One Hit KO

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  This is Pikkdogs here with a tournament report.  This past Saturday I was lucky enough to get to go to Michigan States at Okemos, Mi (which is just outside of Lansing).

The Deck

Before I talk about the tournament I will give you the deck that I used.  As you can see with the title, I ran a really weird deck.  I knew that I wasn’t going to win with this deck, but I just wanted to have fun.  I planned on doing a lot of testing and bringing a deck that I thought could win, but I came down with a case of Bronchial Pneumonia.  This really screwed up my states testing, and I couldn’t come up with a good deck since I was too busy coughing up my lung.  So I decided to just make up a quick rogue deck and just try to have fun instead of winning.

I came up with the idea for this deck while I was reading a Six Prizes tournament report by my buddy Airhawk.  He had played a guy who had made an Ursraing Prime/Durant deck that tried to win by milling.  The problem is that the deck didn’t turn out too well, and it seemed like it was an Ursaring Prime deck that could drop 4 Durants out of nowhere at the end of the game and win the game by milling.  This gave me an idea to do the same thing.  So I started the deck by using Scizor Prime, he is nice because he scares people by making them not use special energy cards.  The plan is to just use Scizor Prime for a long time, and then when they aren’t looking to use Durant for the mill.  I also put in Terrakion for the Zekrom match-up, and Victini for the Durant match-up. Here is the list.

Pokemon-14

• 4-Durant
• 4-Scyther
• 3-Scizor Prime
• 2-Terrakion
• 1-Victini (the attacking fire one)

Trainers-32

• 2-Switch
• 1-Energy Exchanger
• 4-Professor Oak’s New Theory
• 2- Copycat
• 3-Sage’s Training
• 3-N
• 4-Junk Arm
• 3-Pokemon Catcher
• 3-Pokemon Communication
• 3-Pokemon Collector
• 2-Dual Ball
• 1-Super Rod
• 1-Revive

Energy-14

• 4-Special Metal
• 4-Rainbow Energy
• 2-Fire
• 2-Fighting
• 2-Basic Metal

So that is the deck, I know its not the best deck, but I didn’t feel comfortable with anything meta because my illness prevented me from doing any kind of decent testing.  I hoped that my techs could give me a good chance against Zekrom and Durant, while hopefully I could take a cheap milling victory over CMT decks by taking players by surprise.  Here is whow it went.

The Report

I got up in the wee hours of Saturday morning, okay the hours weren’t that wee, but they were for me because I work the late shift.  I got up and watched some of My Name is Earl, than I stopped at McDonalds for some breakfast before making the hour and a half journey to Lansing.

I got to the venue about 5 minutes after registration began.  I then got a card from by buddy Frank, borrowed some to some of my other buddies, and then waited in the long line for registration.  I think there was about 131 masters, or something like that.  Just enough to ensure us only 7 rounds, which was good for me since I didn’t plan on being on the bubble for Top Cut.  We then waited for a long time for pairings to be posted, and I got to talk a lot to some of my buddies that I haven’t talked to for a while.

Round 1 Jacob with Gardevoir/Chandelure/Darmanitan

Sometimes at big tournaments you get lucky and get paired with a  newcomer that doesn’t have the best deck in the world.  This is what happened to me during round 1.  Although this deck had a really good idea, it just wasn’t consistent enough to be a great deck.  It probably just needs some more supporters or something.  This pairing was good for me because I still wasn’t confident in my deck.

Jacob starts first with a Ralts and a benched Victini (the flippy one).  He attaches on his first two turns and attacks twice, first for 10, and next for 20.  I started with 2 Scythers and I then N into a couple Metal energies and a Scizor Prime.  On my second turn I am able to “Metal Scissors” for the knock out on Ralts.  I then get KOs on Vintini and Chandelure for the win.  His deck was just too slow to compete with Scizor.  Hopefully Jacob will stay in the game, and will have better luck in a future tournament.

1 – 0.  I didn’t expect to get a win so early, but sometimes you get a favorable match-up early.  I only expected to get about 3 wins today, so I was on a good start here.

Round 2. Jackson Iller with Zekrom

Jack is a friend from Toledo and is a great player.  In our last game I was able to take the upset over Jack, so I think he was looking for revenge here.  He came on a good day for revenge, he had a great deck and I needed a lot of help to have a chance against a good player like Jack.

Jackson starts the game with a  mulligan and I see an Eelektrik.  So I start with a Terrakion and a Scyther on the bench.  Jack gets a Zekrom on the mulligan and watches me as I go first.  I attach energies to Terrakion, and get 1 supporter.  Jack starts a long first turn and sets up a lot of Eelektriks and Zekroms.  He seems to get everything he needs to power his field up, while I struggle after the first couple turns.  After my Terrakion gets knocked out I do not get a supporter, so I have trouble finding energies.  When I do get a supporter, I dump my hand of three Durants for another hand of three Durants!  I just do not get enough resources to keep the battle up long enough to bring out the Durants, so I lose.

1 – 1.  Congrats Jack, Jack ended up going 6-1 on the day and had a really good deck.  It’s not easy to lose, but it is a little easier to lose to a friend.

Round 3. Rebecca?  With Zekrom

This player is a friend of Jack’s from Ohio.  I did not know her before today, but she seemed like a really nice person.  Hopefully we will be able to meet some time down the road.  I start first with a Scyther and a benched Terrakion, while she has a Thundurus.  I start a string of successful supporters that set me up with a lot of energies to my three Scizors and 2 Terrakions.  My opponent, however, did not have as much luck as I did.  She started the game with a DCE to Thundurus, which hurt her a lot.  She also did not find a supporter until about her 4^th turn.  This set her main attackers and her Eelektriks back.  By the time she setup, I already have a full bench with energies.  If she tried to take a prize against me, I would just return it.  This made it impossible for her to catch up, especially since she relied on the prize giving Pokemon EX.  The game ends when I get a Pokemon Catcher to knock out a damaged Mewtwo EX that she was hiding on the bench.  She did a good job of coming back after a good start, but like I was in my 2^nd game, she was screwed from the start.

2 – 1.  I was hoping to have about 1 win going into the lunch break, and here I sit with a winning record!  Top Cut was still the farthest thing from my mind, I just wanted to see if I could use  Durant to give someone a dramatic loss, because I hadn’t used a Durant yet.  I went for a quick drive down the back roads for a while, and then turned back towards the tournament and picked up some Little Caesars Pizza.  After stuffing my face with pizza and Crazy Bread I went back to the venue just hoping that my deck didn’t fall apart during the second half of the game.

Round 4.  Brandon with Zekrom

Three Zekroms in a row?  I don’t like this, I did include a Durant counter, show me some Durant.  Not in this round anyway.

I do know this guy, but I don’t really know him that well.  I think he is from Ohio.  He started the game with Thundurus and used “Charge” on his first turn.  On my  turn I started with Scyther and quickly got our another Scyther and Terrakion.  He used Zekrom and Thundurus to target my Terrakion, as I quietly setup 2 Scizor Primes.

I think that Scizor really surprised him, there was no doubt that he was not happy to see Scizor on my bench.  He had already started attaching Special Energies to his Pokemon before he found out what Scizor did, so he started the game up a creek.  As I knocked out a couple Eelektriks with Scizor Prime, he again decided to drop down Pokemon with Special Energies on them.  I was waiting for him to use Eelektriks to load up 2 Pokemon with basic lightning energies and just tear through my Scizors, but it never happened.  It seemed like he should have tried something like that, but maybe I would thought different if I was using his deck.  Perhaps he didn’t run a ton of basic energies.

Anyway, back to the game.  He kept on dropping Pokemon like Zekrom, Zekrom EX, Zapdos, and Mewtwo EX with Special Energies.  This played right into my hand as I kept on chipping away at his big HP Pokemon.  I kept on waiting for him to drop something without Special Energies and just sweep my board, but it never happened.  I tried to keep an eye on his deck to try to mill it, but he kept the deck at a decent size.  I ended up winning on time after knocking out a couple EX Pokemon.

3 – 1.  3-1 kind of felt like a dream.  I never thought that I would be in the hunt after 4 rounds.  I thought that in the best of circumstances I would have some fun with the deck and maybe mill a person or two.  But, Scizor proved to be a force of competitive nature and got me near the top table.  I still never thought I would make Top Cut even though I have a great shot at this point.  But,  was still waiting for my deck to either mill somebody, or fall apart.

Round 5. Evan with Tornadus and Terrakion

Evan might have been playing a version of CMT here, but I didn’t see the C or the M.  I usually never like to play Evan since he is one of the best players in Michigan and I never can seem to beat him, but I thought since the wheels on my deck are about to come off, who better for it to lose to than to a friend.  Evan told me before the match that he had seen a part of a previous game, and he noticed that I played Durant.  He said he was really confused, and I told him that that’s okay because I am more confused than he is.

I start first with a Scyther and a benched Terrakion and Durant.  I’m not sure why I dropped Durant here, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.  I start by attaching to Scyther, and then using a Pokemon Collector for 2 more Scythers and another Durant.  I then passed and he started with  a Tornadus.  He used a Dual Ball to get another Tornadus, and attached to the active.  He also used a Pokemon Catcher on Terrakion, and then passed.  I noticed that Terrakion will face an uphill battle here because of Tornadus’s resistance.  So I decide to do something un-orthodox and use a Switch to bring up a Durant with an energy.  As I struggled to find a Scizor Prime, I decided to “Devour” for two.  On the next turn Evan attached and passed.  I still had trouble finding a Scizor, but I did attach to a Scyther, and “Devoured” again.  On his turn, Evan started a “Hurricane” chain that lasted several turns as he knocked out my Durant.

So my Durant mill strategy was out for right now.  Although I only milled 4 cards, I did discard a key card in Shaymin UL.  That forced him to use Super Rod.  It might have been only a minuscule victory, but it’s better than just passing anyway.   On my next turn I finally got a Scizor going, I then used Scizor Prime to damage a benched Terrakion that I finished off on my next turn.  On my next turn I finally setup a second Scizor, and then got another prize by taking out Shaymin Ul.  His “Hurricanes” were hurting me, but I was able to keep up with some key energy drops off of supporters.

Fast forward to the time when time was called.  My offense kind of slowed down a little as I was down two prizes.  I was ready to switch over to my Durant strategy, and it probably would have worked, but Evan mentioned that he made sure that he conserved his deck so it was too big to mill.  On turn 0 I had a chance to win the game as Evan ran out of energies, but I could not find a supporter.  I did have to burn 2 supporters with a Junk Arm early in the game, and it really came to bite me in the butt here.  If I had a supporter I would have been able to use a Switch and a Catcher to get within one prize, but I could not find that supporter.  Out of energy, Evan could only watch as turn 3 passed with him still in the lead.

3 – 2.  No complaints about losing like that to Evan.  Even though I was so close to beating him, it is nice to see him go on.  He eventually made Top Cut.   Even though Evan knew my Durant secret, he still had a very hard time with this deck, this game gave me more confidence than I ever had with this deck.  I think I would have had a chance to get my Durant win here, but he knew it was coming, so he prevented it.  I was still happy at 3-2.

Round 6. Rob with CMT

Another game against a friend.  Rob is another Michigan player, and he is a really nice guy.  It was at this time that they handed out the door prizes.  I usually never win anything more than a pencil or a children’s size T-Shirt,  but I got lucky today.  I won a Zekrom EX tin, that was really cool.  When I opened it up I kind of lost the excitement.  The only good cards I pulled was a Prism energy and a RH Heavy Ball.  So that wasn’t good, but I still have a small shot at Top Cut if I win the next two games.

I started first with Victini and Collectored for a Terrakion and 2 Scythers.  I attached to Terrakion and passed.  Rob started with a Tornadus, but he did not see a supporter until about his 4^th turn, so he struggled getting some resources out.

I then attached to Victini to try to attack with him, but Rob knocked him out before I could do too much with him.  But, that time did allow me the time to attach to Scyther, and evolve into 2 Scizor Primes.  I was able to get the KO on Tornadus, but Rob got out a Mewtwo EX and just started attaching a million grass energies to it.  Eventually I could not get enough damage on Mewtwo EX before he ran through my whole bench.  This was compounded by the fact that I made a misplay in attaching an energy. I should have attached it to the active so I could attack, but I had a brain fart and attached it to a benched Scizor.

Did the misplay matter?  No.  Rob was going to run through me anyway, I just could have made it harder than it was.  CMT is one of this decks bad match-ups, so it was pretty much over when he got 2 basics in play.

3 – 3.  So Top Cut is gone, but I never really thought I could make it there anyway.  It was pretty tough to lose two in a row, but with a deck like the one I had, I was just happy to be in a spot that maybe next round I could get a winning record, something I never thought I would get.  But, I was disappointed that I never got to mill a deck out with Durant.  I just hoped that I might have a chance in the final round, and my hope was not in vein.

Round 7 Mew Prime with Eelektrik

This was kind of a cool deck played by someone from Lansing (I think).    It was a Mew Prime deck that used attacks from Zoroark BW and Zebstrika NV.  He included Eelektrik as an energy engine, and Zekrom as a secondary attacker.  Since this guy was from Michigan, he had been talking and did know that I was playing Durant.  So I was kind of disappointed that I couldn’t surprise him, but that didn’t mean that Durant still couldn’t pull out the victory.

I started first with a Scyther, Terrakion, and a Durant.  I decided to drop Durant to kind of distract my opponent.  I start by attaching to Terrakion and passing.  He starts with a Tynamo and collectors for 2 more and a Relicanth.  He uses “Prehistoric Wisdom” to put Zebstrika in the Lost Zone and draw 3 cards.  On my turn I start getting the 3 Scizors evolved and powered up.  I also use a Pokemon Catcher to freeze his Zekrom in the active spot.  This kind of back fires as he begins to get the Zekrom powered up fast.  He eventually uses 2 “Bolt Strikes” and an “Outrage” to knock out a Terrakion, a Scizor Prime, and a Durant.  I respond with a knockout on Zekrom, and I start 3 straight Pokemon Catcher kills on Mew Prime.  He finally gets Mew Prime going, and uses Zebstrika’s attack to stop me from using items.  The problem was that my opponent did not consider Scizor’s resistance, which meant he could only do 10 damage to me at once (because of a Special Metal I had attached).  This kind of stopped his attacking power for the rest of the game, that was until he searched for an Eelektross (who plays that? says the guy who plays Scizor Prime).  He still couldn’t do a whole lot of damage because he was 1 energy short of using his big attack.  But, he did have one energy left in his deck.

At this time I think we were tied on prizes and I had hit an energy drought (after he used Lost Remover a lot).  Me and my opponent both looked at this deck and the same time, and went to count it.  He had about 7 cards in his deck.  This meant that if I could get Durant going on the next turn or so, I could mill and end the game without worrying about getting a couple energies and if he could get that last energy.  So, I collectored for 3 Durants after using a Super Rod.  On my next turn, I used a PONT to get my last Durant and a metal energy.  I was able to “Devour” for 4, this meant that he had to somehow take a bunch of prizes next turn, or else he gets milled.  Of course he couldn’t do it, so I won after another shout of “Devour.”

4 – 3.  So, 4-3 is not a great record but I was happy about it.  Coming into the day, I knew that it would be an uphill battle.  I just wanted 3 wins, but I got 4 and a winning record instead.  I was happy to get a winning record with a rogue deck, it felt nice.  I can’t help but think what would have happened if  I didn’t  get sick and had a good deck, but I am still happy about a winning record with a weird rogue deck.

The Future of the Deck

Who knows if Scizor’s LGD will ever be played by anybody again at a tournament, but it is a fun deck that I don’t regret playing.  Maybe some people can test the deck out and make it better, or maybe  we’ll never get it over being a weird deck.  Either is fine with me, but I probably will never touch the deck much again, even though it is a really fun deck.  It does have decent match-ups in this format, CMT and Reshiphlosion are the only bad match-ups.  Scizor Prime is actually a decent card, maybe people will start playing with it more.

Well, that’s all I got.  Thanks to all my opponents and to all the judges and runners that helped out this weekend.  A big thanks also to OnehitKO writer Mark for being a real sharp looking judge.

So long and thanks for all the fish!

Category: State Championships | Tags: