Winners of PokeBeach’s June 2017 TCG Cup Crowned! Deck Lists and Interview!

PokeBeach’s June TCG Cup is over and the winners have been crowned!

96 players competed for the title in this exciting event, with the top-8 players facing off in a top cut. The tournament was played in the Standard format at the time — Primal Clash through Guardians Rising.

Interview with the Champion

This month marks longtime forum member John Mostowy’s fourth PokeBeach tournament win! No one is even close to that many first places. Because he is a premium member, he will be shipped 2 booster boxes by TCGplayer.com!

Here’s our interview with him:

How well are you performing in Play! Pokemon tournaments this season?

I haven’t competed in an actual P!P tournament since March. lol

Why did you decide to participate in this tournament?

Guys, it’s so simple: it’s free and it’s fun. I stay involved within the community, I meet cool members, and I stay (kinda) up-to-date on the meta.

What deck did you play for the June TCG Cup?

I played Gyarados. I was a little worried at first because Decidueye-GX still exists, but other than that one matchup, I’m able to go even or better with the majority of the field. It’s a powerful deck that can set up fast and is incredibly fun to play when it gets going. Plus, I didn’t have any Guardians Rising cards to build any of the new stuff online so this was all I had. lol

What kind of decks give yours trouble? Which are good matchups?

As aforementioned, Decidueye stiiinks. Feather Arrow picks off your Magikarp if you aren’t playing Machoke (which I opted not to do) and if your opponent plays Vileplume, you literally can’t do a thing. You have no access to Rescue Stretcher, Puzzle of Time, and Dive Ball to consistently pump Gyarados out when they get KO’d, so Irritating Pollen is truly irritating in this regard. Tapu Koko is also incredibly devastating, dishing out 20 damage to every Pokémon on your side of the field with Flying Flip. I had to tech Mr. Mime in for that, and he was only helpful in one game all tournament. More on that later.

Gyarados is able to go toe-to-toe with Garbodor without Espeon-GX (Divide GX is also kind of a problem) and doesn’t have many issues with Zoroark. I slaughter Volcanion-EX and I have a decent time against Metagross-GX and Darkrai-EX variants.

What kind of decks did you play against?

I dodged all of the Decidueye which was really cool but I played a diverse pool of decks this month.

I had to go up against a Metagross-GX deck early on in which Team Magma's Secret Base was critical early on. As long as I could get that in-play on turn one or two before my opponent had any Beldum to drop on the Bench, that extra 20 damage meant a 250-HP Metagross would get nerfed to 230. This is significant because I would only need one Choice Band to hit for 240 for an OHKO before they could pull off Max Potion shenanigans instead of two and go for 270. So that was one round I remember.

normanc was last month’s winner and he ran a Lurantis-GX deck that I had no problem with. Lurantis-GX has 210 HP, I can hit 210 without Choice Band, it was a good time.

In Top 8, I played MoFoTY86‘s Sylveon-GX deck, killrnite‘s Alolan Ninetales-GX deck, and Derek2727‘s Garbodor / Espeon-GX deck, in that order.

Sylveon was tough because I had to hit 210 or else I was susceptible to watching a fresh Sylveon get Max Potion’d and then get smacked with an Enhanced Hammer to lose a precious Double Colorless Energy. That’s what happened in game two — I couldn’t OHKO Sylveon. In game three, I started Mr. Mime and thought I was done for. That was, until I ripped a Professor Sycamore discarding a beefy hand into everything I needed for a 210 hit on a lone Sylveon for the game. It was a scary game.

Against killrnite in the semis, my worst fears came to life when I found he played not one but two Tapu Koko. Mr. Mime finally had his time to shine and was pesky at times for him, but in game two I couldn’t get him out quickly enough. He ended up Choice Banding his Koko, Lysandre‘d a damaged Shaymin-EX from Magma Base, and Flying Flipped for four Prizes. It was actually cool but kinda sucky at the same time. I would still make the comeback to win 2-0.

In the finals, I knew it’d be a tough match because Psybeam = Confusion = uncertainty for attacks. Also, trading with Garbodor is never fun. I misplayed hard game one and failed to OHKO a Garb and left it with 10 HP, which was all it took to seal the game in his favor. I don’t remember game two. Game three required tightening up on Item usage and actually doing some work with Tapu Lele-GX. He mistakenly used Divide GX early, killing Remoraid and a Magikarp, instead of saving it for later. This was exactly what I needed. I softened up that Espeon and was able to take a couple of hits from Trashalanche when he retreated to that Garb before she finally went down. I think I was able to take down that Garb by retreating that damaged Lele into a powered-Gyarados and then going all in. I left the Gyarados to get Psychic’d by the damaged Espeon and just chained Gyarados to finally win the game. A very close finals nonetheless.

What was your most exciting game or match?

Each of those final games had those moments — drawing exactly what I needed off of Sycamore to OHKO the Sylveon was dope, waiting nervously for killrnite to pull off a Hex Maniac / Tapu Koko / DCE combo, and improvising and using Lele against Derek were all clips on this month’s highlight reel.

What was your favorite card in your list?

Professor Sycamore because if you open him it means you most likely will not get donked.

Would you make any changes to your deck or list?

Uhhh not really. I wish I could squeeze in a second Float Stone, but I have no idea what to cut. A Trainers' Mail?

How does Burning Shadows and affect your deck? Is it still viable?

Thanks to PokéBeach being a lovely news source for many years now, I’m able to take a peek at some of the translations. The more important Pokémon cards from the set include Golisopod-GX, Marshadow-GX, Gardevoir-GX, Heatmor, Diancie, and Noivern-GX. I don’t see any of these giving Gyarados too many problems other than Noivern, as it’s a Stage-1 Seismitoad with an Item-locking attack.

Noivern could be very troublesome if it gains popularity and I think it will because Double Dragon Energy is its one-way ticket to Item lock. The fact it needs a turn to evolve helps, but Wally + DDE spells doom for all Gyarados players at that point. A way around this is to have everything from the get go and to rely on Sycamore to draw into Magikarp, Magma Base, and DCE, but you won’t have the flexibility with Dive Ball and Rescue Stretcher to search and discard resources as easily.

On a side note, we do see another Gyarados in the set that does damage equal to the amount of Magikarp in the discard pile. In the Standard format, this Gyarados is significantly worse as it does 50 per Magikarp. Unless you use Archie's Ace in the Hole to get a Gyarados in play, you can’t hit over 150 unless you had Choice Band. Another downfall to this Gyarados is that you don’t have an Ancient Trait to double dip on Tools — you can’t hit 210, you can’t hit big GXs, you can’t win, at least not as easily with the AOR Gyarados. We’ll see what happens at Worlds, but I don’t think Gyarados will make much of a splash there because of Decidueye’s recent success at NAIC and its overall risk as a play for the most important tournament of the year.

Congratulations, John!

Here is the deck list he used to win the tournament:

Other Top Finishers

Coming in 2nd, 3rd and 4th places were Derek Hildinger (Derek2727), Slappy White (uncleyuri), and Blair Zwarich (killrnite). All three won a bunch of booster packs from the latest expansions, but Derek and Blair got a huge increase in prizes because they are premium subscribers. You can see how many packs each of them earned at the top of this page. Their deck lists can be seen below:

Derek Hildinger

Slappy White

Blair Zwarich

The top finishers also earned Prize Wall points on TCGplayer.com, which allows them to exchange their points for even more products like booster packs and promo boxes.

Everyone in the Top 32 of PokeBeach’s monthly tournaments will also receive Prize Wall points via e-mail. Be sure to check your inboxes!

Creative Deck Winners

As part of every tournament, PokeBeach’s article writers voted for the five premium members whom they felt used the most creative deck lists, and each of them earned some additional booster packs or a promo product.

Frisko, Nobodyshero2727, TorchHG, Sean Timmons, and Tangelatwist each walked away with several booster packs or a specially-selected Pokemon promo product from TCGplayer.com. The decks they played were Sharpedo / Alolan Dugtrio, Sylveon-GX, Banette / Wobbuffet, Tapu Koko-GX / Electrode and Drampa-GX / Garbodor respectively.

Want to Become a Premium Member?

August’s tournament will be posted within the last week of July, and July’s tournament is currently underway. Each tournament awards up to 7 booster boxes of product to top finishers plus promo products and additional booster packs to premium members. The prizes for premium members received a huge increase too, so don’t miss your chance to play in the next tournament!

If you’re interested in becoming a premium member, be sure to check out this link. All premium members get reserved slots in the tournaments, a huge increase in prizes, double the amount of Prize Wall points, a chance to win even more product for using creative decks, and of course all the other benefits that go along with having a premium membership, including weekly articles from the game’s top players and deck help from said players. A premium membership is extremely diverse!

Thanks, TCGplayer!

All of these prizes are brought to you by TCGplayer.com. Their online store offers the cheapest Pokemon cards on the Internet from thousands of different sellers — you will find no better deals! So be sure to check them out any time you want to purchase or sell Pokemon cards!

You can always check the “Sets” tab at the top of our website to access their store.

(Note: The Pokémon Company International is not a sponsor or endorser of PokeBeach’s tournaments, contests, or prizes, nor does the company or its affiliates have any formal association with PokeBeach. Our activities are by fans, for fans, and are not sanctioned or approved by TPCi.)