Palace Rules! Summer Carnival Cup Report
By ThatFakeSnake
Hey Trainers,
I've brought to you a translation of a report fresh (as of writing) from the PTCG blog (ptcg.creatures.co.jp). This is a report on a very interesting format used in a recent tournament in Japan: DP-BW, which I believe is unprecedented in Organized Play history. Since the competition was set in a casual setting, intending for both pro players and casual players to mix, it was not strictly what they consider a "premier event". However, I hope with the event's popularity ,Japan might have more of such events…And for international players to pick up on this format, too. This might let TPCi have a new alternative format for tournaments if this becomes popular enough. After all, we would all like a use for our old cards, don't we?
-Start of article-
"
This time, let us report on the Summer Carnival Cup (Hall of Fame Rules) which took place in the Summer Carnival that ended in August.
Writing this report is Satou-san!
Firstly, a simple explanation of the palace rules:
It is a format that is DP-on to the BW series. Because there are broken combos and cards in such a format, a "hall of fame points" system was put in place according to their game breaking power.
Simply put, there is a restricted list. Each card may have 1-4 points and a 60card deck can only have 4 points worth of cards.
A look at the list of cards and their points: http://www.pokemon-card.com/howto/dendo/
What kind of decks will be made and what will be prevelant in such a format? Let's find out immediately.
* First Palace Rules Tournament
1st place with 12 straight wins: Gothitelle/Reuniclus/Azelf LvX
Palace Points: 1x Azelf LA (2 points) 1x Claydol GE(2 points)
2nd place with 8 straight wins: Gothitelle/Reuniclus/Azelf LvX [Translator note: The player was ex-world champ, Yuta]
Palace Points: 1x Azelf LA (2 points) 1x Claydol GE(2 points)
3rd place with 6 straight wins: Gothitelle/Reuniclus/Dusknoir/Nidoqueen
Palace Points: 2x Claydol GE (2 points each)
On this day, the decks known as "Gothniclus," which use Gothitelle and Reuniclus as their core strategy, took all top spots.
To ask why Gothniclus monopolized the top three, the answer would be largely due to Spiritomb AR:
With Spiritomb, your opponent will be unable to use their trainers from the start of the game to the end. Thus, achieving a complete "trainer lock" (as it is known) is highly likely. What's more, you can evolve your Pokemon while you lock, enabling a consistent set-up every game.
With Azelf LvX and Expert belt, knocking out a Gothitelle is extremely hard, enabling this deck to take the sucessive wins to come out top in this tournement.
* 2nd Palace Rules Tournament
Based on the results of the first tournament, anti-gothniclus decks increased and the results totally changed. First let us look at the results:
1st place with 8 straight wins: Zekrom/Tornadus/Pachirisu/Shaymin/Electivire
Palace points: 1 x Uxie LA (3 points) 1x Crobat G (1 point)
2nd place with 6 straight wins: Zekrom Tornadus Pachirisu Shaymin Contest Hall
Palace points: 1 x Uxie LA (3 points) 1x Crobat G (1 point)
3rd place with 5 straight wins: Magnezone Zekrom Palkia LvX Dialga LvX Vileplume
Palace points: 1x Uxie LA (3 points) 1x Claydol GE (1 point)
Chandelure/Vileplume was a popular anti-metagame deck to counter Gothniclus. Locking trainer cards, placing additional damage with Chandelure's ability, and placing special conditions with Chandelure's attack, this control-type deck saw much play.
Furthermore, cards like Buck's Training and Crobat G which saw little play at first were placed into decks to allow players to place more damage on their opponents.
An outstanding tech which came into play because of trainer lock was Contest Hall, which allowed the player to attach tools to their pokemon even under lock.
At this event, the resulting metagame were the above decks. However, after the release of Psycho Drive and Hail Blizzard, a new era of EX will begin. I think it will bring forth huge changes to the playing environment so I look forward to the decks which we will see the next time a Palace Rules tournament is held
!"
-End of article-
I believe most of you should be quite impressed with the creativity of Japanese players when it comes to deck-building. Contest Hall to counter Goth is something similar to SP using it against Dialga and Tomb-starts back in the MD-UD format. I was quite amused at the rogue that came in at 3rd place, which is really crazy. Dialga LvX?! Goes to show how not all decks need to conform to conventional standards to win. I believe that if this format were to even see casual play in the states and elsewhere, we would probably see an even larger variety of decks coming out.
As a bonus for those who have read everything, I have Yuta's decklist as a reference for you to brainstorm more Hall of Fame rules decks!
Pokemon (25):
3 Gothita
3 Gothorita EP
3 Gothitelle EP
2 Reuniclus BW
2 Duosion BW
3 Solosis BW
1 Claydol GE
2 Baltoy SV
1 Azelf LvX
１Azelf LA
1 Shuppet PL
３Spiritomb AR
Trainers (25):
ï¼” Junk Arm
３ Felicitiy's Drawing
３Cheren
ï¼” Roseanne's Research
ï¼’Bebe's Search
１Palmer's Contribution
ï¼’Moonlight Stadium
ï¼’Max Potion
ï¼’Expert Belt
ï¼’Pokemon Catcher
Energy (10):
９　Psychic
１　Double Colourless Energy