This past weekend, 89 of the most enthusiastic Gym Leader Challenge players made the trek out to Akron, Ohio - including international representation from Portugal, Norway, and Canada - to throw down with Gym Leader Challenge’s newest set, Mega Evolution, competing for a share of the $3k pot up for grabs!

The Meta

With a swathe of powerful cards printed in Mega Evolution, as well as cards from the special sets Black Bolt and White Flare added to the pool of playable cards since the last event, the meta going into this tournament was anyone’s guess. On the day, the classic powerhouses of consistency were out in force, with almost a third of the room (27 players) playing Psychic, and approximately another third on Water and Colourless combined, with 15 and 10 players respectively. 

The one to watch going into this tournament was always going to be Fighting, finally receiving a long-awaited draw Ability (and on a Basic Pokémon, no less) in Lunatone, along with its hard-hitting partner, Solrock, both printed in Mega Evolution. As well as these, Fighting Gong and Premium Power Pro, also from the same set, give Fighting new tools: their own versions of Fog Crystal/Net Ball and Electropower respectively. On the day, Fighting was the second most represented type at 16 players.

Rounding out the larger players is the ever-popular Dragon at 13 players, leaving only eight players unaccounted for. Of these, seven played Grass - likely experimenting with (among other things) Forest of Vitality, brand new from Mega Evolution. We round out our metagame with Metal’s strongest soldier, 5-2 on the day, and only barely outside the top cut despite the unique type choice, Andre Castela.

Notably completely absent from the metagame on the day were Fire, Lightning, Darkness, and Fairy. Fire and Fairy are likely absent for their lower average power in comparison to other types, and Darkness is still caught in the collateral impact of the recent bannings of Twin and Double Colorless Energy making Guzzlord spam more difficult to pull off smoothly. Lightning’s absence was the most notable, with the oft-mentioned “spread demons” of Full Grip not showing their faces on the day - this might perhaps be a result of the expected prevalence of Fighting decks, with players preferring to avoid the Weakness matchup.

Top Cut

Top 8

Brooke English

In no particular order, we begin with Brooke, who continues their streak of Full Grip top cuts, still remaining faithful to the Psychic type! This list is very similar to their previous result, only trading Pokégear and Marnie out, bringing in Scoop Up Net and the powerful new Supporter card from Mega Evolution, Lillie’s Determination (as well as upgrading to the new optimal; Ralts). Their consistent performance with this list in successive FGG events shows great skill, going almost undefeated during the day’s Swiss rounds - with their only loss being to the eventual champion of the day!

Noah Zoldak

Next up, also choosing the Psychic type, Noah made top 8 with the popular “Cursed Kiss” archetype, affectionately referring to it as “Scam”. This list aims to create as many opportunities as possible to flip a coin for Togekiss’ Wonder Kiss Ability, as even one result of heads turns a single KO into two Prize cards, which can let this deck take prizes with unexpected and unpredictable speed. Despite claiming before the event that they “aint getting far so no harm in posting [their list]”, Noah went undefeated with this list through the Swiss rounds, with a record of 5-0-2!

Luna Dunham

The only control representative in top cut, Luna chose to play Egg Mill. This deck aims to combine Item lock from Budew, Venomoth, and Vileplume with Exeggutor’s Supporter-locking Blockade attack, in order to prevent the opponent executing their gameplan, while bleeding their resources with cards like Plumeria, Faba, and Bellelba & Brycen-Man. Luna also made it through Swiss undefeated at 5-0-2! This is no mean feat with a control deck, where lines of play are often more complex, requiring fast and accurate play in order to succeed.

Trevor Redding

Rounding out our top 8 is Trevor “Tankmin” Redding, joining Brooke in the exclusive group of people making three Full Grip top cuts in a row! Trevor brought a Hydro Pump list, featuring both Baxcalibur’s Super Cold and Frosmoth’s Ice Dance Abilities to accelerate Energy into play quickly, supporting a range of classic bulky Water attackers: Wailord, Wishiwashi, and Kyogre, as well as the now perhaps less oft-seen Lapras.

Top 4

Ihana Mazezeka

Another Psychic player - and another unique take on the type, Ihana chose to play a flexible Psychic deck, with most of Psychic’s rogues’ gallery of powerful Basic attackers featuring. The most exciting part of their list in my opinion is the “secret” attacker, hidden underneath Xatu, but ready to reappear at a critical moment through the use of Devolution Spray! By using the Technical Machines Blindside and Crisis Punch, Natu can use its Δ+ Ancient Trait to take two Prize cards with a single well-placed KO.

Deandre Ratcliffe

Despite the loss of Twin and Double Colorless Energy, Deandre proved with this performance that Colourless is definitely still a force to be reckoned with! Their deck makes the somewhat controversial decision to leave Bibarel - usually a mainstay of the Colourless draw engine - at home, in favour of Cinccino, Dodrio, Oranguru, and the ever-reliable Skwovet. Notably, this means that almost all of the Pokémon involved can be found completely using Rotom’s Fan Call, a great boon to Colourless’ already-strong consistency. This list also features “Splup” Ditto, whose Transformative Start Ability allows it to replace itself (on the first turn of the game only) with any other Basic Pokémon from your deck, once again improving the likelihood of the deck finding the cards needed to establish a functioning board state as soon as possible.

Runner-Up

Jesse Parker

Our fourth and final Psychic deck of the top 8, Jesse Parker ascends from the stage of incredible Standard format performance at Regionals, Internationals, and the World Championships to the lofty heights of the Full Grip GLC $3k. This deck presents another look at Psychic, forgoing Gallade in favour of a lower-to-the-ground Stage-1-focused game plan. The deck includes some powerful disruption in the form of Frillish (a new addition from White Flare), as well as the Ability locks of Wobbuffet and Garbodor. In this deck, Garbodor’s all-encompassing Ability lock can be regulated using Shopping Center, allowing you to remove the lock on your turn, only to reapply it going into your opponent’s turn. The brainchild of Andrew Mahone, this deck was played by several Full Grip Games regulars, though only one of these players made it all the way through the top cut - congratulations to Jesse for this performance!

Winner

Kris Hill

Finally, Kris is your undefeated Full Grip Games Mega Evolution Champion! Going 5-0-2 in Swiss rounds, and placed at first seed going into top cut, Kris - better known in the community as Team Turboblaze’s GhoULS - showed us all the true power of Fighting’s new consistency package, as well as the new, very disruptive attacker of Marshadow. Marshadow deals only 60 damage (before factoring in any of Fighting’s many boosts, anyway) and becomes invulnerable if it takes a knockout, which was demonstrated to excellent effect on-stream in the finals. As well as this, the deck features a variety of strong attackers, allowing for varied lines of play, to target the specific weaknesses of any opponent. This deck was piloted in the tournament by many of Turboblaze’s members, and could be the deck to beat going into our upcoming format - only time will tell…

Congratulations to Kris “GhoULS” Hill for this outstanding performance and hard-earned win!

Conclusion

The Fighting renaissance has arrived, it would seem - triumphant despite the traditionally difficult matchup of Psychic making up so much of the field! Overall, the most impactful card by far of Mega Evolution would seem to be Lillie’s Determination. Included in seven out of the eight top decks, the early-game consistency boost provided by this card cannot be understated.

Thanks to Andrew Mahone, Riley Hulbert, and JW Kriewall for providing us with a professional and entertaining stream of the event, and to all of Full Grip for hosting such an awesome event!

Congratulations once again to our champion, and we’ll see you again for the next one!