Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

NSW Platinum Pre-release

Napoleon

New Member
Well, today my league in Burwood, NSW, Australia had a Platinum Pre-release! 'Twas a happy day.

So I woke up, had breakfast, studied Latin and left.

6 packs and as many energies as we wanted to build a 40 card deck, but there was a twist! We were allowed to trade cards to build decks! This was for the benefit of people who were beginners or had, for example, 2 Chimchar and 2 Infernape but no Monferno.

I opened my 1st pack...What's that shiny thingo? ZOMG IT'S THE SECRET RARE VULPIX!!!
My second pack.....Nice. Dialga G and Palkia G.
The third reveals......Some interesting rares.....
The fourth......some commons and......Whuzzat? It's a Broken Time-Space! W00T! My deck was looking good at this stage.
My fifth pack showed me.....another BTS and Infernape!
And my final pack produced....meh.

I looked through my cards and found an interesting line:

4-2-1 Blissey

But I don't think killing yourself would do well in a Pre-release.

There was also....

0-3-3-2-2 Beautifly Dustox

No Wurmple.

And finally:

2-0-1 Infernape

Speak of the devil, I had no Monferno or Wurmple! Luckily we could trade our cards around.

I had looked at the Platinum set beforehand and I knew what I wanted. But I didn't get it! Ninetales, probably the best form of energy-grabbing in a pre-release! I had Dialga and Palkia Gs to trade, so I knew I could get something. The boy next to me was so happy when he pulled Dialga G Lv.X, but angry when he didn't get Dialga G. I was the only person to have Dialga G in the tourney. Should I trade? He was a new-ish player, so yes. I traded my Dialga G for 2 Ninetales and 2 Wurmple.
Palkia I needed to get rid of. I spied someone with 2 Monferno, so I traded Palkia for them. I then proceeded to trade off every G and SP Pokemon that I had to finally get 4 Wurmples and 4-2 Monferno.

I needed some form of deck structure though, which is why I went to get myself a Ninetales. 2, in fact, for a couple of SP Pokemon and a normal Palkia. My decklist ended up nicely:

4-2-2 Infernape (YES!!!)
4-1-1-1-1 Beautifly Dustox (Double YESS YESS!!!!!)
2-2 Ninetales (One shiny Vulpix)

Pokemon: 20

2x Broken Time-Space
1x Looker's Investigation
1x Pokemon Rescue

Trainers: 4 (Uh...)

10x Fire Energy
6x Grass Energy

Energy: 16

And Round one was UP!!

Round 1: Napoleon vs Curtis!!!

An interesting match, and my best regards go to Curtis for giving me a great match!

Game 1:

I started with Shiny Vulpix (referred to from now on as Vulpix S) with Wurmple and Chimchar on bench. I went first, attaching Grass to Wurmple and using "Find Wildfire" with Vulpix S to get 2 fire into my hand. He drew, pass. Next I evolved my Chimchar and Wurmple with BTS straight to their Stage 2s. I proceeded to crush his actives with Beautifly before it got 11 damage counters, retreated, and his Empoleon (with 8 Damage counters, poison and burn) had to face up to the prospect of 10 Fire Energy Flips from Infernape. Game one to me.

Game 2:

I started with normal Vulpix and blew a lot of energies with Reheat so that I had a full setup in 4 turns. He didn't stand up to Infernape.

1-0

Round 2: Napoleon vs Dialga G Lv.X Guy.

Game 1:

He began. T1 passed. My Turn 1...
BTS. Evolve Vulpix into Ninetales. Evolve Chimchar to Monferno to Infernape. Flame Bash for 6 ENERGIES >_>. He didn't pull a basic. I OHKOd his Pokemon.

Game 2:

He obviously had never heard of the attack "Rage" before. Not much point spreading damage onto my Infernapes with Tsunami Palkia when I just massacre him with Rage.

2-0

Round 3: Napoleon vs David

Game 1:

Dang. He had an Empoleon deck, plus he knew how to build a pre-release deck. I went down hard.

Game 2:

Fight Back Time! Beautifly helped tons and I won!

Game 3:

What a gambit of a beginning. I had 2 Vulpix, 2 Ninetales, Chimchar Monferno Infernape. I drew BTS. I went for it. BTS and fully evolved all of my Pokemon. My Flame Bashing backfired, scoring me all tails for 4 Turns, while he happily crushed me with Empoleon.

2-1

Final Round: Napoleon vs A guy who's name I cannot remember.

Game 1:

Unstructured SP decks don't work against structured decks which energy accel. I was on my last prize when he decided to KO my Infernape with his Houndoom. I said:
"What in....that's not possible! You don't even run dark energies in your deck! This is a Lightning energy, not dark!"
To which he replied:
"Uh...itsaproxyididn'tmeantoforgettotellyoui'mreallyreallysorry!..."
To which the judge replied:
"(Guy who's name I forgot), your opponent may draw a prize card for this. Will you draw a prize?
"Ya."
And that's how I won. I am sorry for the other guy, it happened twice before to him!

Game 2:

Beautifly Massacre followed up with Dustox Immunity. 'Nuff said.

3-1

Not so bad! I came second to Curtis.

Yay!s:

Shiny Vulpix!
2 BTS!
Second Place!
I built a nice deck!
Infernape never let me down.

Nay!s:

No Landmin Lv.X.....
Ninetales failed me.


Well that's my report!

Napoleon
 
Aw you guys had to do a prize penalty? Prereleases are generally more relaxed games where you're playing cards and a format you don't normally play in. Its especially confusing with the addition of proxies. I could easily see gameplay errors occurring quite frequently, and it bothers me to see that a judge would rule that way, and that you accepted that prize.

Spirit of the game at its worst I'm afraid.
 
Aw you guys had to do a prize penalty? Prereleases are generally more relaxed games where you're playing cards and a format you don't normally play in. Its especially confusing with the addition of proxies. I could easily see gameplay errors occurring quite frequently, and it bothers me to see that a judge would rule that way, and that you accepted that prize.

Spirit of the game at its worst I'm afraid.

I see where you come from. But what I may not have mentioned (...actually I did) was that it had happened before and he had warning(s) (according to him). I don't believe that he had had a prize penalty before.

I may add that there were many basic darks floating around for people to use.
 
Even so, I still feel that is harsh. I hope to never see a prize penalty issued at any pre I attend, especially considering how there is no real reason to cheat or play unfairly when there is little or no prize given for the top winner.
 
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