Worlds Report from NZ (includes photos and list of top 32 decks!)

[Jolteon101]

Yeah I know, this report is slightly belated, but things have been so hectic since I got back that only now do I have the time to write it…so without further ado I’ll get straight into the story of how I managed to choke so fantastically on the world stage -_-

My photos can be found in these two albums, I took a picture of the top page of standings after every round for 11-14 and 15+, as well as lots of other things that were going on.

http://www.villagephotos.com/pubbrow...der_id=1440594

http://www.villagephotos.com/pubbrow...der_id=1445500

This year Team NZ had three representatives at Worlds: me (Martin, 15+), Danny C (15+) and Ming Y (11-14). Because of the time difference, although we left Auckland on the Wednesday evening, we arrived in San Diego on Wednesday afternoon which was a bit strange. The flights were relatively uneventful, me and Danny played some games for about half the journey and tried to sleep for the other half.

We arrived at the resort on Wednesday afternoon, checked in and then spent most of the afternoon testing decks. Ming was mostly practicing with Medicham, since we figured it was probably the best choice for his age group, and me and Danny were playing all sorts of things against it so that he could learn the various matchups better. He hadn’t had a lot of experience playing against tiered decks since the NZ 11-14 metagame is somewhat…lacking =/

Anyway, later on we were getting hungry and quickly realised that there was a distinct lack of cheap eating places around the area, so we ended up eating in the resort restaurant (the one with the “Our food may cause cancer” sign =/). After that, we found a group of people playing outside by the pool, so we brought our decks down and had a few games against various people. Everyone got kicked out about 10:30, so we headed back to our room and played some more. The next morning jet lag kicked in, and we didn’t wake up until 1pm, and once again spent the afternoon testing against ourselves and practicing in the open gaming area. We met quite a lot of people, and once again slept really late.

On Friday afternoon we put on our sexy Team NZ t-shirts for the first time, and went and registered. There was a slight delay because our names weren’t in the system, but it got sorted out quickly enough. We picked up our Worlds packs then went and watched the grinders. At this point I still really had no idea what to play, the metagame seemed so wide open and looked like a rock/paper/scissors format. In the grinders there seemed to be a lot of Slowking, Rocklock and Dark Steelix, without much Medicham being played at all. We watched the first three rounds, scored some free food at the function outside, then decided that it would be more productive to do more testing than hang around watching (especially since the positioning of the tables meant we couldn’t even see the top matches). Word had been going around that the Japanese were all going to be playing ZRE, a deck I hadn’t really encountered before. We went back to our room and proxied up a version using Magmar to test against.

That night we spent hours testing, and still felt as if we were getting nowhere. I was leaning towards playing Slowking or Ludi, since they seemed to have good matchups against almost everything and were relatively consistent. I wasn’t happy with the results that T2 was pulling out against a lot of decks, especially Ludi with Ninetales or Weezing tech, and the amount of Slowking being played at the grinders put me off further. Danny was leaning towards Rocklock, but I didn’t like taking an autoloss to T2 or the lack of consistency. In the end, I went with LudiCargo/Lanturn, with a 1/1 Weezing line teched in for T2 and ZRE (both of which I expected to see in droves). Danny went with his original Rocklock list, and Ming played Medicham (with Reversals, not Pows). We slept at about 2am after writing out our decklists and sorting out the rest of our stuff.

My list looked like this:

Pokemon (23)

3 Lotad (Rain Dish)
2 Lombre (Rain Dish)
3 Ludi (all Swing Dance)
2 Slugma
2 Magcargo
2 Chinchou
2 Lanturn
4 Dunsparce
1 Jirachi DX
1 Koffing
1 Weezing  Not a win condition -_-

Trainers (21)

3 Celio’s Network
3 Steven’s Advice
2 Copycat
2 Rocket’s Admin
3 Rare Candy
4 Desert Ruins
1 Swoop Teleporter
1 Crystal Shard
1 Pokemon Retriever
1 Warp Point

Energy (16)

8 Water
2 Heal
2 Scramble
4 Double Rainbow

From testing, I found that Lanturn was simply superior to Rhydon in this in almost every matchup. The Rhydon version would often struggle against Slowking and anything with Zapdos, and was hopeless in the mirror. Rhydon also didn’t do enough to help the Rocklock matchup, only really improving your odds by 5%. Against T2, the difference between the two was marginal, but both could deal 80 or 70 respectively to a Medicham.

The other way to play the deck was with Frontiers and Ninetales, but I found that this version performed poorly against Slowking, Rocklock, and in the mirror. So basically the idea with my version was to take an autoloss to Rocklock, but have favourable matchups against most other decks and autowin against Slowking and other Ludi variants. As it turned out, the way the pairings went meant that I would have been MUCH better off sticking with the Reversals I originally played instead of the Weezing line…

We turned up in plenty of time on Saturday morning and registered our decks early. We had breakfast outside, and I managed to somehow finish off the WORST tasting bagel I’ve ever had =/ I wanted to buy some dice from the shop outside before we started, but in the end we ran out of time and had to go to our seats…


Round 1 – Ashley B (Dark Steelix)

She told me she had grinded in the night before, and I had heard that only the 5-0 people had managed to do that, so my hopes for an easy first round faded away pretty quickly. We setup and I had drawn the god hand, but then the repair was announced…and I was still playing her after it was done. We had to sit through a painstakingly long half hour while the staff tried to keep everyone entertained, but I was feeling really nervous and the endless randomness on stage started to annoy me. When we finally started, my hand was far worse than in the first setup, and I flipped a lone Chinchou against her Jirachi. She had already mulliganned once so I knew what her deck was, and sure enough she got the turn 2 Steelix out and started beating. I got a Lanturn up and hit her for 70 (-10 from Metal), aiming for the ko with Cargo next turn, but she flipped heads on Life Herb and then ko’d me. I sent up Cargo with Scramble to attack and managed to ko the first Steelix next turn, but she had another one waiting, and my second scramble was prized so I had to build up my other Cargo with another energy and DRE. Later on she got another crucial Life Herb flip, and Brineyed an almost-dead Steelix which basically ended the game for me. I had run out of DRE and Scrambles and was forced to attack with Healing Steps while I tried to build up something else on the bench, but she had too much of a lead to recover from…

0-1

Round 2 – Paul J (Ludi with Ninetales/Rhydon)

He was using the Freddy K version of the deck - yay! This was the matchup that I should win easily, right? Wrong =/ He got a god start with Dunsparce, and had everything out by turn 2. My opening hand was Chinchou, DRE, DRE, Ludi, Ludi, Magcargo and Steven -_- After a Steven for 5, an Admin for 6 and a Copycat for 5 I managed to get a Dunsparce but still hadn’t seen a SARSable energy. When I finally did get one, and begin to comeback, he had already set up two Ludis, a Cargo and a Rhydon. I started to comeback with Lanturn, and in the end it came down to Ludi vs Ludi, with both of us locked at three prizes, and locked with three bench each, since benching anything else would give the other guy the Ludi ko. So with about 7 minutes to go, we were dealing 30 each turn and discarding 3 cards to heal. This is where I made a horrible misplay…for some reason I didn’t realise that we would go to sudden death, so instead of Swooping my benched Dunsparce into a Chinchou which wuolould have allowed me to get the ko in sudden death, I discarded the Swoop for some reason =/ Shortly afterwards time was called, and we continued discarding and healing each turn, waiting for each other to deck. My deck was running slightly thinner than his, and after about 20 minutes (yes, 20 minutes AFTER round time) I was forced to retreat and try to paralyse with Dunsparce. He had already discarded his Heal Energies, so I probably needed two heads in a row before I could send out Ludi to finish him…I flipped for it, it was tails, and game over. I really wished I had had my Reversals to break the deadlock. After this round was lunch, but I wasn’t hungry so I just sat there shuffling for ages…

0-2

Round 3 – Michael P (Ludi with Rhydon)

“If only I had my Reversals”. Once again, what should have been an easy win turned into a nightmare when I got a lone Lotad start with nothing else against his god draw. He set up faster than me, getting Rhydon and everything out while I struggled to find a Ludi. Eventually we started trading prizes, I took out a Ludi with Lanturn, he struck back with Rhydon, then I had Ludi to ko that. At one point I got caught offguard with a Strength Charm that I didn’t expect him to play, which slowed me down a little. Near the end of the game I was up one prize to two and felt I was in control, I had Lanturn active and a Ludi benched, both of which could take the last prize necessary. He unexpectedly POWed up my Ludi and ko’d it, looking at the Lanturn and saying “I think you’ve got me”. I thought I did too, until I searched my deck and realised that the DRE I needed WAS MY LAST PRIZE…so once again, it came down to Ludi vs Ludi, dealing 30 a turn and discarding 3. This game went to time as well, and having burned through my deck early to try and setup faster, I was running lower on cards than he was. Once again I was forced to retreat and go for Dunsparce, and once again it was tails. So there I was, having flown for 13 hours to end up in the $&@*^%$*&% 0-3 bracket =/ And to add insult to injury, this guy ended up going 1-3 drop, effectively culling my resistance even further…

Round 4 – William H (Medicham)

I can’t remember exactly what table number I played this match on, but the first digit was a 7 =/ It was one of those extra tables they added which didn’t even have a playmat design on it. When I glanced across at the guys playing next to me, I saw Pikachus, Vulpixes, Hoppips etc. Overall it was pretty depressing. But finally I got paired against a Medicham, and this guy was playing the version with Reversals instead of Pows. He was a nice guy, and seemed really friendly, but at this point I wasn’t really in the mood to be too jovial. So sorry to William if I seemed a bit uptight, it was just the circumstances. Anyway, for once I actually got a Dunsparce start and had control for most of the match. He misplayed several times and missed a lot of flips, and when I played my third Ruins he couldn’t find a countergym which ended up being his downfall. My Weezing sat on the bench for most of the game, and I don’t think I even used it in the end, letting Lanturns and Ludis do most of the damage. Sadly, this guy ended up going 1-7 throughout the day, shovelling a few extra piles of dirt on my already-buried resistance.

1-3

Round 5 – Irwin M (Four Corners)

At least I think it was four corners, but I can’t be sure since I only saw three of them. At the beginning there was a minor dispute, he didn’t understand the rule that a basic drawn off opponent’s mulligan must start on the bench, so we called a judge over and sorted it out. It wasted about three minutes, but my request for a time extension was denied =/ Once we started I didn’t get a great opening, and he set up much faster than me, but in the end I got my stuff out and the advantage was just too much. While I could use LudiCargo powers to take a card every turn, he had to rely on Cargo + Reporter/Steven, and half of his deck was weak to Ludi anyway. He took a few prizes, but after trading for a while he ran out of options and I was able to take my last few prizes relatively easy, even though the game went close to time.

2-3

Round 6 – Marika M (Zapdos EX)

I think she was one of the European players, but I didn’t manage to figure out which country she was from. She played traditional Zapdos, with Electrodes and Elekids. I got a lone Lotad start, and had to sac it to Zapdos along with a Dunsparce and Jirachi before I got up Lanturn. After I Admined her and took out Zapdos she had nothing and I ended up taking out an Elekid for the win.

3-3

Round 7 – Danny C (Rocklock)

I checked again after this round JUST to make sure, and I was right. There were more than 160 players in 15+, and there were more than 60 3-3s going into this round, and I STILL got paired against the ONLY OTHER NZ PLAYER IN THE ENTIRE AGE GROUP =/ I couldn’t believe it, but we still had to play it out. He got off to a slow start, and I took some prizes early without having to use up too many Double Rainbows or Scrambles. Eventually he started to come back, but still couldn’t get a Pidgeot out. I was in control of the match for a while, and Admined him for two or three, leaving him with only a Spinning Tail Tyranitar. Unfortunately he topdecked the energy he needed, and continued to topdeck stuff by which time most of my guys were pretty damaged. In the end I was forced to try and stall with Dunsparce, but he had the Heal in hand to finish me off. GG. Danny had started the day at 1-0, then got paired against three straight T2 decks leaving him in the 1-3 bracket with me. He ended up winning out the rest of his matches for a 5-3 finish, but with a relatively poor resistance…

3-4

Round 8 – Peter W (tecdecs) (LudiRhydon)

I noticed my opponent was wearing a Shuffle&Cut t-shirt, so asked him what his Neo username was. Turns out it was tecdecs, and he had been having about as good a day as me =/ We chatted for a bit before the round started, but there wasn’t much to say since we both knew that the result of this match was pretty much irrelevant. I got a Dunsparce start against his lone Lotad, but he managed to set up pretty quickly regardless. He didn’t play the Rain Dish Lotad/Lombre which I found interesting, and I wondered how he had gone against any T2/Rocklock decks he had faced during the day. Anyway, he put up a decent fight but Lanturn really just dominates this match when all other factors are equal. In the end I think he only took one prize, my last ko coming from Lanturn against his Ludi with my last DRE…it’s amazing how much better my deck performs when I don’t get screwed and the cards I need aren’t in my last two prizes =/

So I ended up 4-4, in 97th place because of my hopeless resistance. As I already mentioned, Danny went 5-3 with a low resistance. Ming started the day with two wins against Japanese players, then went loss-win-loss-win-loss-win to finish at 5-3, in 38th place, missing the cut by 1.6%. His downfall was in the last round when he was the only 4-3 to get paired down against a 3-4 opponent, which hurt his resistance just enough to miss out. He also got unlucky in round 7 against a Dragonite deck, when his opponent somehow managed to pull out a cheap win with Rocket’s Sneasel and Drag Off =/

So none of us were coming back on day two, that night we went back to the open gaming area and played some more. Most of the action seemed to be in poker rather than Pokemon, except for people practicing for their single elim matches on Sunday. We didn’t stay there too late, and Ming ended up staying the night with some crazy Canadians =P

On Sunday I got up earlier than Danny, and headed down to watch the finals and play in the PR. I ended up getting registered for the 6th flight, and so did the others. The top 32 for 15+ looked like this:

1) Go – ZRE (with Ninetales tech apparently)
2) Martin M – Medicham
3) Yamato – LudiCargo (no other lines, only Wobb tech)
4) Matt Y – ZRE
5) Pablo – Nidotic
6) Moss – Medicham
7) Jeroen R – Slowking/Cargo
8) Ness – Medicham
9) Jeremy M – Nidotic
10) Brent S – LudiCargo with Lanturn
11) Ross C – I think you all know what this deck is by now…
12) Patrick K (nikepk?) – Jumpluff
13) Sami – Medicham
14) Freddy K – LudiNinetales
15) Nicholas C – Medicham
16) William Hung – T2 Sharpedo EX
17) Jaime G – Rocklock
18) Adam V – Rocklock
19) Hideki S – Machamp/Pidgeot
20) Kanda – Ludi with ?
21) Chris S – Blaziken
22) Steve P – ZRE variant without Magmar
23) Ashley B (yay, at least someone who beat me made it in) – T2 Steelix
24) Yohei T – Bombcatty
25) Bin X – Rocklock
26) Ken Y – Tyranitar/Cargo
27) Adam M – T2 Steelix
28) Anna S – Ludi with Rhydon/Lanturn/Grumpig
29) Jordan H – Ludi with Articuno EX (I think)
30) Greg C – T2 Sharpedo EX
31) Eric P – T2 Steelix
32) Yuki F – ZRE

Obviously I don’t need to explain how things turned out, but I would like to say that I was lucky enough to be sitting close enough to watch the Yamato/Freddy K match in top 16, and it was probably the best game of Pokemon I’ve ever seen played in my life. I’ve never seen someone take turns as fast as Yamato did, or seen so many judges crowd around a single table…it was just amazing.

The rest of the day went by in a blur, I pulled a Lugia EX in the PR, and Ming pulled a Scizor EX with his savage luck as usual. After prizegiving we went out to dinner with the Barths, at a foodcourt nearby which it would have been REALLY nice to discover before the last night =/ That night the open gaming area was buzzing, I played a whole heap of people including Anna S from The Netherlands, and I think a guy from Finland who used Dragonite. It was nice to be beating top 32 players with the Ludi list that I SHOULD have been playing the day before.

I also got my chance to be part of them Yamato marathon, which was awesome. I was really nervous before we started, despite the match not counting for anything except pride. Game 1 I got a lone Chinchou start and died turn 2, so he gave me a rematch. I got another bad start in game 2 and had to sac a whole lot of things before I could get a Lanturn up. He also Reversaled up my other Chinchou before I could evolve it which really hurt. In the end I got too far behind to make a comeback, but I probably would have lost anyway…his ZRE list is amazing, and IMO beats everything in the format except Nidotic. I would have liked to stay later to play more and watch, but we had to check out on time the next day, so headed back to our room. In the end we didn’t sleep until 5am anyway =/

On Monday morning almost everyone had gone, we hung around with the Barths some more, and I played Adam V with the T2 Scizor deck I had created the night before. He was using a deck that the Japanese guys had helped him with the night before, and I got owned. After saying goodbye to whoever was still around, we got a taxi to the airport at about 3:15, and began the long trip home, hoping that it wouldn’t be our last appearance at a World Championship…

Props

- Jeremy for winning with a rogue deck, it’s an awesome feat and the fact that Pablo also made t4 proves the deck’s consistency
- Stuart for winning the 11-14 and the 10- champion whose name I didn’t catch - well played all weekend guys
- Levi for letting me into the Neo forum, and all the Neo guys for being awesome players and (mostly) great guys too
- Everyone in NZ who lent cards to us, we couldn’t have done this without your support
- Croft for giving NZ a separate Nationals event and trips to Worlds!
- Kristel for turning up on the Sunday to see how we were doing, we only wish we could have been sitting there in the finals when you walked in…
- So many rogue decks making it into top 32 and higher
- PUI for organising the whole thing, and keeping things running smoothly most of the time. Also to the judges, I didn’t hear too many complaints from anyone and I think your standard was really high across the whole event
- Danny for making the trip with me, and being a “cool guy” all weekend. Let the in-jokes roll…
- Magnechu and Go for going undefeated through the swiss, even if things didn’t go your way on day 2
- Yamato for being an awesome player and an awesome guy, definitely the people’s choice for World Champion 2005
- The rest of the Japanese players for embodying SoTG so well and for always playing with skill and respect
- The cute girl who was doing registration for 11-14 on Friday afternoon, she kept smiling at me all weekend too…~_~
- The guy who gave me a cool Miltank sticker on Monday, also to everyone who signed my Miltank card
- Ming for almost making the cut and beating several Japanese players
- Ness, just because =/
- All the people I met and talked to all weekend or played in friendlies
- The Barth family, Landon, Spencer, Katrina, Nick (and Bin as well) for being cool and hanging out with us and putting up with our lame in-jokes the whole time. I guess not all Canadians are gazeebos, right?
- The Vernolas for being skilled players and cool guys, and Adam for the “boosters” on Monday afternoon =P
- The little girl who was wearing the Skitty ears all weekend, OMG they’re just so awesome, where can I get mine from?
- Grinbag and his son for being there representing Australia, and hard luck with 33rd place in the 10- section
- Anyone who has actually bothered to read this far

Slops

- Me for scrubbing out badly, and letting down my country…also for misplaying in round 2 when it counted the most
- The 0-3 bracket =/
- 1/1 Weezing line for being useless in almost every match I played, DEFINITELY not a win condition
- Ming getting paired down in round 8 which probably cost him a place in top 32
- Danny getting screwed by pairings all weekend (I forgot to mention earlier, but we also were forced to play each other in round 3 of the PR….WTH)
- A certain pool-jumping incident on Sunday night?
- Scott G for “adding members” to Team Shuffle&Cut right before they were about to go on stage…seriously, low credibility there man =/
- The resort for not having any decently cheap places to eat at
- The kid who took my Worlds hat on Monday afternoon…
- The size of a “large soda”
- The format for being so pairings-dependent. It’s ridiculous how whether you make the cut or not depends largely on how many of deck X or deck Y you get paired against, no matter how good or teched out your list is.

So that’s about it, I had an awesome time and I really hope I can make it again next year guys!

~Martin

[Fireborn]

Great report! I love how you found out all the T32 decks, how in the world did you manage that?

Looks like you had some really bad luck on Saturday. Shucks about the Weezing, although I must say I'm impressed by the idea! My Grumpig was just as effective... I never used it ONCE all weekend. Don't you just hate it when you know you could've used those 2 spots for better cards that would've actually helped you out more? :P

Hopefully you can make it next year, It'd be great to meet you again!

- The resort for not having any decently cheap places to eat at

Ain't that the truth! I had to go over to McDonald's/Starbucks in the mall, to get some food cheaper than $15 each meal... ^^;;

[Ice'Cold]

That was an awesome weekend. Btw, get anything interesting from those "boosters?" Heh. See you next year, hopefully.

[Papazit_canada]

Crazy report XD GL to yah over the next season and hopefully we'll meet again next year (you crazy gazebo/betaman) :)

[CardRaider]

Originally Posted by Papazit_canada

Crazy report XD GL to yah over the next season and hopefully we'll meet again next year (you crazy gazebo/betaman) :)

Hey! You took my line!
But anyways, CRAZY weekend, man!
BTW, I see you posted the pic with the "Oversized Sack". XD

[MonkeyMan8889]

wow awesome report dude!

kept me entertained for awhile =)

Wheres the pictures of the Did Not Finish catergory though! I got first at that and want to be able to prove it ;p

[Martin]

Martin: It's the name of Champions!

[CardRaider]

Yeah, those Desert Ruins really hurt you against my RL, man.
And how is your T2 Scizor coming along?

[Jolteon101]

Thanks for the replies guys...

Fireborn: I was running around most of Sunday morning with a paper and pen, craning my neck to see what everyone was playing in the top 32. Some of the matches right in the middle I couldn't see properly, so I could only get a rough idea of the decks from asking others and talking to people later on.

Monkeyman: I do have those pics, but the photo hosting site only lets you put up 50 per free account, so I had to cut a few of them out...I figured the DNF page was probably the least important =P

Cardraider: I played a few games with Danny using T2 Scizor against Yamato's ZRE list and kept losing...I think it can still be a pretty good deck but it needs some work for sure.

[MonkeyMan8889]

OMG you do? can you put up the one for 15+ after round 8? I so want to be able to link people to the fact I got first at worlds ;p

[Charizard1987]

but can you explaine ZRE for me?...

[davidy321]

11) Ross C – I think you all know what this deck is by now…

idont what is it rofl....

[davidy321]

zre is zapdos ex, rayquaza ex-deoxys and electrode ex. aim: to use electrode to blow up-get energies doscarded with magmar dump and draw. attach to ray do 100 every turn or switch some to zap trust me it works.

[d0ge]

at least I finished in the top half ;) you lucksacked me at Nationals so you had it coming =P

by the way you forgot:

Props
- Asian Pride ~_~

I'll write up a report if I can bothered. Hope to see all you guys next year.

~Danny

P.S out of curiosity, what did you play Monkeyman?

[supertyranitar]

I think I met you at the prelease, but nice job, it was just a rough day and there wasn't anything you could do to stop a rough day.

[CardRaider]

Originally Posted by d0ge

at least I finished in the top half ;) you lucksacked me at Nationals so you had it coming =P

by the way you forgot:

Props
- Asian Pride ~_~

I'll write up a report if I can bothered. Hope to see all you guys next year.

~Danny

P.S out of curiosity, what did you play Monkeyman?

You better write a report!
I'll probably write one too, but the whole weekend is just a blur to me now.
Oh and you tell Ming that if he ever wants to face me and Spencer's RL deck again, have him PM me!

[Venusaur]

Great report jolt

[MonkeyMan8889]

I played POW/Cham just like a lot of other people, seemed to be the play at the time

[Fantine]

Hey! Didn't know you were on here. It was nice playing you.

-Ashley

[Higher]

Hey hard luk martin, marybe this year wasnt ur year.

Tim

[CardRaider]

Great report!

[Russfierce]

Awesome report and it was very nice to meet you.

See you at next years Worlds


Russ

[Ash_Van_Je]

Awesome Martin! 4-4 isn't too bad =P But it is AMAZING that you faced Danny AGAIN! NZ nationals top 4 match mirror? :P
Ttyl in MSN, and I am REALLY sorry that I didn't make it to worlds. T_T

-Ash.

[FireFighter095ReBorn]

Greta report/. Bad luck at worlds but you made it in and thats always a great accomplishment. Good luck in the next season ands hope you win your way to anaheim

[Master_Prof_Juggie]

Cool report Martin.

Hope to come up & see you guys in Auckland for a PR next year.

Keep in touch ... i STILL collect, even though i resigned as the PTO.