A Fever Dream in Salt Lake City, A Top 8 Report at the First Regional Back

Introduction

My name is Ian Robb. I have been playing pokemon ever since 2007 when my dad got me a theme deck for Christmas. I won nationals and got 2nd place in juniors and many other placements. In masters I have won 3 regionals and got t8 at OCIC 2020 and many other t8 finishes at regionals and other notable placements. I have been playing on and off ever since the pandemic. I was able to qualify for all the players cup events but did not perform well from a lack of practice for them. I thought that my drive for the game was gone after now being in college and having a lot of new obligations on my plate after the pandemic started. Around February I booked my flight for the Salt Lake City regionals and realized that I should probably test at least a little bit for the regional (I did a little more than a little).

Errors in the testing process

During the 2019-2020 season I was so confident in my play that I would maybe play 1-2 games of testing before the event against my mom or others just for some reps with my deck. This decision making ended up costing me in my T8 match two years later (yeah I know I am stupid). I would never recommend this style of testing for anyone for an event this causes mistakes the first few rounds of the event and when you get more tired and start playing worse and need to rely on your preparation for the event. This works for a cocky 17-year-old that thinks he is the best at the game but does not work for a 19-year-old who has not played much in a long time. Testing reps is incredibly important and is a lesson that I have learned for future major events.

How I came to Arceus Inteleon Moltres

After not playing pokemon much when starting to test I decided that what matter what I would be playing mew genesect for SLC because I was told it was the best deck in the format by a large margin (which I still believe). This caused me to get on the hypetrain and buy the cards for mew and my first actual games with the deck was at a 1k local tournament the week before SLC. I won my first three matches in dominant fashion and I was convinced the deck was what I was going to be playing for SLC. This quickly changed after losing a mirror match and then to a dark box inteleon and a rapid strike malamar player. My lack of practice with the deck showed in the matches and caused much frustration. “How could I be good at pokemon and play so bad with a deck?” This realization created concern going into SLC. Other players were going to be much more prepared than me with mew and the amount of mirror matches there would be guaranteed that the event would end in a poor performance and a lot of complaining to my friends after the event (a Ian Robb classic).

After not playing much for a few days and enjoying my spring break one of my good friends Nick Moffit who I was talking to about deck ideas for the event sent me the Arceus Intel Dark deck that I would eventually be playing for SLC on Tuesday the week before. I saw the list and laughed. How could this deck ever beat mew??? Zapdos v and arceus? I thought you had to play no V pokemon to defeat the juggernaut mew? Unfortunately because I knew there was no way mew was going to be the deck sleeved up and ready to go that Saturday I built the deck and started playing games Thursday.

I had an unfavored record vs mew in testing before the event. Even when testing against my mom who had not touched a pokemon card in 2-3 years I went 2-3 vs mew. Against others like Aaron Friedman and Vance Kelley I was still losing most of my matches vs mew and still chose to play the deck. Even though I went negative vs mew there was a game plan I still saw vs the deck that made me confident in playing dark. When playing against these players they knew to not attack with mew vmax unless it was to psychic leap and shuffling it away. Dark intel has issues with winning the prize trade if they are only knocking out 1 or 2 prize pokemon because they have to come back every single time. If they can knock out a mew vmax in the early game it is smooth sailing from there. I did not expect most mew players to expect the moltres v combo or know to not attack with mew. Other than some more games vs mew the next day and adding a pal pad the morning of the regional my testing was done.

Day Before Event

The day before the regional was not very eventful. I woke up around 2am and got in some testing before my 8am flight. Once I got into SLC I got lunch with Le Bui (the chicken parm was insanely good). After that went to the Utah Jazz game and bought a nba jersey which never happened -$130. After that I went straight to bed knowing that I needed some sleep after a day of traveling.

Day 1

Unfortunately because I did not plan on writing this I only remember the game scores but not any details. Shockingly I only faced 1 mew player in day 1 of the event and faced a lot of decks where zapdos v came in clutch.

R1 Mew WLW

R2 Single Strike Gengar WW

R3 Arceus stage 1 box WW

R4 Single Strike Gengar LL

R5 Sandaconda vmax WLT

R6 ?? WW

R7 Arceus Gyarados WLW

R8 Arceus Lightning WW

R9 Rapid Strike Malamar WLT

After day 1 I realized how powerful zapdos V was into the field that had a lot of decks that were weak to fighting. Unintentionally I made a meta prediction that was incredibly good. After a poor day of play and strange matchups, being 6-1-2 felt like a blessing.

Day 2

Day 2 was a more interesting day of matchups with there not being mew decks at the top tables there were a diverse field of decks that I played against.

R10 Suicune WW

R11 Sandaconda LWW (game 1 was a game loss)

R12 Arceus Malamar Vmax WW

R13 Arceus Intel (Isiash Bradner) WLW

R14 Mirror ID

T8 Arceus Gengar WLL

After getting lucky with good matchups and amazing draws poor play and prizing key cards in my t8 match cost me in the end. Being able to get t8 at the first regional back in North America was amazing.

Conclusion

Being able to attend Salt Lake City and being lucky enough to make t8 was incredible. Even though I had to immediately after the event go to the airport and get on a plane and not celebrate with my friends the event will still be one of the most memorable I have attended.

Pros

Chilling with New England Crew

Le Bui being a legend

Nick Moffit giving me a decklist to play

Pokemon being Back

Chicken Parm

Team SMC

Cons

Salt Lake City

Being rusty playing pokemon

Salt Lake City again because it was so bad