The night before the event, I spent the night at Clint’s house with JT and playtested. I was planning on playing a LuxChomp variant for the last Battle Roads, because I knew that it could pull out a win against everything if played right. Being completely lost in the mirror match, SP vs. SP, I played against both of them multiple times and just focused on winning the Garchomp war. I was convinced that that was the way to win, and I think that playing those matchups helped me for the next day considerably.
Anyway, we woke up a little late and rushed breakfast, not even getting a game in before we left. It was a rainy and dismal day in Corvallis- perfect for a Pokemon tournament. After registering, we tried to sneak a peek at what some of the other people were playing and were surprised to see a lot of rogue-ish things. I was confident in my strategy against most decks, so I felt that the day would go well. There were 82 people total, 44 of which were in Masters.
Round 1 vs. Charles w/ Leafeon/Roserade/Blaziken
Putting it lightly… My deck failed me. He started strong and got out his main attackers quickly and started putting special conditions on everything that I tossed active for him to kill. By the time he had taken 3 prizes, I finally topdecked a Collector and played out my hand for a 7 card Set Up… and drew into NO supporters! I was lucky enough to grab a few basic energy and a DCE, so I pulled some Dragon Rush shenanigans and took some prizes, before finally seeing a Cyrus 3 turns later. I played prize denial for a few turns and brought it down to 1-1, but in the end he locked my Garchomp active with his belted Blaziken, and I had already played all of my turns.
0-1
So I have a terrible start to my day. I lose to what most would call a great matchup for me, and am immediately pushed to the bottom of the pack. I realized that there was almost no way for me to make finals, but I decided to try anyway.
Round 2 vs. Nicholas w/ Skuntank/Staraptor?
This wasn’t really a game. The guy was new to Pokemon and didn’t even have legal cards, as the tournament organizers found out in later rounds. I ended up winning by knocking out everything he had on the field.
1-1
Round 3 vs. Tyranitar Prime
Set Up denial. That’s all I did in this game, and he gave me prizes. He BTS’d to a Tyranitar Prime on his first turn, played down a bunch of Pokemon and trainers, attached energy, and benched Uxie for 7. Power Spray. He was forced to Darkness howl and put 20 on everything except his Tyranitar. I responded by Dragon Rushing his benched Pupitar and taking a prize, while grabbing another spray.
He topdecked a Collector, grabbing Azelf and Uxie. He Timewalked, and I let it slide because I knew he wanted to Set Up. He didn’t take anything from his prizes, and tried to Set Up again. Power Spray. From there on out, he couldn’t get the necessary energy to attack and ended up Howling his way to 3 prizes for me, while I healed all damage off with Garchomp and he took 2 prizes from an Uxie and my Drifblim. The other 2 prizes I took were a Bright Look KO and a Dragon Rush.
2-1
Round 4 vs. Richard w/Typhlosion/Charizard G/Ninetales/Manectric
Richard goes to my league and is always fun to play against. We joke around that his deck never seems to work against me, especially in tournaments. His strategy depended on getting energy for draw power. I think he saw 3 energy all game, and used 2 of them to retreat a Ninetales that I Bright Looked twice and eventually killed. He couldn’t get anything started, because he also had 3 Candy prized. I took 6 prizes in 7 turns to win the game.
3-1
Round 5 vs. Tyranitar Prime/Tyranitar SF/Darkrai
I watched Clint’s game against this guy where he used energy link to power up a Tyranitar and just grind through everything. I knew that they only way to win was to take out his basics before he got them powered up. I was lucky and drew into my DCE really quickly, and used some poketurn tricks to hit 3 straight Dragon Rushes and knock out all of the Pupitars he benched. He eventually mounted a comeback with Tyranitar Prime and Darkrai, and prizes got down to 2-1 in my favor.
He knocked out my active Uxie with his Darkrai after putting it to sleep for a turn and preventing my Psychic Restore, banking on me not having any energy to power up my Promocroak on the bench with an attached psychic. All of my gain were in the discard, but I had one lightning in my hand and topdecked a DCE as well. It was a sketchy match, but Promocroak was MVP in the end.
4-1
Round 6 vs. Nicole w/LuxChomp
Nicole is a good player. She plays LuxChomp very well and I was nervous going into the match. She had a bad start though, and allowed me to get set up with both Garchomps and Dragonite, posed to win the Garchomp war that I tested for so thoroughly. We exchanged prizes and she drew into her DCE quickly during the middle of the game to make a huge comeback and get prizes down to 1-1.
I needed either a Poke Turn or my other Garchomp C LV.X to win the game, and the only way I could do it was to use Looker’s. I drew my 5 cards and screamed a little inside. There was nothing, and I knew that she had the win in hand. I was about to announce some wimpy attack, but then I realized that I had SP Radar in hand. What a doofus. I radared for Garchomp, Galactic Switched my energy, and Dragon Rushed for game.
5-1
So I end up winning out from my first round loss and have a chance to make finals. However, when the results show up, I bubbled out at 5th place because my round 1 opponent only won 2 games and my round 2 opponent won 1 but got disqualified for old cards… Top cut looked like:
JT- LuxChomp w/techs
Seth- BlazeChomp
Chris- DialgaChomp
Stephen- VileGar
Stephen defeated Chris and then Seth to take 1st place, his second in 2 weeks I believe. I was glad that the testing we did the night before paid off for JT, who played really well but got unlucky in top cut. My list was somewhat of an oddity at the tournament, compared to other LuxChomps, but it did well against everything I played aside from the unlucky first round. I’m not sure how much the format is going to change with the new Gengar coming out in Lost Link, but I’m excited to see a change of pace for City Championships.
Thanks for reading!
