Battle Roads Autumn 2009 1st Place Report

My latest deck is a neo-Gardevoir variant that uses Mesprit, Gardevoir PL, and Upper Energy instead of using Weavile with Dark/Special Dark Energy that’s so popular right now.  Since Gardevoir PL lets one move around their Psychic Energy, it is a very fluid deck, letting one use near anything on the field as an attacker. Believe it or not, I’ve taken prizes with Mesprit. It’s not the most competitive of decks, but it’s fun nonetheless.

So here’s how things went. I arrived at the venue about an hour early, since I wanted to get some trading done for my deck that I’m planning for Cities, and I realized I forgot to choose a deck to run for the day. I figured, no biggie, it’s a BR. So I threw together a quick list, filled out a deck check form, and got registered when it started.  I originally didn’t like the deck, since it seemed like it got more bad starts than good, but I didn’t have time to be nit picky about it, so I just made some quick alterations and went with it.

The list was as follows:

Round 1: Vs. Luxray/Manectric

I power lock the first 2 turns, to make sure that my setup didn’t get ruined by a Bright Look. After that, I had my Gallade running, so I just one shot everything she threw at me, since they all had fighting weakness. I also only had to flip the one prize I was going to take to one shot Manectric, and none to KO Luxray, so I ended up winning fairly easily.

1-0

Round 2: Vs. Sableye/Mightyena/SP

Now, you look at the name of the main cards in the deck, and you think “Geez, what a god awful deck. Did he get a R1 bye or what?”. No, actually I helped this guy make this deck, and it’s specifically made to tear apart someone’s early game setup, since it can one shot most Stage 2 line’s basics with Sableye/Crobat drops, and can clean up later with Mightyena. This is literally a donk based deck that does not use Machamp, believe it or not.

So when we start, he’s got a Sableye so he goes first. He doesn’t have the Crobat and Special Darkness he needs to one shot my Ralts, so he Impersonates a Roseanne’s to get his Skuntank G and Poochyena. So from this, I know he’s planning on going fully aggro early on with the Mightyena, and using the Sableye to clean up, opposite of the norm, but still viable as long as they can’t heal in between turns (That was a reference to Nidoqueen Rising Rivals, if you didn’t know.)

I think, and I think, and I think, until I realize that Poison Structure is a power, and therefore I can shut if off with Psychic Bind/Lock and he won’t be able to attack every turn. I proceed to do that, and it gives me a fairly easy win.

2-0

Round 3: Vs. Gengar

If you’ve played Gardevoir in the last year, you know that Gengar is a horrible, horrible matchup. Everything on the field has a power, so it’s basically target practice for Shadow Room. Then I also had weakness to Psychic, which meant I was going to have to be extremely careful with Poltergeist, since I had to factor in weakness. Ouch.

As soon as I saw him open with Gastly, I was worried. So when I went second, I immediately Guard my Baltoy and the Ralts I was planning on evolving into the Gardevoir PL. I had to skip the T2 power lock for that, though, so he took advantage of the lull by using Uxie for 5, then burning a few cards to Cosmic for another 5.

Thankfully, I got yet another fast Gallade and quickly one shot his first Gengar while dropping Mesprits. And his second Gengar went down quickly after. No heads with Fainting Spell, so I’m thanking whatever deity may be listening to me that day, and I take out the rest of his setup with the Gardevoir SW.

3-0

Round 4: Vs. Flygon

I can’t really tell you much about this one, just that it was brutal. Early Mesprit drops ruined any chance of setting up using Cosmic Power  or Setup, so he never really got much. By turn 4, I had a Gardevoir SW keeping him under lock, so he just scoops.

4-0

Round 5: Vs. Blaziken/Blaziken FB

Remember in the second round when I could win by shutting off their powers, since they couldn’t get their status working the way they wanted them to? Same strategy. Except that he actually could attack with Clutch, which made me use my Warp Points a lot faster than I wanted to. I just got an early Gardevoir LV.X and used it with Moonlight for my retreating purposes.

An interesting thing of note about this round is that all my Super Scoop Ups got a tails, therefore I had to use Gardevoir SW constantly for locking Powers.

5-0

Top 4: Vs. Flygon

He was very happy to get a rematch, after the beating he got in Swiss.

Round 1:

When we set up, I got an Unown G start going first. Yeah, I know it’s bad, too. I attached, and passed. He started with a Baltoy, and since he drew no basics to begin, I had an extra card in my hand from him not having any basics in his first hand so he used Baltoy’s Psychic Balance.  I thought it odd that he didn’t have any Supporters, but I shrugged it off as just unlucky.

I used Roseanne’s to get a Psychic and a Ralts, and then when I was about to attach the Psychic to the Ralts, I realized that I didn’t have any damage on Unown G. I know some of you probably immediately think of using Unown G to attack, but I don’t. So I used Hidden Power for 50 to end the first round.

Round 2:

I got a beautiful, beautiful setup, and I was able to Guard early so he couldn’t even Inviting Trap to stall. It wasn’t a good thing for him.

Top 2: Vs. Regigigas

I was as confused as you are when I saw that that had made it to T2, but he had a few tricks up his sleeve.

Round 1:

He opens with Chatot G and Regigigas. He uses Chatot G’s attack to grab a Premier Ball while attaching to Regi, and passed. I got the worst start imaginable. All my Uppers were in hand, along with a bunch of Super Scoop Ups, and I started with an Unown G. I attached an Upper to Unown G, and passed. He goes for a Regice and Uxie with Roseanne’s, and uses Regice’s Regi Move to discard 2 Energy, and then drops Uxie for 3-4 after using that Premier Ball for Regigigas LV.X. He sacrifices the Uxie, and used Giga Blaster for the round.

Round 2:

This time I got a much better start, getting using Gallade’s Sonic Blade on turn 2 against his active Regigigas. He got the first Mesprit in, though, so I wasn’t able to keep him from using Sacrifice to heal and charge. It didn’t matter, though, since Gallade easily one shot everything on his field with minimal prize flipping.

Round 3:

I started with 2 Ralts, going first. I attached to the Ralts on my bench, and used Future Sight, putting a Rare Candy as my draw for the next turn.  He draws, attaches to Regigigas, uses Regice’s Power to discard 2 Energy from his hand, uses a Level Max to jump right into the LV.X, sacrificed the Regice, and used Gigaton Punch to KO my Active Ralts. I responded by using that Rare Candy I got with Future Sight, and getting a turn 2 Gallade with a Bebe’s. Then I attached an Upper Energy and used Psychic Cut for 360 damage.

So I got first place with a deck I didn’t think was any good, and I pulled a Absol G LV.X and a Shiny from my winner packs. I’ve also ended my day with a 7-1 Win-Loss record for Battle Roads.

Not a bad way to start the season.