Regional Recap: Swiss Champ Pony
By DisasterDan
Hey everyone! My name is Daniel, you know me online as DisasterDan and this is my first article!
How do we talk about the Vegas regional? It was everything you love about card games in one event. Competitive gameplay, diverse meta, player storylines, and an entire community playing a bit for the love of the game (The Cabal rides again!
This event was different for me than normal. Obviously from the title you can see I got Swiss champ, but it goes deeper than just the placement. In Universus this is my first in person regional top cut. I have done well in Local Championships, Webcam events, TTS events, I have even come close before in regionals, but I have never actually broken through and topped in person.
I have talked heavily before about the stress of competitive play. The anchor of expectations you put on yourself can be heavy, and only gets heavier with every passing event. I know the feeling of wanting to prove something, wanting to be the face of something, and to constantly fail to achieve that goal. But after all this time, I now know how it feels to be on the other side. To finally say you did all those things you wanted to do. The Cabal started as a joke, but it quickly became a purpose, a narrative walking into the event. I walked in as Co-Captains of the Cabal with Marvin Emory with a single goal to prove that Pony was still a top deck in the format. Between us, 3 of our friends, and the 4 other Pony players at the event I knew someone would prove our statement true….. I just didn’t believe I would be one of them.
I have been told I am a good player who plays not so competitive characters. This gave me a sense of imposter syndrome, because I feel like I wasn’t performing well enough to warrant the confidence people had in me. But for the first time since playing this game that changed. Under the shining lights as my name was called and people cheered, that feeling of being an imposter went away. I felt as good as people believed I was and even though Top Cut didn’t go my way, it was the first time I truly felt I could have won the event. But enough of the sappy stuff, lets talk about the event.
Day 1: Teams
I won’t go too deep into each match since I did not play Pony for teams. I played my current favorite character in Biollante. Marvin and Nick played Pony and Meintenkun and we went in as Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. We were able to reach all the way to Top 4, sadly losing to Justin’s Martins team. Worse ways to go out than losing to the Regional Winner’s team, so we take that.
Day 2: Swiss
Round 1 was a gruelling back and forth……just kidding. I had a bye that I used so I did not have a round 1. Round 2 we faced Reiner, the boogeyman of the format. Game 1 he had what I would say is the best 2 turns you could ask from the deck. Turn 1 builds backup, Finally Free, United front and then turn 2 have Crusaders and BSU. Safe to say we lost that game. But after siding we were able to win game 2 and in game 3 they never achieved their flip which put the match in our favor and we are now 2-0.
Round 3 we face vs Annie 2. Harness undeath is a scary card, but we manage to get game 1. Game 2 we play a longer game and I get left at 3 and I go to draw my hand and we see 2 attacks. We try digging for more but after seeing almost 10 new cards during the turn I see no extra and die to harness the next turn. We have a competitive back and forth, both at just a little above 10 health. I go for my attack turn trying to play through -5 damage per attack and as I see the opening to win I check a 3 then a 2 and then a 3. We have to pass and then we die to double sludge and double harness. We are 2-1 and we are not allowed to lose another match.
Round 4 it is Pony vs Benimaru. If I am being completely honest, the first 2 games are kinda of a blur just because of how nail biter game 3 is. We are both aggressive aggro decks so games are going pretty fast. Game 3 we are trying to survive a kill string and it is looking scary. Luckily we have seen 2 Radiant visage which essentially is -6 damage in the matchup. Even so, we get to a Walk the Dog that is for 14 and my life is at 14 so it is a lethal move. But wait, we have the best foundation in the game sitting on our board, Tough Skin! Tough Skin’s -1 damage leaves us at 1 and with benimaru passing we draw our hand and find the kill line. We are 3-1
Rounds 5 and 6 I am gonna combine together because I got to face back to back brothers playing almost the same deck. I have a knack for taking on a player and then also their family, and this was just another example of that. Both played 4 checks Shin Godzilla. First up was David. He had a 3 check in his 4 check deck so he was having some bad luck meanwhile I was running hot so we get the match 2-0. The match with Patrick was a little scarier. Game 1 I only build 3 foundations turn 1 and my turn 2 and by turn 3 I have seen all 3 Genghis Frog and have 2 foundations in hand. I sadly can't garner enough foundations to outpace the destruction so I lose game 1. Game 2 I have a much healthier stage and I am able to overtake him. Game 3 I get to start out with cardboard crusaders which is big in stopping Knockdown Blow shenanigans. A few turns in he goes Knockdown and crusaders seals it, he then plays a 2nd knockdown which I block. He then plays armored titan attacks which gets up to my health total. I give it -2 speed and block with dumbfounded ignoring the card in the card pool, I check a 5 and tap out and he has to pass turn in which I draw a kill line and we win. I am now 5-1 going into the final round.
Round 7, the final round of swiss I face vs Krista. This was scary, especially knowing he had just beaten Marvin the round before to knock Marvin out of the running. Game 1 he systematically beats me, game 2 however I have the edge of Radiant Visage being sided in. This helps two fold: 1. We are reducing Krista’s momentum making cards like Walk the Dog do less damage and with the deck mostly sending base damage moves this is big in the matchup. 2.I now get to determine what is on top of my deck. With both pony and the mill 3 cost on visage the only cards he gets to stack on my deck are one I want there. This allowed for a lot of mixups, when it was a foundation I block, when it was an attack I Pony or visage. This leads to him running out of counters and passing turn and I win game 2. Game 3 we have 10 minutes on the clock and we are in a situation. If we draw I still have a chance to top but he is out, which means he has to win and I have to not lose. So I as Pony play a hyper defensive game while Krista is forced into an aggressive one. Since I am not playing for the draw I am leaving less room for error on my part to hope at the chance of squeaking in at the 7th or 8th seed. But something happens that changes the whole dynamic, Krista goes for a 4-5 attack kill turn knowing it's their last turn to win. This means they aren’t stacking to ensure their checks and are instead stacking attacks to draw more. His checks are middling, and after losing resources and with little amount of cards in hand they pass. I am last turn of game with 5 minutes into overtime. I draw my hand knowing there is enough to kill but unknowing if I have the time to do it and he asks if I have 3 attacks in hand. I show him I have 5 and he concedes, knowing he is beat even if I can’t do it before time in overtime is called. I end swiss 6-1. I am assuming I am going to get 3rd or 4th but the table next to me double draws and that makes me the final x-1 in the tournament shooting me to first place! I want to just shout out to the Krista player Ezra. He was in full right to make me play it out but he knew it was over and ensured I was in. Great person after my personal favorite game of Universus.
Day 3: Top Cut
I have only 1 round to report unfortunately, for my run stops here. I walked in confident because I knew I would be going first vs Angrius, and after winning turn 2 game 1 that didn’t go away. Game 2 my luck started to fade away, as I checked pretty poorly in this game. At one point I check 3 Lethal Slash when I only had 2 in deck because I cycled mid string, so that must be some sort of achievement. I lost game 2 after cycling 8 attacks away and drawing 0 extra in 10 cards. Game 3 I go first again and I send back my 3 foundation hand into a hand of 3 attacks, 2 Eren sidestep, 2 Team hero. In my head, it's at least a build 3 which could be better but we can pull through, and then my first 3 checks are attacks which means I fail the 2nd sidestep. I have only built a team hero and a sidestep turn 1, meanwhile Angrius builds 5. My next hand is 6 attacks and a foundation. I play out the best I can, first filtering with Electric moth and clearing the board between a Lethal and Pony OPT. I then build our and now have a team hero and 6 foundations. So we have basically pulled out of the bad turn 1. He plays a move, I build with team hero and block the move and breaker. It now gets back to my turn and my hand has 3 attacks, a frog, 2 Feral shriek, and 1 other foundation. I throw a move as a poke card and filter the ferals and I draw 2 Lethal slash. I now think about the situation I am in, by end of turn 2 I had 13 attacks accounted for and this turn I have seen 3 more by the first move I play which means only 6 more attacks are in my deck. I have lethal in hand as long as I only check 1 3 in the turn even through his double driven by retribution on board. So I go for it, I do the string and his health drops more and more. I draw another attack during this all as well. I check a 3 on a lethal slash I played and it puts him to 2 and he uses his last driven on board. I have 4 attacks left in the deck after I just checked an attack and have 20ish cards left in the deck. The statistics are on my side and the plan is set, play Wish Hard, change its zone and give it 2 speed because I know his best block is a 1 low so I do not want to keep it low. So I go and play wish hard and……I check another 3. I have to tap out and he indeed has the 1 low block. His other blocks were another 1 low and a 3 high and he checked a 3 which means if I checked the 5 I win the match. The even crazier part was my next card was another attack, so that means of the 4 attacks in my deck 2 of them were right on top of each other at the exact moment that cost me the game. Some universal being didn’t want a Pony mirror in top 4. I die when I pass, ending my run.
I didn’t play in side events on Day 3. I spent the time admiring my prizing and cheering my friends on in Teams, Retro, and Hero Too. While I wish I could’ve broken through to top 4 and finals, I am happy with how I did and how my friends did. Fellow Cabal members showed out all over the place, Jorge got to finals in the main event and won teams, Steven got to finals in Hero Too, Mavin top 4 in Teams, and Grant with his first positive record in a regional. In safe to say this weekend was a success and belonged to the Cabal even if we didn’t win the main event (Shout out to Justin Martin for winning, very deserved). I want to shout out to everyone who cheered for me, hugged me, congratulated me, and did horn poses for the sake of the Cabal. You all make everyone of these events worth going to every single time. Shout out to Jett for coining the term Cabal, as we took it in stride. Shout out to Drew and Elijah who insisted I would be making a mistake if I didn’t stick with Pony even though they hated the deck. And the biggest shoutout to Marvin Emory, who believed in me the entire time even when I didn’t. He never thought for a second I would not top this event, nor has he never lost belief in me as a player. I love this community.
No matter what your record is, how good you are now, how high the hill is, I just hope I am proof that no matter what you have the chance to be great, you just either have to believe or let others believe for you when you can’t. Never forget your moment can come. That is all for now. Until next time stay classy Universus.
