It was another jam-packed tournament last weekend at the JPP PlaySpace. On Saturday we hosted our Pokémon Pitch Black Win-A-Box and on Sunday we hosed our One Piece OP-16 Win-A-Box! This was our fifth Pokémon Win-A-Box, as we've been doing them since Mega Evolution. For One Piece, this was our first ever Win-A-Box Tournament! While our Heroines tournament did feature a booster box as prizing, this was our first tournament advertised as a "win-a-box," with the same tournament format our Pokémon community is used to.
On Saturday, we had lots of new faces at the event among many of our local regulars duke it out over five Swiss rounds followed by a top cut with the 8 highest players. Take a look at the standings below:
Congrats to our Top Cut! While Dragapult Blaziken was definitely the deck most represented in the tournament, the finals were an excellent back and forth between Ian on Festival Lead (WITHOUT Gladion) and Angelo on Team Rocket's Mewtwo! I was really surprised at these results. I've been a fan of Festival Lead, but seeing it without Gladion, against an under the radar deck like Mewtwo, was super fun to watch. Other tournament highlights include Liam and Stanley*, two teenagers who battled their way all the way to Top 4! Congrats to the both of them!
*For those counting, this is now Stanley's FIFTH consecutive Top Cut at a JPP Tournament, including a runner-up finish at a previous Win-A-Box and Top 4 appearance for a Lorcana Set Champs! The plot armor is crazy.
Take a look at Ian's Decklist**:
**Usually we would feature the Top 4 decklists and the other decklists were set aside for the purposes of this article, but it seems that in the craziness of the weekend, the other Top 4 Decklists were misplaced. Apologies to Angelo, Stanley, and Liam, and congrats again on the placement!
Moving on to One Piece, it was super exciting to see our local community come together for our first tournament with a top cut for the game. Lots of familiar faces kept the vibes high, even if the stakes were higher. All the matches in Top Cut were super intense, and it was also really awesome to see most of our competitors stick around to watch the finals. It was easily one of my favorite experiences judging a tournament at the store.
Take a look at our One Piece standings:
Much like Pokémon, I was happy to see such a diverse Top Cut, with 6 different decks making it to the next stage for both games! The finals for One Piece saw an intense match between Tommy using Green/Blue Luffy, and Jovon using Black Yamato. Congrats to Tommy and the rest of our Top Cut!
Take a look at the Top 4 Decklists below:
Tommy V.'s 1st Place Decklist:
Note: the LimitlessTCG deck builder doesn't allow for more than 4 copies of a card even though Prisoner of Impel Down allows more 4+ copies, so I had to use Microsoft Paint to make this fix, which is why the font is slightly off. It probably won't but anyone BUT IT BUGS ME OKAY?
Jovon W.'s 2nd Place Decklist:
Khoa L.'s 3rd Place Decklist:
Keith W.'s 4th Place Decklist:
Congrats to both Top Cuts and massive thanks to everyone who played in either event! I can't wait for the next Win-A-Box Tournaments for both games!!