ewwww horrible pic :/
Hey guys! I bet you're asking, "Why did he make a new thread?" Well, first of all, cause I can, and second of all, cause I ran out of precious space on my first thread (the spoilers are misleading).
The beginning of my story is actually at the night before the Swiss rounds at Nationals. Jeremy, our friend, David Shoyket, and I were brainstorming decks that could beat anything in the format. First, we needed to counter Darkrai/Absol, so we needed a fighting type. We came up with the perfect one, Terrakion EX. For two energies it OHKOs Absol, and for three it OHKOs Darkrai, while accelerating to another one. Next, we needed a counter to Blastoise. The simplest, and I think ONLY solution, was Garbodor DR. Finally, we needed a Plasma counter. The deck had much room to work with because laser is unnecessary in it. The only real, non-set up, easy to get, effective counter for Plasma, was a heavy count of Enhanced Hammer. So we made the deck, tested it, and it proved to be OK. Mind that this was the deck's first list, so it wasn't the best. Jeremy decided to be all ballsy and play it at the event, going a solid 7-2 and losing in Top 64 on dead draws. Now, we knew the deck was good, but would it work for Worlds? Our first answer, no. Gothitelle had just won U.S. Nationals in Masters, and we predicted its presence would be just as strong at Worlds. Gothitelle is the deck's worst and only bad matchup. An autoloss was giving our deck too much credit. We told our East Coast friends Orrin, Robby, Henry google Clunis, Ishaan, and Alex Hedge, about it, and they believed it was great, but that we were too late on figuring it out. It was pretty sad, knowing that our "secret deck" wouldn't be getting the recognition it deserved on the World level.
Fast forward a month and Worlds is in full swing. I brought a list of nearly every deck I could play, including the Secret Deck, but I was expecting to YOLO and play Darkrai Garbodor or RayEels, seeing that we stopped testing the deck, besides the addition of Tropical Beaches into it. Then, my friend Bryan convinced me to “look around” with him. What we saw was game-changing. Every senior I saw was playing Darkrai, Plasma, or Blastoise. There were no Gothitelle/Accelgors in sight. I rushed to tell Jeremy and Alex that the deck would be THE play for Worlds from what I saw. They agreed (even though Alex was APPARENTLY going to play it anyways), and we recreated the list to a variation of what my current list is, with Energy Switch, Max Potions, and Tropical Beaches for early game, seeing that we usually didn’t attack turn one. Each of us had a different list, Jeremy added a unique Pinsir DE tech, Alex added a fourth Enhanced Hammer, and I ran 3 Skyla to make up for only having two Beaches available to me. Another of our friends, Michael Catron, joined us in the Terrakion EX sweep, and there we were, the four of us, against the World(s). The Grinder day ended as quickly as it had started. Bryan almost got in, but lost last round to Nolan, Orrin’s brother. Robby’s dad beat Yamato in round 4 and went on to grind in with RayEels.
The next day, the day of worlds, I got the final Tropical Beach I needed from Kennan Mell, A.K.A Celebi23. Without further ado, worlds began!
Round 1 vs. Daniel Perski (SE) Quad Absol
Yes, opening the day with a great matchup. I think I went second, and missed the turn one attachment, which was huge. He got going quickly, and my field filled with damage. As soon as my Terrakion EX stabilized, I started to take Prizes. However, I could not get more energies in play Via pump up smash, so I was actually in trouble. He KOd my Terrakion EX, but I got a Landorus EX out and started sniping around to KO his Absols. Eventually, it came down to whether I could get out of poison or kill his Absol. I top decked the fighting to Land Judgment for the game. GG man.
P.S. I was right next to Alex this round, and he was paired against Ian Whiton, an experienced player from Washington, that was running Goth. Poor Alex.
1-0
Round 2 vs. Jack Dockendorf (US) Darkrai/Absol
Once again, another great matchup. I had met this guy earlier, and he was pretty cool, having grinded into the tournament. However, as soon as I got three energy on a Terrakion EX and Pump Up Smashed two more on another, I swept him. After the game, the judge commented on how great both of our sportsmanship was, even with him in a horrible spot and me clearly winning.
2-0
Round 3 vs. Joey Gaffney (CA) Blastoise/Keldeo EX/Black Kyurem EX
I had also met this guy earlier via Ciaran, or cf11. We both have horrible starts, I Juniper away my Super Rod T1, and I cannot get another Turbbish or Garbodor out while he can’t get Blastoise. At one point he Slashes my only 60 HP Trubbish in play. I eventually get out Garbodor and Dowsing Machine for the Float Stone, only to be greeted by a Catcher, Scrapper by my opponent to kill my only hope. I ultra ball to search for my final Trubbish, and my heart sinks as I find out that it’s prized. Oh well. I play the game out, but can’t keep up without my faithful trash bag.
2-1
Round 4 vs. Eita Katagiri (JP) Plasma
I don’t draw anything of help the entire game and get benched for the loss.
2-2
Round 5 vs. Lukas Roth (DE) Darkrai/Absol/Enhanced Hammer
He didn’t run any lasers, my only real “threat” from a Darkrai deck, so I got up a Terrakion EX and swept with ease. Sometimes, I couldn’t get more energy into play, but Garbodor managed to save me by buying me time.
3-2
Round 6 vs. Philipp Hombach (DE) Darkrai/Absol/Enhanced Hammer
He and the guy I faced Round 5 were friends. Seeing that I knew their list now, I was able to set up 2 Terrakion EXs with ease and sweep for a quick victory.
4-2
Round 7 vs. Mikkel Maerkedahl (DK) Plasma with Lugia EX and Tornadus EX
As soon as I saw Tornadus EX, I was scared. I could only 3 or 4 shot it. Luckily, he wastes Plasma energy early and I enhanced away the rest. I four shot his Tornadus EX with Rock Tumble and after that I am I able to just Pump Up Smash each turn until I won or got a Catcher.
5-2
Round 8 vs. Daniel Hummer (AU) Plasma
I don’t draw anything of help the entire game and get benched for the loss.
Really, legit, I did. Ugh, the worst time to draw dead, the bubble round.
5-3
Luckily, I was at table 10 and most, if not all, of my opponent’s had positive records or even. Alex went 7-1, Jeremy went 6-0, but ended 7-1, and Michael Catron ended 5-3. The deck was doing as predicted, the perfect counter doing just as it needed to. Our hopes were to go all the way to Top 4 so the deck was printed. After 10 or so tension filled minutes, the standings arrived. I looked for my name, but it was nowhere to be seen. Then I saw me, #32, beating a certain Grant Manley on opponent’s opponent’s resistance. Many people congratulated me, and I was like, wow. I sorted my deck, handed it in to the judges, and ate some McDonalds as I waited for top cut to start. I was paired against Kaiwen Cabbabe, the 8-0 in swiss from Australia. Michael unfortunately wiffed cut, which was sad because we wanted all the Terrakion players to make it.
Top 32 vs. Kaiwen Cabbabe (AU) with Plasma
Game 1: I go first, staring down a Deoxys with my lone Trubbish. I feared this was the end. I had to pass because no Supporter. But, fortunately he misses the donk! I’m able to Juniper, grab a Terrakion EX, an energy, and Max Potion the Trubbish, then Beach. I keep on pressure with Terrakions and eventually run him out of energies to work with due to Kos on Kyurems and Enhanced Hammers. He scoops before he decks.
Game 2: For the second time, I start lone Trubbish. He misses the donk again, but my hand is absolutely horrendous. I topdeck a Juniper, the thing I didn’t want. Why? Well, I had 3 catchers in my hand (this may have been in Game 1, but I’m not sure). I’m forced to use it and get a Terrakion EX. I forget what else happens besides two things. I’m down a lot of prizes. First, I misplay by double enhanced hammering his active Kyurem with 4 energies rather than removing 2 Plasmas from a Benched Deoxys. My theory was that I wanted him to waste attachments to the Kyurem, so that I could kill it and remove his energies in play, while also slowing him down. Eventually, the Kyurem dies. Second, he catchers up my Garbodor and Raiden Knuckles, because he has 1 prize left to my 5 prizes left. I make the difficult choice of dowsing for Max Potion or Enhanced. If I got enhanced I would slow him down, but if I got Max Potion, I would potentially prevent the loss. I get Enhanced, considering he didn’t attach last turn. I remove the Prism from Deoxys, and KO his Thundurus EX with Pump Up. Unfortunately, he has the Prism, laser, catcher for the win. Either way, I’m not sure I would have won anyways, because he could have hit my Terrakion, and it was the only one with energy in play. I had to really hope that game, I was too far behind to come back to be honest. If I had double enhanced the Deoxys, it may not have made a difference because he could have just Raiden Knuckled one back then still had the win.
It is too hard to predict what would have happened anyways.
Game 3: This was one of those really quick games. I get a great start for once and am able to get everything I need for T1. After that, nada. I took prizes, he took prizes, but eventually I stopped drawing supporters so he was able to win the Prize trade. Oh well. A horrible way to lose, but at least it was a pretty good series.
Jeremy advanced to T16, losing to Ian Whiton, and Alex advanced to T8, also losing to Ian. Ian was the ONLY Goth in cut, and it was really unfortunate for both of them to hit it.
Kaiwen went on to win Worlds, only dropping a game to me and one in the finals to Clements. Makes me feel good that I lost to the eventual winner (Rather it be me though)
It was a really fun Worlds. I met A LOT of people and had a blast. The top 32 was just the icing on the cake.
And now, the only really good part of this report, Props and Slops!
Props:
T32
Points for next season
Successful Rogue
Meeting Blui, Raichugirl (I assume), and a bunch of other people that I will probably never meet agains but oh well.
Frank’s secret deck, sneasel, accelgor, garbodor, darkrai
Rob grinded in and beating Yamato
Bryan beat Nadia in the Grinder
Nolan Grinded in
Alex T8
Jeremy T16
I beat Ciaran with Goth, idc what he tries to say
Brendan Zheng winning VGC worlds!!!
Aaron Zheng VGC T4!!!
“What would you like for Christmas”
23rd floor
Kaiwen winning
Koalas
Blah showed up!
32nd seed
Joey R. and Jeremy lol
Justin getting packs
Bryan almost grinding in
Worlds Swag
Cutting the registration line
Quad Reuniclus almost beating Blastoise
Kennan and Lex for the beaches
Misplays in T2 lol
WASHINGTON D.C. YES PLEASE
Gino jokes
Bryan being scared of Nadia and Henry R-C
“Brendan clearly trained his pokemon’s Will-o-wisps better than Aaron”
Brendan’s interview
More secret decks to come
Canadian Jokes
Double Nickel Jokes
Ciaran jokes
Genesect Sleeves sooo cool
RayEels top 2
Subway
No penalty in T32 phew
Remind me of more
Kennan and Lex for the beaches!!
Slops:
Masters T8
Losing in T32 :/
Goth knocking the rest of the Terrakions out
Famous Wok
Not going for VGC grinder lol
Dead draws
Missing the closing ceremony :/
Silly goose
Nadia (again)
Bad pulls in Box
Thanks for reading guys!
