A Tournament Report from the Biggest Pokemon Regional Championship in Europe!

Hello everybody! My name is Steffen Eriksen.

On the weekend of September 28^th/29^th, the biggest Regional Championship in Pokémon TCG’s history took place in Offenbach, Germany. 520 players in the Masters’ Division participated, and after two days full of intense games, I finished with a record of 8 wins, 3 losses and 3 ties (8-3-3), placing 29^th. In this short write up, I will tell you about how I decided on my deck for the event, and give a short overview of how my matches went.

I always find it difficult to choose a deck, especially for larger events. This time was no different, and combined with the fact that this was the first major event in Europe using the new format, made it even more difficult. After a lot of consideration, I decided to go for Zoroark GX/Lycanroc GX, a deck known from the previous season. Credit goes to my brother, Jesper Eriksen, for giving me the initial decklist for the deck. I did make a few changes to the list, which I will discuss below.

I decided to go for Zoroark GX/Lycanroc GX as I felt it to a rather consistent deck that still gave you a lot of options for smart play. Besides providing the player with additional draw power through its Trade ability, Zoroark GX is a great attacker. Combining it with Professor Kukui and Devoured Field, made you able to hit 180 damage in one turn, thereby being able to OHKO many opposing threats. With its Bloodthirsty Eyes ability, and its fighting type, Lycanroc GX makes a good partner for Zoroark GX. Additionally, Lycanroc GX has one of the most powerful GX attacks in the game at this moment, thus making it an immediate threat once it hit the board.

As the deck is very familiar to the general player base, I will only go over some of the specific card choices I made. First off, I decided to go for 2 Devoured Field and 1 Field Blower, rather than 3 Devoured field which was originally in the list I got. This change came after a discussion with my teammate, Bert Wolters. A field Blower especially serves the same purpose as a Devoured Field, in the sense that it removes the opponent’s stadium in play. However, it gave me the option to remove an opponent’s Choice Bands and/or Weakness Policy. This turned out to be very good several times throughout the tournament. Another important factor was that in the games where Devoured Field is needed (most against Rayquaza GX), you just needed to hit one, as it would stick throughout the game, as your opponent played no counter stadium nor Field Blower. The second change I made to the list was to cut the fourth Great Ball for a Friend Ball. I think that Friend Ball is an underrated card in this format. Since most decks player Tapu Lele GX, it usually guarantees you to search for your own Tapu Lele GX. Friend Ball is in general nice in this deck, as you play quite the number of different types.

 

Here is a quick overview of my matchups during the event. With 520 players, we first played 9 rounds of swiss.

R1: Zoroark/Garbodor WW
R2: Buzzwole/Lycanrock/Magcargo LWW
R3: Reshiram/Ho-Oh LL
R4: Malamar/Marshadow WW
R5: Vikavolt/Rayquaza LWW
R6: Vikavolt/Rayquaza LWW
R7: Vikavolt/Rayquaza LWW

I decided to take an intentional draw in round eight to make sure that I would make it into the second day. Had I lost round eight, I would have risked being down paired in round nine, thereby not being able to take an intentional draw.

R8: ID
R9: Vikavolt/Rayquaza LWW

Each player with 19 points or more made it into Day Two. This resulted in a total of 55 players making it to the second day of the event. On the second day, we played 5 additional rounds of swiss before cutting to top 8.

R10: Buzzwole/Garbodor/Weavile LWT
R11: Malamar/Marshadow LWL (This game was on stream, so you can watch it here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/316573762 . Fast forward to 1h43min.)
R12: Zoroark/Lycanrock/Banette LWT
R13: Buzzwole/Tapu Koko w Poison Barb LL
R14: Zoroark/Weavile LWW

8-3-3

Fun fact: I only got to go first in one round during the entire event (round 3), and that was the round where my deck decided to brick on me.

I hope you all enjoyed the read. If you have any questions, then feel free to contact me!

Thanks to everyone who supported me! #Dragonshield #Team8bp ?