Beers & Badges #2 Tournament Report

Beers and Badges #2

Thursday, May 18

Another month, another awesome Gym Leader Challenge Event. The Columbia meta is shaping up nicely as many different types were on display at our second Beers and Badges event. Here are the top performers on the night.

1st place Psychic Lost Zone

Record: 3-0

Trainer: Teddy C.

Psychic continues to be the best deck in our community with yet another 3-0 performance. This week Teddy piloted a different take on the Psychic type by utilizing the Lost Zone mechanic. The deck aims to take advantage of Sableye’s “Lost Mine” ability which allows the trainer to place 12 damage counters as they see fit on their opponent’s Pokémon if they have at least 10 cards in the Lost Zone. To reach the 10 card minimum, the deck relies on cards like Colress’ Experiment and Comfey from Lost Origin recycling both effects often to filter through cards and to set up Sableye’s powerful attack.

The deck relies heavily on item-based draw and search cards to help it remain consistent and to find important pieces to further its strategy. Since set up can take a few turns, Teddy is playing some key control pieces to disrupt his opponent’s game plan. Marshadow “Let’s Loose”, Chimecho’s “Bell of Silence” and even Shuppet’s “Bleh” ability can set opponent’s back the turn necessary for Psychic Lost Zone to set up its attack. Even if opponents deal with Sableye, who is easily KO’d as it only has 80 hp, it’s likely to be back the following turn due to the many recovery cards the deck plays.

2nd place - Flying HitmonBros

Record: 2-1

Trainer: Jeff B.

HitmonBros continues to perform well as it takes another podium finish. The deck is unchanged from the last event, but I do think that the list could use some tweaking. In the future, I plan to play Gladion over Rosa which is a change I have been considering for some time after being convinced by members of the GLC community. Prizing a Silent Lab which turns off bench barrier or part of the combo can put the Bros on the back foot.

Defiance Band from SVI has been underwhelming, and rarely online as it requires you to be down on prizes to be used. I think this spot might be better as a U-Turn Board or a Focus Sash, which are often useful during all phases of a match. Four tools seems to be the right number to play in a deck that plays Guzma & Hala and Arven which are two of the higher-performing cards in the deck.

3rd Place - MetalZone

Record: 1-1-1

Trainer: Nicky W

Nicky played MetalZone to a third place finish in this week’s B&B event. This deck takes advantage of Metal’s ability to discard energy for profit with its ability to easily recover it. Revaroom from SVI has been a huge help for Metal with its “Rumbling Engine” ability allowing the player to draw up to six if they discard an energy. Adaman is another key discarder which can search for any two cards if 2 metal energy were discarded.

To pair with the discard effects, the deck plays “Metal Links” Bronzong which allows players to attach metal energy from the discard pile to a benched Pokémon. The deck also plays “Magnetic Circuit” Magnezone which has a raindance effect allowing it to attach a metal energy to any Pokémon as often as that player likes. Since the majority of the Metal’s Attacker cost three energy both Bronzong and Magnezone play important roles in accelerating energy allowing Metal to keep pace with the other heavy hitters of the format. The last synergistic piece of the metal puzzle is Mt. Coronet allowing the metal player to recover two metal energies each turn making Revaroom, Magnezone and Adaman even better.

Beers and Badges #3

The next Beers and Badges event will be on Thursday, June 8 at 7:00pm at Hunter Gatherer Brewery and Taproom.