Tournament

Cheffords’ 2010 Pokemon National Championships

Here’s my report from the master’s division at this year’s Nationals.

First, a little about the event. My daughter and I have been planning to attend Nationals this year ever since we failed to go last year. We knew we were golden when we convinced my wife to come along and treat it like a family vacation. The drive from Michigan was easy, about 5 hours, and we made it with plenty of time to get the early registration t-shirts. We didn’t really grasp the scale of the event until Friday morning though.

The venue was gigantic, easily the biggest single room I have been in for a long time (in fact I am having difficulty recalling another time when I was in a room this size.) There are tons of people milling about. There are people in line for the Video Game Tournament. There are side rooms with vendors, open playing, and just hanging out. In the main room there are separate sections for each of the age groups, one for league play and side events, one for eating with tables and one for the video game stuff too.

Throughout the weekend we see people we know from Michigan but also folks we recognize from online like JWittz and Adam from SixPrizes.com. We spent a lot of time hanging out with Team Warp Point (Good Game) who make us honorary members before the weekend is over; YOU GUYS ROCK! And of course we make new friends too. If you didn’t make it this year, I strongly encourage you to plan on being there next year because it is a blast and there is a ton of poemon fun to be had.

Round 1 vs. Brandon (Indiana) with Dusknoir LvX, Gengar LvX

This was my first game and first donk of the event. It went down like this – I go first starting with Mr. Mime; I draw and pass. Brandon opens with Duskull who evolves using Reaper Cloth into Dusclops (who has 80 HP) and attacks with Dark One-eye, discarding to force me to discard. I use Roseanne’s Research to get Uxie and Shuppet (I have 2 PlusPower, 1 psychic energy, and Warp Point in hand); using Uxie’s Setup gets a Crobat G, another PlusPower, and a Super Scoop. I Flash Bite with Crobat G, hit heads on the Super Scoop, scoop and replay Crobat G for another 10 with Flash Bite and then attack with Shuppet with 3 PlusPowers for 60 and the KO.

Brandon takes it okay and we head over to the league tables for a friendly game that goes down to the wire but I win again.

Record: 1 win, 0 losses

Round 2 vs. Matthew (Indiana) with Jumpluff

Matthew goes first opening with Baltoy and passes. I don’t remember the details but I am able to KO the Baltoy and win the game with another donk.

Record: 2 wins, 0 losses

Round 3 vs. Hanaan (Rhode Island) with CurseGar

We chit-chat during setup and find out we are both “pokedads” with kids playing in the other age groups. Hanaan opens with a Spiritomb and Gastly and I immediately know what I am up against. I have played and beaten many CurseGar decks in past tournaments so I know what to expect and I feel confident. On my second turn I KO his Spiritomb and think I am off to the races, however on his next turn he uses Pokemon Collector to get 3 more Spiritombs from his deck and proceeds to trainer lock me for the rest of the game. I never faced a CurseGar that ran and used 4 Spiritomb, but all I have to say is when the game was over and I showed my hand to Hanaan we counted 14 trainer cards.

Record: 2 wins, 1 loss

Round 4 vs. Jay (Iowa) with Kingdra

Jay isn’t very talkative during setup and I get the sense he takes playing very seriously. I mulligan my first draw and Jay takes his time looking at my cards to figure out what I am running, he doesn’t look happy. We shake hands and flip our cards, he has a lone Horsea and I have either an Uxie or Dunsparce (I can’t recall which.) Jay goes first and passes. I play a Buck’s, attach a PlusPower and an energy, and drop Crobat G to the bench using Flash Bite for 10 damage. My attack takes care of the 40 remaining HP and gives me the game. That’s 3 donks out of 4 games, this is a huge difference from my deck’s performance during the 3 Battle Roads I went to.

Record: 3 wins, 1 loss

Round 5 vs. Alex (Indiana) with Dialga G LvX, Garchomp C LvX

We setup and I can’t believe that I am opening with a lone Unown Q. Seriously, I only run one of them and to not have any other basics in hand is unbelievable. I am dreading the donk but hope for the best as we turn over our cards. Alex has a Garchomp C active and a Baltoy on the bench. He goes first but doesn’t the double-colorless energy he needs to donk me and passes. I take a deep breath having survived the opening turn and gather my wits trying to get a quick KO. I use Roseanne’s Research to get Dunsparce and a psychic energy to exploit Garchomp’s weakness. My turn goes well and I KO the Garchomp, however that is the end of my good luck because Alex quickly sets up a Dialga G and proceeds to Deafen me for the remainder of the game. At some point he uses Judge to shuffle Dunsparce and the energy back into the deck. I am left to draw and hope to get an energy or another Roseanne’s but to no avail. He eventually attaches an Expert Belt on Dialga G and with a clever play with Crobat G he gets his last prize card. Another game where trainer lock wrecks me; my final hand had nearly 20 trainers in it.

Record: 3 wins, 2 losses

Round 6 vs. Katheryn (Alabama) with Fainting Spell Gengar

I don’t recall the details of this match but the executive summary is – my deck runs like a clock and I take 6 prizes while Kathryn struggles to get anything threatening setup for very long. I do remember being pleasantly surprised when she uses Shadow Room to KO my Mr. Mime. In the end though, I win without much trouble.

Record: 4 wins, 2 losses

At this point I am feeling pretty good about my deck and my playing. I begin to hope that I might make it into the top-cut.

Round 7 vs. Robert (New Hampshire) with Gardavoir, Nidoqueen

Another “pokedad” here with his kid playing in the seniors division. Robert confesses to being extremely tired because of the long drive the day before and I hope this bodes well for me. Another match where I don’t have many details but Robert plays well enough in his exhausted state to stave off my flurry of attacks and hold me to 3 prizes before time is called, too bad he already has taken 4 prizes. I really feel I could have won this matchup if it weren’t for the 2 Judge cards he played to shuffle away all of my resources at the right moments only to follow up with a Psychic Lock attack to limit my ability to recover. Hats off to Robert to play a smart game in such a state.

Record: 4 wins, 3 losses

This is the last game for the day and despite 3 losses and hopes of top-cut waning, I am feeling pretty good and look forward to the following morning.

Round 8 vs. Rebekah (Louisiana) with straight Machamp

The pairings are posted on time and we are seated and getting setup. During the small talk Rebekah informs me that if she losses again she is going to drop to which the guy next to me concurs. I don’t know what to make of this really because I don’t see the point of coming all that way only to drop before the final round, but whatever I guess.

This game is like the last few because I don’t have many details but do I know that I take one prize per turn and end Rebekah’s tournament (she dropped.) She struggles to get setup only to play to promote a Spiritomb when she needs to play Night Maintenance and Luxury Ball. The one Machamp she does get out and on the bench doesn’t last long enough for her to use because I flip heads on a Pokemon Reversal and hit it hard for the OHKO.

Record: 5 wins, 3 losses

Round 9 vs. Paul (Washington) with Jumpluff, Luxray GL LvX

This one is pretty fresh still in my head so I have more details than the last few. I go first and open with a Crobat G active and something else on the bench. On Paul’s first turn he gets his bench full and evolves up into a Jumpluff with 1 energy and OHKOs my Crobat G. I have a great hand and am able to get Shuppet, energy, several PlusPowers, an Expert belt and OHKO his Jumpluff. This seems to surprise Paul as he goes into he second turn. Again he gets a Jumpluff out and KOs whatever I have active (no Mr. Mime yet.) I know this is a slugfest and I a turn behind so I have to do something to stall him out. I play my turn going for the knock out on his Jumpluff but I see my opening for the next turn to get ahead on prizes. The plan I hatch is to use 2 Poke Blower+ to force his Claydol active so I can KO it. This will slow his recovery down at least for 1 full turn if not longer. As it turns out, when Paul gets control again, he searches for more Jumpluff but isn’t able to find it, he thinks about going for Luxray GL but decides not to. He promotes Chatot and uses Mimic to shuffle his hand and draw 14 cards. I decide to proceed as planned and go after his draw foregoing the easy KO on Chatot (he only has 60 HP.) I also get Mr. Mime in play with Unown Q attached.

It is a little early to celebrate, but I am up in prizes and he doesn’t have a Jumpluff in his deck. He decides to go for Luxray GL LvX and Bright Looks up an Uxie (why he didn’t go for the Crobat G I cannot say) only to retreat in favor of Chatot again. He Mimics for another new hand of 13 cards. Around this time I draw into a Cyclone Energy and keep it in my hand knowing that at some point he will attack with Luxray, leaving him active which is too much HP for me to one-shot. The last few turns are a blur to me, but I know he is obviously trying to get 3 energies on his Luxray in order to KO my Mr. Mime but doesn’t seem to have enough energy left (his multi-energy is already in the discard). My last turn of the game goes like this, I draw into a second Poke Drawer+ which I use to get the last PlusPower and a Crobat G, I retreat Mr. Mime and promote Dunsparce attaching cyclone energy. He switches Luxray for Chatot. I attach all of my PlusPower to Dunsparce and know I have the KO, however I also see Hoppip on the bench and feel like I can get the double KO if I get lucky on a couple of Super Scoop Ups and that is exactly what I do and it wins me the game.

Record: 6 wins, 3 losses

I decide that I have a slim chance still to get into the top-cut of 64 and sort my deck while waiting for the standings to get posted. After a while the standings go up; I finish 79th, well out of top 64. In my flight there were 25 players with 6-3 records who make it into the top-cut. Even so I had a great time and am very happy with the way my deck and I played at the end of the season.

2 Wins in 2 Days, Epic

So, this weekend was full of tons of excitement and fun games. There were 2 tourneys, Ed did his reports, and hyped up mine I guess. The 2 days I ran the same deck both days, Gengar Garchomp C (again). I almost played Blaziken Garchomp day 2 since Dialga is everywhere, but decided to go with what I was successful with.

So the first day was at the source in St. Paul, and there were 5 rounds cut to top 4. So, day 1 report begins here.

Game 1: Me vs. Charlie

So game 1 I play my teammate Charlie, who was playing Blaziken Garchomp. Since I built his deck, I knew what he could and couldn’t do, and he is a newer player so he would make more mistakes then me. The game was somewhat of a game for the first couple turns; I started horrible and had to pitch dark the first 2 turns with Gastly in play and on the bench. Luckily, his entire search was trainer, and he slowed as well. I finally top collector, and start rollin. I Garchomp his Garchomps, and unown G my claydol. This keeps my claydol safe and his bench owned. I think I end up winning when he as 3 prizes left, and move to game two.
1-0

Game 2 vs. Thomas
Thomas was playing Dialga Garchomp. This was not the greatest game for me, and Gengar seems to be on bad terms with Dialga. He Garchomps my Garchomp and claydol early, and I couldn’t really get to anything to counter with enough power. I end up getting ravaged, taking maybe 2 prizes, can’t really remember if I took that many
1-1

Game 3 vs. Ryan???
God I can’t remember his name right now, and I know it’s really bad I can’t, but he was also playing Dialga Garchomp. He starts a lone ambipom G, I start Gastly. I use call and get Garchomp and baltoy. He draws, and passes. I draw. Get collector, yes. I play DCE and energy gain on Garchomp, and then collector for uxie, draw like 4 or 5, and get sp radar. I get lvl. X Garchomp and snipe his lone ambipom G for game. After the game he shows me his hand, pretty much able to donk anything I had with dce, crobat and turn. Yay for call energy.
2-1

Game 4 vs. Gliscor Gallade
Uhm, she starts lone uxie, I start lone Gastly. She plays a psychic energy and attacks. I play rare candy Gengar, play an energy, and show the sp radar for crobat. GG
3-1

Game 5 vs. Arcanine HGSS, Typhlosion, nidoqueen
I never got to see this deck set up, and the queen that he set up I played 2 crobats, 2 turns and Garchomp to snipe it. He didn’t get anything, I got everything possible
4-1

So I go to my top 4 with Ed, abdi, and soari. So far, I haven’t really had very much competition, and I lost my only competitive game so far. But I play Ed

Game 5: Ed with shuppet
I start Gastly, pitch dark for like 3 turns, and if you read Ed’s report, you can get the just of what happened. The game took a really long time, like 50 min, and I took the last prize for game 1.

Game 2 was much shorter due to time, but the whole game I just got Gastly and used pitch dark hoping he cannot take 4 prizes in 10 min without trainers. Well, it works, and time is called when he only took 2. Sorry Ed, but I can’t win the prize race in 10 min with shuppet.
5-1

So, as a repeat match, I play soari for the victory medal again.
Game 1 was pretty 1 sided in my favor. I Garchomped anything important and hand the answer to anything he did. The one thing that wins me the game is that he jet shoots my Gengar, I get the fainting spell flip, and then snipe with Garchomp for the win. After the first game we converse a little, and he asks if that was the right move. The only response I could give is if I would have flipped tails, yeah.

Game 2 was 1 turn long. He donked my lone baltoy.

So, with about 15 min left, game 3 starts. I am in total panic, because both my Garchomp C lv. X are prized. I tried to drop azelf, but it got sprayed. I snipe his uxie, and then he snipes my something. Can’t quite remember, but it wasn’t all that significant to slowing me down. With each of our prize counts tied, I start my turn with a Gengar active and bench with a Garchomp C basic. I draw and take a look at the field, and he has a basic luxray up front, a bench full of 80+ sp Pokémon, and an unown G on uxie. Ugh. So I’m thinking there is no way without the x. then time is called. Oh boy. Well, I check my hand and see the dce and gain, and crobat G, meaning I need to find a way to top another crobat and turn, or 2 bats. I drop everything like it is hot, and still only can cosmic for 3. Well, I got the poke turns. Both of them :). So I retreat the Gengar, promote the basic Garchomp, hope that he doesn’t have spray (he didn’t get more then 2 the whole game) and KO his luxray for game. I take my 2nd tourney win ever, the 2nd mn battle roads this season, and go home for some rest and relaxation before tourney #2.
6-1

I arrive late to this tourney, scramble to fill out a deck list, and decided on the same deck again today. Unlike yesterday however, there are more people and more Gengar C then anything in the tourney. Yikes. Well, after preparing, I see soari again, and after yesterday and the tourney before that, he was fired up and ready to take the victory medal for himself this time (foreshadowing). So, let’s get to it for the second tourney.

Round 1 vs. Calvin?
I can’t quite remember his name either. Man my tourney report is lame ha-ha. Anyway, he was playing cursegar. This isn’t the worst matchup if and only if I can get his claydol out of their early, and get a Gengar set up for later. Well, luckily for me, he doesn’t play azelf, and prizes 2 haunter. This means he cannot spiritomb at all to evolve, and since I snipe claydol early with Garchomp, he never gets set up at all. I take this game with flying colors.
1-0

Game 2 vs. Louis.
This game was just too bad for my teammate again. He is running the same deck I am, but start Gastly and he starts crobat. I go first and pitch dark. He literally couldn’t play anything because of his trainer heavy hand. He passes. I set up a Garchomp c after I draw, which includes DCE and gain, and pitch dark again. He draws, and scoops. That was that.
2-0

Game 3 vs. Bali
He is playing his own version of an SP deck that has Dialga in it with Garchomp, and then a lot of other uselessness. Well, he starts the Dialga, and I start a lone baltoy. Luckily, he goes first, and I top deck a call energy. But I prized horribly, so I had to play azelf, and the next 3 Turns he KO’s my 2 gastlys and baltoy. So, before I can even set up anything, claydol, Garchomp, Gengar, I’m down 6-3. Awesome. Well, I get the Gengar set up and snipe a benched uxie. He then warps me, and I bring up azelf, and he cannot get the KO. The next turn I bring up Gengar again and snipe another pixie. He then attacks Gengar and still doesn’t play anything else but horrible SP’s like rampardos and aerodactyle. I then Ko his active Dialga the next turn with Garchomp DCE and 2 crobats and 2 turns, and then the next turn I snipe a Garchomp he puts down to start setting up. So the prizes went from a horrid 6-3 to 3-2 I was winning. The rest of the game was him failing to get something going, and me KO’ing little guys with Garchomp C and Gengar.
3-0

Game 4 vs. Radu
Yay, he is playing sableye Garchomp honchkrow. Not the best for me. Luckily, he starts honchkrow and Garchomp, and I set up normally. Even with the countless judge and giratina, and him sniping my Garchomp on the bench, I maintained a claydol the whole game, and kept the consistency up. Eventually, I take my last prize and win by like 2. After the game he lets me know he has yet to start sableye. I apologize for the inconvenience, and take the win.
4-0

Game 5 vs. Ed.
Well, after such hateful comments on how I’m bad and luck sack everything in the post that Ed made, ill just let you read his report for game 5. I lost. Sad day.
4-1

So day 2 both Ed and I top again, but this time Michael and soari are the other competitors.

Game 6 Vs. Soari (again)
Ish. K we both have been playing the same decks for the last 3 BR’s, and I always seem to pull it off game 3 in the finals. However, this time we only got 1 round due to the inconvenience of our judge working for 23 hours straight and having to work again like 6 hours later. So he needed sleep and we all agreed it was cool. So, our game begins with him ripping me apart. He got rollin turn 1, gets everything set up, and then turn 2 he plays the Cyrus he gets with uxie and takes energy, poke turn, and Cyrus. Now I’m really afraid, because my lone claydol power will get power sprayed because he must have 1 since he didn’t take it with Cyrus. Well, that was not the case. I get the claydol off, and my poop hand gets saucy and delicious. Not really, he still gets a 4-6 prize card lead on me eventually, but he gets spray turn 2 and its gg. So, the reoccurrence of working from behind hits me again. I start getting some cheap KO’s with Gengar and snipe his bronzong with Garchomp and his Garchomp with Garchomp all the while he KO’s crobat. So it gets to 2-2, and he plays Aarons for an energy and Garchomp instead of the bronzong and Garchomp. This ultimately loses him the game, because he thought with luxray he could bring up claydol maybe. He just ko’ed my Garchomp with ambipom G, and I have my active Gengar. I snipe something little and take my second to last prize to get in the lead. He then couldn’t get anything to hit me back with, saw my win the following turn, and scoops. I apologize that 3 times in a row, I take the victory in the top 4, but you got to admit, every time we play its close and fun.
5-1

Game 7 Vs. Michael (the short one)
Yeah so he is playing Gengar Garchomp as well, and luckily for him, and for the second time in a row, I prize both Garchomp C. But the game was still really fin and really close. To first describe the intensity of the game, there were about 12 people huddled around the table, yet it was dead silent. All you could hear was the other player’s recognition of trainer plays and poke powers, and the mass shuffle of our cards in our hands in mass amounts of fear and excitement, nervousness and uneasiness, and everything in between. The game starts with him literally, running me over. Yeah I got a couple cheap KO’s with unown G and 2 bats to get baltoy, but he KO’s the Garchomp I get, the claydol I set up and kept on the attack with Garchomp. He didn’t get a Gengar for a while, but when he did, he got a cheap one on azelf. So, to speed this up to a point of extreme intensity, the prize count is 3-1, I have 3 to go, he has 1. It’s my turn. My field has Gengar lvl x (unown G attached) with 10 damage on it, a crobat G, and uxie. He has Garchomp C (basic) active with Gengar with 90 damage on it, Gastly, and crobat on the bench. Due to my fear of getting owned on the bench, I poke turn my crobat, attach an energy to uxie, and psychic restore on Garchomp C basic for 20 damage. On his next turn, he levels up the Garchomp, but doesn’t use healing breath (silly dood). So he retreats, plays the last cards in his hand which is luxury ball and gets unown G and plays Gengar X, so I cannot snipe the active Gengar. He uses poltergeist, and I take 60 damage with my energy gain and Roseanne in hand. My next turn I draw bebe’s, play Roseanne’s for uxie and an energy, and then play crobat down, attach gain to him, and put 60 damage on Garchomp C. He draws; plays poke turn, and then puts 10 on my crobat and uses shadow room for 60 on crobat G. So, on my turn, I play my bebe’s and get Gengar X, level down his X, use uxie and draw like 3 cards, and psychic restore for KO, making the prize race 2-1. He then has a couple of turns to get his poke turn to KO my crobat. He promotes Gastly, plays the call energy he drew on Gastly, and uses pitch dark so I cannot draw into anything to get crobat off of the field. I then on the next turn, I level down the Garchomp (and since he didn’t healing breath there was 80 damage on it: D) and take a prize, 1-1, and then put 60 on crobat. This means on his turn he needs to top deck something to get my crobat otherwise its game. He draws…..toxicroak G. he uses pitch dark and ends. I snipe crobat for game.
6-1

This was quite the intense game, and the 3rd game today I had to work from behind….not something I think this deck should have to do. But whatevs, I sweep 3 of 3 BR’s in MN this season, only to have to go to my graduation ceremony and miss the last one. Whatevs, class of 2010 FTW :)

BTW Ed, if anyone luck sacks anything….it’s you. K thanks XD Anywho, that’s all I have for my double header.

Battle Roads: Dreamers, St. Louis Park, MN

Saturday saw Team Omar take 3 of the top 4 spots in MN’s second Battle Roads. Sunday brought us a new opportunity to claim a Victory Medal. This time it was at Dreamers. My daughter, Ava, had birthday parties to attend both days, so she couldn’t attend. Here’s how my day went down. This will be somewhat of a mini-report, because Omar is going to come along and give full coverage of the weekend’s events.

Austino's GyaradosRound 1: Radu Ciocan – Sabledonk/SPionage/Sablelock
Radu starts Uxie. I donk him with my Sableye.
1-0

Round 2: Thomas Veazie – DialgaChomp
It wasn’t a super-quick battle, but Thomas never got anything set up for long. Most of the game was me bringing up his 110HP Pokemon and one-shotting them with Gyarados.
2-0

Round 3: Mark – BLG (Blaziken, Luxray, Garchomp)
This was a pretty good battle. I donked Mark the previous day when I played Shuppet and he played Jumpluff. Today was a tougher battle. Garchomp uses up a lot of energy, and if they can’t take prizes each turn, it’s tough once I get Gyarados set up. He got desperate near the end, and I recall having to use many Warp Energy and Super Scoop Up to get Regice and Claydol out of the way. In the end, it’s was all that Warping that won me the game.
3-0
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Battle Roads Report: The Source, St. Paul, MN

Shuppet - PlatinumI’m going to keep this short. Maybe Omar will add his report, and mine won’t be as interesting. In fact, mine probably isn’t that great, but since it’s the first time I’ve played in top cut, I figured I’d better add something for the archives.

The details will be a bit blurry and maybe inaccurate. I didn’t take any notes, and I didn’t have my camera.

Game 1: Mark – Eevee
Mark goes first and attaches a call energy to his 50HP basic. He calls for Eevee and something else. On my turn, I KO his Eevee. He goes again, and doesn’t do a whole lot. I think I may have had Mr. Mime active. On my turn, I KO something else. Mark scoops.
1-0

Game 2: (different) Mark – Jumpluff
Mark starts with active Azelf (IIRC). I donk.
2-0
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Team Omar’s First Team Victory

Woohoo!!!! After about a year of playing competitively, and only about 3 months after the whole team of team omar was put together and created, we have our first team win. Who cares if it was just a battle roads, its a victory no less. The win came from me, and ill give my report on the day. But, other then me winning, we did have another team member t4 with Charizard. Dont know how he did it, but he did.

Anyways, the deck of choice i had going into the tourney was Gengar Garchomp C. The reason for it is because of the snipe ability. I thank whomever created the deck (i believe Kendall, but idk how to spell it)for creating it and sharing with the world the idea. So, on to the report. This tourney had 28 Masters, 4 away from top 8, so its 5 rounds cut to top 4, and the best part was that of the 28 people, 7 were team omar representitives

Round 1: Me vs. Gyrados/Kingdra Prime

The game starts with me starting a Garchomp C. He starts Sableye just like every other gyrados deck in the world, and a regice on the bench. He starts rollin with impersonate getting karps and a horsea. I was quite afraid this game because of my horrid hand to begin with. I had Garchomp C active, and then had 3 poketurn, a warp point, 2 psychic energy, and a haunter. Yum. luckly for me, i top deck a judge. This not only gets rid of the karps in his hand, but the 4 cards i got were like heaven in comparison to the starting hand. i used call energy, got gastly and baltoy, and the games begun. After that however for my opponent, he couldnt get anything goin. He put down a karp and played a collector from his hand, got some karps to discard with regice, but ended with a bebe for gyrados. I rare candy into gengar, drop claydol, refresh my hand, lvl x and retreat the garchomp, and snipe the karp. He never got bts, never set up a gyrados, every karp he put down was Ko’ed, and if he got a seadra down, it was sniped with garchomp. 6 prizes in 6 turns, and i take game #1
1-0

Round 2: Me Vs. Emmanuel

The reason that i dont put a deck up there is because it is emmanuel. He always has some sly way to make a deck to wreck people. He ran Magnezone, manectric, and entei raikou legend. He also had spiritomb to help set up, and a 3-1 uxie line for draw power. I guess the point is to either put yourself in a position to take 6-7 prizes in 1 attack, or just tank with magnezone, and it worked pretty well for him throughout the day. But our game was a little more intense. He starts 2 magnemites and calls for electrike and spiritomb. I start garchomp C(again) and call for gastly and baltoy. A couple turns go by of him setting up a magneton with spiritomb, it getting sniped by garchomp, slowly getting the manectric and magnezone set up, a couple snipes on my part goin for uxies and magnezone. But around turn 5 or 6, i notice he set me up really well. I had a gengar with 80hp left, garchomp c with 70, claydol, and crobat all on the field. He uses the magnezone that searches electric or metal pokemon, and gets 1/2 the legend. I started sweatin because i wasnt prepared for this, and was quite afraid after checking my bench and field. Luckly for me, he couldnt get another pokemon with his uxie draws to get the other half with the communication in his hand. I had a sigh of relief when he just used the manectric to attack for 30 on everyone with powers. The next turn i poketurn both garchomp and crobat, put the basic garchomp down, and a basic baltoy incase he ravages my claydol, and snipe something else. He then fell behind in the race and never got to use his raikou and entei, and i take game two. Good game dood, and that was the first time that i got chu ;)
2-0

Game 3: Me vs. Gyrados

Second Gyrados of the day, but this time he got a gyrados going, and a sableye snipe on my opening gastly. This game didnt have too many exciting things to it. I sniped regice, uxie, and got a couple garchomp C snipes on crobat G’s. The biggest mistake of my day was when he had like 27 cards in hand, and i had 2 prizes left, he has an active Gyrados with a belt, and i thought that it would be a nice idea to use judge, you know why not. Well, then i cant poltergeist with gengar for ko and the win. NICE!!!!!!!!! so it turns out i cant flip my fainting spell heads, and then the following turn i ko his sableye on the bench with another gengar. So its 1-1, and he ko’s my fresh gengar, and luckly i flip heads and we go to sudden death. yay……So i start the gastly, and he starts crobat. He needs to top deck a dark for the donk, because he has collector. And yk what, he does and he gets the donk on my cute gastly. yay.
2-1

Round 4: Me vs. Jumpluff

K so i have to win out here pretty much, and yay, i play a pretty fast deck that can be really difficult to beat if they can get ahead on the prize race. Luckly for me, that was not the case. Nothing exciting really happened this game, jumpluff brings up whomever he wants and KO’s with luxray. But after that happened, i snipe with garchomp C the luxray. This game goes like any other game with this deck, i use gengar to snipe uxie’s and claydol, and he was playing warps and anything else he could so he wouldnt have to kill a gengar. So the prize count become 3-2, i have 2 he has 3, and he has the belted jumpluff up front, and has no way to get a KO other then to attack the gengar, he does, and wham!!!!! heads on fainting spell. GG. Some say its cheap, i say a little luck never hurt anyone.
3-1

Round 5: Me vs. Sableye, Honchkrow, Garchomp C.

Oh boy. I usually wouldnt sweat something terrible because mewtwo solves all my problems, but the cool part was that both were prized, the basic and x, as well as azelf. Oh man, so i had to play this out. The first 2 turns he gets easy KO’s with sableye on a gastly and baltoy, and the turn he gets the 2nd ko,  puts a Garchomp C with a dce on his bench, an energy gain, as well as 2 crobats to make sure he could power spray my claydol, and snipe him the following turn. Unfortunately for him, i had the same garchomp C set up in my hand, and the basic on the field. All i needed was to lucksack a little and pull a way to get the lvl. X. well, i top deck the lvl. X. That was easy, and then i attempt to claydol, ready to get sprayed, and do. I then set up the garchomp and snipe his. So my field at this point consists of garchomp C lv. X., a claydol. an uxie. and 2 cards in hand. This was the turn that he could devistate me, and i knew it. Luckly for me, he miscalculated huge. With a giratina on his bench from his first turn, sableye active, 2 crobats, and uxie, he played his turn as so. He poketurns a crobat. Sets up a garchomp C again with a gain and a dark energy. then, drops another uxie, draws like 2, and impersonates cyrus for a power spray, an energy, and cyrus. He probably had the same plan just a turn behind, but the issue for him was the face that the only 2 SP’s he had were garchomp and crobat. So i drew a crobat, put it down and put 10 on an uxie, and then cosmic’d for 6. He tried to spray, but it didnt quite work. So i then retreat the garchomp, bring up crobat, poke turn the crobat, bring carchomp bacu up, DCE him, play a cyrus for another turn, energy, and rosie since i had candy gengar in my hand(i pulled awesome off of the 6 cards) and then sniped his garchomp again. At this point he falls behing, trying to do anything to get on-top of me. After a couple turns of  me sniping uxie’s, he gets a garchomp set up to snipe my claydo, and hopes that i dont have a way for the last KO. Well, i just retreat my gengar, and put up garchomp, and snipe for game. After he asked if i had mewtwo. I laughed. I got my mewtwo lv. X as my 4th prize, Azelf as my 5th. YAY! But i still got the victory
4-1

So, the rounds were over, and there was one 5-0, and three 4-1’s in the top cut. three 4-1’s werent going to make it. Luckly, for team omar, we had three 4-1 people at this point, me, my friend with charizard, and one with garchomp C and blaziken FB with no luxray. Top cut was announced, and it was the 5-0 SP junkbox(ill explain later) playing my charizard friend, and me playing the gyrados i lost too. Revenge.

Round 6: Me vs. Gyrados

So, the round is 60 min, best 2 out of three. This means if i get pwned quickly i am ok. Well, the first game wasnt much of one. I start gastly, go first because he starts crobat, attach, and pitch dark, he then collectors for 2 karps and sableye, buts a karp down with sableye, retreats crobat, and then conveinantly has another karp, so he impersonates felicity and gets 2 karps in the discard. Well, i gengar snipe the carp the next turn, and get another gastly and baltoy on my bench getin ready. His next turn wasnt much, he plays another felicity with inpersonate and dicards junk. I then poltergeist his sableye, and do 90 dmg when he has 10 cards in hand full of junk!!! he then poketurns the crobat and thats GG. Win first round

Second round was even faster, i start gastly and he starts karp, i go first. I attach and pitch dark, He draws, and plays sea spray. Yeah thats it. Draws 1 card. I then rare candy and shadow room for KO. 2 games in probably 6 min. Sorry it happened like that man, but its pokemon. Everyone has those days.
5-1

So, as i cheer my team member on, there is this huge wait because his opponent has to recase his sleeves because one of his broke and he didnt have another one to swap with, so that took a while, and then it was a long game 2 that went down to time, and unfortunately my member loses. So i play this SP junkbox as my opponent for the victory medal(oooooo ahhhh)

Round 7: Me vs. SP

So, his deck is a little everywhere. He is comfortable with it, so whatever, but it has dialga G lv. X, Blaziken FB lv.X, luxray G Lv. X, Garchomp C Lv. X, Uxie Lv. X, and idk what else, mabye even a couple copies of each, but it if works it works. So the first round begins, and i was off to a slower start then i want, and he is the player that takes his time and doesnt wanna make a mistake, which is annoying but you cant hate him for taking his time. You just know if you fall behind time is not on your side. He gets ahead of me and brings up claydol to snipe around. I was only down 1 prize the whole game, but that was rough when he was playing slower, and before its too late, about 30 min left, i scoop and go game two.

Game 2 was more on my side. I snipe the 2 uxies with gengar that he had to put down t1 to overextend to get something going, and this time i didnt put down claydol and lived off of mewtwo, garchomp C, and gengar. It worked, i was up 3-6 in prizes with about 15 min left, but instead of making me take all 6 prizes, he was unfamiliar of the style of the 60 min time advantage you have with 1 game under your belt. and scoops. This gives 15 min left on the clock for game 3, and i was pumped and fired up for my comeback of the day.

Game 3 was amazing for me, and i used a little of his technique late game. I start garchomp C, and go first. My opening had i swear was sick nasty. I had 3 DCE, a call, collector, and Garchomp C lv. X. I play call, get another garchomp, and baltoy, and call it a turn. He starts garchomp and blaziken on the bench. He playes his cyrus, puts energy on blaziken, and calls it a turn. I then X garchomp, play the dce, and go snipe happy. I also uxied this turn and got a cyrus. This pretty much give me snipe ability for 2-3 more turns, and eventually i got a claydol and gengar goin, but after getting ahead by 2 prizes, i started to use his technique, think a little more, take more time with my moves, and use the clock to my advantage. I was just making sure he couldnt do anything to get on top. after the 15 min are up, im up 3-5 on prizes, and thats game. I take game 3, the medal, and a big ole smile for my first tourney win.

After the day was done, i spent time working on some new deck ideas, messin around with emmanuels deck idea, because there were 2 times he took 7 prizes and 6 prizes on 1 attack, which is pretty sick nasty. I also hung with the team, opened my packs, and pulled t-tar prime and alph lithograph or whatever. Team omar ends the day with a record of 23-14, which is a good way to start the spring :)

Interview and Pictures From WI Regional

Hey guys. This will be a quick post. Check out this YouTube video. It’s an interview I did with Steven Reich of the Poke Press this last weekend right after I got eliminated from the regional tournament. Steven seems like an interesting fellow. I guess he’s been covering Pokemon events for around 10 years, and he runs a league, too. If you want to see more of his videos, check out the Poke Press YouTube channel.

In addition, I am finally posting the pictures that I took at the tournament. They are nothing special, but I figured that I ought to include them somewhere. Those are just after the video.


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Pokemon Regional Championship, Angola, Indiana

Following my good showing at the Michigan State Championship (we won’t mention my meltdown in top-cut), I knew for sure that I would be taking the same deck to Regionals. The problem I had was I wanted to do a little tweaking but wasn’t able to do any play testing at my local league. Fortunately I have a group of friends at work that like to play during our lunch. I built Pikkdog’s Flyperior deck and a typical CurseGar to play against. I figured out a nice tactic against the Flyperior deck, but wasn’t realy consistant in winning. Testing against CurseGar was really tough on me (I don’t think I won a single game) and it taught me a lot about how that deck works.

Based on my testing, I decided on the following tweaks to my deck:

-2 great ball
-1 pokedex
+1 Copycat
+1 Unown G
+1 Cyclone energy

I didn’t get to test these tweaks, but I printed my deck list, packed my bags, and hoped for the best in the morning. We live in Michigan and the event was held in Indiana, this meant we were in for a drive that Google Maps says is 2 hours long. This of course didn’t count the construction underway on our route, so make it 2 hours and 30 minutes.

We arrive, get registered and wait for the day to get underway. Age division rosters get posted and masters has 146 players, 8 rounds of swiss parings with a top cut of 32. I planned on taking notes throughout the day and did pretty well, but as the day wore on I got more and more disctracted so the details of my later matches aren’t as strong as my earlier ones. Here’s how my day played out:
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Riding the Bubble in Wisconsin Dells

Team Omar Midwest Regionals
Team Omar at Midwest Regionals (photo by Steven from Poke Press)
Going in to regionals, I felt a bit ill prepared. I had wanted to run Jumpluff, because playing it pleases me. I didn’t get much play with the deck, and when I tested it with Omar about a week and a half before regionals, he handed me like 5 consecutive losses. After that, I felt much more comfortable with the Gyarados I played in MN states. I decided to use the same deck, which put me at ease.

Most Gyarados builds would have a pretty similar core. Some people tech in Blissey, Luxray, and maybe even Donphan. I didn’t. Enough about my deck, though. If you want to read about that, see this article about Austino’s Gyarados. Let’s get to the regionals action.
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2010 Michigan State Pokemon Championship – Okemos Convention Center

Shuppet PlatinumHey there, Cheffords here. This is my first tournament report, and first post to TeamOmar.com. I hope you get something out of this, because I know I do when I read other people’s reports.

A little about myself: this is my second season playing the Pokemon card game. I got into the game when my daughter asked if she could start collecting the cards and I said yes but we had to learn the game too. Since then she and I have been going to league and tournaments together pretty regularly. My first season was a huge learning opportunity and it took me a long time to get enough knowledge of the cards and various strategies to feel like I was able to compete. Things changed this year during the very first City Championship when I ran a vanilla Shuppet deck and won first place. My daughter has been running Kingdra since Legends Awakened came out and she took third place at the same city’s.
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Michael’s MN State Pokemon Championship report!

Hey everyone, this is Michael making my first post on Team Omar. Anyways, for the past few weeks I had been testing and perfecting a Flyphan list, but on the Wednesday before states at the Misty Mountain weekly Pokemon Tournaments, Radu told me it was trash and instead wrote me up Jay H’s GG list. I couldn’t resist such a good list, so I quickly set out to gather up all the cards. I finished the list on that Friday, and went to testing. Through testing, I found the lock GG puts out is one of the funnest things to do. Lukas came over and stayed the night, and I beat him 4/5 times while he used SP. That Friday night, I also playtested against Thomas V’s Gyrados, and beat it 2/3 times. Unfortunately, I would not have that same luck the next day.

Now, my friend Sabrina will also be included in this report. Why? Well, before a few weeks ago, Sabrina would play the worst decks. They would be pyramid lines, like 3-2-1, with like 20 energy and like 10 trainers, a few of those trainers being like Marleys Request and Rival. I could not stand by any longer, so I built her a 3-2-3-1 Mchamp 2-1-2 Nidoqueen deck, so she could do good, and to show her that pyramid decks suck, and that real competitive decks win. Thats the small story behind her, and it showed.

Michael Playing at the Top Tables Surrounded By the Big Boys
Michael Playing at the Top Tables Surrounded By Sharks
Moving onto the tourney:

Michael playing: GG

My friend Sabrina playing: A Machamp Nidoqueen deck I built her.

Round 1:  Michael S.(GG) VS Ryan Westgard(SP)

I start with a Ralts, he starts with Garchomp C. He has a godly hand, and I TGW(Team Galactics Wager) it away. He still manages to take three prizes, but then, I have the Gardevoir set up, and under the lock, SP could not do a thing. He keeps trying to play Uxie for 4 or 5, and I am like “No stupid, power lock”. He couldn’t do anything while I beat down everything he had.
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