either set up your board, or attack Diggersby’s partner.

Klefki is low-key an incredibly strong pick for DBF. It does much of what you would want a partner Pokemon to do, and it prevents big, bulky Pokemon from running away with the game too early. The only problem is the Metal Energy required to get this Steel-Type Pokemon’s attack powered up — but hey, maybe you play it in Diggersby and you won’t have to worry about it! Ha!

In Closing…

At the beginning of this article, I asked you to define what a “meta” or “metagame” is best described as. For me, a “meta” or “metagame” can be best described by its pace rather than a singular card or strategy. We can assume that, if decks can set up and follow a certain pace consistently, they’re competitive decks. If a deck can’t match the pace (or at least take advantage thereof), then they likely aren’t competitive picks.

It will always be my opinion that a metagame isn’t a bad thing — though some may disagree with this notion — and is actually healthy for the longevity of the game. For DBF, I never want to dissuade people from building a deck, and playing what they want to play. For some, that’s building a cool combo deck that only works once every ten games — for others, it’s about playing what the best deck is.

There’s no “wrong” way to play DBF — just fun ones!

So, what about you? Are you excited to play with Diggersby? Terrified you’ll run into it at the next event? Thrilled to play Sneasel or Klefki in order to counter it? I’m looking forward to seeing what you all come up with!