622 results for: tournament report
My Dallas Experience w/ Zoro/Garb, Final Notes on Expanded, and Team Up and Standard “To nobody’s surprise, Zoroark-GX decks made up a majority of the meta in Dallas. Zoroark-GX/Garbodor was the most popular deck, but Archie’s Blastoise was only behind by two people. Aside from the 88 and 86 playing these respective decks, there was a slew of other Zoroark-GX decks, a surge of Vespiquen, Rayquaza-GX, and other meta decks somewhat seen in the field. Fighting decks, Trevenant, and Drampa-GX/Garbodor were all relatively unpopular, only having about 20 players each. I was surprised to see that there weren’t more Fighting decks because of Zoroark’s last win. My theory is that most people were more…
Christopher’s Look Back at Portland, ft. Trevenant BREAK Report & First Thoughts on Lost Thunder “Over the summer, we saw what was primed to be the biggest shakeup in Expanded’s history: bans of Wally, Ghetsis, Puzzle of Time, and Hex Manaic were shown their way to the ban list, seemingly ending Zoroark’s death grip on the format. The lead-up to the weekend was optimistic, and I don’t think we’ve ever covered as many decks in one tournament’s preparation as we did with Portland. As this weekend showed us, none of this was quite the case. Instead, Zoroark did reemerge from the bans a more oppressive version of itself, which raises significant questions about where the…
A Top 8 Senior Worlds Buzzwole/Lycanroc Report “This is the list I used day one. I chose to play Buzzwole-GX/Lycanroc-GX as I felt it gave me the best shot at finishing a set in fifty minutes—an appealing feature given the rigor of the World Championships. There is not much to say about it, since it was fairly conventional, except for the fact that it was optimized for the Buzzwole-GX/Lycanroc-GX mirror and the Rayquaza-GX matchup. As such, I cut back on counts that did not affect these matchups, specifically Brooklet Hill and Float Stone. In this respect, the deck functioned as planned, though I did not end up…
The Halliburton Report from Worlds, incl. Top 4 Worlds Juniors Report “Right after my last article, we headed to Toronto. For two years, I have offered my eldest son a choice of birthday presents or a father/son regionals trip. Both years he has opted for the trip so this year we crossed the border and headed to Toronto. He had his first poutine, so I already knew the trip was a wild success. Unfortunately, we decided to play BuzzRoc because we could not find a deck that consistently beat it. We felt like this was a bit of a trap because historically, when we just lemmingly follow the herd and play…
A SixPrizes Site Update and Christopher’s 2018 World Championship Recap “We’re super excited to have a number of new initiatives to share with you this year. Through what we have planned, we believe it’ll be easier than ever to integrate SixPrizes with the rest of your Pokemon experience, communicate with the writers and your fellow subscribers, and, most importantly, take your game to the next level. We’ve always had a bit of a hard time deciding what to do with Fridays. It’s really too late in the week for most of us to learn anything new to impact the upcoming weekend’s tournaments, and full-fledged articles on things that aren’t specific…
It can radiate chilliness from the bottoms of its feet. It’ll spend the whole day tap-dancing on a frozen floor. (Galarian Mr. Mime)
Reviewing the Top Finishers from NAIC with an Eye to Worlds “I think that this deck might not be “the play” for the World Championships, but I also feel that this deck is almost never a bad choice for an event. It is incredibly consistent, and allows more experienced players to take advantage of all the options it has and outplay the opponent. 2 Tapu Lele-GX, 4 Brigette I have been asked about this a lot, so I feel I should address it here. Having the 4th Brigette instead of the fourth Tapu Lele-GX slightly increases your chance of using Brigette on the first turn of the game. This is because you…
Looking Behind to NAIC and Looking Ahead to Celestial Storm’s Worlds Format “R1 Buzzwole/Lycanroc WW R2 Espeon/Garbodor WW R3 Tord Zoroark LL R4 Tord Zoroark LL R5 Ultra Necrozma/Malamar LWW R6 Greninja LWL R7 (no show) W R8 Xerneas BREAK WLT R9 Lapras LWW As you can see, had I played Zoroark/Golisopod, I would’ve probably ended up beating the Buzzwole/Lycanroc and Espeon/Garbodor decks, then proceeded to lose to the auto-loss matchup of the resource denial Zoroark deck. Would’ve then went on to beat a Malamar deck, only to succumb to Greninja’s Shadow Stiching in Round 6. Perhaps I would’ve lost Round 1 to Buzzwole, or perhaps won Round 6, but hindsight is…
Methods of Madness from Madison Greninja and Discussion of the Froggy Future “Most of your matchups are fairly straightforward: setup as many Frogs as possible, Counter Catcher something big, N, and Shadow Stitching a lot. Of course, it’s important to be aware of caveats—if your opponent can’t use any meaningful Abilities, you probably Moonlight Slash instead, for example. The Buzzwole matchup follows this general script, but with a few details worth calling out. More often than not, you’re down 2 Prize Cards before you set up a Greninja. In games where this doesn’t come to pass—unless they have simply amassed a large body of Energy and missed a critical Float Stone or…
A 1st Place Roanoke Report and Update on Standard Zoroark and Buzzwole for Madison “Due to the recent release date of the set, there haven’t been many tournaments of its format. The two Mexico SPEs are the best representation of what it’s like now. In Mexico City, Malamar/Necrozma-GX took both 1st and 2nd handily. There was a Zoroark-GX/Garbodor that lost to one in Top 4 as well. In Cancun, Zoroark-GX variants took 1st and 2nd, one Lycanroc-GX and one Golisopod-GX. This was probably because those players meta-gamed against Malamar, the dominant deck on the previous weekend. This was an extremely closed sample and I expect the meta to be different elsewhere. The tournament will…
Travis’s Top 4 Salt Lake City Regionals Report with Decklist Error Gardevoir “Round 1 vs Trevenant W 1-0 As soon as my Round 1 opponent opened Phantump, I was immediately glad that I had put the Giratina Promo into my deck. Game 1 started off a bit scary as my opening wasn’t the best, but luckily I was able to topdeck a Brigette just in time to get the ball rolling. I also had an important turn where I played Guzma to get some use out of my items and elected to go for a paralyze flip on a Jirachi-EX, getting heads and sticking it for the turn as my opponent did…
This Pokémon slept for aeons while in the form of a statue. It was asleep for so long, people forgot that it ever existed. (Zamazenta)
Jimmy’s SLC and São Paulo Recaps and Forbidden Light Favorites “R1 Zoroark-GX/Lycanroc-GX GRI WW R2 Ho-Oh-GX/Kiawe WW R3 Zoroark-GX/Glaceon-GX WW R4 Espeon-GX/Garbodor WW R5 Buzzwole-GX/Lycanroc-GX GRI WW R6 Zoroark-GX/Lucario-GX/Lycanroc-GX GRI WLW R7 Buzzwole-GX/Lycanroc-GX GRI ID R8 Zoroark-GX/Lycanroc-GX GRI ID R9 Zoroark-GX/Lycanroc-GX GRI WW R10 Zoroark-GX/Lycanroc-GX GRI WW R11 Zoroark-GX/Garbodor WLL R12 Tapu Bulu-GX/Vikavolt SUM WLL R13 Magnezone UPR/Dusk Mane Necrozma-GX LWL R14 Zoroark-GX/Golisopod-GX WW 9-3-2, 15th place Headed into this event, I knew that I wanted to play something consistent. I also prefer playing decks that have a chance against everything, as opposed to just a couple good matchups. This left me deciding between Golisopod-GX/Zoroark-GX and Buzzwole-GX/Lycanroc-GX. Both decks fit…
Buzzwole/Lycanroc @ São Paulo, Tournament Takeaways, and Evolution in Penalty Process “I’m going to start off looking at my personal run in the tournament this weekend, then later get into some of the stickier more judge-side issues that players should be aware of and consider heading into future events. Going into this event, the most important goal was simply to earn some points to keep pace in the Top 16 race (we could discuss all day the health of making that decision over considering the goal to simply be winning the tournament, but I’ll just pass on that). With that in mind, riskier plays like Greninja BREAK, Tapu Bulu-GX/Vikavolt, and any crazy…
How I Piloted Ho-Oh/Garbodor to the Finals of Charlotte Regionals “The basic strategy for this deck is to set up two Ho-Oh’s, the first with Kiawe and the second with Nitro Tank. Along the way, you want to swing for OHKO’s with Phoenix Burn, using Choice Band to hit the right numbers, and Float Stone/Switch/Guzma to keep attacking turn after turn. The key to this deck is to get set up fast. Kiawe is important to get on the first turn to power up a Ho-Oh or a Turtonator. Ideally you will have an Ultra Ball, Tapu Lele or a Kiawe on the first turn of the game, and a…
Christopher on Portland, Psychology of Gameplay, and Standard as a Field “Getting into actual content, we’re recently off Portland Regionals—by the magic of me forgetting to edit Xander’s report in a timely manner, you can read his report as of yesterday, which conveniently parlays into me talking about the event more. Unfortunately, I can’t claim that I brilliantly set up this progression of events, but I’ll take happy accidents where I can get them. As you might’ve heard, I played Lucario-GX in Portland—with a list featuring oddities like Pokemon Catcher and heavy Regirock-EX. For your convenience in considering the deck’s viability, my matchups were as follows: Portland 466 Masters Lucario/Regirock R1…
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Xander’s 1st Place Portland Regionals Espeon/Garbodor Tournament Report “My journey began Friday morning at O’Hare, per usual. The best flight I found was an early morning one, meaning that I’d miss the entire day of school. This was a nice change because it’s exhausting to leave immediately after school, like I did for Charlotte or when driving to a Regional. Jon Eng was actually connecting in Chicago, so we managed to land on the same flight. We talked and played a couple games before we boarded; Espeon/Garbodor 2-0’d Greninja fairly easily. The only change him and Joe made between Charlotte and Portland was cutting the 3rd Field Blower…
Weave a carpet from its springy wool, and you end up with something closer to a trampoline. You’ll start to bounce the moment you set foot on it. (Dubwool)
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