One Hit KO

Outpost 2000’s New Play Space

Usually I’m pretty pleased with doing well at a tournament and leaving feeling proud even when I haven’t won anything. In the past, I’ve seen the good in times like when I got 17th at Regionals and was able to drive home at a reasonable hour instead of playing top-16. When I dropped my first States, I still felt good about my performance even though I could have played in the top-8 (though I look back on it and think I probably wouldn’t make the same choice if it happened again, but it’s not a regret). I’m not the type of guy that gets pissed when I lose, but I’m also not the type of guy that jumps up and down when I win. However, I don’t think I’ve ever felt like I’ve done so well in a tournament and then walked away feeling so empty handed as I did this past weekend at Battle Roads. We’ll get to that a bit later.

First, I’ll give you a bit of backstory. When BW-on was announced, I wasn’t sure what I would do. I am now building decks for 3 people from my collection, because my second daughter, Petra, has started playing. When I played in Nationals 2011, I used Emboar. I had played and liked it (kinda), so it was easy for me to build. I also had a Zoroark deck from last format, and it was something that could be easily rebuilt for BW-on. That was 2 decks, so I needed something for another junior. I decided to throw together an autopilot style all EX deck. The idea was to just set stuff up without having to evolve, keep damage off, and keep the opponent down (with energy removal thanks to Kyurem EX and hammers). Part of my choice here was that I didn’t care a ton about my BR results, so I refused to buy any Darkrai EX or Mewtwo EX knowing that they’d come out in tins soon.

I played the Emboar deck straight from a 6P Underground article. I liked it, but I’ve had this problem before (with Emboar even). Immediately after the format changes, if I get a seemingly good deck, I’ll stick with it. Other people around me might play sub-optimal decks and make it seem like my deck choice is better than it actually is. They make changes and get better, and I sit back thinking that mine is good enough.

By the time the first BR rolled around, I wasn’t too excited about Emboar any more, but I decided I wasn’t going to build something new. In the first weekend, I only played on Sunday, because, on Sat, I brought 3 daughters and watched one while helping Petra set up and stuff. Sat was exhausting. Only Ava and I went on Sunday, so I got to relax and play.

Emboar failed me. After 4 rounds, I dropped and Ava and I went to church. Here’s the ultra-mini report for that day. By the way, I did end up borrowing 2 Mewtwo EX from Andy Taton that day. Otherwise, I was prepared to just toss in whatever.

R1) Joe Lawrence (Dark + Electric)
I used Registeel EX to Triple Laser pretty much the whole game.
1-0

R2) Austin (Eels)
I had a real slow setup, but I thought I had him when he brought out Mewtwo EX. His next move was to N away mine (and the energy needed for the return KO) sealing his win.

1-1

R3) Rith (Sigilyph, Terrakion, Terrakion EX)
I seriously drew dead for like 12 turns in a row. At many points in the game topdecking any useful card (which my deck was about 50/50 still) would have won it for me. I just kept drawing Pokemon, and I needed Energy or a supporter or something.
1-2

R4) Kelly? (Hydreigon, Darkrai EX, Zoroark)
I mainly relied on an early Registeel EX to run Triple Laser and then switched to Mewtwo EX right at the end.
2-2

After that, I felt done with Emboar. I didn’t really have any other options that I could throw together in a week. I ended up talking to Andy Taton about some options, and he seemed to think that I could play Darkrai EX if I could get the cards from Nick (who had borrowed them from Andy). I got to work on that, and ended up borrowing the entire deck from Andy. I built the list, but he lent me the whole thing, because it overlapped so heavily with the 2 decks my daughters were playing that I couldn’t have come close to building it. I didn’t even have the dark energies for starters.

I’m a strong proponent of “play what you know,” but what I knew was that Emboar didn’t work. Here’s the list I came up with (over to the right).

I took Ava and Petra to Legion Games on Saturday. They both ended up playing my co-workers sons and losing. I think each of them went 2-2 (with Petra getting a last round bye for her second win). Here’s how my day went. (Note that the “video” links only go to the YouTube channel page. The actual videos have not been uploaded as of this writing. I will go back and fix those to point to the actual matches once they’re available.)

Round 1) Lucas Nelson (Dark with Fighting)
To be honest, I don’t remember a lot about this match. I think I picked off easy targets. His fighting could have posed a problem, but I don’t recall him getting anything bothersome set up.
1-0

Round 2) Justin Kittleson-Burke (Groudon EX, Terrakion EX, Stunfisk)
I was able to get KOs on 2 Groudon EX and 1 Terrakion EX. That’s all I needed.
2-0

As a side note, Justin and his family have a Pokemon blog site called Pokémon Booster. I’ve been working on them to write some articles here on OneHitKO.com. I really like some of the stuff that they put up over there, and I think it could use some more exposure. Check their site out, and leave some comments over there (http://pokemonbooster.blogspot.com/) bugging ’em to write some stuff. At least tell ’em OneHitKO sent you!

EDIT: Literally less than an hour after writing that bit about Pokemon Booster (even before I finished and published this article), I got an email saying that Tyler would like to write for OneHitKO. Stay tuned for his upcoming articles.

Round 3) Sabrina (Terrakion and Terrakion EX)
Sabrina’s deck was perfectly built to beat mine, and that’s exactly what it did.
2-1

Round 4) Justin R. (Altaria, Garchomp)
I hit some key hammers, and I kept sniping Altaria while putting 90 on Garchomp.
3-1

Round 5) Steven B (Ho-Oh EX)
When we’re each at 2 prizes left, I have Catcher in hand for the Ho-Oh KO for the win on the next turn. He plays Cheren to get the one more energy he needs to do 20 more damage for the win. At least it was a cool deck to play against!
3-2

Round 6) Chad (Mirror)
I didn’t get the best start, but I could see that he was playing a similar deck. The further we went, the more I realized he had like exactly the same cards. Finally, he played a Terrakion and powered up the revenge KO in a single turn (thanks to Energy Switch) and I realized it wasn’t an exact mirror at about the same time I realized I wasn’t going to win.
3-3

Overnight, I made a single card change to the list. I removed one of the Enhanced Hammers (which had sat in my hand quite a bit) and put in one Energy Search. I felt like there were some early game situations where I was low on energy. I wanted to add one, but I also wanted something I could Junk Hunt. A single Energy Search was the choice to help with both.

On Sunday, Ava, Petra, and I drove to the new Outpost 2000. Petra decided not to play, but Ava and I did. Ava ended up second in juniors. They only had 3 rounds. Here’s how my day went.

Round 1) Allan Wool (Nincada)
I went first and attached a Dark Claw to my Sableye and used Confuse Ray for 30 to his 40HP Nincada. On his turn, he had the evolution, but couldn’t play it until next turn. He passed. I won. We played a fun game after that, and he was able to stretch the game much longer, but I still won.
1-0

Round 2) Paige (Vanilluxe, Kyurem, Kyurem EX) [on video camera]
I recall having a bit of a slow start here, but it was alright. She didn’t have a lot of speed. Finally, at 2-2 on prizes, I was able to KO an EX for the win.
2-0

Round 3) Ray (Ho-Oh) [paired down]
I wasn’t able to do much early, but I do recall hitting a heads on a Crushing Hammer to remove a DCE off of Mewtwo EX. I also got an early 30 bench damage on a Mew EX. We both went supporterless for many turns. I finally hit a Juniper the exact turn after he finally topdecked a Juniper. We were both off and running after that, but I was able to finish off the Mewtwo EX, then the Mew EX, and finally a Ho-Oh EX.
3-0

Round 4) Austin (Hydreigon, Sableye, and EXs) [paired down]
This game started HORRIBLY. I don’t think I even had anything worth Junk Hunting. It was just a bunch of energy and nothing else useful. I had to manually power up a Tornadus, and I think I got an early KO on a Sableye. Maybe that prize gave me a Darkrai, and I started powering it up and I think Austin played an N. Finally, the game came down to +3 overtime. He was turn 0. On my turn 1, I had 2 prizes left, and he had 3. He could KO whatever I left active, but I knew he was out of Catchers. I promoted a Sableye and did Junk Hunt for Dark Claw and Pokemon Catcher. With the extra 20 damage, there were 2 EXs that I could KO. On his turn 2, he could easily tie the game, but I had the cards needed to win on my turn 3. He plays Cheren, does some stuff, realizes he can’t win, and offers his hand. His dad had been watching the game and asked if he had N in his hand before he played Cheren. He did. N wouldn’t have won it for sure, but it would have been the play to try to get rid of my Catcher+Claw.
4-0

Round 5) Michael Slutsky (Darkrai, Hydreigon) [paired down AND on video camera]
Michael had a horrible start. I got way ahead, but things went sour when I got down to 2 prizes, because he started N’ing me. When the game was 1-5 on prizes (he had 5 left and I had 1 left), he had already played 3 Ns, so I went for the Junk Hunt. Thinking he still had a small chance to N me, I grabbed 2 Pokemon Catcher. On his turn, he N’d, and got 2 KOs with Night Spear resulting in him taking 4 prizes tying the game. What’s the one card I drew off of N? Pokemon Catcher for the win! That’s the second time today that Junk Hunt won me the game.
5-0

Round 6) Alex Solomonson (Eelektrik, Rayquaza, Rayquaza EX) [on video camera]
This is the third time I had my match recorded by Bullados. That’s the same as the number of times I got paired down and handed someone their second loss (which often results in them dropping). I drew absolutely dead for, I dunno, 6 turns or soe until Alex N’s. He already had 4 Eels set up by this time, so the game was pretty much out of hand. Seeing a tiny window, I opted to Catcher around a damaged Rayquaza EX to KO a benched Rayquaza which set up a bench KO on the EX later. I couldn’t afford to “waste” damage when I was so far down already. Unfortunately, my gamble fell short when Alex played a Max Potion on the EX pretty much sealing my doom.
5-1

So, I went all day without getting a loss, only losing to Solo in the final round. Of course, if I had won, I’d be in 1st place. We waited for the other matches to conclude and listened to the announcement of the top 4.

4th, Mike Lesky
3rd, Ariel Lacsamana
2nd, Chad Wertish
1st, Alex Solomonson

Well, if you read along this far, you may have seen it coming. I was 5th. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone get paired down 3 times in a 6-round tourney before. Why couldn’t one of those other guys have gotten the down-pairs? Oh well, it’s out of my control.

If you want to see video of my matches, watch Bullados’ YouTube channel. I really wanted to add the videos to this report, but it seems like he may not get them posted anytime soon. I’d rather get this out there and either edit it later or just add another post when they’re available.

I definitely had a good time going 5-0. Earlier that day, I kinda hoped I’d lose, because I wasn’t feeling that well and we had church at 5PM. Well, the more I won, the better I felt, but we missed church. After going from (tied for) 1st to getting 5th, I left with a feeling like I should have just lost and left early. The juniors only had 3 rounds, so they waited a LONG time for me to finish, and for what?