MrScaryMuffin
New Member
Long article! You may want to take a multi-sitting approach.
Also, images are disabled in these forums. If you want to see the version of this post with images, see my blog: http://mrscarymuffin.blogspot.com
After the BR at Tukwila, I took my Gothitelle deck and tweaked it slightly. The big change to the deck was the addition of a single Switch. I tried out a few other changes but most of them didn’t stick. Mostly, I swapped around the draw supports a bit and called it a day (in fact, when I was writing up the list, I was actually surprised that I was no longer running four Sage’s, but I shrugged and trusted that I must have had a good reason to do so at some point).
Saviour?
Zekrom did very well in Tukwila and has done extremely well in most other BRs. I was tempted to try it again and even went as far as to revamp my old list from the first Vancouver BR. Even though it tested well, I was still nervous. Going 2-3 with a deck previously will do that to you. Plus, I saw lots of Reshiphlosions and Stage 1’s/Donphans in the first BR, which didn’t really offer Zekrom awesome match ups across the board. Rather, it was more conducive to Goth. Thus, Goth it was!
Truth be told, I was only fearful of Mewplume decks. I had a suspicion, based on the previous BR and from league games, that two players might try Mew decks. However, I was hopeful that their poor Stage 1 and Reshiphlosion match ups would mean that I would avoid them all day, provided that I win first round and keep a good resistance.
Seriously, screw this guy
Anyways, pairings go up a bit late and I get paired up with Cor Vanderwolf, a player from my local league. Seriously? I think I played him at every tournament in Surrey (mind you, I’ve only gone to 2-3 tournaments there
)
Round 1 vs. Cor Vanderwolf (Ross.dec –SEL +KGL)
Cor and the rest of the BTCG guys have been messing around with Ross’s deck ever since they saw him top cut at World’s this year. After Emerging Powers released, they tried out Beartic with the deck and now they were trying out a deck out/disruption strategy with Kyogre Groudon Legend.
I have a strong belief that Gothitelle has a strong advantage over Vileplume/Reuniclus decks and, unfortunately for Cor, this seems to be the case for most of the day. I start off Cleffa against his Oddish and draw into a Solosis. With a strong hand and a confident read that he would have no trainers, I elected to skip the Pichu and set up manually so that he would have less chances to set up Vileplume quickly. I Cell Cultured a second Solosis on the first turn and KO’d the Oddish on the second turn.
Cor drops the expected Twins (he had eight cards in hand, but I decided killing Oddish was worth the risk), but unfortunately one of his Oddish was prized. He attempts to get set up anyways with a Gloom on his bench but my Gothitelle gets set up and I catcher the Gloom and swung for weakness for the KO.
Cor manually sets up a Zekrom with two rainbow energies while I picked apart his bench, denying him Reuncilus and other goodies. I was fearful of his Zekrom with Black Belt but I had no damage on my side to knock out my own Pokemon to even out the prizes. Luckily, Cor whiffs with Zekrom active and scoops.
1-0
Round 2 vs. Simon Chai (Donphans and Dragons)
Another friend. Simon is a super friendly and uber nice guy from the Surrey area. He spends a lot of time teaching kids to playing and is very supportive. I believe he is a major contributing factor to how well the Pokemon community has grown in the area. Unfortunately, I had to face him.
Apparently Simon got into the second round by decking out another pal, Joseph, from a losing position. They discussed this openly but I wasn’t sure if Joey accidently decked himself or if Simon had some sort discard tech. I knew that I had to keep my deck size in mind throughout our game.
I start again and collector for the Pichu and some cards that I like to have in my hand. I use playground and he sets up four Phanpys and one Cleffa to back up his active Reshiram. On the next turn, I managed to Eek myself into a hand that enabled me to set up both Gothitelle and Reuniclus. Simon opts to swing into my Goth, which allowed me to KO Pichu on my bench and start my Twin chain. I believe I grabbed mostly energies with Twins.
We joked around a bit during our game, it was nice to relax a bit and chat. I said that he should name his deck Advanced Donphans and Dragons, or AD&D for short. I also noted how nice and trusting he was every time he declined to cut my deck after shuffling. He didn’t decline every time, probably about 70-80% of the time.
AD&D, the non-disorder one
I took care to catcher up any Phanpys or Donphans with two energies, as I didn’t really want to have to deal with heavy impact. However, my resources run dry finally and I had to KO the Cleffa that woke up while he had a Donphan on the bench with two fighting energies. Before I attacked, however, I Seekered up my Duosion and dropped Solosis back down so that I could damage swap and KO it. After I attacked, we were even in prizes at 3-3.
Simon then played his turn very quickly, attaching the third fighting to Donphan and dropping the Black Belt before announcing his attack. “Whoa!” I said, as I pointed out that we were even on prizes since I had graciously given him a free prize. Simon reeled back at the misplay and there wasn’t much he could do except carry out the attack. I had enough energies on my Goth to one shot the Donphan and did exactly that after moving the damage off.
With no other method to get over the 130 wall before I could grab two more prizes, Simon scoops. True to his nature, he was all praise and said that he could see me going all the way with the deck. I brushed it off and told him that I would be happy just to do better than I did in my previous tournament.
2-0
Round 3 vs. Garik Smith-Manchip (Kingdra/Yanmega)
Yet another pal! Originally I was downpaired to a person that I didn’t know. However, one of the matches from the previous round was recorded incorrectly so there was a repairing. Unfortunately, I was still downpaired! This made me a bit sad, as it meant my resistance wouldn’t be as good and there was a chance that I might miss top cut unless I X-0 the tournament.
Garik was actually the winner of the first Vancouver BR and was playing the same deck that he ran back then. With Yanmega around, I knew that I had to keep a few things in mind. Firstly, I have to make sure that he wouldn’t be able to snipe anything valuable on the bench easily. Secondly, I cannot stock up any cards in my hands due to Judge. In other words, no Twins chain.
We play down one Pokemon each and I get my third start of the day! This was a crucial start, as I turned over Solosis to his Tyrogue. Seriously, who runs Tyrogue in this format? Apparently Garik did. After dodging the donk, I communicated for a Pichu and we both fill our bench. Garik got three Horseas and two Yanmas and KO’d the Pichu with his Tyrogue. This allowed me to use Twins. I grabbed what I needed to get Gothitelle up and, instead of getting another Twins, opted to get Tropical Beach.
Even against Judges, I managed to get my Catchers and Junk Arms going and took out every Seadra I saw before finally taking out the last Horsea he had. I absorbed 70 damage every turn and Seekered a Zekrom once to wipe the damage. Garik promotes a Reshiram in an attempt to wall against me taking the last prize, but I KO’d one of my bench Pokemon and dropped a Shaymin to move some energies around and score the final KO.
Nope.
3-0
Round 4 vs. Sam Park (Magneboar)
There were only five 3-0s left in the tournament, which meant that I was essentially sitting at the head table with people who might be top cutting. Sure enough, I get paired with another familiar face. Above me in the table were Christian and Trevore. Christian was a super keen Pokemon player who only started recently. He accompanied me to Tukwila and was inspired to build his own Zekrom deck. He had already played a BR just the day before in Redmond, WA and was doing very well this tournament. Trevore arrived on the mainland with a large group from Vancouver Island and, well, you’ll see what he’s playing below.
To my left, Ricky was downpaired and also not too happy with it. Ricky is another friend from the local league and we had actually went together to watch the Canucks, our local NHL team, open practice the day before.
I had a DCE in hand and decided that it might be worthwhile to start Zekrom instead of Solosis. Sam turns over…magneton? We laugh at how tired poor Sam was and treated it as a mulligan. I had mulligan’d once already, so I just didn’t draw an extra card.
Gothitelle got set up turn three this game and I drop the Jirarchi and Shaymin to accelerate my energy attachment enough to KO his active Reshiram. Sam laments that he didn’t use Switch for Cleffa while he had the chance. I was actually quite nervous this match as Magnezone can set up ridiculously fast off Twins. I, myself, had no real draw to speak of, but two energies were already on the field and I knew that I needed Goth active immediately while he still was stuck on basics. Luckily, he whiffed on Twins (not sure if he even ran any) and my first prize card was a catcher.
Seriously, screw this guy
When I played the catcher, Sam revealed that he wasn’t aware that Gothitelle was a one-sided trainer lock. This had led him to over invest in one Magneton, which I brought up and KO’d. I followed up with consecutive KO’s on another other Stage 1’s that I saw and Sam was unable to get anything going.
4-0
Round 5 vs. Ricky Gao (Cincinno/Ninetales/Yanmega/Simisear)
Aw man, not Ricky Gao! I could’ve been paired with Trevore, but nope. I had to play Ricky Gao. Ricky definitely is a name in Pokemon and I’m never enthusiastic to play against him.
True to form, he is well prepared against Goth and Ross decks in his Stage 1 variant. He benched Pansear off my Pichu and attempts to evolve it to Simisear on his first turn. After clearing things up with the judge, he would evolve it properly on turn two and would Flame Burst twice to KO both my Solosis on the bench.
Seriously. Screw. This. Guy.
I get Gothitelle up late, no thanks to Ricky’s constant use of Judge, and it was in risk of getting two-shotted as well. I communicated and opted to avoid dropping another Solosis and instead put up Gothita. This turned out to be the wrong play, as he focused on finishing the Gothitelle and I top deck the Rare Candy. Of course, if I dropped the Solosis, he probably would have gone for that instead. I try to charge up Gothitelle with Jirarchi and Shaymin but epically flip three tails on Stardust Song. Like a boss!
I promote Cleffa and Eek to see if I could salvage the game in anyway. I also needed to do this as both Cleffa and Pichu had 20 damage from an earlier Flame Burst and Ricky only had two prizes left (Ricky himself actually suggested the move while I basically had no idea what I could do, what a pal!). Unfortunately, Ricky Copycats into a catcher and Flame Bursts for the win.
4-1
Top Cut or Not?
Cor ultimately ends up 2-3. I noted that two other Ross/KGL players didn’t do too well either. Simon was 3-2, Garik ended 2-3, Sam fell to 3-2 and Ricky was, of course, 5-0. There were five or seven other players with 4-1 and two with 5-0. I knew that if I got into the top four, I would be just squeaking by.
Sure enough, I end up in fourth place behind Christian. Kevin Gomez, who was playing my nightmare match up of Mewplume was just behind me with about 3% of difference in resistance. I would like to thank all my friends/opponents for boosting me up into top cut! I couldn’t have made it without you!
Top Four vs. Trevore Read (Bearplume)
Game 1
Trevore was essentially running a Ross structure with four Beartics as the headline attacker. I knew going into the match that it was a good match up for me, just because I believed that Gothitelle had the advantage in being able to play trainers and hit over the wall.
The first game actually turned out to be quite the chore as we both failed to set up for the first 15 minutes or so. I dropped Tropical Beach early in the game and we both made ample use of it, although I think Trevore probably came out ahead, being able to play most of his cards to set up Vileplume early and Beaching for precisely one card almost every turn.
After getting trainer locked for the first time in the entire tournament, I manually set up a Reuniclus and Gothitelle. Trevore strikes first and I made sure to punish him for it as I KO’d babies on my bench to activate my own Twins while preventing his.
With Sheer Cold in effect, I had to play out my KO’s carefully. Trevore was unfortunately forced to Sheer Cold every turn so that my fully pumped Gothitelle couldn’t one shot him. This allowed me to stack damage on Zekrom, which Outraged for the KO. Trevore only had Beartics to attack with and was forced to KO Zekrom with one of them, allowing me to return KO with the fully pumped up Gothitelle. His third Beartic reengaged the Sheer Cold lock, but I dropped Shaymin to allow me to attack with my other Gothitelle + Black Belt.
Seriously...actually, I'm cool with this one
I was now out of energies and had two more prizes to take. A failed collector showed me one more Psychic in my deck, which I later Sage’d for. Luckily, Trevore seemed to also be out of energies. His discard showed four DCEs, which meant that he wouldn’t be able to attack with just two attachments. I continually swung 90 into his Beartic, which his spread to his Gloom, Vileplume, Chansey, and Reuniclus. I held about twenty cards in my hand and was getting close to decking out. I had Jirarchi in my hand and knew that I could score both my KO’s for the win if he didn’t elect to drop the Blissey.
Even if he did drop the Blissey, I had PONT in my hand and it would probably buy enough time for me to restack damage for the Jirarchi again. However, I didn’t know if he had a Seeker available to reuse Blissey. However, this became a mute point as Trevore held out on the Blissey, most likely waiting until the last possible moment to use it, and stacked enough on Vileplume and Gloom for me to get rid of both of them with two heads on Stardust Song.
Advantage, Murray.
Game 2
After we set up, we only had 15 minutes left to play the game. I did my best to give Trevore a fair game, playing at a good pace, but not so quick that I would misplay. Trevore elects to go first and sets up Vileplume on his second turn, leaving me with a dead hand and the daunting task of setting up everything manually.
Luckily, two of his Beartics were prized and he had put himself in the position of top decking for the evolution he needed. I was Eeking every turn and trying to play whatever I could. Unfortunately, I continued to whiff on the Beach. Trevore, on the other hand, attacked into my babies with Powder Snow.
I finally get my Reuniclus up and KO my babies again with the Powder Snow damage and Twin chained for a fully pumped up Gothitelle. I KO his first fully charged (for the Beartic) Cubchoo and he pushes up the other fully charged Cubchoo. He had drew the Beartic from the free prize card that I gave him and used Sheer Cold, but I KO’d another baby and used Shaymin to allowed my other Gothitelle to KO the Beartic. With no Cubchoo ready for action and the prizes matched, Trevore had no play and I was in prime position to roll him.
Yea, we're cool too dawg
Without enough damage on the board to KO any more babies, I KO’d his offerings and enabled him to Twins for the first time in our games. However, he had to set up Beartic very slowly and I take another prize.
With the count 4-2 in my favour, time is called. With the two turns given to me, I had both KOs lined up. However, Trevore had other ideas. After I take my fifth prize, he pushes up Cubchoo and flips heads on Powder Snow to put me to sleep. I fail the sleep check and I am unable to take my final prize!
And so I’m forced to pass my turn, the third turn after time is called, and win by time out/prize count instead of a true legit win of taking all prize cards.
5-1
Top Two vs. Ricky Gao (Grudge Match!)
Game 1
It was actually funny, you see. During deck check, I called out to Ricky and said that we’ll have a rematch in the finals. Ricky pooh-pah’d my enthusiasm and said that he would probably lose to Christian as he had a bad match up against ZPST. However, Ricky managed to drop Christian to 4th place overall flawlessly and I actually get my grudge match!
My memory may be hazy, but apparently the BTCG guys will be uploading a video of the match on their youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/TheTeamBTCG
Ricky’s BR Report is here: http://pokegym.net/forums/showthread.php?t=155355
Apparently Ricky is undefeated and has been winning all the opening coin flips this tournament. True to form, he goes first. I Pichu anyways and notice that he doesn’t set up Pansear. Could it be that he’s running 1-1 and it’s prized? Ricky confirms (what a nice guy!) and proceeds to catcher up one Solosis and snipes the other off the bench. I follow up his boss move with a pretty good misplay. I rare candy Reuniclus and Twins for Gothitelle and something else. I knew I couldn’t get a Twins chain going, but I was tired and forgot that I needed a Switch to get my Reuniclus out of the active spot! Whoops.
So he promotes Cincinnos and KO’s the Reuniclus and I promote Gothitelle. I’m definitely tired here as I try to set up with Solosis again, feeling safe with the trainer lock in place, but forgetting that Yanmega just snipes it off the bench. Whoops!
This does buy me some time and I manage to catch up in prizes. Ricky is ahead in the count 2-1 and does an epic misplay of his own. He calls out “Linear Attack on Gothitelle”, tapping the active Gothitelle and I stare at him in confusion. The Judge says that it’s my option if I want to let him take it back and I felt like such a jerk as I put 40 on my Gothitelle. I apologize and Catcher up the benched Mincinno and KO it, leaving Ricky with no way to take a prize on his turn.
Advantage, Murray.
Game 2
Ricky elects to go first and attaches a DCE to his active Yanma. He takes back the move and attaches to the benched Mincinno instead and I don’t say anything. Mincinno uses Last Resort on my Pichu and Ricky scores the heads for the KO.
I communicate and I’m lucky that my other Pichu is not prized. This time Ricky drops the Pansear and I know I’m in a world of hurt. However, I don’t scoop right away, as we still had plenty of time left for the whole match. Not even when his triple KOs Pichu, Cleffa and Solosis I play out my entire hand and get a Gothitelle active. After top decking nothing for two turns and losing the Gothitelle, I scoop.
Deuce!
Game 3
This time I start and I burn quite a few resources to get Pichu out right off the bat. Ricky benches Pansear and I unwittingly attach an energy on Solosis by mistake. I end up burning a bit more resources to get Shaymin just so that I can put that energy in its rightful place. Ricky rattles off a few Last Resorts and gets some and fails some. This allows me to Twins into a fast set up and I end up with an amazing board with a fully charged Goth active, two benched Zekroms with 40 damage and a DCE each, and Reuniclus.
I didn’t really need to prize match as Ricky was doing well to snipe my benched babies. We end up 2-2 in prizes and I get the first KO. Unable to prevent any follow up KO, Ricky scoops.
6-1
And that’s the story of how I lucked my way to first place!
Also, images are disabled in these forums. If you want to see the version of this post with images, see my blog: http://mrscarymuffin.blogspot.com
After the BR at Tukwila, I took my Gothitelle deck and tweaked it slightly. The big change to the deck was the addition of a single Switch. I tried out a few other changes but most of them didn’t stick. Mostly, I swapped around the draw supports a bit and called it a day (in fact, when I was writing up the list, I was actually surprised that I was no longer running four Sage’s, but I shrugged and trusted that I must have had a good reason to do so at some point).
Saviour?
Zekrom did very well in Tukwila and has done extremely well in most other BRs. I was tempted to try it again and even went as far as to revamp my old list from the first Vancouver BR. Even though it tested well, I was still nervous. Going 2-3 with a deck previously will do that to you. Plus, I saw lots of Reshiphlosions and Stage 1’s/Donphans in the first BR, which didn’t really offer Zekrom awesome match ups across the board. Rather, it was more conducive to Goth. Thus, Goth it was!
Truth be told, I was only fearful of Mewplume decks. I had a suspicion, based on the previous BR and from league games, that two players might try Mew decks. However, I was hopeful that their poor Stage 1 and Reshiphlosion match ups would mean that I would avoid them all day, provided that I win first round and keep a good resistance.
Seriously, screw this guy
Anyways, pairings go up a bit late and I get paired up with Cor Vanderwolf, a player from my local league. Seriously? I think I played him at every tournament in Surrey (mind you, I’ve only gone to 2-3 tournaments there
)Round 1 vs. Cor Vanderwolf (Ross.dec –SEL +KGL)
Cor and the rest of the BTCG guys have been messing around with Ross’s deck ever since they saw him top cut at World’s this year. After Emerging Powers released, they tried out Beartic with the deck and now they were trying out a deck out/disruption strategy with Kyogre Groudon Legend.
I have a strong belief that Gothitelle has a strong advantage over Vileplume/Reuniclus decks and, unfortunately for Cor, this seems to be the case for most of the day. I start off Cleffa against his Oddish and draw into a Solosis. With a strong hand and a confident read that he would have no trainers, I elected to skip the Pichu and set up manually so that he would have less chances to set up Vileplume quickly. I Cell Cultured a second Solosis on the first turn and KO’d the Oddish on the second turn.
Cor drops the expected Twins (he had eight cards in hand, but I decided killing Oddish was worth the risk), but unfortunately one of his Oddish was prized. He attempts to get set up anyways with a Gloom on his bench but my Gothitelle gets set up and I catcher the Gloom and swung for weakness for the KO.
Cor manually sets up a Zekrom with two rainbow energies while I picked apart his bench, denying him Reuncilus and other goodies. I was fearful of his Zekrom with Black Belt but I had no damage on my side to knock out my own Pokemon to even out the prizes. Luckily, Cor whiffs with Zekrom active and scoops.
1-0
Round 2 vs. Simon Chai (Donphans and Dragons)
Another friend
. Simon is a super friendly and uber nice guy from the Surrey area. He spends a lot of time teaching kids to playing and is very supportive. I believe he is a major contributing factor to how well the Pokemon community has grown in the area. Unfortunately, I had to face him.Apparently Simon got into the second round by decking out another pal, Joseph, from a losing position. They discussed this openly but I wasn’t sure if Joey accidently decked himself or if Simon had some sort discard tech. I knew that I had to keep my deck size in mind throughout our game.
I start again and collector for the Pichu and some cards that I like to have in my hand. I use playground and he sets up four Phanpys and one Cleffa to back up his active Reshiram. On the next turn, I managed to Eek myself into a hand that enabled me to set up both Gothitelle and Reuniclus. Simon opts to swing into my Goth, which allowed me to KO Pichu on my bench and start my Twin chain. I believe I grabbed mostly energies with Twins.
We joked around a bit during our game, it was nice to relax a bit and chat. I said that he should name his deck Advanced Donphans and Dragons, or AD&D for short. I also noted how nice and trusting he was every time he declined to cut my deck after shuffling. He didn’t decline every time, probably about 70-80% of the time.
AD&D, the non-disorder one
I took care to catcher up any Phanpys or Donphans with two energies, as I didn’t really want to have to deal with heavy impact. However, my resources run dry finally and I had to KO the Cleffa that woke up while he had a Donphan on the bench with two fighting energies. Before I attacked, however, I Seekered up my Duosion and dropped Solosis back down so that I could damage swap and KO it. After I attacked, we were even in prizes at 3-3.
Simon then played his turn very quickly, attaching the third fighting to Donphan and dropping the Black Belt before announcing his attack. “Whoa!” I said, as I pointed out that we were even on prizes since I had graciously given him a free prize. Simon reeled back at the misplay and there wasn’t much he could do except carry out the attack. I had enough energies on my Goth to one shot the Donphan and did exactly that after moving the damage off.
With no other method to get over the 130 wall before I could grab two more prizes, Simon scoops. True to his nature, he was all praise and said that he could see me going all the way with the deck. I brushed it off and told him that I would be happy just to do better than I did in my previous tournament.
2-0
Round 3 vs. Garik Smith-Manchip (Kingdra/Yanmega)
Yet another pal! Originally I was downpaired to a person that I didn’t know. However, one of the matches from the previous round was recorded incorrectly so there was a repairing. Unfortunately, I was still downpaired! This made me a bit sad, as it meant my resistance wouldn’t be as good and there was a chance that I might miss top cut unless I X-0 the tournament.
Garik was actually the winner of the first Vancouver BR and was playing the same deck that he ran back then. With Yanmega around, I knew that I had to keep a few things in mind. Firstly, I have to make sure that he wouldn’t be able to snipe anything valuable on the bench easily. Secondly, I cannot stock up any cards in my hands due to Judge. In other words, no Twins chain.
We play down one Pokemon each and I get my third start of the day! This was a crucial start, as I turned over Solosis to his Tyrogue. Seriously, who runs Tyrogue in this format? Apparently Garik did. After dodging the donk, I communicated for a Pichu and we both fill our bench. Garik got three Horseas and two Yanmas and KO’d the Pichu with his Tyrogue. This allowed me to use Twins. I grabbed what I needed to get Gothitelle up and, instead of getting another Twins, opted to get Tropical Beach.
Even against Judges, I managed to get my Catchers and Junk Arms going and took out every Seadra I saw before finally taking out the last Horsea he had. I absorbed 70 damage every turn and Seekered a Zekrom once to wipe the damage. Garik promotes a Reshiram in an attempt to wall against me taking the last prize, but I KO’d one of my bench Pokemon and dropped a Shaymin to move some energies around and score the final KO.
Nope.
3-0
Round 4 vs. Sam Park (Magneboar)
There were only five 3-0s left in the tournament, which meant that I was essentially sitting at the head table with people who might be top cutting. Sure enough, I get paired with another familiar face. Above me in the table were Christian and Trevore. Christian was a super keen Pokemon player who only started recently. He accompanied me to Tukwila and was inspired to build his own Zekrom deck. He had already played a BR just the day before in Redmond, WA and was doing very well this tournament. Trevore arrived on the mainland with a large group from Vancouver Island and, well, you’ll see what he’s playing below.
To my left, Ricky was downpaired and also not too happy with it. Ricky is another friend from the local league and we had actually went together to watch the Canucks, our local NHL team, open practice the day before.
I had a DCE in hand and decided that it might be worthwhile to start Zekrom instead of Solosis. Sam turns over…magneton? We laugh at how tired poor Sam was and treated it as a mulligan. I had mulligan’d once already, so I just didn’t draw an extra card.
Gothitelle got set up turn three this game and I drop the Jirarchi and Shaymin to accelerate my energy attachment enough to KO his active Reshiram. Sam laments that he didn’t use Switch for Cleffa while he had the chance. I was actually quite nervous this match as Magnezone can set up ridiculously fast off Twins. I, myself, had no real draw to speak of, but two energies were already on the field and I knew that I needed Goth active immediately while he still was stuck on basics. Luckily, he whiffed on Twins (not sure if he even ran any) and my first prize card was a catcher.
Seriously, screw this guy
When I played the catcher, Sam revealed that he wasn’t aware that Gothitelle was a one-sided trainer lock. This had led him to over invest in one Magneton, which I brought up and KO’d. I followed up with consecutive KO’s on another other Stage 1’s that I saw and Sam was unable to get anything going.
4-0
Round 5 vs. Ricky Gao (Cincinno/Ninetales/Yanmega/Simisear)
Aw man, not Ricky Gao! I could’ve been paired with Trevore, but nope. I had to play Ricky Gao. Ricky definitely is a name in Pokemon and I’m never enthusiastic to play against him.
True to form, he is well prepared against Goth and Ross decks in his Stage 1 variant. He benched Pansear off my Pichu and attempts to evolve it to Simisear on his first turn. After clearing things up with the judge, he would evolve it properly on turn two and would Flame Burst twice to KO both my Solosis on the bench.
Seriously. Screw. This. Guy.
I get Gothitelle up late, no thanks to Ricky’s constant use of Judge, and it was in risk of getting two-shotted as well. I communicated and opted to avoid dropping another Solosis and instead put up Gothita. This turned out to be the wrong play, as he focused on finishing the Gothitelle and I top deck the Rare Candy. Of course, if I dropped the Solosis, he probably would have gone for that instead. I try to charge up Gothitelle with Jirarchi and Shaymin but epically flip three tails on Stardust Song. Like a boss!
I promote Cleffa and Eek to see if I could salvage the game in anyway. I also needed to do this as both Cleffa and Pichu had 20 damage from an earlier Flame Burst and Ricky only had two prizes left (Ricky himself actually suggested the move while I basically had no idea what I could do, what a pal!). Unfortunately, Ricky Copycats into a catcher and Flame Bursts for the win.
4-1
Top Cut or Not?
Cor ultimately ends up 2-3. I noted that two other Ross/KGL players didn’t do too well either. Simon was 3-2, Garik ended 2-3, Sam fell to 3-2 and Ricky was, of course, 5-0. There were five or seven other players with 4-1 and two with 5-0. I knew that if I got into the top four, I would be just squeaking by.
Sure enough, I end up in fourth place behind Christian. Kevin Gomez, who was playing my nightmare match up of Mewplume was just behind me with about 3% of difference in resistance. I would like to thank all my friends/opponents for boosting me up into top cut! I couldn’t have made it without you!
Top Four vs. Trevore Read (Bearplume)
Game 1
Trevore was essentially running a Ross structure with four Beartics as the headline attacker. I knew going into the match that it was a good match up for me, just because I believed that Gothitelle had the advantage in being able to play trainers and hit over the wall.
The first game actually turned out to be quite the chore as we both failed to set up for the first 15 minutes or so. I dropped Tropical Beach early in the game and we both made ample use of it, although I think Trevore probably came out ahead, being able to play most of his cards to set up Vileplume early and Beaching for precisely one card almost every turn.
After getting trainer locked for the first time in the entire tournament, I manually set up a Reuniclus and Gothitelle. Trevore strikes first and I made sure to punish him for it as I KO’d babies on my bench to activate my own Twins while preventing his.
With Sheer Cold in effect, I had to play out my KO’s carefully. Trevore was unfortunately forced to Sheer Cold every turn so that my fully pumped Gothitelle couldn’t one shot him. This allowed me to stack damage on Zekrom, which Outraged for the KO. Trevore only had Beartics to attack with and was forced to KO Zekrom with one of them, allowing me to return KO with the fully pumped up Gothitelle. His third Beartic reengaged the Sheer Cold lock, but I dropped Shaymin to allow me to attack with my other Gothitelle + Black Belt.
Seriously...actually, I'm cool with this one
I was now out of energies and had two more prizes to take. A failed collector showed me one more Psychic in my deck, which I later Sage’d for. Luckily, Trevore seemed to also be out of energies. His discard showed four DCEs, which meant that he wouldn’t be able to attack with just two attachments. I continually swung 90 into his Beartic, which his spread to his Gloom, Vileplume, Chansey, and Reuniclus. I held about twenty cards in my hand and was getting close to decking out. I had Jirarchi in my hand and knew that I could score both my KO’s for the win if he didn’t elect to drop the Blissey.
Even if he did drop the Blissey, I had PONT in my hand and it would probably buy enough time for me to restack damage for the Jirarchi again. However, I didn’t know if he had a Seeker available to reuse Blissey. However, this became a mute point as Trevore held out on the Blissey, most likely waiting until the last possible moment to use it, and stacked enough on Vileplume and Gloom for me to get rid of both of them with two heads on Stardust Song.
Advantage, Murray.
Game 2
After we set up, we only had 15 minutes left to play the game. I did my best to give Trevore a fair game, playing at a good pace, but not so quick that I would misplay. Trevore elects to go first and sets up Vileplume on his second turn, leaving me with a dead hand and the daunting task of setting up everything manually.
Luckily, two of his Beartics were prized and he had put himself in the position of top decking for the evolution he needed. I was Eeking every turn and trying to play whatever I could. Unfortunately, I continued to whiff on the Beach. Trevore, on the other hand, attacked into my babies with Powder Snow.
I finally get my Reuniclus up and KO my babies again with the Powder Snow damage and Twin chained for a fully pumped up Gothitelle. I KO his first fully charged (for the Beartic) Cubchoo and he pushes up the other fully charged Cubchoo. He had drew the Beartic from the free prize card that I gave him and used Sheer Cold, but I KO’d another baby and used Shaymin to allowed my other Gothitelle to KO the Beartic. With no Cubchoo ready for action and the prizes matched, Trevore had no play and I was in prime position to roll him.
Yea, we're cool too dawg
Without enough damage on the board to KO any more babies, I KO’d his offerings and enabled him to Twins for the first time in our games. However, he had to set up Beartic very slowly and I take another prize.
With the count 4-2 in my favour, time is called. With the two turns given to me, I had both KOs lined up. However, Trevore had other ideas. After I take my fifth prize, he pushes up Cubchoo and flips heads on Powder Snow to put me to sleep. I fail the sleep check and I am unable to take my final prize!
And so I’m forced to pass my turn, the third turn after time is called, and win by time out/prize count instead of a true legit win of taking all prize cards.
5-1
Top Two vs. Ricky Gao (Grudge Match!)
Game 1
It was actually funny, you see. During deck check, I called out to Ricky and said that we’ll have a rematch in the finals. Ricky pooh-pah’d my enthusiasm and said that he would probably lose to Christian as he had a bad match up against ZPST. However, Ricky managed to drop Christian to 4th place overall flawlessly and I actually get my grudge match!
My memory may be hazy, but apparently the BTCG guys will be uploading a video of the match on their youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/TheTeamBTCG
Ricky’s BR Report is here: http://pokegym.net/forums/showthread.php?t=155355
Apparently Ricky is undefeated and has been winning all the opening coin flips this tournament. True to form, he goes first. I Pichu anyways and notice that he doesn’t set up Pansear. Could it be that he’s running 1-1 and it’s prized? Ricky confirms (what a nice guy!) and proceeds to catcher up one Solosis and snipes the other off the bench. I follow up his boss move with a pretty good misplay. I rare candy Reuniclus and Twins for Gothitelle and something else. I knew I couldn’t get a Twins chain going, but I was tired and forgot that I needed a Switch to get my Reuniclus out of the active spot! Whoops.
So he promotes Cincinnos and KO’s the Reuniclus and I promote Gothitelle. I’m definitely tired here as I try to set up with Solosis again, feeling safe with the trainer lock in place, but forgetting that Yanmega just snipes it off the bench. Whoops!
This does buy me some time and I manage to catch up in prizes. Ricky is ahead in the count 2-1 and does an epic misplay of his own. He calls out “Linear Attack on Gothitelle”, tapping the active Gothitelle and I stare at him in confusion. The Judge says that it’s my option if I want to let him take it back and I felt like such a jerk as I put 40 on my Gothitelle. I apologize and Catcher up the benched Mincinno and KO it, leaving Ricky with no way to take a prize on his turn.
Advantage, Murray.
Game 2
Ricky elects to go first and attaches a DCE to his active Yanma. He takes back the move and attaches to the benched Mincinno instead and I don’t say anything. Mincinno uses Last Resort on my Pichu and Ricky scores the heads for the KO.
I communicate and I’m lucky that my other Pichu is not prized. This time Ricky drops the Pansear and I know I’m in a world of hurt. However, I don’t scoop right away, as we still had plenty of time left for the whole match. Not even when his triple KOs Pichu, Cleffa and Solosis
I play out my entire hand and get a Gothitelle active. After top decking nothing for two turns and losing the Gothitelle, I scoop.Deuce!
Game 3
This time I start and I burn quite a few resources to get Pichu out right off the bat. Ricky benches Pansear and I unwittingly attach an energy on Solosis by mistake. I end up burning a bit more resources to get Shaymin just so that I can put that energy in its rightful place. Ricky rattles off a few Last Resorts and gets some and fails some. This allows me to Twins into a fast set up and I end up with an amazing board with a fully charged Goth active, two benched Zekroms with 40 damage and a DCE each, and Reuniclus.
I didn’t really need to prize match as Ricky was doing well to snipe my benched babies. We end up 2-2 in prizes and I get the first KO. Unable to prevent any follow up KO, Ricky scoops.
6-1
And that’s the story of how I lucked my way to first place!
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