MrScaryMuffin
New Member
The First Battle Roads
Living in Vancouver, I had the wonderful opportunity to grind into Worlds without worrying about travel expenses and accommodation. My wife already decided that she would rather volunteer and help out at the even than play competitively this season and I decided to not bother driving all over the country (and into other countries) in the pursuit of champion points. As such, I was looked forward to the first battle roads as a time to have some fun. Of course, I would still be practicing deck building and gameplay, as well as gauging the meta, but there was not much pressure to do well, which was nice.
What to Play?
My wife already got a box of Dragons Exalted for helping judge. I had resigned myself to playing whatever we pulled from the box. The box gave us pretty much a full Garchomp Line and we had gotten all the Altaria we needed from the pre-release. Additionally, we got 2 Mew EX and 2 Registeel EX from the box and pre-release.
I tested out various builds of Garchomp/Altaria during August. I tried it with Emolga and Switches and without and I did not like the deck very much, especially since the mirror match is such a gong show. I had Gothitelle/Mew/Accelgor/Darkrai built as well but I was not very confident in set-up decks in the current format. I had a proxy build of Hydreigon but I didn't have the cards for it and I also felt that its set up was inconsistent and unreliable.
Early on in August I knew that I was probably looking at Terrakion EX/Mewtwo EX, which I had since dubbed "Tex Mex". Testing with proxy cards, I found that Garbador wasn't really needed for most match ups and I rather run consistency cards and multiple copies of crucial trainers, such as Energy Switch. At Gencon, I was lucky to get three Terrakion EXs for cheap. The Garchomp/Altaria match up wasn't great, but I ended up just going forward with the deck and decided to hope for a lucky streak.
Round 1 vs. Zach (Aggron/Sableye)
I believe Zach is one of the many seniors that moved up to the masters division this season. Zach is actually from my league but I didn't recognize his name, only the face
Zach was running an interesting stall/disruption/mill deck with Aggron doing the milling using its Toppling Wind ability and Sableye retrieving the De-evolution Spray, Rare Candy and Max Potion. I was fortunate to catch a glimpse of a similar deck that Zach's teammate, Cor, was running and could guess roughly how the deck worked. Cor, as some of my long-term readers may recall, is a player that I often get matched against during tournaments. This time around, I would not face Cor, but I did face him in spirit via Zach
Cor's deck ran Crushing Hammers, which is trouble for Terrakion. However, I dodged them for three turns and managed to score a few KOs. I would later find out that Zach's variant of the deck ran no hammers, which I felt was probably not a good decision. It also helped that two of Zach's Arons were prized. I held onto most of my draw supporters throughout the game, as I was able to play well enough off my regular Terrakion and Mewtwo EX to roll for the win.
1-0
Round 2 vs. Aaron (Empoleon/Roselia)
Aaron was a new face to me. He is apparently a pro MTG player and followed the guys from the Burnaby league over. He made his own deck that worked off of Emolga and Roserade's Le Parfum ability to set up very quickly.
I, on the other hand, only bothered to bench one other pokemon in order to control Empoleon's damage output. Two very excellent Super Scoop Up flips allowed me to remove the damage from my board and eventually I swept with a Mewtwo with 2 DCE and 2 Fighting.
During this game, however, I did make a mental note that I made two potentially huge misplay. The first was that I did not Catcher an unevolved Roselia and KO'd it when I had the opportunity. The second was that I was sitting on a lone active Mewtwo after KOing one of his pokemon. If Aaron had run Mew EX, I would have been screwed and I didn't think of it until after I did the KO. In the end, he didn't have the Mew and it turned out fine, but it easily could've gone the other way when it didn't need to.
2-0
Round 3 vs. CJ (Eels)
Ack! I knew that I finally would have to play a friend. I guess it's better now than last round? CJ is another friend that I seem to get paired up against quite a lot in tournaments. CJ knew that I was running fighting and I knew that he was running yellow and that he wasn't looking forward to the match.
We both turn over Mewtwo and he goes first. He attached DCE and swung for 80. I drew a second Mewtwo and benched it with a fighting after I whiff on DCE off Cheren. I had plus power in hand and it would've been nice to finish the match quickly before his Eels got set up. CJ got the first KO next turn and benched Tynamo and Zekrom EX. I reply KO with my second Mewtwo and benched a third Mewtwo.
Interestingly, CJ pushes up Tynamo and sparks both my Mewtwos for 10 each. I realized that he had been dead drawing all this time and took the easy KO. I set up a Terrakion EX on the bench while he stalls with Catcher, Zekrom EX and max potions. The entire time, CJ's hand was no more than three cards. I finally use N and hit the switch I needed to get Terrakion EX active and KO his lonely active Zekrom EX for the win. GG, I guess?
3-0
Round 4 vs. Richard (Eels)
At this point of the tournament, I had to admit to myself that I wasn't really having fun. All my games had been attach and pass for three turns and then sweep with one attacker. The match ups for Tex Mex was pretty boring and the deck itself didn't lend itself to any challenge on the player's part. Beating a friend didn't help my mood any and I also got paired down for Round 4.
There was a long lull before the start of the round and Richard told me that he would have to drop from the tournament soon so that he could go to work. Great.
I was less than thrilled to play, but was happy for the easy match up. I started Terrakion EX and pretty much rolled as per usual. I did an energy switch + SSU play mid-way to deny prizes, but otherwise the game was fairly uneventful until he scooped.
4-0
Round 5 vs. Rushan (Tex Mex with Garbador)
I was glad that I was 4-0. It meant that I would end the day on the positive side. However, I still had no real indication as to how good my deck was. The undefeated streak was really just a lucky schedule so far.
I've seen Rushan a few times before. I finally went first for the first time this tournament but I ended up seeing no energy for 4-5 turns and would not get a draw support until after I KO his Terrakion EX with my Mewtwo EX. Unfortunately, while I floundered, Rushan got everything set up, including two excellent Pump Up Smashes energy acceleration thanks to his Cilan.
I sat on a DCE, catcher and Plus Power but didn't see another Mewtwo EX so I couldn't nab the easy Mewtwo on his bench with 4-5 energies. With the prizes at 2-4 in his favour, I attempted to stall with N, catcher on his Garbadors, etc. He found his switches easily, which is too be expected and, in the end, he swept my normal Terrakions with his Mewtwo for the win.
4-1
Round 6 vs. Bryan (Garbador/Sigilyph/Terrakion)
Even though I lost, it again did not give me any indication as to whether my deck was viable or not. The fact that I lost to what was essentially a mirror match obfuscated the issue even more. Still, I was in decent position to net some champion points and I didn't want to let the opportunity slide.
Bryan is a fairly new player from the island. I got my second start of the day and this time I had two energies in hand! Woot! However, I turned over Terrakion EX to his Sigilyph. When he benched his second Sigilyph, I knew that I would have to start working around the strange totem bird.
I grabbed all my normal Terrakions and Juniper/Ultra Ball away my Mewtwos along the way. Some energy switch shenanigans allowed my normal Terrakion to attack on turn 4 and eventually all my Terrakions had energies on them and he didn't even take a prize yet. Once I catchered and killed his last Sigilyph and removed all the energies on the field, he scooped.
5-1
Round 7 vs. Dylan (Hydreigon)
For some reason, I thought that there were still two more rounds left in the tournament. My body was prepared, but I was happy to end the day.
I played my final match against Dylan, who had borrowed my Darkrai earlier in the day. I joked that he wasn't allowed to beat me with my own cards
Dylan ran Sigilyph, Mewtwo, but no Shaymin EX in his Hydreigon. I already had a pretty good method of dealing with Sigilyph but he discards two Blend energies early on to make the totem bird even less of a factor. He also burns his Dark Patches early on and I left his Hydreigon up and hunted energies instead. I picked up KOs on his Sableye using Mewtwo and took out an Eviolited Darkrai with the help of Terrakion and plus power.
Dylan manages to get three energies on the field, but for some reason decides to put them on a Mewtwo and swing into my normal Terrakion for not enough (120 damage on a 130 HP Pokemon). He must have saw the look on my face because he commented that "maybe you don't have the energy to retreat". I had five cards in my hand: Catcher, Juniper, Juniper, Juniper, Fighting. I drew for my turn, got something like PP or RR. I attached and retreated my Terrakion and KO'd his Mewtwo with my Mewtwo. I half expected a second Mewtwo and a DCE at this point, which would definitely surprised me since I know how tight Hydreigon lists can be. Fortunately for me, he had nothing and scooped shortly afterwards.
6-1
Will I Cut?
Unfortunately, I didn't cut, but it really was through no fault of my own. This season, Battle Roads no longer had top cut.
The sole player that was undefeated going into the final round, Mark, got bad draws in his final game and lost. The player that beat him got first place since Mark gave him awesome resistance. Mark got second, Rushan got third and I sealed fourth. If there was top cut, I would've just bubbled in, which is where I like to be. I would've played Jason's Hydreigon and I think it would've been a decent match.
I definitely did not mind grabbing 10 CPs. However, it would've been nice to get a 3rd place cup. I am still missing 3rd in my collection
Overall, the tournament itself was fun. I enjoyed talking to people and showing off Smash Up. Unfortunately, playing the game was less fun. I did not like Tex Mex very much and will probably try to find something more enjoyable to play for the Burnaby BRs.
Is Tex Mex viable? I don't really know. I think more than anything, most players are finding that their decks are not very consistent. It is pretty easy to dead draw in the current format and not even 12 draw supports/RR is enough unless you have a built-in draw engine. The format is pretty bland and unfortunately, this means that the bland decks will do better for now.
Living in Vancouver, I had the wonderful opportunity to grind into Worlds without worrying about travel expenses and accommodation. My wife already decided that she would rather volunteer and help out at the even than play competitively this season and I decided to not bother driving all over the country (and into other countries) in the pursuit of champion points. As such, I was looked forward to the first battle roads as a time to have some fun. Of course, I would still be practicing deck building and gameplay, as well as gauging the meta, but there was not much pressure to do well, which was nice.
What to Play?
My wife already got a box of Dragons Exalted for helping judge. I had resigned myself to playing whatever we pulled from the box. The box gave us pretty much a full Garchomp Line and we had gotten all the Altaria we needed from the pre-release. Additionally, we got 2 Mew EX and 2 Registeel EX from the box and pre-release.
I tested out various builds of Garchomp/Altaria during August. I tried it with Emolga and Switches and without and I did not like the deck very much, especially since the mirror match is such a gong show. I had Gothitelle/Mew/Accelgor/Darkrai built as well but I was not very confident in set-up decks in the current format. I had a proxy build of Hydreigon but I didn't have the cards for it and I also felt that its set up was inconsistent and unreliable.
Early on in August I knew that I was probably looking at Terrakion EX/Mewtwo EX, which I had since dubbed "Tex Mex". Testing with proxy cards, I found that Garbador wasn't really needed for most match ups and I rather run consistency cards and multiple copies of crucial trainers, such as Energy Switch. At Gencon, I was lucky to get three Terrakion EXs for cheap. The Garchomp/Altaria match up wasn't great, but I ended up just going forward with the deck and decided to hope for a lucky streak.
Round 1 vs. Zach (Aggron/Sableye)
I believe Zach is one of the many seniors that moved up to the masters division this season. Zach is actually from my league but I didn't recognize his name, only the face
Zach was running an interesting stall/disruption/mill deck with Aggron doing the milling using its Toppling Wind ability and Sableye retrieving the De-evolution Spray, Rare Candy and Max Potion. I was fortunate to catch a glimpse of a similar deck that Zach's teammate, Cor, was running and could guess roughly how the deck worked. Cor, as some of my long-term readers may recall, is a player that I often get matched against during tournaments. This time around, I would not face Cor, but I did face him in spirit via Zach
Cor's deck ran Crushing Hammers, which is trouble for Terrakion. However, I dodged them for three turns and managed to score a few KOs. I would later find out that Zach's variant of the deck ran no hammers, which I felt was probably not a good decision. It also helped that two of Zach's Arons were prized. I held onto most of my draw supporters throughout the game, as I was able to play well enough off my regular Terrakion and Mewtwo EX to roll for the win.
1-0
Round 2 vs. Aaron (Empoleon/Roselia)
Aaron was a new face to me. He is apparently a pro MTG player and followed the guys from the Burnaby league over. He made his own deck that worked off of Emolga and Roserade's Le Parfum ability to set up very quickly.
I, on the other hand, only bothered to bench one other pokemon in order to control Empoleon's damage output. Two very excellent Super Scoop Up flips allowed me to remove the damage from my board and eventually I swept with a Mewtwo with 2 DCE and 2 Fighting.
During this game, however, I did make a mental note that I made two potentially huge misplay. The first was that I did not Catcher an unevolved Roselia and KO'd it when I had the opportunity. The second was that I was sitting on a lone active Mewtwo after KOing one of his pokemon. If Aaron had run Mew EX, I would have been screwed and I didn't think of it until after I did the KO. In the end, he didn't have the Mew and it turned out fine, but it easily could've gone the other way when it didn't need to.
2-0
Round 3 vs. CJ (Eels)
Ack! I knew that I finally would have to play a friend. I guess it's better now than last round? CJ is another friend that I seem to get paired up against quite a lot in tournaments. CJ knew that I was running fighting and I knew that he was running yellow and that he wasn't looking forward to the match.
We both turn over Mewtwo and he goes first. He attached DCE and swung for 80. I drew a second Mewtwo and benched it with a fighting after I whiff on DCE off Cheren. I had plus power in hand and it would've been nice to finish the match quickly before his Eels got set up. CJ got the first KO next turn and benched Tynamo and Zekrom EX. I reply KO with my second Mewtwo and benched a third Mewtwo.
Interestingly, CJ pushes up Tynamo and sparks both my Mewtwos for 10 each. I realized that he had been dead drawing all this time and took the easy KO. I set up a Terrakion EX on the bench while he stalls with Catcher, Zekrom EX and max potions. The entire time, CJ's hand was no more than three cards. I finally use N and hit the switch I needed to get Terrakion EX active and KO his lonely active Zekrom EX for the win. GG, I guess?
3-0
Round 4 vs. Richard (Eels)
At this point of the tournament, I had to admit to myself that I wasn't really having fun. All my games had been attach and pass for three turns and then sweep with one attacker. The match ups for Tex Mex was pretty boring and the deck itself didn't lend itself to any challenge on the player's part. Beating a friend didn't help my mood any and I also got paired down for Round 4.
There was a long lull before the start of the round and Richard told me that he would have to drop from the tournament soon so that he could go to work. Great.
I was less than thrilled to play, but was happy for the easy match up. I started Terrakion EX and pretty much rolled as per usual. I did an energy switch + SSU play mid-way to deny prizes, but otherwise the game was fairly uneventful until he scooped.
4-0
Round 5 vs. Rushan (Tex Mex with Garbador)
I was glad that I was 4-0. It meant that I would end the day on the positive side. However, I still had no real indication as to how good my deck was. The undefeated streak was really just a lucky schedule so far.
I've seen Rushan a few times before. I finally went first for the first time this tournament but I ended up seeing no energy for 4-5 turns and would not get a draw support until after I KO his Terrakion EX with my Mewtwo EX. Unfortunately, while I floundered, Rushan got everything set up, including two excellent Pump Up Smashes energy acceleration thanks to his Cilan.
I sat on a DCE, catcher and Plus Power but didn't see another Mewtwo EX so I couldn't nab the easy Mewtwo on his bench with 4-5 energies. With the prizes at 2-4 in his favour, I attempted to stall with N, catcher on his Garbadors, etc. He found his switches easily, which is too be expected and, in the end, he swept my normal Terrakions with his Mewtwo for the win.
4-1
Round 6 vs. Bryan (Garbador/Sigilyph/Terrakion)
Even though I lost, it again did not give me any indication as to whether my deck was viable or not. The fact that I lost to what was essentially a mirror match obfuscated the issue even more. Still, I was in decent position to net some champion points and I didn't want to let the opportunity slide.
Bryan is a fairly new player from the island. I got my second start of the day and this time I had two energies in hand! Woot! However, I turned over Terrakion EX to his Sigilyph. When he benched his second Sigilyph, I knew that I would have to start working around the strange totem bird.
I grabbed all my normal Terrakions and Juniper/Ultra Ball away my Mewtwos along the way. Some energy switch shenanigans allowed my normal Terrakion to attack on turn 4 and eventually all my Terrakions had energies on them and he didn't even take a prize yet. Once I catchered and killed his last Sigilyph and removed all the energies on the field, he scooped.
5-1
Round 7 vs. Dylan (Hydreigon)
For some reason, I thought that there were still two more rounds left in the tournament. My body was prepared, but I was happy to end the day.
I played my final match against Dylan, who had borrowed my Darkrai earlier in the day. I joked that he wasn't allowed to beat me with my own cards
Dylan ran Sigilyph, Mewtwo, but no Shaymin EX in his Hydreigon. I already had a pretty good method of dealing with Sigilyph but he discards two Blend energies early on to make the totem bird even less of a factor. He also burns his Dark Patches early on and I left his Hydreigon up and hunted energies instead. I picked up KOs on his Sableye using Mewtwo and took out an Eviolited Darkrai with the help of Terrakion and plus power.
Dylan manages to get three energies on the field, but for some reason decides to put them on a Mewtwo and swing into my normal Terrakion for not enough (120 damage on a 130 HP Pokemon). He must have saw the look on my face because he commented that "maybe you don't have the energy to retreat". I had five cards in my hand: Catcher, Juniper, Juniper, Juniper, Fighting. I drew for my turn, got something like PP or RR. I attached and retreated my Terrakion and KO'd his Mewtwo with my Mewtwo. I half expected a second Mewtwo and a DCE at this point, which would definitely surprised me since I know how tight Hydreigon lists can be. Fortunately for me, he had nothing and scooped shortly afterwards.
6-1
Will I Cut?
Unfortunately, I didn't cut, but it really was through no fault of my own. This season, Battle Roads no longer had top cut.
The sole player that was undefeated going into the final round, Mark, got bad draws in his final game and lost. The player that beat him got first place since Mark gave him awesome resistance. Mark got second, Rushan got third and I sealed fourth. If there was top cut, I would've just bubbled in, which is where I like to be. I would've played Jason's Hydreigon and I think it would've been a decent match.
I definitely did not mind grabbing 10 CPs. However, it would've been nice to get a 3rd place cup. I am still missing 3rd in my collection
Overall, the tournament itself was fun. I enjoyed talking to people and showing off Smash Up. Unfortunately, playing the game was less fun. I did not like Tex Mex very much and will probably try to find something more enjoyable to play for the Burnaby BRs.
Is Tex Mex viable? I don't really know. I think more than anything, most players are finding that their decks are not very consistent. It is pretty easy to dead draw in the current format and not even 12 draw supports/RR is enough unless you have a built-in draw engine. The format is pretty bland and unfortunately, this means that the bland decks will do better for now.
