Regional Recap: Pony Top 32

By Grant Emory

Hello! Welcome to my recap of the round 2 Regional in Las Vegas! Leading up to this event I had been playing Titan of Terror extensively, top cutting a couple LCs and refining my list, and then they hit him hard with the errata hammer. I needed to either completely change how I played a now far worse character, or pivot to a new deck entirely. I tested a new build of King of the Monsters, which was cool, but Marvin and Steven had tried to convince me to play Pony Tsunotori in the past, and Dan had just created this new monster of a list, so I joined the PONY CABAL! This entire weekend was an absolute blast so let’s get into it!

Day 0 Thursday, Locals

Why fly when you can drive? Got up at 4am grabbed Marvin and our buddies and teammates Edgar and Steven and started the brisk 7-hour drive to Las Vegas! Stopped a few times along the way but rolled into Vegas around noon, grabbed probably the best smash burger I have ever had from With Love, Always (BANGER Recommendation by Steven). Finished burgers just in time to hit up the locals Win a Box tournament thrown by Many Realms Arena! Such a cool store and a ton of the homies showed up to play. I went 3-0 with Pony in Swiss, playing against a brand-new Vegas player Alex on Space Godzilla, T.C on Ymir, and another Vegas local who’s name I cannot remember SORRY! On a sick Joker list (Thanks Carde.Io for wiping ALL past tournaments). I then SWIFTLY lost to T.C in top 4 after many misplays, which ended up being fine as I was ready to hit the hotel and chill. A ton of us went to Rainforest Café for dinner, went and grabbed Dan at the airport and then ended up staying up late getting games and hanging out with all of our UVS friends.

Day 1 Friday, Premier Teams

We got up early to hit my favorite Vegas breakfast spot Broken Yolk Café (get the Border Bennedict!) with a bunch of friends, then headed back to the venue for the Teams event. My team was myself on Pony, Matt on Anguirus, and Brent on Mechagodzilla Kiryu Type-3. Had some great matches, I went 4-1 only losing to Calvin Tahan’s Anguirus (This will come back up later), unfortunately my teammates didn’t have quite the same success, and we did not make top cuts. Played a couple other quick side events for tickets and cheered on Marvins team as they made top cuts. After their final round a bunch of us headed back to With Love, Always for more killer burgers. Ran a couple quick games to prep for the main event and then crashed.

Day 2 Saturday, the Main Event

Got up early and grabbed some free hotel breakfast that wasn’t bad and headed off to get some practice in against Edgar’s Reiner before the main event started, we finished a single game before rounds were paired.

Round 1 was against my buddy Placid from the bay area, he was on a sick King Ghidorah 2 list. I have fought this character many times and thought I could take a round 1 win, boy was a I wrong. He took game 1, I struggled to establish a good foundation base and made a few misplays and Placid played a great game. I sided in my Scanlan’s Hands and Cardboard Crusaders for games 2 and 3 but never saw a single Scanlan’s anywhere besides my discard in either of the last 2 games. Game 2 I got established, chipped away at his heads and was able to make a huge play to take the game. Game 3 I had him down to 4 health by the end, we were almost in overtime, and I had one attack left (a wish hard) and needed to check a 5 to close out the game so of course I checked a 3 and then he finished me off on the back swing. I probably should have pivoted several moves before to building and passing but being so close to OT I didn’t want to risk a draw. We started the day at 0-1.

Round 2 was against the homie Alex, the brand-new player I played against at the locals on Thursday, he was still on Space Godzilla but had made some changes, going into game one I was very confident, I had just fought this and it’s a matchup that is very much in Pony’s favor. Well friends, I lost game 1, he played filled with doubt on my first 2 attacks, Hunters Aly first, and then Queen of the Monsters, so I built and passed planning to defend through his turn and get him on the next. Unfortunately, he resolved 2 determined advances into all 4 walk the dogs, I couldn’t defend it all, I blocked what I could, but it wasn’t enough. I thought I was cooked as we started game 2, thankfully this is where my luck turned around after building 6 turn 1 I drew THE hand 2 Hunters Ally, Queen, 2 Lethal Slash, and 2 feral shrieks to keep my hand full. He used Space Zilla on my first Aly, so I let it fail and proceeded to play 7 attacks and take it on turn 2. Game 3 was much the same, putting me 1-1 on the day.

I cannot remember who I fought round 3, (I HATE YOU CARDE.IO!!!) but I know I won. Was now 2-1 we’re still in it.

Round 4 pairings are up… I am paired into Calvin Tahan, I get a rematch of our Teams game! What follows is the quickest 2 games of Universus I think I have ever played. Game 1 I build 5 going second, he plays like 1 attack, builds, I draw mostly foundations, its ok, we’ll just defend, NOPE he plays 7 attacks, checking mostly 6s with the assistance of Acidic Sludge to stack them on top and game 1 is over in his favor in 6 minutes. Game 2 is even worse, I don’t even remember most of what happened but before the first 15 minutes were up in the round my game was over, I was now 2-2 and likely out of top 8.

Round 5 was against Reiner, very fun games with a great opponent. He swiftly took game 1 but I was able to get games 2 and 3, both post Reiner transformation, by building wide to the point where his target commits on every one of my attacks didn’t matter. Now 3-2

Round 6 I fought David Tombs and his Shin Godzilla. I disrespected the character (Not the player) game 1 and over committed and was punished for it. Game 2 I found the nuts hand and killed him on turn 2. Game 3 was impossible for me, I could not draw foundations for anything and built 2 turn 1, both were swiftly Chomped away, I built back to 3 just to have 2 of them Chomped, and the other eaten by Monsters of the Deep. Build 3 more to have them all Ruined. This man reset me to 0 foundations 3 times, Obviously I lost this game. I was now 3-3 and my goal of a positive win rate slipped further away.

In the 7th and final round, I paired into one of the Vegas locals on King Ghidorah 2 bringing my event full circle. Much like Round 1, this KG player took game 1, I sided in my answers for games 2 & 3 and this time, I found them! Two games in a row I hit him with Scanlan’s Hand while I had momentum to commit his character and rid myself of the pesky head counters!

I ended the tournament with my positive win rate of 4-3 and finished 31st just squeaking into top 32 for a promo card. This is my personal best finish in a major event and a large milestone for me. I would have loved to win 1 more and move into the top 16 or better area but overall, I am very happy with my placing, especially having only picked up the deck two weeks prior. After all of this we went out to a rooftop bar/restaurant with all of The Cabal, Let’s Talk, and probably a few others to celebrate Disaster Dan and Jorge taking the Pony Cabal to top cuts and had a great time!

Day 3 Sunday, Top Cuts/ Hero Too 1k

Sunday was all about cheering on Dan and Jorge in top cuts while playing in the Hero Too event. I dusted off my Tokoyami 1 deck, made bunch of changes, including a last minute sideboard creation just to fight the stupid Nighteye deck we were hearing about that never even showed up. Dan unfortunately went down to Calvin in his Top 8 match (read all about it here: https://www.undefeatedatlocals.com/articles/regional-recap-swiss-champ-pony ), Jorge went on all the way to finals (Right here: https://www.undefeatedatlocals.com/articles/regional-recap-pony-finalist ). Had some fun Hero Too games even if all but 1 round was against locals and teammates, missed top cutting by a single win AGAIN but had a great time!

All in all this was another GREAT event by UVS Games and Round 3 Events. Every event I make it to gets a little better than the last and that’s great to see! Hopefully I can make it to one more regional this year but if not, see you at worlds in November!

The Cabal’s Pony Decklist: https://uvsultra.online/deck.php?deck=viPVgTVOgwQspHxewUxyGmJnVhcZsl

The Birb Decklist: https://uvsultra.online/deck.php?deck=YsRKANRYKfyJdnJXAuTUpDRXUgIaHv