Daytona Regionals Report and Meta Going Further: The Power of Mewtwo

Hey PoTown readers! Today, I’m going to be bringing you guys my first article on Daytona regionals and how the meta has shifted, as well as my tournament report from Daytona this past weekend!

The results from LAIC were very crucial in determining the metagame for Daytona regionals so let’s talk about what happened in Brazil. In Brazil, MewMew, ADP, and ability zard were the three biggest decks as well as the top three decks with the strongest results. Ability zard ended up winning the entire event along with Mewtwos and ADPs taking up top 8 spots as well.

Ability zard winning this event affected the metagame for Daytona for three reasons. 

As expected, ability zard had a large showing in Daytona, but not as much as everyone thought. Baby blowns instead, was statistically the 2nd most played deck by a landslide, as many players decided to pick it up so they would have a favored matchup vs the predicted most popular deck (ability zard). The conversion rate of baby blowns was by far the worst however as they lost to the Malamars and ADPs in day 1.

Myself, Tanner Hurley, Jonathan Eng, and Benjamin Branch all decided that we were going to play Mewtwo for the tournament. We decided this because it had at least a 50-50 vs pretty much every deck in the format except for Malamar. We figured that going 6-2-1 or better would be fairly easy for this event. However we didn’t take into account how many baby blowns were going to show up, nor test the matchup. Even though Tanner, Jon, and Ben all day 2d, I unfortunately hit 4 baby blowns that ended up kicking me out of day 2. Below is the list we all played to 2 top 16s, a top 64, and a top 128 respectively.

4 Jirachi TEU

3 Mewtwo & Mew GX UNM

3 Dedenne GX UNB

1 Espeon & Deoxys GX UNM

1 Charizard GX HIF

1 Reshiram & Charizard GX UNB

1 Magcargo GX LOT

1 Solgaleo GX SM104

1 Mega Lopunny & Jigglypuff CEC

1 Latios GX UNM

1 Naganadel GX UNM

1 Turtonator DRM

1 Marshadow UNB

4 Welder

4 Cherish Ball

3 Acro Bike

3 Great Catcher

2 Mysterious Treasure

2 Switch

2 Escape Board

2 Reset Stamp

1 Energy Recycle System

1 Pal Pad

1 Pokemon Communication

3 Giant Hearth

1 Viridian Forest

9 Basic Fire Energy

2 Basic Psychic Energy

*If you would like to build the list mentioned in this article, check out our website while you are here and pick up some PTCGO Codes to help you get started on building your deck for the Pokemon Trading Card Game Online!*

The decision behind playing bikes, gears, or Jirachi in this deck was definitely the hardest decision to make in the list. Many different variations of MewMew lists have been played over the past few months, factoring in this decision. We came to the conclusion that 3 Acro Bike and 4 Jirachi was the best option as opening with a Jirachi in hand gave an extreme advantage in the outcome of the rest of the game. The 3 Acro Bike also allowed the deck to become very thin, very fast, thus providing decent outs to late game stamps.

Since we played a Reshiram and Charizard GX and a Turtonator, 9 fire seemed to fit best as well as the energy recycle system to get the energies back late game. The 2 psychic could be hard to find at times if I couldn’t draw into a viridian or missed them of a Dedenne for 6. 3 psychic would definitely be one of the cards we wanted to add, however, there wasn’t enough room in this 60 card list to make it happen.

These 3 cards were all outs to draw Turtonator, Mewtwo GX, Naganadel GX, Latios GX, Espeon Deoxys GX and Marshadow. Unlike other lists that just play 3 treasure, we opted to split the count of treasure and comm, as comm is an out to get a Jirachi.

Since we were playing the Jirachi version, pal pad seemed to fit better than a baby Mewtwo, as there usually isn’t enough bench space for it, especially with the Jirachis. As good as the Mewtwo is, pal pad seemed to fit this slot better in getting back the welders needed for late game without having to waste a spot on the bench.

In the standard format, great catcher is an inherently strong card as many decks play various gx cards that are powered up as the game progresses such as opposing mewtwo and mew gxs, ADPs, and Reshiram and Charizard GX. Since MewMew uses a Dedenne engine to draw the cards it needs, 3 great catcher suits best, as catchers can be discarded unwillingly as a result of a Dedenne GX.

The 2 served sort of the same purpose as the great catchers, because discarding 1 early would be very crucial as the card is very important late game in slowing down your opponent. The 2 stamp helped a lot vs baby blowns, doll stall, and greens decks, as those decks are more fragile to a late game stamp.

We did not expect absol to be very popular in decks for Daytona, so more boards and less switch seemed to be more optimal and it turned out we were right. Having a board or switch in hand early game is very important if there is a Jirachi in the active that you need to retreat so you can start attacking.

Mirror was a matchup we tested a ton going into the event, so I was prepared to face it. The idea behind the matchup is that you want to swing with Latios GXs Tag Purge attack early to stop the opposing MewMew GX to be able to one shot yours as it is weak to psychic. My opponent was playing a different version however. He was playing weakness guard energy and the engine with tag call to set up his board. This version of MewMew can be very scary for an opposing mirror match if they set up quick. My opponent did just that and after a few turns of me missing welder the game was soon over. Game 2 was a bit closer however as I set up decently well compared to the last game. It eventually came down to me playing 2 late game stamps, where my opponent drew Dedenne GX of both of them.

This matchup isn’t very special and it really just comes down to how many heads the whimsicott player flips. Unfortunately, my opponent dead drew game 1 and didn’t flip too many heads game 2 resulting with me overrunning him with attacks and Espeon and Deoxys’s cross division GX attack

I knew going into this matchup that it was going to be tough. The MewMew player is pressured to get the cross division attack very quick to slow down the engine of the baby blowns deck (Pidgeotto). In the first game my opponent set up very well and fast and I was not able to keep up with the ridiculous amount of damage he was dealing to one shot knockout my MewMew GXs. After a late game stamp, I was able to make a slight comeback but it wasn’t enough. The first game took very long leaving me with not enough time to close out game 2. If I had about a minute left of time on the clock, I could have taken game 2 resulting us both in a tie. Unfortunately, this was not the case and he won the series. I definitely could have played a bit faster to prevent this.

Going into this round I was not feeling very confident at all as I had started the day with a 1-2 record. In order to make day 2, I would have to go 5-0-1 from here out. My round 4 opponent was a newer player to the game so he did not know how to play the matchup very well. If he had, he would have been using the baby Naganadels to attack for high amounts of damage on my MewMews. Instead, he decided to go all out with Blacephalon GX which did not end up working out as I was able to skip his beast ring turn. It was a quick 2-0 nonetheless and I was ready for the next round.

I cannot remember exactly what I hit this round, but I ended up winning.

I was not very excited to play against another baby blowns as my previous loss scared me. This player however was not able to set up nearly as well as the other one, and I drew decently enough to keep myself in the game. Game 1 he set up nearly nothing and I was able to overrun him with Solgaleo GXs turbo strike attack. Game 2 however I saw some very bad hands and did not hit a welder until turn 3. My opponent was able to set up quickly and take advantage of my unfortunate draws. I was playing much faster this time, as I did not want the match to result in a tie because a tie would be very bad for both of us. Game 3 was able to finish just in time for me to take it after very back and forth attacks from both of us. A late game stamp got him in the end and he was unable to recover from it.

This round I played vs Brendan Dixon, who is a good friend of mine. I knew he was playing this deck and he was a good player. Game 1 he was able to set up 4 Pidgeotto turn 2 and knocked out my MewMew very fast. I was unable to get the cross divide off because of his strong start and my not so strong one, so he was able to take game 1. Game 2 we both drew pretty decently and I was able to take 3 prizes off a cross division late game to win it. Game 3 was very close as well, as we both sequenced our attacks properly and traded fairly back and forth. However at the end of the game, he dropped a Heatran GX out of nowhere and was able to catch me off guard. In the previous 2 games he did not show this at all to me, which was why he was able to take the game, thus kicking me out of day 2.

This round I hit another good friend of mine, Ray Fernandez. He was playing ability zard which was a fairly 50-50 matchup for MewMew, but ability zard can really stumble if they miss. The result of the 3 games came down to just that. Games 1 and 3 he was not able to welder every turn and I was able to one shot all of his attackers losing him the game. The games were fairly close and the matchup went as is.

I was not very excited to play against yet another baby blowns, as I was 1-2 vs it on the day already. Game one went exactly how the matchup is supposed to go, but on one of the final turns of the game, my opponent dropped a lysandre prism, thus lost zoning my Solgaleo GX and my Espeon and Deoxys GX. After the first game, I was able to play around it by benching the Espeon and Deoxys GX early and was able to overrun his board. Going into game 3 we did not have that much time but we played as much as we could. If the game ended up lasting a few more turns, I believe I would have had it, but with that close of a matchup, it is very hard to finish a whole 3 game series.

I believe Mewtwo was a very good call for the event as it was considered the best deck in format and took very close to favorable matchups around the board. Going into San Diego this weekend, players will definitely have to be ready for ADP and Gardevoir & Sylveon GX as they were the 2 big decks that came out with very strong finishes in the end. Going further, I would adapt the Mewtwo list to combat ADP better and have more outs to attack through their Keldeo GX. Thank you guys for reading and good luck to everyone competing in San Diego! Don’t forget to check out the awesome collection of PTCGO Codes we have here on our website to get started on building any deck you want on the Pokemon Trading Card Game Online!