Quad Terrakion Deck – MN State Championship 2012
by Ed ~ March 26th, 2012.I really thought that I wasn’t going to make it to States this year. Part of me thought that I should make a strong effort to defend my title, and part of me thought that the effort would be wasted if I couldn’t attend anyway. I had it in the back of my mind that I might make it to the tourney, so all along I had been putting together a CMT deck. I really actually wanted to play a straight Celebi/Mewtwo deck (without Tornadus or any techs), but I didn’t want to go out of my way to buy a bunch of Mewtwo if I might not even use them.
I did end up scraping together all the pieces for a CMT minus the 2 Mewtwo EX. When I decided to try opening the OneHitKO Store, I bought 3 boxes of Next Destinies. I figured that if I did end up able to attend MN States, then I could just borrow a couple Mewtwo from the store for the day. Well, that idea fell apart rather quickly when I opened 3 boxes and saw a total of ZERO Mewtwo EX.
The weekend before the tournament, my wife went to the hospital 3 times with pregnancy issues, and I thought that each time we might have an extended stay there while delivering our new child. Nothing came of that, and on the Monday before States, I ended up emailing TAndrewT and talking about all of this. I told him essentially the same thing I just told you, still unsure that the pregnancy would last through the following weekend of MN States. I also added that I had considered Durant and straight 4-Terrakion deck.
I didn’t know if I even cared to build a deck at this point. Pokemon wasn’t a pressing issue, and I had barely played since Cities. Andy replied with, “Well, if you need Terrakions I have plenty for you to borrow.” and I thought that this sounded like the only plan I was going to come up with on late notice.
I netdecked a list, and I threw together the deck proxying the Terrakion (I had all the rest except for 1 old style Revive in place of the new one). There’s a guy here at work that I’ve been playing against over lunch sometimes. He has a Zekrom/Eelektrik deck (which I figured would be popular), so I challenged him to a match. Unfortunately, he didn’t have the deck with him, so he played an old Emboar/Reshiram deck of mine. The first game went very quickly as I lost due to not getting more than 1 Terrakion out. I think the deck wasn’t very shuffled yet, and 2 Terrakion were prized. The next game was a real match, and I think I ultimately won when he decked out. This one game turned out to be my only real tourney prep, though. Other than that, I never played the deck until the day of the tourney. At the tourney, a junior (another co-worker’s kid) challenged me to a game, and I ran though his Pokemon very quickly. Going into the tournament, I had only played one real and it was against a non-metagame deck.
Thanks to HeyTrainer, here’s the “Currakion” list I ran.
4 | Pokemon | 29 | Trainers | 15 | Supporters | 12 | Energy |
4 | Terrakion NVI 73 | 3 | Heavy Ball | 2 | Copycat | 11 | Fighting Energy |
1 | Pokegear 3.0 | 4 | Professor Juniper | 1 | Rescue Energy | ||
3 | Switch | 3 | N | ||||
4 | Pokemon Catcher | 4 | Prof Oak’s New Theory | ||||
4 | Junk Arm | 2 | Black Belt | ||||
4 | Plus Power | ||||||
4 | Exp. Share | ||||||
3 | Lost Remover | ||||||
3 | Revive |
I got to the tourney, TAndrewT lent me 4 Terrakion and 1 Verizion (for Ava’s deck), and I was ready to play. I didn’t expect to do well, but I thought I might upset some Zek/Eel top cut hopefuls. I figured there was a chance that I could do okay, but top cutting didn’t seem like a real expectation.
Round 1: Matt with Kyurem/Feraligatr/Vanilluxe
So, this wasn’t the matchup I was looking for when I chose Quad Terrakion. I also got a pretty slow start, and Matt was able to set up a Vanilluxe which really messed up my plans. Retreating my powered-up Terrakion every turn is not the road to success. Luckily, I was able to fairly heavily disrupt his flow with a stream of N. I think he used Interviewer’s Questions twice before he got Feraligatr set up, and both times, I just N’d away his energy. I focused on the Vanilluxe, and it took me 3 turns of consecutive Pokemon Catcher to KO it. After that, I got rolling and finally took my 6th prize.
1-0 (Ava 0-1)
Round 2: Mike Lesky with Zek/Eels/Mewtwo EX
I count this as unlucky stroke #1. Getting paired against Mike Lesky in the second round wasn’t ideal. The deck he was playing seemed like it might be an ideal matchup, though. (Thanks to Mike’s report, I just realized that I also missed a first turn energy drop which makes this round even more unlucky.) Mike is a smart guy, and he never brought out any Zekrom against me. I actually thought that maybe he was only playing Mewtwo and Eelektrik, but I heard later that he was playing Zekrom EX and regular Zekrom. As you know, I don’t have a lot of experience with my deck (2 games previous to this match), but I really thought that focusing on Mewtwo EX was the play. Sure, he could one-shot my Terrakion, but I could 2-shot his Mewtwo EX. With 2 prizes for KO’ing a Mewtwo, it was a wash. He’d run ut of Mewtwo at some point, and then I could easily one-shot everything else. Well, I KO’d 2 Mewtwo EX while he was KO’ing Terrakions. Then he brought out the 3rd Mewtwo, and that pretty much sealed it. At the end of the match, I think I Catchered up a Eelektrik and didn’t KO it to try to stall for a turn or two. The only play here was if I could somehow one-shot the Mewtwo. There was a small chance based on my hand of Black Belt and a couple Plus Power (if I recall correctly). He was able to retreat and get the final KO. I thought it was a good match, and Mike played it right. If he had one less Mewtwo or had used any strategy other than straight Mewtwo, I think I could have won.
1-1 (Ava 0-2)
Round 3: Ryan Vikander with Zekrom/Eels (and a Mewtwo EX)
Ryan is a really nice guy, so the match was more laid back. This is how I hoped my deck would work, and it’s how I hoped I’d be matched up all day. There’s not a lot to say here. Once I got set up, I could one-shot everything he brought out against me.
2-1 (Ava 1-2)
Round 4: Sam P with Zekrom/Eels
Sam seemed like a pretty cool guy, and he was a fun opponent. We set up, and I started with a single Terrakion. Who’d figure it, right? I think he started with Zekrom EX. Perfect, right? Unfortunately, I’m counting this as unlucky stroke #2. I think I dead drew 3 times (with like N, PONT, and Copycat IIRC) while he attached energy to his Zekrom EX. I think on his 3rd turn, he attached his 3rd energy, used Switch to bring up a Tynamo, Dynamotored an energy onto Zekrom EX, retreated, and used Strong Volt for the donk/benchout. I don’t know if I ever attacked him. We played again for fun, and I was able to get the win, but that’s how it goes. Even the good matchups can go bad. Oh, and the pic of Sam is from the fun game after I lost, because the real game went so quick that I forgot to snap a photo.
2-2 (Ava 1-3)
Round 5: Justin K-B with Kyurem/Feraligatr
Oddly, this is the second time I got paired against a Kyurem EX/Feraligatr deck. Is it odd that the only decks I’ve seen are Zekrom (which I expected) and Kyurem (which I completely did not expect to see)? Anyway, Justin’s a good Pokedad (like myself) that I seem to get paired against fairly often. This game worked fairly similar to the other Kyurem matchup, except that Justin didn’t play a Vanilluxe which was way better for me. Like in round 1, I kept N’ing all his stuff away. After I KO’d Feraligatr, I was able to Catcher up his non-EX Kyurem (because he wasn’t attaching to them) and 2-shot them. The game was effectively won when I played 4 Plus Power (Plus Power, Junk Arm, Junk Arm, Juniper, Plus Power) in one turn to finish off his Kyurem EX.
3-2 (Ava had to drop after pairings which technically put her at 1-4 even though she only actually played 4 matches)
Pre-Round 6
Before the round 6 pairings were posted, I was by the standings, and I heard Mike Lesky and Andrew Reynolds talking about making the top cut. Mike ran the numbers, and claimed that if one of the 4-1’s got paired down and lost, then 2 4-2’s would make it in. I was sitting at 3-2, so that sounded good to me. If I won, there was still a chance. Moments later, Soari passed me and said something to me like, “I got paired down against you!” Whoa, is this divine intervention?
Round 6: Soari with Tornadus/Mewtwo EX/Terrakion/Shaymin UL (no Celebi/Skyarrow)
Soari was a bit upset, and I believe that he thought I should scoop. In his mind, I had no chance to make the top cut, so I had no reason to block his path to the top 8. I told him that I really believed that I had a shot to make top 8, and I came to play. The whole situation got him visibly upset, and I think it got him off his game a bit. I also think it’s a bit unsportsmanlike to get upset that an opponent wants to play it out. I know it’s annoying to get paired down. I know it’s annoying to be so close and feel like it might be slipping away. None of this is my fault, though. To be fair to Soari, I don’t think he ever actually asked me to scoop, but I feel it was heavily implied. I don’t think he’s a bad guy in the least. I like the guy, but I think he lets his emotions get in the way here. Anyway, enough about that. The game starts with me not knowing what he’s playing but knowing that he knows what I’m playing and he’s upset about the whole situation. I figure he must be playing Zekrom, but I’m wrong.
If you look at the picture, you can see 2 DCE in the Lost Zone. I think there’s another in the discard pile. My Lost Removers and constant hand refresh went a long way in this one. I was able to keep his Tornadi at bay with the energy removal, stall with Catcher, and when he finally brought up Mewtwo EX, I think I Catchered up the Shaymin for the win (right after the pic you see at the right). I really hope there are no hard feelings here, Soari.
4-2
Top 8
Well, Mike said that if a 4-1 got paired down, 2 4-2’s would make top 8. I got paired up and won, so I feel like I did everything in my power to fulfill Mike’s prophesy. I went 4-2 in Swiss only losing to the eventual MN State Champion (Mike Lesky) and a really odd donk/benchout where I drew dead for like 3 turns. I can’t really complain, because after all that, I’m still in the running. I think that I got paired up (when I was 3-2) because I was at the top of the tiebreaker heap.
So, the standings come out, and I end up at lucky number 13. Mike is 100% right, and 7th and 8th have 4-2 records. I’m just not one of them.
From what I heard from Andy W., Mike Lesky won the tournament beating Calvin in the finals. Emmanuel and Curtis ended up 3rd and 4th. Three of the top 4 decks were Zek/Eel. The previous week, all 4 of the top 4 were Zek/Eel. How is Quad Terrakion not the answer? :)