I wanted to share my thought on decks and ideas I'm testing in these little entry of mine and my thoughts leading up to the Singapore Regional League Volume 3, which is a week after the European Internationals. I had paid some attention to the new rotation and watched most of the Fukuoka Champions League to have an idea of what is to come and where to start off my own testing.
March 12 - Locals
This is the day where my focus on the game shifted from SV4 pre-rotation format to SV5 post-rotation format as our local league was switching all qualifying sessions for the Grandslam Invitational events (GSP) to post-rotation. We needed 14 points to qualify for the event and at that point I was still stuck at just 6 points.
I took a Charizard ex/Pidgeot ex list I saw from ... and ran with it. I had been playing Zard/Pidgeot the moment Zard was released back in August, so you could say that's my comfort deck. I wanted to start off with something I knew and just adapt to the new changes.
R1 vs Zard/Pidgeot W
- I actually lost the match but my friend Nicholas gave me the win as he wasn't making the invitational. It just came down to set-up, I never got a Pidgeot ex up, he did and just started picking off my board.
- Felt like the usual Zard mirrors pre-rotation. As in whoever sets up first wins and me always losing the Zard mirror for whatever reasons haha! Some things just don't change.
R2 vs Arceus/Alolan Vulpix L
- The moment I saw Lake Acuity in Rag's mulligan, I knew I was in trouble, especially with him going first. I had seen many Arc/Pix lists to know they are the main ones playing Lake Acuity, also because I was also thinking of testing it myself.
- I was trying to give up as many prizes as possible to stick his Vulpix at the best possible turn but he played around it, he just didn't KO my Rotom which hurt me as he was able to set up another attacker. I had a small shot of a comeback but he was too far ahead, boss for game for the win.
R3 vs Hisuian Goodra VSTAR/Klefki W
- This was another matchup I was dreading. Goodra is huge and Mickey is THE Goodra player in our area.
- I got a bit lucky in this game, he had a turn he could heal his Goodra and chose not to and I got the perfect scenario to take a KO on it with Choice Belt. He couldn't come back after that.
Not the best first locals for me in the new rotation, hit the mirror and two very difficult matchups. But it's testing so we learn, we live, and we move on.
March 14 - Self Testing
Decided to do a little digging around to find decks to do my usual self-testing and went with decks featured from Celio's Network video to give me something to work with initially. Most of the lists I just copied from his video with a few I made immediate changes just to suit what I would do.
What I would usually do is just what you think self-testing is. Set two decks aside, and play them myself just to learn how to play each matchups. I don't always play them correctly which is why I tend to keep re-playing the same lists just so I have a better idea of what I'm supposed to do.
Results:
Charizard ex/Pidgeot ex - 5 wins
Raging Bolt ex/Sandy Shock ex - 3 wins
Lugia VSTAR/Archeops - 2 wins
Arceus VSTAR/Giratina VSTAR - 2 wins
Gholdengo ex - 2 wins
Lost Zone Box - 1 win
The first games were all bo1, because I am playing in a bo1 regional after all. Then after that, I would take the top 4 decks and do a top 4 cut, but bo3 since our top cut games are also bo3. Lugia beat Charizard/Pidgeot in the first self-tourney finals, so Lugia is as good as expected. Even though Bolt-Shocks had 3 wins, I wasn't really impressed by it initially. Just ran hot honestly.
March 17 - Locals
Since Lugia won the latest self-challenge, I thought it'd be only fair to bring the exact list to local and give it a run to see how it would do in an actual tourney setting.
R1 vs Turbo Hands L
- Yeah worst possible deck to hit in round one and it was Jeremy playing it
- Miradon took out the smaller guys and Hands ex could easily KO Lugia VSTAR for the 3 prize turn. Next game!
R2 vs Arceus/Giratina W
- Well if anyone should, I should know how to play against ArcTina since I play it all the time and have played it a lot in testing so far
- Was a bit lucky to get a Lugia VSTAR ready to KO Arceus Turn 2 and that was it really.
R3 vs Charizard/Pidgeot W
- This match went closer than expected, and it came down to Cruz missing something and I had my Minccino ready to KO his Zard to turn the match over to my favour in the late game.
March 17 - Self Testing
I decided to stick with pretty much the same lists from before but with Chien Pao now replacing Gholdengo and Lost Zone Giratina replacing Lost Zone Box (the other two ended up as the bottom two, good enough reason to replace them right?)
Results:
Chien-Pao ex/Baxcalibur - 5 wins
Arceus VSTAR/Giratina VSTAR - 3 wins
Giratina VSTAR (Lost Zone) - 2 wins
Lugia VSTAR/Archeops - 2 wins
Charizard ex/Pidgeot ex - 2 wins
Raging Bolt ex/Sandy Shock ex - 0 wins
ArcTina actually beat Chien-Pao in the finals 2-1 somehow. Was my first time testing out CP Bax and yeah it's good. Really good. It's one of the few decks that I've had little trouble with the set-up, the other, surprisingly, is ArcTina itself. Every other deck I've played have had troubling starts a number of times.
Raging Bolt with the 0 win didn't surprise me, it was as awful as I first expected it to be.
March 19 - Self Testing
March 19 - Locals
I had to bring ArcTina to locals! You know me, I have to try it out.
R1 vs Charizard/Pidgeot with Spidops ex W
- This was a weird Zard/Pidg list, it had Spidops in it
- I got the perfect set-up, Iron Leaves did it's thing and got the W
R2 vs Chien-Pao/Baxcalibur W
- Not my favourite matchup but if I can set-up perfectly early on, it's winnable and that's how it turned out. He was missing a few stuff and I got the KO on CP and they had a hard time trading prizes after that.
R3 vs Charizard/Bibarael W (I actually lost but Bryan gave me the win)
- This one was painful, I had a hard time setting up and was playing catchup to Bryan the whole time, and couldn't get back into the game in time. Missing Turn 1 EA (Energy + Arceus) is a recipe for disaster.
- He was nice enough to give me the win since he wasn't playing in the invitational. I ended up finishing in first place which got me the 4 points I needed to qualify for the GSP Invitational #7. Job done!
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- Just the usual case of not getting EA Sports in Turn 1 (Energy + Arceus) and it set me way back
- Mew ex did give me a few cheeky KOs and it felt really good in the deck with how it worked
- My opponent just could not set-up and by the time he had anything going, I had my Armarouge ex ready to hit for 280! That's when it brought back great memories, it felt as if I was playing Centiskorch VMAX again. I mean the attack is pretty much the same, just doesn't feel the same though.
- Much more even game this time around. I got the win but I gave Ray the win when I heard he needed one more point to get into the GSP Invitational event
- Armarouge ex and Delphox V put in work in this matchup
I've also done a number of online tournaments in this new format when the set was officially released on the 22nd and here's just a run-down of how my events have been so far:
- TOURNAMENT OF DOOM! Temporal Forces Legal
- 3/2/1 - 45th/154
- Matchups:
- Snorlax Control T
- Lost Box W
- Ancient Box L
- Zard/Bibarel W
- Blastoise ex/Palkia W
- Espathra L
- Ditto Forces #2! 100 Codes!
- 0/2/0 - 165th/175
- Matchups:
- Lugia L
- Torterra L
- PokeDeck #47
- 3/2/0 - 12th/33
- Matchups:
- Turbo Gholdengo L
- Lost Box W
- Zard/Pidgeot W
- Espathra W
- Ancient Box L
- Pokémon Battle Park (Mar 29)
- 2/2/0 - 114th/221
- Matchups:
- Bye W
- SableZard LZ Paradox L
- Snorlax/Pidgeot Control W
- Lugia L
- Cinnabar Island Tournament #32
- 0/2/0 - 148th/171
- Matchups:
- Lost Box L
- Lugia L
- Sparkling Pokémon TCG Live #23
- 4/2/0 - 4th/24
- Matchups:
- Lost Box W
- Incineroar L
- CP Bax W
- Snorlax Control W
- Lost Box W
- Incineroar LWL
- Late Night 179
- 2/1/0 - 144th/268
- Matchups:
- Arceus/Bibarel W
- Gardevoir W
- Zard/Pidgeot L
- Redacted Forces #1
- 0/2/0 - 141st/171
- Matchups:
- Lugia L
- Zard/Pidgeot L
- EUIC Prep Series #1
- 4/2/0 - 19th/95
- Matchups:
- Espathra L
- Bye W
- Turbo Moon W
- Raging Bolt W
- Ancient Box W
- Lugia L
- Sunny's Weekly #148
- 2/2/0 - 45th/115
- Matchups:
- Zard/Pidgeot W
- Pidgeot ex Control W
- Ancient Box L
- Gholdengo/Kirlia L
- Peladão da Baixada #104
- 3/3/0 - 14th/53
- Matchups:
- Lugia W
- Zard/Bibarel W
- Raging Bolt L
- Zard/Pidgeot W
- Zard/Bibarel L
- Lost Box L
