kirwin3180
Member
Its been one year since I missed grinding in San Diego and in a years time I’ve learned from my past mistakes and had a really tremendous year. Ever since they announced worlds 2010 would be in Hawaii I knew I had to do whatever it took to compete in the world tournament. Going into worlds I was happy I achieved my personal goal and finally had a chance to play against the worlds best. However my personal goals started to change as the day went on from “lets try and get a win today”, into thinking top cutting is very possible. I have a very deep belief in myself and how I play, so I try to carry my confidence proudly. Even though at the beginning stages I’m filled with doubt I still believe I could top what my predecessors had done. I wanted to be the first Canadian masters world champion, even though the dream faded on Sunday, I still accomplished something that got overshadowed in Jacobs incredible win. I made it the farthest out of any Canadian master ever. I am incredibly proud of Jacob for becoming the first Canadian world champion, way to go buddy, no other senior deserves it more than you. That’s the truth.
I have currently just arrived after a 13 hour flight, showered and unpacked all my stuff. While worlds is still fresh in my mind I think I might as well do my report and the journey that led to my performance.
I earned my invite through a 3rd place at my nationals. I had a room to stay in with Michael L. Matt K, Juan L and Kevin L.
The weeks leading up to worlds me and Matthew K were redsharking hard and we began experimenting with some red face powder ideas like empoleon platinum for a turn t2 judge into discarding cards chaining into a supreme command etc. but we couldn’t manage a consistent Luxchomp matchup. I began making a exeggutor LA deck. But all our red face powders couldn’t cover all bases.
we arrive on Thursday around 4:30 pm and I immediately practice with Juan for grinders. Juan settles with a plox list involving metagross LA. But im convinced the only way to play Plox is with healers because oh its ability to drasticly change to outcome of ANY game. I help Jit Min for a bit and call it a night. I wake up early and make kevins Grinders deck, while Matt makes late minute changes to Juans.
During grinders, neither Kevin nor Juan grind in while me and matt practice all day. I begin practicing with my nationals deck again and realize its only bad matchup still is cursegar. I fluxuate between the balance between having a good overall matchup versus everything or a great sp matchup. I ultimately decide id rather have a great sp matchup (which does save me through out most of the day) than a deck with decent matchups all around. While practicing I complelty forget about grinders and miss out on the results, no Canadian had any information so I didn’t know 2 cursegars grinded in. that factor might have persuaded me to add in the nidorina.
This is the deck I decided to use for worlds:
pokemon: 23
4 ralts
2 kirlia (tb)
3 gardevoir
1 gallade
1 gardevoir l.x
1 baltoy
1 claydol
1 unown q
1 giritna
1 azelf
1 azelf x
1 uxie
1 nidoran
1 nidoqueen
3 spiritombs
trainers: 27
3 bebe search
3 pokemon collector
2 rosannes research
2 judge
1 palmers contribution
1 pokemon communication
1 lucains
2 warp point
1 luxury ball
4 rare candy
4 pokehealer +
1 moonlight
2 expert belt
energy 10
4 double colourless
5 psychic
1 warp energy
looking back at the list now, I would have changed spiritomb into a nidorina and possibly the other spiritomb for a VS seeker.
now onto my report:
Round 1 – Joao Lopes (Portugal) DialgaChomp LCQ
im not sure why but I had some internal fear of scrubbing out and because I knew all my family and friends were constantly refreshing the page back home I wanted them to be happy about something. I was so nervous I couldn’t even shuffle my cards or draw. After I started to relax I saw that I was misplaying and fell into a deafen + galactics hq wall. He takes the first three prizes based on deafen locking. I respond with a gallade + judge and take three of my own prizes. He begins pressuring me with uxie but cant seem to get the lucario out. Once the gallade finally dies I psychic lock + telepass his lookers every turn for the last three prizes. Good game =)
1-0
Round 2 – Daniel Cohen (Germany) Kingdra Donphan Dusknoir
I remember helping him the day before when he approached me in the game room because he couldn’t decide which was better between machamp or donphan. The list he showed me the day before and the list he used the day of were completlty different which led to a lot of surprise plays on his part.
The nerves have seem to disapate so I begin playing comfortably again, I open with spiritomb, ralts and baltoy (my dream start) but he shatters my setup by suprising me with regice and getting the donphan rush out early. He constantly switchs out my tomb with regi move and im forced to sack 3-4 guys before I have my gardevoir and queen out which makes it impossible for him to 2-3 hit me now. Even though his field is threatening I time walk and learn where all my pokehealers are in my prizes so every time I kill something I can pretty much assure they will be fully healed on the following turn. by the time he starts abusing his warp points for cheap prizes I have a moonlight , two gardevoirs and a nidoqueen in play. Its 2-1 in prizes and I telepass his cynthias feelings leaving me with 4 cards in deck, I pick up my remaining healers and heal all damage off. He notices his early donphan rush left his bench susptable for constant bring downs so he deicdes to scoop. Good Game
2-0
Round 3 – Frank Diaz (US) cursegar + queen + noir LCQ
he opens fairly well and begins evolving, I make the mistake of loosing patience and take the first prize without any real guaranteed backup plan, we begin hitting each other but the difference in the match however was his ability to never break the lock and seeing as I play 2 kirlias, no bts and no nidorina this match went down hill faily fast. I tried to put up a fight but in the end I could over come the trainer wall and I lost. Good Game
2-1
I took a major confidence hit here and realize that there were 3-4 cursegars floating around in my next set of pairings.
Round 4 – Ross Cawthon (US) Plox
I recognize him immediately as the guy who had the epic sudden death match with yamato last year. I was expecting a long thought out precise game with him, but it proceeded to be a 6-0 game seeing as I opened with a great hand compared to his giritina start. He is forced to retreat the girintina and begins future sighting for a bit, I constantly pshyic lock vs. his teleportation burst but my azelf x + nidoqueen made it impossible for damage to stack on me. Once I hit the warp point on the kirilia the game was pretty much over and I bring down for the last prize. Im sorry Ross, I wish you got a better start. Nice meeting you regardless
3-1
Round 5 – Chris Fulop (US) Kingdra Machamp
We shake hands and begin to introduce each other and he makes a remark along the lines of “ah I see your Canadian, that must mean your playing Plox” ahah ! looks like my deck wouldn’t be a secret no matter who I played. We both open good and I let loose him t1 and he tells me his hand had 5 energies. The next turn I judge him again and he told me he had 4 energies this time. At this point I need to hold onto my last judge seeing as his set up of machamp and kingdras were getting substaniosuly bigger. I set up a gardevoir and pshyic lock his machamp for 90 with another gardevoir in my hand for a surprise play. He decides to level up and risk a hurricane punch, he flips 1 heads! So I take 90 damage. I set up the other gardevoir seeing as the surprise play is no longer needed. I pshyic lock for 2-3 more prizes as he mimics for 13. even in the 14 cards he drew dead so he brings back the chatot and mimics again for a greater amount. I thought I had the game won but I let it go as he does a nice play trapping my giritina active and spray splashing around it. He catchs up to make the prizes around 2-2, I send up gardevoir and attach a pshyic to my ralts and finally get a nidoqueen up. He risks the hurricane punch again and rolls 4 tails….. I just want to point out that he had incredibly bad luck this game but even with the bad luck I always kept a counter in my hand the bad rolls just sealed the game and I pokehealer to erase any left over kingdra damage. I pshyic lock for the last two prizes. Good Game Chris, was nice to meet you and you were a funny guy . it’s a shame those stupid rolls tainted our game.
4-1
Round 6 – Sho Sasaki (Japan) Luxchomp + regice + relicanth + dialga
I start with my spiritomb to his luxray, I go first and evolve my ralts, he goes second and plays collector for regice… ugh (another surprise regice play, was not expecting any). He collectors + sp radars for a bunch of stuff. I warp point and play rossanes for giritina and tomb to cancel out his regice. He draw passes for the next 3 or 4 turns and I use them to set up gardevoirs. I pshyic lock and once I let go of the trainer lock again he takes full advantage and begins taking constant prizes with garchomps and the game goes a lot closer than expected. He ended up playing all 4 DCE’s so im shocked an amazed he was able to pull it off, the prize count is at 2-2 and im forced to gallade his diagla which killed my gardevoirs. At this point I cant draw the expert belts or warp point for game. I palmers and put back gardevoir and pshyic energies back into the deck. He uses professor oaks new theory and plays relicanth and since I have moonlight and q in play he uses it to snipe my bench nidoran. At this point its 1-1 and if I cant find a way to kill the relicanth active or bench garchomp I loose because of his ability to snipe my spiritomb for game. I draw and its not the expert belt. So I use my 4th rare candy on a new gardevoir and telepass oaks new theory, in total my deck has 11 cards so if I bank the game on my chances. I draw one of the two the belts and pshyic cut the relicanth for the game.
very close game, the constant DCE’s one after the other helped you drastically. Good to know you became part of my cheering squad after you got eliminated too =)
5-1
Round 7 – Toni Taitto(Finland) Donphan + ERL
I start with two ralts and a Q to his lone phanpy. I attach and future sight giving myself a gardevoir next turn. he has a monster hand and gets two donphans and manetric t1 and begins a 3 prize assult. I notice one turn he uses pokemon communication and sent a legend piece in so I start to realize he uses the stark mountain to give himself thunderfalls at any given time. Because he was constantly earthquaking his manetric was down to 30 health. I decide to break the lock and bring down the manetric just incase he decided to do a surprise thunder fall he would end up loosing 3 prizes with doll and uxies. I get the queen out and I begin making an epic comeback. He gets enough energies on the field to begin heavy impacting. The prizes are down to 4-1 and he catchs me off guard by bringing up ERL and hitting me for 90 with its first attack. I rare candy into gallade , teleport then lucains for easy two prizes. Because he played judge fairly early in the game I think my abiltity to gallade + telepass them late game really hurt him. The prizes get down to 1-1 and he warp points I suspect he has the belt in hand so I have no choice but to bring up a fresh nidoqueen. He attachs belt and hits the queen for 80. I draw my card and he asks if I can retreat the nidoqueen. I play my moonlight and healers on the queen, retreat into the gardevoir level x, telepass his rossanes for the last pshyic energy and bring down a bench phanpy for the game. Suddenly I hear everyone cheering, I didn’t notice that our game attracted a large crowd of people. We were on table two so I figured once everyone finished there game between the two undefeateds they switched over to our game. It was an awesome game Toni, I really loved your deck.
6-1
at this point I’m very excited, I didn’t think after my slumps from last year in san diego I would be able to go 6-1 at worlds. I finish 7th seed and my phone started to blow up with texts from friends and family back home. Turns out I didn’t realize that I lost a bet I had with one of the PTO’s back home, I told him I wouldn’t wear a team Canada shirt till I advance to top 32. ugh I guess a promise is a promise so I run all the way back to my room change and get back just in time for my top 32 match.
Top 32 – Drew G (US) Garchomp + Noir + Luxray
Game 1: this was the first time I played the deck so I wasn’t really sure how to approach the matchup or what to really do. I begin thinking the defense approach is safest as I build kirilias on bench stacking energy on each one. Since my spiritomb is active he decides to evolve into gabite attach dce and begin sand tombing me. Once my damage was at 50 he would drop a crobat and kill another threat. Garchomps HP and attack damage really caught me off guard and I begin starting to miscalculate damage on my side of the board. At this point in the game he has two garchomps both with belts and the prizes are at 5-1. I decide the defensive approach is getting me no where so I decide to stack all energies on one of my pokemon and set up bring downs across his field since it wont bounce my energies. I decide to pshyic cut flipping most of my prizes to kill his garchomp. Once he promotes the other garchomp and attacks, I notice that his hand is at 3 cards so I teleport back in and lucains to give my gardevoir 5 energies, I belt the gardevoir and start pshyic locking + stacking energies onto the one gardevoir. Everytime he hits me for 80 I use my pokehealers and continue the lock. I kill his next garchomp now the prizes are at 1 – 1, next turn I have the warp point + teleportation for game.
After loosing the game, he is pretty furious and claims im not allowed to power shuffle my deck, I do it anyways and don’t let it deteriate me from whether or not I wanted to shift strategies.
going into game two I decide that the offensive strategy is much more effective.
game 2: I open with spiritomb to his ambipom and I begin to set up. He attachs dce and begins to ko pokemon, I feed him another tomb and set up my claydoll too. Because he never plays rosannes its hard for me to get to t2 lock on him. I figure his whole hand must be full of trainers since he drew passed twice, so I belt gardevoir, and judge his huge hand. He draws dead with the judge and after 3 pshyic locks later he finally gets a garchomp up but my gardevoir already has 5 energies on him. I set up another gardevoir and nidoqueen and physic lock takes care of his garchomp plus the remaing prizes.
good game Drew, 7-1
After the game it’s a bitter sweet feeling because I know Matthew got eliminated and told me his games weren’t even close. With that being said our lists were 2-3 cards different so I had to hope I wouldn’t get stuck playing whoever he lost too tomorrow (it turns out he lost to the guy who came second, I doubt I would have beat him solely based on the fact that he has a stage 1 in his stage 2 tech)
even with him eliminated im excited about playing tomorrow and I thought that if I could play SP decks over Michael P or Frank D I would be fine.
we go out to eat sushi with Gordon (who was also in top 16), and the rest of the Canadians, I go back to the room and pass out.
I woke up a little bit earlier so that I could shower / get breakfast, I head down and the brackets are up. Frank tells me were in an conjoined bracket so if I beat my DialgaChomp and he beats his SP, we would end up playing each other. Even though Frank is one of my friends, due to our swiss game I was kind of hoping the SP deck would knock him out for me.
Top 16 – Yee Wei Chun (MY) Dialgachomp
game 1: This is my best start of the day and as long as he cant deafen me I can have a gardevoir set up with gallade as backup. He opens with drifblim and passes. So I have the opening I need to set up both gardevoir and gallade, I decide to play it safe and see what he does on his following turn to see who I will attack with, I had the lucains in hand just incase. He plays collector for bronzing, dialga and chomp, he attachs to dialga and uses galactic switch to attach to garchomp and passes. Because he didn’t play a uxie or anything slightly threatening I decide to lucains and rush with gallade instead. I take 3 prizes before he sets up the uxie level x / crobat / lucario. I retaliate with gardevoir, and palmers the gallade and company back in my deck. Because he commited so much to reach for the uxie kill his bench was full of useless pokemon powers now. He cycles through garchomps and poketurns for some cheap prizes. By the time he starts aiming for gardevoir I have all 4 pokehealers in hand. After I play my first set he decides he cant win so he scoops game 1.
game 2: I open with azelf to his t2 deafen . I top deck a collector but he manages to get the garchomp on me so I cant properly build an attacker because of constant snipes. I decide to stack energies on giritina for a lucains gallade next turn. however he uses lookers and shuffles my hand back in. I draw a decent hand but by the time I start my comeback its 5-1 and he can garchomp for the last prize.
I should have swallowed my pride and accepted the loss earlier in game 2, it would have saved me some time in game 3
game 3: I start with giritina to his garchomp c, and he begins shoot all my kirlias and claydolls. This game was going identical to game 2 except for the fact that I was able to get a gardevoir out and thanks to some key telepass’ I was able to get out a gallade. I got my gallade attacking, so I got a little more comfortable, however I check my watch and I have around 10 minutes left with the prizes at 4-2 in his favour. He knows the time is ticking down so he begins to play slower than usual but the judge decides to give him a time warning. My turns literally become a minute each, and I decide that where the gallade could get me prizes which I need right now, i need to abandon that strategy to judge pshyic lock in hopes he has no more options therefore securing my game. I look over to Frank and Yamoto’s game and I notice its going to game 3 as well which would be good news to be if I could pull off the win. He decides to move up drifblim to take a hit. However I have both warp points in my hand so I keep warping the drifblim out to take prizes on the bench. The prizes are at 2-2 now and time is called on his turn. He puts his hand down and decides he cant take a prize this turn, I attach a psychic energy onto my belted gardevoir X and bring down his bronzong g for the game.
great game! 8-1
my friends all go nuts from the side lines seeing as there was almost no hope for me winning in that game 3 situation. They all congradulate me but then give me the bad news that the SP deck lost in game 3 because of an unown q start. To be the best you have to beat the best, so even though I didn’t want to have to play a cursegar I would have to beat it eventually if I wanted to win.
Top 8:
game 1: we begin talking about how our days been and how we were both excited to be up there when the judges tell us we were wasting time on the clock ahah =p woops. I open up with a ralts and no supporters just a pokemon communication that could hypothetically be my only out in the situation, however he starts with spiritomb and compleltly blocks my hand. I future sight and pull up a rossanes. He has an unbelievable start, because I am unable to lock him and he knows I play no dusknoir he has 2 claydolls, a dusknoir, and his cursegar, ready to continue his spiritomb wall. I cant overcome the wall yet again and I barely scavenge two prizes.
game 2: at this point my worlds dream is slowly dieing and my confidence is slowly shrinking, it shrinks even more when I start with my azelf to his spiritomb and learn that my azelf x is prized, this means I will have to either lock up trap a spiritomb or pshyic lock for the first prize and hope I get the azelf x. he gets another monster start and I decide I need to risk it with the lock. I take the first prize and it was the azelf x ! so I still had hope. I play it out going prize for prize with gardevoirs shifting between lucains. The prizes get down to 3-2 where I just cant afford to go hit for hit. And I don’t have enough resources to pull a gallade and KO the gengar if he decides to leave it up. My desperation move is to lock up his last spiritomb, but he attachs warp and rare candies into dusknoir sending all my hope back into my deck.
Good Game Frank ! nice meeting you =)
8-2..cursegar costed me a worlds trip twice now =(
I finished 6th which was a lot further than people gave me credit for, I only lost to one guy all tournament with a deck I knew I would have a tough time beating. It’s a shame I was so close to a trip to San Diego next year, but stuff happens and if its meant to be ill be playing in San Diego regardless.
I had a great run and I loved my deck, I noted some changes I would make above, but all in all I love the deck and best of all the reactions on peoples faces every time I played healers were priceless =D!
This worlds run would be meaningless if I didn’t have the people by my side to celebrate it with. Everyone who helped me, I cant express how grateful I am.
-Geneses, Matt, Juan and Bidier are the soul reasons I still play this game and this placing in the tournament wouldn’t be possible without you guys.
-Junior, Princess, Reed and Dakota and other eastern Canada players all offered help before the tournament so im really grateful you all decided to take time out of your days to even consider talking strategy with me.
-The western Canada players for helping me celebrate the top 8 after words in style
-and the PTO’s Paul and Marvin, you guys are awesome! You built the best pokemon community ever and you guys got me to keep playing even through the rough times.
Jacob is the man ! you definitely represented Canada better than me, but I hope people still take my accomplishment for what it was worth =)
Thanks for reading my report, hopefully ill see you guys in San Diego !
God Bless,
Curtis L
EDIT: http://s634.photobucket.com/albums/uu70/curtislyon91/Hawaii 2010/
here is a link to my hawaii album, if i played you - your pictures are there.
people who didnt go can see the tournament area and the resort in general
enjoy =)
I have currently just arrived after a 13 hour flight, showered and unpacked all my stuff. While worlds is still fresh in my mind I think I might as well do my report and the journey that led to my performance.
I earned my invite through a 3rd place at my nationals. I had a room to stay in with Michael L. Matt K, Juan L and Kevin L.
The weeks leading up to worlds me and Matthew K were redsharking hard and we began experimenting with some red face powder ideas like empoleon platinum for a turn t2 judge into discarding cards chaining into a supreme command etc. but we couldn’t manage a consistent Luxchomp matchup. I began making a exeggutor LA deck. But all our red face powders couldn’t cover all bases.
we arrive on Thursday around 4:30 pm and I immediately practice with Juan for grinders. Juan settles with a plox list involving metagross LA. But im convinced the only way to play Plox is with healers because oh its ability to drasticly change to outcome of ANY game. I help Jit Min for a bit and call it a night. I wake up early and make kevins Grinders deck, while Matt makes late minute changes to Juans.
During grinders, neither Kevin nor Juan grind in while me and matt practice all day. I begin practicing with my nationals deck again and realize its only bad matchup still is cursegar. I fluxuate between the balance between having a good overall matchup versus everything or a great sp matchup. I ultimately decide id rather have a great sp matchup (which does save me through out most of the day) than a deck with decent matchups all around. While practicing I complelty forget about grinders and miss out on the results, no Canadian had any information so I didn’t know 2 cursegars grinded in. that factor might have persuaded me to add in the nidorina.
This is the deck I decided to use for worlds:
pokemon: 23
4 ralts
2 kirlia (tb)
3 gardevoir
1 gallade
1 gardevoir l.x
1 baltoy
1 claydol
1 unown q
1 giritna
1 azelf
1 azelf x
1 uxie
1 nidoran
1 nidoqueen
3 spiritombs
trainers: 27
3 bebe search
3 pokemon collector
2 rosannes research
2 judge
1 palmers contribution
1 pokemon communication
1 lucains
2 warp point
1 luxury ball
4 rare candy
4 pokehealer +
1 moonlight
2 expert belt
energy 10
4 double colourless
5 psychic
1 warp energy
looking back at the list now, I would have changed spiritomb into a nidorina and possibly the other spiritomb for a VS seeker.
now onto my report:
Round 1 – Joao Lopes (Portugal) DialgaChomp LCQ
im not sure why but I had some internal fear of scrubbing out and because I knew all my family and friends were constantly refreshing the page back home I wanted them to be happy about something. I was so nervous I couldn’t even shuffle my cards or draw. After I started to relax I saw that I was misplaying and fell into a deafen + galactics hq wall. He takes the first three prizes based on deafen locking. I respond with a gallade + judge and take three of my own prizes. He begins pressuring me with uxie but cant seem to get the lucario out. Once the gallade finally dies I psychic lock + telepass his lookers every turn for the last three prizes. Good game =)
1-0
Round 2 – Daniel Cohen (Germany) Kingdra Donphan Dusknoir
I remember helping him the day before when he approached me in the game room because he couldn’t decide which was better between machamp or donphan. The list he showed me the day before and the list he used the day of were completlty different which led to a lot of surprise plays on his part.
The nerves have seem to disapate so I begin playing comfortably again, I open with spiritomb, ralts and baltoy (my dream start) but he shatters my setup by suprising me with regice and getting the donphan rush out early. He constantly switchs out my tomb with regi move and im forced to sack 3-4 guys before I have my gardevoir and queen out which makes it impossible for him to 2-3 hit me now. Even though his field is threatening I time walk and learn where all my pokehealers are in my prizes so every time I kill something I can pretty much assure they will be fully healed on the following turn. by the time he starts abusing his warp points for cheap prizes I have a moonlight , two gardevoirs and a nidoqueen in play. Its 2-1 in prizes and I telepass his cynthias feelings leaving me with 4 cards in deck, I pick up my remaining healers and heal all damage off. He notices his early donphan rush left his bench susptable for constant bring downs so he deicdes to scoop. Good Game
2-0
Round 3 – Frank Diaz (US) cursegar + queen + noir LCQ
he opens fairly well and begins evolving, I make the mistake of loosing patience and take the first prize without any real guaranteed backup plan, we begin hitting each other but the difference in the match however was his ability to never break the lock and seeing as I play 2 kirlias, no bts and no nidorina this match went down hill faily fast. I tried to put up a fight but in the end I could over come the trainer wall and I lost. Good Game
2-1
I took a major confidence hit here and realize that there were 3-4 cursegars floating around in my next set of pairings.
Round 4 – Ross Cawthon (US) Plox
I recognize him immediately as the guy who had the epic sudden death match with yamato last year. I was expecting a long thought out precise game with him, but it proceeded to be a 6-0 game seeing as I opened with a great hand compared to his giritina start. He is forced to retreat the girintina and begins future sighting for a bit, I constantly pshyic lock vs. his teleportation burst but my azelf x + nidoqueen made it impossible for damage to stack on me. Once I hit the warp point on the kirilia the game was pretty much over and I bring down for the last prize. Im sorry Ross, I wish you got a better start. Nice meeting you regardless
3-1
Round 5 – Chris Fulop (US) Kingdra Machamp
We shake hands and begin to introduce each other and he makes a remark along the lines of “ah I see your Canadian, that must mean your playing Plox” ahah ! looks like my deck wouldn’t be a secret no matter who I played. We both open good and I let loose him t1 and he tells me his hand had 5 energies. The next turn I judge him again and he told me he had 4 energies this time. At this point I need to hold onto my last judge seeing as his set up of machamp and kingdras were getting substaniosuly bigger. I set up a gardevoir and pshyic lock his machamp for 90 with another gardevoir in my hand for a surprise play. He decides to level up and risk a hurricane punch, he flips 1 heads! So I take 90 damage. I set up the other gardevoir seeing as the surprise play is no longer needed. I pshyic lock for 2-3 more prizes as he mimics for 13. even in the 14 cards he drew dead so he brings back the chatot and mimics again for a greater amount. I thought I had the game won but I let it go as he does a nice play trapping my giritina active and spray splashing around it. He catchs up to make the prizes around 2-2, I send up gardevoir and attach a pshyic to my ralts and finally get a nidoqueen up. He risks the hurricane punch again and rolls 4 tails….. I just want to point out that he had incredibly bad luck this game but even with the bad luck I always kept a counter in my hand the bad rolls just sealed the game and I pokehealer to erase any left over kingdra damage. I pshyic lock for the last two prizes. Good Game Chris, was nice to meet you and you were a funny guy . it’s a shame those stupid rolls tainted our game.
4-1
Round 6 – Sho Sasaki (Japan) Luxchomp + regice + relicanth + dialga
I start with my spiritomb to his luxray, I go first and evolve my ralts, he goes second and plays collector for regice… ugh (another surprise regice play, was not expecting any). He collectors + sp radars for a bunch of stuff. I warp point and play rossanes for giritina and tomb to cancel out his regice. He draw passes for the next 3 or 4 turns and I use them to set up gardevoirs. I pshyic lock and once I let go of the trainer lock again he takes full advantage and begins taking constant prizes with garchomps and the game goes a lot closer than expected. He ended up playing all 4 DCE’s so im shocked an amazed he was able to pull it off, the prize count is at 2-2 and im forced to gallade his diagla which killed my gardevoirs. At this point I cant draw the expert belts or warp point for game. I palmers and put back gardevoir and pshyic energies back into the deck. He uses professor oaks new theory and plays relicanth and since I have moonlight and q in play he uses it to snipe my bench nidoran. At this point its 1-1 and if I cant find a way to kill the relicanth active or bench garchomp I loose because of his ability to snipe my spiritomb for game. I draw and its not the expert belt. So I use my 4th rare candy on a new gardevoir and telepass oaks new theory, in total my deck has 11 cards so if I bank the game on my chances. I draw one of the two the belts and pshyic cut the relicanth for the game.
very close game, the constant DCE’s one after the other helped you drastically. Good to know you became part of my cheering squad after you got eliminated too =)
5-1
Round 7 – Toni Taitto(Finland) Donphan + ERL
I start with two ralts and a Q to his lone phanpy. I attach and future sight giving myself a gardevoir next turn. he has a monster hand and gets two donphans and manetric t1 and begins a 3 prize assult. I notice one turn he uses pokemon communication and sent a legend piece in so I start to realize he uses the stark mountain to give himself thunderfalls at any given time. Because he was constantly earthquaking his manetric was down to 30 health. I decide to break the lock and bring down the manetric just incase he decided to do a surprise thunder fall he would end up loosing 3 prizes with doll and uxies. I get the queen out and I begin making an epic comeback. He gets enough energies on the field to begin heavy impacting. The prizes are down to 4-1 and he catchs me off guard by bringing up ERL and hitting me for 90 with its first attack. I rare candy into gallade , teleport then lucains for easy two prizes. Because he played judge fairly early in the game I think my abiltity to gallade + telepass them late game really hurt him. The prizes get down to 1-1 and he warp points I suspect he has the belt in hand so I have no choice but to bring up a fresh nidoqueen. He attachs belt and hits the queen for 80. I draw my card and he asks if I can retreat the nidoqueen. I play my moonlight and healers on the queen, retreat into the gardevoir level x, telepass his rossanes for the last pshyic energy and bring down a bench phanpy for the game. Suddenly I hear everyone cheering, I didn’t notice that our game attracted a large crowd of people. We were on table two so I figured once everyone finished there game between the two undefeateds they switched over to our game. It was an awesome game Toni, I really loved your deck.
6-1
at this point I’m very excited, I didn’t think after my slumps from last year in san diego I would be able to go 6-1 at worlds. I finish 7th seed and my phone started to blow up with texts from friends and family back home. Turns out I didn’t realize that I lost a bet I had with one of the PTO’s back home, I told him I wouldn’t wear a team Canada shirt till I advance to top 32. ugh I guess a promise is a promise so I run all the way back to my room change and get back just in time for my top 32 match.
Top 32 – Drew G (US) Garchomp + Noir + Luxray
Game 1: this was the first time I played the deck so I wasn’t really sure how to approach the matchup or what to really do. I begin thinking the defense approach is safest as I build kirilias on bench stacking energy on each one. Since my spiritomb is active he decides to evolve into gabite attach dce and begin sand tombing me. Once my damage was at 50 he would drop a crobat and kill another threat. Garchomps HP and attack damage really caught me off guard and I begin starting to miscalculate damage on my side of the board. At this point in the game he has two garchomps both with belts and the prizes are at 5-1. I decide the defensive approach is getting me no where so I decide to stack all energies on one of my pokemon and set up bring downs across his field since it wont bounce my energies. I decide to pshyic cut flipping most of my prizes to kill his garchomp. Once he promotes the other garchomp and attacks, I notice that his hand is at 3 cards so I teleport back in and lucains to give my gardevoir 5 energies, I belt the gardevoir and start pshyic locking + stacking energies onto the one gardevoir. Everytime he hits me for 80 I use my pokehealers and continue the lock. I kill his next garchomp now the prizes are at 1 – 1, next turn I have the warp point + teleportation for game.
After loosing the game, he is pretty furious and claims im not allowed to power shuffle my deck, I do it anyways and don’t let it deteriate me from whether or not I wanted to shift strategies.
going into game two I decide that the offensive strategy is much more effective.
game 2: I open with spiritomb to his ambipom and I begin to set up. He attachs dce and begins to ko pokemon, I feed him another tomb and set up my claydoll too. Because he never plays rosannes its hard for me to get to t2 lock on him. I figure his whole hand must be full of trainers since he drew passed twice, so I belt gardevoir, and judge his huge hand. He draws dead with the judge and after 3 pshyic locks later he finally gets a garchomp up but my gardevoir already has 5 energies on him. I set up another gardevoir and nidoqueen and physic lock takes care of his garchomp plus the remaing prizes.
good game Drew, 7-1
After the game it’s a bitter sweet feeling because I know Matthew got eliminated and told me his games weren’t even close. With that being said our lists were 2-3 cards different so I had to hope I wouldn’t get stuck playing whoever he lost too tomorrow (it turns out he lost to the guy who came second, I doubt I would have beat him solely based on the fact that he has a stage 1 in his stage 2 tech)
even with him eliminated im excited about playing tomorrow and I thought that if I could play SP decks over Michael P or Frank D I would be fine.
we go out to eat sushi with Gordon (who was also in top 16), and the rest of the Canadians, I go back to the room and pass out.
I woke up a little bit earlier so that I could shower / get breakfast, I head down and the brackets are up. Frank tells me were in an conjoined bracket so if I beat my DialgaChomp and he beats his SP, we would end up playing each other. Even though Frank is one of my friends, due to our swiss game I was kind of hoping the SP deck would knock him out for me.
Top 16 – Yee Wei Chun (MY) Dialgachomp
game 1: This is my best start of the day and as long as he cant deafen me I can have a gardevoir set up with gallade as backup. He opens with drifblim and passes. So I have the opening I need to set up both gardevoir and gallade, I decide to play it safe and see what he does on his following turn to see who I will attack with, I had the lucains in hand just incase. He plays collector for bronzing, dialga and chomp, he attachs to dialga and uses galactic switch to attach to garchomp and passes. Because he didn’t play a uxie or anything slightly threatening I decide to lucains and rush with gallade instead. I take 3 prizes before he sets up the uxie level x / crobat / lucario. I retaliate with gardevoir, and palmers the gallade and company back in my deck. Because he commited so much to reach for the uxie kill his bench was full of useless pokemon powers now. He cycles through garchomps and poketurns for some cheap prizes. By the time he starts aiming for gardevoir I have all 4 pokehealers in hand. After I play my first set he decides he cant win so he scoops game 1.
game 2: I open with azelf to his t2 deafen . I top deck a collector but he manages to get the garchomp on me so I cant properly build an attacker because of constant snipes. I decide to stack energies on giritina for a lucains gallade next turn. however he uses lookers and shuffles my hand back in. I draw a decent hand but by the time I start my comeback its 5-1 and he can garchomp for the last prize.
I should have swallowed my pride and accepted the loss earlier in game 2, it would have saved me some time in game 3
game 3: I start with giritina to his garchomp c, and he begins shoot all my kirlias and claydolls. This game was going identical to game 2 except for the fact that I was able to get a gardevoir out and thanks to some key telepass’ I was able to get out a gallade. I got my gallade attacking, so I got a little more comfortable, however I check my watch and I have around 10 minutes left with the prizes at 4-2 in his favour. He knows the time is ticking down so he begins to play slower than usual but the judge decides to give him a time warning. My turns literally become a minute each, and I decide that where the gallade could get me prizes which I need right now, i need to abandon that strategy to judge pshyic lock in hopes he has no more options therefore securing my game. I look over to Frank and Yamoto’s game and I notice its going to game 3 as well which would be good news to be if I could pull off the win. He decides to move up drifblim to take a hit. However I have both warp points in my hand so I keep warping the drifblim out to take prizes on the bench. The prizes are at 2-2 now and time is called on his turn. He puts his hand down and decides he cant take a prize this turn, I attach a psychic energy onto my belted gardevoir X and bring down his bronzong g for the game.
great game! 8-1
my friends all go nuts from the side lines seeing as there was almost no hope for me winning in that game 3 situation. They all congradulate me but then give me the bad news that the SP deck lost in game 3 because of an unown q start. To be the best you have to beat the best, so even though I didn’t want to have to play a cursegar I would have to beat it eventually if I wanted to win.
Top 8:
game 1: we begin talking about how our days been and how we were both excited to be up there when the judges tell us we were wasting time on the clock ahah =p woops. I open up with a ralts and no supporters just a pokemon communication that could hypothetically be my only out in the situation, however he starts with spiritomb and compleltly blocks my hand. I future sight and pull up a rossanes. He has an unbelievable start, because I am unable to lock him and he knows I play no dusknoir he has 2 claydolls, a dusknoir, and his cursegar, ready to continue his spiritomb wall. I cant overcome the wall yet again and I barely scavenge two prizes.
game 2: at this point my worlds dream is slowly dieing and my confidence is slowly shrinking, it shrinks even more when I start with my azelf to his spiritomb and learn that my azelf x is prized, this means I will have to either lock up trap a spiritomb or pshyic lock for the first prize and hope I get the azelf x. he gets another monster start and I decide I need to risk it with the lock. I take the first prize and it was the azelf x ! so I still had hope. I play it out going prize for prize with gardevoirs shifting between lucains. The prizes get down to 3-2 where I just cant afford to go hit for hit. And I don’t have enough resources to pull a gallade and KO the gengar if he decides to leave it up. My desperation move is to lock up his last spiritomb, but he attachs warp and rare candies into dusknoir sending all my hope back into my deck.
Good Game Frank ! nice meeting you =)
8-2..cursegar costed me a worlds trip twice now =(
I finished 6th which was a lot further than people gave me credit for, I only lost to one guy all tournament with a deck I knew I would have a tough time beating. It’s a shame I was so close to a trip to San Diego next year, but stuff happens and if its meant to be ill be playing in San Diego regardless.
I had a great run and I loved my deck, I noted some changes I would make above, but all in all I love the deck and best of all the reactions on peoples faces every time I played healers were priceless =D!
This worlds run would be meaningless if I didn’t have the people by my side to celebrate it with. Everyone who helped me, I cant express how grateful I am.
-Geneses, Matt, Juan and Bidier are the soul reasons I still play this game and this placing in the tournament wouldn’t be possible without you guys.
-Junior, Princess, Reed and Dakota and other eastern Canada players all offered help before the tournament so im really grateful you all decided to take time out of your days to even consider talking strategy with me.
-The western Canada players for helping me celebrate the top 8 after words in style
-and the PTO’s Paul and Marvin, you guys are awesome! You built the best pokemon community ever and you guys got me to keep playing even through the rough times.
Jacob is the man ! you definitely represented Canada better than me, but I hope people still take my accomplishment for what it was worth =)
Thanks for reading my report, hopefully ill see you guys in San Diego !
God Bless,
Curtis L
EDIT: http://s634.photobucket.com/albums/uu70/curtislyon91/Hawaii 2010/
here is a link to my hawaii album, if i played you - your pictures are there.
people who didnt go can see the tournament area and the resort in general
enjoy =)
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