One Hit KO

Hey all you OHKOers out there, this is Pikkdogs here with an article to finish up my nationals report.  I will give you the rest of the report, then will share my decklist, and finally I will give you some thoughts and musings about the tournament and the format. 

Day 2 Tournament Report

So, the last time we left our hero, he finished Day 1 with a 4-2 record, and knew that he needed to win out or go 2-1 and get a lot of help in order to make top cut.

Team Omar wakes up a little later than the previous day, and we try to scarf down some waffles and biscuits and gravy before we head downtown.  We get into the play area at about 8:35 and people are already about to being their match even though play was not scheduled till 9.  So I go and introduce myself to my opponent who says, “Darn I thought you weren’t gonna show.”  This guy actually turns out to be a little of an annoyance to me, I don’t know him, but he didn’t seem all that nice.  Classy Freddy Blassie might call him a “Pencil Neck Geek.”

Round 7-Magneboar

He starts Tepig and I am unsure what he is playing, so I collector for both Phanpys and Oshawotts.  I finally see a Magnemite and figure that I should work with Donphan.  I have a little trouble setting up and have some bad draws, but am able to exchange a couple prizes.  I have particular trouble getting the right kind of energies, the DCE’s kept on sticking together.  Just when I get into the driver seat, he Communications for Bottom Half of RDL.  So next turn I Dual Ball for a Bouffalant, except its not there.  Next turn he plays down RDL, gets it charged up, and knocks out a Donphan.  I had drawn the Boufallant from my prizes last turn, but because of my DCE trouble I could not power it up in one turn, so I scoop.

4-3:  Really mad because I lose to a guy who’s not really nice and kind of rubbed it in later. I know I have to win out and have a lot of luck.

Round 8- Maybe Yanmega/Magnezone.

I can’t remember this round too much, but I think I played a Yanmega Magnezone.  I’m pretty sure that I had a good start and my opponent did  not. I relied on Donphan with Ruins of Alph to run through whatever was sent up.  Sorry for not knowing too much about this game, but I don’t think my opponent got going until the end.

5-3:  I still have hope.  I know I need to win and say a lot of prayers to have a shot.  I was more excited that I guaranteed myself a winning record.

Round 9- Donphan/Machamp

This game was against a guy who I was sitting by when I played the pencil neck geek.  He was  a really nice guy, big shout out to 99% of all my opponents, you guys were amazingly nice.  I have never played this matchup before, but I know that whoever gets the first stage 2 will probably win.  I know I can’t stand up too well to Machamp, and he cannot stand up to Samurott.  I fortunately start with Oshawott, Rare Candy, and Elms.  I then get a DCE and a fighting too seal the game.  I knock out about 3 Donphans right away.  By the time he gets a Machamp up, it is too late.  He does discard 2 DCE’s, but by this time it does not matter.

6-3:  So I still have a shot.  I am happy about my record, but am very nervous about making top cut.  The standings come up about 20 minutes later and I end up #71, when I needed to be #64 or better.  So I miss top cut by the tie breakers.  I was really made because I lost on tie breakers in the last two tournaments I went to (Mi and In states).  It sucks finishing on a high note, but not getting a chance to prove yourself, but that’s how the cookie crumbles, it might not be the most fair system, but its the best we have.  I just gotta practice and be ready for next year. 

Modified Side Tournament

After the main event went to top cut, there was a modified side tournament that me and Team Omar joined (minus Louis who lost in the first round of top cut thanks to a deck list error).  The tournament started with 300+ people and ended with about 80.  This was thanks to a lot of waiting time for the first 3 rounds (about an average of an hour each after time).  They also had an hour and 20 minute lunch, where me and Ed went to the mall for some Chinese food.  It was also nice to go somewhere to see some females, no offense to people at nats, but looking at a bunch of fat kids like myself gets a little boring.   When we came back to the tournament, I ended up getting 4-2 (of course I had enough wins to receive some packs but tie breakers stopped me)  but I met a bunch of cool new people and got some more for my money.  I ended up winning against Reshiphlosion, 2 Magneboars, and  Yanmega/Magnezone (I think).  I lost to a Reshiphlosion and Kingdra/Mandibuzz.  Omar ended up getting two packs of Black and White, he pulled the best rares, Unfeazant and Stoutland (okay, maybe the worst rares ever).

So that’s all for my tournament.  Big thanks again to all my opponents and everyone who I talked to.  I enjoyed meeting you all, I could finally put faces to names with a lot of people.  I was surprised by how many people stopped us and told us how they liked the site and what it has done for them, so we thank all of you.  I started writing to help new people, and I guess I accomplished that goal.  So thanks to everyone, I had a great time talking to all of you.

My Decklist

I call my deck The Natural Disasters because of the early 1990’s WWF tag team.  I chose that name because I hate SamPhan, and I love early 90’s wrestling.  The Natural Disasters consisted of Earthquake and Typhoon, each of whom weighed a little over 400 pounds.   They were THE heavy weight tag team, and Samurott and Donphan are kind of monsters in the Pokemon world (I know they aren’t the biggest, but they are above average anyway).

Here is the list I played

Pokemon-18  

• 3-Oshawott Promo
• 2-Dewott (with 90 HP)
• 3-Samurott with ability-Great for covering Donphan’s weakness, and attacking fire Pokemon like Reshiram.
• 4-Phanpy-I like the CL one better but the HGSS isn’t a bad choice.
• 4-Donphan Prime- a 4-4 line is a must
• 1-Manaphy- you can run Cleffa, if you wanna get donked and kill your own Pokemon with “Earthquake.”
• 1-Boufallant- a must for the RDL matchup

Trainers-31

• 4-Collector
• 4-Juniper- The best drawing card out there.
• 3-PONT
• 3-ELMS
• 4-Communication
• 2-Junk Arm
• 2- Switch
• 3-Plus Power
• 1-Ruins of Alph- An amazing card that takes down Yanmega’s.  If i did not have this card I would have gone 4-5.
• 1-Dual Ball
• 1-Energy Retrieval
• 3-Rare Candy

Energy-11

• Fighting-7
• DCE-4

There is what I played at Nats.  Its not everyone’s playstyle, but it does fit me like a glove.    Its a great counter to the format, and does not have a lot of bad matchups.  The idea is to exploit a weakness.  If your opponent is playing something weak to fighting, play Donphan, but you should play Samurott if they play something weak to water.  Its  a straight forward matchup that you just setup and go to work.  To look at the list a little more, lets look at the plus and minus’s about this deck.

Plus

1. Magnezone– Magnezone is no problem.  It will take him 4 energies to OHKO Donphan, and you can do it for 1 and a plus power.  Against Magnezone, your opponent will be painted into a corner 9 times out of 10.  This matchup is an auto-win.
2. Reshiram– As long as you don’t see Typhlosion, Reshiram gets OHKOed by Samurott.  It also cannot be OHKOed by Reshiram.
3. Consistency– This deck setups up fairly quickly 90% of the time.  It takes you getting really unlucky for an easy loss.
4. Donphan– Samurott can easily OHKO Samurott, while Donphan can stall against another Donphan.

Minus

1. Typhlosion– I recently found out that this Pokemom gives this deck fits.  The energy attachments and drawing combined with discarding the opponent’s energy, makes this deck hard to beat.  You need to get setup on turn 2, or else they have won.
2. Multiple Personality Disorder– Donphan and Samurott have no synergy so sometimes you get half the stuff for Samurott and half the stuff for Donphan.  It can be hard to reconcile the two decks at some points.  Not very often, but it does happen.
3. Lost Remover and Pokemon Reversal– This deck does not like these cards.  The deck cannot afford to lose the DCE attached to Samurott, or does it like a Samurott with no energy being pulled up.

So that’s it for this deck.  I did not give it a great intro, but its good enough anyway.  Let me know if you have questions about this deck.

The Pokemon Stock Exchange.

Pokemon cards have gone up and down in  value with nats.  Lets keep track of them.

Up

Yanmega– Even though I think the card is just average.  Yanmega was in every great deck, including the top 4 decks.  Its price was 50 bucks coming into Nats, and I don’t expect it to go down any time soon.  It is fast and disruptive, and will be great during the Pokemon Catcher era.  Big ups to Yanmega during this tournament.

Typhlosion– Nobody but Misnos had been talking bout this card, but it did fairly well.  If you run Reshiram, you should run Typhlosion Prime.  The disruption energy acceleration and draw power makes the deck pretty good despite the slow start.

Magnezone– It ain’t going nowhere until the Pokemon Catcher era begins. It won Nationals with Yanmega, and proved to be a great deck.

Donphan and Ruins of Alph– Nobody cared about Ruins of Alph until Canadian Nationals, now Donphan and Ruins is a great combo.  Donphan and Ruins can help bring down the reign of Yanmega.  Donphan also will be awesome in the era of Pokemon Catcher.

Disruption– Cards like Muk, Spinarak, Weavile, and Slowking CL did well in disruption.  If you want a fun deck, you should look at these cards and see what you can do with them.

Down

Emboar– It no longer gets paired with Reshiram and most Magnezone decks get paired with Yanmega instead of Emboar.  Add that to the fact that stage 2’s will stink in the catcher era, and all signs point to yelling, “Sell.”

Reshiram– It did well with Typhlosion, but in total this Pokemon lost a lot of momentum.  Its not the BDIF like a lot of people thought it might.

Zekrom-  Zekrom can do well in smaller tournaments, but it proved that its tough to do well at a big one.  After Canadian Nats a lot of people were saying that ZPS was the BDIF and the deck to beat.  However, that prediction did not pan out.  It’s still a good card and deck, just not what some people said it was.

The Babies– Cleffa does add consistency, but at a big cost.  A lot of games were ended by the donk on Cleffa.  It’s of no use to add to consistency if you lose on turn 1.  Nowadays, when you build a deck you must look both to donk, and to minimize the chance at getting donked.  Babies are good for donking, and getting donked.  If I were going to world’s, I would test cards like Manaphy and Stantler.

SP Players– I know this is not a card, but a lot of good SP players took a hit this weekend.  A lot of players played SP for years, and now that it is gone, they have no where to turn.  They are now force to be on even turf with everyone else and are struggling to survive.  A lot of lesser known players were tossing around the once great SP players.  SP players enjoyed some success, but now they must work as hard as everyone else to make it now.

So that was my Nats report and my thoughts on Nats.  Congrats to Justin Sanchez for becoming one of the few people who can call themselves the best in the U.S.  And, thanks again to all the players at nats, especially those that I got  a chance to meet and talk to.

Category: National Championships | Tags: 2011 Pokemon Nationals