Hello everyone! This is Elena from Gaia Storm TCG and welcome to another article here at CCG Castle. As most of you might know, Players Cup III has started last week and players from all over the world are now fiercely fighting to get to the top spots of the ladder and advance to the next round.

In case you are not familiar with the Players Cup dynamic, let me rewind a bit. Due to the fact that all psychical tournaments got cancelled this year, Pokémon decided to host a set of online events that will reward the best players of each region while offering an incentive to keep playing the game during these difficult months. This is how Players Cups were born, online tournaments that allow players from many different areas (VGC, TCG or Pokken Tournament) to participate from their houses. In the case of Pokémon TCG, the idea is as follows: every participant receives 50 “keys” in their Pokémon Online accounts that are the entry fee of special ranked tournaments. 8 people participate in a tournament each time. Now, tournaments cost 1 Key so you can play up to 50 and obtain points depending on your final position. As such, you will be awarded 5 points if you win, 3 if you make it to the finals and 1 point if you win your first round. Once the time to play is over, the top players with more tournament points advance to a knock-out stage and can win fantastic prizes.

So, as you can imagine, qualifying for the next rounds is not an easy task. It requires players constantly maintaining a high level of concentration in an environment where there is no room for mistakes. In fact, each tournament consists of 30 minutes best-of-1 rounds so if you are unlucky and lose the first game… well, you get zero points! Which leads us to the question… What should I play if I want to qualify for the next stage of the tournament?

To answer this, there are two important things we should to consider. First, that consistency is key. I know this is something kind of obvious but this principle has now more importance than ever. Make sure your deck is able to set up in a solid way because you don’t have second chances. If you start to make room for lots of tech cards to deal with specific strategies, you might regret it. The second important thing you need to do is assuming that almost no one is going to play unexpected things. What I mean is that, unlike of other tournaments you might have experienced in PTCGO, you won’t find people with theme decks or weird strategies. Players Cup tournaments are filled with players who want to win and know what they are doing. So you need to be prepared to face lots of ADP Zacian, Lucmetal, Eternatus and other meta decks.

Having said that, I think the choices are pretty straightforward. You should choose between some top decks and prioritize the most stable builds. My two personal favorites are ADP Zacian and Pikachu Zekrom. ADP Zacian is probably the one of the most consistent deck in the entire format (and perhaps in the history of TCG) and can win against virtually everything with Altered Creation + two Boss Orders.  Pikachu Zekrom might feel a bit underwhelming as it does not have crazy powerful attackers but has a lot of flexibility can effectively run hammers plus other disruption cards to deal with more aggressive strategies.

In a close second position I see Eternatus V MAX, Lucmetal and possibly Centiskorch V MAX. They are all solid plays with the potential to win against any other strategy but can hit very unflavored match ups (Eternatus loses against Lucmental and Lucmental loses against Centiskorch). And then, you can find other good decks that are worth considering like Decidueye Obstagoon, Mewtwo variants, Inteleon V MAX, Blacephalon, Coalossal or Mad Party. Whatever you choose for Players Cup III, I will highly suggest one of the aforementioned decks.  Of course, always choose something you feel comfortable with and that matches your style of play. Test it against the meta decks and know your game plan for every situation.

Ah and one last important thing. Don’t get mad about coin flips. We are currently in a format where Crushing Hammer makes a huge difference in the result of a game and that’s why everyone is now including the full playset. If you play Players Cup III, be ready to face hammers. Having said that, good like with your keys and I wish you good luck in the tournament. Have fun!