Alright, here we go. The tournament report for Week 1 of States 2011. Let me preface that I have historically poor luck at States. I have bombed out of my States than any other event, and I have also never won a States. I can win Nationals and make the finals of Worlds, but States has always eluded me.
Now, that doesn’t mean I haven’t done well at them. I wound up taking 2nd at 4 separate State Championships since the events inception. A lot of it is simple variance, but others have been poor metagame reads in the past. States is always challenging because the City Championship season leaves in its wake a very well defined metagame.
So with the new set being released each year, players are stuck not just looking for the “best deck” but they are looking at what they feel is the best deck to run into the hypothetical field they expect to emerge from the prior metagame infused with the new collection of cards.
This means you have enough prior data that you can’t ignore it when trying to make deck choices, but there is also little to no hard evidence suggesting exactly how players will react to the new sets release. This is a fun little puzzle, but can lead to some grossly incorrect judgment calls as well.
In 2004, I ran a Blaziken deck, where I made top 8 before losing to a mirror match in standard fashion, where one deck would simply fire off better, and faster. I was on the losing end of this one. My build was fine, but a bit weak in the mirror, but I could have fixed that with better preparation.
At this point, I was very close to getting out of the game due to the looming release of the VS System TCG, which I had the full intent of switching to upon arrival.
In 2005, I ran a Metagross Registeel Bellossom deck that had tested well for me, and went 3-3 with some of the worst starts I had ever gotten. I bounced back and won the league tournament the next week with the same deck, X-0.
Now it may only be a league tournament, but in 2005, the average quality of a player was not even close to what it is today, and we had almost all of the “major” threat players at that league weekly, so it still consoled me to know that, while I wouldn’t repeat the deck choice, it wasn’t as terrible as my 3-3 record would suggest.
In 2006, I attended a great number of State Championships. I wound up losing in top 16 to Chuck’s Rock Lock with my Machamp Milotic deck. I lost in the finals to Jason K’s Medicham EX deck with my Metagross Salamence deck. I lost in the finals of another States to an LBS mirror, which would be my lone mirror match loss that entire season, despite running the deck for every event there on out.
In 2007, I wound up straying from my tried and true Metanite deck to use Speed Spready, and I pulled off an impressive 3-3 again. I was the only player out of 4 who used the deck who did not go on to win their respective event. I would go on to win U.S. Nationals with the same deck, which may lead some to assume that I either had a lot of bad luck at States, or I grew more comfortable with the deck.
While I do believe I had bad luck at States, the choice to use it at Nationals was a last minute audible away from Infernape, and by the end of the finals, I still felt like I had no idea what I was doing with the deck. Luckily, for whatever experience I lacked with the deck, my opponents knew how to play against it even less, so I guess it worked out favorably.
In 2008, I wound up taking 2nd with my Gallade Gardevoir deck in the mirror match against Drew Holton in the finals. He beat me in swiss, and again in the finals, although I feel like I was slightly on tilt after dropping game 1 and played too aggressively in the second game to compensate, and it may have cost me an otherwise winnable game.
I had intended to go to States in Michigan as well, but we got hit with a blizzard so bad that our state actually decreed it ILLEGAL to be on the roads.
In 2009, I used Kingdra for the first week of States, playing in Indiana, where I started off with a round 1 loss to Kyle L from Indiana, one of his breakout performances, as he’s now one of the best players in the state. I proceeded to lose to him again in top 4 after winning out, where a number of flips (Super Scoop Up and Fainting Spell) went against me.
Game 2 was decided on a Fainting Spell flip, which would have potentially sent me to a game 3 sudden death, where Kingdra was extremely favored. My decision to run 0 Unown G really cost me this matchup, but up until that point there was little reason to include it.
The second week, I switched over to Palkia Dialga for Ohio, where I wound up playing against a turbo Machamp deck in the top 4, where I promptly got obliterated due to my decision to run only 1 Unown G, which, apparently, wasn’t even close to good enough to beat a full-blown Machamp deck.
In 2010, I used Jumpluff for both Indiana and Ohio States, where I lost in the finals to a mirror match in Indiana to Dustin Zimmerman, and I 5-0 dropped Ohio States in order to secure my invite to Worlds that year due to a successful run during Cities.
That takes us up to date, and I apologize for boring you with my very streak States history. States brings with it more pressure than any other event simply because I am unsure of how to approach the metagame puzzle each year. None the less, lets focus more on the present over old war stories.
I had used LuxChomp for the entirety of Cities. This is the first year where I stuck with one deck for the whole Cities season, but I really felt it was the best deck. By the end of the season, I had settled on a build that I felt really gave me favorable odds against the entire metagame.
It’s been posted here before, but for simplicity’s sake, let me include it for reference anyways:
