MrScaryMuffin
New Member
This report is dedicated to Simon, a super league leader and all-around awesome guy. Apparently these tournament reports have become somewhat of an addiction and, due to my recent inactivity, he has been suffering from withdrawal. I have been away from the competitive scene due to the fact that I have been taking turns with our usual judge in officiating events and have also been practicing my netrunning for the upcoming regionals. Sorry to make you suddenly go cold turkey like that Simon! I hope this is exactly what the doctor ordered!
What to Play?
I have been pretty much stuck on Blastoise for the past while for several reasons. Overall, I enjoy set up decks and Blastoise reminded me of the good ol’ days with Rain Dance in base set. I didn’t have the cards for Team Plasma, but I did have the option of running Darkrai/Absol/Hammers. However, I was concerned with the recent interest everyone had with quad Snorlax and Accelgor/Gothitelle at the local leagues. I knew at least several solid players were going to pilot lock decks and I knew that Blastoise had a near auto-win against them.
From testing, I knew that the match up against Team Plasma was around 40-60 for my list. Klinklang was a near auto-loss but I wasn’t expecting many Klinklangs with the threat of lock decks everywhere so I decided to go with consistency instead of teching against the poor match up. The match up against all other archetypes was manageable, making Blastoise an overall solid choice in my mind.
Recently, I bought a couple of Black Kyurem EX singles to go with the one I already had. With the release of Superior Energy Retrieval, I really wanted to try out Black Ballista, which I pronounced “Black Barrista” (dubbing the deck “Ethnic Coffee Maker”). Speaking with Mark Hanson, he suggested that a thicker line of Keldeo and Mewtwo would’ve been a stronger play, but I really wanted to see for myself how well I could make coffee against the field. Running three Keldeo instead of two would definitely improve the match up against lock decks and the three Mewtwo would help against Team Plasma. However, the match up against Black Barrista would be very difficult and I suspected that I was more likely to face mirror than anything else.
The other thing that Mark mentioned was the use of Exeggcute to make Superior Energy Retrieval less costly. Ultimately, I decided against the tech, seeing how I ran only 9 basics anyways. I didn’t want to add another donkable basic to the deck. Instead, I went with 3 SER and single energy retrieval. I was also lacking a third Beach and fourth Blastoise from my collection but replaced them with Pokemon Center and Super Rod and considered them fairly interchangeable, especially since my Ace was Dowsing Machine. I suppose the last interesting consideration for the deck was the Float Stones. I had originally ran two energy retrievals but decided that Float Stones had better value. I made room for a second Float Stone with the intention of never playing down both at the same time.
Round 1 vs. Tony (Blastoise)
Tony is very strong player with several tournament wins and many more solid finishes than I could boast. I wasn’t sure what he was playing since I don’t visit his local league often. I assumed he was going to be playing Team Plasma when I sat down since he tended to be fairly competitive. After I mulligan’d 2-3 times, I nervously started lone Squirtle. Thankfully, I went first and, even more thankfully, he turned over double Squirtle and Keldeo. With the threat of the donk gone, I used Skyla for Beach and began to set up a single Blastoise.
Tony was hurting for supporters early on in the game. He mentioned that he needed me to mulligan some more so that he could draw into a supporter. Nonetheless, the managed to get semi-set up with a Blastoise and 2HKO my Blastoise with his 3 energy Keldeo.
I had a Squirtle and Black Kyurem benched at that point and a solid hand. I quickly replied with a second Blastoise and Beached into gold. I catchered his lone Black Kyurem and did 400 coffee units worth of damage to it with Black Barrista and had a second Black Kyurem ready. From there, I swept the field easily and Tony couldn’t recover.
1-0
Round 2 vs. Dana (Lucario/Landorus/Garbador)
Dana is a super experienced player. He has attended Worlds events and grinded into the main event at least once. Technically, he is a pokedad, but he son has grown up and joined the Masters league and rarely plays. I hadn’t seen Dana in a long time, due to conflicting schedules and such, but we got to chat a bit before the tournament started. I knew that he had been playing a lot on PTCGO and he built a rogue deck to counter the meta he saw there and said it worked pretty well. All I knew coming into the game was that he was playing a fighting type deck.
What I wasn’t prepared for was Garbador. Dana’s Landorus took out my first Squirtle and I had to manually attach to a Keldeo while accepting lasers. Unfortunately, my second Keldeo was prized. I did get a Blastoise set up but he got his Garbador up first and benched a Trubbish for good measure.
I had several opportunities to get out of the lock. At one point I had the option to OHKO the Landorus or the Garbador and chose to go with the Landorus first since my Keldeo was going to get return KO’d and I wasn’t sure if I would get my second Keldeo from the prizes and be able to KO the Landorus later on. At another point in the game, I Beach’d into Skyla, SER, Ultra Ball and other goodies but Dana played a Ghetsis and prevented me from searching Tool Scrapper with Skyla and then using SER immediately for good effect. Instead, I had to Skyla for the Tool Scrapper and wait a turn so that I could Scrap and then play a draw supporter and hope to get stuff. However, Dana N’d me immediately (as he should) and I never saw the Tool Scrapper again.
Before I could get another chance, Dana had already set up three Lucarios, which was enough for the last three prizes he needed even though I was attacking with only my Blastoises. These guys hit surprisingly hard and Landorus sets up the KO with the 30 snipe fairly well. Overall, it was a great match and I enjoyed seeing Dana’s rogue in action. Dana ended up taking third place with a 5-1 record. Notably, he managed to dodge his bad match up (Team Plasma) the whole day. I believe he faced Quad Snorlax, Darkrai, two Blastoise (including mine), Rayeels, and something else.
1-1
Round 3 vs. Michelle (Klinklang)
Michelle is a Pokemom that I have seen around at tournaments in the past. I don’t believe we’ve played against each other before, especially since we don’t go to the same league. For once in a game, my opponent mulligan’d more than I did. However, I caught a glimpse of a Plasma Klinklang in one of the failed hands and despaired since Klinklang was a near auto-loss for myself.
I got to go first and got a Blastoise set up fairly quickly and Beach’d for cards. I wanted to use Keldeo or Black Kyurem’s first attack to quickly take out Klinks before they could evolve, but Michelle got two Klinks down on the first turn and I whiffed on energies for two more turns after that.
Fortunately for me, Michelle was a bit inexperienced and didn’t know the match up well. I had catchered her Stage 1 Klang and failed to KO it when I drew no energies off a draw supporter. This gave her a turn to get Plasma Klinklang and, when she played Skyla, I thought she was going to Heavy Ball into it. Instead, she got a Rare Candy and evolved her benched Klink into a Shift Gear Klinklang. I was pretty sure she ran Plasma Klinklang when she showed me her hand earlier when she mulliganed, but I didn’t want to complain. I promptly found the energies I needed and never let a Klink stay on the field again. Black Kyurem took care of the rest. Sorry Michelle!
2-1
Round 4 vs. Daniel (Team Plamsa)
Inbetween rounds I went to grab food for my wife, who was judging the Juniors division. While I was paying, she called me to tell me that the pairings had gone up and I had to run back to the venue. Needless to say, I didn’t pile shuffle and that may or may not have costed me the match.
I started Black Kyurem and benched a lone Squirtle before using Beach, but Daniel got a very strong start and got 3 Deoxys, a Keldeo with Float Stone, and a Kyurem down on his bench and Raiden Knuckled with Thunderus to put a Prism on Kyurem and OHKO the Squirtle. However, I noted that he had only one card in hand, which was what he got off his prize. I took the gamble and got another Squirtle, but Daniel managed to topdeck into another catcher and KO the second Squirtle. After that, it was my game to lose as my last two Squirtles AND super rod was prized
I had no chance to set up and got rolled.
2-2
Round 5 vs. Phil (Darkrai)
Phil is another Pokedad who is a strong player. His kids were in the Junior and Seniors division and were excellent players, having good finishes in previous tournaments, including the recent Regionals. Typically, Phil ended up playing whatever leftover deck he could build, but today he had a fairly competitive deck in Darkrai.
Phil had a solid start with three Darkrais on the field and two dark energies in the discard, but I got set up even faster, forcing Phil to use the more energy efficient Absol to attack instead. Burning all three of my Superior Energy Retrievals, I set up a Keldeo with three energies, a Black Kyurem, and got two more energies down on a second Black Kyurem. The Keldeo took care of Absol and Sableye before Darkrai KO’d it. Black Kyurem delivered the return KO and Phil played Colress, hoping that I did not have any way to fish energies for the final Black Barrista.
He counted the three SER in the discard and wondered aloud if I ran three or four. I told him plainly that I ran three and a regular retrieval. What I didn’t tell him was that I also ran Dowsing Machine, which combined with the four cards I got from the prizes, was enough to get the energies I needed for game. Better luck next time Phil!
3-2
Round 6 vs. Andrew (Rayeels)
Andrew is effectively the league leader from yet another BC league (there are 4-5 in total). We both knew that there were no prizes or points to be won from the game and he offered to Rock Paper Scissor to determine the outcome of the game and I obliged, winning immediately with Rock (always play Rock). Naturally, my wife saw and told us to play out the match anyways
I get set up quickly and was forced to Black Barrista on Emolga when I whiffed catcher. However, it was quick enough that Drew still didn’t have enough energies in the discard despite having 2 Eels set up already with a third on the way. There was a slight stadium war during the first few turns as he tried to bump my Beach with Skyarrow. However, I Dowsed for the Beach before Junipering to take a commanding lead in the stadium war. It also helped that he second Bridge was prized.
I got deliver 400 metric tonnes of coffee to a Ray before he could return KO with another Ray. After I took out the second Ray, he benched a third and N’d me down to one card. Up until this point, I had not played a single catcher and Andrew joked that I would probably get one off the one card N. I had a three energy Keldeo on the bench ready for when he KO’s my Black Kyurem and could take my pick of any three Eels on his bench. I jokingly said, albeit with a straight face, that I was more likely to grab a Colress. I showed him my one card. It was a Colress.
Needless to say, I Colress’d for 8 cards and drew everything I need, including two Catchers and two Superior Energy Retrievals.
4-2
My final standing was 14th. I was about 2% short in the first resistance tiebreaker from the top ten. Overall, I felt the deck did well in the tournament. Mel also played Blastoise and got 9th, he was the second Blastoise that Dana beat on his way to third place with his rogue. For the next BRs, I’m not sure what I’m going to play. Quad Snorlax and Goth/Accelgor did poorly in the tournament and I’m sure that most of the solid players that were piloting the deck will run something more standard, which will change the meta somewhat. We’ll see what happens in two weeks, I have to prepare for Netrunner this weekend first
What to Play?
I have been pretty much stuck on Blastoise for the past while for several reasons. Overall, I enjoy set up decks and Blastoise reminded me of the good ol’ days with Rain Dance in base set. I didn’t have the cards for Team Plasma, but I did have the option of running Darkrai/Absol/Hammers. However, I was concerned with the recent interest everyone had with quad Snorlax and Accelgor/Gothitelle at the local leagues. I knew at least several solid players were going to pilot lock decks and I knew that Blastoise had a near auto-win against them.
From testing, I knew that the match up against Team Plasma was around 40-60 for my list. Klinklang was a near auto-loss but I wasn’t expecting many Klinklangs with the threat of lock decks everywhere so I decided to go with consistency instead of teching against the poor match up. The match up against all other archetypes was manageable, making Blastoise an overall solid choice in my mind.
Recently, I bought a couple of Black Kyurem EX singles to go with the one I already had. With the release of Superior Energy Retrieval, I really wanted to try out Black Ballista, which I pronounced “Black Barrista” (dubbing the deck “Ethnic Coffee Maker”). Speaking with Mark Hanson, he suggested that a thicker line of Keldeo and Mewtwo would’ve been a stronger play, but I really wanted to see for myself how well I could make coffee against the field. Running three Keldeo instead of two would definitely improve the match up against lock decks and the three Mewtwo would help against Team Plasma. However, the match up against Black Barrista would be very difficult and I suspected that I was more likely to face mirror than anything else.
The other thing that Mark mentioned was the use of Exeggcute to make Superior Energy Retrieval less costly. Ultimately, I decided against the tech, seeing how I ran only 9 basics anyways. I didn’t want to add another donkable basic to the deck. Instead, I went with 3 SER and single energy retrieval. I was also lacking a third Beach and fourth Blastoise from my collection but replaced them with Pokemon Center and Super Rod and considered them fairly interchangeable, especially since my Ace was Dowsing Machine. I suppose the last interesting consideration for the deck was the Float Stones. I had originally ran two energy retrievals but decided that Float Stones had better value. I made room for a second Float Stone with the intention of never playing down both at the same time.
Round 1 vs. Tony (Blastoise)
Tony is very strong player with several tournament wins and many more solid finishes than I could boast. I wasn’t sure what he was playing since I don’t visit his local league often. I assumed he was going to be playing Team Plasma when I sat down since he tended to be fairly competitive. After I mulligan’d 2-3 times, I nervously started lone Squirtle. Thankfully, I went first and, even more thankfully, he turned over double Squirtle and Keldeo. With the threat of the donk gone, I used Skyla for Beach and began to set up a single Blastoise.
Tony was hurting for supporters early on in the game. He mentioned that he needed me to mulligan some more so that he could draw into a supporter. Nonetheless, the managed to get semi-set up with a Blastoise and 2HKO my Blastoise with his 3 energy Keldeo.
I had a Squirtle and Black Kyurem benched at that point and a solid hand. I quickly replied with a second Blastoise and Beached into gold. I catchered his lone Black Kyurem and did 400 coffee units worth of damage to it with Black Barrista and had a second Black Kyurem ready. From there, I swept the field easily and Tony couldn’t recover.
1-0
Round 2 vs. Dana (Lucario/Landorus/Garbador)
Dana is a super experienced player. He has attended Worlds events and grinded into the main event at least once. Technically, he is a pokedad, but he son has grown up and joined the Masters league and rarely plays. I hadn’t seen Dana in a long time, due to conflicting schedules and such, but we got to chat a bit before the tournament started. I knew that he had been playing a lot on PTCGO and he built a rogue deck to counter the meta he saw there and said it worked pretty well. All I knew coming into the game was that he was playing a fighting type deck.
What I wasn’t prepared for was Garbador. Dana’s Landorus took out my first Squirtle and I had to manually attach to a Keldeo while accepting lasers. Unfortunately, my second Keldeo was prized. I did get a Blastoise set up but he got his Garbador up first and benched a Trubbish for good measure.
I had several opportunities to get out of the lock. At one point I had the option to OHKO the Landorus or the Garbador and chose to go with the Landorus first since my Keldeo was going to get return KO’d and I wasn’t sure if I would get my second Keldeo from the prizes and be able to KO the Landorus later on. At another point in the game, I Beach’d into Skyla, SER, Ultra Ball and other goodies but Dana played a Ghetsis and prevented me from searching Tool Scrapper with Skyla and then using SER immediately for good effect. Instead, I had to Skyla for the Tool Scrapper and wait a turn so that I could Scrap and then play a draw supporter and hope to get stuff. However, Dana N’d me immediately (as he should) and I never saw the Tool Scrapper again.
Before I could get another chance, Dana had already set up three Lucarios, which was enough for the last three prizes he needed even though I was attacking with only my Blastoises. These guys hit surprisingly hard and Landorus sets up the KO with the 30 snipe fairly well. Overall, it was a great match and I enjoyed seeing Dana’s rogue in action. Dana ended up taking third place with a 5-1 record. Notably, he managed to dodge his bad match up (Team Plasma) the whole day. I believe he faced Quad Snorlax, Darkrai, two Blastoise (including mine), Rayeels, and something else.
1-1
Round 3 vs. Michelle (Klinklang)
Michelle is a Pokemom that I have seen around at tournaments in the past. I don’t believe we’ve played against each other before, especially since we don’t go to the same league. For once in a game, my opponent mulligan’d more than I did. However, I caught a glimpse of a Plasma Klinklang in one of the failed hands and despaired since Klinklang was a near auto-loss for myself.
I got to go first and got a Blastoise set up fairly quickly and Beach’d for cards. I wanted to use Keldeo or Black Kyurem’s first attack to quickly take out Klinks before they could evolve, but Michelle got two Klinks down on the first turn and I whiffed on energies for two more turns after that.
Fortunately for me, Michelle was a bit inexperienced and didn’t know the match up well. I had catchered her Stage 1 Klang and failed to KO it when I drew no energies off a draw supporter. This gave her a turn to get Plasma Klinklang and, when she played Skyla, I thought she was going to Heavy Ball into it. Instead, she got a Rare Candy and evolved her benched Klink into a Shift Gear Klinklang. I was pretty sure she ran Plasma Klinklang when she showed me her hand earlier when she mulliganed, but I didn’t want to complain. I promptly found the energies I needed and never let a Klink stay on the field again. Black Kyurem took care of the rest. Sorry Michelle!
2-1
Round 4 vs. Daniel (Team Plamsa)
Inbetween rounds I went to grab food for my wife, who was judging the Juniors division. While I was paying, she called me to tell me that the pairings had gone up and I had to run back to the venue. Needless to say, I didn’t pile shuffle and that may or may not have costed me the match.
I started Black Kyurem and benched a lone Squirtle before using Beach, but Daniel got a very strong start and got 3 Deoxys, a Keldeo with Float Stone, and a Kyurem down on his bench and Raiden Knuckled with Thunderus to put a Prism on Kyurem and OHKO the Squirtle. However, I noted that he had only one card in hand, which was what he got off his prize. I took the gamble and got another Squirtle, but Daniel managed to topdeck into another catcher and KO the second Squirtle. After that, it was my game to lose as my last two Squirtles AND super rod was prized
I had no chance to set up and got rolled.2-2
Round 5 vs. Phil (Darkrai)
Phil is another Pokedad who is a strong player. His kids were in the Junior and Seniors division and were excellent players, having good finishes in previous tournaments, including the recent Regionals. Typically, Phil ended up playing whatever leftover deck he could build, but today he had a fairly competitive deck in Darkrai.
Phil had a solid start with three Darkrais on the field and two dark energies in the discard, but I got set up even faster, forcing Phil to use the more energy efficient Absol to attack instead. Burning all three of my Superior Energy Retrievals, I set up a Keldeo with three energies, a Black Kyurem, and got two more energies down on a second Black Kyurem. The Keldeo took care of Absol and Sableye before Darkrai KO’d it. Black Kyurem delivered the return KO and Phil played Colress, hoping that I did not have any way to fish energies for the final Black Barrista.
He counted the three SER in the discard and wondered aloud if I ran three or four. I told him plainly that I ran three and a regular retrieval. What I didn’t tell him was that I also ran Dowsing Machine, which combined with the four cards I got from the prizes, was enough to get the energies I needed for game. Better luck next time Phil!
3-2
Round 6 vs. Andrew (Rayeels)
Andrew is effectively the league leader from yet another BC league (there are 4-5 in total). We both knew that there were no prizes or points to be won from the game and he offered to Rock Paper Scissor to determine the outcome of the game and I obliged, winning immediately with Rock (always play Rock). Naturally, my wife saw and told us to play out the match anyways
I get set up quickly and was forced to Black Barrista on Emolga when I whiffed catcher. However, it was quick enough that Drew still didn’t have enough energies in the discard despite having 2 Eels set up already with a third on the way. There was a slight stadium war during the first few turns as he tried to bump my Beach with Skyarrow. However, I Dowsed for the Beach before Junipering to take a commanding lead in the stadium war. It also helped that he second Bridge was prized
.I got deliver 400 metric tonnes of coffee to a Ray before he could return KO with another Ray. After I took out the second Ray, he benched a third and N’d me down to one card. Up until this point, I had not played a single catcher and Andrew joked that I would probably get one off the one card N. I had a three energy Keldeo on the bench ready for when he KO’s my Black Kyurem and could take my pick of any three Eels on his bench. I jokingly said, albeit with a straight face, that I was more likely to grab a Colress. I showed him my one card. It was a Colress.
Needless to say, I Colress’d for 8 cards and drew everything I need, including two Catchers and two Superior Energy Retrievals.
4-2
My final standing was 14th. I was about 2% short in the first resistance tiebreaker from the top ten. Overall, I felt the deck did well in the tournament. Mel also played Blastoise and got 9th, he was the second Blastoise that Dana beat on his way to third place with his rogue. For the next BRs, I’m not sure what I’m going to play. Quad Snorlax and Goth/Accelgor did poorly in the tournament and I’m sure that most of the solid players that were piloting the deck will run something more standard, which will change the meta somewhat. We’ll see what happens in two weeks, I have to prepare for Netrunner this weekend first
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