Dillon Bussert
Author Archive
A Look Back at a Year of Junior Competition, NAIC Nuggets, and Poképarent Open Profile “The 2018 Championship Series saw only slight increases in attendance at the Regional level, but the number of Worlds qualifiers in North America doubled from 66 last year to 126 this year. The lowering of the invite threshold to 350 CP, guaranteed Top 4 points at League Cups, and four quarters of Cups put an invite within reach of many more players this year. For reference, though, 126 invites is still lower than 2015 (157) and 2016 (154), which had a very different series structure known for City, State, and National Championships. An increasing number of invites means more competitors…
4.1K
614
A Juniors Recap of Dallas Expanded and St. Louis Standard “We spent a lot more time preparing for this event than usual due to the 6 week break between Memphis and Dallas Regionals. This long stretch, without any significant tournaments, meant players could theory and test solely on Expanded decks. I want to share some of my insights on Juniors metagaming, how the Masters meta evolved for Dallas, and how we decided to play Wailord. The Juniors metagame is an odd paradox that is both easy and hard to predict at the same time. An easy trend to see is whatever topped the last Regional in the Masters division will…
One Family’s 2017-18 Season So Far and a Look at the Makeup of Junior Top 16 “Initially, the 2016-17 invite CP Requirement for Juniors was set high at 400 CP. With only 3 quarters of League Cups accounting for a maximum of 300 CP, a Junior had to make Top 8 at a Regional or place at an International to get an invite. Fortunately, TPCI adjusted the requirements midway through the year, lowering the threshold to 350 CP and slightly bumping up the points earned at different events. This allowed more Juniors to make Worlds and relieved the pressure to have to place at a major tournament or have no chance of getting an invite. Fast…
It’s very curious, but its means of investigating things is to try to punch them with its tentacles. The search for food is what brings it onto land. (Clobbopus)