After a silly tournament on Friday, with random rules being introduced (the first of which was that you had to call Water and Steel Pokémon Squirtle, Fire and Fighting Pokémon Charmander, Psychic and Grass Pokémon Bulbasaur, Electric and Dark Pokémon Pikachu and Normal Pokémon Eevee, or else a damage counter was placed on that Pokémon; like I said, Silly), I had taken The Thunderdome to a 4-0 win. And I didn’t want to play it today, for Cities.
I don’t know why; I supposed that I didn’t feel comfortable playing the deck after doing well with it, fearing that I’d do karmically horrible, or maybe even that I just didn’t want to play a deck that painted a target on my head, especially since I knew so many people were travelling in for the City Championship, many of them likely to be playing the Thunderdome themselves or teching their decks to counter it. So, I needed something else to play.
The Answer came to me at around 3am (not really the best time to build decks for tournaments, but it can’t be helped); I was going to play Lanturn Prime. It was fast, had no real autolosses and soundly beat Reshiphlosion or Donphan due to type advantage, has no damage cap which means it can beat Gothitelle and The Truth and finally, is just a Stage 1 (along with having arguably more synergy with Eelektrik than Magnezone).
Here is the list I threw together, before falling asleep for the night:
Pokémon 19
4 Lanturn Prime
4 Chinchou
3 Eelektrik
2 Tynamo #39 (Free Retreat)
1 Tynamo #38 (40hp)
2 Zekrom
1 Tornadus
1 Cleffa
1 Shaymin
TSS 27
4 Pokémon Collector
4 Proffessor Oak’s New Theory
2 Proffessor Juniper
2 N
4 Junk Arm
3 Pokémon Communication
3 Pokémon Catcher
2 Switch
1 Super Rod
1 Lost Remover
1 Pokegear 3.0
Energy 14
4 Double Colourless Energy
10 Lightning
The next morning, I arrived at the hall feeling incredibly nervous. Lots of people had turned up, around about 50 people all up, 30 of which were competing in Masters. I wasn’t as confident in my choice of deck as I had been at 3am the night before. A cursory glance around the room revealed that a lot of people were playing The Thunderdome, and I made a quick change to my list, swapping the Pokegear for a Tyrogue (hoping to get some cheap wins off of the 30hp Tynamos that I was sure abounded, or off of Cleffas and things). I regretted that decision more and more throughout the day.
Anyway, Pairings were announced and I was off to play my first match
Round 1 – Jacob with Durant
Despite losing the coin flip, I start off strong and take my first prize straight out of the gates, using a T2 Lanturn with DCE. From that point on, Lanturn continues to steam roll through Jacob’s field, as I just keep putting more and more energy onto my board. I take six prizes in short order.
We go to Game two, and Jacob leads with Cobalion, taking two prizes off of my Cleffa and Tornadus, in exchange for me damaging his Cobalion and then finishing the job with Lanturn. After that, the game unfolds much the same as Game one, with Lanturn steamrolling through any and all Ants in its way.
1 – 0
Round 2 – Mat with Reshiphlosion
I lose a second coin flip, and open atrociously; Chinchou, DCE, DCE, DCE, Zekrom, Lightning, Lightning. I top deck a Lightning.
Yeah.
Despite this atrocious start, I play it out, and I manage to draw into my last DCE next turn, and then a Proffessor Juniper after that. Discarding three DCEs hurts, but it’s all I’ve got, and I managed to claw my way back into the game off my new 7 cards. But Mat’s start is just too good, and he soon has three Typhlosions, a Kingdra and too many Reshirams to handle. It comes to the point where I’m unable to evolve my stranded Tynamo, and nothing I can do will prevent Mat from Spray Splashing it to death next turn, so I scoop up my cards.
Next Game, I start decently, and Lanturn and Zekrom did their jobs well. Using Catchers to deny Mat his energy attachments, I took three Prizes quickly, and left Mat without an Attacker, although he had two Typhlosions. He realised that there was nothing he could do to come back, and scooped to conserve time.
The final Round is tense, and we’re one of the few matches still playing. We set up at around the same speed, and do some weird Cleffa shenanigans. I use Tyrogue to KO his Cleffa, but I don’t stay asleep, and he takes the Revenge KO with Outrage as Time is called. I reply with a KO of my own, which he in turns returns, leaving both of us completely out of steam. I solidify my field as best I can, and then Catcher up a Typhlosion with no energy, and end. We call over the Judge to see who wins, as both of us have taken two prizes and each won a game. Corfield, our TO and Judge for this Cities, rules that whoever takes the next prize wins, so Mat charges up his Typhlosion and Flare Destroys my Lanturn for 70. I can’t draw into any Energy, a Supporter or a Switch, despite my best efforts, and I concede the game.
1 – 1
Lunch is called, and I banter a bit with people and eat a little bit of food. I’m not feeling too good about taking a second round loss, but it can’t be helped. I wander over when the pairings are up, and get ready for the third round.
Round 3 – Sameer with Chandelock
Sam and I are good friends, and we banter a bit about Chandelure decks in general while we shuffle (we both know what the other is playing). I lose a third coin flip, and open with Tynamo #39…and nothing else in my hand. Sam plays down a Litwick Promo and Collectors for two Oddish and a second Litwick, benching the Litwick and one Oddish. He then passes to me.
After drawing, and see a hand full of nothing but Energy, I sigh and Catcher up the benched Oddish and use Tynamo’s Tackle attack to do 10 damage to it. I’d just saved myself there, because Sam is unable to get the Energy or the Switch he needs to donk me with the Rare Candy+Chandelure he’d been holding. After that, I manage to recover off of a fortuitous Juniper, and soon enough I have Lanturns up and swinging, and two Eelektrik’s on my bench. Sam prized one of his Doduos, something he learnt after he’d discarded one with Sage’s Training, and that puts him in a horrible position. Without Free Retreat, he really struggles to stop me as I put so much Energy onto my field with Dynamotors and manual Attachments. Once Powerful Spark starts to hit for 130 damage, Chandelure can no longer stay in play, and Sam can’t replace them fast enough.
Game two has me opening with a hand full of DCEs once more, but this time I have the resources to put them to work. With a Turn 2 Lanturn quickly hitting for more and more damage each turn, and Catchers allowing me to delay Vileplume for quite a while, I manage to take the prize lead before time is called. Sam is stuck, because he already KO’d the free Prizes (Tyrogue and Cleffa) on my board, and he had discarded his Jirachi, leaving him without a way of decisively winning. He uses a DCE to take a prize of my active Lanturn with his teched Bouffalant, but I respond immediately with a second Lanturn. On the second turn of time, he looks at his cards and says that he has no way of winning. I have the Energy to put the damage up to 130 again next turn, and I take my 4th Prize.
2 – 1
Round 4 – Julie with the Thunderdome
The first round is heavily in my favour, despite me losing the 4th coin flip of the day, and I use my early game momentum to catcher up and KO Julie’s Tynamos. I have a decent prize lead when Julie is finally able to get back into the game, taking KOs with Magnezone. I do my best to plan it all out, and make sure that I don’t stuff up against the pair of Magnezones, and while searching through my Deck, Julie asks me to speed up the pace of play. I apologise, and we continue.
We trade prizes for a while, until I’m at my last prize and she has two left, and I watch in despair as my Lanturn is catchered up and KO’d. Desperately, I promote Eelektrik, and use its attack Electric Ball to do 50 Damage to the active Magnezone, hoping that she has no way of pulling up my benched Zekrom and knocking it out next turn. Thankfully, she didn’t, and I was able to Bolt Strike for my last prize the next turn.
The second Game is horrible, and I start with two Lightning Energy, two Double Colourless, two Lanturn and a Tyrogue. She gets the T1 Charge off of Thundurus, and I draw a Super Rod. I Mischievous Punch, and manage to stay asleep for 5 Turns. I don’t draw anything that can get me out of this situation that entire time, and eventually Tyrogue wakes up coming into her turn, and she Disaster Volts to knock out my lone Baby.
The final game only has a few minutes left on the clock, but with a little bit of Early Aggression, I tie prizes on the last
turn of time, and Corfield once again rules that the next prize determines the winner. Julie has no energy on the board, and none of her Pokémon can survive a Powerful Spark, so she concedes the game after drawing as far through her deck as she can, hoping to find an out to an bad situation.
3 – 1
Round 5 – Will with The Truth
Wouldn’t you know it; I lose the coin flip again, and Will gets to go first. I don’t run so well, and with Will getting the T2 Vileplume, there isn’t much I can do to recover. I play it out, but too Many Donphans on his part and not enough set up on mine stop me from being able to take more than three prizes. He uses his last Donphan to close up the game.
Game two has me in a much better position, and I use Tornadus to take my first prize, leaving me with the upper hand. He doesn’t get the Vileplume out straight away this time, so I get another prize by using Catcher, and Burn two of his DCEs with my Lost Remover and a Junk Arm. He has to sacrifice a Zekrom to take down my Tornadus, but by then my Lanturn’s are ready to sweep over his field. Three Prizes down, Will makes the call to scoop up and go to Game 3. By now, I’m shivering with nerves, and have to put my hands on the table to stop them jittering.
Luckily, this game I get both a decent start and Will doesn’t get everything he needs. He gets the Vileplume up fairly early, but with some Catcher usage, I KO a Gloom and a Cobalion, and with Time being called on his turn, Will looks at his board, empty of Energy, and mine, with enough Energy for my Lanturns to hit for 140 with Powerful Spark, he concedes, knowning there is no way he can win.
4 – 1
There are four players with a 4 – 1 Record, and a single Player who went 5 – 0. Because we’re only going into a Top 4 playoff, I am petrified that my round two loss will keep me out of the cut, especially when I realise that one of my wins only went 1 – 4. However, the other three I played all went 3 – 2, and Mat went 4 – 1 as well, so I made my way into the Cut by the skin of my teeth (there was a miniscule 1.4% difference in tiebreakers between me and the player who came in 5th place). A bathroom break later, and I sat down for the semi-finals.
Top 4 – Blaine with Durant.
Blaine was the only one undefeated at this tournament, and like me, he’d built his deck the night before. Seems like a fairly good policy based on these results, but it really, really isn’t.
I’m quite relaxed now, confident that I can beat Durant here. Another failure at coin flips, and Blaine gets a Collector and Devours for 4 on the first turn. Overconfidence makes a fool of me, and I make a misplay almost immediately, returning the wrong Pokémon for a Communication, and I’m forced to Cleffa into a new hand after using my Lost Remover to knock off a Special Metal. Blaine plays out his turn, and Devours for 4 again. Cleffa stays asleep going into my turn, and my hand isn’t looking very good at this point. I attach a DCE to my Lanturn, catcher a Durant on his bench, and Eeeek again. Thankfully, Cleffa wakes up immediately.
Blaine still has the Energy, and I’m forced to eat another Devour for 4. After that though, I’m finally able to start rolling, albeit with a rather large chunk of my deck in the discard pile. I charge Lanturn, send it up and attack for my first prize. Over the next four turns, I take another four prizes and N myself down to two cards, putting seven in my deck. With the card I got from my prizes that turn, I’m confident that I’ll be able to knock out one last Pokémon and take Game 1, and after that I’m in the clear.
But Blaine grins a little when he realises that I have 10 cards in total between deck and hand, and plays a Revive to put a third Durant in play, attaching an Energy to the active. He then Super Rods his Spiritomb TM and two Metal Energy back into his deck, and plays Juniper. I know that if he gets both the Spiritomb and another Revive, it’s over for me, and I’m terrified. Blaine slowly draws each card, and then tells me that it’s not my lucky day. He drops a Spiritomb and Junk Arms for a Revive, decking me out.
I hurriedly ask Corfield how much time we have left, and he tells me that there is 8 minutes left in the round. I have to take four prizes in that time for me to force a Sudden Death, which is almost impossible for me to lose.
I open with exactly what I needed, getting a DCE, Lightning, Lanturn, Chinchou, Collector and Three PONTs, and I Collector for three of my four Pokémon with Free Retreat (Two Tynamos and a Cleffa). I then Ram for 10 damage against Blaine’s active Durant. He jokes that Spiritomb has served him well so far, and Spooky Whirlpools my hand away before Devouring for 4. Luckily for me, I top into another Lanturn and a Eelektrik, and I N myself into the DCE I needed. I quickly Dynamotor some energy onto Eelektrik and attach the DCE and take the first prize. Blaine plays out his turn, and gets another Devour off, along with a Lost Remover to take out my DCE. I frantically try to think of a solution, and manage to keep myself in this by searching for Shaymin and Celebration Winding Energy onto Lanturn, Powerful Sparking for my second prize mere seconds before time is called.
We’ve got quite a crowd watching us at this point, and someone notes that I can almost certainly take two prizes in the two turns I have left. Blaine is out of energy, so he benches a Rotom and Mischevious Tricks something onto the top of his deck, blind. I draw, solidify my board with as much Energy as I can, and Powerful Spark for another prize.
Blaine draws his card, promoting Spiritomb. He randomly picks a prize card, tricks it onto his deck, and then plays the Collector he drew this turn to see what it was. It was the one card he needed.
He grabs that Cobalion, attaches a Metal to Spiritomb and retreats into it, and I have to find a way of either doing 120 Damage to the active, or finding one of the two Catchers in my deck (the third being prized).
I look at the field in disbelief; twice now, Blaine has ripped exactly what he needed to pry the game out of my fingertips, and unless I can rip exactly what I needed, I would be out of the Tournament. I play down my hand as far as it can go (which, in retrospect, I think was a mistake) and PONT for a new six cards. I pick them up one by one, and I don’t get the Catcher. I don’t even get a way of discarding the Lightning energy I picked up to reuse with Dynamotor. In vain, I play down a DCE and Powerful Spark for 110 damage.
That said, I got to the Top 4 despite their being a lot of very tough competition, with a Deck that I’d built in the wee hours of the morning, and came so close to going even further. Blaine said it best that it wasn’t my lucky day, but even when I lost every coin flip and opened with hands of nothing but energy again and again, I managed to get as far as I did, and I’m pretty happy with that.
PROPS:
-Everyone who travelled to Canberra to compete, making today the great day that it was.
-Midboss, for lending me two Catchers for today.
-Pulling well from my Prizes, and getting a new set of Celebi sleeves in the bargain.
-Lanturn for being awesome
-Lost Remover, even though it was completely useless in four of the six games I played, allowing me to play the Energy denial game.
SLOPS:
-40 Minute, best of three, rounds. In the Swiss rounds, this was hard enough, especially for any deck that isn’t designed to take Prizes straight out of the gate. This being said, it was even worse that the time limit wasn’t extended for the Top Cut, and it definitely cost me the game two against Blaine. Even if it had been 45 Minute rounds, it wouldn’t have been so harsh…
I don’t know why; I supposed that I didn’t feel comfortable playing the deck after doing well with it, fearing that I’d do karmically horrible, or maybe even that I just didn’t want to play a deck that painted a target on my head, especially since I knew so many people were travelling in for the City Championship, many of them likely to be playing the Thunderdome themselves or teching their decks to counter it. So, I needed something else to play.
The Answer came to me at around 3am (not really the best time to build decks for tournaments, but it can’t be helped); I was going to play Lanturn Prime. It was fast, had no real autolosses and soundly beat Reshiphlosion or Donphan due to type advantage, has no damage cap which means it can beat Gothitelle and The Truth and finally, is just a Stage 1 (along with having arguably more synergy with Eelektrik than Magnezone).
Here is the list I threw together, before falling asleep for the night:
Pokémon 19
4 Lanturn Prime
4 Chinchou
3 Eelektrik
2 Tynamo #39 (Free Retreat)
1 Tynamo #38 (40hp)
2 Zekrom
1 Tornadus
1 Cleffa
1 Shaymin
TSS 27
4 Pokémon Collector
4 Proffessor Oak’s New Theory
2 Proffessor Juniper
2 N
4 Junk Arm
3 Pokémon Communication
3 Pokémon Catcher
2 Switch
1 Super Rod
1 Lost Remover
1 Pokegear 3.0
Energy 14
4 Double Colourless Energy
10 Lightning
The next morning, I arrived at the hall feeling incredibly nervous. Lots of people had turned up, around about 50 people all up, 30 of which were competing in Masters. I wasn’t as confident in my choice of deck as I had been at 3am the night before. A cursory glance around the room revealed that a lot of people were playing The Thunderdome, and I made a quick change to my list, swapping the Pokegear for a Tyrogue (hoping to get some cheap wins off of the 30hp Tynamos that I was sure abounded, or off of Cleffas and things). I regretted that decision more and more throughout the day.
Anyway, Pairings were announced and I was off to play my first match
Round 1 – Jacob with Durant
Despite losing the coin flip, I start off strong and take my first prize straight out of the gates, using a T2 Lanturn with DCE. From that point on, Lanturn continues to steam roll through Jacob’s field, as I just keep putting more and more energy onto my board. I take six prizes in short order.
We go to Game two, and Jacob leads with Cobalion, taking two prizes off of my Cleffa and Tornadus, in exchange for me damaging his Cobalion and then finishing the job with Lanturn. After that, the game unfolds much the same as Game one, with Lanturn steamrolling through any and all Ants in its way.
1 – 0
Round 2 – Mat with Reshiphlosion
I lose a second coin flip, and open atrociously; Chinchou, DCE, DCE, DCE, Zekrom, Lightning, Lightning. I top deck a Lightning.
Yeah.
Despite this atrocious start, I play it out, and I manage to draw into my last DCE next turn, and then a Proffessor Juniper after that. Discarding three DCEs hurts, but it’s all I’ve got, and I managed to claw my way back into the game off my new 7 cards. But Mat’s start is just too good, and he soon has three Typhlosions, a Kingdra and too many Reshirams to handle. It comes to the point where I’m unable to evolve my stranded Tynamo, and nothing I can do will prevent Mat from Spray Splashing it to death next turn, so I scoop up my cards.
Next Game, I start decently, and Lanturn and Zekrom did their jobs well. Using Catchers to deny Mat his energy attachments, I took three Prizes quickly, and left Mat without an Attacker, although he had two Typhlosions. He realised that there was nothing he could do to come back, and scooped to conserve time.
The final Round is tense, and we’re one of the few matches still playing. We set up at around the same speed, and do some weird Cleffa shenanigans. I use Tyrogue to KO his Cleffa, but I don’t stay asleep, and he takes the Revenge KO with Outrage as Time is called. I reply with a KO of my own, which he in turns returns, leaving both of us completely out of steam. I solidify my field as best I can, and then Catcher up a Typhlosion with no energy, and end. We call over the Judge to see who wins, as both of us have taken two prizes and each won a game. Corfield, our TO and Judge for this Cities, rules that whoever takes the next prize wins, so Mat charges up his Typhlosion and Flare Destroys my Lanturn for 70. I can’t draw into any Energy, a Supporter or a Switch, despite my best efforts, and I concede the game.
1 – 1
Lunch is called, and I banter a bit with people and eat a little bit of food. I’m not feeling too good about taking a second round loss, but it can’t be helped. I wander over when the pairings are up, and get ready for the third round.
Round 3 – Sameer with Chandelock
Sam and I are good friends, and we banter a bit about Chandelure decks in general while we shuffle (we both know what the other is playing). I lose a third coin flip, and open with Tynamo #39…and nothing else in my hand. Sam plays down a Litwick Promo and Collectors for two Oddish and a second Litwick, benching the Litwick and one Oddish. He then passes to me.
After drawing, and see a hand full of nothing but Energy, I sigh and Catcher up the benched Oddish and use Tynamo’s Tackle attack to do 10 damage to it. I’d just saved myself there, because Sam is unable to get the Energy or the Switch he needs to donk me with the Rare Candy+Chandelure he’d been holding. After that, I manage to recover off of a fortuitous Juniper, and soon enough I have Lanturns up and swinging, and two Eelektrik’s on my bench. Sam prized one of his Doduos, something he learnt after he’d discarded one with Sage’s Training, and that puts him in a horrible position. Without Free Retreat, he really struggles to stop me as I put so much Energy onto my field with Dynamotors and manual Attachments. Once Powerful Spark starts to hit for 130 damage, Chandelure can no longer stay in play, and Sam can’t replace them fast enough.
Game two has me opening with a hand full of DCEs once more, but this time I have the resources to put them to work. With a Turn 2 Lanturn quickly hitting for more and more damage each turn, and Catchers allowing me to delay Vileplume for quite a while, I manage to take the prize lead before time is called. Sam is stuck, because he already KO’d the free Prizes (Tyrogue and Cleffa) on my board, and he had discarded his Jirachi, leaving him without a way of decisively winning. He uses a DCE to take a prize of my active Lanturn with his teched Bouffalant, but I respond immediately with a second Lanturn. On the second turn of time, he looks at his cards and says that he has no way of winning. I have the Energy to put the damage up to 130 again next turn, and I take my 4th Prize.
2 – 1
Round 4 – Julie with the Thunderdome
The first round is heavily in my favour, despite me losing the 4th coin flip of the day, and I use my early game momentum to catcher up and KO Julie’s Tynamos. I have a decent prize lead when Julie is finally able to get back into the game, taking KOs with Magnezone. I do my best to plan it all out, and make sure that I don’t stuff up against the pair of Magnezones, and while searching through my Deck, Julie asks me to speed up the pace of play. I apologise, and we continue.
We trade prizes for a while, until I’m at my last prize and she has two left, and I watch in despair as my Lanturn is catchered up and KO’d. Desperately, I promote Eelektrik, and use its attack Electric Ball to do 50 Damage to the active Magnezone, hoping that she has no way of pulling up my benched Zekrom and knocking it out next turn. Thankfully, she didn’t, and I was able to Bolt Strike for my last prize the next turn.
The second Game is horrible, and I start with two Lightning Energy, two Double Colourless, two Lanturn and a Tyrogue. She gets the T1 Charge off of Thundurus, and I draw a Super Rod. I Mischievous Punch, and manage to stay asleep for 5 Turns. I don’t draw anything that can get me out of this situation that entire time, and eventually Tyrogue wakes up coming into her turn, and she Disaster Volts to knock out my lone Baby.
The final game only has a few minutes left on the clock, but with a little bit of Early Aggression, I tie prizes on the last
turn of time, and Corfield once again rules that the next prize determines the winner. Julie has no energy on the board, and none of her Pokémon can survive a Powerful Spark, so she concedes the game after drawing as far through her deck as she can, hoping to find an out to an bad situation.
3 – 1
Round 5 – Will with The Truth
Wouldn’t you know it; I lose the coin flip again, and Will gets to go first. I don’t run so well, and with Will getting the T2 Vileplume, there isn’t much I can do to recover. I play it out, but too Many Donphans on his part and not enough set up on mine stop me from being able to take more than three prizes. He uses his last Donphan to close up the game.
Game two has me in a much better position, and I use Tornadus to take my first prize, leaving me with the upper hand. He doesn’t get the Vileplume out straight away this time, so I get another prize by using Catcher, and Burn two of his DCEs with my Lost Remover and a Junk Arm. He has to sacrifice a Zekrom to take down my Tornadus, but by then my Lanturn’s are ready to sweep over his field. Three Prizes down, Will makes the call to scoop up and go to Game 3. By now, I’m shivering with nerves, and have to put my hands on the table to stop them jittering.
Luckily, this game I get both a decent start and Will doesn’t get everything he needs. He gets the Vileplume up fairly early, but with some Catcher usage, I KO a Gloom and a Cobalion, and with Time being called on his turn, Will looks at his board, empty of Energy, and mine, with enough Energy for my Lanturns to hit for 140 with Powerful Spark, he concedes, knowning there is no way he can win.
4 – 1
There are four players with a 4 – 1 Record, and a single Player who went 5 – 0. Because we’re only going into a Top 4 playoff, I am petrified that my round two loss will keep me out of the cut, especially when I realise that one of my wins only went 1 – 4. However, the other three I played all went 3 – 2, and Mat went 4 – 1 as well, so I made my way into the Cut by the skin of my teeth (there was a miniscule 1.4% difference in tiebreakers between me and the player who came in 5th place). A bathroom break later, and I sat down for the semi-finals.
Top 4 – Blaine with Durant.
Blaine was the only one undefeated at this tournament, and like me, he’d built his deck the night before. Seems like a fairly good policy based on these results, but it really, really isn’t.
I’m quite relaxed now, confident that I can beat Durant here. Another failure at coin flips, and Blaine gets a Collector and Devours for 4 on the first turn. Overconfidence makes a fool of me, and I make a misplay almost immediately, returning the wrong Pokémon for a Communication, and I’m forced to Cleffa into a new hand after using my Lost Remover to knock off a Special Metal. Blaine plays out his turn, and Devours for 4 again. Cleffa stays asleep going into my turn, and my hand isn’t looking very good at this point. I attach a DCE to my Lanturn, catcher a Durant on his bench, and Eeeek again. Thankfully, Cleffa wakes up immediately.
Blaine still has the Energy, and I’m forced to eat another Devour for 4. After that though, I’m finally able to start rolling, albeit with a rather large chunk of my deck in the discard pile. I charge Lanturn, send it up and attack for my first prize. Over the next four turns, I take another four prizes and N myself down to two cards, putting seven in my deck. With the card I got from my prizes that turn, I’m confident that I’ll be able to knock out one last Pokémon and take Game 1, and after that I’m in the clear.
But Blaine grins a little when he realises that I have 10 cards in total between deck and hand, and plays a Revive to put a third Durant in play, attaching an Energy to the active. He then Super Rods his Spiritomb TM and two Metal Energy back into his deck, and plays Juniper. I know that if he gets both the Spiritomb and another Revive, it’s over for me, and I’m terrified. Blaine slowly draws each card, and then tells me that it’s not my lucky day. He drops a Spiritomb and Junk Arms for a Revive, decking me out.
I hurriedly ask Corfield how much time we have left, and he tells me that there is 8 minutes left in the round. I have to take four prizes in that time for me to force a Sudden Death, which is almost impossible for me to lose.
I open with exactly what I needed, getting a DCE, Lightning, Lanturn, Chinchou, Collector and Three PONTs, and I Collector for three of my four Pokémon with Free Retreat (Two Tynamos and a Cleffa). I then Ram for 10 damage against Blaine’s active Durant. He jokes that Spiritomb has served him well so far, and Spooky Whirlpools my hand away before Devouring for 4. Luckily for me, I top into another Lanturn and a Eelektrik, and I N myself into the DCE I needed. I quickly Dynamotor some energy onto Eelektrik and attach the DCE and take the first prize. Blaine plays out his turn, and gets another Devour off, along with a Lost Remover to take out my DCE. I frantically try to think of a solution, and manage to keep myself in this by searching for Shaymin and Celebration Winding Energy onto Lanturn, Powerful Sparking for my second prize mere seconds before time is called.
We’ve got quite a crowd watching us at this point, and someone notes that I can almost certainly take two prizes in the two turns I have left. Blaine is out of energy, so he benches a Rotom and Mischevious Tricks something onto the top of his deck, blind. I draw, solidify my board with as much Energy as I can, and Powerful Spark for another prize.
Blaine draws his card, promoting Spiritomb. He randomly picks a prize card, tricks it onto his deck, and then plays the Collector he drew this turn to see what it was. It was the one card he needed.
He grabs that Cobalion, attaches a Metal to Spiritomb and retreats into it, and I have to find a way of either doing 120 Damage to the active, or finding one of the two Catchers in my deck (the third being prized).
I look at the field in disbelief; twice now, Blaine has ripped exactly what he needed to pry the game out of my fingertips, and unless I can rip exactly what I needed, I would be out of the Tournament. I play down my hand as far as it can go (which, in retrospect, I think was a mistake) and PONT for a new six cards. I pick them up one by one, and I don’t get the Catcher. I don’t even get a way of discarding the Lightning energy I picked up to reuse with Dynamotor. In vain, I play down a DCE and Powerful Spark for 110 damage.
That said, I got to the Top 4 despite their being a lot of very tough competition, with a Deck that I’d built in the wee hours of the morning, and came so close to going even further. Blaine said it best that it wasn’t my lucky day, but even when I lost every coin flip and opened with hands of nothing but energy again and again, I managed to get as far as I did, and I’m pretty happy with that.
PROPS:
-Everyone who travelled to Canberra to compete, making today the great day that it was.
-Midboss, for lending me two Catchers for today.
-Pulling well from my Prizes, and getting a new set of Celebi sleeves in the bargain.
-Lanturn for being awesome
-Lost Remover, even though it was completely useless in four of the six games I played, allowing me to play the Energy denial game.
SLOPS:
-40 Minute, best of three, rounds. In the Swiss rounds, this was hard enough, especially for any deck that isn’t designed to take Prizes straight out of the gate. This being said, it was even worse that the time limit wasn’t extended for the Top Cut, and it definitely cost me the game two against Blaine. Even if it had been 45 Minute rounds, it wouldn’t have been so harsh…
