Raymond Cipoletti
Author Archive
Bio: My name is Raymond, and i play card games.
Pitching Yveltal, Manectric/Garbodor, and Seismitoad/Crobat for Week 3 “The king is back to try and reclaim his rightful throne! We saw Yveltal wane in popularity — becoming nearly extinct — around the time of Nationals and Worlds. Luckily, the Expanded format brings back old favorites for Yveltal and the gang, namely Dark Patch, which makes the deck tier 1 again. Anyone who knows me knows that I mainly only played Yveltal when it was tier 1 and it won me numerous tournaments. If I had attended Lancaster I would have played Yveltal, and looking at the results, the metagame is still prime for Yveltal to do well. Week 1…
Thoughts on Expanded Regionals, Frontrunners for Worlds, and Plays That Have Seen Better Days “Before I give my thoughts on Expanded Regionals, I want to embed one thought into your head: There will likely never be a major tournament in the Standard format of XY–Ancient Origins. Recently, I have heard people talk a lot about the new cards and how they will effect Standard, what Standard will be like, etc. But we won’t actually be playing that format until Cities most likely and by then we may have a whole new set to work with! Even on the Pokemon website itself they mention the rotation and how it will effect Standard but from what…
The New England Meta, Semi-Finalist Surveys, and Week 2 Predictions “As I stated before, I was able to walk around and spectate any game I wanted to as long as I was not commentating at the same time. This gave me near perfect knowledge of the top tables metagame at New England Regionals. I will start by showing you the Top 8 and listing the decks each player played. I will say that the Top 8 was actually a pretty accurate representation of what the metagame felt like at the top tables. The metagame was defined, and I saw few surprising decks. The most interesting deck I saw do well…
1st Place NH and Top 8 MA Reports, Flareon/Raichu, Eggs by Bob, and the Return of Virizion/Genesect “Heading into the first weekend of States I had numerous hours of playtesting under my belt and I actually decided on my deck days before the event: Straight Yveltal was going to be my choice for the first State Championship. I analyzed the results from the Florida Regional Championship and local League Challenges and deduced that our format would be fairly wide open. People were going to play a variety of decks and I knew matchups would play a huge factor. I felt that Yveltal was a safe choice because it has the chance to beat nearly every deck in the format,…
The Coolest Decks for the First Round of Winter Regionals “T2:ES Y-Bird Guano Eau de Chien Expanded Expectations Conclusion Leading up to the first weekend of Cities I knew what deck I was going to play. Usually it is rare for me to have decided on a deck prior to the day before a tournament. With the hours of testing that the New England crew, mainly Chris Murray and myself, put into Virizion/Genesect we knew it was going to be a strong play the first weekend of Cities. It was a safe deck which had good matchups for what we predicted the metagame to be. Generally when a format changes…
Most of its body has the same composition as coal. Fittingly, this Pokémon was first discovered in coal mines about 400 years ago. (Rolycoly)
The Proper Playtesting Process and Potent Plays for Cities “The Proper Playtesting Process Baleful Bird Dawn Fan Very/Good 3.14 Roar Conclusion Playtesting is arguably one of the most important aspects of becoming successful in any competitive trading card game tournament. It’s just common sense that the more you practice the better you will perform. Some people don’t have all the time in the world to playtest unfortunately, so it’s crucial to maximize the quality of the testing you actually do have time for. Here are the steps I take to make the most of my playtesting: 1. Diversify decks. Far too often I will see two players sit down at League and play the…
Interview with 2014 Houston Regionals Champion Sam Chen “Hello SixPrizes readers! Usually when I write, my articles are focused on the format and strategy. However, today I will be doing something different. I will be interviewing 2014 Houston Regionals Champion, Sam Chen. Sam has been doing well this season and he is currently the #1 ranked player in North America with 270 Championship Points (or 330 if you count his Points from Worlds). I have had the pleasure of being friends with Sam since my first competitive year of playing Pokémon in 2012. We met in the top 4 of New Hampshire States where he defeated me and…
Standard and Expanded Decks for Autumn Regionals “Evil Tall BASICS Ray’s Eels DCEels Meddle Conclusion I’ll start off this article by discussing my favorite deck from last format, Yveltal. As other writers have said before, Yveltal and friends are not gone. The deck is still competitive this format. I am pleasantly surprised with how the deck has been testing and I expect to see Yveltal decks come time for Autumn Regionals. The deck has lost potency with the rotation of Dark Patch, but in the right metagame we will see Yveltal decks do well. That “right metagame” may very well be one of these upcoming Regionals. Yveltal-EX is…
Eleventh-Hour Forging, Missed Opportunity, and the Trail Blazed to DC “The weeks leading up to US Nationals were filled with numerous hours of playtesting, both online and in real life. I had either tested or tested against nearly every deck in the format. My teammate Chris Murray even made a Pyroar/Ninetales deck, which we considered a potential deck choice for quite a while, but eventually dismissed due to consistency issues and some sketchy matchups. The problem my friends and I were finding during all this testing was that we didn’t actually like any deck in the format. I had a gut feeling that I would lean back into my comfort…
Talking About Tilt, Yveltal/Garbodor, and Fancy Fairies “Talking About Tilt Yveltal/Darkrai/Garbodor Raichu/Ninetales Interview with Karl Blake, UK Nationals Semi-Finalist Conclusion Recently, I read an article about Super Smash Bros. where a famous player talks about unintentional mistakes and tilt. You might be thinking, “What does that have to do with the Pokemon TCG?” Well, I think tilt is relevant to any competition and I want to transfer the sentiments of that article into Pokemon terms. Going into Nationals, I believe that staying focused and not going on tilt are pertinent to your success in such a big event. First off, let’s describe what tilt means. Tilt is…
It feeds on seaweed, using its teeth to scrape it off rocks. Electric current flows from the tips of its spines. (Pincurchin)
What to Play for Week 3 of States “RayBoar Blastoise Yveltal/Garbodor Yveltal/Bouffalant Puerto Rican Fairies Virizion/Genesect/Drifblim Conclusion RayBoar was one of the first decks that I ended up testing for States. I was drawn to this deck because of the recent success I had with it. With the XY set being released RayBoar got some new tools, most notably Delphox. Its Ability, Mystical Fire, lets you draw cards until you have six in your hand. In the past, we have seen this Ability have a massive impact on a format in the form of Magnetic Draw on Magnezone Prime. I don’t think Delphox will be as prevalent as…
What We Learned from Virginia Regionals “The Point Payout VA Top 32 Cough Cough Ray Plays Ray The Tournament What a Drag Turtle Time On My Mind “The Yeti” Gang Green Conclusion Towards the end of my Cities run I started to realize just how important Regionals are in correlation with attaining a Worlds invite. For those who don’t know, TPCi has upped the Championship Points Regionals give out from last season. In my opinion, you will need to have at least one decent run (Top 8 or better) at Regionals to get your invite this year. This past weekend I heard many players asking how…
The Evolution of the NXD–LTR Format “First, congratulations to anyone who made it to Top 8 at any Regionals. After experiencing this new system for myself, I have to say, it’s a true test of endurance. Here is the list I chose to play for the tournament: There was absolutely nothing special about this list. It was a plain old standard Blastoise teched with Tool Scrappers to beat Garbodor. I could have pulled a Sam Chen and cut the Tool Scrappers for more consistency cards, such as a fourth Tropical Beach, but I didn’t have the guts to do it. I’m glad I didn’t take the…
The Frontrunners for Fall Regionals “RayEels was definitely a high risk, high reward play and I knew this going into the tournament. In testing it had good matchups against everything excluding the Plasma matchup which was shaky. I was expecting to face a ton of Gothitelle, Blastoise, Darkrai, and Plasma. I was able to consistently beat three of those with this list and thought it gave me a strong chance to win. My decision almost paid off as I went into the final round at 5-2 only losing to a mirror match and Plasma. My last matchup was against former Senior World Champion Chase Maloney…
It starts off battles by attacking with its rock-hard horn, but as soon as the opponent flinches, this Pokémon bites down and never lets go. (Chewtle)
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