One Hit KO

For almost a month, I’ve been working on a Flareon deck.  I chose it due to economics and the fact that I like decks that play fast and loose.  I had it almost built in the Cofagrigous Six Feet Under configuration.  It was something of a “Turbo Flareon” build if you will.

There was a tourney coming up, and I didn’t think that version gave me enough chance against all decks.  I looked around and found Pooka’s decklist online, so I built that version.  I kept playing solitaire and tweaking it, but I never felt comfortable with it.  Basically, his build is a metagame counter, and I wasn’t very confident that the meta here would be anything like that of the real world.

The final straw was that, on Friday night, I played a game against my daughter, Ava, and she beat me.  The tourney was Saturday, and I didn’t have another deck.  I was REALLY kicking myself for not building the deck I had lots of experience with (Darkrai), due to not owning any Darkrai.

As it turned out, I did trade for a Darkrai EX the week before at league.  On the downside, that same day, I traded away all my Dark Patch, because I knew I wasn’t playing Darkrai.  On Friday night, I was really bugging Omar about this via text.  Could I get away with just 2 or 3 many Darkrai?  How many Dark Patch would I need,  minimum?  If I could trade/buy/borrow some Darkrai and Dark Patch, I might switch decks.

On Sat morning, I looked up a decklist for it, and the first one that popped up was Jason Klaczynski’s Worlds list.  I printed it off, stopped at the cash machine on the way, and hit up Who’s Game House.

When I arrived, the Tournament Organizer had a box of commons and uncommons.  I looked through it and came up with 2 Dark Patch and some other useful stuff.  Then I started asking around for Darkrai EX.  I thought maybe the only ones that existed in the town were in Brad’s deck.  That was almost true.  I was able to trade for one from Austin (the same guy that traded me one the previous week, actually).  Zach, yet another player, offered to lend me his full-art copy for the day.  The final piece fell into place when Ken offered up 2 Dark Patch and a couple Virbanks.

I had what I needed, and I had about 15 minutes to build the deck and write the decklist.  It was VERY hectic, and Zach ended up writing my decklist as I tossed newly-sleeved cards at him.  As the entry deadline was called, we realized I was 10 cards short, and I started tossing in Crushing Hammer, Energy Switch (LUCKILY), and something else.  I made it.

A few minutes later, I realized I had only 10 energy and forgot to include Energy Search.  I also missed Catchers and didn’t have room for any Bicycle.  Oh well, I still think the deck was better than the Flareon/Leafeon/Terrakion/etc. I had a day earlier.

We had 30-minute rounds that were best of 3.

Round 1: Austin (Master)

I had amazing flip skills in game 1.  Crushing Hammer crushed Austins hope of attacking.  Austin finally got an attack off at the end of game 1.  Game 2 saw him get a Mewtwo EX set up, but it wasn’t enough to get a prize, as I had set up multiple Darkrai.

1-0

Round 2: Brad (Senior)

I expected Brad to be my toughest competition, as he was also playing Darkrai.  In game 1, my deck ran well, and it was a well fought and well played battle that I ended up winning pretty handily due to some key KOs.  Brad knew time was getting short, and he wanted to speed up.  I obliged, but I also knew there was no way we’d finish a second game.  I was setting up, and Brad got an easy KO for one prize.  Time was called, and Brad was given a game win, because he was ahead on prizes.  WHAT?  We played a sudden-death game 3, and I hit 0 supporters while Brad set up and got a single KO.  I’m pretty sure I just lost a match even though I took more prizes than the opponent.

1-1

Round 3: Ava (MY Junior)

After the previous loss, I can’t say I cared much anymore.  On top of that, Ava was sitting at 2-0 with one round left.  I have to say that I wanted to see her win.  I also had something on the line, because I still had a chance to win Masters due to matchups.  Well, this game went pretty badly, and I had almost no energy.  Ava made some mistakes that I capitalized on, but she was ahead in game 1 when time was called.  That gave her the win.

1-2

Wrapup

So, that was it.  Ava went 3-0 and won Juniors.  Petra (another daughter of mine) and I both went 1-2.  I can’t say that I was happy with the day.  I felt pretty frustrated and annoyed.  I heard that another player lost a game where he was forced to reflip because the coin landed “out of bounds” which was beyond where the deck was placed.  Now, I am currently contemplating becoming a professor.  I feel like one is needed here, but then we might only have 11 players in the next tourney (this one was like 7 Masters, 1 Senior, and 4 Juniors).

 

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