This past weekend over 650 players participated in the Limitless Showdown, making it our biggest online tournament in over 2 years! 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-3/standings

Top Cut Statistics

After 11 Swiss rounds, 20 players have reached the required 9 wins to participate in the Single Elimination top cut.

In total, there are 13 different decks represented in top cut! Palkia Inteleon was only the 4th most popular deck in the tournament, but converted exceptionally well. I think by now it’s very clear that the deck is still one the strongest in the format and not going away anytime soon.

The new Lost Zone archetypes were the most popular decks in the tournament, but were slightly underrepresented in the top cut. However, considering many players tried to counter them with cards like Empoleon V, or even deck choices like Arceus Inteleon, I think that’s understandable. The more players focus on beating Lost Zone decks, the more Palkia benefits, so it will be interesting to see in which direction the format evolves.

Besides the Sableye and Giratina Lost Zone decks, there were two other successful decks that made use of the Comfey/Colress/Mirage Gate engine. The new Hisuian Goodra VSTAR powered by the Lost Zone made it into top 8, and a new take on Dialga VSTAR made it even further, into top 4! It looks like many different decks can benefit from this engine, so I’m curious what else players will come up with.

The Lost Zone cards are the main talking point of Lost Origin, but the set definitely has more to offer! Both Kyurem VMAX and Hisuian Zoroark VSTAR showed up strong, with Kyurem in particular looking more and more like one of the best decks. We even saw Drapion VSTAR make a guest appearance in the Vikavolt deck!

I think it’s fair to say that Lost Origin had a huge impact on the metagame. Half the decks in top cut relied heavily on new cards, but older decks are still very powerful and equally successful, which is great!

Winner Interview

In the end, it was Mew VMAX that took down the whole tournament! It looks like even Drapion V wasn’t enough to stop the deck’s recent resurgance after Worlds.

I’ve asked our winner capahab a few questions about the decklist and tournament, so let’s see what they have to say!

[answers partly paraphrased]

What made you decide on Mew VMAX as the deck to play, and what are your thoughts on the Meloetta version compared to the DTE version you played?

I wanted to have an upper hand againt Lost Zone Box and Giratina, but it is difficult to interfere with the opponent’s hand with the Fusion Energy version. Using the 4 DTE version with two Marnie stops them from accumulating a lot of cards in hand with Comfey’s Ability, so I think it’s the better version in this Meta. Also Roxanne + Switcher is a very strong combo!

Your list has a Roxanne and a Path to the Peak, which are rather unusual in Mew. What are the reasons behind their inclusion, and how did they perform for you during the tournament?

Roxanne + Path is quite a strong combo in this meta. Against the mirror match in particular, using Path + Marnie or Path + Roxanne can cause the opponent to miss a turn.
It worked quite well for me against mirror matches and Kyurem decks, and even against Arceus it can cause them to miss a turn when used at the beginning of the game. I highly recommend you use the card!

It looks like you played against a wide variety of different matchups, what were some of the most interesting games you had in the tournament?

The most difficult and interesting match was against Dialga VSTAR in the semifinals. I was nervous because I lost the second game after my opponent used the VSTAR Power on the second turn, but I was lucky in the third game and won, so I remember it very well.

Being from Korea, how does official play look for you? Do you participate in in-person tournaments?

Previously, tournaments were not held a lot due to the covid situation, but now that period has passed and Pokémon Korea recently supports large-scale tournaments again. I have been participating in the competition in Korea with the DTE Mew deck, and recently won the Lost Origin pre-released playmat competition with a deck similar to the Limitless Showdown winning deck!

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

First of all, I am very happy to win the Limitless Showdown competition. Also, I would like to express my gratitude to my opponents who enjoy playing games whenever I participate in the PTCGO tournament. Thank you to all the TCG users all over the world who always interact with me on Twitter. Lastly, I am so happy that you gave me the opportunity to represent Korea like this!

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!

That’s it for this month, I hope to see many of you in our next tournament on October 29th! Keep an eye on our discord server or follow us on twitter to be notified when registration goes live.