This past weekend about 350 players participated in the Limitless Showdown, our second and final one in the Lost Origin format. In this article, we’ll take a quick look at the results, and hear what our winner has to say about the tournament.

If you’d like to explore the tournament results yourself, you can find all decklists, the metagame shares, and more, here: play.limitlesstcg.com/tournament/limitless-showdown-4/standings

Top Cut Statistics

After 11 Swiss rounds, 11 players have reached the required 9 wins to participate in the Single Elimination top cut.

Compared to the September Showdown, the metagame looks much more figured out now. Giratina VSTAR was the star of the tournament, taking up more than half of the top cut spots! It was the most played deck overall and also one of the decks with the highest win rate, which is a rare combination.

While Giratina has been a successful deck at in-person Regional Championships in this format, with multiple top 8 finishes, it hasn’t even come close to this level of dominance. So what caused these results? Has the meta evolved into a spot where Giratina is the best deck, or was this just the one tournament where everything came together, and it might look differently again for Warsaw Regionals in two weeks?

Personally, I’m not sure, but I do think that Giratina should have the status of a tier 1 deck at this point. Its biggest advantage is the lack of a real weakness or counter deck — no matter what you play against, the Giratina Lost Zone deck always has a good chance of coming out on top. This might draw players towards it for a tournament like ours where you can’t afford many losses, compared to other decks that might have more polarized matchups. Recent Regionals saw success for tanky decks like Goodra or Blissey, so it makes sense that Giratina would be more popular than the other Lost Zone decks with lower damage potential.

Besides Giratina, Palkia Inteleon had a very respectable showing with 2 in top cut and a good overall win rate. Notably, reigning World Champion Ondřej Škubal piloted it to top cut, where he ended up losing to finalist Puninko‘s Giratina deck. As we already knew, Palkia is still one of the best decks and one you should not forget when preparing for the last tournaments in this format.

One interesting story of the tournament is the run of top 4 finisher OGShih, who faced 11 Giratina decks out of a total 14 matches, beating 9 of them with their Arceus Goodra deck!

The most unique deck in top cut was Bingha‘s top 4 Arceus Mewtwo V-UNION, the highest online tournament finish for the deck to date, with a bit of a different take on the list. It was interesting to follow their tournament run, and I know many of the competitors were not excited to potentially play against this deck!

Lastly, our 2nd place finisher from September, TornadusF4n, once again made it to top cut with the Kyurem deck, a very impressive back-to-back performance!

Winner Interview

After a tournament dominated by Giratina, it is only fitting that it ended up being our winning deck for the month. Our winner Serperiorwilliam from the USA lost only a single match all tournament!

What made you decide on playing Giratina? What do you like the most about this archetype?

I selected Giratina because it was the most consistent deck available.

You played the version with 2 Giratina V and a Thorton, instead of the more popular 3 Giratina V, how do you like that choice? Did you make many Thorton plays during the tournament?

I really enjoy Thorton, I find it to be more versatile than 3 Giratina.

It looks like you played against mostly Mirror matches and Palkias. Are there any rounds in particular that you remember being close or otherwise interesting?

In top 4 I played against Arceus with Mewtwo V Union, which is tough since I don’t play Drapion. I was able to win because they struggled to set up. Finals was extremely close, all games were decided by Roxanne.

How does in-person play look for you? Do you travel to and compete in Regionals?

Prior to the pandemic I went to all regionals nearby, but I have not attended any major events since.

Lastly, any shout-out you’d like to make, or anything else you’d like to mention?

I would like to thank Alloutblitzle for helping me prepare for the event.

Shout-out to our partners that make the tournament’s prize pool possible!

If you’re looking for code cards to finish your deck on PTCGO, check out the PoTown Store, where you can buy codes with instant email delivery! If you are from Europe and looking for booster boxes or other sealed product, look no further than TCG Park, who offer competitive prices and free shipping on qualified orders. Last but not least, Dragon Shield is the go-to for sleeves and other card accessories!

The date for the next Limitless Showdown is November 19th! Silver Tempest will be legal. Keep an eye on our discord server or follow us on twitter to be notified when registration goes live.