Hey everybody, and welcome to today’s “article”! I put the title in quotation marks because this is one half of a two-parter about the ongoing Chicago marathon. Originally I had my article planned for the 31st, after 4 of the 6 tournaments had been completed — but due to a scheduling goof me and Adam realized that the 31st was a Saturday, not Thursday!
As a result, my article will be split into two half-articles describing each half of the marathon going on right now in the Chicago area. Considering that everyone playing Pokémon outside of Chicago will still be playing Pokémon this weekend as opposed to every day of the week, it also happens to be a great point for me to share my findings before a majority of you head out for tournaments. Sound good? Let’s cut the fluff, and get right into my tournament experience!
Pre-Marathon
Having never played in a “marathon-style” tournament series before, I didn’t really know what to expect. Following some of the tips Kettler posted in an article a week or two ago; I knew to expect elevated attendance and high variance. Even though I make this same decision in just about every tournament that I go to, I figured it’d be smartest to take the deck I felt had a chance to compete vs. every other deck in the format: Zone/Eel.
As I writer, I also feel compelled to take my own lists into events to prove that they can succeed to you readers, so I took the exact list I had in my past “Eels, Eels, Eels” article. I only made one change to the list, and that was cutting the 2nd Pokemon Catcher in favor of the 4th Junk Arm.
I decided that having the utility to discard more Energy, as well as re-use Switch more often was more often than picking a prize off the bench, especially when you can afford to hit the active spot for 100-150 damage fairly often.
For reference, here’s what the list looked like coming into the event:
