Hello again everyone. I just got back from an exhilarating Indiana State Championships in Fort Wayne, Indiana. I’d spent the week between Ohio States and Indiana States opting not to really test, knowing full well that I knew LuxChomp as well as I could, and that the metagame wasn’t really going to change much.
I wasn’t about to switch decks because not only did no other deck offer me the same favorable matchups, but I would never be able to get as familiar with it, even if I spent the whole week testing feverishly. I pretty much knew what to expect going in. SP would be the most popular by a wide margin, with Gengar in second, and Machamp, Magnezone, and Gyarados likely vying for 3rd, 4th, and 5th.
I saw no Regigigas the prior week, and heard of it having little success so I was less paranoid about it making a large presence at this event. Before I get into the actual event, let me bore you with the adventure leading up to the tournament.
First, I was scrambling to get everyone together for the event. The plan was that I would be driving out to Fort Wayne, but not before waking up at 4:30 AM to make sure I could make it a half hour (and back) to Parma to pick up Mike O’Donnell.
We would make it back to my place by 6 so my friends David and Coleman would be able to meet me, then we’d grab breakfast and gas, and make the trek out to the tournament. One of the things that I am always sure to do is to leave for an event with about an hour to spare in case of complications.
I’ll be the first to admit I uh, take speed limits as a loose guide line, generally, but I still like to make sure we are at these things early rather than late. Worst case scenario we get to test a few games and trade if we are really early.
If I was good at Photoshop I'd have edited this to say "No Sleep Till Fort Wayne"
So I wake up at 4:30, get a shower, and get my stuff together. There was a slight complication though. I’d gone to play Magic Friday night, and the draft didn’t end until 10:30. I gave my friend George a ride back to my place, and a group of us wound up playing Magic till like 1 in the morning.
Probably a bad idea with such a long drive ahead of us. I managed about 2, maybe 2 and a half hours of sleep before waking up, which while not much, is about what I’m used to. I’ve done way too many of these trips after an all nighter. I leave my place a bit late at 5:15, and get to Mikes around 5:40.
Unfortunately he has to get packed up and takes a bit of time to make it down, so I don’t wind up making it back home until 6:20.
Previously, I had received a call from David asking where I was. I said I was running a bit late. He mentioned something about whether or not he should put their bags in the car, and I just kinda shrugged it off until I got home, and realized they were not in my driveway.
I call them, and they, of course, were at the wrong house. So, after a minute of them “looking for my car at the end of the driveway” (I stayed there as a sort of beacon) I realized they must have drastically miscalculated directions. It took them a few minutes to get to me, and we shuffled all of the stuff into the trunk and were on the road.
We stopped by McDonald’s for some breakfast, then hit up Speedway to fuel up, and grab drinks. Apparently Mike got a couple hours of sleep, where as David and Coleman wound up staying up all night. Needless to say, we had a well rested crew in our car. The drive home was likely to get exciting.
The first part of the trip was pretty standard, with me just taking the turnpike for over an hour, before having to get on a smaller highway that more resembled a country road than anything else. As we got closer, I realized I was a bit under a quarter of a tank, and since my car had been having some issues with the fuel injector, I decided I’d rather play it safe and get filled up at the next gas station I saw.
Needless to say, about an hour of no gas stations to be found later, the low fuel light was on, and I was scared. Luckily, we wound up spotting a Marathon before we wound up on the side of the road, and re-fueled, but the scare at least woke us all up.
We get into Fort Wayne, half delirious from lack of sleep, and find the sign for “Motel Wayne” to be absolutely hilarious, namely due to how much like a dive it looked like. This led to a series of inappropriate inside jokes about Wayne, the guy who owned the place, who was a smooth talking black pimp. I could go into further detail, but unless you are in a compromised state of mind, it won’t do it justice.
I find a parking lot that caps at 7 dollars a day, so we pull in, and, still not REALLY knowing where we are going, set out on foot with bags over shoulder. We wind up finding it on the first try, luckily, and settle down and work on our lists. My plan for the day was to 3-0 and then drop, securing ( likely ) my rating invite.
I figured I had a pretty good shot at it, but at the same time, that sure would make for a pretty boring and short tournament report, now wouldn’t it?
I sat down with my friend Tracy, and her friend Aaron, and we ended up working on our lists. Aaron, as usual, was using Vilegar, while me and Tracy were armed with LuxChomp. Our lists different quite a bit in our tech choices, but here is what I wound up deciding on.
It turned out to be only 3 cards different from last weeks, as I was expecting more Vilegar here, and as a result I really wanted to secure that matchup even better.
