This article is going to include my own report for the tournament, plus the final standings and results from the finished Top 4 and Final. The cup was Best of One (BO1) 30 minute rounds, with a total of five rounds swiss. Overall there were 19 Masters with only 5 Juniors and Seniors, this meant that any of the Jnr/Snr players could play any of the Masters. This was going to be a rather interesting League Cup!
The League Cup was the first one of Marquee Models history, with the shop owing a great thanks to Timur Yusuf and Tom Pead for organising the event as such short notice with the sanctioning of the Cup was very late on in the quarter. It was sold out within two weeks of going on sale, with the competition attracting players from the local league and players from further afield. As a local to the shop it was a fantastic opportunity for us as a collective to show the quality we have within the community that has developed while I first started playing Pokémon. This provided a very good learning curve for many including myself allowing me to improve my knowledge of the game and playing against some good players.
For the cup I decided to take the list I took to Prague with a few additions to the deck that I and Timur Yusuf made to hopefully help add consistency to the list mainly and include one or two techs for the shop meta. The deck was Silvally GX/ Zoroark GX which included psychic type Pokémon that was to help hit for weakness against many of the meta decks and insure there was ideally no bad match ups. Although it has its own weaknesses to fighting-type and dark-type Pokémon, the positives of playing the deck outweighed the negative. The deck was incredibly fun to play and personally was one of the best decks I have played including Lycanroc GX/ Raichu Deck I took to Liverpool Regionals.
First Round: Win Vs Jack Charles - Alolan Exeggutor/Venusaur
This was a game which sadly my opponent dead drew quite frequently off of his top decks and was slow to develop his board state although developing an early Leafeon GX. My set up was quick and effective as I was able to T1 Brigette to start developing a Type: Null with an elixir and an psychic energy attachment to another Null spreading my energy effectively. By T2 I had developed a Zoroark GX and with a mallow in hand I was able to trade into a DCE and a Fire Memory to KO the Leafeon GX stranded in the active position. It was much of the same as my opponent was not able to develop a suitable attacker for the rest of the game and any type of developments in the game they tried to make I was able to Guzma up threats and get out of Sleep due to the hypnosis effect of Eggsecute. Later I found out there was not a single Field Blower in his deck which hindered his development of the game.
Second Round: L Vs Rees Thompson - Zoroark GX/ Lucario GX
This was always going to be a 50/50 game with both players hitting for weakness and was down to see who could set up quickest and take the first KO. Rees was a player who I played against at Sneak Attack Games League Cup when I bubbled below Top Cut with Passimian losing my win and in game. We have spoken quite a lot since then and he was unlucky in that cup to face me when he played Zoroark/Weavile and was unable to get set up Game 1 and 2. This time was different as he had opening hand Brigette to develop his board state and took a T1 KO on a Type Null. I was able to develop a Dawn Wings Necrozma (DWN) but I misplayed not using the GX attack to reduce the chance of a return KO against myself in the later stages of the match up. This allowed Rees to get rolling and completely run through me, meaning i was at a record of 1-1. I was incredibly happy with the game itself as I did not mind losing to Rees and we had a good chat over lunch about the decks themselves. Looking forward to our next match up against each other!
Third Round: W Vs Dominic Brown - Zoroark GX/ Golisopod GX
Similar to the first match up, my opponent although running one of the most consistent decks in the format currently was only able to develop a few bench Pokémon T1. While I started hot and continued into the later rounds drawing every card I needed to dispatch any form of start from my opponents side of play. Any attempt of a Wimpod trying to be set up was guzma'd up and dispatched of by my Silvally's. Very quickly my board state was too far out of the control of my opponent and soon escalated to being able to retrieve the Fire Memory usinig mallow and taking two prizes against a Golisopod GX even though it used Armour Press to reduce the damage it still was enough to take out the fire week attacker. This left me on a 2-1 record, still able to Top Cut if I won my next 2 games.
Fourth Round: W Vs Neil Miller - Aerodactyl
This was a match up I was not looking forward to facing against due the the special energy denial and the 130 hp of a Talonflame allowing the Pokémon to be two shot rather than 1 shot. Due to the heavy Ho-oh Gx meta at the shop on the day, I had teched in an Electric Memory to deal with the hooh players. When Neil turned over his first card it was the Ultra Prism Oranguru it meant I had a very good chance of winning if he was not able to establish another basic due to the need of the set up with Talonflame. After he finished his T1 I developed my board previously as I had gone first and I was able to pull a field blower to knock off the assault vest on the active Oranguru, trade into the Silvally GX and DCE to be able to win the game with a T2 donk. I felt incredibly bad for Neil at this point due to a mix up with results from Round Two meaning he was registered with a loss rather than the win. But thankfully this was not the last time I would be seeing him in tournament play in the next few days!
Fifth Round: L Vs Graeme Miller - Ho-oh GX/ Kiawe
The Ho-oh match up of this deck is not the greatest as if they are able to get a T1 Kiawe off then my deck will struggle to develop much of a board state which is what happened due to the opening Kiawe. Although I was able to take 1 KO with a Silvally GX using Rebel GX, it wasn't enough to stop the quick start of the Ho-oh GX leaving me with no hope of finishing in the T4 that the win would have given me. Although in the prizes I had my Electric memory and 2 of my DCE so it was not looking good for a BO1 game. Kudos to my opponent who played extremely well making the correct decisions due to a Tapu Lele GX start from myself which could have caused a few issues for the Ho-oh with all the fire energy on the card.
This left me with a 3-2 record for the day and missing out on Top Cut by two points and finishing 6th in an unlucky match up at the end. I was extremely happy for the chance to play against some very good players and learn more about the deck I have pursued to develop over the last month. The day was then concluded when Bruce Kelf was able to ensure his place in the final beating Matt Wheat in a Buzzwole GX mirror match. While Seb Symonds was able to dispatch Adam Hawkins in a very close 2-1 game with Seb pulling out a fantastic play to stop Adam gaining his final prize card of the match by KOing the benched Lycanroc GX. In the final, Seb Symonds won with a 2-1 scored against Bruce Kelf in a very exciting few exchanges from the players as Seb ran extremely hot game one with Bruce failing to get a great set up unable to stop the most consistent deck in format. Game two Seb prized both of his Golisopod GX and struggled to take prizes against Bruce. Finally Bruce's set up was not ideal missing many elixirs onto his Buzzwole GX which allowed Seb to actively take the game by taking his six prizes effectively.
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| Final Standing after Swiss Rounds. |
Overall the success for the tournament for my local shop was fantastic as effectively it provided a great environment to play and develop every players game understanding and with the shop attracting some high profile names, hopefully the only way is up from here for the future of Marquee Models League Cups!
The next League Cup I will be attending is the Athena League Cup in Norwich. There will be a report of the results later in the week.
Thank you for reading and hopefully see you soon at an event nearby!
Charlie
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