One Hit KO

This past Saturday, my daughter and I hit up the Battle Roads at Legion Games in Minnesota. It was MN’s first BR of 4, so I expected a good turnout. I didn’t expect a big group of players to come down from Fargo, ND, so that was cool. They helped just put us over the top, so kickers went to the 3rd and 4th place finishers.

I usually try to take notes on my matches. Really, this is usually like 1 or two lines per match. Maybe I’ll write the name of my opponent, a couple major Pokemon in the deck, and the outcome. If it was more interesting, I might put something further. Well, I did all that, then I was busy on Sunday and went out of town on Monday through Wednesday. I’m finally getting to type up my report, and I can’t find my notes. All this leadup is just my excuse for having a short and most likely pointless report.

I played Zed PS. Ever since I heard Pokemandan call it that, I liked the name. I think “Zed” is a very absurd name for the letter Z. Also, adding Tornadus doesn’t quite make it Zed PST for some reason, even though I played more Tornadus than Zekrom. I don’t know what else to say on this topic.

My daughter, Ava, played Donphan/Zekrom. I did not expect this to be a popular deck. I thought that Donphan might be seen in some “Stage 1s”, but Donphan+Dragons didn’t really seem that hyped. I built Ava’s deck to be very straight-forward for her, and I left out several things I would definitely include if I were to play the deck. However, it was still very solid.

I’m doing all of this from my memory of 5 days ago. Don’t expect much detail.

Round 1 vs EmRam (aka ReshiBoar)
He wins the flip and goes first. He plays a fire energy onto his lone Tepig and does Tackle for 10 damage. I go, get Tornadus powered on my first turn, and Hurricane for the win.

He was a good guy. I talked to him for a while (as we had plenty of time until the round completed). As I recall, he was from WI, and didn’t go to a lot of tourneys. Hopefully that will change, and we’ll see him around more.
1-0

Round 2 vs David with Donphan/Zekrom (maybe also Zoroark)
This is a tough battle for me. Donphan can run through my Zekrom. If I bring up Tornadus, it can beat Donphan, but then he can bring up Zekrom to KO Torndaus. If he does that, I can bring up Zekrom to KO his Zekrom, and the cycle repeats. This match came down to +3 turns, since time was called. David smartly did not bench any extra Pokemon and left me to deal with a lone Donphan. It had 70 damage on it, and he had to place a Rainbow energy to Heavy Impact for his second-to-last prize. That put Donphan at 40 HP left. I was preparing Pachirisu to come up and attack, because I was out of options. Pachirisu comes up. It can Shocking Bolt for 50, and I need to do 40. However, Donphan is resistant, so I need 60. I play a Plus Power, recheck everything. Yup, resistant, 60 – 20 = 40. 40 + 80 = 120. I attack. David says good game. We scoop our cards, and WAIT A SECOND. Judge Andy (not to be confused with the other Andy that was judging) says, back up a moment. 60 – 20 for resistance is 40. Minus 20 for Exoskeleton is 20. That’s not a KO. In fact, I had another Junk Arm in my hand (another guaranteed 10 damage) and a PONT which very likely could have resulted in another Plus Power or Junk Arm. This tough match was very winnable. David played well, and I ultimately lost on this mistake. It wasn’t a guaranteed win if I had played it right, but close enough.
1-1

Round 3 vs LostGar
He started with Mime Jr and Spiritomb. He quickly got Mew out and Gengar Prime into the Lost Zone and set up Slowking. I hate Second Sight. Unfortunately for him, I had enough draw/refresh supporters to negate anything Second Sight ever did to me. I also kept my hand free of Pokemon. As mine are all basics, it wasn’t hard to either play them or just not search ’em out of the deck. He did get a Shaymin into the LZ off of a Seeker, but that was it for his strategy. I easily got 6 prizes.
2-1

Round 4 vs Thomas with Reshiram/Emboar/RDL
I thought this was going to be an uphill battle for me. I can’t one-shot most of his guys, and he can hit very hard. Early, I opted to make a series of very low-percentage risky plays to heavily gamble the whole game. The gambles did not pay off, and that left us just going through the motions of him handing me a whoopin’.
2-2

Round 5 vs Donphan/Zekrom
This game was against a very pleasant guy that runs the league up in Fargo, ND. It sounds like they’ve got a very good thing going up there, and we may even see Battle Roads up there in the future. I don’t recall much for particulars about this match other than it was very tit for tat. I’m not sure who got tat and who got tit, and I really don’t even know what that means. All I know is that every time he made a move, I countered it. Every time I countered, he counter-countered. The game came down to him having 1 prize left and me having 2 prizes. I could take a prize on my turn, but the only real play was to take a prize (with Zekrom, I believe) leaving him with a Phanpy. I had to bank on him not having both a Donphan and an energy. If he had both, he’d take his last prize. If he didn’t, I’d win on my next turn. He communicationed for Donphan and played it and an energy. Good game. Thanks for coming down, guys. Maybe I’ll see you at some upcoming events.
2-3

Round 6 vs Paul with Donphan/Zekrom/Yanmega
Ugh. Why Donphan/Zekrom again? I got a great jump on this one. I was able to get a first-turn KO on his Phanpy leaving him with a Yanmega. He did get some stuff set up, but Yanmega is easy for me to deal with. It was a bit back-and-forth, but getting the early jump meant he was always a step behind. In most cases, I was able to KO anything he put up. I think he got one or two prizes before I drew my sixth. I was happy to finally beat a Donphan/Zekrom deck. I expected to see maybe one all day. I saw 3 (out of 6 matches). That’s not great for my Fighting+Lightning weak deck.
3-3

So, I went 50/50 on the day. It wasn’t amazing. However, I did mention in the title that I did bring home a Victory Cup. Ava, who also played Donphan/Zekrom, won her first two matches. With only 6 juniors competing that day, that meant that her final round of Swiss was also the championship game. Whoever won would be 3-0, and whoever lost would be 2-1 (with good tiebreakers since they played the undefeated player). I did not see the match, but from what I understood, Ava had Zekrom without anyone else on the bench. Her opponent put Zekrom to sleep and it never woke up. That was how the entire game was described to me.

She got a Victory Cup and 4 packs. In her packs were a RH Tornadus and a full art Thundrus. That’s excellent! Congratulations, Ava! I said I took home a Victory Cup, but really I took Ava home, and she took the Victory Cup with her. So, if you were reading this for tips how to take home a Victory Cup, I guess the tip is to get a daughter, build her a winning deck, and then profit.

Category: Tourney Report | Tags: Donphan, Tornadus, zekrom