A Cram and a Prayer
Top 8 Report from Portland Regionals
Hello everyone! This previous weekend I finished in the Top 8 of Portland Regionals with “Hybrid Mew VMAX” and I will be discussing my run at the event and why I played the deck. Let’s get into it!
Why I played Mew VMAX
The format was in a weird spot going into Portland. With Charizard ex being the most popular deck at San Antonio and winning the tournament, I knew that players would be playing decks that would counter it (Lost Zone Giratina VSTAR and Rapid Strike Inteleon VMAX). This meant that the meta shares for those two decks would increase for Portland which did end up happening. Both of those decks share one weakness: a poor Mew VMAX matchup. Even though it might be only slightly favored against Lost Zone Giratina, the Rapid Strike Inteleon matchup is almost unloseable as Mew (unless you dead draw). However, two major concerns I had were that Charizard’s play rate could increase and/or Spiritomb could be teched into more decks. I was expecting Spiritomb to increase in playrate in response to Snorlax Stall, so that was a major concern to me as it would have made Double Turbo Energy Mew VMAX a much worse play as it does not have a good plan against Spiritomb. Having a problem with both Charizard and Spiritomb was concerning, but a certain tech helped fix the Spiritomb problem: Fusion Strike Energy!
Fusion Strike Energy was already something that people played in DTE Mew as a 1-of to make Spiritomb easier to handle, but this is not enough against decks like Miradon ex that can use a Boss’s Orders without too much difficulty and remove the only Fusion Strike Energy from play. After realizing this, I remembered that multiple people made Top 8 in Seniors with two Fusion Strike Energy and an Elesa’s Sparkle to attach them without using up your one attachment per a turn. This was an idea that I thought was a waste of slots for a while, but after trying it out, it gave DTE Mew a very strong chance into decks with Spiritomb. With the Charizard matchup being way closer than most people think and strong matchups into the rest of the meta, I felt Mew VMAX was the right deck to play. After I spent some time on Friday night before the event messing with the deck, I felt confident and ready to play the next day.