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Silhouette Gloom of the Sundown Lands
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On behalf of the rest of the team, apologies for the lateness of this. Who knows? Maybe I can turn portal posting into my niche! :]
Have some info.
Forum moderator [mod]Celebi23[/mod] has won his area's TCG Regional Championship. This is not an easy task by any means to do. Congratulations Celebi23! Celebi23 has decided to share his experience at the Regional Championship and even provides the list he used.
About a month before the event, I was pretty set on Zekrom with Mew/Relicanth to beat Gothitelle. I didn't think Stage 1's were relevant enough to cause problems, and the matchup was no worse than 40-60 anyway. Other than that, the deck was fast and powerful, and had fairly good matchups across the board, except that I didn't like its Yanmega/Magnezone matchup.
I didn't think Yanmega/Magnezone was a safe play, though, since I was expecting Reshiram to be the biggest deck. This did, however, make me start to look at Gothitelle, since it had better overall matchups than Zekrom, but it just wasn't as fast. They both have a somewhat bad Yanmega/Magnezone matchup, but I don't think Gothitelle's is significantly worse than Zekrom's is.
So, I was set on Gothitelle. It was testing well, but I did dislike that the only card I felt safe starting with was Gothita. However, this wasn't enough to make me ditch the deck. About four days before Regionals, however, it hit me that nobody wanted to go into Regionals with a bad Gothitelle matchup. I was hearing a lot about Magby techs, Mew in Zekrom, Reshiram getting paired with Emboar over Typhlosion, TyRam using Kingdra Prime, and people running Yanmega/Magnezone and Mewbox just to beat it.
googlebox is very similar to Gothitelle. However, despite being slightly weaker against Yanmega/Magnezone, it has no real auto-loss or easy card an opponent can tech in to get a cheap win. Magby is much less effective against it, and Mew, Kingdra and Badboar do very little if anything to the deck. How easy Gothitelle is to tech for really did concern me. I'd also been testing with googlebox a lot and wanting to play it for Battle Roads, but my lack of Tropical Beach deterred me from doing so. I really felt more comfortable with googlebox than Gothitelle, and it was a much better fit for my playstyle. I do think that Gothitelle might be a better deck overall, but googlebox has some notably good matchups in places Gothitelle doesn't (Gothitelle vs googlebox, for example) that shouldn't be ignored.
If you haven't figured it out by now, I went with googlebox.
Pokemon (27):
2 Vileplume
1 Gloom
3 Oddish
2 Reuniclus
2 Duosion
3 Solosis
3 Donphan
3 Phanpy
1 Suicune & Entei Legend (Top)
1 Suicune & Entei Legend (Bottom)
1 Zekrom
1 Blissey
1 Chansey
2 Pichu
1 Cleffa
Trainers (23):
4 Twins
3 Pokemon Collector
3 Sage's Training
2 Professor Oak's New Theory
2 Professor Juniper
1 Seeker
1 Tropical Beach
4 Pokemon Communication
3 Rare Candy
Energy (10):
4 Rainbow Energy
3 Double Colorless Energy
2 Fighting Energy
1 Fire Energy
I'm not going to go into details about the list. The list is fairly different from google's, but I think the overall strategy is similar enough to his that most of it has been discussed in various places already. My list is more based on getting setup than google's was, since I really think that if you setup with this deck you're going to win 95% of the time. If anybody does have any direct questions about it, then feel free to post them in this thread or PM me.
I finalized the list the night before the tournament. I had been playtesting a little with a 2-2 Blissey for a couple days, just out of curiosity. I dropped it quickly. The only other change I made was dropping the 4th Double Colorless Energy for a Fire Energy, after I saw how much Reshiphlosion there was in the open play area.
I probably wouldn't change anything about the list. The only thing I would consider is dropping the Blissey completely for a 2nd Seeker and either a 2nd Gloom, a 3rd Vileplume, a 4th Rare Candy, a 3rd Seeker, or maybe a 2nd Cleffa. Blissey doesn't do a lot, but at the same time I'm not sure how necessary any of these other cards are. Chansey is also a great card to have in the deck; benching it is often an acceptable replacement for playing a Seeker, and it's an extra basic to avoid donks with. Blissey is a good clutch attacker, and a great damage sponge.
One other thing I'm kind of tempted to try out is using Cheren over Sage's Training, after seeing how much of it there was in cut. I was playing with both when I first started testing the deck, and I did like that, but Cheren ultimately didn't take priority over other cards. I like that Sage goes deeper into the deck, but I did get forced to discard a lot of stuff I didn't want to, almost costing me a couple games. Sage is much better after you get setup, though, so I'm not sure that I feel great about Cheren.
Anyway, onto the report.
Round 1 vs Zekrom/Pachirisu/Shaymin/Tornadus
I go first and whiff on Collector. My active is a Chansey, so I communicate for Oddish. I have Tropical Beach and Rare Candy + Vileplume in my hand. I Tropical Beach into a Pichu. She has Seeker, but not enough Energy to donk me, and she doesn't have the PlusPower or Catcher either. She uses an Oak instead, for a fresh hand, then uses Tropical Beach for a few cards. Next turn I Rare Candy into Vileplume and use Pichu for a bunch of basics, including Phanpy and Solosis. She doesn't take anything off of my Playground, for some reason. She KOs my Pichu with Tornadus and I setup from there using Twins. I don't give her any more prizes. There's really not a lot ZPST can do in this matchup if it misses the donk.
Win. 1-0
Round 2 vs Reshiram/Typhlosion
I go first and get T2 Vileplume. He runs 2 Quilvava, but he only gets them out one at a time and I can SEL them away. I used Earthquake on his sleeping baby to get Twins access, and setup without problem.
Win. 2-0
Round 3 vs Kingdra/Donphan
I met this guy in open play area day before, and played a few games with him. It was enough for me to know that SEL is the key to this matchup, since it "turns off" Kingdra's attack. I try a different approach and attack with SEL this time, instead of just benching it. I go first with Chansey and Oddish to his Cleffa. I attach a DCE to Chansey and then Tropical Beach into a great hand. He draws and uses Eeeek. I would have won here with Chansey's second attack, but he flips tails and stays asleep. Fortunately, I get T2 Vileplume again and he can't Rare Candy into any Kingdra. This puts me in a great position, and I eventually get Twins access and win from there. He did flip a nice double heads with Horsea and did 80 damage to my SEL, but it was nowhere enough for him to win.
Win. 3-0
Round 4 vs Zekrom/Pachirisu/Shaymin/Tornadus/Sigilyph/Jirachi
I did not see the Sigilyph/Jirachi part of this coming at all. He discarded a Psychic early, but I assumed it would be for Mew. I setup eventually, but I have to discard my Blissey off a T1 Sage. In the end, I can't draw into basics and he's overloading the damage on me. He went up 4 prizes before I get setup, and I have a benched Cleffa to his benched Sigilyph. This means I can't give up any more prizes. It doesn't take long before I have to move a lot of damage onto Vileplume and Reuniclus. He drops Jirachi and devolves both of them for the game. I will admit that I wasn't expecting the Jirachi even after he dropped Sigilyph; I avoided putting a lot of early damage on Vileplume and Reuniclus out of habit, not because it was necessary.
Loss. 3-1
Round 5 vs Vileplume/Mew/Muk/Yanmega/Sunflora
He opens Oddish and Sunkern, going 2nd. He also has a bad hand and has to use Cleffa to Eeek. He stays asleep forever and doesn't get a See Off until I've Rare Candied into Reuniclus, have a benched Donphan with Energy, a benched Zekrom, and a benched Duosion, with Cleffa active. I also have 2 DCE, 2 Twins, and a bunch of other god stuff in my hand. Looking back, I should have Earthquaked his sleeping Cleffa to get Twins access via Damage Swap, and that was one of my big two misplays of the day. Anyway, he Judges my hand but I still get the Twins. He uses See Off and I take the prize lead with Donphan, but manipulate damage to go back down on prizes. He has 3 Mew left to my 3 DCE, so I get the Reuniclus retreat every time, and get a huge prize lead. He can't do anything via Yanmega with my Reuniclus still in play, and I take the win.
Win. 4-1
Round 6 vs Reshiram/Typhlosion/Kingdra
He has to discard his Seadra T1 and he kills something of mine early, allowing me to Twins quickly and get setup before he has enough Typhlosion out. I prized double Twins, so I'm in a bit of a tough spot with SEL since he discarded and Energy and I don't have another in-hand. He was slowplaying, so I felt pressured to attack with it earlier than I wanted. Fortunately, I drew Twins off of my prizes and got 2 Energy; enough to keep SEL charged the whole game and destroy what remained of his setup.
Win. 5-1
I'm going to stop for a minute here to make a point about testing for a tournament, and how to do it. A lot of people like to look at tournament results and try to figure out and understand the matchups and small, underlying interactions between decks based off of nothing but a few numbers. I'm constantly fighting this battle with a lot of players on 'Beach, yet nobody sees my side of it, even though every well-respected player would most likely agree with me.
According to Battle Roads results, the top two decks should have been Reshiram and Zekrom. Gothitelle and Yanmega/Magnezone fell right underneath them. Yet, the top two tables at round seven were my googlebox, a googlebox with Beartic, a googlebox with Machamp, and Yamato's Lanturn/Yanmega/Zekrom deck. These decks were complete underdogs going into this tournament, with google having no more than three wins, and Yamato not getting any more than one. But, they end up at the top tables. No Gothitelle. No Reshiram. No Zekrom. No Yanmega/Magnezone. This doesn't even mean that they were the best decks there. But, they are clearly not the Tier 2 random decks you face early in the tournament, either.
My point gets somewhat trampled on, because a two Reshiram and Stage 1 deck made it to top four in the tournament overall. But, a googlebox also won Seniors at my Regionals AND a different Regionals, and got two spots in top four in different Regionals, as well as a top eight in one and got a top four in Seniors. I would bet you anything that these players, and most of the other players who made cut, got there because they tested enough to understand how to play out every single matchup, and how all the decks in this crazy format interact with each other. They didn't just look at tournament results, decide on a deck based on that, and go with it.
Round 7 vs Vileplume/Reuniclus/Donphan/Machamp/SEL (paired up)
I have a Pichu active to his Donphan, and he doesn't want to KO it. Eventually he does though. Even if he hadn't, I would get my own Donphan and Earthquake to get damage for Twins next turn. Later he told me that usually his opponents give him the first prize in this matchup, and he didn't know what to do. I use Sage, and get a god five cards - both SEL parts, 2 Energy, and another Sage. Unfortunately, I have to discard the 2 Energy and Sage, which ultimately screws me since I don't have any more basic Energy. I get out Reuniclus, Donphan, and SEL. I use SEL to KO his Reuniclus via Torrent Blade. However, I make the stupidest misplay possible and forget to move the 10 damage off of SEL from the Rainbow Energy I attached to it. He benches his own SEL, Rainbows it, and hits me with Champ Buster for the KO. He didn't even realize he got the KO. I scoop at this point, since I don't have any basic Energy left, and only 3 special, so Machamp's first attack would have killed me. He had a Duosion, so it was only a matter of time before he got out Reuniclus or just swept with SEL.
Loss. 5-2
Round 8 vs Reshiram/Typhlosion
I open lone Solosis. I don't have a very good hand, but I get Pichu and Playground. Unfortunately, I see that I prized a 2-1-1 line of Reuniclus, and a Rainbow. Of course, he gets the Catcher KO on Duosion, and after Solosis isn't the one prize I could draw via Donphan, I scoop.
Loss. 5-3
I was fine with my first two losses, since I was outplayed, but that one got me pretty annoyed, especially since I thought it ended my chances of cutting. However, I was pleasantly surprised when I snuck in in the 31st seed, having the highest resistance of all the 5-3's. Thanks goes to my round 7 opponent since he went undefeated.
Top 32 vs Reshiram/Typhlosion
He doesn't know how to play the matchup too well. Game one, he KOs a baby early and gives me Twins for setup. I don't prize SEL, so I setup and sweep. He only gets one Typhlosion, and I have a billion Energy on SEL, so I can still Torrent Blade Quilvavas without that Typhlosion threatening me. I do that, and he can't do anything. He scoops early in, instead of playing it out like I would have; googlebox is horrible in a timed environment.
Game 2 I prize double Twins, but I still get everything setup. However, I can't for the life of me hit the 3rd Energy for SEL. I like to have 4-5 on it before promoting it, so only having 2 sucks. Fortunately, I get perfect sleep flips on Cleffa for a few turns, but I still can't hit the Energy. After trying forever, I have 6 cards in my deck, and I scoop since I had no prizes taken. I had 3 Energy in those cards, plus one in my prizes.
Game 3 he doesn't KO stuff early, but I still manage to get everything setup and just sweep. I want to give a quick shoutout to this guy, because of all the people I played in cut using Reshiram or Stage 1's (decks that auto-lose to mine), he was the only one who didn't try to slowplay me out of the win. A lot of people think this is ethical, but I disagree. The player who would have won in an untimed format should win in a timed format, too, unless they are the one taking forever.
Win.
Top 16 vs Gothitelle/Reuniclus/Reshiram/Zekrom
Game one we both get setup, but he piles a billion Energy on his Gothitelle, and gets damage on both Zekrom and Reshiram, while I have Donphan stuck active with an SEL prized. However, his Gothitelle threatens unlimited damage, and the only thing I can KO it with is Zekrom, which can be revenge killed, and so on. I realize he'll take six prizes first, even though I will be more setup after that happens, so I scoop.
Game two I get a fast Vileplume and he can't set anything up. He scoops as soon as I get out Reuniclus.
Game three he Catcher KOs my only Gloom with his Gothitelle, and I'm locked out of Vileplume for the game. Things are looking grim, but I'm able to get out 2 Reuniclus, a Donphan, Zekrom, and SEL via Twins. I Torrent Blade to KO his first Reuniclus, but he gets out another one the next turn. In order to avoid an Outrage KO from Zekrom, I pass my next turn and don't damage anything. Of course, I re-attach one Rainbow Energy first. He only has 2 Psychic on his Gothitelle, so he's not threatening an OHKO on SEL. The next turn, I re-attach the second Rainbow Energy and get ready to Torrent Blade Reuniclus. I pick up the 2 Rainbow, point at his Reuniclus, and say, loud and clear, "Bursting Inferno." GOD! I think he realized my mistake a second before I did, and when I saw the look on his face I realized it, too. We both knew what I meant since I picked up the Energy and chose my target, but he won't let me take it back. Anyway, he flips tails on the burn damage, putting his Gothitelle at 100. Fortunately for me, he's all out of Double Colorless Energy, so he attaches a Psychic to his Zekrom, swaps all the damage to it, and passes. I, of course, Torrent Blade the Zekrom. From there, I build up Torrent Blade again, KO the Reuniclus, and sweep his Gothitelle from there for the win.
Win.
Top 8 vs Gothitelle/Reuniclus/Reshiram/Zekrom
The details of this match are pretty fuzzy. I remember I get setup quickly Game 1 with SEL attacking, and he can't get enough of a setup to match it. Game two he gets out a Gothitelle before I can Rare Candy into Vileplume, he Catcher KOs my Gloom and a Duosion, and I scoop once he KOs the Reuniclus I finally get out. Game three is much closer. I got the same setup as I did in Game 1, but he gets out a Gothitelle and starts building up the Energy on it. When his attack is doing 110 damage, he stops attaching to it for some reason and starts building up a second Gothitelle instead. After I KO the built-up Gothitelle, it's smooth sailing and I take the win.
Win.
Top 4 vs Reshiram/Typhlosion/Magby
The Magby tech got really annoying in this matchup, since he ran Rescue Energy, too. He tried to slowplay me out of the win, and that got annoying, too. He seemed like a nice guy, though. I was lucky enough not to prize SEL in any of these games. Game one I get fully setup and he promotes Magby. Instead of burning me, he opts to retreat it and promote a Cyndaquil. I Torrent Blade the Magby, and he can't come back from there. After the game, he told me he was hoping to save it until he got a Rescue Energy for it, but had forgotten about Torrent Blade.
Game 2 goes much like Game 1, where we both get very good setups, but this time he uses Magby and gets a Rescue on it.. I flip heads for Burn, then Tails after my turn. He promotes Reshiram, hits me for 120, and I flip... tails
He took his last two prizes off the SEL KO, and I lost right after that flip. I make a really small misplay on the first turn, where I play Tropical Beach when I have too big of a hand to use it (he mulliganed a lot and I used Sage's Training.) Fortunately, he forgets to use it, and it doesn't hurt me at all.
Game 3 plays out, yet again, like the first two games. He doesn't get a Rescue on the Magby this time, though. He burns me, I again flip heads, I KO his Magby, and I, again, flip tails. He attacks with Reshiram, and I flip... HEADS! This game literally came down to that flip. Odds were in my favor overall, but it's still a stupid way to end top four. From there, I retreat the SEL to get rid of the burn. I promote Oddish, and stupidly attach a DCE to it. He Outrage KOs it, and I promote SEL again. Attaching the DCE left me with one Energy in my deck/prizes, and only three on SEL. He has a Typhlosion benched. I take the KO on his Reshiram, and draw the last Energy in my prizes for the win. I had about a six card deck, and Juniper in my hand, so there was really only one card out of 7-8 it couldn't have been. Still, though, I felt really lucky to win this round.
Win.
Top 2 vs Donphan/Yanmega
I have to admit I was surprised to see this deck in top two. Game one I get an awful start, but get Cleffa around T3. I use that for Pichu, and combined with the Twins in my hand, I setup and remove all the 30HP basics from my field, putting him at one prize. He's playing really slowly, which gets to me a little. Through the use of Heavy Impact, I manage to get the win with a good amount of time left. There was a scary moment when he Judged away my Blissey and left me no way to get it, but in the end it didn't matter since he couldn't overload the damage.
I get a much better start Game 2, and only give him four prizes before I start Heavy Impacting. I have to discard two of my Phanpy off of Sage's Training, and prize both my Seeker and my Chansey. I draw the Seeker early, fortunately, so it takes him a long time to get a lot of damage on me. I eventually have to bench a Cleffa to "sponge" damage, which he Linear Attacks. At this point, I'm at two prizes to his one. His Yanmega has 40 damage on it from Earthquake, so I can Heavy Impact it for the KO. But, the Chansey ends up being my last prize. He Copycatted into 15 cards, but whiffed the Donphan. He Copycats again for 17, hits it, and Heavy Impacts me. At this point, there's nowhere left to put the damage, and I can only 2-hit Donphan. My only hope is that he can't hit the hand match and an energy. If I lose this game, he'll most likely win on time in game three. I use Professor Oak's New Theory, putting me at six, and then I bench Pichu. He doesn't have the hand match, and ends up accidentally Junipering his hand into the last four cards in his deck. He didn't have any energy left anyway, though.
Win.
Overall Record: 10-3 or 15-7
I have to admit I felt pretty lucky to win this tournament. I didn't play a single Yanmega/Magnezone either of the days. Other than that, I didn't feel particularly lucky on day one, except that I snuck into cut as the wildcard 31st seed. For the first part of top cut, I went 11 games out of 12 without prizing either part of SEL, which was critical to my winning. Top four was decided by a few coin flips. If I hadn't been paired up in round seven, I probably wouldn't even have made top cut. Still though, a win is a win. I suppose in a triangle format with a lot of baby flips, it's hard to win a tournament without a notable amount of luck.
This was my second Regionals win. It really felt sort of surreal to win a major tournament twice. I'm pretty sure only two other people have won two Regionals, and only one of them has won consecutive ones like I did. Of course, I didn't play in two Regionals during my time off, but they were still consecutive for me. And I guess having one of the wins be in Seniors takes a little away from it as well, but I'm also probably one of the youngest Masters winners, if not the youngest. Either way, this sets me apart from a large part of the player base. Of course, I'm still no Ness or Pooka, and I probably won't ever be. I have to admit winning was a lot less exciting the second time around, but I was still really excited. I think the game also meant a lot more to me the last time I won than it does now, which was probably the main reason I wasn't as exited. Even so, I might have been more excited than a lot of people are after they win States/Regionals.
This is also easily the biggest tournament I've ever won. We had well over 200 Masters there, if I remember correctly. The last Regionals I won had somewhere between 50 and 80 Seniors. It's also pretty cool because they modified how Regionals work, so I'm one of six people to have ever won a Fall Regionals.
Thanks for reading, and please post any comments or questions you have!
Celebi23 to be Interviewed by Beyond the Game
That's right my card game playing friends! Beyond the Game is hosting an interview and QA session with one of our very own players, [mod]Celebi23[/mod]. Along with being a fantastic moderator on Pokebeach, [mod]Celebi23[/mod] recently won a Regionals in the Masters Division! Here is YOUR chance to get some insight from an amazing player. Because Zero is not cool enough to come up with good questions to ask, if you have any questions for Celebi23 that you want to ask, post them here. Your question might just be asked during the live interview podcast.
That's right! The podcast will be recorded live! We will Stream it on Friday the 25th of November between 4:30 PM to 5:30PM PST. That is 7:30 to 8:30 on EST. If you want to participate, please join our chat from these times. Zero may or may not take some participants from the Chatroom for some fun activities dealing with the podcast. There will be a pre-show starting at 3:30 PM PST (6:30 PM EST) that will go until the podcast starts. This preshow will have song, and possible prizes for being able to do certain things.
Once again, if you have any awesome questions for Celebi23 (or possibly for [mod]Zero[/mod]), ask them here. Good questions will be credited and may receive prizes for stand-out questions. Can't wait to see you all then!
Have some info.
Celebi23's First Place Regionals Report
Forum moderator [mod]Celebi23[/mod] has won his area's TCG Regional Championship. This is not an easy task by any means to do. Congratulations Celebi23! Celebi23 has decided to share his experience at the Regional Championship and even provides the list he used.
Testing for the Tournament
This will go like my standard report, where I only focus on the Pokemon part of the event; I doubt anybody is reading this to find out about the social part of the event. I usually skip over that part in other peoples' reports, and I know a few other people do as well. I also have an ulterior motive for doing that; it means I have to write less haha.About a month before the event, I was pretty set on Zekrom with Mew/Relicanth to beat Gothitelle. I didn't think Stage 1's were relevant enough to cause problems, and the matchup was no worse than 40-60 anyway. Other than that, the deck was fast and powerful, and had fairly good matchups across the board, except that I didn't like its Yanmega/Magnezone matchup.
I didn't think Yanmega/Magnezone was a safe play, though, since I was expecting Reshiram to be the biggest deck. This did, however, make me start to look at Gothitelle, since it had better overall matchups than Zekrom, but it just wasn't as fast. They both have a somewhat bad Yanmega/Magnezone matchup, but I don't think Gothitelle's is significantly worse than Zekrom's is.
So, I was set on Gothitelle. It was testing well, but I did dislike that the only card I felt safe starting with was Gothita. However, this wasn't enough to make me ditch the deck. About four days before Regionals, however, it hit me that nobody wanted to go into Regionals with a bad Gothitelle matchup. I was hearing a lot about Magby techs, Mew in Zekrom, Reshiram getting paired with Emboar over Typhlosion, TyRam using Kingdra Prime, and people running Yanmega/Magnezone and Mewbox just to beat it.
googlebox is very similar to Gothitelle. However, despite being slightly weaker against Yanmega/Magnezone, it has no real auto-loss or easy card an opponent can tech in to get a cheap win. Magby is much less effective against it, and Mew, Kingdra and Badboar do very little if anything to the deck. How easy Gothitelle is to tech for really did concern me. I'd also been testing with googlebox a lot and wanting to play it for Battle Roads, but my lack of Tropical Beach deterred me from doing so. I really felt more comfortable with googlebox than Gothitelle, and it was a much better fit for my playstyle. I do think that Gothitelle might be a better deck overall, but googlebox has some notably good matchups in places Gothitelle doesn't (Gothitelle vs googlebox, for example) that shouldn't be ignored.
If you haven't figured it out by now, I went with googlebox.
The Deck List
I'm usually reluctant to post lists I've put a lot of work into, but this is such a big tournament I think I have to. Besides, googlebox isn't a deck people can pick up a list for and expect to win with. I playtested well over 150 games with the deck (probably close to 250), yet I still made at least eight misplays I'm aware of. My average for a tournament is somewhere between one and three misplays.Pokemon (27):
2 Vileplume
1 Gloom
3 Oddish
2 Reuniclus
2 Duosion
3 Solosis
3 Donphan
3 Phanpy
1 Suicune & Entei Legend (Top)
1 Suicune & Entei Legend (Bottom)
1 Zekrom
1 Blissey
1 Chansey
2 Pichu
1 Cleffa
Trainers (23):
4 Twins
3 Pokemon Collector
3 Sage's Training
2 Professor Oak's New Theory
2 Professor Juniper
1 Seeker
1 Tropical Beach
4 Pokemon Communication
3 Rare Candy
Energy (10):
4 Rainbow Energy
3 Double Colorless Energy
2 Fighting Energy
1 Fire Energy
I'm not going to go into details about the list. The list is fairly different from google's, but I think the overall strategy is similar enough to his that most of it has been discussed in various places already. My list is more based on getting setup than google's was, since I really think that if you setup with this deck you're going to win 95% of the time. If anybody does have any direct questions about it, then feel free to post them in this thread or PM me.
I finalized the list the night before the tournament. I had been playtesting a little with a 2-2 Blissey for a couple days, just out of curiosity. I dropped it quickly. The only other change I made was dropping the 4th Double Colorless Energy for a Fire Energy, after I saw how much Reshiphlosion there was in the open play area.
I probably wouldn't change anything about the list. The only thing I would consider is dropping the Blissey completely for a 2nd Seeker and either a 2nd Gloom, a 3rd Vileplume, a 4th Rare Candy, a 3rd Seeker, or maybe a 2nd Cleffa. Blissey doesn't do a lot, but at the same time I'm not sure how necessary any of these other cards are. Chansey is also a great card to have in the deck; benching it is often an acceptable replacement for playing a Seeker, and it's an extra basic to avoid donks with. Blissey is a good clutch attacker, and a great damage sponge.
One other thing I'm kind of tempted to try out is using Cheren over Sage's Training, after seeing how much of it there was in cut. I was playing with both when I first started testing the deck, and I did like that, but Cheren ultimately didn't take priority over other cards. I like that Sage goes deeper into the deck, but I did get forced to discard a lot of stuff I didn't want to, almost costing me a couple games. Sage is much better after you get setup, though, so I'm not sure that I feel great about Cheren.
Anyway, onto the report.
Day One
It almost felt surreal to be starting the tournament. This was my first major premier rated tournament since early 2010, and I've never played a deck as crazy as google's in any tournament before. This is also my first year as a master, and my first year playing in Washington State. So, I sort of looked at this tournament as a way to prove myself to the player base, after my pretty mixed Battle Roads results.Round 1 vs Zekrom/Pachirisu/Shaymin/Tornadus
I go first and whiff on Collector. My active is a Chansey, so I communicate for Oddish. I have Tropical Beach and Rare Candy + Vileplume in my hand. I Tropical Beach into a Pichu. She has Seeker, but not enough Energy to donk me, and she doesn't have the PlusPower or Catcher either. She uses an Oak instead, for a fresh hand, then uses Tropical Beach for a few cards. Next turn I Rare Candy into Vileplume and use Pichu for a bunch of basics, including Phanpy and Solosis. She doesn't take anything off of my Playground, for some reason. She KOs my Pichu with Tornadus and I setup from there using Twins. I don't give her any more prizes. There's really not a lot ZPST can do in this matchup if it misses the donk.
Win. 1-0
Round 2 vs Reshiram/Typhlosion
I go first and get T2 Vileplume. He runs 2 Quilvava, but he only gets them out one at a time and I can SEL them away. I used Earthquake on his sleeping baby to get Twins access, and setup without problem.
Win. 2-0
Round 3 vs Kingdra/Donphan
I met this guy in open play area day before, and played a few games with him. It was enough for me to know that SEL is the key to this matchup, since it "turns off" Kingdra's attack. I try a different approach and attack with SEL this time, instead of just benching it. I go first with Chansey and Oddish to his Cleffa. I attach a DCE to Chansey and then Tropical Beach into a great hand. He draws and uses Eeeek. I would have won here with Chansey's second attack, but he flips tails and stays asleep. Fortunately, I get T2 Vileplume again and he can't Rare Candy into any Kingdra. This puts me in a great position, and I eventually get Twins access and win from there. He did flip a nice double heads with Horsea and did 80 damage to my SEL, but it was nowhere enough for him to win.
Win. 3-0
Round 4 vs Zekrom/Pachirisu/Shaymin/Tornadus/Sigilyph/Jirachi
I did not see the Sigilyph/Jirachi part of this coming at all. He discarded a Psychic early, but I assumed it would be for Mew. I setup eventually, but I have to discard my Blissey off a T1 Sage. In the end, I can't draw into basics and he's overloading the damage on me. He went up 4 prizes before I get setup, and I have a benched Cleffa to his benched Sigilyph. This means I can't give up any more prizes. It doesn't take long before I have to move a lot of damage onto Vileplume and Reuniclus. He drops Jirachi and devolves both of them for the game. I will admit that I wasn't expecting the Jirachi even after he dropped Sigilyph; I avoided putting a lot of early damage on Vileplume and Reuniclus out of habit, not because it was necessary.
Loss. 3-1
Round 5 vs Vileplume/Mew/Muk/Yanmega/Sunflora
He opens Oddish and Sunkern, going 2nd. He also has a bad hand and has to use Cleffa to Eeek. He stays asleep forever and doesn't get a See Off until I've Rare Candied into Reuniclus, have a benched Donphan with Energy, a benched Zekrom, and a benched Duosion, with Cleffa active. I also have 2 DCE, 2 Twins, and a bunch of other god stuff in my hand. Looking back, I should have Earthquaked his sleeping Cleffa to get Twins access via Damage Swap, and that was one of my big two misplays of the day. Anyway, he Judges my hand but I still get the Twins. He uses See Off and I take the prize lead with Donphan, but manipulate damage to go back down on prizes. He has 3 Mew left to my 3 DCE, so I get the Reuniclus retreat every time, and get a huge prize lead. He can't do anything via Yanmega with my Reuniclus still in play, and I take the win.
Win. 4-1
Round 6 vs Reshiram/Typhlosion/Kingdra
He has to discard his Seadra T1 and he kills something of mine early, allowing me to Twins quickly and get setup before he has enough Typhlosion out. I prized double Twins, so I'm in a bit of a tough spot with SEL since he discarded and Energy and I don't have another in-hand. He was slowplaying, so I felt pressured to attack with it earlier than I wanted. Fortunately, I drew Twins off of my prizes and got 2 Energy; enough to keep SEL charged the whole game and destroy what remained of his setup.
Win. 5-1
I'm going to stop for a minute here to make a point about testing for a tournament, and how to do it. A lot of people like to look at tournament results and try to figure out and understand the matchups and small, underlying interactions between decks based off of nothing but a few numbers. I'm constantly fighting this battle with a lot of players on 'Beach, yet nobody sees my side of it, even though every well-respected player would most likely agree with me.
According to Battle Roads results, the top two decks should have been Reshiram and Zekrom. Gothitelle and Yanmega/Magnezone fell right underneath them. Yet, the top two tables at round seven were my googlebox, a googlebox with Beartic, a googlebox with Machamp, and Yamato's Lanturn/Yanmega/Zekrom deck. These decks were complete underdogs going into this tournament, with google having no more than three wins, and Yamato not getting any more than one. But, they end up at the top tables. No Gothitelle. No Reshiram. No Zekrom. No Yanmega/Magnezone. This doesn't even mean that they were the best decks there. But, they are clearly not the Tier 2 random decks you face early in the tournament, either.
My point gets somewhat trampled on, because a two Reshiram and Stage 1 deck made it to top four in the tournament overall. But, a googlebox also won Seniors at my Regionals AND a different Regionals, and got two spots in top four in different Regionals, as well as a top eight in one and got a top four in Seniors. I would bet you anything that these players, and most of the other players who made cut, got there because they tested enough to understand how to play out every single matchup, and how all the decks in this crazy format interact with each other. They didn't just look at tournament results, decide on a deck based on that, and go with it.
Round 7 vs Vileplume/Reuniclus/Donphan/Machamp/SEL (paired up)
I have a Pichu active to his Donphan, and he doesn't want to KO it. Eventually he does though. Even if he hadn't, I would get my own Donphan and Earthquake to get damage for Twins next turn. Later he told me that usually his opponents give him the first prize in this matchup, and he didn't know what to do. I use Sage, and get a god five cards - both SEL parts, 2 Energy, and another Sage. Unfortunately, I have to discard the 2 Energy and Sage, which ultimately screws me since I don't have any more basic Energy. I get out Reuniclus, Donphan, and SEL. I use SEL to KO his Reuniclus via Torrent Blade. However, I make the stupidest misplay possible and forget to move the 10 damage off of SEL from the Rainbow Energy I attached to it. He benches his own SEL, Rainbows it, and hits me with Champ Buster for the KO. He didn't even realize he got the KO. I scoop at this point, since I don't have any basic Energy left, and only 3 special, so Machamp's first attack would have killed me. He had a Duosion, so it was only a matter of time before he got out Reuniclus or just swept with SEL.
Loss. 5-2
Round 8 vs Reshiram/Typhlosion
I open lone Solosis. I don't have a very good hand, but I get Pichu and Playground. Unfortunately, I see that I prized a 2-1-1 line of Reuniclus, and a Rainbow. Of course, he gets the Catcher KO on Duosion, and after Solosis isn't the one prize I could draw via Donphan, I scoop.
Loss. 5-3
I was fine with my first two losses, since I was outplayed, but that one got me pretty annoyed, especially since I thought it ended my chances of cutting. However, I was pleasantly surprised when I snuck in in the 31st seed, having the highest resistance of all the 5-3's. Thanks goes to my round 7 opponent since he went undefeated.
Top 32 vs Reshiram/Typhlosion
He doesn't know how to play the matchup too well. Game one, he KOs a baby early and gives me Twins for setup. I don't prize SEL, so I setup and sweep. He only gets one Typhlosion, and I have a billion Energy on SEL, so I can still Torrent Blade Quilvavas without that Typhlosion threatening me. I do that, and he can't do anything. He scoops early in, instead of playing it out like I would have; googlebox is horrible in a timed environment.
Game 2 I prize double Twins, but I still get everything setup. However, I can't for the life of me hit the 3rd Energy for SEL. I like to have 4-5 on it before promoting it, so only having 2 sucks. Fortunately, I get perfect sleep flips on Cleffa for a few turns, but I still can't hit the Energy. After trying forever, I have 6 cards in my deck, and I scoop since I had no prizes taken. I had 3 Energy in those cards, plus one in my prizes.
Game 3 he doesn't KO stuff early, but I still manage to get everything setup and just sweep. I want to give a quick shoutout to this guy, because of all the people I played in cut using Reshiram or Stage 1's (decks that auto-lose to mine), he was the only one who didn't try to slowplay me out of the win. A lot of people think this is ethical, but I disagree. The player who would have won in an untimed format should win in a timed format, too, unless they are the one taking forever.
Win.
Day Two
All of the matches on day two were incredibly close, and every round I looked at the prizes they had laid out on the table next to where we were playing (for the loser), and thought I would be going home with those.Top 16 vs Gothitelle/Reuniclus/Reshiram/Zekrom
Game one we both get setup, but he piles a billion Energy on his Gothitelle, and gets damage on both Zekrom and Reshiram, while I have Donphan stuck active with an SEL prized. However, his Gothitelle threatens unlimited damage, and the only thing I can KO it with is Zekrom, which can be revenge killed, and so on. I realize he'll take six prizes first, even though I will be more setup after that happens, so I scoop.
Game two I get a fast Vileplume and he can't set anything up. He scoops as soon as I get out Reuniclus.
Game three he Catcher KOs my only Gloom with his Gothitelle, and I'm locked out of Vileplume for the game. Things are looking grim, but I'm able to get out 2 Reuniclus, a Donphan, Zekrom, and SEL via Twins. I Torrent Blade to KO his first Reuniclus, but he gets out another one the next turn. In order to avoid an Outrage KO from Zekrom, I pass my next turn and don't damage anything. Of course, I re-attach one Rainbow Energy first. He only has 2 Psychic on his Gothitelle, so he's not threatening an OHKO on SEL. The next turn, I re-attach the second Rainbow Energy and get ready to Torrent Blade Reuniclus. I pick up the 2 Rainbow, point at his Reuniclus, and say, loud and clear, "Bursting Inferno." GOD! I think he realized my mistake a second before I did, and when I saw the look on his face I realized it, too. We both knew what I meant since I picked up the Energy and chose my target, but he won't let me take it back. Anyway, he flips tails on the burn damage, putting his Gothitelle at 100. Fortunately for me, he's all out of Double Colorless Energy, so he attaches a Psychic to his Zekrom, swaps all the damage to it, and passes. I, of course, Torrent Blade the Zekrom. From there, I build up Torrent Blade again, KO the Reuniclus, and sweep his Gothitelle from there for the win.
Win.
Top 8 vs Gothitelle/Reuniclus/Reshiram/Zekrom
The details of this match are pretty fuzzy. I remember I get setup quickly Game 1 with SEL attacking, and he can't get enough of a setup to match it. Game two he gets out a Gothitelle before I can Rare Candy into Vileplume, he Catcher KOs my Gloom and a Duosion, and I scoop once he KOs the Reuniclus I finally get out. Game three is much closer. I got the same setup as I did in Game 1, but he gets out a Gothitelle and starts building up the Energy on it. When his attack is doing 110 damage, he stops attaching to it for some reason and starts building up a second Gothitelle instead. After I KO the built-up Gothitelle, it's smooth sailing and I take the win.
Win.
Top 4 vs Reshiram/Typhlosion/Magby
The Magby tech got really annoying in this matchup, since he ran Rescue Energy, too. He tried to slowplay me out of the win, and that got annoying, too. He seemed like a nice guy, though. I was lucky enough not to prize SEL in any of these games. Game one I get fully setup and he promotes Magby. Instead of burning me, he opts to retreat it and promote a Cyndaquil. I Torrent Blade the Magby, and he can't come back from there. After the game, he told me he was hoping to save it until he got a Rescue Energy for it, but had forgotten about Torrent Blade.
Game 2 goes much like Game 1, where we both get very good setups, but this time he uses Magby and gets a Rescue on it.. I flip heads for Burn, then Tails after my turn. He promotes Reshiram, hits me for 120, and I flip... tails
He took his last two prizes off the SEL KO, and I lost right after that flip. I make a really small misplay on the first turn, where I play Tropical Beach when I have too big of a hand to use it (he mulliganed a lot and I used Sage's Training.) Fortunately, he forgets to use it, and it doesn't hurt me at all.Game 3 plays out, yet again, like the first two games. He doesn't get a Rescue on the Magby this time, though. He burns me, I again flip heads, I KO his Magby, and I, again, flip tails. He attacks with Reshiram, and I flip... HEADS! This game literally came down to that flip. Odds were in my favor overall, but it's still a stupid way to end top four. From there, I retreat the SEL to get rid of the burn. I promote Oddish, and stupidly attach a DCE to it. He Outrage KOs it, and I promote SEL again. Attaching the DCE left me with one Energy in my deck/prizes, and only three on SEL. He has a Typhlosion benched. I take the KO on his Reshiram, and draw the last Energy in my prizes for the win. I had about a six card deck, and Juniper in my hand, so there was really only one card out of 7-8 it couldn't have been. Still, though, I felt really lucky to win this round.
Win.
Top 2 vs Donphan/Yanmega
I have to admit I was surprised to see this deck in top two. Game one I get an awful start, but get Cleffa around T3. I use that for Pichu, and combined with the Twins in my hand, I setup and remove all the 30HP basics from my field, putting him at one prize. He's playing really slowly, which gets to me a little. Through the use of Heavy Impact, I manage to get the win with a good amount of time left. There was a scary moment when he Judged away my Blissey and left me no way to get it, but in the end it didn't matter since he couldn't overload the damage.
I get a much better start Game 2, and only give him four prizes before I start Heavy Impacting. I have to discard two of my Phanpy off of Sage's Training, and prize both my Seeker and my Chansey. I draw the Seeker early, fortunately, so it takes him a long time to get a lot of damage on me. I eventually have to bench a Cleffa to "sponge" damage, which he Linear Attacks. At this point, I'm at two prizes to his one. His Yanmega has 40 damage on it from Earthquake, so I can Heavy Impact it for the KO. But, the Chansey ends up being my last prize. He Copycatted into 15 cards, but whiffed the Donphan. He Copycats again for 17, hits it, and Heavy Impacts me. At this point, there's nowhere left to put the damage, and I can only 2-hit Donphan. My only hope is that he can't hit the hand match and an energy. If I lose this game, he'll most likely win on time in game three. I use Professor Oak's New Theory, putting me at six, and then I bench Pichu. He doesn't have the hand match, and ends up accidentally Junipering his hand into the last four cards in his deck. He didn't have any energy left anyway, though.
Win.
Overall Record: 10-3 or 15-7
Conclusion
First off, I just want to say that I'm really glad we have a deck like googlebox in the format. I'm not too big a fan of this format overall, but I do like Reuniclus decks a lot. Setting them up is a major headache, but a player who can do it consistently will do well most of the time. I was seriously struggling to keep my eyes open after round five, because the deck is just that draining to play. I will admit I got some pretty god hands in the first three rounds, but past then I would look at my opening hand and worry I wouldn't get setup with it. It adds a nice level of skill to the format that I don't think was there for Nationals and to a lesser extent Worlds. It's also hard for a lot of decks to play against googlebox; a good googlebox player will really make people using Mew/Bellsprout or Muk techs, Gothitelle, Magneboar, mirror, or Yanmega/Magnezone think pretty hard before they get the win, if they get the win.I have to admit I felt pretty lucky to win this tournament. I didn't play a single Yanmega/Magnezone either of the days. Other than that, I didn't feel particularly lucky on day one, except that I snuck into cut as the wildcard 31st seed. For the first part of top cut, I went 11 games out of 12 without prizing either part of SEL, which was critical to my winning. Top four was decided by a few coin flips. If I hadn't been paired up in round seven, I probably wouldn't even have made top cut. Still though, a win is a win. I suppose in a triangle format with a lot of baby flips, it's hard to win a tournament without a notable amount of luck.
This was my second Regionals win. It really felt sort of surreal to win a major tournament twice. I'm pretty sure only two other people have won two Regionals, and only one of them has won consecutive ones like I did. Of course, I didn't play in two Regionals during my time off, but they were still consecutive for me. And I guess having one of the wins be in Seniors takes a little away from it as well, but I'm also probably one of the youngest Masters winners, if not the youngest. Either way, this sets me apart from a large part of the player base. Of course, I'm still no Ness or Pooka, and I probably won't ever be. I have to admit winning was a lot less exciting the second time around, but I was still really excited. I think the game also meant a lot more to me the last time I won than it does now, which was probably the main reason I wasn't as exited. Even so, I might have been more excited than a lot of people are after they win States/Regionals.
This is also easily the biggest tournament I've ever won. We had well over 200 Masters there, if I remember correctly. The last Regionals I won had somewhere between 50 and 80 Seniors. It's also pretty cool because they modified how Regionals work, so I'm one of six people to have ever won a Fall Regionals.
Thanks for reading, and please post any comments or questions you have!
Celebi23 to be Interviewed by Beyond the Game
First Ever Beyond the Game Interview
That's right my card game playing friends! Beyond the Game is hosting an interview and QA session with one of our very own players, [mod]Celebi23[/mod]. Along with being a fantastic moderator on Pokebeach, [mod]Celebi23[/mod] recently won a Regionals in the Masters Division! Here is YOUR chance to get some insight from an amazing player. Because Zero is not cool enough to come up with good questions to ask, if you have any questions for Celebi23 that you want to ask, post them here. Your question might just be asked during the live interview podcast.
That's right! The podcast will be recorded live! We will Stream it on Friday the 25th of November between 4:30 PM to 5:30PM PST. That is 7:30 to 8:30 on EST. If you want to participate, please join our chat from these times. Zero may or may not take some participants from the Chatroom for some fun activities dealing with the podcast. There will be a pre-show starting at 3:30 PM PST (6:30 PM EST) that will go until the podcast starts. This preshow will have song, and possible prizes for being able to do certain things.
Once again, if you have any awesome questions for Celebi23 (or possibly for [mod]Zero[/mod]), ask them here. Good questions will be credited and may receive prizes for stand-out questions. Can't wait to see you all then!
