Winners of PokeBeach’s May 2018 PTCGO Tournament!

PokeBeach’s May 2018 PTCGO Tournament is over and the winners have been crowned!

Ninety-six players competed for the title in this exciting monthly event, with the top eight players facing off in a top cut. The tournament was played in the Standard format at the time the tournament began — BREAKthrough through Ultra Prism.

Interview with the Champion

This month’s tournament was Pengwon by Pengwin! He will be shipped two booster boxes because he was a premium subscriber, courtesy of TCGplayer.com!

Here’s our interview with him:

What is your real name, and where do you live?

My name is Olen Hulsebus and I live in Chugiak, Alaska.

How are you doing this season in Play! Pokemon tournaments?

I’ve won both of the League Cups that I’ve attended up here, and have made it to Top 8 in three out of the four PokeBeach tournaments I’ve competed in. I would love to go to some Regionals, but being from Alaska traveling is very expensive.

Why did you decide to participate in this tournament?

I’m a very competitive person and like to play as many tournaments as possible for any game.

Why did you play stall? Were you considering any other decks?

I believe that pre-Forbidden Light, Sylveon-GX is one of the strongest decks in the game. I think because of its strange play style and how the community kind of frowns upon stall decks, people stay away from it when it’s actually really strong. If I didn’t play Sylveon I would’ve played Zoroark-GX.

Your list seems pretty straightforward. Did you not feel the need to run techs like Hoopa or Gardevoir-GX?

After all my games in previous PokeBeach tournaments I only used Gardevoir-GX once, I found that a lot of the match ups that Gardevoir was supposed to be very helpful in, it wasn’t needed, and I could get by with just attacking with Sylveon instead. I really don’t like Hoopa in Sylveon, it’s a card that causes more trouble than it solves. It can put you into very awkward situations and isn’t as helpful as many may think.

What was your most exciting game or set?

My games against uncleyuri, he mopped me up 2-0 with Zoroark / Lucario-GX (which is a very favorable match up for Sylveon). He played the games perfectly and is one of the best Zoroark players I have ever played against.

Would you make any other changes to your list?

I would remove one Delinquent and add one Fairy Energy in its place, but for Sylveon to work in the Forbidden Light meta the deck would need an entire revamp, the new Ultra Necrozma-GX / Malamar decks are just too hard.

Sylveon is one of the decks hit hardest by the rotation, losing several key cards. Do you think it can ever recover? Does it have a home in Expanded?

Post rotation Sylveon doesn’t look like it has a bright future for a while with all the Malamars running around, Sylveon thrives in metas where there’s a lot of Special Energy or minimal Energy acceleration. Going into post rotation Sylveon has enough base tools to make it work, but the deck is all about slowing your opponent down and stealing tempo from them, not so much as milling them. So if the meta’s right it can do well in the future. As for Expanded, 1-2 Sylveons keep popping up into Top 32 every Regionals, so once again it’s more about what other people are playing, but most of its match ups are favorable.

Congratulations, Olen!

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

Other Top Finishers

Below are the top eight players and the decks they used:

• 1st: Olen Hulsebus (Pengwin) — Sylveon-GX
• 2nd: Greg Minklei (Gengar master) — Zoroark-GX / Lycanroc-GX
• 3rd: Ilya Kornilov (Fou-Link) — Zoroark-GX / Lucario-GX
• 4th: Vince Hardy (AwwVince) — Vikavolt / Tapu Bulu-GX
• 5th: Kazuki Kanehira (JumpluffTCG) — Buzzwole-GX / Lycanroc-GX
• 6th: Jake_Silberman — Greninja BREAK
• 7th: Adrian Fjell (Vaskemaskinen) — Volcanion-EX
• 8th: Anselm Sim Kheng How — Buzzwole-GX / Lycanroc-GX

Olen, Greg, Kazuki, Adrian, and Anselm will all be seeing 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. The deck lists of second, third, and fourth place can be seen below:

Greg Minklei, Second Place

Ilya Kornilov, Third Place

Vince Hardy, Fourth Place

In addition to all 8 top finishers above, everyone in the Top 32 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. Points are received via e-mail. If you won points, be sure to check your inboxes!

Please also note that your PokeBeach account email address must match your TCGplayer account email address. If they don’t, you won’t receive your points!

Creative Deck Winners

As part of every tournament, PokeBeach’s article writers voted for the five premium members that didn’t make Top 16 whom they felt used the most creative deck lists. Each of them earned 5 booster packs or a promo product.

danimal01, SquirtleRules, Nirvandalo, dmode15, and Holden Sheeks each walked away with five booster packs or a recent Pokemon promo product from TCGplayer.com. The decks they played were Heatmor / Raichu, Tapu Koko Spread, Espeon-GX / Garbodor / Zoroark-GX, Alolan Ninetales-GX, and Alolan Golem-GX / Zoroark-GX, respectively.

You can find each of their deck lists in the forum thread below.

Want to Become a Premium Member?

June’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 are bigger than ever before, so don’t miss your chance to play in the next tournament! Signups for July are currently scheduled to be posted Thursday, June 28th. Mark your calendars!

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! 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.)