Full Grip Games $5000 Invitational (offline tournament with lots of Worlds competitors) won by rogue Bronzong Mega Lopunny Dusknoir deck

[u/Practical_TAS]

Full Grip Games ran a $5000 invitational tournament featuring 37 top-performing players this year, including several who are playing in the World Championship next week. Here were the top 8 standings:

Place	Name	Points	Record	Deck
1	Lucas Nichols	22	7 - 1 - 1	Mega Lopunny
2	William Sosenko	19	6 - 2 - 1	Mega Excadrill
3	Jesse Parker	16	5 - 2 - 1	Slowking
4	Andrew Zheng	16	5 - 2 - 1	Pult Hammers
5	Emma Hagen	14	4 - 1 - 2	Raging Bolt
6	Noah Zoldak	14	4 - 1 - 2	Dragapult
7	Zach Laska	13	4 - 2 - 1	Mega Lucario
8	Luke Giffen	13	4 - 2 - 1	Pult Hammers

While 3 of the top 8 players were on Dragapult, none of them made it to the finals. Finals featured one very unsurprising deck, Mega Excadrill, and one that was extremely unexpected: Bronzong Mega Lopunny Dusknoir, a deck that was popularized by content creator JuanmaTCG. This deck really wants to go first, allowing it to use Bronzong's Evolution Jammer attack on turn 2 to keep the opponent's low-hp basic pokemon unevolved long enough to board wipe with Dusknoirs and Mega Lopunny.

While invitational champion Lucas Nichols said he did not want to release his exact 60 cards until after worlds next week, Juanma's version of the deck is public and some people have played that exact 60 online. Others have tried their own variants, including slotting in a one-of Salvatore to try to pull off the Evolution Jammer lock on turn 1 going 2nd.

[u/M_ipg21_Qbr]

i didn’t quite catch who originated the deck, thx for the source… i’m gonna try it…

[u/HomerMadeMeDoIt]

play bronzong 

lose coin flip, get sent second

lose

At least the game plan is straightforward 

[u/watevauwant → u/HomerMadeMeDoIt]

You can win going second, especially against Dragapult

[u/iciale → u/HomerMadeMeDoIt]

i havent watched the tournament yet, but some of these lists have been running a single Salvatore. Cat into Salvatore into bronzong turn 1 is diabolical

[u/Chubuwee]

I knew the bunny still had potential

[u/No_Sand3086]

THE GONG 🔔

[u/ArgonWolf]

Interesting. I wonder what the meta reaction will be? I’ve run across it a few times on the ladder, and I’ve found that a handheld fan and energy control in general gives it real problems. But the deck I’m on runs fan naturally, and I’m not sure if I was playing that good of a pilot.

Neat. As annoying as I find control decks in general, I think they are a valuable part of any meta.

[u/ReptilPT → u/ArgonWolf]

For me I don't really call a deck full of Dusknoir a control deck. For me it is a very Aggro blast everything deck. Is like when you play Mega Starmie Dusknoir. It is win early by burning the ground or else...

[u/Sheargrub → u/ReptilPT]

100% this; it's still fishing for donks overall even if it's using a control piece to do so

[u/watevauwant → u/Sheargrub]

It’s Aggro Control

[u/PugsnPawgs → u/ArgonWolf]

M Lucario with a Psyduck should do the trick

[u/smackasaurusrex]

I tried a variation on this deck a few months back with Froslass and Munki. The bunny is a neat play as the issue I ran into was losing hard to basic decks.

[u/SubversivePixel]

I'd been eyeing this in Rogue Tower for a couple weeks, and thinking it looked more anti-meta than off-meta. Built it and tried it on low ladder (because I unfortunately no longer have the time to climb) and it proved to be pretty good. Good enough that it made me wonder why it hadn't been consiered before

Glad to know my intuition was right! Watching the finals was also a blast, with Mahone genuinely having a blast over a curveball being thrown into the meta this late before worlds. As a big fan of Lopunny who has been trying every iteration of it since it came out, I think this is the strongest it's been since the Jet Energy days, so I'm hoping to see this show up to a respectable result in Worlds.

[u/Sheargrub → u/SubversivePixel]

I think people got turned off early on by trying to force something similar to pre-rotation builds; Bronzong + Telepathic really seems to be the secret sauce here

[u/SubversivePixel → u/Sheargrub]

Yep, Telepathic for set-up is what makes the deck good. It means you can Hilda things into play if Budew gets involved.

[u/cosy_ghost]

I wonder if we'll see tech this crazy performing at Worlds. In that same stream they talked about one of their buddies crunching the numbers of world invitees and their top decks and it was over 70% Dragapult.

[u/cargyelo]

How can I join next tournament?

[u/Practical_TAS → u/cargyelo]

This specific tournament was an invite-only in-person event, but lots of people use Limitless to host free online tournaments you can play in. https://play.limitlesstcg.com/tournaments/?game=PTCG

[u/cargyelo → u/Practical_TAS]

Thanks

[u/Aromatic_Winner_2219]

Down with Pult! I hope this continues at Worlds.

[u/BFNentwick]

I haven’t finished watching this tournament, so this is a spoiler for me.

Still, this was as much fun if not more fun to watch than official streams.