This past weekend I brought an unusual deck choice to the Pittsburgh Regionals event and ended up finishing with a 8-5-1 Record in day 2 for 295th place.

Before this weekend, my last large event was Regionals and States in the 2013-2014 season, so it's been a while and needless to say that events have gotten significantly larger since then (By my calculations there were more Masters in Day 2 this weekend than at the largest of these, the Philly Regionals in 2013)

When BLK/WHT came out and gave us the incredible tool Brave Bangle and Hilda as a supporter to help find a stage 1s and an energy for turn, I knew that I wanted to revisit Festival Lead as a deck. I started with a basic 4-4 Dipplin, 3-3 Thwackey, and 2-2 Seaking build and started bringing it to locals. In the early weeks, the deck felt great and I was having a blast, so I decided I was definitely going to register for Pittsburgh and bring Festival.

The most interesting choice happening here was my inclusion of the Neutralization Zone as the Ace Spec. My theory was that in game 1, you could often lock a big basics opponent out of the game after they bump 1-2 Festival Grounds or use it to buy a turn or two to set up the stage 1s, and it was working fairly well for a while. The other card that stands out is Rotom Heat, which was just as a way to beat Steven’s Metagross which I was seeing constantly on ladder - it was cut relatively early once people stopped playing that deck. And then the meta began to develop and people moved to the Dragapult builds featuring Hilda + Neo Upper Energy, and Gholdengo started to blow up in popularity. Before Neo Upper Energy, Dragapult was a fine matchup because I was able to chase their energy and keep them from being able to use Phantom Dive reliably and often take a second KO with the second attack in the early game. Neo Upper completely flipped the matchup and next thing I knew Dragapult was taking 3 prize cards with Hawlucha + Phantom Dive and I was never able to set up any basics after turn 2.

Meanwhile, Gholdengo was the other most common matchup I was facing and thanks to the resistance to Grass, the matchup felt impossible while being unable to easily OHKO Gholdengo and Munki being able to move the damage back to our fragile 40 hp basics.

Around this time I started to feel discouraged and ended up playing around with Eeveebox since Terabox was a deck I had done extremely well with at some local Cups/Challenges just after rotation before Shaymin came out. During one of the two Cups I played with Eeveebox I matched up against Owen Dalgard (who was playing Dragapult) and afterwards we were talking a bit and I found out he was the top of the Limitless Leaderboard for Eeveebox (and still is at the time of writing). Something he said that stuck with me was something along the lines of "If I'm not playing the deck..."

Just like that I was back on the grind with Festival Lead.

On August 25th we had a locals-only Limitless event where I played Festival Lead while streaming the games in Discord and chatting with my brother, Chris, and our friend, Zach. During one of the games vs Gholdengo I half-jokingly said something along the lines of "Wouldn't this matchup be impossible to lose if we didn't have Dipplin?" and then started thinking about it while I finished the game. Between rounds we started playing with a version of the deck that was playing 4-4-1 Thwackey and 4-4 Seaking, using our newfound deck space to include more copies of Vitality Band, Brave Bangle, Air Balloon, and swapping the Ace Spec of choice between a few options (Apologies to the one Ceruledge player that was on the receiving end of our Deluxe Bomb testing game - that was the funniest game I've ever played though).

I then posted the first updated version of the list to our local discord and said "We cut the bad cards (any that don't say 'Festival Lead' on them)".

After some more testing and calculating damage, I ended up settling on Max Belt for the ability to allow Seaking to OHKO the whole suite of Ogerpons and Fezandipiti, as well as capping out damage of 300 when combined with Black Belt Training.

This version of the deck felt really good into most decks, the most notable problems being Dragapult which felt unwinnable if both players were playing the game and Gardevoir which was tough if they ever got to the point where Gardevoir and 2-3 Munkidori were both online (but my notes show a 50% win rate on ladder).

At this point, my checklist for deck choice looked kind of like this:

✅ Deck is fun

✅ Deck wins vs less popular decks ✅ Deck doesn't take too long to play games (my longest match of the weekend was 40 minutes vs a Gardevoir that I 2-0'd) ❌ Deck stands a chance vs Dragapult and Gardevoir

After one of the last in-person testing sessions I would be able to attend 2 weeks before Pittsburgh I had the lovely experience of everyone else there playing Dragapult and one Grimmsnarl (which it turns out is basically a 1% matchup - but I was willing to just scoop as soon as an opponent played Froslass).

While this wasn't a particularly fun experience to have so close to Pittsburgh, I took a few days off from playing so we could prep for some non-pokemon events we had coming up and while looking through bulk between rounds at locals that week, I stumbled upon what would become my answer to Dragapult - Crustle.

The funniest message I received while trying to convince my locals to also play this deck.

Something interesting I've noticed about myself going into events is that when I'm confident in my list I no longer feel the urge to spam ladder games because I recognize that the only thing that could come out of doing so is making me question my list.

So instead I used the time I had been using to play PTCGL to ensure I had a solid backlog of memes to send to our local discord for every win I earned during the event. Another huge shoutout to Zach and Chris for helping make these absolute bangers.

Going into the event, I was confident with my list and ready to go. Round 1 I lost to Gholdengo Hands with some unfortunate prize cards in game 1 and a dead hand game 3, but the matchup felt good and other than some nerves from waiting so long for the match to start I was locked in and ready to go.

I won my next 5 rounds vs:

- Turbo Iron Hands

- Walls

- 2x Gholdengo Hands (See, I really can win this match)

- Ethan's Typhlosion

Heading into round 7 I offered my opponent an ID so we would both be locked for day 2 while I was re-sleeving a few sleeves that had become damaged. She noted that my sleeves were lilac and could be Gardevoir and she accepted the draw, which I then would find out was because it was theoretically going to be the third Gardevoir mirror in a row for her and she wanted some time to refocus.

This was a key moment because going into the event I had jokingly been telling people that my only goal for the event was to get Seaking its first Limitless page. The reality was that my goal was just to play my best because I knew that I very well could just see Dragapult and Gardevoir all day and never see the upper half of the tables.

Between rounds, someone mentioned that the fact that I was playing Rillaboom was also weird, and after double checking we found that Goldeen and Rillaboom would also be awarded their first Limitless pages!

My final round for day 1 was Gardevoir where I realized that the matchup is probably actually winnable, I just needed to be punching their active instead of using Boss early to try and keep Gardevoir from ever coming into play.

Unfortunately, this would not be the last round of the day - the first round of phase 2 would occur and thanks to the exhaustion I misplayed vs Bolt and took a third loss to end the day.

I didn't sleep particularly great that night, and it definitely lead to me making some misplays in day 2, but I was able to finish with my 8-5-1 record with the following matchups:

- W vs Terabox

- L vs Joltik Box

- L vs Armabox

- W vs Gardevoir

- W vs Gholdengo

There wasn't anything particularly notable about the games in Day 2 other than my Tearbox Opponent misplaying by using Torrential Pump thinking it would get him his last 2 prize cards but leaving 10 hp on Seaking and allowing me to return KO for my last 2 prize cards.

Notably, the lack of Dragapult across both days meant that the only time Crustle was relevant was in Round 2 vs Turbo Hands where I locked them out of the game with a lone Crustle board - but that's the way the matchups fell.

If I had avoided my misplays vs any of Bolt, Joltik Box, or Armabox I could have locked in the T128, but I'm still more than happy with my top 300 and earning the Limitless pages that Rillaboom and Seaking deserve.

At the end of the day, I'm glad I put in the work to get this list locked down in a way that felt great for how I play and I appreciate all my opponents that certainly weren't expecting to play against Festival this weekend, but offered kind words rooting for me to get as far as I could in Day 2 even if they lost.

The Golden Rule: Always pick to go first when given the choice.

Part of what I liked about this deck in the current meta was that so many decks choose to go second and we want to go first so we can evolve and start swinging or boom boom grooving on turn 2.

This deck is an absolute blast to play and into decks like Gholdengo that don't play Iono and only punch the active feels utterly unfair at times. If you're going to play in paper, I would highly recommend practicing a bit online to get used to Boom Boom Groove and what you need to grab. Having 3 Quick Search every turn is insane, but if you find yourself going to time with the deck it's most likely because you're taking too long to resolve your Boom Boom Grooves.

If your opening hand is cracked you'll be able to get 3 grookey and 3 goldeen into play turn one. However that's often not reality and you need to choose whatever will allow you to end with a Goldeen in active and Grookey on bench after your opponent's turn.

Usually it is more important to set up your bench than to start swinging. The exception is if your opponent is using Iron Hands. As long as they only get 1 Amp You Very Much off, you will still win the prize race over the course of the game. Once they get a second off you can scoop and go next.

If you face Gholdengo and they play Togekiss, you need to Boss KO the Kiss. Similar to Amp, as long as they only take 1 extra prize you still win the race, but as soon as they take 2 extra prizes the game is over.

Against Gardevoir the best you can do is punch whatever they leave in the active early game and save your Boss's Orders to bring up their Mew/Fezandipiti/Clefairy late game.

For Dragapult you want to put pressure on early while only putting a total of 5 Grookey/Goldeen into play while preparing to play Dwebble immediately attack to evolve into Crustle (preferably with a mist energy). Don't be afraid to not attack if they have a Munkidori - eventually you'll find a Boss to KO whatever they're loading up to attack.

Against Charizard and Typhlosion, you need to consider that they may have Pichu, which can OHKO Goldeen. This is more relevant in Bo3 where you can adjust, but in Bo1 sometimes you have to make an awkward play turn 1 to play around it.

Generally when facing a Munkidori deck that isn't Gardevoir the gameplan is to keep all damage counters off their board, so if it isn't a KO it's often better not to swing (and if you do need to swing, you're probably just losing the game).

Rillaboom is mostly in the deck to be able to OHKO Cornerstone Ogerpons and Charizards, but it can also be useful to buy a turn late game with Drum Beating or take a KO on 210hp mons with Brave Bangle Wood Hammer to close out a game.

A lot of the fun this weekend was how my opponents and other nearby players reacted when they found out I was on festival, so I just wanted to call out a few favorites because having fun really was the number 1 goal and the reactions to the deck definitely helped keep things lighthearted all weekend.

- "Wait, Really??" - Everyone around me when I showed Festival going into the first round of phase 2

- "Can I read that?" - Every opponent at some point during our games

- "My friends aren't going to believe that this is what I just lost to"

- "Is there a Rillaboom ex that I'm forgetting exists?"

- "Wow, you really thought a lot about this deck"

- "Rapid Draw twice for knock out" - Me frequently

And my favorite from a local:

- "You really brought Festival Lead to a regional? You're braver than I am."

I'm not super active online except when I have a deck like Festival that I'm super passionate about, but you can find me posting about life + technology on my blog at terabytetiger.com and find me posting about Pokemon on Bluesky @terabytetiger.bsky.social.

Pokémon: 7

4 Thwackey TWM 15

4 Goldeen PRE 20 PH

1 Rillaboom TWM 16

4 Seaking PRE 21 PH

1 Dwebble DRI 11

1 Crustle DRI 12

4 Grookey TWM 14 PH

Trainer: 15

1 Counter Catcher PAR 160

4 Festival Grounds TWM 149

2 Brave Bangle WHT 80 PH

2 Black Belt's Training JTG 143

1 Iono PR-SV 124

1 Maximum Belt TEF 154

2 Night Stretcher SFA 61

3 Air Balloon BLK 79

2 Boss's Orders PAL 265

2 Hilda WHT 84

1 Brock's Scouting JTG 179

4 Buddy-Buddy Poffin TEF 144

3 Arven SVI 249

3 Ultra Ball SVI 196

2 Vitality Band SVI 197

Energy: 3

1 Jet Energy PAL 190

2 Mist Energy TEF 161 PH

5 Basic {G} Energy EVO 91

Total Cards: 60