(sigh)
You people don't see the point here...
Most Mario decks won because they T1ed their opponent. The reason is Riolu.
Mario cannot be consistent and be a speed deck, since Machamp takes up to much space, verus anything else. and if anything else that is stage 2, he can do the job 10,000,000x better. If anything that is stage 1, it takes up less space therefore: PROFIT! More card tricks to draw out of bad situations (bad hands, drawing that crucial Buffer Piece to stay on the game... etc.)
Machamp has little to do with how Mario has been "winning", it's all Lucario, and Machamp hinders it signifigantly. Lucario is meant for speed, Machamp is based on setting up, they are great cards, but together they made a bad deck.
Ask Erik Nance if his BR victory was all predicated on T1 W's. I guarantee you it wasn't! Now, t1 or t2 damage spread probably contributed greatly to his success. In fact, you can pull his tourney report up and read it yourself.
Having played agst a Mario deck a time or two (usually in league since I run events or judge at the ones I dont run), having the Champ sitting on the bench, waiting to revenge ya, if you KO the active..that makes you think for a second or two. 70 for 1 fighting.....ya.....i'll take that.
Keith
EDIT: This is what Erik put at the end of his BR report Re: Mario "So yeah, it's my first tournament win in over a year. I'm really happy with myself, knowing that I played the deck to near-perfection. However, I do have to go ahead and spill my mind on Mario, seeing as people will probably underestimate my performance based on the deck I decided to play. @_@
I'm not personally fond of Mario because of its simplicity. I'm used to playing decks that require a great deal of thought and strategizing, something that Mario doesn't really have. This is not to say that Mario is a bad deck (or according to what many people have said, not a deck at all). Rather, Mario is a deck that relies on an extremely fast offensive push. Knowing when to Revenge or when to Aura Sphere becomes the strategy of the deck (which, well, makes it a deck). The same thing can be said of Empoleon/Lucario, a deck that resembles Mario quite a bit. For those people who will say that Empoleon/Lucario is a deck, consider the similarities between that deck and Mario. Many of my games were won simply by swarming with Lucario, and I think that many players of Empoleon/Lucario would say the same thing. How, then, is one deck a deck and the other one not?
Aside from all the complaining that Mario is "not a deck," I think that a great deal of respect should be paid to Tom Wise for touching upon something that cuts clean through a great deal of the format. While I'm still not a big fan of the simplicity that Mario offers, I am in no way ashamed to say that I won a Battle Roads with the deck. I didn't T1 anybody, and I strategized with how I handled the deck."