One Hit KO

Before my Spring Regionals report, a confession: I wasn’t originally planning to go to Regionals. One of the things I like most about Pokémon TCG is its unpredictability—that with so many cards in format, you never know what combinations you’ll see in a tournament. I really enjoyed the City Championships (HS-NVI) format, where there were a lot of viable decks, and the metagame continued to evolve over the course of the winter. I think that some competitive players felt exactly the opposite about that time—that a Cities format with so many decks became a game of rock-paper-scissors-lizard-Spock, where it was difficult or impossible to practice a strategy that would win the most games. But the metagame had narrowed a lot by the State Championship series, partly because of the release of Mewtwo EX, and partly because of the steadily increasing advantage that Basic Pokémon now have. Going into Regionals, it seemed like almost everyone was either playing Zekrom/Mewtwo/Eels or Celebi/Mewtwo/Tornadus. And I didn’t like that one bit. So I didn’t play in any of the States events (though I did serve as a judge at MN States). And I resolved to stay in the Twin Cities last weekend, and …