Dendrobatida
New Member
To begin:
We had an incredibly well-judged, well-run event. The Reynolds family knows how it's done. We also had the ridiculously good fortune of having Mr. Langenstein here, and seven or eight other judges that all were top-notch (Randy, Javier, Kieth, etc.). Add to that PUI's presence, and we had a flawless event, at least from the player's perspective. I'm sure there were panicky moments and software issues at some point, but if there were, we weren't adversely affected by them. Hats off.
6 rounds, swiss.
The Deck Decision:
I had two choices. The first was politoed. Won states with that, but it's got some wicked bad matchups against some very popular decks. And some not-so-popular ones. And the mirror match is gross.
The second was Dark Raticate/Wobbuffet. Yeah, laugh...and then think about it.
I opted for politoed after a bit of deliberation. For a copy of the list, do refer to my States report; the only change made was dropping the Poliwrath (FRLG) for a Desert Ruins. The rest of the list was identical. No ATM-Rock or Holon's Electrode.
The Rounds:
Round 1: Victor M. with Youcan'tmakeadecktobeatpolitoedanybetterthanthis. Or Dustox -ex/Ariados. Whichever you want to call it.
I'm not sure about the "M" to begin his last name. Not sure about his last name at all. But He was playing Dustox/Ariados. Which is an autoloss for politoed.
Or should be. If he didn't get set up, and I had a godly start, I could probably win the game.
I started out with 2 fossils and not much else. Him? Turn two Dustox -ex with another wurmple and 2 spinarak. Game on.
To say Dunsparce won me this game would be an understatement. To say Dunsparce won me this entire tournament would not be an overstatement. After at least 15 turns worth of confusing whatever he had out there, and getting a holon energy WP on dunsparce so that Ariados couldn't drag it up, I managed a grand total of 4 damage on each of his 2 ariados, with 3 unharmed dustox -ex on the field. With about a minute and a half to go, I finally activated my first politoed -ex. I took out an ariados to tie the game on prizes. He did then what anyone would do: smacked my politoed for 140 with dustox. In doing so he drew his last card. I quickly passed, and he decked. Five seconds later, they called time. Had he not been ready to deck, I would have sniped the other ariados to go ahead 4 prizes to 5 and win.
1-0
Round 2: Vince M. Walrein/Gorebyss/Huntail/Magcargo
I'm sure his deck had some purpose to it. I just never really got to see it. I started with 2 fossils, 2 water energy, and 3 politoed -ex. I proceeded to draw 3 gyms, 3 fossils, 3 energy, 2 poliwhirl, and and Steven's advice, in that order. That was game. I never played an energy, never attacked, and never played a supporter. Sometimes you run into games like this. Better to get them out of the system early, I suppose. But to WGHM? Gesundheit.
1-1
Round 3: Johnny R. Arcanine -ex/Lunasol.
Very tough matchup for him. He did spread a bit of damage around with arcanine, and took out a poliwhirl with a reversal, but a single politoed later in the game swept the board. He was a good player - went on to take out an LBS in the next round, from what I hear.
2-1
Round 4: Jacy Sturkie, Typhlosion/Weezing.
A tough matchup for Jacy as well. I did lose a politoed to the koffing-candy-weezing-energy-energy root-ruins combo, which Jacy did without the benefit of a pidgeot, and with a total of 7 cards in his hand. I had another politoed ready to go, however, and it finished what the first started.
3-1.
Round 5: Denise Barlock, Hariyama -ex/Lunasol.
Dunsparce, again. This time, rather than actually attacking, he absorbed the bulk of her ER2's and reversals. She went 2-2 on the reversals and 2-2 on the er2's, but had to retreat a hariyama to get the second ko on the second dunsparce (it was confused). By that time I was safely behind a wall of fossils and building politoed. I managed to lay the first gym down, though I can't remember whether it was a battle frontier or a desert ruins. Either way, it's important vs. hariyama when you're running a similar stadium setup to it to get your stadium out of hand first, so that the hariyama player effectively loses access to 2 or three of his or her cards, simply because you just played one. That's a good tradeoff (and it gets a gym out of your hand for later on in the game when you ain't playin' any more anyway). Politoed swaller'ed up a few Hariyama for the game.
4-1
Round 6: Brian Leary, Metanite
I gather from his reactions that this game was a bit frustrating for him. He arrived 3 minutes late, and we were not granted an extension of time because of it; hence, both of us were a bit on edge - him because, well, anyone would be if they were late for a match, and me because I'm playing a wicked-slow deck.
I had trouble with this one, since his reversal flips were on fire. He took out two poliwhirl and a dunsparce with 3 reversals. My 3rd poliwhirl was prized, and he had 2 fluffy berry on 2 metagross, making my second dunsparce useless. The difference here was that I run 7 gyms. He ran about 5 or so. I started with a desert ruins, since when you're playing against a non-ex deck it's a good way to control the board early game if they are playing ruins (up to 4 cards in their deck rendered useless), and if they're playing something else, they'll go ahead and counter it anyway. That's what Brian did, with his holon ruins so that he could draw an extra card. By about the 10th turn he had 3 metagross and 2 dragonite down. During that time he had reversaled the aforementioned pokes. Also, during that time, I had laid 4 or 5 fossils down. And both battle frontier, which he countered immediately. That put him at 3 gyms used, me at 3 as well. I hadn't touched my 4 cursed stone, though. I scotted for 2 of them and a field worker, laid the first. He countered it. I laid the second. He countered it. I drew into the third. He didn't counter that one. I took all 6 prizes within about 3 turns of each other with my gyms alone. This was another game in which Politoed simply never appeared. He stormed off, rather upset, and left his deck behind. I believe he did return to retrieve it at the judges' desk later, as I think he made top cut.
5-1
TOP 16
Here's where it gets ridiculous. Almost as ridiculous as Dustox ex/Ariados.
Round 7: Chris Schell, Flariados
Game 1:
Only about 4 or 5 people chimed in beforehand to inform me about just how badly I was going to get beat. To tell you the truth, I wasn't particularly convinced they weren't right. Chris's setup was flawless, his play executed perfectly. Game one, I never played a politoed. But I did win. I think he retreated perhaps 10-12 times over the course of this game, and the desert ruins helped swing the stadium balance in my favor. He hit 2 of 4 of his super scoops, but the difference was dunsparce. Again. Dunsparce with a water and an holon energy WP. It was completely a war of attrition. I managed to grind away until he was out of grass energy (1 prized, I think, and 1 at the bottom of the deck), and he conceded the first.
6-1
Game 2: More of the same. 2/3 of my holon energy were prized, but game one had taken something along the lines of 35 minutes or so, and our second game wasn't going much quicker. I did eventually get the holon energy wp on the second dunsparce after sacrificing the first, and a poliwag as spider trap bait. From there, it was attrition again. With about 5 minutes to go he was reactive poisoning my claw fossils so as not to leave heavily damaged flareons active (at this point, a poliwag with a water could have knocked them out - he had to do 10 damage to himself just to knock out a fossil in 1 turn with heat tackle, the 5 gyms were taking their toll, and he was less fortunate with super scoops this game. He hit 2/2 again, but the 2 were early on, and he failed at the other two late). I was running low on cards, but not as low as he. However, he had 2 prizes left, I had 5. He admin'ed me to try and swing that in his favor. He took 2. I took only 2 as well. He conceded shortly thereafter, since I had a bench full 'o fossils and that godly dunsparce down there.
7-1
Round 8: Alan Schell, LBS
Game 1: About 4 or 5 people, including Chris Schell, came up to me before this one and chimed in about how badly I was going to get beat. Like Flariados, LBS is an ugly matchup for politoed. This first game was uglier than most. He had the jirachi start, the great setup, and was ready to go. I wasn't doing so badly myself. We traded prizes for awhile. I took out a jirachi, a steelix, and a pidgeot. He took out both dunsparce (steelix :/), a poliwhirl, and a politoed. His lugia had 80 damage on it, and it would've cost him the game, but he giant stump'ed it away. We traded a few more shots - Ruins put a few extra damage counters on steelix -ex near the end game, putting it within politoed sniping range. That's how it played out - I took game one on ko'ing the second steelix.
8-1
Game 2: The Schell boys apparently have nicknames. Chris is "noob", and Alan is "Lucksac." Yes. Yes he is. This game set up similarly to the first, though we both had slower starts (me=dunsparce. Him=squirtle). Took me a goodly while to get a poliwag. He set up. However, we finally got back to trading shots (goes like this: early onyx is sniped for 30. Steelix comes up. Politoed hits it for 40, he energy rains, hits politoed for 100, leaving him with about 60 left. Politoed swallows it up, he brings up a second and ko's politoed...so on and so forth). However, he set up a second steelix much quicker than I could politoed, so I fell back to dunsparce, which would've worked just fine, had he not flipped 7 straight heads through confusion to take out the poliwags I was trying to build on the bench. He also took out my dunsparce in there. In the meantime, I drew into 2 poliwhirl, 2 poliwrath, and 5 energies. On the bright side, I did get to use his power tree about 40 bajizillion times. Or 4. Somewhere in there.
8-2
Game 3: Not a whole lot of time left. I dislike these games, because it's all about starts. His = one card off. Mine=oky doky. I started with a lone poliwag, him a lone onyx. I was going first, so I did 20 (he's weak). He topdecked a jirachi, laid it down, but couldn't get onyx out of there. He passed. I scotted for PETM and some other stuff, and hit him for another 20, laying down another energy in the process. He played a scientist, got another onyx and jirachi, layed an energy on onyx, and passed. I evolved to poliwhirl. He was expecting me to ko onyx. I didn't. I put down cursed stone and hit him for another 20, leaving onyx with 60 and both jirachi with 10. Had I ko'ed him, that would have brought up a jirachi to let him set up. Couldn't allow that. He was puzzled, and correspondingly evolved to steelix. I then sniped off the first jirachi. I sniped off the second a turn later, and swallowed up the steelix a turn after that. He conceded. Wonderful games.
9-2
TOP 4: Jim Ferrell, Nidoqueen/dark hypno tech.
Game 1: These were just as tough as the previous matchups, if not moreso. Holon energy GL and heal energies make it tough for me to use dunsparce, and my politoeds weren't out as quickly as I'd like them to be. Milotic also makes things hairy. The bottom line is, though, that nidoqueen simply didn't have a way around fossils. He took a dunsparce and a politoed this game, but had an atm-rock prized until about midgame that he could have used. Late game I got the BF lock, and from there it was punching and running, then sniping off a benched nidoqueen for the game. Really tough matchup for Queen.
10-2
Game 2: More of the same. He did get the ATM-rock kill in this one, and another besides with desert ruins, but that was only 3 prizes, and I was able to build the 3rd politoed. Cursed stone and frontier hurt him once again, and he conceded with about 10 minutes to spare since I had a goodly number of fossils down and a politoed sitting on the bench ready to sweep. I told Jim earlier in the day that Nidoqueen was the right play, and it seemed it was, 'cept against politoed, which is just a bum matchup. I believe that my matchups during the day were beastly (and show just how viciously wide open this format is - I played against 10 different decks during the day, each one with a vastly different strategy and vastly different types), but Jim made it through an ugly one in the top 8, one which, had he not won, likely would have done me in: the other dustox in the field, only this one with weezing and ursaring (don't laugh, he pwned a lunasol and a ZRE with it earlier in the day). I think he mentioned that Hypno won him those games.
11-2
TOP 2: Brent, Ludicargo
Game 1: Ludicargo in top 2 in this format is an amazing accomplishment. Its matchup against flariados, which he beat in the top 4 (Erik Nance...), is no walk in the park, since magcargo is ariados bait. I gather that he made two amazing comebacks during the games to win through. For Brent's list, Politoed is simply an unfair matchup. I cannot recall whether he took a prize during either of our two games, but if he did, it wasn't more than one. In this first game by the end, I had all three politoed fully powered, was ko'ing moltres ex'es with cursed stone so that the energy wouldn't transfer to lanturn, and more of that type of dominance. He never once misplayed, but it was simply a case of not being able to punch through the fossil wall. He had fun with aipom, though.
12-2
Game 2: There was potential for donkage here. He went first, started with chinchou against my lone claw fossil. I had nothing else, and no way to get anything else. I passed. He went, couldn't get the DRE to evolve and ko the fossil, so he celios for the plusle, retreats, and calls for family. I topdecked a copycat and ran with it. He vowed to make the final 45 minutes of the match as excruciating as possible, but even that's difficult to do against a stallitoed deck, though he did take about a minute and a half deciding whether or not he wanted to take a card as a result of my field worker, and he used aipom so much that I thought about sacrificing a politoed just to snipe the thing off. Almost did, too....But aipom survived, politoed did too, and I won the regional.
13-2
Congrats to everyone there. Great event. Exhausting day, but really at the heart of why I love this game. Though easy matchups are never a bad thing, the game isn't at its most fun unless you're sitting across from a skilled, veteran opponent wondering as you shuffle, "How in God's name am I going to pull this out?" Today was one of those days.
Cheers,
Jake/Dendro
ps: Feel free to correct any of the above information about our matches, worthy opponents, if I have erred in the reporting of it. As you know, it was a long day, and the details of matches can get conflated with others in the retelling.
We had an incredibly well-judged, well-run event. The Reynolds family knows how it's done. We also had the ridiculously good fortune of having Mr. Langenstein here, and seven or eight other judges that all were top-notch (Randy, Javier, Kieth, etc.). Add to that PUI's presence, and we had a flawless event, at least from the player's perspective. I'm sure there were panicky moments and software issues at some point, but if there were, we weren't adversely affected by them. Hats off.
6 rounds, swiss.
The Deck Decision:
I had two choices. The first was politoed. Won states with that, but it's got some wicked bad matchups against some very popular decks. And some not-so-popular ones. And the mirror match is gross.
The second was Dark Raticate/Wobbuffet. Yeah, laugh...and then think about it.
I opted for politoed after a bit of deliberation. For a copy of the list, do refer to my States report; the only change made was dropping the Poliwrath (FRLG) for a Desert Ruins. The rest of the list was identical. No ATM-Rock or Holon's Electrode.
The Rounds:
Round 1: Victor M. with Youcan'tmakeadecktobeatpolitoedanybetterthanthis. Or Dustox -ex/Ariados. Whichever you want to call it.
I'm not sure about the "M" to begin his last name. Not sure about his last name at all. But He was playing Dustox/Ariados. Which is an autoloss for politoed.
Or should be. If he didn't get set up, and I had a godly start, I could probably win the game.
I started out with 2 fossils and not much else. Him? Turn two Dustox -ex with another wurmple and 2 spinarak. Game on.
To say Dunsparce won me this game would be an understatement. To say Dunsparce won me this entire tournament would not be an overstatement. After at least 15 turns worth of confusing whatever he had out there, and getting a holon energy WP on dunsparce so that Ariados couldn't drag it up, I managed a grand total of 4 damage on each of his 2 ariados, with 3 unharmed dustox -ex on the field. With about a minute and a half to go, I finally activated my first politoed -ex. I took out an ariados to tie the game on prizes. He did then what anyone would do: smacked my politoed for 140 with dustox. In doing so he drew his last card. I quickly passed, and he decked. Five seconds later, they called time. Had he not been ready to deck, I would have sniped the other ariados to go ahead 4 prizes to 5 and win.
1-0
Round 2: Vince M. Walrein/Gorebyss/Huntail/Magcargo
I'm sure his deck had some purpose to it. I just never really got to see it. I started with 2 fossils, 2 water energy, and 3 politoed -ex. I proceeded to draw 3 gyms, 3 fossils, 3 energy, 2 poliwhirl, and and Steven's advice, in that order. That was game. I never played an energy, never attacked, and never played a supporter. Sometimes you run into games like this. Better to get them out of the system early, I suppose. But to WGHM? Gesundheit.
1-1
Round 3: Johnny R. Arcanine -ex/Lunasol.
Very tough matchup for him. He did spread a bit of damage around with arcanine, and took out a poliwhirl with a reversal, but a single politoed later in the game swept the board. He was a good player - went on to take out an LBS in the next round, from what I hear.
2-1
Round 4: Jacy Sturkie, Typhlosion/Weezing.
A tough matchup for Jacy as well. I did lose a politoed to the koffing-candy-weezing-energy-energy root-ruins combo, which Jacy did without the benefit of a pidgeot, and with a total of 7 cards in his hand. I had another politoed ready to go, however, and it finished what the first started.
3-1.
Round 5: Denise Barlock, Hariyama -ex/Lunasol.
Dunsparce, again. This time, rather than actually attacking, he absorbed the bulk of her ER2's and reversals. She went 2-2 on the reversals and 2-2 on the er2's, but had to retreat a hariyama to get the second ko on the second dunsparce (it was confused). By that time I was safely behind a wall of fossils and building politoed. I managed to lay the first gym down, though I can't remember whether it was a battle frontier or a desert ruins. Either way, it's important vs. hariyama when you're running a similar stadium setup to it to get your stadium out of hand first, so that the hariyama player effectively loses access to 2 or three of his or her cards, simply because you just played one. That's a good tradeoff (and it gets a gym out of your hand for later on in the game when you ain't playin' any more anyway). Politoed swaller'ed up a few Hariyama for the game.
4-1
Round 6: Brian Leary, Metanite
I gather from his reactions that this game was a bit frustrating for him. He arrived 3 minutes late, and we were not granted an extension of time because of it; hence, both of us were a bit on edge - him because, well, anyone would be if they were late for a match, and me because I'm playing a wicked-slow deck.
I had trouble with this one, since his reversal flips were on fire. He took out two poliwhirl and a dunsparce with 3 reversals. My 3rd poliwhirl was prized, and he had 2 fluffy berry on 2 metagross, making my second dunsparce useless. The difference here was that I run 7 gyms. He ran about 5 or so. I started with a desert ruins, since when you're playing against a non-ex deck it's a good way to control the board early game if they are playing ruins (up to 4 cards in their deck rendered useless), and if they're playing something else, they'll go ahead and counter it anyway. That's what Brian did, with his holon ruins so that he could draw an extra card. By about the 10th turn he had 3 metagross and 2 dragonite down. During that time he had reversaled the aforementioned pokes. Also, during that time, I had laid 4 or 5 fossils down. And both battle frontier, which he countered immediately. That put him at 3 gyms used, me at 3 as well. I hadn't touched my 4 cursed stone, though. I scotted for 2 of them and a field worker, laid the first. He countered it. I laid the second. He countered it. I drew into the third. He didn't counter that one. I took all 6 prizes within about 3 turns of each other with my gyms alone. This was another game in which Politoed simply never appeared. He stormed off, rather upset, and left his deck behind. I believe he did return to retrieve it at the judges' desk later, as I think he made top cut.
5-1
TOP 16
Here's where it gets ridiculous. Almost as ridiculous as Dustox ex/Ariados.
Round 7: Chris Schell, Flariados
Game 1:
Only about 4 or 5 people chimed in beforehand to inform me about just how badly I was going to get beat. To tell you the truth, I wasn't particularly convinced they weren't right. Chris's setup was flawless, his play executed perfectly. Game one, I never played a politoed. But I did win. I think he retreated perhaps 10-12 times over the course of this game, and the desert ruins helped swing the stadium balance in my favor. He hit 2 of 4 of his super scoops, but the difference was dunsparce. Again. Dunsparce with a water and an holon energy WP. It was completely a war of attrition. I managed to grind away until he was out of grass energy (1 prized, I think, and 1 at the bottom of the deck), and he conceded the first.
6-1
Game 2: More of the same. 2/3 of my holon energy were prized, but game one had taken something along the lines of 35 minutes or so, and our second game wasn't going much quicker. I did eventually get the holon energy wp on the second dunsparce after sacrificing the first, and a poliwag as spider trap bait. From there, it was attrition again. With about 5 minutes to go he was reactive poisoning my claw fossils so as not to leave heavily damaged flareons active (at this point, a poliwag with a water could have knocked them out - he had to do 10 damage to himself just to knock out a fossil in 1 turn with heat tackle, the 5 gyms were taking their toll, and he was less fortunate with super scoops this game. He hit 2/2 again, but the 2 were early on, and he failed at the other two late). I was running low on cards, but not as low as he. However, he had 2 prizes left, I had 5. He admin'ed me to try and swing that in his favor. He took 2. I took only 2 as well. He conceded shortly thereafter, since I had a bench full 'o fossils and that godly dunsparce down there.
7-1
Round 8: Alan Schell, LBS
Game 1: About 4 or 5 people, including Chris Schell, came up to me before this one and chimed in about how badly I was going to get beat. Like Flariados, LBS is an ugly matchup for politoed. This first game was uglier than most. He had the jirachi start, the great setup, and was ready to go. I wasn't doing so badly myself. We traded prizes for awhile. I took out a jirachi, a steelix, and a pidgeot. He took out both dunsparce (steelix :/), a poliwhirl, and a politoed. His lugia had 80 damage on it, and it would've cost him the game, but he giant stump'ed it away. We traded a few more shots - Ruins put a few extra damage counters on steelix -ex near the end game, putting it within politoed sniping range. That's how it played out - I took game one on ko'ing the second steelix.
8-1
Game 2: The Schell boys apparently have nicknames. Chris is "noob", and Alan is "Lucksac." Yes. Yes he is. This game set up similarly to the first, though we both had slower starts (me=dunsparce. Him=squirtle). Took me a goodly while to get a poliwag. He set up. However, we finally got back to trading shots (goes like this: early onyx is sniped for 30. Steelix comes up. Politoed hits it for 40, he energy rains, hits politoed for 100, leaving him with about 60 left. Politoed swallows it up, he brings up a second and ko's politoed...so on and so forth). However, he set up a second steelix much quicker than I could politoed, so I fell back to dunsparce, which would've worked just fine, had he not flipped 7 straight heads through confusion to take out the poliwags I was trying to build on the bench. He also took out my dunsparce in there. In the meantime, I drew into 2 poliwhirl, 2 poliwrath, and 5 energies. On the bright side, I did get to use his power tree about 40 bajizillion times. Or 4. Somewhere in there.
8-2
Game 3: Not a whole lot of time left. I dislike these games, because it's all about starts. His = one card off. Mine=oky doky. I started with a lone poliwag, him a lone onyx. I was going first, so I did 20 (he's weak). He topdecked a jirachi, laid it down, but couldn't get onyx out of there. He passed. I scotted for PETM and some other stuff, and hit him for another 20, laying down another energy in the process. He played a scientist, got another onyx and jirachi, layed an energy on onyx, and passed. I evolved to poliwhirl. He was expecting me to ko onyx. I didn't. I put down cursed stone and hit him for another 20, leaving onyx with 60 and both jirachi with 10. Had I ko'ed him, that would have brought up a jirachi to let him set up. Couldn't allow that. He was puzzled, and correspondingly evolved to steelix. I then sniped off the first jirachi. I sniped off the second a turn later, and swallowed up the steelix a turn after that. He conceded. Wonderful games.
9-2
TOP 4: Jim Ferrell, Nidoqueen/dark hypno tech.
Game 1: These were just as tough as the previous matchups, if not moreso. Holon energy GL and heal energies make it tough for me to use dunsparce, and my politoeds weren't out as quickly as I'd like them to be. Milotic also makes things hairy. The bottom line is, though, that nidoqueen simply didn't have a way around fossils. He took a dunsparce and a politoed this game, but had an atm-rock prized until about midgame that he could have used. Late game I got the BF lock, and from there it was punching and running, then sniping off a benched nidoqueen for the game. Really tough matchup for Queen.
10-2
Game 2: More of the same. He did get the ATM-rock kill in this one, and another besides with desert ruins, but that was only 3 prizes, and I was able to build the 3rd politoed. Cursed stone and frontier hurt him once again, and he conceded with about 10 minutes to spare since I had a goodly number of fossils down and a politoed sitting on the bench ready to sweep. I told Jim earlier in the day that Nidoqueen was the right play, and it seemed it was, 'cept against politoed, which is just a bum matchup. I believe that my matchups during the day were beastly (and show just how viciously wide open this format is - I played against 10 different decks during the day, each one with a vastly different strategy and vastly different types), but Jim made it through an ugly one in the top 8, one which, had he not won, likely would have done me in: the other dustox in the field, only this one with weezing and ursaring (don't laugh, he pwned a lunasol and a ZRE with it earlier in the day). I think he mentioned that Hypno won him those games.
11-2
TOP 2: Brent, Ludicargo
Game 1: Ludicargo in top 2 in this format is an amazing accomplishment. Its matchup against flariados, which he beat in the top 4 (Erik Nance...), is no walk in the park, since magcargo is ariados bait. I gather that he made two amazing comebacks during the games to win through. For Brent's list, Politoed is simply an unfair matchup. I cannot recall whether he took a prize during either of our two games, but if he did, it wasn't more than one. In this first game by the end, I had all three politoed fully powered, was ko'ing moltres ex'es with cursed stone so that the energy wouldn't transfer to lanturn, and more of that type of dominance. He never once misplayed, but it was simply a case of not being able to punch through the fossil wall. He had fun with aipom, though.
12-2
Game 2: There was potential for donkage here. He went first, started with chinchou against my lone claw fossil. I had nothing else, and no way to get anything else. I passed. He went, couldn't get the DRE to evolve and ko the fossil, so he celios for the plusle, retreats, and calls for family. I topdecked a copycat and ran with it. He vowed to make the final 45 minutes of the match as excruciating as possible, but even that's difficult to do against a stallitoed deck, though he did take about a minute and a half deciding whether or not he wanted to take a card as a result of my field worker, and he used aipom so much that I thought about sacrificing a politoed just to snipe the thing off. Almost did, too....But aipom survived, politoed did too, and I won the regional.
13-2
Congrats to everyone there. Great event. Exhausting day, but really at the heart of why I love this game. Though easy matchups are never a bad thing, the game isn't at its most fun unless you're sitting across from a skilled, veteran opponent wondering as you shuffle, "How in God's name am I going to pull this out?" Today was one of those days.
Cheers,
Jake/Dendro
ps: Feel free to correct any of the above information about our matches, worthy opponents, if I have erred in the reporting of it. As you know, it was a long day, and the details of matches can get conflated with others in the retelling.
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