Sorina Radu
Author Archive
Bio: I’m a 26-year old player based in Seattle, WA. I’ve been playing Pokémon competitively since the fall of 2012, and I’ve fallen in love the competitive outlet and the community. Ask me anything!
Is 500 CP Too Much, Los Tres Grandes, Yveltal Moves, and the Night Machine “After last week’s announcement that we’ll be required to earn 500 Championship Points this season in order to qualify for Worlds, I saw a smattering of posts on Facebook and Twitter from disheartened players who now believe that their chance of earning an invitation to Worlds is much closer to zero than in previous years. Before you jump to the same conclusion, there are several other factors I believe we should be looking at in order to judge this season’s competitive structure in comparison to those of past seasons. We’ve already seen that several of the smaller Regional Championships (Edmonton, Vancouver, Kitchener, Kansas City, New…
Why Night March is Looking So Good, the Latest List, and How to Overcome Its ‘Bad’ Matchups “It’s always difficult to get a firm grasp on the US Nationals metagame due to the fact that we’re going into a format almost completely blind. Other than any testing you choose to do (testing which will only be relevant to determining the metagame if you’re able to try out almost the entire format over a long period of time, if that even), the only way to look at the metagame is through results of different foreign National Championships, League Challenges in the US, and the many articles from various websites that are geared towards the competitive scene. In this…
Why Night March is Still the Play (for Most People) and Three Current Builds for Varying Metas “I’d first like to talk a bit about the place of Night March within the Standard format and the Standard metagame in general. If you’ve been paying attention to the kinds of discussions happening online — primarily on Twitter and the Virbank City Facebook page — you’ll see that a lot of players are frustrated that Night March has been doing so well. In fact, Night March made up 35% of all the Top 8 decks played during the first weekend of State Championships, so it’s understandable that the deck’s popularity and dominance in the format has led to outcry…
A Weekend at Cities, Social Media Q&A, and Interview with Jonathan Paranada (#1 US/CA) “To be completely honest, Pokemon hasn’t been a very big focus in my life as of recently. To start off my season, I began by attending both Phoenix and Vancouver Fall Regionals, and I placed in the Top 8 at Vancouver. Fast-forward to a month after Regionals, and I had dropped the ball hard on testing or playing the game even casually — the only reason I had touched my cards was to shove them all into my nightstand drawer. In order to snap out of this funk, I made myself commit to going down to the Portland area for a…
Regionals Retrospective, BREAKthrough Standouts, and Early Reads on the Standard Meta “My previous article’s discussion was primarily focused on the idea of healthy competition as a path through which one can better themself. In a similar vein, I’d like to center my tournament reports on both the mistakes that I made and the cases in which certain situations didn’t play out as I had hoped. I believe that most people tend to hone in on the positives of an experience in a way that clouds the negative parts of that experience. Perhaps if they end up placing in the Top 64 of a Regional tournament, they would considering themselves as having…
It drifted in on the flow of ocean waters from a frigid place. It keeps its head iced constantly to make sure it stays nice and cold. (Eiscue)
The Importance of Competition and Primal Groudon Three Ways “I know that this topic has been covered many times, so I’ll try to keep it brief. But since I’m discussing competition in general, I really wanted to take some time to cover what I think are the top five most important things to do if you’re trying to become a better player. I’m sure many of you already do some of these things, and these are areas where I could improve upon as well. As a new season is coming to a head, I think it would be helpful for each of us to reflect back on how our…
More Musings on Seismitoad-EX, Loving Card Advantage, and Tamin’ Shaymin “My primary goal for Spring Regionals was to earn a (somewhat) significant amount of Points in order to get back into the Top 32 players in the US & Canada and earn a $1,000 Nationals stipend. I’m not sure if at this point I’ve actually gained anything, considering the amount of money I’ve already spent on traveling for tournaments — but Top 32 in North America is an impressive title in any case. Additionally, any amount of Points is helpful for my (long-shot) goal of getting Day Two status at Worlds, which could be achieved with a really good performance at US Nationals…
Top 4 Missouri States Report and My True Love, Crobat “Dear SixPrizes readers, here’s a very well-known fact about me: Outside of when I was swooning over Gothitelle EPO 47/Accelgor DEX at Nationals 2013, almost all of the decks that I’ve ever chosen to play have included or featured Darkrai-EX. The first competitive deck that I built was Hydreigon DRX 97. I remember the giddy excitement of figuring out that Dark was still good even after the Dark Patch rotation. And I’ve been almost exclusively piloting Yveltal-EX/Seismitoad-EX/Darkrai-EX for the entirety of this season, with the deck responsible for approximately 80% of my Championship Points. I say all of this with…
Be cautious of the ectoplasmic body surrounding its soul. You’ll become stiff as stone if you touch it. (Cursola)
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