kirwin3180
Member
This is my first report, so I guess I should start with an introduction: My name is Curtis Lyon, I’ve been playing for 2 ½ years and I play out of Ontario Canada. My experience through Pokémon thus far has been filled with a lot of consistent finishes. I’ve won a bunch of battle roads and cities but a win in a big tournament has always evaded me. Last year was a rough year for me because it came in the form of a lack luster whiff in grinders in San Diego. This year has been my strongest yet, and the nationals was icing on the cake.
This Report is long, but I want to help recreate exactly what I went through every step of the way during this national tournament process.
I want to start by saying I owe all my results and appreciation to the people that helped me make it possible. My friends Geneses, Matthew, Bidier and Juan are main reason I enjoy playing this game. The play testing and help these guys offer me is irreplaceable. I’m the youngest member of this group so a lot of these guys and PTO’s (Marvin and Paul) keep me inspired. The point of me mentioning this is because for a long time before nats I tested a deck involving gyrados + machamp. When bidier arrived he began convincing me that kingdra + machamp was a better/safer play. A week before nationals I had my heart set on Jumpluff + AMU or Kingdra Champ. But the day before nationals a couple of people I lend cards too really wanted to play kingdra variants. That left me with jumpluff AMU, however the night before the big day I play tested with Matthew and bidier extensively. My results were that jumpluffs matchup vs. sp just wasn’t good enough to enter a tournament like nationals with. Studying the format it was just too “rock-paper-scissors” oriented, certain decks can’t beat certain decks. With this being said I wanted to play something safe. A deck that fits these criteria is something like dialgachomp or plox, with no unwinnable bad matchups and no overly good matchups. After the US nats results were posted I was expecting 30% luxchomps, 30% sabelocks, 15% kingdras, 15% jumpluffs and 10% random. Bidier presented me and Matthew with a newer version of Plox more focused around preserving the gardevoir alive as long as possible while continuously cycling through locks by any means necessary. We decided it was the best version of the deck to play not necessarily in the mirror but in an unpredictable Meta. After some late minute changes (azelf X , moonlights and warp points) I finally went to sleep ….at 6:30.
At 9:00 we met up with geneses, junior and princess and headed to the hotel for a long day of Pokémon. We arrive at the venue and register pronto. A lot of the people I was excited about seeing weren’t there (Willy ,Connor , etc.) people who I became friends with after San Diego and Last Nationals. However there were still plenty of people I was excited to see. The final numbers come up and we are told that masters get a top 32 cut. This gave me a little boost knowing I could go X-2 and hypothetically make it in.
I’m running on 4 hours of sleep in 2 days, so I apologize in advance, I tried to recap the matches to the best of my memory:
Lets get on to the report … finally :
Round 1 – Mike S (Dialga Chomp)
I recognize him as one of the store owners at a card store in mid Toronto and we always seem to discuss about sports events. A large portion of the round was consumed about us boosting how good Brock lesnar is =p … he opens with a dialga to my spiritomb, and he calls for bronzing / baltoy. I begin to build my bench. He deafen locks me for awhile but once he finally broke the lock I went on a rampage, went aggro gallade + giritina and KO’d his belted Dialga with Sp metals on it. He wasn’t expecting the dialga to get KO’d so it set him back in terms of control of the game. I proceeded to teleport in and psychic lock to cruise through the rest of his guys. Good Game. (1-0)
Round 2 – Marcel L (Luxchomp)
He gets a good start cyrusing’ and uxie-ing’ and has a monster hand. I collector for unown q, spiritomb, giritna. And retreat my active ralts to promote spiritomb and let loose crushing his hand. He has attaches and dce on his uxie and begins to pass – draw. I take the risk and begin psychic locking even though he might drop the lucario GL + level x combo, because I knew I could retaliate next turn. He doesn’t counter attack, so I know the game is pretty much over and I psychic lock all game 6-0. Good Game. (2-0)
Round 3 – Alaric M ( Plox)
We both start with spiritomb however he drops a mesprit which really crushes my set up for the next turn so I couldn’t properly set up a counter lock. But he follows up the mesprit with a psychic lock. I can’t really play my hand so I begin sacking Pokémon and set up Azelf X to buff some hits. I think I manage to take 1 prize but overall the game was a mess on my part, I could never properly counter attack and I got blown out. Good game, well played. (2-1)
Not only did the lose affect my mood, but a really cheesy incident happened and it affected another one of my best friends matt. What happened was time was called and it was his opponents turn. so he won, but matt explains how he could have won the game next turn showing it to him in his hand, they scoop up and literally a minute later the guy says “my mistake, that wasn’t time. You still have 3 minutes” but since matt scooped up his cards it was still considered a loss…. He’s such a good player and it sucks when bad stuff happens to good people. Everything happens for a reason I guess….
Round 4 – Sean R ( Luxchomp)
it sucks playing a friend but I can’t afford another lose or else I would be forced to win out. Sean is a nice guy and a good player but I was very confident in my Luxchomp matchup. We play a close game for the most part but after I see him play a Cyrus I begin the judge lock and he can’t seem to recover. His hand gets substantially large through poketurn cycling new garchomp x’s so even if it’s a dead hand it was still too big for comfort, I judge him again and I believe he drops ERL. I don’t break the lock and the draw passing continues. My nidoqueen made it hard for him to get any relevant damage on anyone. He runs out of poketurns eventually and belted gardevoir psychic locks what was left of his field. Good Game Sean , it’s always a pleasure. (3-1)
My friends warned me that there were a few undefeated / 3-1 cursegars I would get paired up with. This would be bad considering my matchup against cursegar is not great at all. I didn’t play dusknoir so I had no potential out in this matchup… they all should have knocked on wood .
Round 5 – Jason L (CurseGar)
I recognize Jason immediately and realize that all throughout the season and recent battle roads he has been a cursegar player. The game went out as expected the trainer lock hurt me considering I don’t play moon light and I couldn’t draw into my kirilias. I keep the lock up as long as I can with azelf on my bench, but im forced the break the lock eventually which leads to him dusknoir my remaining hopes. I misplay huge towards the end benching a spiritomb of my own. I realize the mistake inevitably costs me the game. There was never a point in the game where I felt in control even taking 3-4 prizes his gengar SF ends the game for me. Well played. Good Game (3-2)
with my record standing at 3-2, my confidence takes a major shot and I know the next two rounds I got to play as well as possible.
Round 6 - ?? (sorry, I forgot your name =( I think it was Zachary… my bad!!!!) (jumplux)
he flips over hoppip to my unown q and unown g, I go first and pass =( im scared he might have the game in his hand which is likely to say the least. He drops BTS plays collectors + communications and before I know it he’s got 2 claydolls, uxie and 2 pluffs ready, he leaf guards me. The board is not in my control right now and I know I need to force him into some misplays if I can work my way back into this game. He plays a generally conservative game for the most part where by im forced to sack spiritombs and azelfs to set up. The prize count half way through this game was 6 prizes to 2. He finally drops the luxray and my board is now, gardevoir charged, queen and a charged kirlia. I judge his monstrous hand and begin locking , teleporting so my gardevoirs can heal out. He finally does the misplay I’ve been waiting for all game, he has attached the expert belt onto his jumpluff for desperation damage. At this point in the game my gardevoirs both can’t take another hit and I fear the warp points considering he had only played 1 through out the game. The prizes were 2 -1 and I use my pokehealers attach my expert belt and psychic lock his belted jumpluff. He retreats and hits me with another jumpluff. I play palmers and telepass his rossanes so I can bring down his injured belted jump for the game. It’s a shame I can’t remember your name. Very Good Game (4-2)
The next pairings had me up against Geneses who is one of my best friends and It hurt knowing one of us might not make top cut after this game. However there is a repairing and im playing Sebastian c instead.
Round 7 – Sebastian C (Dialgachomp)
He Cyrus’ first turn so I decide to break the Cyrus chain early and let loose with my spiritomb active and begin evolving my kirilias. After I begin judge + locking he makes some moves I thought weren’t the best at the time. However he proved me wrong time and time again in this match. For instance he would have two useless SP Pokémon in play with two cards in hand with me psychic locking him and he would have a ridiculous amount of potential attackers the following turn. The turning point in the game for me however was when I saw his plan of attack as he went aggro garchomp while belting and attaching to his bench garchomps. I made a huge misplay by evolving my bench kirilia to a gallade so I couldn’t retreat and keep the cycle going. I used all my judges up to this point and I had a “let loose” on my bench so I felt his strategy was pretty solid in terms of breaking my lock. However I was saving pokehealers in my hand. I think the play really caught him off guard and it secured me another prize. At this point in the game as I recall the prizes were about 6-2. because of the bench gallade it was really limiting my options on the field so he made an epic comeback with drifblim and brought it down to 2-2. I warp pointed + two hitting drifblim for the game. Great game, even greater player. Congratulations on your ugly cup performance too. (5-2)
Not only did I finish 16th overall but a large portion of my friends and training partners made it into top 32, judging by the list there was an enormous amount of luxchomps. However there were a few Ploxs and 2 or 3 cursegars I didn’t want to get stuck playing. My ideal situation was to get paired up with the jumpluffs, ploxs and sp’s and hope the cursegars get taken out.
top 32 – Coleman F (Luxchomp + ER)
game 1: I open with a very beastly start and he’s forced to pass because of the spiritomb. When he finally plays his Cyrus I retreat the tomb and begin judge + locking again. I couldn’t draw into my expert belts so I wasn’t drawing very many prizes. He top decks another Cyrus and I judge again, and proceed with the lock. I wasn’t scared of his board because he only had a crobat plus bronzing on the field with the 4 card judge. However he drops both legend pieces and attaches.... I begin setting up a ralts on the bench . and locking. He drops energy and blows up my side of the field for 3 prizes. It was a little to late however as I teleport out rare candy into a gallade for my last two prizes.
game 2: He starts off a little bit better and proceeds to take the first two prizes with luxray bright look abuse. I get my lock up and my queen ready as well. He begins loosing control of the field so he stalls with ambipom + energy gain to move all my girtina. Whenever he did this trick I always just telepassed his Cyrus for my Lucians and continue to lock. The game is slightly closer than game 1 but I can tell my lock is hurting his field. The reason the game was as close as it was is because after my judges + let loose he always managed to draw into a Cyrus to rebuild his hand again. He benches his ER and sets up damage all around my board so the ER would clean up everything for the game, but I pokehealered and he realized once he brought up the ER for 3 prizes I would bring up my gallade again for the win. He scoops.
Good game Coleman.
(6-2)
I find out that a couple of my good friends like Geneses and Junior got eliminated, while James , bidier, bin and Juan advance to top 16. I don’t know the bracket so im not sure exactly who im playing.
now onto the most ironic game of the day
Top 16: James N (Luxchomp + ER)
a little bit of history before I start the report is that last nationals me and James did not know each other but he eliminated me from top 16 and we became close because of our game. We helped each other throughout the year and I even met up with him when I went down for a Montréal provincials. It sucks I have to play one of my friends , but I want revenge for last nationals
Game 1: I have spiritomb up and he uxies + Cyrus’ for a large amount of cards. I refuse to risk him bright looking me so I collector for azelf, ralts and baltoy. Bench everything, pull up the giritna and let loose + attach + darkness grace. He drew into dead trainers and for the next proceeding turns I locked him. As Matt says” rinse and repeat” and so I did. Every time he would attack I would teleport and attack with the new one etc. He didn’t have an out and he was running badly so he decided to scoop even with the prizes at 6-4.
Game 2: This went identical to game 1 except I made a crucial misplay t1 I forgot all about chatter lock and I filled up my bench with a tomb active for a turn. he whiffs on the double colorless for the lock and I proceed to belt psychic lock rinse and repeat the nidoqueen + healer cycle. He ends up scooping again very early. This win felt half hearted because he explains my misplay after the game and I realize how bad a mistake like that can be. I learned from the mistake and most of all I got my revenge good game James… 1-1 now <3
(7-2)
Bidier notifies me that he got eliminated and this news hurt a lot because I know no one deserved it and worked harder than bidier or matt.
surprisingly all my other friends advance to top 8 as well, im nervous because the odds are im going to play the cursegar or one of my friends. I would rather be paired up with one of the ploxs or SP
turns out I got what I wanted and im playing another Luxchomp
Top 8: Zach L (luxchomp + mismaguis)
In general this year my record against Zach wasn’t great and he has an incredible record this season. However I needed this win in order to secure my seat at worlds and If it was time to beat him it was now.
Game 1: We proceed with our normal set up but he ends up spraying my giritina which made me rethink my whole strategy. I end up bringing spiritomb up and evolving away. He does a very smooth play dropping a crobat ko’ing tomb and trash bolting a potential threat on my bench for two prizes. At this point its 6-3 so I start the judge locks once again. He begins to move energies with ambipom g and I just Cyrus for Lucians to keep killing his ambipoms. He draws into his DCE so he shoots my gardevoir for 80. I show him pokehealers and he decides to scoop.
Game 2: once we have both set up I notice he sets up a mismagius on the bench. Fearing the damage out put on the card I set up my azelf x and psychic lock + judge all game long. He ends up bringing the mismaguis up and sending back my other gardevoir back into my hand. I waited for it to come up all game before revealing the healers + belt that were in my hand. Ko’ing his mismaguis with lock I couldn’t see for him to get any potential outs. He scoops again.
Good Game Zach.
(8-2)
at this point it feels like I’m on cloud 9 and it’s my tournament to loose. I finally secured my spot at worlds but my nats dream was still alive. I look over to the other table and notice all my friends got eliminated and the last remaining cursegar was playing kingchamp. If the cursegar wins I can’t imagine him loosing the tournament because of us 3 remaining ploxs.
the top 4 remaining decks are me with plox, my buddy Adam with cursegar , and two western players I haven’t met before Gordon and Gavin both playing plox. I really wanted to play one of the ploxs because I felt even though my deck isn’t necessarily designed to beat mirror match I could hypothetically outplay my opponents with healers and azelf x.
unfortunately its east vs. east. West vs. west
Top 4: Adam A(cursegar)
game 1: I get off to a great start and because he didn’t start with tomb I abuse trainers as much as possible. Once he finally gets his tomb out and begins evolving I have already set up my azelf x. and my next gardevoir. Once I set up my queen it was hard for him to hit one for 80, hit the other one for 80 and compound pain. I feel the lock hurt him too much this game and he wasn’t able to apply his lock. I use my healers and I secure my last prize with a final psychic lock.
Game 2: He starts with spiritomb and I get completely walled with my trainer filled hand. I’m stuck future sighting 3 times and I give up 3 prizes. I begin my comeback but the problem is that azelf was prized so I couldn’t set up the crucial component to my strategy. I play as best as I can and the prizes are 2-1. he evolves into gengar sf and shadow rooms my gardevoir for the last prize. Well played. Time is running down.
Game 3: he starts off with spiritomb again and my hand is lack luster. I risk judging with only my spiritomb active. I pick up 4 and one of them is ralts so I still have some hope. The game is pretty close as we exchange prize for prize. I use my Lucians to help me regain control and prevent loosing energies. He decides to keep his gengar active refusing to give up his benched gastly. I whiff hard on the DCE that could have brought my gallade up with judge for a big play. So im forced to psychic lock. At this point its 3-3 prizes. Time is called on his turn, and he kills my gardevoir for the win. I show him my gallade to make the game slightly more interesting and keep me in the game if I still had time. But with all do respect I doubt I could have won that game without the lock. Adam played well and I thought I did fairly well against a deck where the odds were against me. I’m not bitter or sad, I lost to the future national champion and while I disagree that cursegar is the Best deck in format, I think Pokémon is equally based on showing up with the right deck and the right time and with our meta suddenly shifting into unexpected plox, cursegar was definitely the deck to play. Great job Adam, very proud of you.
(8-3)
For those who cared to read the whole thing, im honored and grateful you had a chance to experience my journey through nats. As a whole I couldn’t have asked for a better outing. I did myself and friends proud.
I finish 3rd place, but I couldn’t be happier. I didn’t really care about proving to others about my playing, I did it to prove to myself that I can do whatever I set my mind too.
This year was no different from last year and I met a bunch of cool people from west who I know in due time I will be good friends with.
even though I over emphasized earlier how much my friends and mentors mean to me, I truly do owe everything I’ve achieved to the people around me who stayed awake till 6 am play testing with me, or gave me the encouragement when I was beating myself up inside. Respects to Matthew , Bidier, Juan, Geneses, James, and Junior.
now that me and Matthew confirmed our invites I hope we can find a way to get to worlds … maybe we will rob a bank or something :biggrin: aha
thanks for reading, hopefully I will see you all at worlds
God bless
This Report is long, but I want to help recreate exactly what I went through every step of the way during this national tournament process.
I want to start by saying I owe all my results and appreciation to the people that helped me make it possible. My friends Geneses, Matthew, Bidier and Juan are main reason I enjoy playing this game. The play testing and help these guys offer me is irreplaceable. I’m the youngest member of this group so a lot of these guys and PTO’s (Marvin and Paul) keep me inspired. The point of me mentioning this is because for a long time before nats I tested a deck involving gyrados + machamp. When bidier arrived he began convincing me that kingdra + machamp was a better/safer play. A week before nationals I had my heart set on Jumpluff + AMU or Kingdra Champ. But the day before nationals a couple of people I lend cards too really wanted to play kingdra variants. That left me with jumpluff AMU, however the night before the big day I play tested with Matthew and bidier extensively. My results were that jumpluffs matchup vs. sp just wasn’t good enough to enter a tournament like nationals with. Studying the format it was just too “rock-paper-scissors” oriented, certain decks can’t beat certain decks. With this being said I wanted to play something safe. A deck that fits these criteria is something like dialgachomp or plox, with no unwinnable bad matchups and no overly good matchups. After the US nats results were posted I was expecting 30% luxchomps, 30% sabelocks, 15% kingdras, 15% jumpluffs and 10% random. Bidier presented me and Matthew with a newer version of Plox more focused around preserving the gardevoir alive as long as possible while continuously cycling through locks by any means necessary. We decided it was the best version of the deck to play not necessarily in the mirror but in an unpredictable Meta. After some late minute changes (azelf X , moonlights and warp points) I finally went to sleep ….at 6:30.
At 9:00 we met up with geneses, junior and princess and headed to the hotel for a long day of Pokémon. We arrive at the venue and register pronto. A lot of the people I was excited about seeing weren’t there (Willy ,Connor , etc.) people who I became friends with after San Diego and Last Nationals. However there were still plenty of people I was excited to see. The final numbers come up and we are told that masters get a top 32 cut. This gave me a little boost knowing I could go X-2 and hypothetically make it in.
I’m running on 4 hours of sleep in 2 days, so I apologize in advance, I tried to recap the matches to the best of my memory:
Lets get on to the report … finally :
Round 1 – Mike S (Dialga Chomp)
I recognize him as one of the store owners at a card store in mid Toronto and we always seem to discuss about sports events. A large portion of the round was consumed about us boosting how good Brock lesnar is =p … he opens with a dialga to my spiritomb, and he calls for bronzing / baltoy. I begin to build my bench. He deafen locks me for awhile but once he finally broke the lock I went on a rampage, went aggro gallade + giritina and KO’d his belted Dialga with Sp metals on it. He wasn’t expecting the dialga to get KO’d so it set him back in terms of control of the game. I proceeded to teleport in and psychic lock to cruise through the rest of his guys. Good Game. (1-0)
Round 2 – Marcel L (Luxchomp)
He gets a good start cyrusing’ and uxie-ing’ and has a monster hand. I collector for unown q, spiritomb, giritna. And retreat my active ralts to promote spiritomb and let loose crushing his hand. He has attaches and dce on his uxie and begins to pass – draw. I take the risk and begin psychic locking even though he might drop the lucario GL + level x combo, because I knew I could retaliate next turn. He doesn’t counter attack, so I know the game is pretty much over and I psychic lock all game 6-0. Good Game. (2-0)
Round 3 – Alaric M ( Plox)
We both start with spiritomb however he drops a mesprit which really crushes my set up for the next turn so I couldn’t properly set up a counter lock. But he follows up the mesprit with a psychic lock. I can’t really play my hand so I begin sacking Pokémon and set up Azelf X to buff some hits. I think I manage to take 1 prize but overall the game was a mess on my part, I could never properly counter attack and I got blown out. Good game, well played. (2-1)
Not only did the lose affect my mood, but a really cheesy incident happened and it affected another one of my best friends matt. What happened was time was called and it was his opponents turn. so he won, but matt explains how he could have won the game next turn showing it to him in his hand, they scoop up and literally a minute later the guy says “my mistake, that wasn’t time. You still have 3 minutes” but since matt scooped up his cards it was still considered a loss…. He’s such a good player and it sucks when bad stuff happens to good people. Everything happens for a reason I guess….
Round 4 – Sean R ( Luxchomp)
it sucks playing a friend but I can’t afford another lose or else I would be forced to win out. Sean is a nice guy and a good player but I was very confident in my Luxchomp matchup. We play a close game for the most part but after I see him play a Cyrus I begin the judge lock and he can’t seem to recover. His hand gets substantially large through poketurn cycling new garchomp x’s so even if it’s a dead hand it was still too big for comfort, I judge him again and I believe he drops ERL. I don’t break the lock and the draw passing continues. My nidoqueen made it hard for him to get any relevant damage on anyone. He runs out of poketurns eventually and belted gardevoir psychic locks what was left of his field. Good Game Sean , it’s always a pleasure. (3-1)
My friends warned me that there were a few undefeated / 3-1 cursegars I would get paired up with. This would be bad considering my matchup against cursegar is not great at all. I didn’t play dusknoir so I had no potential out in this matchup… they all should have knocked on wood .
Round 5 – Jason L (CurseGar)
I recognize Jason immediately and realize that all throughout the season and recent battle roads he has been a cursegar player. The game went out as expected the trainer lock hurt me considering I don’t play moon light and I couldn’t draw into my kirilias. I keep the lock up as long as I can with azelf on my bench, but im forced the break the lock eventually which leads to him dusknoir my remaining hopes. I misplay huge towards the end benching a spiritomb of my own. I realize the mistake inevitably costs me the game. There was never a point in the game where I felt in control even taking 3-4 prizes his gengar SF ends the game for me. Well played. Good Game (3-2)
with my record standing at 3-2, my confidence takes a major shot and I know the next two rounds I got to play as well as possible.
Round 6 - ?? (sorry, I forgot your name =( I think it was Zachary… my bad!!!!) (jumplux)
he flips over hoppip to my unown q and unown g, I go first and pass =( im scared he might have the game in his hand which is likely to say the least. He drops BTS plays collectors + communications and before I know it he’s got 2 claydolls, uxie and 2 pluffs ready, he leaf guards me. The board is not in my control right now and I know I need to force him into some misplays if I can work my way back into this game. He plays a generally conservative game for the most part where by im forced to sack spiritombs and azelfs to set up. The prize count half way through this game was 6 prizes to 2. He finally drops the luxray and my board is now, gardevoir charged, queen and a charged kirlia. I judge his monstrous hand and begin locking , teleporting so my gardevoirs can heal out. He finally does the misplay I’ve been waiting for all game, he has attached the expert belt onto his jumpluff for desperation damage. At this point in the game my gardevoirs both can’t take another hit and I fear the warp points considering he had only played 1 through out the game. The prizes were 2 -1 and I use my pokehealers attach my expert belt and psychic lock his belted jumpluff. He retreats and hits me with another jumpluff. I play palmers and telepass his rossanes so I can bring down his injured belted jump for the game. It’s a shame I can’t remember your name. Very Good Game (4-2)
The next pairings had me up against Geneses who is one of my best friends and It hurt knowing one of us might not make top cut after this game. However there is a repairing and im playing Sebastian c instead.
Round 7 – Sebastian C (Dialgachomp)
He Cyrus’ first turn so I decide to break the Cyrus chain early and let loose with my spiritomb active and begin evolving my kirilias. After I begin judge + locking he makes some moves I thought weren’t the best at the time. However he proved me wrong time and time again in this match. For instance he would have two useless SP Pokémon in play with two cards in hand with me psychic locking him and he would have a ridiculous amount of potential attackers the following turn. The turning point in the game for me however was when I saw his plan of attack as he went aggro garchomp while belting and attaching to his bench garchomps. I made a huge misplay by evolving my bench kirilia to a gallade so I couldn’t retreat and keep the cycle going. I used all my judges up to this point and I had a “let loose” on my bench so I felt his strategy was pretty solid in terms of breaking my lock. However I was saving pokehealers in my hand. I think the play really caught him off guard and it secured me another prize. At this point in the game as I recall the prizes were about 6-2. because of the bench gallade it was really limiting my options on the field so he made an epic comeback with drifblim and brought it down to 2-2. I warp pointed + two hitting drifblim for the game. Great game, even greater player. Congratulations on your ugly cup performance too. (5-2)
Not only did I finish 16th overall but a large portion of my friends and training partners made it into top 32, judging by the list there was an enormous amount of luxchomps. However there were a few Ploxs and 2 or 3 cursegars I didn’t want to get stuck playing. My ideal situation was to get paired up with the jumpluffs, ploxs and sp’s and hope the cursegars get taken out.
top 32 – Coleman F (Luxchomp + ER)
game 1: I open with a very beastly start and he’s forced to pass because of the spiritomb. When he finally plays his Cyrus I retreat the tomb and begin judge + locking again. I couldn’t draw into my expert belts so I wasn’t drawing very many prizes. He top decks another Cyrus and I judge again, and proceed with the lock. I wasn’t scared of his board because he only had a crobat plus bronzing on the field with the 4 card judge. However he drops both legend pieces and attaches.... I begin setting up a ralts on the bench . and locking. He drops energy and blows up my side of the field for 3 prizes. It was a little to late however as I teleport out rare candy into a gallade for my last two prizes.
game 2: He starts off a little bit better and proceeds to take the first two prizes with luxray bright look abuse. I get my lock up and my queen ready as well. He begins loosing control of the field so he stalls with ambipom + energy gain to move all my girtina. Whenever he did this trick I always just telepassed his Cyrus for my Lucians and continue to lock. The game is slightly closer than game 1 but I can tell my lock is hurting his field. The reason the game was as close as it was is because after my judges + let loose he always managed to draw into a Cyrus to rebuild his hand again. He benches his ER and sets up damage all around my board so the ER would clean up everything for the game, but I pokehealered and he realized once he brought up the ER for 3 prizes I would bring up my gallade again for the win. He scoops.
Good game Coleman.
(6-2)
I find out that a couple of my good friends like Geneses and Junior got eliminated, while James , bidier, bin and Juan advance to top 16. I don’t know the bracket so im not sure exactly who im playing.
now onto the most ironic game of the day
Top 16: James N (Luxchomp + ER)
a little bit of history before I start the report is that last nationals me and James did not know each other but he eliminated me from top 16 and we became close because of our game. We helped each other throughout the year and I even met up with him when I went down for a Montréal provincials. It sucks I have to play one of my friends , but I want revenge for last nationals
Game 1: I have spiritomb up and he uxies + Cyrus’ for a large amount of cards. I refuse to risk him bright looking me so I collector for azelf, ralts and baltoy. Bench everything, pull up the giritna and let loose + attach + darkness grace. He drew into dead trainers and for the next proceeding turns I locked him. As Matt says” rinse and repeat” and so I did. Every time he would attack I would teleport and attack with the new one etc. He didn’t have an out and he was running badly so he decided to scoop even with the prizes at 6-4.
Game 2: This went identical to game 1 except I made a crucial misplay t1 I forgot all about chatter lock and I filled up my bench with a tomb active for a turn. he whiffs on the double colorless for the lock and I proceed to belt psychic lock rinse and repeat the nidoqueen + healer cycle. He ends up scooping again very early. This win felt half hearted because he explains my misplay after the game and I realize how bad a mistake like that can be. I learned from the mistake and most of all I got my revenge
good game James… 1-1 now <3(7-2)
Bidier notifies me that he got eliminated and this news hurt a lot because I know no one deserved it and worked harder than bidier or matt.
surprisingly all my other friends advance to top 8 as well, im nervous because the odds are im going to play the cursegar or one of my friends. I would rather be paired up with one of the ploxs or SP
turns out I got what I wanted and im playing another Luxchomp
Top 8: Zach L (luxchomp + mismaguis)
In general this year my record against Zach wasn’t great and he has an incredible record this season. However I needed this win in order to secure my seat at worlds and If it was time to beat him it was now.
Game 1: We proceed with our normal set up but he ends up spraying my giritina which made me rethink my whole strategy. I end up bringing spiritomb up and evolving away. He does a very smooth play dropping a crobat ko’ing tomb and trash bolting a potential threat on my bench for two prizes. At this point its 6-3 so I start the judge locks once again. He begins to move energies with ambipom g and I just Cyrus for Lucians to keep killing his ambipoms. He draws into his DCE so he shoots my gardevoir for 80. I show him pokehealers and he decides to scoop.
Game 2: once we have both set up I notice he sets up a mismagius on the bench. Fearing the damage out put on the card I set up my azelf x and psychic lock + judge all game long. He ends up bringing the mismaguis up and sending back my other gardevoir back into my hand. I waited for it to come up all game before revealing the healers + belt that were in my hand. Ko’ing his mismaguis with lock I couldn’t see for him to get any potential outs. He scoops again.
Good Game Zach.
(8-2)
at this point it feels like I’m on cloud 9 and it’s my tournament to loose. I finally secured my spot at worlds but my nats dream was still alive. I look over to the other table and notice all my friends got eliminated and the last remaining cursegar was playing kingchamp. If the cursegar wins I can’t imagine him loosing the tournament because of us 3 remaining ploxs.
the top 4 remaining decks are me with plox, my buddy Adam with cursegar , and two western players I haven’t met before Gordon and Gavin both playing plox. I really wanted to play one of the ploxs because I felt even though my deck isn’t necessarily designed to beat mirror match I could hypothetically outplay my opponents with healers and azelf x.
unfortunately its east vs. east. West vs. west
Top 4: Adam A(cursegar)
game 1: I get off to a great start and because he didn’t start with tomb I abuse trainers as much as possible. Once he finally gets his tomb out and begins evolving I have already set up my azelf x. and my next gardevoir. Once I set up my queen it was hard for him to hit one for 80, hit the other one for 80 and compound pain. I feel the lock hurt him too much this game and he wasn’t able to apply his lock. I use my healers and I secure my last prize with a final psychic lock.
Game 2: He starts with spiritomb and I get completely walled with my trainer filled hand. I’m stuck future sighting 3 times and I give up 3 prizes. I begin my comeback but the problem is that azelf was prized so I couldn’t set up the crucial component to my strategy. I play as best as I can and the prizes are 2-1. he evolves into gengar sf and shadow rooms my gardevoir for the last prize. Well played. Time is running down.
Game 3: he starts off with spiritomb again and my hand is lack luster. I risk judging with only my spiritomb active. I pick up 4 and one of them is ralts so I still have some hope. The game is pretty close as we exchange prize for prize. I use my Lucians to help me regain control and prevent loosing energies. He decides to keep his gengar active refusing to give up his benched gastly. I whiff hard on the DCE that could have brought my gallade up with judge for a big play. So im forced to psychic lock. At this point its 3-3 prizes. Time is called on his turn, and he kills my gardevoir for the win. I show him my gallade to make the game slightly more interesting and keep me in the game if I still had time. But with all do respect I doubt I could have won that game without the lock. Adam played well and I thought I did fairly well against a deck where the odds were against me. I’m not bitter or sad, I lost to the future national champion and while I disagree that cursegar is the Best deck in format, I think Pokémon is equally based on showing up with the right deck and the right time and with our meta suddenly shifting into unexpected plox, cursegar was definitely the deck to play. Great job Adam, very proud of you.
(8-3)
For those who cared to read the whole thing, im honored and grateful you had a chance to experience my journey through nats. As a whole I couldn’t have asked for a better outing. I did myself and friends proud.
I finish 3rd place, but I couldn’t be happier. I didn’t really care about proving to others about my playing, I did it to prove to myself that I can do whatever I set my mind too.
This year was no different from last year and I met a bunch of cool people from west who I know in due time I will be good friends with.
even though I over emphasized earlier how much my friends and mentors mean to me, I truly do owe everything I’ve achieved to the people around me who stayed awake till 6 am play testing with me, or gave me the encouragement when I was beating myself up inside. Respects to Matthew , Bidier, Juan, Geneses, James, and Junior.
now that me and Matthew confirmed our invites I hope we can find a way to get to worlds … maybe we will rob a bank or something :biggrin: aha
thanks for reading, hopefully I will see you all at worlds
God bless
