Hi guys, so with week 1 and 2 down the drain and me not having anything to show for it (well technically top 16 in NH, but that was irrelevant with the top cut being 8 there) I was determined to have a strong run week 3. After doing thinking and a few test games, I settled on Darkrai/Lasers for my choice. The only problem was I feared running into klinklang since I expected that to be somewhat popular, however I ended up not running any fire attackers because I was more scared of garbodor and landorus being big. I'm not going to reveal my whole list since I may use it again but I will reveal some key cards and my pokemon line:
Pokemon: 8
4 Darkrai EX
3 Sableye DEX
1 Keldeo EX
Other "key" cards:
1 Max Potion
1 Computer Search
1 Tool Scrapper
Okay so now that you know enough about my deck to continue, lets go on to the report, 101 Masters, 7 Rounds, Top 16: (Note: I apologize ahead of time for not taking any notes outside of my opponent's name, sorry!)
Round 1 vs.Graham - Poteet Bouffalant/Zekrom/Eels
Well he goes first and I mulligan before starting with a Sableye and absolutely no supporters. This game was pretty uneventful as he proceeded to set up and sweep me before I could draw anything. Although he was pretty nice and wished me luck in the rest of my games.
0-1
At this point I'm beginning to see my chances for a strong run declining as I hear about how my sister lost to a klinklang deck. However Glace was 1-0, so that was pretty cool. Oh well time to move on.
Round 2 vs. Josh McMullen - Big Basics
I mulligan and go second again, however this time I start with keldeo so I'm safe, on top of that he whiffed the T1 Laser and was unable to affect keldeo with any status. I start setting up as normal and we trade blows for a bit, but he was slightly more effective, utilizing bouffalant and landorus to make me play the 7 prize game and to take easy darkrai knock outs. I realize that I need to do something, so I proceed to max potion my most damaged darkrai, promote Sableye and Junk Hunt for Max potion and another random card. This proved to be useful since he had wasted 4 catcher already and was almost out of lasers, so I could heal all my darkrai, force him to take 7 prizes, and hit for perfect numbers on pokemon like tonadus EX and mewtwo. I won 3-0 I believe.
1-1
Okay, I'll admit that I didn't do a lot of testing against big basics, in fact I did little testing at all against that deck. But despite that I was feeling a bit better now, my sister is 1-1 as well, this time beating a klinklang deck. I told her that she better play every single klinklang deck there (she was using rayeels) so I wont have to. Then we checked up on Gace and my little brother (in seniors) Glace was 2-0 and my bro was 1-1 as well. Then we grabbed some lunch and headed towards round 3.
Round 3 vs. Jose Morales - Big Basics
Oh boy, this deck again. I was not looking forward to playing against landorus, however this time I had a game plan. Get a night spear going and a keldeo on the bench as fast as possible, then sometime in the mid game max potion and use sableye to force the to take 7 prizes while recycling max potion faster then they can hammerhead, then finish it up by killing a ton of 170hp EX's. However I didn't need to utilize this plan since he drew dead, sorry. :s
2-1
Round 4 vs. Jacob VanDeusen - Rayeels
Unfortunately he mulligans twice and I go first with a massive 9 card hand after my draw, which consisted of Energy Switch, Energy Switch, Dark Patch, Dark Patch, Energy, Energy, Ultra Ball, Juniper, and Virbank. As you can imagine, I used Ultra Ball to grab a darkrai, double patched to it, double energy switched to my active darkrai, played down virbank, and then played Juniper. My 5th card was an energy to get a massive T1 Night Spear which was used to donk his lone Emolga...
3-1
Here is where I kept talking to my sister about the door prizes and how I wanted a darkrai Binder. I've actually been saying that since week 1, but they post the winners and I won a darkrai binder, What a coincidence!
Round 5 vs Gino Lombardi - Big Basics
I was pretty excited being 3-1, but all that came crashing down when I was paired against Maine's State Champion and to top it off, he has a 1950.04 rating on pokemon.com, the 4th highest in the country for masters, ouch!
Anyways I believe he goes first against my darkrai and we trade blows for a bit, then I throw my plan into action that I was going to use in Round 3 and it worked beautifully. However it all came down to this one point where I killed a landorus and needed to draw a dark claw off my to prizes to win, fortunately I drew it off the second prize. At that point we were 1-1 on the prizes I believe and he had a mewtwo with 60 damage on it, after he did 60 with hammerhead, I used catcher to bring up his mewtwo for the game. Afterwords he told me that he had a max potion in hand and was saving it for landorus because he thought I didn't have a dark claw in hand, go figure.
4-1
At this point I was feeling great, my resistance looked good, so I only needed to win one more game to make it into the Top Cut, however my sister was 2-3 so that sucked. We went to go check on Glace and my Bro, Glace was 5-0 and my Brother was 3-2, and Glace's brother was apparently doing very well with some troll deck, it was crazy.
Round 5 vs. Alex Frezza - klinklang
This was a rematch I'd been waiting for, he beat me at cities once when we were both using hammertime, however he flipped better than I did so I lost that match. Anyways I was pumping myself up for a crazy battle when he goes first and starts with two klinks. That's right kiddies, he was using Klinklang. Instantly I knew my odds of winning were sub par at best, but if I could get a T2 Night Spear then there was a chance he wouldn't be able to get a plasmaklang out since he evolved into shift gear klang first. But that didn't happen and around T3 or 4 he got the dread plasma steel on board, oh how I would love jirachi UL in this format.
4-2
Well Glace was 6-0 and both him and his brother were in the top cut, my sister and bother were both 3-3 which sucked and I needed to win my last round to make the top cut myself, I remember being horrified of the chance that I might face klinklang since it was all over the top tables. Anyways the pairings were posted and I moved on the to final round.
Round 7 vs. Megan Weslowski - Big Basics
I hate facing girls in the top tables. Not because I think they're bad, but quite the opposite. I think that Girls are dismissed and underrated in this male dominant game and as a result I'd love to see girls make it to the top cut, but at the same time I have to konck a girl out of the top cut in order to make the top cut which didn't settle well with me, especially since I knew Megan as she used to come to our local league.
Anyways she starts with landorus and I mulligan a couple times going second. she was able to take 4 easy knock outs on Darkrai and I thought I was going to lose, but I was able to N her to 2. since it was so early in the game her deck was massive and she drew dead for awhile. From there I was able to get another N in my hand, charge up several darkrai, and heal everything with max potion. I force her to kill sableye then N her to 1, leading her to another supporter drought. Well I ended up making a huge comeback off that for the win.
5-2
After that I went to talk to Glace, Zangoose, and My sister. Glace is in the Top 4, Zangoose was 5-2 and my sister was 4-3. we talked a bit and watched Glace's bro destroy his opponent with that troll deck, lol. Well I turns out that I made Top 16 as one of the highest 5-2's, but Zangoose fell just a little bit short, bummer
Top 16 vs ??? - Big Basics
Game 1
Well we went back and forth a bit but I drew a bit better and the Sableye Max Potion combo was too much for him. I also used Tool Scrapper to get rid of his eviolite which was huge. I don't remember more due to lack of notes, sorry.
1-0
Game 2
he goes first again, but fails to ko my lone sableye, from there I set up as normal and it was pretty much the same as last game from there.
2-0, 7-2
Top 8 vs ??? - Big Basics
At this point it was getting late and I was running out of steam, but if I won this match then I would get a trophy at least. On top of that I was beginnin to get sick of Big Basics as it was spammed in my face all day, even though I prefer to fight Landorus over Klinklang, I did misplay some due to that.
Game 1
We both get normal setups but he was able to pull ahead, having a max potion for almost all of my night spears, it was annoying!
0-1
Game 2
This went almost the same as game 1 but I had a stronger setup, the game was slightly in my favor when time was called on my opponent's turn, he panics and accidentally uses colress to draw his whole deck, ouch.
1-1
Game 3
From here we went into sudden death with 1 prize each, I knew he was at an advantage here with landorus on top of the fact that he goes first but if I could get a blinding fast night spear I should be able to pull it off. My opening hand is almost all energy except for darkrai and random receiver, so I play darkrai to my active. He starts with tornadus, DCE, and Laser, but no stadium! he hits me for 40 with HTL and I fall stay asleep. on my turn I attach and random Receiver for an N. It's at this point that judges tell us that N brings you down to 1 card. So I N'd us both to 1 we both drew dead for about a turn or so, but then I top deck a Juniper! off that Juniper I'm able to get a keldeo and another darkrai going. However he top decks and N and puts us both at 1 again, using hammerhead and laser to my fresh darkrai. From there I don't draw any more supporters, but a catcher and enough energy to start attacking. I hit his tornadus for 110 (he discarded DCE to retreat it so it had no energy on it at the time) and my opponent had 1 card in his hand that I knew for a fact was not a switch, supporter, or an energy. However my bench darkrai was at 150 damage and I didn't have Max Potion in my hand, so it came down to weather or not he top decked a way to retreat in order to win. At this point the Seniors and Juniors were already done, and pretty much everyone left in the building was watching the game, stakes were high were were both extremely nervous and then he draws. A pause. And then a sigh of relief as he plays down a fighting energy to retreat tornadus for the game.
1-2, 8-4
Well to say that I wasn't disappointed would be a lie. I was only one turn away from winning and his odds of getting what he needed were pretty low with his massive deck size. But he played well so I congratulated him and wished him luck in the top 4. After that we drove home and I opened my prize packs, getting a Full Art Colress and a Moltres EX, so I was pretty happy with that (yet very, very tired!)
Props:
- Coming in 5th Place out of 101 masters
- Meeting Glace once again
- Glace winning states with my sister's HTL/His brother's troll deck making top 4
- Pulling and FA Colress and Moltres EX out of my prize packs
- Darkrai kicking Landorus' back side all day
- T1 Night Spear
- Winning a Darkrai binder
- 50 (irrelevant) CP
- Getting a "well played" from Gino
Slops:
- Donks
- Facing a total of 6 Big Basic decks.
- Losing in the end to a deck that I had been beating pretty easily all day.
- Klinklang
- my brother and sister not doing so hot.
Pokemon: 8
4 Darkrai EX
3 Sableye DEX
1 Keldeo EX
Other "key" cards:
1 Max Potion
1 Computer Search
1 Tool Scrapper
Okay so now that you know enough about my deck to continue, lets go on to the report, 101 Masters, 7 Rounds, Top 16: (Note: I apologize ahead of time for not taking any notes outside of my opponent's name, sorry!)
Round 1 vs.Graham - Poteet Bouffalant/Zekrom/Eels
Well he goes first and I mulligan before starting with a Sableye and absolutely no supporters. This game was pretty uneventful as he proceeded to set up and sweep me before I could draw anything. Although he was pretty nice and wished me luck in the rest of my games.
0-1
At this point I'm beginning to see my chances for a strong run declining as I hear about how my sister lost to a klinklang deck. However Glace was 1-0, so that was pretty cool. Oh well time to move on.
Round 2 vs. Josh McMullen - Big Basics
I mulligan and go second again, however this time I start with keldeo so I'm safe, on top of that he whiffed the T1 Laser and was unable to affect keldeo with any status. I start setting up as normal and we trade blows for a bit, but he was slightly more effective, utilizing bouffalant and landorus to make me play the 7 prize game and to take easy darkrai knock outs. I realize that I need to do something, so I proceed to max potion my most damaged darkrai, promote Sableye and Junk Hunt for Max potion and another random card. This proved to be useful since he had wasted 4 catcher already and was almost out of lasers, so I could heal all my darkrai, force him to take 7 prizes, and hit for perfect numbers on pokemon like tonadus EX and mewtwo. I won 3-0 I believe.
1-1
Okay, I'll admit that I didn't do a lot of testing against big basics, in fact I did little testing at all against that deck. But despite that I was feeling a bit better now, my sister is 1-1 as well, this time beating a klinklang deck. I told her that she better play every single klinklang deck there (she was using rayeels) so I wont have to. Then we checked up on Gace and my little brother (in seniors) Glace was 2-0 and my bro was 1-1 as well. Then we grabbed some lunch and headed towards round 3.
Round 3 vs. Jose Morales - Big Basics
Oh boy, this deck again. I was not looking forward to playing against landorus, however this time I had a game plan. Get a night spear going and a keldeo on the bench as fast as possible, then sometime in the mid game max potion and use sableye to force the to take 7 prizes while recycling max potion faster then they can hammerhead, then finish it up by killing a ton of 170hp EX's. However I didn't need to utilize this plan since he drew dead, sorry. :s
2-1
Round 4 vs. Jacob VanDeusen - Rayeels
Unfortunately he mulligans twice and I go first with a massive 9 card hand after my draw, which consisted of Energy Switch, Energy Switch, Dark Patch, Dark Patch, Energy, Energy, Ultra Ball, Juniper, and Virbank. As you can imagine, I used Ultra Ball to grab a darkrai, double patched to it, double energy switched to my active darkrai, played down virbank, and then played Juniper. My 5th card was an energy to get a massive T1 Night Spear which was used to donk his lone Emolga...
3-1
Here is where I kept talking to my sister about the door prizes and how I wanted a darkrai Binder. I've actually been saying that since week 1, but they post the winners and I won a darkrai binder, What a coincidence!
Round 5 vs Gino Lombardi - Big Basics
I was pretty excited being 3-1, but all that came crashing down when I was paired against Maine's State Champion and to top it off, he has a 1950.04 rating on pokemon.com, the 4th highest in the country for masters, ouch!
Anyways I believe he goes first against my darkrai and we trade blows for a bit, then I throw my plan into action that I was going to use in Round 3 and it worked beautifully. However it all came down to this one point where I killed a landorus and needed to draw a dark claw off my to prizes to win, fortunately I drew it off the second prize. At that point we were 1-1 on the prizes I believe and he had a mewtwo with 60 damage on it, after he did 60 with hammerhead, I used catcher to bring up his mewtwo for the game. Afterwords he told me that he had a max potion in hand and was saving it for landorus because he thought I didn't have a dark claw in hand, go figure.
4-1
At this point I was feeling great, my resistance looked good, so I only needed to win one more game to make it into the Top Cut, however my sister was 2-3 so that sucked. We went to go check on Glace and my Bro, Glace was 5-0 and my Brother was 3-2, and Glace's brother was apparently doing very well with some troll deck, it was crazy.
Round 5 vs. Alex Frezza - klinklang
This was a rematch I'd been waiting for, he beat me at cities once when we were both using hammertime, however he flipped better than I did so I lost that match. Anyways I was pumping myself up for a crazy battle when he goes first and starts with two klinks. That's right kiddies, he was using Klinklang. Instantly I knew my odds of winning were sub par at best, but if I could get a T2 Night Spear then there was a chance he wouldn't be able to get a plasmaklang out since he evolved into shift gear klang first. But that didn't happen and around T3 or 4 he got the dread plasma steel on board, oh how I would love jirachi UL in this format.
4-2
Well Glace was 6-0 and both him and his brother were in the top cut, my sister and bother were both 3-3 which sucked and I needed to win my last round to make the top cut myself, I remember being horrified of the chance that I might face klinklang since it was all over the top tables. Anyways the pairings were posted and I moved on the to final round.
Round 7 vs. Megan Weslowski - Big Basics
I hate facing girls in the top tables. Not because I think they're bad, but quite the opposite. I think that Girls are dismissed and underrated in this male dominant game and as a result I'd love to see girls make it to the top cut, but at the same time I have to konck a girl out of the top cut in order to make the top cut which didn't settle well with me, especially since I knew Megan as she used to come to our local league.
Anyways she starts with landorus and I mulligan a couple times going second. she was able to take 4 easy knock outs on Darkrai and I thought I was going to lose, but I was able to N her to 2. since it was so early in the game her deck was massive and she drew dead for awhile. From there I was able to get another N in my hand, charge up several darkrai, and heal everything with max potion. I force her to kill sableye then N her to 1, leading her to another supporter drought. Well I ended up making a huge comeback off that for the win.
5-2
After that I went to talk to Glace, Zangoose, and My sister. Glace is in the Top 4, Zangoose was 5-2 and my sister was 4-3. we talked a bit and watched Glace's bro destroy his opponent with that troll deck, lol. Well I turns out that I made Top 16 as one of the highest 5-2's, but Zangoose fell just a little bit short, bummer
Top 16 vs ??? - Big Basics
Game 1
Well we went back and forth a bit but I drew a bit better and the Sableye Max Potion combo was too much for him. I also used Tool Scrapper to get rid of his eviolite which was huge. I don't remember more due to lack of notes, sorry.
1-0
Game 2
he goes first again, but fails to ko my lone sableye, from there I set up as normal and it was pretty much the same as last game from there.
2-0, 7-2
Top 8 vs ??? - Big Basics
At this point it was getting late and I was running out of steam, but if I won this match then I would get a trophy at least. On top of that I was beginnin to get sick of Big Basics as it was spammed in my face all day, even though I prefer to fight Landorus over Klinklang, I did misplay some due to that.
Game 1
We both get normal setups but he was able to pull ahead, having a max potion for almost all of my night spears, it was annoying!
0-1
Game 2
This went almost the same as game 1 but I had a stronger setup, the game was slightly in my favor when time was called on my opponent's turn, he panics and accidentally uses colress to draw his whole deck, ouch.
1-1
Game 3
From here we went into sudden death with 1 prize each, I knew he was at an advantage here with landorus on top of the fact that he goes first but if I could get a blinding fast night spear I should be able to pull it off. My opening hand is almost all energy except for darkrai and random receiver, so I play darkrai to my active. He starts with tornadus, DCE, and Laser, but no stadium! he hits me for 40 with HTL and I fall stay asleep. on my turn I attach and random Receiver for an N. It's at this point that judges tell us that N brings you down to 1 card. So I N'd us both to 1 we both drew dead for about a turn or so, but then I top deck a Juniper! off that Juniper I'm able to get a keldeo and another darkrai going. However he top decks and N and puts us both at 1 again, using hammerhead and laser to my fresh darkrai. From there I don't draw any more supporters, but a catcher and enough energy to start attacking. I hit his tornadus for 110 (he discarded DCE to retreat it so it had no energy on it at the time) and my opponent had 1 card in his hand that I knew for a fact was not a switch, supporter, or an energy. However my bench darkrai was at 150 damage and I didn't have Max Potion in my hand, so it came down to weather or not he top decked a way to retreat in order to win. At this point the Seniors and Juniors were already done, and pretty much everyone left in the building was watching the game, stakes were high were were both extremely nervous and then he draws. A pause. And then a sigh of relief as he plays down a fighting energy to retreat tornadus for the game.
1-2, 8-4
Well to say that I wasn't disappointed would be a lie. I was only one turn away from winning and his odds of getting what he needed were pretty low with his massive deck size. But he played well so I congratulated him and wished him luck in the top 4. After that we drove home and I opened my prize packs, getting a Full Art Colress and a Moltres EX, so I was pretty happy with that (yet very, very tired!)
Props:
- Coming in 5th Place out of 101 masters
- Meeting Glace once again
- Glace winning states with my sister's HTL/His brother's troll deck making top 4
- Pulling and FA Colress and Moltres EX out of my prize packs
- Darkrai kicking Landorus' back side all day
- T1 Night Spear
- Winning a Darkrai binder
- 50 (irrelevant) CP
- Getting a "well played" from Gino
Slops:
- Donks
- Facing a total of 6 Big Basic decks.
- Losing in the end to a deck that I had been beating pretty easily all day.
- Klinklang
- my brother and sister not doing so hot.
