33 results for: UPR–CEC
Not Just A Horror Film (A Deep Dive into Pidgeotto Control for UPR–CEC/Standard) “Now I will laboriously walk through our cards and their counts—much of this will touch on matchups, but in the big scheme of things every matchup is the same, so discussing matchups is boring—at some point you will have 1 to 4 Prizes left and you will play (worst-case scenario) Reset Stamp, Lt. Surge’s Strategy, Jessie & James, Jessie & James to reduce your opponent’s hand to 0 cards, Chip-Chip Ice Axe to control their top-deck, and then Cold Crush-GX to strip the Active attacker of Energy. Generally speaking, it doesn’t matter who they are or what they do, your…
My Top 5 Plays for São Paulo Regionals, the Last Major Event of UPR–CEC “Malamar/Giratina/GXs GardEon PikaRom RoxieChomp Mewtwo Box Interestingly, four of the five decks that I like most for São Paulo are focused on TAG TEAMs. (And even Malamar/Giratina plays TAG TEAMs!) These decks just need a few cards in their opening hands to start developing their strategy, which makes them consistent and avoid silly losses due to bad starting hands or early pressure from the opponent. Also, I believe these decks are versatile and can adapt to many different game situations. My favorite Malamar/Giratina variant at the moment is a version similar to the one used by Team DDG at San…
Closing the Book on RoxieChomp in Standard, and GardEon for Dallas “I’ll be brief here, because I know UPR–CEC Standard is waning and unimportant. I had a string of League Cups and Bochum Regionals where I played RoxieChomp, so I’d like to post my list here one final time for anyone going to tournaments before Sword and Shield sets come out. Not that anyone cares now, but I think TinaChomp will still be an incredibly strong deck with the rule changes and the new cards. Time will tell what new additions should be made, and which version (Roxie or non-Roxie) will prevail. Take this list to League Cups! It has good…
UPR–CEC Standard Meta Review, the Rise of Malamar, and Expanded Mewtwo Box “The first event of UPR–CEC Standard was the LAIC. There we saw some new ideas flourish, but the big trend I noticed among top players was that most of them stuck to what they knew was good, confident that they’d get at least a decent finish. This was shown by Robin Schulz winning with Ability Zard. Another example is both myself and our own Rahul Reddy playing similar Mewtwo decks comparable to the old version that had proven to be good. This event highlighted: what Mewtwo could do with the new tools, how Ability Zard was still strong despite falling…
Steven’s PikaRom in San Diego, Treasures & Traps (Post-Bans Edition), and Two Concepts for Dallas “I was feeling fairly confused heading into San Diego Regionals, following Daytona the week before. My top pick had been an Arceus & Dialga & Palkia-GX list not too dissimilar from the one Diego would take to a Top 4 finish later on, followed by a Malamar list which featured Ultra Necrozma-GX and Gengar & Mimikyu-GX, inspired by that of Daniel Altivilla. However, I wasn’t really feeling satisfied with either pick; I knew both were good, but ever since I had been working with Lost March, I wanted to find something else that felt like it had surprise factor. Speaking…
A warm-up of running around gets fire energy coursing through this Pokémon’s body. Once that happens, it’s ready to fight at full power. (Scorbunny)
The Story of TinaChomp, the Brazilian Meta Call That Won San Diego Regionals (and How to Update it Moving Forward) “My first thought was to make the Mew Box list faster and more aggressive, further increasing the chances of making my turn 1 plays even stronger. In my last article I wrote about the importance of Mew Box being explosive in the first few turns in the current metagame and the Mew Box list that I would probably use in San Diego if I played Mew Box. Deep down I knew that Mew Box, despite being an incredible deck, was not the right call for San Diego, as Malamar/Giratina was a popular deck in Daytona Beach and I was not…
Daytona Beach and San Diego Regionals Recaps with a Detailed Breakdown of Garchomp & Giratina-GX/Mismagius “As many of you know by now, myself and Xander Pero piloted his ADPero creation revolutionized by the addition of Rosa to the deck. What many don’t know is that until after the tournament I was unaware that Rosa could grab any Trainer card (and not just Items). Would this have made a difference in any of my games? I hope it didn’t, but there’s no way to tell. You guys have seen this list broken down by the creator and innovator himself, but allow me to explain what drew me into this choice over playing Mewtwo once again. Reading…
Top 8 w/ ADPero at San Diego, a Primer on TinaChomp, the Wild Weekend, and Expanded/Dallas Musings “I myself managed to place 7th in San Diego with ADP (or, as I like to call it giving credit to the list creator, ADPero). It was a fantastic weekend for me as I started the tournament off very strongly at 4-0, and then, as expected, I faced even tougher competition and games became much closer to the point where I finished 5-0-4 going into Day 2. I was certainly in the driving position in many games, but Reset Stamps or a few Energy whiffs allowed my opponents to tie those series. I wasn’t super excited to go into Day…
Mew Box/Jirachi for San Diego and Mew Box w/o Jirachi at LAIC + Daytona Beach “One of the things I like most about my list is the fact that it doesn’t use Weakness Guard Energy, Guzma & Hala, or Stealthy Hood, yet it still has a game plan against Malamar decks. Taking these cards out of the deck was a difficult decision, as I tested the deck a lot with them. But a few hours before LAIC, I realized that there would not be much Malamar in the room and I didn’t necessarily need those cards to beat Malamar. If I was lucky enough to not to open with Mewtwo & Mew GX, I’d be…
Recapping My Runs w/ Blacephalon/Naganadel at LAIC + Daytona Beach and Looking at the Top 16 Ability Zard from Daytona Beach “The List: Blacephalon/Naganadel I started 0-3-0 then got a Round 4 bye, which I thought was hilarious. I started to bounce back and found myself at a record of 5-3-0. One more win and I would make Top 128, net 100 Points, and keep my OCIC stipend. I knew how important my last round was. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to win my last round, which was against Green’s/Zard. My opponent played very well and we took it to Game 3, but I couldn’t pull it out. It was a heartbreaking loss because I knew what was at stake for me.…
With a lithe body and sharp claws, it goes around stealing food and eggs. Boltund is its natural enemy. (Thievul)
Beedrill/Pidgeotto for San Diego and Daytona Beach Analysis “I think we can all agree that GardEon was the surprise deck this weekend. I expected high counts of Doll Stall and Mewtwo, which definitely happened. Xander breathed new life into ADP, something that many of us wrote off as a less than stellar deck. ADP was a great meta call, and the players with the best list were rewarded for it. However, GardEon managed to sneak through all of the Blacephalon UNB and Pidgey to secure another Regional win. I do not think that GardEon is a very good deck. It was alright for this event because of all…
Recapping My 2nd Place Rosa ADP List from Daytona Beach “My parents and I decided to head to Florida early for Thanksgiving. We spent some time in the Cape Coral area staying with the Retzloffs and there just so happened to be a League Challenge on Wednesday night. Lacking a better idea, I took the ADP list from my last article and included some of the untested ideas I wanted to mess with. It’s not worth including the full list here, so here are the important inclusions: Absol TEU, Phione CEC Custom Catchers Choice Helmet, Counter Gain Cynthia instead of Lillie Everything else was just the bread-and-butter ADP list that…
On the Daytona Beach Meta, Double-Victory Weekend w/ Malamar @ Cups, Catron’s Psychic Malamar, and Misc. Thoughts for San Diego “I’d be interested to dig deeper into the decklists and see what percentage of the Mew3 decks ended up playing Wobbuffet LOT in order to try and fully counter Ability ReshiZard, as it was the third most popular deck overall. Of the three most popular decks, only Mew3 managed to make Top 8. This tournament was basically the upside-down LAIC, as we saw ADP and GardEon heavily decline in popularity, yet boast a much better conversion rate for Day 2 and also face off in the finals. Florges Doll Stall ended up being the more successful Mill deck yet again,…
The Enigmatic QuagVally (Quagsire/Silvally) and Actual Big Brain Blowns (Blacephalon-GX/Naganadel) for San Diego “Warning: This deck is excessively difficult to play. With most decks, you can pick it up and have a good feeling for the strategy within 10 games. This is not the case with QuagVally. With this deck, you need to commit yourself to playing many practice games, wherein you carefully analyze every action you take. The first I heard of a Quagsire/Silvally deck was my good friend Michael Catron pitching the idea to me at Richmond Regionals. You use Red & Blue to get Energy into play instead of Naganadel LOT, then Wash Out the Energies to your attackers. As…
LAIC by the Numbers, Pidgey Power, and My Top 2 Plays for Daytona Beach “Thanks to RK9 Labs, we have access to the entire Day 1 field across all age divisions for LAIC. We’ll focus on Masters for our purposes, but there are a few interesting numbers in the other two divisions as well—notably 5 Reshiram & Charizard-GX/Flareon-GX decks in Seniors, and 2 Naganadel/Rayquaza-GX decks in Juniors. Masters saw a Day 1 meta dominated by Arceus & Dialga & Palkia-GX (ADP) decks, as well as Mewtwo & Mew-GX decks. Based on numbers provided by Limitless, we know some number of players brought a Green’s Exploration-based ADP list, as opposed to the midrange list with…
What appears to be an iron helmet is actually hardened hair. This Pokémon lives for the thrill of battle. (Perrserker)
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