Dr. Mason
New Member
I'm a long time player of the TCG, but my experience when I was younger was rather limited, as my parents didn't really like to support the hobby growing up. I've managed to attend a fair amount of large tournaments before now, however, and done fairly well, finding my way into top cuts on occasion and playing the best decks I can afford.
This year, with much more mobility and funds, probably marks my first attempt at gaming for an invite, attending as many tournaments as I can instead of one of each series. Unfortunately a lot of Battle Roads were still quite distant this year, so it was only this weekend that I was able to attend my first tournament of the season.
It was my first 'big trip' totally alone. I won't say it didn't make me nervous, as I've little experience with the complex Nashville road system, but I got through it alright. I arrived in Jackson with the ZPS I'd been building on for the past few months, very anxious. I had no idea what the competition would be like, and I was still under pressure to claim my first tournament victory. Even worse, upon first arriving after a three hour drive, I was told that there would be no tournament. The store had cancelled their connections to Pokemon, but the word was spreading much too slowly. However, Clay still arrived, and a string of Nashville, Murfreesboro, and Memphis players arrived to play. I made a few key changes to my deck before the start of the tournament, and the pairings went up.
Match 1 Vs. Sam L. with Mega Mew n Plume
I knew Sam had won a tournament just the other day with this deck, and I had not played the Mewplume match in some time. I start off the game really nervous, but he appears to be stuck in a bad hand, as I am. It actually ends up taking me several turns to set up, having to do so manually, and he eventually lost zones a Muk to begin Sludge Dragging me, while trying top set up Oddishes and Glooms, which I Catcher up to take out ASAP. Using some finagling with Seekers and Shaymins, I manage to wriggle out of the drag attempts and start KOing stuff. He takes a few prizes with Yanmegas before I eventually take my last prize.
1-0
Match 2 Vs. Squeaky with Stage 1s
Of course as soon as I see the Phanpy I'm sure I'm going to lose. This game's a lot hazier, and I remember two key prizes--once when I KOed an EQ damaged Yanmega with Pachirisu, and another when catchering up a Phanpy that could have caused me a lot of trouble.
2-0
Match 3 vs. John with Reshiboar
I'm anticipating a RDL drop this whole game. He whiffs on energy the first couple of turn, and I catcher up his Pignite and slap it with Tornadus once. He evolves to Emboar after finally getting a hold of some energy and decides to whap me for 80. I take the KO on the boar and try to stay set up with my Zekroms. He put out a Reshiphlosion twice, but I manage to Pluspower kill them twice in a row. The game remains fairly close the entire time, like every game I play today, but I edge out in the end.
3-0
Match 4 vs. Drew with Mew/Tornadus/Zoroark
I start with a Zekrom, two seeker, two shaymin, and some energy. A bad start if ever I saw one. I end up attaching a DCE first turn to outrage, and playing a Shaymin to avoid the donk. In this game I never seem him Lost Zone anything, so I'm sort of wondering what he plays it for. Eventually I turn things around and get set up, and his low hp pokes cant handle it, though Zoroark constantly gives me trouble.
4-0
There's only a top 2 cut for this tournament, and I realize I'll have to play Drew all over again. I ask one of the other guys if they can buy a drink for me (with my money of course) as all of my games have lasted to time, so I havent had time to get one at all. Then, we start.
Top Cut
Round 1
I get an even worse hand this time around, but this time I don't come back from behind. I play some PONT and Juniper and draw intro garbage for a few turn before I forfeit, knowing I won't come back from this. In this game I see him Lost Zone a Zoroark, which I find very strange, and I quietly wonder to myself is he realizes the weakness in his strategy. As he told me, he made this deck extremely recently.
4-1
Round 2
Finally, finally, I manage to pull off the donk. I don't remember exactly how I did it, only that I did. This puts us at the last match.
5-1
Round 3
The key point of this game is wherein I discover that Drew did not know about the Weakness of using Mew to copy Zoroark. He uses Foul Play to copy Bolt Strike, and thus, I remind him, he does 80 damage to himself instead, due to his weakness to to Psychic. This double KO solidifies my eventual win for this match. I wont speculate on how it would have gone otherwise--I don't know. I do however have a good opening in this match and manage to sweep through the low HP Pokemon, though I get massively stalled by Cleffa in the mid game.
6-1
So I win the whole sh'bang for the first time and get my foil PokeBall and some packs. Reverse holo Goth is nice, I suppose. I'm much happier with just finally having won, especially in my first tournament of the season.
The List
Before I post this I'll make it clear that I don't care to have my deck critiqued here. This isn't the deck help forum. However if you've got any questions about why I ran such n' such in x numbers, and how it worked out for me in experience, feel free to ask.
Pokemon 11
4 Zekrom
3 Tornadus
2 Pachirisu
2 Shaymin
T/S/S 34
4 Pokemon Collector
4 Professor Juniper
3 Professor Oak's New Theory
2 Seeker
4 Junk Arm
4 Pokemon Catcher
3 Dual Ball
2 Energy Search
2 Revive
2 PokeGear 3.0
2 Pluspower
1 Switch
1 Energy Retrieval (I highly reccomend this card.)
Energy 15
12 Lightning
3 Double Colorless
lolprops
Had a good time, played with cool people and let me take my time, because I was nervous as hell
Got the last Typhlosion for my little brother to play.
WINNING
tried Popeye's for the first time. I liked it.
Host store was a FANTASTIC shop. Bought a copy of Sonic 2 in the case with the manual for five dollars.
lolslops
Only bad thing was that more people couldn't make it out there
also the trip was sort of a pain in my tookus
This year, with much more mobility and funds, probably marks my first attempt at gaming for an invite, attending as many tournaments as I can instead of one of each series. Unfortunately a lot of Battle Roads were still quite distant this year, so it was only this weekend that I was able to attend my first tournament of the season.
It was my first 'big trip' totally alone. I won't say it didn't make me nervous, as I've little experience with the complex Nashville road system, but I got through it alright. I arrived in Jackson with the ZPS I'd been building on for the past few months, very anxious. I had no idea what the competition would be like, and I was still under pressure to claim my first tournament victory. Even worse, upon first arriving after a three hour drive, I was told that there would be no tournament. The store had cancelled their connections to Pokemon, but the word was spreading much too slowly. However, Clay still arrived, and a string of Nashville, Murfreesboro, and Memphis players arrived to play. I made a few key changes to my deck before the start of the tournament, and the pairings went up.
Match 1 Vs. Sam L. with Mega Mew n Plume
I knew Sam had won a tournament just the other day with this deck, and I had not played the Mewplume match in some time. I start off the game really nervous, but he appears to be stuck in a bad hand, as I am. It actually ends up taking me several turns to set up, having to do so manually, and he eventually lost zones a Muk to begin Sludge Dragging me, while trying top set up Oddishes and Glooms, which I Catcher up to take out ASAP. Using some finagling with Seekers and Shaymins, I manage to wriggle out of the drag attempts and start KOing stuff. He takes a few prizes with Yanmegas before I eventually take my last prize.
1-0
Match 2 Vs. Squeaky with Stage 1s
Of course as soon as I see the Phanpy I'm sure I'm going to lose. This game's a lot hazier, and I remember two key prizes--once when I KOed an EQ damaged Yanmega with Pachirisu, and another when catchering up a Phanpy that could have caused me a lot of trouble.
2-0
Match 3 vs. John with Reshiboar
I'm anticipating a RDL drop this whole game. He whiffs on energy the first couple of turn, and I catcher up his Pignite and slap it with Tornadus once. He evolves to Emboar after finally getting a hold of some energy and decides to whap me for 80. I take the KO on the boar and try to stay set up with my Zekroms. He put out a Reshiphlosion twice, but I manage to Pluspower kill them twice in a row. The game remains fairly close the entire time, like every game I play today, but I edge out in the end.
3-0
Match 4 vs. Drew with Mew/Tornadus/Zoroark
I start with a Zekrom, two seeker, two shaymin, and some energy. A bad start if ever I saw one. I end up attaching a DCE first turn to outrage, and playing a Shaymin to avoid the donk. In this game I never seem him Lost Zone anything, so I'm sort of wondering what he plays it for. Eventually I turn things around and get set up, and his low hp pokes cant handle it, though Zoroark constantly gives me trouble.
4-0
There's only a top 2 cut for this tournament, and I realize I'll have to play Drew all over again. I ask one of the other guys if they can buy a drink for me (with my money of course) as all of my games have lasted to time, so I havent had time to get one at all. Then, we start.
Top Cut
Round 1
I get an even worse hand this time around, but this time I don't come back from behind. I play some PONT and Juniper and draw intro garbage for a few turn before I forfeit, knowing I won't come back from this. In this game I see him Lost Zone a Zoroark, which I find very strange, and I quietly wonder to myself is he realizes the weakness in his strategy. As he told me, he made this deck extremely recently.
4-1
Round 2
Finally, finally, I manage to pull off the donk. I don't remember exactly how I did it, only that I did. This puts us at the last match.
5-1
Round 3
The key point of this game is wherein I discover that Drew did not know about the Weakness of using Mew to copy Zoroark. He uses Foul Play to copy Bolt Strike, and thus, I remind him, he does 80 damage to himself instead, due to his weakness to to Psychic. This double KO solidifies my eventual win for this match. I wont speculate on how it would have gone otherwise--I don't know. I do however have a good opening in this match and manage to sweep through the low HP Pokemon, though I get massively stalled by Cleffa in the mid game.
6-1
So I win the whole sh'bang for the first time and get my foil PokeBall and some packs. Reverse holo Goth is nice, I suppose. I'm much happier with just finally having won, especially in my first tournament of the season.
The List
Before I post this I'll make it clear that I don't care to have my deck critiqued here. This isn't the deck help forum. However if you've got any questions about why I ran such n' such in x numbers, and how it worked out for me in experience, feel free to ask.
Pokemon 11
4 Zekrom
3 Tornadus
2 Pachirisu
2 Shaymin
T/S/S 34
4 Pokemon Collector
4 Professor Juniper
3 Professor Oak's New Theory
2 Seeker
4 Junk Arm
4 Pokemon Catcher
3 Dual Ball
2 Energy Search
2 Revive
2 PokeGear 3.0
2 Pluspower
1 Switch
1 Energy Retrieval (I highly reccomend this card.)
Energy 15
12 Lightning
3 Double Colorless
lolprops
Had a good time, played with cool people and let me take my time, because I was nervous as hell
Got the last Typhlosion for my little brother to play.
WINNING
tried Popeye's for the first time. I liked it.
Host store was a FANTASTIC shop. Bought a copy of Sonic 2 in the case with the manual for five dollars.
lolslops
Only bad thing was that more people couldn't make it out there
also the trip was sort of a pain in my tookus
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Also props for sharing list.