Eye on Japan: Worlds Qualifiers in Japan

BCIF - Who would've thought?

Hello everyone!

Originally I thought I would do an Eye on Japan –entry after my Nationals but due the sum of many things, I decided to release it this early. One of the reasons being that there has been a lot of talk about Japanese “Nationals” and a lot of information has gone out but only few know the sources for this information.

Also, It has been such a long time since my last Eye on Japan – entry and now there’s a lot to tell you about Japan. I’ll be updating the results from Japanese World qualifier tournaments to my blog whenever a qualifier is played so I’ll be making more Eye on Japan –entries in the future as well even though they will be a bit shorter.

In this Eye on Japan, I’ll talk about mainly about Japanese Worlds qualifier tournaments: how they are played, what’s the format, how many players from Japan are going to Worlds and what decks have been doing well. As I said, it’s been a while so there are lots of things to talk about so let’s get going!

Pokemon Battle Card Game 2012 Spring Carnival (BW-on)


This is the tournament series that are the so called “Regionals” in Japan. If you’ve read the other two Eye on Japan articles, you know that in Japan, players get invites to Worlds from these “Regionals”. The tournaments are played in BW-on format and I think the rotation to BW-on happened in January-February in Japan.

These tournaments have two age groups: A-league that comprehends all the players aged 12 and under. Obviously the other age group is B-league, where players that are 13-years and older. The winners of each age group will get an invite and travel award to Worlds. Japan will hold 5 Spring Carnival tournaments so you can do the math and count how many Worlds invites Japan gets. Yes, the number of Japanese invites is 10.. I think this is a very small number for a country like Japan and I would say that Japan is probably the most difficult place to get a Worlds’ invite!

As I said, there will be 5 of these tournaments held in Japan, so here are the place and times for them.

Sendai - May 3, 2012 (Thursday) (Results later on in this entry)

Yokohama - May 12, 2012 (Saturday)

Nagoya  - May 20, 2012 (Sunday)

Osaka - June 3, 2012 (Sunday)

Yokohama - June 13, 2012 (Sunday)


Anyways, you may have already seen or heard the results of the first tournament that was held in Sendai but in case you haven’t, here is the top 4 of A-league (12-)and Top 16 of B-league (13+).

A - League 12-

1. Mewtwo EX/ Bouffalant(BW5)/Terrakion
2. Mewtwo EX /Zekrom EX/Tornadus EX/Eelektrik
3. Mewtwo EX/Darkrai EX/Tornadus EX/Terrakion
4. Mewtwo EX/ Darkrai EX

B - League 13+

1.  Hydreigon/Darkrai EX
2.  Garchomp(Bw5)/Altaria (BW5)
3.  Eelektrik/Zekrom /Mewtwo EX/Raikou EX
4.  Mewtwo EX /Terrakion EX(BW5)/Bouffalant(BW5)

5-8
Empoleon/Terrakion /Mew EX(BW5)
Gothitelle /Accelgor/Mew EX(BW5)/ Darkrai EX /Musharna
Ho-Oh EX(BW5)/Tornadus EX
Eelektrik /Zekrom /Mewtwo EX

9-16
Hydreigon /Darkrai EX
Eelektrik /Zekrom /Mewtwo EX/Raikou EX
Eelektrik/Zekrom /Mewtwo EX/ Raikou EX/Tornadus EX
Darkrai EX /Mewtwo EX/ Tornadus EX/ Tornadus
Mewtwo EX /Terrakion
Garchomp(BW5) /Altaria(BW5)
Darkrai EX/Mewtwo EX /Bouffalant/BW5)
Mewtwo EX/Terrakion EX /Terrakion/Sigilyph(BW5)/Stunfisk

As you can see, it’s crazy. The finals in B-league were between 2 different stage2 decks. I don’t even remember when I saw that kind of finals last time in Pokémon TCG. It’s also interesting see how much the metagame differs between A and B-league. In A-league big Basic EXs play a huge role while in B-League almost anything is playable.

A week ago I asked Ukinin-san how Japanese players felt about the game at the moment. You may remember that they didn’t enjoy playing the HGSS-on format. It’s no surprise that know the answer was completely different. Nowadays many players think that the metagame is now very healthy and interesting. Deck building and predicting the metagame plays a huge role in the current BW-on metagame. However, the first turn rule still bugs them a little. A recent example for this is one of Ukinin-san’s team mates that played Rayquaza EX/Eelektrik deck in the Sendai tournament. He was eliminated from the tournament by T1 Mewtwo EX donk in the last round.

Anyways, you may or not have seen any decklists from Japan yet but here are 4 of them – including the both age groups winning lists.

Lists from Japan


As I said, there will be 4 lists from Japan in this entry. First we have the two winning lists from the tournament and then we have a shop tournament winning list and the Rayquaza EX/Eelektrik list that was piloted by one of Ukinin-san’s team mates in the Sendai tournament. I’ll briefly explain the decks’ strategy and provide you the translations for the important cards. If you’re looking for all the translations of the BW5 – take a look at here.  I Hope you enjoy!


A-league winning deck in Sendai

Pokémon:

4x Mewtwo EX
3x Terrakion
2x Bouffalant(BW5)
=9

Trainer:

4x Professor Juniper
2x Cheren
3x Bianca
4x N

3x Exp Share
4x Switch
2x Tool Scrapper
2x Eviolite
3x Ultra Ball
4x Pokémon Catcher
1x Potion
2x PlusPower
2x Random Receiver
=38

Energy:

9x Fighting Energy
4x Double Colorless Energy
=13


For the deck’s main strategy there’s only one translation that must be checked out. That’s Bouffalant.


Bouffalant – Colorless – HP100
Basic Pokemon

Ability: Afro Guard
This Pokemon takes 20 less damage from attacks.

[C][C][C] Golden Break: 60+ damage. If the Defending Pokemon is a Pokemon-EX, this attack does 60 more damage.

Weakness: Fighting (x2)
Resistance: none
Retreat: 2

- via Pokebeach.com


As you can see, the deck is pretty simple straight beatdown deck. These kind of decks are mostly popular in Junior division because their strategy is just to take 6 prizes more quickly than your opponent. Obviously Mewtwo EX is a beast in BW-on format because it’s the fastest attacker in the format. Also, it’s only weak to itself, which makes it better than Tornadus EX.

The deck plays Terrakion to counter both Darkness decks and Lighting decks. All the other attackers in the deck hit with colorless so getting energy on Terrakion isn’t problematic.

Third, there is the Bouffalant, which I provided a translation of. It’s a great anti-EX Pokémon. It hits 120 to any EX with only 2 energy (if you have DCE attached to it) and it’s a non-EX Pokémon so your opponent only gets one prize of it. You know how good Donphan Prime’s Body is and since Bouffalant has the same Ability, it’s also tough to OHKO. If we look at the metagame in A-league, we can see that EXs were all over the metagame – Bouffalant was probably the MVP in the winning deck.

The deck is a hybrid of Six Corners and QuadTerrakion on my opinion. It has many counters against metagame and at the same time it runs with very few energy. The deck lives or dies with Exp. Shares, which are very crucial for the deck’s strategy.

B-league winning deck in Sendai


Pokémon:

3x Darkrai EX
1x Shaymin EX
3x Hydreigon(BW5)
1x Zweilos(BW5)
2x Deino (BW2)
1x Deino (BW5)
3x Sableye
1x Sigilyph (BW5)
=15

Trainer:

4x Professor Juniper
3x Bianca
4x N

4x Pokémon Catcher
3x Dark Patch
3x Rare Candy
2x Eviolite
3x Ultra Ball
2x Level Ball
3x Max Potion
2x Random Receiver
=34

Energy:

8x Basic Darkness Energy
4x Blend Energy Grass/Fire/Psychic/Darkness(BW5)
=12


So, two important translations here – Hydreigon and Sigilyph.

Hydreigon – Dragon – HP150
Stage 2 – Evolves from Zweilous

Ability: Dark Trance
As often as you like during your turn (before your attack), you may move a Darkness Energy attached to 1 of your Pokemon to another of your Pokemon.

[P][D][D][C] Dragon Blast: 140 damage. Discard 2 Darkness Energy attached to this Pokemon.

Weakness: Dragon (x2)
Resistance: none
Retreat: 3

Sigilyph – Psychic – HP90
Basic Pokemon

Ability: Safeguard
Prevent all effects of attacks, including damage, done to Sigilyph by your opponent’s Pokemon-EX.

[P][C][C] Psychic: 50+ damage. Does 10 more damage for each Energy card attached to the Defending Pokemon.

Weakness: Psychic (x2)
Resistance: none
Retreat: 1

- via Pokebeach.com

This is probably the most discussed deck all over the web so I won’t analyze it too deeply. The main combo is to move your energy all around the field with Hydreigon from your damaged attackers and Max Potion them. This way, once you have set-upped a Hydreigon and Darkrai EX, if your opponent doesn’t OHKO your attackers, they won’t be getting any prizes. Sableye is in the deck to get Max Potions and Dark Patches back since BW-on doesn’t have Junk Arm. The deck faced Garchomp/Altaria in the finals, which is incapable of OHKOing Darkrai EX but OHKOs more than easily Darkrai EX. It’s interesting that this deck came out as the winning deck from that match-up.

The deck also plays Sigilpygh, which takes me back to 2005 when Wobbuffet(SandStorm) was played. I only wish we had EX-counters in the current format…

Mewtwo EX/Darkrai EX – shop tournament winning decklist


Pokémon:

4x Darkrai EX
3x Mewtwo EX
2x Sableye
=9

Trainer:

4x Professor Juniper
4x N
4x Bianca
3x Cheren
4x Ultra Ball
4x Pokemon catcher
4x Dark patch
4x Dark Claw
3x Energy Switch
2x Potion
1x Switch
=36

Energy:

10x Basic Darkness Energy
4x Double Colorless Energy
=14

This deck won a big shop tournament quite currently. As you can see, it reminds a lot of A-league winning decks due its straightforwardness. However, the deck was piloted by a Masters player. The deck pretty much uses both – Mewtwo EX and Darkrai EX as the main attackers. The most interesting thing I noticed in this deck was the 2 Potions. I asked about these from Ukinin-san and he said that Potions are nowadays more used than Eviolites because of Tool Scrapper, which discards tools. After that the list completely made sense.

Quite an interesting fact about this deck. If I look at the Troll&Toad prices, only the deck’s Pokémon would be worth 520$. In Japan both – Darkrai EX and Mewtwo EX - cost about 20-30$ each. So the deck is worth 175$. What a difference…


Eelektrik/Rayquaza - Popular new Eelektrik variant


Pokémon:

4x Rayquaza(BW5)
2x Rayquaza EX(BW5)
2x Raikou EX
3x Tynamo (HP40)
1x Tynamo (HP30)
4x Eelektrik
=16

Trainer:

4x Professor Juniper
4x N
4x Bianca
2x Random Receiver
4x Pokémon Catcher
4x Energy Switch
3x Level Ball
3x Ultra Ball
3x Switch
1x Skyarrow Bridge
=32

Energy:

7x Lighting Energy
5x Fire Energy
=12

This is the list that got donked in the last round of Swiss and got Knocked out from the top cut. Here are the important translations.

Rayquaza – Dragon – HP120
Basic Pokemon

[L] Dragon Pulse: 40 damage. Discard the top 2 cards from your deck.
[R][L][C] Tear Up: 90 damage. This attack’s damage isn’t affected by any effects on the Defending Pokemon.

Weakness: Dragon (x2)
Resistance: none
Retreat: 3

Rayquaza-EX – Dragon – HP170
Basic Pokemon

[C] Heaven’s Call: Discard the top 3 cards from your deck, and if there are any Energy cards, attach them to this Pokemon.

[R][L] Dragon Burst: 60x damage. Discard either all Fire Energy or Lightning Energy cards attached to this Pokemon. This attack does 60 damage times the number of Energy discarded in this way.

When Pokemon-EX has been Knocked Out, your opponent takes 2 Prize cards.

Weakness: Dragon (x2)
Resistance: none
Retreat: 1

The deck’s main strategy is to get aggressive with the normal Rayquaza and set-up the Tynamos to the bench at the same time. It’s quite ironic that even though this deck is very good in donking, it got donked. I really like this deck’s aggressiveness since it’s not only aggressive but can set-up the big attackers at the same time. There haven’t been that many decks in Pokémon TCG history that have been able to do that. I look forward to playing with this deck in the upcoming after –Worlds format.



Conclusion

All in all, the Pokémon TCG season is climaxing in Japan (just like all over the world) and the few invites to Worlds that are available will be shared in the upcoming weeks in Japan. I’ll keep an eye on Japan all the time and will be updating all the results from the tournaments into my blog as soon as I can get my hands on them. So keep an eye on my blog daily for now on!

Also, if there are decks in the BW-on format, you want me to analyze more deeply, feel free to request them. These lists aren’t much of an use at the moment since our format will be HGSS-on until September but if you’re interested about the future, feel free to request a deck article about these.

I hope you enjoyed this and found it informative. Feel free to leave any comments, questions or requests.

Thanks for reading!