Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

Iron Chef Top 4 , OFFICIAL SCORES!

Was doing what at a time and hit submit when I took a break from writing will do Rainbow's tonight and try and do the other two tomorrow!

Time for Pain's deck I will rate and comment on

Deck itself:
8/10 It seems like a very solid concept. The searchers seemed pretty consistent across the board of players, so you seemed in good company on those choices. A lot of interesting little combos make the deck really fun in my opinion.

5/5 Creativity"
I like the Victreebell and use of Sceptile very neat concepts! I personally am not a Town Map fan so I found your use of Gallade to be quite brilliant. The Beautifuly to accelerate was a great concept to me.

5/5 Card Use:
Much of the reasons above I think you used each card to it's fullest. None of the cards seemed to shout filler to me. Gengar seems so versatile in this as well and I have to admit Fainting Spell is a brilliant idea to make life even worse for your opponent.

Total 18/20



Deck Itself:
7/10- While I like your attackers having something frail like Togekiss for drawing purposes only somewhat worries me. I've seen it used creatively at a states, but the purpose seems a little lost in Singleton for the reasons it was interesting in what he said. I liked seeing Hydreigon and Gallade, but I'm not sure if Beautifly's attack really speeds up enough for Gallade to be great. The Infernape use I do enjoy as Torment has been something I've wanted to play around with.

Creativity:
5/5- I think your choices in Berserker blade was pretty good. Not having tested in the format terribly much I can't say I know how well the 40 spread does, but I really like that card. Torment had a pretty interesting use, but the rest of it seemed to follow the general flow of the rest of the decks.

Card Use:
3/5- I know Vegeta likes Town Map in this format, but it's such a one and done card I am not behind it. I would've rather seen another attacker than the Map personally. I may also be too used to the traditional modified format, but 1 of each energy and all that special seems to stretch it really thin to me. In an actual event do you account for the person running attackers that make you discard energy? Could create dead attackers. Just my two cents. Magnezone while a nice drawer feels like if it gets stuck active is a dead card and you look like you'll keep a fair amount of cards in hand to keep his Power from being very usable.

Total Score: 15/20
This deck just seemed to flow a little less than the rest to me.
 
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Don't worry Bullados, I am aware of the Zek/EEls situation. But seriously, if you were to go that route, how much of a score would you receive?

15/20 wouldn't allow you to win this competition in the top cut.

Thank you Trican for the post. If you have time can you post for the 3 other decks as well.
 
Trican didn't you read what I wrote after seeing the other decks?
I worked in the understamding only one of each energy was allowed, which narrowed my options very much.
And it also made me think my opponent were using one of each so their decks would also face the same problem.
Like i expected them all to use Call energy (and i am really confused they didn't) along with heavy ball/Venusaur

I really would have send in another build if I had known I could use 8 the same basic energy.
 
Hatter:
I really don't get this deck, you want to have the Stoutland lock asap but you still rely on Ampharos and Gardevoir? And when having the Stoutland lock you must have Vileplume in play as well, which shuts your deck down as well, you don't have enough draw power by powers or abilities to compensate this... You should at least have played Seeker to be able to play items for 1 turn and shut your opponent down again. I like the healing though, they need to OHKO you, otherwise they won't take a single prize (except by machamp of course). I think you could have focused more on the healing/lock, of course something could be prized but Machamp + town map/Alph lito is a solution for that:)
Deck: 8/10
Creativity: 4/5
Card use: 4/5
Total: 16/20

Eonic:
Yesss you play vileplume, seeker AND alph lito! But the wrong Stoutland... Would have been perfect if you played Stoutland from boundaries crossed. Very solid deck, many draw/search power. Love the Sceptile/meganium energy move engine combined with flygon's free retreat ability:) And the infinite heal combo of course! Seems not that original but actually it is! Great deck!
Deck: 8/10
Creativity: 5/5
Card use: 5/5
Total: 18/20

Rainbowgym:
You understood the energy part of the challenge wrong, but in the end you made a very versatile deck! I really like this entry, you have an answer to many cards. With Ampharos and Beautifly you have the field charged with energies VERY quick. Draw engine is good, like the Togekiss since it's annoying for any opponent and it can draw as well. And you play Seeker, I think this card is mandatory for this challenge. You have so many options with this deck, it's really awesome!
Deck: 9/10
Creativity: 4/5
Card use: 5/5
Total: 18/20

Time for Pain:
You really don't know what you want with this deck. You just throw in a lot of good cards and hope it works. You play way too much Pokémon which makes this list inconsistent. You wanna have a lot of strategies, which can be really good, but you use too many cards for it. The draw engine is ok and I love the gengar in this challenge. T1 Beautifly seems possible which is really good, but I'm not sure if that can happen every time with this deck. I know I lost to you last round and I was impressed by your entry in that round so I was looking forward to see what you did in this round. But I don't like this entry, I'm sorry.
Deck: 7/10
Creativity: 4/5
Card use: 4/5
Total: 15/20
 
So the posts against my deck have one thing in common. The don't like the amount of pokemon in my deck. I like it as it gives me an answer to everything. Does it make it inconsistent, maybe. I feel my build is still really good though. I've got some nice 1 energy attackers if I can't get beautifly going T1. I've also got alot of ways to put damage on my opponents board with nidoking, chandelure, and gengar making kos easier. Also swampert is REDICULOUSLY good in this format. Especially with reuniclus and nidoqueen to heal it. Machamp is realistically the only answer to it. I'm also surprised that I'm the only one that used cynthia's feelings as I feel it is a strong draw in this kind of format.
 
Matijs said:
Hatter:
I really don't get this deck, you want to have the Stoutland lock asap but you still rely on Ampharos and Gardevoir? And when having the Stoutland lock you must have Vileplume in play as well, which shuts your deck down as well, you don't have enough draw power by powers or abilities to compensate this... You should at least have played Seeker to be able to play items for 1 turn and shut your opponent down again. I like the healing though, they need to OHKO you, otherwise they won't take a single prize (except by machamp of course). I think you could have focused more on the healing/lock, of course something could be prized but Machamp + town map/Alph lito is a solution for that:)
Deck: 8/10
Creativity: 4/5
Card use: 4/5
Total: 16/20

Eonic:
Yesss you play vileplume, seeker AND alph lito! But the wrong Stoutland... Would have been perfect if you played Stoutland from boundaries crossed. Very solid deck, many draw/search power. Love the Sceptile/meganium energy move engine combined with flygon's free retreat ability:) And the infinite heal combo of course! Seems not that original but actually it is! Great deck!
Deck: 8/10
Creativity: 5/5
Card use: 5/5
Total: 18/20
Click to expand...

For what it's worth, I completely agree with Matjis' assessment of the Hatter vs. Eonic matchup.
 
We all know what this voting will really come down to in the end. lol.

I would defend myself, however, it won't change anyones minds.


Other matchup:
RGym:
16/20

TFP:
17/20
 
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Psy, did you agree with JUST the assesment, or the score Matijs provided as well? If so, annotate it so I can factor that as a score.
 
Here's my opinions for the match between Rainbowgym and Time for Pain:

Rainbowgym's Score: 16/20

- Deck: 8/10
With 11 Pokemon, very easy to get what you need, I like it. A good amount of Supporters and Items that draw/search are used, looks nice overall. I feel like specific cards could have increased the consistency of the deck, but I'll review those cards in the Card Use section.
- Creativity: 5/5
Beautifly and Ampharos are made as the centerpiece of the deck, very well designed. I love the use of Hydreigon, too. While you misinterpreted the Basic Energy Rules, playing one of each Basic Energy made the deck what it was. Good job putting together a unique deck.
- Card Use: 3/5
Certain cards used in your deck (and cards that weren't used) just didn't make sense to me. Why not play Beedrill (Rising Rivals)? Why use Flygon, when it's difficult to power up and doesn't have synergy with your attackers? Why use Crobat over a card like Empoleon, that filters through the deck more and is a stronger attacker, especially in your deck? Other choices, such as the lack of Pokemon Catcher, and Town Map over Alph Lithograph I just didn't understand.

Time for Pain's Score: 15/20

-Deck: 7/10
While I realize what the goal of the deck is, it's simply way to difficult to achieve. The energy line does not accommodate the deck, adding to the inconsistency. Very little amounts of Item search cards doesn't help, either.
- Creativity: 4/5
I defiantly like the Pokemon choices here. although some Pokemon could be removed to focus more on the main concept. The idea of Gallade+Metagross with damage counter spread while healing off damage from your own Pokemon is an appealing idea.
- Card Use: 4/5
Honestly, the overlying reason for this score was the exclusion of Dusknoir (Boundaries Crossed). It fits absolutely perfect with the theme of the deck, and synergies incredibly well with over half your Pokemon line. I found that Dual Ball and Heavy Ball not being used was strange as well.
 
Vegeta ss4 said:
Psy, did you agree with JUST the assesment, or the score Matijs provided as well? If so, annotate it so I can factor that as a score.
Click to expand...

I think both players were tied in terms of deck and creativity. I just like Eonic's card use better. I would've given both an 8/10 for their deck, 4/5 for creativity, and Eonic an extra point (4/5 over 3/5) for card use.
 
So close, don't really like the tiebreak but oh well. Good Luck rainbowgym and thanks vegeta for putting this all together!
 
In my mind, if there were to be a tie. That was exactly what the tie breaker would be. Very good job, I will be contacting you later about prizes and such.
 
I am debating on the challenge currently with Cyrus.

This challenge may be the 1st of it's kind if it pans out. Basically it will be utilizing a fake card.
 
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