Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

Scott Top 16 Nats report

kaworu

New Member
UK Nationals - Top 16

Scott Harrison

I am a member of the Manchester Pokemon League, I came top 8 last year at nationals just losing to Andy Stone and a strength charm.

I was contemplating the deck I was going to use for a fair bit, I have been playing GG for some time and but also using Hurricane / Krikky. I had 2 options for Nationals GG or my risky Garchomp build, not having any experience using my Garchomp at all also knowing the nationals was gonna be swamped by GG/Empoleon/Maggy I thought it would be just best to stick with GG.

After realising that I couldn't afford a hotel for the friday and the saturday as I left the whole thing to the last minute I decided to take midnight coaches leaving Manchester friday 19:50 arriving Earls court Saturday 05:20. I felt like rubbish, tired as I had no sleep die to all the stops and 3 hour long wait in birmingham/heathrow.

I kept wondering if the travel will affect how I'll play during the day.

I get to Earls court and early hours and walk through hyde park, breath taken I just wanted to stay there and go to sleep, but I plox'd on.

I get to the event and see some of the Manchester players. After filling in my Deck list I see Kempley and Andy Stone, kempley says he's running Empo and so does Andy and then at that point i realised to my dismay I hadn't stuck a Dugtrio in my deck.

The room was packed, got a game against Andy using his friends Leafeon/Sceppy deck, I used my untested Garchomp, it did quite well but I hadn't stuck any fire energy in as I was expecting just Empo/GG/Mag. By the last 3 turns he was doing 170dmg lol and premier balling straight back into another leafeon lvlx

Deck List:

3 Pachirisu
2 Phione
4 Ralts
2 Kirlia
3 Gardy
2 Gallade
1 Gardy lvl x
2 Baltoy
2 Claydol
1 Omastar

4 Celio
3 TGW
2 Roseanne
3 prof Oak visit
2 Windstom
2 Night Maintenance
1 Warp point
1 Helix Fossil

7 Psychic
2 Fighting
2 Call energy
4 DRE
1 Scramble

I took out the ever popular GG tech Dusknoir for Omastar for 2 reasons A. When people first see my deck they would just expect me to play Dusknoir and limit themselves down to three for fear of me placing it in one turn. And alot of decks now can run quite consistantly with only 3 bench. B. Omastar is great late game when GG's damage is low, it can give that one KO you need with Bring down especially if you warp point their active to the bench and teleport back in then Omastar it down ko.

I also replaced a Super sccop I was using for another energy as first turn energy attachment with phione/pachi is a must.

Match1:

Alex (Magic Umbreon) : Redshift (his own build)
He got a rotom start and Moltres quite quick I got a Gallade quick and wanted to just OHKO his 2 pokemon before he got anything out he ends up doing 100 to my Gallade but as he had nothing left I got a big headstart knocking him down to 3 prizes early. As I was ploxing him he got out a Jirachi EX doing 60 dmg and no powers for an energy with no weakness! I hit him for 50 after levelling up but then he SSU'd and brought him back out, I eventually knocked it out and took 2 prizes with 1 left then time was called and I had won but managed to get the final ko Night maintanence'ing Gardy lvl.x and bring down for the win.

1-0

Emo dude : Empoleon
This guy was cool, had a real good laugh during our game. He got a bad start I got a great start and that was it. He didn't take a prize.

2-0

Jovas? : G&G with Absol
This match was intense, I got Phione start ralts on bench, 2 rare candies, kirlia and energy, he Absol'd my kirlia, then next turn my 2 rare candies! With no supporters, no claydol I was playing all my game on Phione and my energy, managed to get out Gallade and tore through 3 prizes but drawing into nothing to set up claydol, playing just on the ralts and gardies I was drawing I took another 2 prizes and realised that this guy was taking ages on every turn. By the end he took 3 prizes and both my kirlia were in my discard with no Night maintence, a phione active and ralts on the bench with energy, time was called and I was up 2 prizes and won. If he would have played faster it might have been a different outcome.

3-0

Sammi : Garchomp
By this point I was in 2nd place on the board and saw my matchup with a smile. Sammi is a great player as we all know but I really just wanted to see how his Garchomp worked. He started Rotom and I started Phione and those two pokemon were out some time, moving the energy from rotom to Garchomp and the game went from there. Sammi limiting his bench to 3 as he thought I would be playing Dusk. He played a dusknull when I had guaranteed bring down on his claydol, great play. I feel the match decider was when he flipped 2 heads on Garchomp lvl.x's power and made everything OHKO'able also ruining my bring down. As Sammi said in his rundown of the match we were 4-4 prizes when time was called during my turn I was trying to top deck a helix fossil using My Prof.Oaks and telepassing Sammi's TV reporters for the few turns prior in order to rare candy Omastar devolve the garchomp on his bench with 60dmg on it then Bring Down for the win but even with only about 8 cards left in the deck and TVR'ing I didn't get it.
Great player great guy.

3-1

Nitish : Empoleon
I got a pretty good headstart and was doing well, I psychic locked countless times for fear of his omanyte being evolved and taking out 3 of my benched pokemon. I didn't let up with psychic lock and he took 2 prizes from from my bench including my claydol, he made a massive comeback time was called with me up on prizes and game over. Great player, always a contender.

4-1

So I was 4-1 with only a loss to Sammi and in 4th place on the board.

Top 16

Ren : Empoleon

Game 1

Without Dugtrio i knew this was gonna be hard, I got a mediocre start but felt that I started to bring the match back when I should have just conceded and went on to the next game, after 45 mins with him hitting the DRE's at the right time and never flipping tails he got the win.

Game 2

We both knew it was over with 15 mins left, I managed to Psychic lock both his claydols and his hand size was 2, he top decked miracles and bench hit a ko to bring the prizes in his favor and time was called

Great player.
___

Great day, got some cards I needed, met up with all the cool guys and didn't do too badly. Manchester was represented well Me, Nick and Jem.

Even with time to spare I manage to miss my coach, a MASSIVE thank you to Stef (ManicGiraffe)+Stef for helping me out, without you guys I don't know what i would have done.

See you guys next year.
 
Last edited:
A pleasure seeing you again Scott, I think you deserve props for making such an epic journey to get there :) Sorry you didn't make it any further but Top cutting for a second year is awesome - you did Manchester proud!
 
Nice job Scott, nice to see you again. I hope you appreciated all the "fo sho" banter during our game when and Amy and I were sitting next to you!:biggrin:

Until next year!

Tom
 
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