Lets start with the flight down. Sometimes flying is like hitting the freeze frame button when standing at the edge of a forest of white cotton candy explosions suspended in mid-air, it was awesome. Sorry I had worked until 3:00 A.M. Central Friday morning so I was a little dreamy headed. Anyway the landing at Orlando Airport was a good one (we walked away). On the way to the baggage claim my son says to me, “Oh yea, I remember what Dawn [my wife] wanted me to tell you, there’s going to be a car here to pick us up and take us to the hotel.” Of course I think he’s feeding me a line and it takes him a couple of minutes to convince me that he might be telling the truth. So I call my wife to confirm and she says, “Surprise”. I was so relieved, not only was the plane on time, but now I knew that I’d make it to the grinder in time. I actually ended up getting registered with only five minutes to spare. The line to check in took a lot longer than I thought it would. Thanks to my son for going ahead of me to fill out my deck list for me.
Before I go any further I’d like to say what a pleasure it was to finally meet so many people from the gym: Heidi, Lea (Rainbowgym), Richard (Rainbow Richards), The Cooks, so many more: and the many new people I met from all over the world- The families from Germany I traded with, the Japanese kid I battled on Saturday in the league and traded a reverse holo Dunsparce for a Japanese promo Deoxeys (sp.?) (btw does anyone know what this card does? He said it was a powerful card), once again so many more: and all the people I met and battled during all the tourneys I played in over the weekend (Grinder, Unlim. Side, 1 prerelease, and the late night strangest sealed event ever): along with seeing the many familiar faces- all of Team Chicago that were there, Kyle, Vince, Jared, Farbsman (Derrick sp. ?) the Chen bro‘s, Poke Dad, and I know that there are more that I’m spacing out on here, but it was a long, although wonderful weekend.
Grinder:
Deck: (might not be exact but it’s close. I lost my list and for obvious reasons I’ve already changed it)
Pokemon: (22)
4 Dunsparce
3 Meditite (drgns)
3 Medicham (HL)
2 Clamperl
2 Gorebyss
2 Vulpix (ascension)
2 Ninetails (HL) I put this in because I expected to see Metagross EX - I didn’t, this is what I’ve changed
Trainers: (22)
4 TV Reporters
3 Steven’s
2 Bill’s Maintenance
1 POR
4 Switch
3 Desert Ruins
2 Candy
2 Briney’s
1 Town V.
NRG: (16)
4 DRE
4 Multi
4 Rnbw
2 Fire
2 Fighting
Round 1:
vs. Therin Blodgett from Washington state - I can’t remember exactly what all he ran but it was a very close match. I had an un-powered Medicham on my bench. He put up a un-powered Areodactyl EX boosted it to get a KO to tie us at 1 prize each. I put up a Dunsparce, attached a fighting to Medicham and flipped for Sudden Flash, tails. He plays another Boost for the win. If I had flipped heads my Medicham would have been able to take him out even with resistance and the DRE, he had played Copy Cat a few turns earlier to copy my uber 20+ card hand.
0-1-0
Round 2:
vs. Bill Villacrusis from Philippines w/ Kingdra EX - He dropped a second Kingdra EX and couldn’t get rid of Desert ruins and Medicham ruled the day. Real nice guy.
1-1-0
Round 3:
vs. Brian Santos from Miami w/ RAMBO - Really tight match he had the advantage when time ran out, but we tied. I did not play slow so that it would end on my turn, I was not aware of the amount of time left, I just got lucky that time was called on my turn.
1-1-1
Round 4:
vs. Bill Coppola from Maine w/ Typhlosion EX - Quick game, I stalled w/ no basics or draw cards and his Quilava got a KO for the game.
1-2-1
Round 5:
vs. Stephan Vandeventer (Scizorsfury) from Ft. Pierce Fla. W/ Fossil deck - He mulliganed only twice (said he was afraid of the 5 min. thing, I wasn’t sure what he meant right away other wise I’d have told him not to worry about it because I wouldn’t have said anything anyway) as a result he stalled and I tore through him.
2-2-1
Round 6:
vs. Ben Chu from L.A. w/ Swampert EX - He stalled and I got to Gorebyss with several DRE’s, Multi’s, Rnbw.’s, and Basic’s on Ditto, I think I took like the last 4 prizes 4 turns in a row, he just couldn‘t get any thing going.
3-2-1
Round 7:
vs. Brett Bourdeaux from Sarasota Fla. (Bballplaya77777) w/ Swampert EX - I started slow and he had a well built deck and knew how to play it.
3-3-1
Respectable enough I guess considering I made a stupid decision by adding Ninetails. I almost played a straight BEX, but I thought that there would be a lot of water (Gorebyss, Milotic, Walrein, Swampert, Kingdra EX and TA stuff, which now in hind sight makes the Ninetails decision even more stupid). I think I was right about the water, but I guess BEX is just powerful enough to over come enough of it since I think it did O.K. on the day. I humbly apologize to Team Chicago and the members of this board for the shame my poor performance has brought. Next time things will be different.
Saturday:
Well obviously I’m not in the main event so it’s side event time for me. My son woke me up at 8:30 and after I take the time to get something to eat it’s too late to get into the 1st modified so I sign up for the unlimited and the second modified (just incase there weren’t enough who signed up for the unlimited), and the league. I played 4 or 5 games for the league the most interesting one was against a Japanese kid who was using one of their (of course) Magma decks. I had taken the Ninetails out of my deck and it was running a lot better. He over took me in the end but it was a tight match and I gave him a run for his money, it was fun.
Unlimited Side:
Aside from being in the main event this is the event I was most looking forward to. I didn’t take any notes so I can’t give you a blow by blow. It was originally scheduled for 6 rounds but because I had ask Heidi (who got approval from Birch) if we could delay the start so that Dan (who was playing in the 1st modified) could play we were late in starting (I didn’t realize that they would be doing a top cut in the 1st modified) and it was reduced to 5 rounds. (thanks Dan for taking a loss in the first round so we could get started) I ran my Clefable/Jumpluff. The games I remember were -
Slowking, I don’t remember what he backed it up with but I don’t think I saw any Sneasel. I started with a Clefairy, the worst way my deck can start. I somehow managed to get back into the game after he got 2 Kings up quickly and we ended up tying.
Clefable/Muk (1 of 2 on the day), if you look at the match ups I should beat this deck most every time. Fable V. Fable - tie, Fable V. Muk - Fable wins, Fable V. Jumpluff - Jumpluff wins, Jumpluff V. Muk - Jumpluff wins.
R. Zappy, it’s just fun to get an OHKO for 1 NRG.
Kingdra EX, once again I start with Clefairy but once I get to Jumpy it’s all over, I’m resistant to him and he’s weak to me.
Blastiose, I think this was during the tourney. It was against my friend Dan who was using Jimmy’s deck. I got lucky and got the win because we battled again later and he beat twice in a row (Blastiose owns every thing) Thanks Dan for helping me to work on my deck later, I remembered what I had forgotten to counter Murkrow- Warp NRG.
The tourney was shortened to 5 rounds because of time so I finished in first with a record of 4-0-1. The guy who finished 2nd wanted to challenge me to see who would have come out on top. I said O.K. but not for the prizes, I wasn’t giving up my 20 boosters of HL. He agreed and we played. This was the 2nd Fable/Muk I played and as I said before I should beat this most times. Although it usually looks close during the game there is just no back up hitter in this deck to counter Jumpy. I win and Fable/Jumpy goes 5-0-1 on the day!
Later Dan, Jimmy and I imbibed a little and had a lot of fun battling and making fun of a really stupid but fun to look at movie.
Sunday:
Prerelease day:
I woke up late again and missed the first tourney so I signed up for the second. I didn’t get any thing in my boosters, went 0-4 and dropped. So I decided to just watch the semi-finals and finals. My son was helping Vince with the 11-14 so I chose to watch that one. I ended up sitting next to GrandmaJoner between his matches and talked to him a little about his deck. Although I’d play it a little different I think the differences were just playing style changes and it obviously served him well.
After the finals were over I set up all the cards that I had brought (modified only) to do some trading. I met some nice people and made some good trades. Several people asked me if I was selling cards but I don’t really like to sell cards because I’d just spend the money on something else, so if someone asks me to buy one of my cards I normally set the price pretty high (sorry).
Late night strangest sealed event ever:
I call it this because it was supposed to be a FR/LG sealed, but Heidi ran out of FR/LG boosters so she let HL boosters in and then also I believe TA/TM. I was using HL. I didn’t really get anything but a Coral Draw and a Lovedisc helped me to get to what little I did have so I went 2-1 and got a HL pre-con. I’ll use it as a prize at my local store. I had a real scare during this event. For the second round I sat at one of the tables and I had put my deck carrier under the table behind one of the legs so it would be out of the way. Well I forgot to pick it up and apparently during the 3rd round it had gotten moved or kicked behind a different leg of the table so that when I went to look for it I couldn’t see it and I freaked out. In the bag were 4 complete modified decks, 2 complete unlimited decks, and all the rare and RH cards that my son and I had gotten over the weekend (over a box worth of FR/LG and about a box of HL). Sorry for the confusion and unwarranted excitement.
All in all it was a wonderful weekend and thanks to all who made it so.
Dave II
Before I go any further I’d like to say what a pleasure it was to finally meet so many people from the gym: Heidi, Lea (Rainbowgym), Richard (Rainbow Richards), The Cooks, so many more: and the many new people I met from all over the world- The families from Germany I traded with, the Japanese kid I battled on Saturday in the league and traded a reverse holo Dunsparce for a Japanese promo Deoxeys (sp.?) (btw does anyone know what this card does? He said it was a powerful card), once again so many more: and all the people I met and battled during all the tourneys I played in over the weekend (Grinder, Unlim. Side, 1 prerelease, and the late night strangest sealed event ever): along with seeing the many familiar faces- all of Team Chicago that were there, Kyle, Vince, Jared, Farbsman (Derrick sp. ?) the Chen bro‘s, Poke Dad, and I know that there are more that I’m spacing out on here, but it was a long, although wonderful weekend.
Grinder:
Deck: (might not be exact but it’s close. I lost my list and for obvious reasons I’ve already changed it)
Pokemon: (22)
4 Dunsparce
3 Meditite (drgns)
3 Medicham (HL)
2 Clamperl
2 Gorebyss
2 Vulpix (ascension)
2 Ninetails (HL) I put this in because I expected to see Metagross EX - I didn’t, this is what I’ve changed
Trainers: (22)
4 TV Reporters
3 Steven’s
2 Bill’s Maintenance
1 POR
4 Switch
3 Desert Ruins
2 Candy
2 Briney’s
1 Town V.
NRG: (16)
4 DRE
4 Multi
4 Rnbw
2 Fire
2 Fighting
Round 1:
vs. Therin Blodgett from Washington state - I can’t remember exactly what all he ran but it was a very close match. I had an un-powered Medicham on my bench. He put up a un-powered Areodactyl EX boosted it to get a KO to tie us at 1 prize each. I put up a Dunsparce, attached a fighting to Medicham and flipped for Sudden Flash, tails. He plays another Boost for the win. If I had flipped heads my Medicham would have been able to take him out even with resistance and the DRE, he had played Copy Cat a few turns earlier to copy my uber 20+ card hand.
0-1-0
Round 2:
vs. Bill Villacrusis from Philippines w/ Kingdra EX - He dropped a second Kingdra EX and couldn’t get rid of Desert ruins and Medicham ruled the day. Real nice guy.
1-1-0
Round 3:
vs. Brian Santos from Miami w/ RAMBO - Really tight match he had the advantage when time ran out, but we tied. I did not play slow so that it would end on my turn, I was not aware of the amount of time left, I just got lucky that time was called on my turn.
1-1-1
Round 4:
vs. Bill Coppola from Maine w/ Typhlosion EX - Quick game, I stalled w/ no basics or draw cards and his Quilava got a KO for the game.
1-2-1
Round 5:
vs. Stephan Vandeventer (Scizorsfury) from Ft. Pierce Fla. W/ Fossil deck - He mulliganed only twice (said he was afraid of the 5 min. thing, I wasn’t sure what he meant right away other wise I’d have told him not to worry about it because I wouldn’t have said anything anyway) as a result he stalled and I tore through him.
2-2-1
Round 6:
vs. Ben Chu from L.A. w/ Swampert EX - He stalled and I got to Gorebyss with several DRE’s, Multi’s, Rnbw.’s, and Basic’s on Ditto, I think I took like the last 4 prizes 4 turns in a row, he just couldn‘t get any thing going.
3-2-1
Round 7:
vs. Brett Bourdeaux from Sarasota Fla. (Bballplaya77777) w/ Swampert EX - I started slow and he had a well built deck and knew how to play it.
3-3-1
Respectable enough I guess considering I made a stupid decision by adding Ninetails. I almost played a straight BEX, but I thought that there would be a lot of water (Gorebyss, Milotic, Walrein, Swampert, Kingdra EX and TA stuff, which now in hind sight makes the Ninetails decision even more stupid). I think I was right about the water, but I guess BEX is just powerful enough to over come enough of it since I think it did O.K. on the day. I humbly apologize to Team Chicago and the members of this board for the shame my poor performance has brought. Next time things will be different.
Saturday:
Well obviously I’m not in the main event so it’s side event time for me. My son woke me up at 8:30 and after I take the time to get something to eat it’s too late to get into the 1st modified so I sign up for the unlimited and the second modified (just incase there weren’t enough who signed up for the unlimited), and the league. I played 4 or 5 games for the league the most interesting one was against a Japanese kid who was using one of their (of course) Magma decks. I had taken the Ninetails out of my deck and it was running a lot better. He over took me in the end but it was a tight match and I gave him a run for his money, it was fun.
Unlimited Side:
Aside from being in the main event this is the event I was most looking forward to. I didn’t take any notes so I can’t give you a blow by blow. It was originally scheduled for 6 rounds but because I had ask Heidi (who got approval from Birch) if we could delay the start so that Dan (who was playing in the 1st modified) could play we were late in starting (I didn’t realize that they would be doing a top cut in the 1st modified) and it was reduced to 5 rounds. (thanks Dan for taking a loss in the first round so we could get started) I ran my Clefable/Jumpluff. The games I remember were -
Slowking, I don’t remember what he backed it up with but I don’t think I saw any Sneasel. I started with a Clefairy, the worst way my deck can start. I somehow managed to get back into the game after he got 2 Kings up quickly and we ended up tying.
Clefable/Muk (1 of 2 on the day), if you look at the match ups I should beat this deck most every time. Fable V. Fable - tie, Fable V. Muk - Fable wins, Fable V. Jumpluff - Jumpluff wins, Jumpluff V. Muk - Jumpluff wins.
R. Zappy, it’s just fun to get an OHKO for 1 NRG.
Kingdra EX, once again I start with Clefairy but once I get to Jumpy it’s all over, I’m resistant to him and he’s weak to me.
Blastiose, I think this was during the tourney. It was against my friend Dan who was using Jimmy’s deck. I got lucky and got the win because we battled again later and he beat twice in a row (Blastiose owns every thing) Thanks Dan for helping me to work on my deck later, I remembered what I had forgotten to counter Murkrow- Warp NRG.
The tourney was shortened to 5 rounds because of time so I finished in first with a record of 4-0-1. The guy who finished 2nd wanted to challenge me to see who would have come out on top. I said O.K. but not for the prizes, I wasn’t giving up my 20 boosters of HL. He agreed and we played. This was the 2nd Fable/Muk I played and as I said before I should beat this most times. Although it usually looks close during the game there is just no back up hitter in this deck to counter Jumpy. I win and Fable/Jumpy goes 5-0-1 on the day!
Later Dan, Jimmy and I imbibed a little and had a lot of fun battling and making fun of a really stupid but fun to look at movie.
Sunday:
Prerelease day:
I woke up late again and missed the first tourney so I signed up for the second. I didn’t get any thing in my boosters, went 0-4 and dropped. So I decided to just watch the semi-finals and finals. My son was helping Vince with the 11-14 so I chose to watch that one. I ended up sitting next to GrandmaJoner between his matches and talked to him a little about his deck. Although I’d play it a little different I think the differences were just playing style changes and it obviously served him well.
After the finals were over I set up all the cards that I had brought (modified only) to do some trading. I met some nice people and made some good trades. Several people asked me if I was selling cards but I don’t really like to sell cards because I’d just spend the money on something else, so if someone asks me to buy one of my cards I normally set the price pretty high (sorry).
Late night strangest sealed event ever:
I call it this because it was supposed to be a FR/LG sealed, but Heidi ran out of FR/LG boosters so she let HL boosters in and then also I believe TA/TM. I was using HL. I didn’t really get anything but a Coral Draw and a Lovedisc helped me to get to what little I did have so I went 2-1 and got a HL pre-con. I’ll use it as a prize at my local store. I had a real scare during this event. For the second round I sat at one of the tables and I had put my deck carrier under the table behind one of the legs so it would be out of the way. Well I forgot to pick it up and apparently during the 3rd round it had gotten moved or kicked behind a different leg of the table so that when I went to look for it I couldn’t see it and I freaked out. In the bag were 4 complete modified decks, 2 complete unlimited decks, and all the rare and RH cards that my son and I had gotten over the weekend (over a box worth of FR/LG and about a box of HL). Sorry for the confusion and unwarranted excitement.
All in all it was a wonderful weekend and thanks to all who made it so.
Dave II
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