This was actually my very first event I've gone to (aside from prereleases) and I don't go to league with the guys in the area so I had no clue what to expect as far as the metagame goes. I ran Reshiboar, since I've tested with it most and it has solid matchups against most everything, even trainer lock since I run BadBoar in case my plus powers get cut off.
When I get there though, I see a handful of people in durant shirts, and one of the older guys described the venue as an ant farm. So yea, there ended up being a ton of durant which didn't really worry me too much at first.
Round 1: Kyurem/Feraligatr Prime/Blastoise
As soon as we flipped over basics I immediately just thought to myself "greeeeeeat" and was somewhat worried just about his type advantage alone. Luckily he never got Blastoise set up, I took out Feraligatr halfway through the match and catchered his Totodile quickly afterwards. It still winded up being a fairly close game but once I cut off his energy acceleration his kyurem just couldn't get set up fast enough to overrun me.
1-0
Round 2: Virizion/Benchtini/Tornadus/Terrakion
This was an interesting matchup, and one I hadn't really tested against before. He avoided playing Virizion the bulk of the game, and concentrated on Tornadus in the early game and later he attacked more with Victini. He started off slow which helps me since ReshiBoar is a somewhat slow deck, but at one point I thought I had totally thrown the game over a stupid misplay. My Reshiram w/Eviolite had 40 damage on him and I was debating on if I should catcher up his Victini or just finish off his Terrakion. I chose to get the Terrakion since V-Create wouldn't knock me out thanks to Eviolite, and that would have been true but I totally failed to notice Terrakion had a Rocky Helmet on him. After that all I had were two Emboar, one of which was BadBoar but I had no DCE to power him up with yet, so I went with AbilityBoar. It was an absolutely incredibly close game from there, but I just catchered around what he had to get KOs and though I'm not sure, I think I did set up another Reshi a few turns later. Regardless this was a really close game and one I almost threw away from a momentary lapse of observation.
2-0
Round 3: ReshiPhlosion
So far so good, I was already really optimistic I would make top cut since I already beat an unfavorable match up and most of the decks that day were Durant. And once I found I was playing Reshiphlosion, I couldn't say I was terribly disappointed since my deck is probably the more favorable here.
But I had probably the worst start of my entire day. I started off with 2 mulligans and lost the coin flip as well, which set me back tremendously. My opponent had a T2 or maybe T3 Typhlosion if memory serves me correctly. To make things worse I never even got out an Emboar the whole game. Not because he was catchering my Tepigs, but I just couldn't draw into them for whatever reason. I remember what was slowing me down was that I had a Juniper in my hand but I didn't want to use it because I had something along the lines of a Rare Candy, Fisherman, and maybe 2 Energy Retrievals in my hand. I don't remember exactly but they were cards I felt I couldn't afford to get rid of at the time. I managed to get a couple blue flare's off but he had 2 or 3 Typhlosions in play while I struggled just to get a single Emboar out.
2-1
Round 4: Durant
I was a little bummed about the last game but I was cautiously optimistic about my Durant match up. Yea ReshiPhlosion probably has the better match up since it's self sufficient, whereas my deck largely relies on other trainer cards to keep it going, but nevertheless I felt my type Advantage would be enough to get me through the match.
Wrong. After he got set up, he really wasn't milling anything that was incredibly crucial for the first couple of turns which got me excited. And I had draw power in my hand, but I just could not seem to draw into a Tepig. All I had was a lone Reshiram and I knew that manually blue flare-ing wasn't a feasible way to win. He ended up milling some of my evolutions but nothing I was worried too about. I also for several turns was in a very similar situation as last game. I had a Juniper and most of my Energy Retrieval/Fisherman in my hand and I just couldn't afford to get rid of them since he had already milled away so many energy. But I eventually did Juniper to try to at least get a Pignite set up, but I could just never draw the Tepig (even though I run 4). My lone Reshiram was just too slow and I decked out.
2-2
Round 5: VVV
At this point I pretty much accepted I wasn't going to top cut anymore, and same for my opponent. We played a couple rounds earlier in the day and both pretty much knew we didn't have a chance at that point so it was a pretty casual game between us which took some pressure off.
This match up I feel is actually quite bad for me. Though I can generally work around trainer lock decks, Vanilluxe AND trainer lock was probably a little too much for this build. The first half of this game was hilarious though. I eeked probably 4 turns in a row, and he was stuck asleep with Pichu. So we both were getting pretty well set up since neither of us was on the offense. He barely escaped getting his oddish catchered, but he got the T2 or T3 Vileplume I believe. If he had gotten maybe one more double tails, I could have probably won, but most of the time his coin flips were very solid. We were fairly neck and neck in terms of prizes, but eventually I just ran out of resources since I only run 1 Fisherman.
2-3
The finals were actually 2 mirror matches. A Durant mirror match and a ReshiPhlosion mirror match and I believe the ReshiPhlosion with a Kingdra tech went on to win the tournament. So, not a horrible first premier event for me, but one I definitely felt a bit disappointed about given I think I had 2 quite favorable match ups I bombed against. But hey it happens. I'm sure even google, David Cohen, and other top players have had days like this too. It was still a good time, met some nice people, I traded for some stuff I needed, and I will definitely be rethinking my use of Juniper after today. I had so many situations where PONT would have helped in its place.
When I get there though, I see a handful of people in durant shirts, and one of the older guys described the venue as an ant farm. So yea, there ended up being a ton of durant which didn't really worry me too much at first.
Round 1: Kyurem/Feraligatr Prime/Blastoise
As soon as we flipped over basics I immediately just thought to myself "greeeeeeat" and was somewhat worried just about his type advantage alone. Luckily he never got Blastoise set up, I took out Feraligatr halfway through the match and catchered his Totodile quickly afterwards. It still winded up being a fairly close game but once I cut off his energy acceleration his kyurem just couldn't get set up fast enough to overrun me.
1-0
Round 2: Virizion/Benchtini/Tornadus/Terrakion
This was an interesting matchup, and one I hadn't really tested against before. He avoided playing Virizion the bulk of the game, and concentrated on Tornadus in the early game and later he attacked more with Victini. He started off slow which helps me since ReshiBoar is a somewhat slow deck, but at one point I thought I had totally thrown the game over a stupid misplay. My Reshiram w/Eviolite had 40 damage on him and I was debating on if I should catcher up his Victini or just finish off his Terrakion. I chose to get the Terrakion since V-Create wouldn't knock me out thanks to Eviolite, and that would have been true but I totally failed to notice Terrakion had a Rocky Helmet on him. After that all I had were two Emboar, one of which was BadBoar but I had no DCE to power him up with yet, so I went with AbilityBoar. It was an absolutely incredibly close game from there, but I just catchered around what he had to get KOs and though I'm not sure, I think I did set up another Reshi a few turns later. Regardless this was a really close game and one I almost threw away from a momentary lapse of observation.
2-0
Round 3: ReshiPhlosion
So far so good, I was already really optimistic I would make top cut since I already beat an unfavorable match up and most of the decks that day were Durant. And once I found I was playing Reshiphlosion, I couldn't say I was terribly disappointed since my deck is probably the more favorable here.
But I had probably the worst start of my entire day. I started off with 2 mulligans and lost the coin flip as well, which set me back tremendously. My opponent had a T2 or maybe T3 Typhlosion if memory serves me correctly. To make things worse I never even got out an Emboar the whole game. Not because he was catchering my Tepigs, but I just couldn't draw into them for whatever reason. I remember what was slowing me down was that I had a Juniper in my hand but I didn't want to use it because I had something along the lines of a Rare Candy, Fisherman, and maybe 2 Energy Retrievals in my hand. I don't remember exactly but they were cards I felt I couldn't afford to get rid of at the time. I managed to get a couple blue flare's off but he had 2 or 3 Typhlosions in play while I struggled just to get a single Emboar out.
2-1
Round 4: Durant
I was a little bummed about the last game but I was cautiously optimistic about my Durant match up. Yea ReshiPhlosion probably has the better match up since it's self sufficient, whereas my deck largely relies on other trainer cards to keep it going, but nevertheless I felt my type Advantage would be enough to get me through the match.
Wrong. After he got set up, he really wasn't milling anything that was incredibly crucial for the first couple of turns which got me excited. And I had draw power in my hand, but I just could not seem to draw into a Tepig. All I had was a lone Reshiram and I knew that manually blue flare-ing wasn't a feasible way to win. He ended up milling some of my evolutions but nothing I was worried too about. I also for several turns was in a very similar situation as last game. I had a Juniper and most of my Energy Retrieval/Fisherman in my hand and I just couldn't afford to get rid of them since he had already milled away so many energy. But I eventually did Juniper to try to at least get a Pignite set up, but I could just never draw the Tepig (even though I run 4). My lone Reshiram was just too slow and I decked out.
2-2
Round 5: VVV
At this point I pretty much accepted I wasn't going to top cut anymore, and same for my opponent. We played a couple rounds earlier in the day and both pretty much knew we didn't have a chance at that point so it was a pretty casual game between us which took some pressure off.
This match up I feel is actually quite bad for me. Though I can generally work around trainer lock decks, Vanilluxe AND trainer lock was probably a little too much for this build. The first half of this game was hilarious though. I eeked probably 4 turns in a row, and he was stuck asleep with Pichu. So we both were getting pretty well set up since neither of us was on the offense. He barely escaped getting his oddish catchered, but he got the T2 or T3 Vileplume I believe. If he had gotten maybe one more double tails, I could have probably won, but most of the time his coin flips were very solid. We were fairly neck and neck in terms of prizes, but eventually I just ran out of resources since I only run 1 Fisherman.
2-3
The finals were actually 2 mirror matches. A Durant mirror match and a ReshiPhlosion mirror match and I believe the ReshiPhlosion with a Kingdra tech went on to win the tournament. So, not a horrible first premier event for me, but one I definitely felt a bit disappointed about given I think I had 2 quite favorable match ups I bombed against. But hey it happens. I'm sure even google, David Cohen, and other top players have had days like this too. It was still a good time, met some nice people, I traded for some stuff I needed, and I will definitely be rethinking my use of Juniper after today. I had so many situations where PONT would have helped in its place.
