Report ze dvou Pokémon Regionals v Německu - 14. a 15. 11.

Report ze dvou Pokémon Regionals v Německu - 14. a 15. 11.

Hello once again, Pokémon-Guru readers! I’m back this time to give you an insight of my experience in Germany, where two Regionals took place this past weekend, in Hannover and Leipzig using the Expanded format. As a relatively new player, I still demonstrate quite a bit of inexperience in tournament environments but also in travelling as well: that became clear when I shamelessly tried to non-sleep marathon the entire weekend and eventually breaking down in some bench right in the middle of the Leipzig Hauptbahnhof and even being mistaken for a refugee by fellow hobos, or being sent off by the station’s security – ah yes, it was quite the adventure. Needless to say, I participated in both tournaments without any rest and in a complete wrecking state just to save eventual accommodation money; won’t do that mistake again in Berlin for the Arena Cup.

These Regionals were the first I ever participated in since my competitive debut in late March, where I got second-to-last position in the Lisbon Regionals (20 Masters, won by your friendly neighbourhood Igor Costa) after running a really poor Medicham deck due to not having suitable cards; after that, Portuguese Nationals and the three LC’s in the Czech Republic were the only events I’ve ever been to, without securing any Top Cuts at all. My confidence for the German Regionals was a bit shaken due to my initial bad runs, but I yet had faith in my deck choice and my main purpose was still gaining experience and grow myself as a player. One step to be taken at a time since I was about to jump in a meta filled with World-Class level players and I couldn’t possibly think to best any of them since they all eat CP for breakfast.

Reaching Hannover’s venue after a full night awaken and sightseeing during the hours of darkness and sheer cold, one group was already waiting in line: Steffen Eriksen greeted me wholeheartedly as if we were friends for ages and made a pleasant smile after hearing I was from Portugal. I haven’t had any clue of who he was before he told me his name, but eventually got surprised – it’s a funny thing when you’re such an obscure guy nobody has ever heard of and suddenly you are talking with people you know from social media, twitch streams and tournament reports; they are just normal folks like me, but I couldn’t help myself showing the upmost respect for his achievements and skill as a player, and (in his words) his brothers’ skill in creating Spiderman memes on Virbank! His fiancée and friends who came with him were also really nice and friendly, and this was decisive in the end for me since it completely changed my mood and made me feel much more comfortable and less tired before facing the upcoming challenges.

For both tournaments, I chose what I consider a really consistent list of Seismitoad/Giratina, with a main focus for Ghetsis: I really love that card due to how many meta decks rely on items for setup, and going first for the chance of an initial Ultra Ball/Shaymin/Computer Search to go search for Hoopa and placing down Keldeo/Shaymin, Toad and Jirachi for the Ghetsis was really overwhelming since I could do my own setup comfortably and preparing Toad for the lock while filling my hand with Hammers, Scoops and Lasers, and at least forcing the opponent to use his supporter for the turn with mighty Ghetsis while replenishing my hand; it can be a risky move, but one that very often pays a whole lot off. While I completely despise filling my deck with coin-flip cards, I found that it was completely necessary since when they work it’s wonderful and worst case scenario you get space for Set-Up and draw more goodies – this way of playing was really important in digging for DCE’s or VS Seeker’s for game-winning Lysandre at several points. I was expecting a meta absent of Virizion/Genesect due to Flareon threat, and filled with stuff that relies on Special Energies, like Night March, Vespiquen, Giratinas or mirrors, so it seemed to me that despite having many weaknesses, Toad/Tina was the way to go to get stability and consistency in results. Locking and Laserbank are two huge aspects of the metagame and I couldn’t overlook them.

Hannover Regionals Expanded (39 Masters) – 14^th November 2015:

Round 1 – Friedrich Illbruck (Yveltal) 0-0-1

I started off facing Friedrich and his Yveltal deck and managed to get an initial advantage with my heavy energy denial and lock/slow down tactics to which he wasn’t able to effectively respond in Game 1; I faced this round with a confident stance since I playtested against Yveltal tons of times and knew exactly what to do in these situations although I wasn’t prepared to what the opponent could do to get himself out of Toad’s sticky fingers. After being really close to winning the overall match, in Game 2 I was forced to play the Giratina and allowing Friedrich to Dark Patch and use VS Seekers; he snatched the tie in extra time, for my despair and his relief, and the way he did it was brilliant. His Hypnotoxic Laser/Lysandre for Shaymin and attacking with Darkrai was a deep blow but expected when you play Expanded and you aren’t attacking with Toad.

Round 2 – Lasse Puisto (Vespiquen/Flareon) 0-0-2

Lasse is one of the cool guys that went with Steffen in his car and he’s in the same position as me: Erasmus student travelling abroad and earning CP; our game was really fun, humoured and relaxing…when I was in winning position that is. One of my biggest mistakes in Hannover was underestimating the power of Vespiquen/Flareon and that got to me later on, since I was stopping all of Lasse’s efforts to keep up with my locking + shutting down energies and attacking force. He had, however, a really strong Game 2 that immediately wrecked my Toads and with a single Giratina as my hope, there was no protection against Seekers and, subsequently, my benched Shaymins. No more time for a Game 3 and we both were disappointed because our prospects for making Top Cut were really small as of then, but I was really glad I got to face him and I hope it won’t be the last.

Round 3 – Lisa Steinmuller (Archie’s Blastoise) 1-0-2

This matchup had me in a pile of nerves: it could really go well on my way, or really bad, depending if I had or not access to Ghetsis in my initial hand, and this was crucial for my chances in remaining for the run. The worst part is that I had to be relying in the initial coin flip and it…didn’t go well. She started off Game 1 and her hand was a freaking full house: Turn 0 and she had none less than 7 (W) energies on her Keldeo and a complete benched setup in order to avoid any denial or locking shenanigans. I just stood there the entire turn, my hands tied, knewing I had to scoop because I had absolutely no chance from the start. In Game 2 I was able to pull off Ghetsis and definitely slowed her down although she was still able to progressively power up Keldeos and clearing Lasers with Rush-In, but my Ringers and Hammers left her with few space to respond back; with a lot of patience, I was able to pick up Game 2 and heading in to Game 3 with a super rush in order to not be practically thrown out of Top. She began first but had a dead hand and I saw my glaring miracle; I started locking and attacking as fast as I could and she hadn’t any extra Pokémon or ways to draw so passing was the remaining option until I eventually won. I thanked her and said to her I really admired what she did, because she could have played slowly and wasted time to get a tie, instead she drew/pass instantly to give me a chance. Oustanding morals for someone with a long career still ahead of her, and the way she plays makes me certain she will be a huge talent if she continues going to competitions.

Round 4 – Phillip Schulz (Yveltal) 2-0-2

In my rebound I faced another Yveltal from another really good player (although at the time I didn’t recognize a single face because I only tell them apart from names) and both my Games ended well in favour of me due to my consistent gameplays and running his Yveltals dry while targeting his annoying Keldeo; as soon as that was gone, the table was mine to perform locking at will. He did make it really hard for me, as all his attempts to disrupt my lock were really intelligent but I fortunately found all the resources I could manage for both Toad and Giratina to keep on applying pressure. His hands didn’t help him either as he was forced to discard important resources early on in order to not succumb to Quaking Punch pressure, but in the end I gained enough control to pull out the win.

Round 5 – Matthias Lupp (Seismitoad/Bats) 3-0-2

I was frightened to death about facing this matchup: a really tough mirror that uses bats to help increase damage output and gain advantage in the Toad war, and on top of all piloted by a superbly strong and experienced player as is Matthias, although I was certain that my deck had much more consistency and that my winning chances were on applying pressure first and make him drawing dead before he could do anything. Bats are a really useful resource but they do take a lot of space in the deck, and that made the entire difference as I had access to Crushing Hammers and he did not, being this aspect crucial for the outcome of the games. When I didn’t, somehow, have control of the locking, I forced him to search deep for resources and play cleverly to make him deck out, in which I succeeded with a mix of luck because he had several important cards prized. Giratina was really good in this matchup after he drained his TFG and Xerosic and voided himself of VS Seekers making it safe to play him in the active spot and Keldeo in the back to cleanse him when needed. The damage output was most appreciated and made it possible for me to resiliently move on.

Round 6 – Janik Reimers (Donphan/Hawlucha) 4-0-2

I won’t hide that I got instantly smiling all over the venue when I noticed I was going to face Donphan rather than Metal or other annoying unfavourable matchups because I needed to win if I were ever to dream on securing Top Cut; however, Janik is a formidable player that certainly put up a really good fight despite being heavily disadvantaged against me; his Game 1 consisted in placing down Donphans and using his normal strategy of rotating with Robos for the prize denial. When he couldn’t put more Robos he started rotating with Hawluchas and my active Toad didn’t have Muscle Band most of the time so I wasn’t able to win the prize trade that way, so I did the unthinkable and switched to Giratina to Laser+Muscle Band Chaos Wheel his Donphans using Lysandre, winning Game 1 in that regard. Game 2 was a lot, lot tougher and took extremely long, as his strategy shifted and he started being aggressive with Hawluchas – understandably, it was the way to go. He took down two of my Pokémon and was on the verge of winning the Game, so I did everything I could to stop him down with the few resources I had due to poor drawing, and I managed to hold off until extra time where, unable to attach tools, Strong Energies or Stadiums, he couldn’t Lysandre and beat down an easy target fast to snatch a tie and when I realized that I put my hands all over my head in complete shock, unable to process that I actually made into Top Cut for the very first time in my life after I scrubbed so many times in the Czech Republic, right in my very first attempt in this season’s Regionals. I really felt like crying because I knew what this meant to me as to being the reward for so many hours of dedication since I started playing competitively just several months ago. It might not be much for the seasoned players, but for me it was a really big achievement and the beginning of a new level as a competitive player. I still can’t believe I actually made it, given my underdog circumstances, as I’m writing this jumbo-sized article. But I did need a lot of matchup pairing luck to get there undefeated.

Top 8 – Matthias Lupp (Seismitoad/Bats)

I faced Matthias once again and this time he was more concentrated and set on not letting me slide past through him like it happened earlier, and in all truth my debut in Top Cut was anything but easy. I didn’t get the pressure get to me though, because in my mind I’d already won and anything else that would come to me now would just be a huge bonus. It’s not that I’m not ambitious, but I’m a huge fan of the “One step at a time” sentence. Matthias was way more aggressive in his playstyle now, and he did everything he could to prevent me from attacking and for himself to gain momentum – which he actually did, for a brief amount of time. I saw myself stuck in the wall with no possible way to play my important items, but I still could use my abilities and knew my opponent didn’t play Crushing Hammers, so I just limited myself to build my bench and let my active get all the punches. I managed to get a sweaty win in Game 1, but Game 2 was even harder: he discarded every single of my energies, but to do that he had to dig deep for resources, and while I was completely helpless and expecting a tie, his rush for disabling me of any resource ended up being his own fatal endeavour, decking him out in Game 2 and enabling me to go yet to another match after a really tough mirror in which, ironically, the bats on his side were barely played and I can even bet they actually ruined the game for Matthias as he saw himself with clunky hands most of the time, allowing me to gain time and rebuild what he had tried to disrupt.

Top 4 – Daniel Burmeister (Vespiquen/Flareon)

Daniel and Robin had both passed to semi-finals with Vespiquen so I knew not to underestimate this deck again, and I also knew that if I disabled all of their special energies right away, they would have to play Blacksmith which was only good for one time if I ever get to maintain my Toads. Well, that was my mistake: me starting off with Toad with the opponent having a free turn to use items wasn’t clever of me but I did everything I could to use Ghetsis – not like that worked either, unlucky me – and EVERY single one of my flip items went Tails. Starting off with Toad, all he had to do was attack with Vespiquen and attach DCE’s comfortably, while his Flareons sit in the back and his Blacksmith in the discard pile just waiting for Giratina to show up. It was a huge dilemma for me: go active with Toad, have Vespiquen with DCE facing me, go active with Tina, have Flareon with a Seeker’d Blacksmith active. Nothing much I could do at this point. In Game 2 however, I’ve done so much more to get the upper hand and I almost succeeded in winning, all it took was that Daniel couldn’t find a final Seeker to Blacksmith his Flareon, but without item lock it was fairly too easy for him to dig as deep as he could, in a really clever chain of moves that beat my Giratina for his last 2 prizes and causing everyone in the room to spontaneously clap their hands to what they have just seen. I lost in Top 4, but I lost with dignity and knowing that I entered this tournament as a nobody-scrub from who-knows-where and got out with a few friends I’ve made, respect of others and those glittery 105 CP. I still haven’t been able to learn how to shuffle my deck properly, like all those pros do, lol.

Leipzig Regionals Expanded (39 Masters) – 15^th November 2015:

Round 1 – Maximilian Teubert (Donphan/Hawlucha) 1-0-0

With my debut in Tops still fresh in my mind, I entered the Leipzig venue the morning after with a much more calmed mind and without any pressure; the Czech community came in full weight and they all congratulated me for my recent conquest – they, more than anybody, even my League teammates, knew how much that placement meant to me – and took the chance to chat a bit and ignore my complete lack of sleep for two full days at the time.

I faced Maximilian in the first round with a fairly dejá-vú matchup from yesterday. Throughout Game 1 I had the feeling he was just testing me to see what my reactions would be or to check the cards I played to make sure he wouldn’t get surprised. Him being in defense, however, resulted in me being aggressive and started targeting his Phanpy and Donphan rather than Hawluchas, because the latter are easier to deal with and left him with no chance to answer back especially because I kept Scooping my damaged Toads for prize denial. Game 2 was even faster-ending, as he couldn’t push himself out of item lock and didn’t have any more Pokémon available due to dead drawing.

Round 2 – Ole Stognief (Hawlucha/Bats) 2-0-0

With a lot of confidence under my belt, I met Ole and started doing that a normal self wouldn’t dream of doing – small talk right before the round started. While it’s a good thing to relieve stress and perhaps befriend someone, doing so in a competitive environment could result in people be offended. Not the case with Ole, who was really kind and responded that he had been to Worlds after I questioned him because of his Boston merchandise. His reply left me baffled: “How many times did you go to Worlds?” I could never, in my sanity, figure out a correct way to say I’m actually a scrub, so I just said this was my first season playing, which was true nonetheless, and he said he didn’t seem so because the way I played yesterday revealed me to be an “experienced player”. Really, folks. This acknowledgment here was worth any kind of victories or CP’s. To someone that started playing just some time ago and having progressed to the point of being told this by a Worlds-competitor was just too overwhelming to me. I couldn’t afford the risk to lose my humbleness (lost it writing this article, though) so I played it out with all the focus I played my previous matches as well. Hawlucha can be a really, really tough matchup if you don’t play your cards carefully, and his bats were far more useful here to increase his damage output and try to knock-out my Toads. When he didn’t achieve that, though (bet he wish he had Giovanni’s Scheme at the time) I just Scooped up my Toads and made the upper hand in prize exchange. While knowing this matchup was positive for me, Ole did made it really complicated and always on the verge of losing, but I came out on top and, only 2 more wins away from another Top, I knew I had everything to make it through in case I had matchup luck.

Round 3 – Lutz Rasmussen (Sableye/Garbodor) 2-1-0

Matchup luck eventually dried out on me and I faced right the thing I did not want: pure energy denial. All my opponent had to do was use his first turn to discard his Xerosic’s and Grunts and Seeker them up for the next turn. Repeteadly doing so left me without reaction and he could do everything in his will, so I scooped. In Game 2, though, I adopted a different tactic: I pretended I was being offensive and gave a false-flag attack, making him discard and dig for resources. When he discarded my first energy, I just kept drawing and passing in order to deck him out and that almost worked (!!) but time was called and he prevented the deck-out in the last turn, by a true matter of luck.

Round 4 – Martin Janous (Tyrantrum/Giratina/Bronzong) 2-1-1

I was really looking forward to face Martin since I first step foot in Prague: maybe because I like testing myself against the game’s best players, maybe because I enjoy the opportunity of being exposed to such highlight, maybe because I desperately want to gather respect from the Pokémon community and rise myself through the ranks. For those that don’t know, Martin was the player that gathered the most amount of CP last season and reached 6^th place in the World Cup – I was basically going to face a legend, with a very bad matchup for me: something that resists Crushing Hammers, Hypnotoxic Lasers and Special Energy attacks. Game 1 went crystal clear for Martin as I had absolutely zero chance to gain control against his active Cobalion and benched Keldeo, so I simply scooped for Game 2. This side went much better as he wasn’t able to put a Cobalion and his only tank resided in Aegislash, so I targeted his Keldeo away to prevent any funny retreats and focused myself in bringing down his useless ringered Pokémon in order to take myself those 6 prizes while discarding the Special Energies he used to power up Tyrantrum and Head Ringer it to prevent any revenge KO’s. Slowly and surely I took Game 2 and the round ended in a hardly-fought draw after time was called. For me, this draw was a complete win, and I felt really honoured I could stand my ground against players like him. I really hope I’ll play him again in the Prague Regionals next weekend and win – the ultimate motivation you can have is comparing yourself to the best players and train as much as you can to overcome them.

Round 5 – Karl Peters (Night March) 2-2-1

Winning against Karl was the only thing that kept my hope for a Top Cut alive, but instead I fuelled his hope alive (and he actually made it, the absolute madman!). Night March is supposedly a good matchup for me, and Game 1 went really smoothly and without real trouble, but Game 2 was a lot harder and he pulled out a really good win even though I targeted his Marchers so couldn’t attack with Mew, but he always found some possible way to attack every turn and win the prize trade. He made a brilliant Game 3, though, targeting my Shaymin in the very end to snatch out the remaining prizes as time was called and he needed that win and my Giratina was in the front. He is a superbly strong and consistent player from what I’ve could gather, but I could see he really suffered a lot to get past through me as his relief and smile were visible by the time he figured his last Seeker wasn’t prized. I lost my chance to get to the Top two days in a row, but I fell standing and certainly with gathered recognition from the German metagame, which is more that I could ever asked for.

Round 6 – Benjamin C. (Yveltal) 2-2-2

Out of any possibilities, my match was Benjamin was light-hearted and fun, to say the least, and I didn’t play in a competitive and focused stance to let myself enjoy the game for a change, so we just played it out and a draw was the adjusted result as I was already too tired to think straight and desperately needed sleep – proof of that were the numerous misplays and stupid risky moves I made against Benjamin – not that I cared, either. It was, nevertheless, a suitable ending for my weekend marathon, and I went home knowing that playing Pokémon TCG was definitely more than just a hobby to me and if doing Erasmus is being worthwhile now, it’s because I met so many fantastic players throughout my Central Europe strolls, in Germany, Czech Republic and Hungary, and having legitimately the same interests as me, I could grow besides them and harvest memorable times from all our matches and conversations; and the best part is, it has just begun. We still have many Regionals and Cities ahead of us, and I hope to share my wonderful experiences as a Portuguese outsider having the time of his life within the Czech community in Pokémon-Guru as many times as I can and hopefully when I return to Portugal, a part of me will already be Czech; as I hope one part of every friend I made will be Portuguese as well.

Paulo Mimoso

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