I decided to go with Eelzone. I was a little reluctant to play it, since it was the deck to beat and the 30/40HP Tynamos and Fighting weakness are huge liabilities. However, Zero talked me into it, and I made a couple changes to my list to reflect his a little more. He'd had a lot of success with his, and I was pretty undertested with it, so I figured why not. This is the list I used:
Pokémon (18):
3 Magnezone Prime
2 Magneton
4 Magnemite
3 Eelektrik
2 Tynamo
1 Tynamo
2 Thunderus
1 Zekrom
Trainers (29):
4 Pokémon Collector
4 Sage's Training
4 N
4 Junk Arm
4 Pokémon Communication
4 Rare Candy
3 Pokémon Catcher
2 Switch
Energy (13):
13 Lightning Energy
Round 1 vs Lilligant/Vileplume/Cinccino/Victini
He goes first and Collectors to get an Oddish on the bench. He puts one of the other cards in his hand, so I know he's getting Vileplume next turn. I N him, and he can't get it. I Rare Candy into Magnezone the next turn. He only lays down one Oddish at a time, and I'm able to Magnezone both of them away for one energy. From there, I can use Switch for the rest of the game, and he doesn't stand a chance.
Win; 1-0
Round 2 vs Archeops/Kyurem/Jirachi
He goes first and uses a Collector for two Kyurem and some other basic that he puts into his hand. Just like Round 1, I know he has the Communication+Pokemon now. Next, he uses Plume fossil, and hits the Archen. Ugh. I go, and N his hand away. I start charging Thunderus after that. By some miracle, he can't get the Archeops out. I explode the next turn, getting two Magnezone and an Eelektrik. I also Catcher the Archen and KO it with Thunderus. He's left with nothing after that, and I get another Eelektrik the next turn. I start charging the Magnezones and a Zekrom on the bench while keeping the pressure with Thunderus. He gets a couple Kyurem charged, and those become my main priority to take out. I do so successfully, but he finally gets an Archeops out. He hit the Archen on his fourth Plume Fossil, and I opted to take his last charged Kyurem out instead of it. The turn before, however, I N his hand with Jirachi and two Psychic away, and he can't get the Psychics back. I Catcher the Archeops and knock it out. From there, I sweep with Zekrom.
Win; 2-0
Round 3 vs Kyurem/Cobalion/Electrode/Terrakion
I go first this game and explode, getting the T1 Thunderus using Charge, and two Magnezone and an Eelektrik T2. From there, I'm basically set if I can force him to explode two Electrode, since it means I can just Lost Burn 12 energy and take the game. He explodes one the next turn, and hits the energy to use Terrakion on my Thunderus. Or, something like that happened anyway. I don't remember exactly. Anyway, from there, I eliminate both of his Terrakion from play, only allowing one more attack from them. I still have two Magnezone on the board, so I'm basically set. He doesn't have enough energy left on the board to get by on manual attachments, and he has to explode another Electrode. From there, I take game, Lost Burning energy and using Catcher on whatever he tries to build up.
Win; 3-0
Round 4 vs Chandelure/Vileplume/Dodrio/Blissey/Jirachi
He gets a sub-par start, and I open a great hand going first. I can get T2 Magnezone, and I opened Thunderus. I topdeck an energy, so I can start Charging right away. We're friends, so we were talking during the match, and he's telling me how he can get a T2 Vileplume. So, I get my Magnezone out and N him. He has 2 Oddish and a Litwick with a Psychic out, so I bench a Tynamo then Catcher the Litwick and KO it with Thunderus. He draws into a Twins off the N, so he's able to get a Vileplume out anyway. However, he can't get much past that, and I'm able to take four prizes with Thunderus before he gets out the double Chandelure. One critical play was when he promoted Cleffa and passed. I knew his hand of four was great at that point, so I N'd it into a fresh six for him, and killed the Cleffa with Thunderus. By the time he gets double Chandelure, I have a Magneton on the bench, an Eelektrik on the bench, a Magnezone active, and a couple other useless things benched. So, even if he Jirachis my active, I can just evolve the benched one. I Lost Burn the first Chandelure, and have the energy in play to Lost Burn the second. He can still Jirachi my active, but it won't really do anything. He accidentally benches a different basic instead, and scoops from there.
Win; 4-0
Round 5 vs Magnezone/Eelektrik/Zekrom/Thunderus
I get downpaired, so I have to go 5-1 now to make it in. I start off pretty well, getting the Thunderus a turn before he does. That puts me at a huge advantage, and I keep it with ease. I Catcher up his Magnemites and Magnezones, and he can't do much to me. Eventually, we get to a point where he has a Magnezone active, an Eelektrik on the bench, and a bunch of OP basics on his bench. He has an 8-card hand. I have a Zekrom benched, a Magnezone benched, two Eelektrik benched, a Thunderus benched, and a Magnezone active. I can Lost Burn his active, and leave him without any draw. Basically read this as I have game, hands down. There is absolutely nothing he can do to me. Before taking the KO, I N him. He waits for me to shuffle my hand in, then tells me I already used a Collector this turn. We call a judge over, and I get a game loss.
Loss; 4-1
I've never been so upset about any loss. I haven't taken a prize off of a prize penalty in about four years, and I always try to fix a game state that would result in a game loss before calling a judge over. Imo, anybody who doesn't do this takes the game way too seriously.
Round 6 vs Absol/Kyurem/Cobalion/Electrode/Terrakion/Jirachi
This is a pretty good matchup for me with a regular build, but he doesn't run Catcher or Junk Arm, so he can't do very much to my setup. This match goes a lot like Round 3, where I explode on T2 and there's not much he can do back to me. It takes me a little while to get a second Eelektrik out, since he gets a T2 or T3 Kyurem. Once I do, it's smooth sailing. I need a Catcher to KO his benched Terrakion, and after drawing about 12 cards, I whiff on either the Catcher or Junk Arm, OR Switch to make up for that. So, my Magnezone is stuck active, and he uses Terrakion to KO it. At this point, he's eliminated all of my Magnezones from play, and I'm about to eliminate all of his Pokémon with energy from play. A fairly even tradeoff. I have Eelektrik with a bunch of attackers to his energy-less Kyurem, a Cobalion with a basic metal, and his active Terrakion with three energy. One of them is a Rainbow, so it's down to 120 HP. I use Zekrom to KO it, and he uses Cobalion's first attack, thinking it will OHKO me. It doesn't, and leaves me with 10 HP. I Outrage to KO him, and Outrage his Kyurem for my last prize the next turn.
Win; 5-1
I make cut in the fourth seed, and my opponent who "beat" me in Round 5 makes cut in the fifth seed.
Top 8 vs Magnezone/Eelektrik/Thunderus/Zekrom
We both open well, but I take the first prize. At that point, it's my game to lose. He makes a few misplays and I take full advantage of those to further my lead. I win pretty easily. At one point in the game, he accidentally draws one too many cards on Magnetic Draw, and I go out of my way to call a Judge over, just because I was still a little mad about round five lol. I get to see the top card of his deck is a Lightning Energy. How do you like that?
It kind of makes up for unfairly losing a game, I guess lol.
Win
Game 2 goes very similarly to game one, but this time he takes the first prize and I have to play catch up. I do so very well, again taking full advantage of a couple misplays. Unfortunately, I make a misplay of my own and forget I only have one energy in my discard pile and not two. This means I can't KO his active with Zekrom like I was planning to, since I already attached to Thunderus for the turn. This forces me to attack with my last Magnezone, since I can't afford to give up the prize lead. He Ns me and kills my Magnezone with a Magnezone of his own. From there, I have nothing, and he manages to steal a win, barely taking the prize lead back in an OP basic war.
Loss
Game 3 I get an absolutely horrible start to his great start, and time is called when he's one prize ahead of me. I finally get a Magnezone out the turn time is called, and get my second Eelektrik as well. I Catcher a weak basic on his bench, and KO it with Thunderus to tie us on prizes. That's Turn 0. He promotes Magnezone, and Lost Burns three energy, leaving him with one energy in play, on his active Magnezone. I promote my own Magnezone, and Lost Burn his to tie us on prizes again. He promotes Thunderus, attaches to it, and Dynomotors twice on a benched Magnezone. Now, he needs the Switch, Junk Arm, or Catcher to take the win. He discarded 2 Catcher and a Junk Arm off of a T1 Sage, so chances are that's all of his Catcher. He also used one other Junk Arm and a Switch. He Junipers his hand for seven and whiffs. He burns three cards, Magnetic Draws for two more, and still doesn't have it. He retreats Thunderus and does 100 to me with Lost Burn. I get four energy in play and Lost Burn his Magnezone for 200 damage, taking the prize lead when we were in sudden death mode. This means I win the game. He flips over the top card of his deck and it's a Switch.
Win; 6-1
Top 4 vs Absol/Kyurem/Cobalion/Electrode/Terrakion/Jirachi
This is my opponent from Round 6. He snuck in in the 8th seed and managed to make it to top four. Game 1 goes much like our swiss game, where I just too setup for him to do much to me. I take the game pretty quickly and without him really doing anything of note to me. He completely whiffed on his first Energymite. I don't think that would have been enough for him to win, but it is what set him behind too far for him to come back.
Win
Game 2 I get a horrible start to his Absol. He goes first, Rainbows the Absol, and does some other crazy stuff. I open Thunderus, but that's literally all I have. I attach and Charge. He attaches to Absol and uses its attack after getting more basics on the bench, and I have to read the card. That took me completely by surprise. From there, I topdeck a Collector, but I have no way to get out evolutions. I just don't have enough stuff going to deal with 70 a turn, and after he takes out my Thunderus with Absol, I can't do anything to him. I stall out with big basics for a little, but after he Glaciates all of my Magnemite and Tynamo away I scoop.
Loss
Game 3 I get another horrible start. He doesn't open Absol, though. Everybody watching started to move to watch the other top four game, because my hand was so bad it was obviously over. I manage to draw a Sage eventually, but whiff on the Magnezone to use the Rare Candy in my hand. This makes my setup even more horribly slow. However, through some series of miracles I don't fully remember, I manage to get fully setup. I quickly start taking faster than he is, and manage to remove all of his energy from play with Magnezone. He benches a Voltorb, but I Switch for Thunderus, Catcher it, and KO it with Disaster Volt. From there, he takes too long to get anything going again, and I manage to tie us on prizes. The game comes down to this. I have two prizes left to his one. It's my turn and time gets called. He has a Terrakion with three energy active, a Terrakion with one water energy benched, and some energy-less stuff benched. Two Shaymins are on the bench, and no Voltorbs are in play, so he has no way to accelerate the energy next turn. All he needs is a Fighting or Rainbow energy to win it, and he has a hand of about six cards. I N him down to one, and he's obviously surprised, which tells me he had the energy. I Lost Burn his active Terrakion, and he draws a card. He has to promote the Terrakion, and hope to topdeck a Fighting/Rainbow or hope I don't have the energy+Switch I need to KO him. He topdecks a water energy, but no Fighting or draw power. I draw my whole deck with 2 Magnetic Draw and a Sage to get the Switch+Energy for game.
Win; 7-1
Top 2 vs Zekrom/Pachirisu/Shaymin/Tornadus
This is just his second tournament, and he's already made top two. Game 1, I get a horrible hand, with a Magnemite and a bunch of Lightning/Junk Arm/Rare Candy. However, I topdeck Collector, and then topdeck Magnezone a couple turns later. Unfortunately, he's up by two prizes, and I end up just a little short of regaining that prize lead. I keep on trying to N him into small, energy-less hands, but he always draws Juniper or Oak's to make the N's useless. Eventually, I run out of N's, and I scoop.
Loss
Game 2, I go first, but get the same hand as Round 1, except with a 30 HP Tynamo start instead of Magnemite. I topdeck Communication, but I don't have the Pokémon to go with it. He Junipers his whole hand, and draws into Pachirisu, Shaymin, Lightning, Lightning, Lightning, and two other cards to donk me. I flip the top card of my deck, and it's a Collector, meaning I could have gotten a Magnezone two turns later. Oh well.
Loss; 7-2
Pokémon (18):
3 Magnezone Prime
2 Magneton
4 Magnemite
3 Eelektrik
2 Tynamo
1 Tynamo
2 Thunderus
1 Zekrom
Trainers (29):
4 Pokémon Collector
4 Sage's Training
4 N
4 Junk Arm
4 Pokémon Communication
4 Rare Candy
3 Pokémon Catcher
2 Switch
Energy (13):
13 Lightning Energy
Round 1 vs Lilligant/Vileplume/Cinccino/Victini
He goes first and Collectors to get an Oddish on the bench. He puts one of the other cards in his hand, so I know he's getting Vileplume next turn. I N him, and he can't get it. I Rare Candy into Magnezone the next turn. He only lays down one Oddish at a time, and I'm able to Magnezone both of them away for one energy. From there, I can use Switch for the rest of the game, and he doesn't stand a chance.
Win; 1-0
Round 2 vs Archeops/Kyurem/Jirachi
He goes first and uses a Collector for two Kyurem and some other basic that he puts into his hand. Just like Round 1, I know he has the Communication+Pokemon now. Next, he uses Plume fossil, and hits the Archen. Ugh. I go, and N his hand away. I start charging Thunderus after that. By some miracle, he can't get the Archeops out. I explode the next turn, getting two Magnezone and an Eelektrik. I also Catcher the Archen and KO it with Thunderus. He's left with nothing after that, and I get another Eelektrik the next turn. I start charging the Magnezones and a Zekrom on the bench while keeping the pressure with Thunderus. He gets a couple Kyurem charged, and those become my main priority to take out. I do so successfully, but he finally gets an Archeops out. He hit the Archen on his fourth Plume Fossil, and I opted to take his last charged Kyurem out instead of it. The turn before, however, I N his hand with Jirachi and two Psychic away, and he can't get the Psychics back. I Catcher the Archeops and knock it out. From there, I sweep with Zekrom.
Win; 2-0
Round 3 vs Kyurem/Cobalion/Electrode/Terrakion
I go first this game and explode, getting the T1 Thunderus using Charge, and two Magnezone and an Eelektrik T2. From there, I'm basically set if I can force him to explode two Electrode, since it means I can just Lost Burn 12 energy and take the game. He explodes one the next turn, and hits the energy to use Terrakion on my Thunderus. Or, something like that happened anyway. I don't remember exactly. Anyway, from there, I eliminate both of his Terrakion from play, only allowing one more attack from them. I still have two Magnezone on the board, so I'm basically set. He doesn't have enough energy left on the board to get by on manual attachments, and he has to explode another Electrode. From there, I take game, Lost Burning energy and using Catcher on whatever he tries to build up.
Win; 3-0
Round 4 vs Chandelure/Vileplume/Dodrio/Blissey/Jirachi
He gets a sub-par start, and I open a great hand going first. I can get T2 Magnezone, and I opened Thunderus. I topdeck an energy, so I can start Charging right away. We're friends, so we were talking during the match, and he's telling me how he can get a T2 Vileplume. So, I get my Magnezone out and N him. He has 2 Oddish and a Litwick with a Psychic out, so I bench a Tynamo then Catcher the Litwick and KO it with Thunderus. He draws into a Twins off the N, so he's able to get a Vileplume out anyway. However, he can't get much past that, and I'm able to take four prizes with Thunderus before he gets out the double Chandelure. One critical play was when he promoted Cleffa and passed. I knew his hand of four was great at that point, so I N'd it into a fresh six for him, and killed the Cleffa with Thunderus. By the time he gets double Chandelure, I have a Magneton on the bench, an Eelektrik on the bench, a Magnezone active, and a couple other useless things benched. So, even if he Jirachis my active, I can just evolve the benched one. I Lost Burn the first Chandelure, and have the energy in play to Lost Burn the second. He can still Jirachi my active, but it won't really do anything. He accidentally benches a different basic instead, and scoops from there.
Win; 4-0
Round 5 vs Magnezone/Eelektrik/Zekrom/Thunderus
I get downpaired, so I have to go 5-1 now to make it in. I start off pretty well, getting the Thunderus a turn before he does. That puts me at a huge advantage, and I keep it with ease. I Catcher up his Magnemites and Magnezones, and he can't do much to me. Eventually, we get to a point where he has a Magnezone active, an Eelektrik on the bench, and a bunch of OP basics on his bench. He has an 8-card hand. I have a Zekrom benched, a Magnezone benched, two Eelektrik benched, a Thunderus benched, and a Magnezone active. I can Lost Burn his active, and leave him without any draw. Basically read this as I have game, hands down. There is absolutely nothing he can do to me. Before taking the KO, I N him. He waits for me to shuffle my hand in, then tells me I already used a Collector this turn. We call a judge over, and I get a game loss.
Loss; 4-1
I've never been so upset about any loss. I haven't taken a prize off of a prize penalty in about four years, and I always try to fix a game state that would result in a game loss before calling a judge over. Imo, anybody who doesn't do this takes the game way too seriously.
Round 6 vs Absol/Kyurem/Cobalion/Electrode/Terrakion/Jirachi
This is a pretty good matchup for me with a regular build, but he doesn't run Catcher or Junk Arm, so he can't do very much to my setup. This match goes a lot like Round 3, where I explode on T2 and there's not much he can do back to me. It takes me a little while to get a second Eelektrik out, since he gets a T2 or T3 Kyurem. Once I do, it's smooth sailing. I need a Catcher to KO his benched Terrakion, and after drawing about 12 cards, I whiff on either the Catcher or Junk Arm, OR Switch to make up for that. So, my Magnezone is stuck active, and he uses Terrakion to KO it. At this point, he's eliminated all of my Magnezones from play, and I'm about to eliminate all of his Pokémon with energy from play. A fairly even tradeoff. I have Eelektrik with a bunch of attackers to his energy-less Kyurem, a Cobalion with a basic metal, and his active Terrakion with three energy. One of them is a Rainbow, so it's down to 120 HP. I use Zekrom to KO it, and he uses Cobalion's first attack, thinking it will OHKO me. It doesn't, and leaves me with 10 HP. I Outrage to KO him, and Outrage his Kyurem for my last prize the next turn.
Win; 5-1
I make cut in the fourth seed, and my opponent who "beat" me in Round 5 makes cut in the fifth seed.
Top 8 vs Magnezone/Eelektrik/Thunderus/Zekrom
We both open well, but I take the first prize. At that point, it's my game to lose. He makes a few misplays and I take full advantage of those to further my lead. I win pretty easily. At one point in the game, he accidentally draws one too many cards on Magnetic Draw, and I go out of my way to call a Judge over, just because I was still a little mad about round five lol. I get to see the top card of his deck is a Lightning Energy. How do you like that?
It kind of makes up for unfairly losing a game, I guess lol.Win
Game 2 goes very similarly to game one, but this time he takes the first prize and I have to play catch up. I do so very well, again taking full advantage of a couple misplays. Unfortunately, I make a misplay of my own and forget I only have one energy in my discard pile and not two. This means I can't KO his active with Zekrom like I was planning to, since I already attached to Thunderus for the turn. This forces me to attack with my last Magnezone, since I can't afford to give up the prize lead. He Ns me and kills my Magnezone with a Magnezone of his own. From there, I have nothing, and he manages to steal a win, barely taking the prize lead back in an OP basic war.
Loss
Game 3 I get an absolutely horrible start to his great start, and time is called when he's one prize ahead of me. I finally get a Magnezone out the turn time is called, and get my second Eelektrik as well. I Catcher a weak basic on his bench, and KO it with Thunderus to tie us on prizes. That's Turn 0. He promotes Magnezone, and Lost Burns three energy, leaving him with one energy in play, on his active Magnezone. I promote my own Magnezone, and Lost Burn his to tie us on prizes again. He promotes Thunderus, attaches to it, and Dynomotors twice on a benched Magnezone. Now, he needs the Switch, Junk Arm, or Catcher to take the win. He discarded 2 Catcher and a Junk Arm off of a T1 Sage, so chances are that's all of his Catcher. He also used one other Junk Arm and a Switch. He Junipers his hand for seven and whiffs. He burns three cards, Magnetic Draws for two more, and still doesn't have it. He retreats Thunderus and does 100 to me with Lost Burn. I get four energy in play and Lost Burn his Magnezone for 200 damage, taking the prize lead when we were in sudden death mode. This means I win the game. He flips over the top card of his deck and it's a Switch.
Win; 6-1
Top 4 vs Absol/Kyurem/Cobalion/Electrode/Terrakion/Jirachi
This is my opponent from Round 6. He snuck in in the 8th seed and managed to make it to top four. Game 1 goes much like our swiss game, where I just too setup for him to do much to me. I take the game pretty quickly and without him really doing anything of note to me. He completely whiffed on his first Energymite. I don't think that would have been enough for him to win, but it is what set him behind too far for him to come back.
Win
Game 2 I get a horrible start to his Absol. He goes first, Rainbows the Absol, and does some other crazy stuff. I open Thunderus, but that's literally all I have. I attach and Charge. He attaches to Absol and uses its attack after getting more basics on the bench, and I have to read the card. That took me completely by surprise. From there, I topdeck a Collector, but I have no way to get out evolutions. I just don't have enough stuff going to deal with 70 a turn, and after he takes out my Thunderus with Absol, I can't do anything to him. I stall out with big basics for a little, but after he Glaciates all of my Magnemite and Tynamo away I scoop.
Loss
Game 3 I get another horrible start. He doesn't open Absol, though. Everybody watching started to move to watch the other top four game, because my hand was so bad it was obviously over. I manage to draw a Sage eventually, but whiff on the Magnezone to use the Rare Candy in my hand. This makes my setup even more horribly slow. However, through some series of miracles I don't fully remember, I manage to get fully setup. I quickly start taking faster than he is, and manage to remove all of his energy from play with Magnezone. He benches a Voltorb, but I Switch for Thunderus, Catcher it, and KO it with Disaster Volt. From there, he takes too long to get anything going again, and I manage to tie us on prizes. The game comes down to this. I have two prizes left to his one. It's my turn and time gets called. He has a Terrakion with three energy active, a Terrakion with one water energy benched, and some energy-less stuff benched. Two Shaymins are on the bench, and no Voltorbs are in play, so he has no way to accelerate the energy next turn. All he needs is a Fighting or Rainbow energy to win it, and he has a hand of about six cards. I N him down to one, and he's obviously surprised, which tells me he had the energy. I Lost Burn his active Terrakion, and he draws a card. He has to promote the Terrakion, and hope to topdeck a Fighting/Rainbow or hope I don't have the energy+Switch I need to KO him. He topdecks a water energy, but no Fighting or draw power. I draw my whole deck with 2 Magnetic Draw and a Sage to get the Switch+Energy for game.
Win; 7-1
Top 2 vs Zekrom/Pachirisu/Shaymin/Tornadus
This is just his second tournament, and he's already made top two. Game 1, I get a horrible hand, with a Magnemite and a bunch of Lightning/Junk Arm/Rare Candy. However, I topdeck Collector, and then topdeck Magnezone a couple turns later. Unfortunately, he's up by two prizes, and I end up just a little short of regaining that prize lead. I keep on trying to N him into small, energy-less hands, but he always draws Juniper or Oak's to make the N's useless. Eventually, I run out of N's, and I scoop.
Loss
Game 2, I go first, but get the same hand as Round 1, except with a 30 HP Tynamo start instead of Magnemite. I topdeck Communication, but I don't have the Pokémon to go with it. He Junipers his whole hand, and draws into Pachirisu, Shaymin, Lightning, Lightning, Lightning, and two other cards to donk me. I flip the top card of my deck, and it's a Collector, meaning I could have gotten a Magnezone two turns later. Oh well.
Loss; 7-2
