2022 Tournament Recap
May 8th - Bricks Play - Singapore Championships Qualifier - Phase 1
1/2/0 - 3rd/4 players
Deck: Arceus VSTAR/Galarian Moltres EVS
We waited longer than most to get official events back and the first one was the Championship Qualifiers. First phase was played in many different stores in Singapore, 4 person per pod and we had to choose which ones we wanted to go and we’d get elected in one of them. 3 Swiss Bo1, sounds fun huh?
Winners of these pods would make it to Phase 2. Same story, winner goes on to Phase 3 which would be the final considering of just 4 bo3 Swiss rounds. The sad thing is I didn’t even get out of the first phase. The new double game loss (DGL) rules caught both my opponent and myself out, and I was just one turn away from winning.
Won R2 and then prized too many important stuff for R3. And this is where my hatred for bo1 format started, it already cost me my shot of trying to make it to Worlds. I was already annoyed by the whole South East Asia and TPCi split, J was half-way there to get my first Worlds invite when the season was cancelled and all of our points were erased, meaning all my hard work was for nothing. The road to Worlds doesn’t get any easier for us.
Aug 13 - Kraken Games - Singapore Town League
3/3/0 - 18th/44 players
Deck: Arceus VSTAR/Inteleon
This was the first and only Town League I was elected in that wasn’t part of the new TPC points structure for those of us in South East Asia, the announcement would be made weeks after this event.
So we were all fighting just to get that one bye for the Regional. And once again the new bo1 format was my undoing here. Trying to play Arceus Inteleon wasn’t a good idea in a 25 minute bo1 series and two of my games went to time and I just gave both my opponents the win because I was just so fed up about it.
Time was a major factor in all of my matches and since then I have stayed away from playing decks that can be a bit slow to set up in official events. 25 minutes is not a lot of time and add to the fact that we’ve got the the DGL rule now for reaching time, it doesn’t help set up decks. I needed to change my game plan for the upcoming Regional and the first event under the new TPC points system.
Sep 17 - Toys Terminal - Singapore Regional Leauge
5/3/0 - 29th/130 players (+150 CSP)
Deck: Arceus VSTAR/Flying Pikachu VMAX/Zamazenta V
Before I talk about the event, here’s a quick run down on our path to Worlds right now. Score 2000 CSP points and be in the top 4 of the standings and you’re going to Worlds with a Day 1 invite. The other way is to win the Championship event, that gives you a Day 2 invite and with how much points it pays out, the guy who wins this will likely end up top 4 in the standings so it’ll still end up being just 4 people from Singapore going to Worlds.
That itself is quite disappointing as we used to get at least 8 to 12 people going to Worlds so we’ve lost so many spots for some reason. And Worlds is in our part of the world too but it’s sucks that not a lot of us will get to go there as participants.
On to the event itself and I was back to trusty old Arceus VSTAR, this time without the Inteleon engine but going for the Bibarel engine, hoping to set up quicker. I played one spicy tech in Zamazenta V hoping to give the new Kyurem VMAX some trouble and sure enough, I never met one. But the deck ran well, I was able to set up in all but two games. Those two being my first two losses, firstly to Klive in a mirror match because I whiffed the VSTAR and then to Wei Kit and his Mew (he finished 2nd), had a bad start. 5-3 was good enough for top 32 and our first CSP so we'll take it.
Sep 18 - Toys Terminal - Singapore Town League
4/2/0 - 8th/43 players (+130 CSP)
Deck: Arceus VSTAR/Aggron VMAX
Ok to be fair, I was memeing a bit in this event. I do like the Arceus/Aggron deck, I had played it in a few online events and did ok with them. But I never did think it would be viable and thought, heck why not give it a try for the Town League during the 2nd day of the Regional League. I did know my way around most of the main matches except for Regis which always felt bad so I was hoping not to meet any. And only a few played it the day before.
But sure enough there were 6 Regi players this time around and guess where my two losses came from? Yup Regis. Not much the deck can do about it. Every other game went as planned, be it Palkia or Arceus, I always managed to get the perfect set-up for Aggron V to start surprising people! Always a nice feeling when they least expect it.
Oct 16 - Goodness Gracious Gaming - Singapore Town League
5/1/0 - 2nd/32 players (+200 CSP)
Deck: Arceus VSTAR/Giratina VSTAR
For whatever reason, I put a lot of pressure on myself to do well for this particular Town League. Why? Well it's my home ground of sorts, since I play locals at Goodness Gracious Gaming every other week, I wanted to do well for boss Thomas and all the homies there. I did think about going with an Arceus/Flying Pikachu/Giratina built but after testing a straight forward Arceus/Giratina list, I felt that was much better going into this event.
So far, this was easily my best tournament run of the year. Even though I made a colossal fuck-up in Round 2 where I did all the usual Starbirth stuff, only to realise...oh I forgot to take my DTE. Arceus can't attack without it on Turn 2 so I gave my opponent too much of an advantage and even then the game still got close. He didn't know how to play Giratina from what I could tell so it's always annoying to lose in that manner.
But I made up in the other rounds, won every other game, including some interesting games against my friends Keith and Kian Wei. My last round was against another Giratina VSTAR and this time I didn't mess up, got the perfect start and by Turn 4, I was already down to 4 prizes and that win was enough to put me 5-1, 2nd in the standings. Extra packs for getting top 4 but more importantly, more points! 200 more to be exact for being 2nd!
Nov 20 - Rowell Pte Ltd - Singapore Town League
2/4/0 - 34th/46 players
Deck: Giratina VSTAR
No decklists here and you'll find out why. I didn't even know if I would be playing in this event as I was on the waitlist but as it turns out, everyone who was there ended up playing and we still had slots for 2 more people if anyone else had shown up!
This would be my first event shying away from trusty ol' Arceus VSTAR. I felt it was getting a bit slower in the metagame and decided to go with my new favourite deck, Giratina VSTAR. I had been practising with it loads in the run-up to this event and felt confident I could do well with it and also, keep that streak of always scoring points in a TPC event so far.
And of course, that streak came to an end. It was one of those days where anything that could go wrong, will go wrong. I started the event 2-0, just needing one more win to pretty much confirm some points on the board but that win never came. 2-0 to 2-4, seating at Table 1 in Round 3 was a curse. I lost to someone who was at his first Town League but how did I lose? My last gust card was my last prize, nothing I can do about it. Got donked by a Mew, then dead drew vs Arceus/Blissey and finally started too slow in the mirror. What can I do when nothing goes right? I was so annoyed with how my day went I completely forgot to take a picture of my list.
Nov 27 - Sanctuary Gaming - Singapore Town League
4/3/0 - 20th/72 players (+75 CSP)
Deck: Giratina VSTAR
I stuck with Giratina for this one and it paid off! I did try Arceus again but I wasn't feeling it and I was testing Mew VMAX as well just in case the new League Battle box came out in time for me to get the Mew pieces. It never did. In fact I bought the damn league box at this event!
I tried a little spicy tech in my Giratina deck just to have an easier time against Duraludon VMAX, and it was Unown V! It's attack, for 3 colourless energy, says if you have one prize remaining, you win the game. Straight up win, no bullshit, no effect nonsense, you just win. It goes through anything Duraludon can possibly try. It got me a win against an Arceus deck and would have gotten me a win in the mirror match too if we had 1-2 more minutes.
Funny tech aside, wasn't the best result I could have hoped for. I did still get points but I lost my final round because of my own Roxanne, giving my opponent the exact two cards they needed to take the win and they ended up finishing top 8, so that was adding insult to injury there. Points is still points I suppose!
Dec 17 - Pokemon TCG EN Asia Open
2/3/0 Drop - 168th/194 players
Deck: Arceus VSTAR/Duraludon VMAX
Well this one sucked. I went into this not really sure on what to play. I tested Arceus/Duraludon a lot and it did feel good but at my last locals, I kept losing to Lugia. Of course, my good friend Luke (Celio's Network) came up with the game plan for me. Play 4 Boss, target an Archeops, get rid of Yveltal and you pretty much win from there, all you need is 2 Boss and a powered up Duraludon with Big Parasol to stop Yveltal.
My other option was Mew VMAX and I did try both the speedy Fusion built or the slower but more tactical DTE/Path/Judge build as well. I prefered the latter as I feel like I'm always in control of what I can do while the other was just playing with your luck, if you draw the nuts, good for you. But in testing, neither versions worked well for me so I decided to shy away from Mew VMAX for the time being.
I went with ArcDura thinking the field would be mainly made up of Lugia, Mew and Lost Box, three decks I felt I should have a good matchup against if things went my way. And for once I made the right meta-call, those 3 were the 3 main decks. But I lost to two Lugias in the first two rounds, albeit them both being Worlds-calibre players and they went first (bad news for ArcDura). And my run was ended by my friend Ryan (another Worlds player), who went 0-2 to 5-2 to make the top 32 cut, something I too was trying to do but he's a far better player than myself.
The deck was good, just not much I could have done about my matches I felt. That's what we get in a bo1 format, it's not fun. If you have one bad game, that's it. I had two very bad games and my tournament run was on the edge with 5 more rounds to go, how can that ever feel fun? I really wished we got back bo3, at least I can still make a comeback from bad starts, which was the thing that killed me all tournament long.
So that's my tournament re-cap for the year 2022. Pretty much this, bo1 sucks and is a horrible format, but if we want to make it to Worlds, we just have to deal with this for the time being. I am currently sitting 8th in the CSP ranking on 555 CSP, so it's not been all that bad but I feel like I've not played my best yet in all honesty and part of the reason is because of Bo1. I guess I need to change how I've played all this time, I'm still too used to a Bo3 format and always thinking of the long game when we cannot afford to do that anymore.
And now for some fun mini-list, from my 5 favourite decks I played this year to the 10 favourite cards I pulled from packs I won from tournaments this year (I never buy packs, we live in the single-life here). Thought it would be a fun way to wrap up 2022 in the Pokemon TCG world, and I'm writing this while I'm taking a break on my holiday trip to Tokyo, Japan. Yes, the home of Pokemon, so why not right?
Favourite decks:
5) Zoroark Box
Tournament: Locals (Top 4) 2-1-0
This is easily my favourite fun deck to play this year. If Lost Box wasn't a thing, I would play this more often but as it is, I can't play Zoroark Box that much as Lost Box is quite popular on the online scene and also in my local area. Still, this deck has ways to deal with whatever is in the meta. Especially now, this feels like the only deck that can beat the two best decks at the moment, Mew VMAX and Lugia VSTAR. Just don't prize the attackers you need in a specific matchup, know when to use the right attackers and you'll be picking up wins while leaving your opponents confused and thinking...I lost to that?
4) Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX/Inteleon
Tournament: Concept City Monthly Special (Top 4 split) 3-0-1
This deck was tonnes of fun to play but also one of the hardest decks to master because of all the different options you had in the deck and all the different attackers you could attack with but knowing who to attack with and at the right timing is usually what wins you the games. Even the supporter counts were all one-offs. And I did end up first in this event even though we all split the prizing. It was fun to give Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX a run after playing it online for so long.
3) Giratina VSTAR
Tournament: GGG/Southern Island PTCG Grandslam Invitational (2nd) - 3-1-0
It took me a while to get used to the Lost Box engine but once I did, I sure enjoyed playing it, be it Lost Box with Radiant Charizard, Lost Box with Radiant Greninja or the usual version with Giratina. Like Rapid Strike Urshifu, it's actually quite hard to master since you have to actively throw resources out of the game to reach the right numbers for certain attackers, and knowing what to get rid of at the right time is the real game changer. Yup still learning but that's the fun of playing Pokemon right. This Giratina list did get me 2nd at our Grandslam Invitational event where I lost to, yup, Yong Siang who has been on fire this year.
2) Arceus VSTAR/Inteleon
Tournament: GGG Locals (1st) 3-0
I did enjoy playing Arceus/Inteleon when I didn't have to worry much about getting into a double game loss in a 25 minute bo1 series. I ended up winning locals with this list when we still played bo3 and this deck was perfect for it. You had all sorts of answers to react to what your opponent might decide to do, and if Arceus isn't attack, well Inteleon can be a superb attacker too.
1) Arceus VSTAR/Giratina VSTAR
Tournament: GGG Town League (2nd) 5-1
Well it probably had to be this since it got me my best result this year. This deck was just solid with answers all around. There wasn't that many bad matchups for the deck. You set Arceus up first so you can get the Giratinas ready to attack, be it full force with Lost Impact for either 280 or even 310 or 320 with the 2 damage amplifiers in the deck. DTE helps with the awkward cost of using Lost Impact. And let's not forget that Giratina V itself is a great attack, especially against wall stuff like Miltank. And for the matchups you might struggle with, typically Mew VMAX, you just go with the tried and tested approach of Marnie, Path, Hope and Pray they get stuck. And it usually works. That's how I ended up 2nd in this event anyway!
Favourite Pulls:
10) Kindler
9) Marnie's Pride
6) Eternatus VMAX
2) Giratina V
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