Lights, Camera, Action!

Squeaky’s 2013 Tennessee Cities Marathon Report
pokemon director video camerapokemonscreenshots.tumblr.com
“Action!”

I am back from the second year of the Tennessee Marathon (year one was documented here) and a lot happened this year. The biggest news is that I got approval from Clay and Rick Mitchell to record the games during the marathon. Overall I was happier to record than play during the marathon.

Since I was worried about the recordings I did not take notes, so my recollection of my matches is really bad. Before all these tournaments I had been testing Virizion/Genesect a bunch and I thought it was the BDIF. I was planning on playing this list for all of the marathon until the metagame shifted too much:

Pokémon – 8

3 Genesect EX

3 Virizion-EX

1 Mr. Mime PLF

1 Bouffalant DRX

Trainers – 38

4 Professor Juniper

4 N

4 Skyla

1 Colress

2 Shadow Triad

 

4 Hypnotoxic Laser

3 Energy Switch

2 Ultra Ball

1 Team Plasma Ball

2 Switch

1 Float Stone

2 Tool Scrapper

2 Super Rod

2 Colress Machine

1 Energy Search

1 G Booster

 

2 Virbank City Gym

Energy – 14

10 G

4 Plasma

The only two techs I wanted in this list were Mr. Mime and Bouffalant. The Mr. Mime is for all the sniping decks and the Bouffalant is for the mirror match. Besides those techs, the deck is really consistent. The only change I might make is to remove Float Stone for either another Bouffalant or Tool Scrapper.

Day 1 – Gallatin, TN

Justin and I got everything set up to record and we were nervous because it was our first real day of recording games. Here is how our setup looked for the day:

team fish knuckles recording gallatin tn cities 2013
“Please work!”

And here is a recap of my day:

R1: Darkrai/Hydreigon (L)
R2: Empoleon (W)
R3: Landy/Garbodor (W)
R4: Victini and Friends (W)
R5: Plasma (T)

Top 8

Top 4

Top 2

squeaky gallatin tn city champ
The customary first place photo.

And just like that, I am Gallatin City Champion. After winning I decided to change my deck and try to cover the meta. The main decks in top cut were Virizion/Genesect and Plasma decks. This made me want to play Darkrai/Garbodor because Garabdor shuts down Virizion’s Ability and Hammers cover the Plasma matchup.

My list is from this article, but instead of the 2 Catcher I put in 2 Energy Switch to try and make the deck faster.

Day 2 – Murfreesboro, TN

Upon arriving, we noticed that the venue was rather small and we could not record until Top 8. I wish there was a way to get around this, but we did at least get to record the Top 8 and up. Here is my match recap for the day:

R1: Plasma (L)
R2: Darkrai/Garbodor (W)
R3: Empoleon (W)
R4: Plasma (T)
R5: Virizion/Genesect (T)
R6: Plasma (L)

I ended the day going 2-2-2. I found out Darkrai/Garabador/Hammers is too slow for best-of-one Swiss. I should have expected that, but I thought with the Energy Switches it would have been faster.

Once again I tried to adjust and cover the meta, which was once again Plasma and Virizon/Genesect decks. I had only seen two Blastoise players both days and decided to take a chance and play Brandon Smiley’s Big Tex deck. I knew it could beat both of the main meta decks, but struggled against Blastoise.

I used Brandon’s list, but took out 4 Catchers, 1 Beach, 1 Skyla, and 1 Drifblim PLB for 3 Energy Switch, 1 Terrakion LTR, 1 Spiritomb LTR, and 2 Colress. Spiritomb is to help out against the Virizon/Genesect match and Terrakion is for the non-EX attacking decks.

Day 3 – Franklin, TN

There was also another group there streaming and recording games. It was cool to see someone else wanting to record games from the South area. Here is a link to their Twitch. Since we were both recording here is how the finals looked like:

thecoinflip recording franklin tn cities 2013
Double cameras!

Also, here is my recap for the day:

R1: Plasma (W)
R2: Blastoise (L)
R3: Victini and Friends (W)
R4: Tool Drop (L)
R5: Blastoise (W)
R6: Darkrai/Victini (W)

After going 4-2 I bubbled and missed top cut for the second day in a row. I was determined to play a deck that would get me in top cut and had a good shot against Plasma and Virizon/Genesect. In my head a Blastoise list with 4 Beaches was good because Black Kyurem can 1-shot the Genesect and the 4 Beaches counter the Plasma decks with Frozen City.

So, I decided to play Brit Pybas’ Blastoise list.

Day 4 – Madison, TN

Since this was the last day of the marathon in the Nashville area I decided to put all the past winners of the marathons on the recording first.

R1: Virizon/Mewtwo (W)
R2: Plasma (W)
R3: Blastoise (W)
R4: (ID)
R5: (ID)
T8: Flygon/Dusknoir (W)

Top 4

Top 2

It was close match, but I was happy with taking second for the day. After this last day in the Nashville area, we headed to the Memphis area and to the place I won last year. Because of the meta being unknown, I decided to play my Virizion/Genesect deck.

Day 5 – Memphis, TN

Here is a recap of my day:

R1: Darkrai/Garbodor (L)
R2: Plasma (W)
R3: Flareon (W)
R4: Plasma (W)
R5: (ID)
T8: Virizion/Genesect (W)

Top 4

Top 2

Once again I lost in Top 2. I had one more deck to try out for the marathon and I thought it was a perfect counter to all the decks in the area. The deck I decided to play was Plasma. I knew that a friend, Calvin Nordberg, was running hot with the deck and he was the one to knock me out of Top 8 at Regionals. I asked him for his decklist and like a great friend he sent it to me.

Here is the decklist:

Pokémon – 13

4 Kyurem PLF

4 Deoxys-EX

3 Thundurus EX

1 Absol PLF

1 Genesect EX

Trainers – 34

4 Professor Juniper

4 N

2 Skyla

2 Colress

1 Bicycle

 

2 Ultra Ball

2 Team Plasma Ball

3 Switch

1 Float Stone

3 Colress Machine

3 Silver Bangle

2 Tool Scrapper

2 Max Potion

1 Computer Search

 

2 Frozen City

Energy – 13

4 Plasma

4 Prism

2 Blend WLFM

2 W

1 L

In hindsight, the only change I would make is to drop the Computer Search for a Dowsing Machine. This way I could counter Garbodor decks better and have the ability to reuse Trainers when needed.

Day 6 – Southaven, MS

Here is a recap for the day.

R1: Darkrai (W)
R2: Darkrai/Garbodor (W)
R3: Blastoise (W)
R4: Plasma (W)
R5: (ID)
T4: Landorus/Garbodor (W)

Top 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVBDSrgQIMs

squeaky southaven, ms city champ 2013
I began and ended with victories.

I finally got my second 1st place finish! In all, I ended with two 1st places and two 2nd places under my belt. This put me at 277/500 Championship Points for Worlds. I would like to thank all my friends, especially John Collier for the house to stay in during the marathon and Justin Aaron for the webcam to help record. Also, if you have a chance, please subscribe to our YouTube channel and watch some of our videos: YouTube.com/TeamFishKnuckles

I have one more City to go, which I do not plan to take that seriously and will just record the games. After that I have the St. Louis Regional on my plate and I hope to see everyone there because of what Vince is doing for the tournament. If you have not heard of what he is doing, please watch this:

Once again, I’d like to give a big thanks to Rick and Clay Mitchell for all the tournaments in Tennessee and letting me record during the marathon.

Reader Interactions

18 replies

  1. Leobardo Zavala

    Wow. Gen list is similar to mine. I should probably test more.

  2. Bex

    May I ask what you mean when ID is in brackets next to round? Only asking as I don’t know what it means.

  3. Mitchell Anderson

    How’d you win the Victini match up in Gallatin?

  4. Grant Manley

    Just curious do you have any information whatsoever about the seniors meta? If not, that’s cool too. nice reports and congrats. Why does your virizion list run no T1 attackers/beach? I like it anyway, just wondering.

    • Squeaky Marking  → Grant

      Not going to lie I have no clue what they are running. I never like skyla for a tropical beach because it feels like it is setting me behind. I would rather get a Pokemon or another supporter for the next turn.

  5. Jeff C

    How did the play of Mr Mime by your opponents affect your play since your main attacker is hitting the bench a lot???

  6. Stephen Botha

    I like the way you built your plasma list, but just wanted to ask two questions. First, doesn’t Darkrai with Hammers completely shut you out or do you consistenly get enough energy to keep momentum? And secondly, isn’t a bit of a ‘waste’ when you have 2-3 Plasma energies sitting on a Genesect or is the ability to catcher something up worth that kind of situation?

    • Squeaky Marking  → Stephen

      The thing with Darkrai hammers is that you can spam lighting energies back onto thundurus. Keep repeating this over and over again and they will eventually run out of sableyes. Also, you mostly use genesect at the end of the game. Sometimes the card is not even used and just thrown away with an ultra ball or juniper.

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