1st Place Summerville SC Battle Roads Report

Hello, 6p community. I thought I’d give a Battle Roads report after attending 3 of them during this years Autumn Battle Roads. I played the same deck, Sablelock, each time. The previous two times I placed 5th and 3rd respectively. Here I’ll be reporting on my final Battle Roads from last Sunday.

Summerville BR
5 Rounds
Top 4

Round 1 against Nidoqueen with Machamp:

pokemon-paradijs.comI open the game with Crobat G and Eevee. He starts with an Uxie and isn’t able to do anything. I Collector and begin building up my bench. He has a poor hand and isn’t able to get anymore Pokémon. I end up killing his Uxie on turn 3. We decide to play another game afterward for fun. I hadn’t even gotten to see what his deck was yet and I was taken aback by the Machamp tech in his Nidoqueen.

Machamp caused me to lose in top 4 the weekend before and I was feeling lucky I didn’t have to feel the wrath of Machamp at the beginning of the tournament. We play a while, but are unable to finish our match because time is called on the other matches.

(1-0)

Round 2 against Forretress (Everybody Explode Now):

I had never played this deck before and I thought it was pretty cool. I open the game with a Sableye while he opens with Pineco I believe. I Impersonate for Cyrus’s Initiative and flip double tails, oh boy. On his turn he sets up a bench of Pineco and a Combee. I’m unable the next turn to kill his Combee so I build up my bench with Garchomp and I also grab my Houndoom G tech. Next turn he builds up to Vespiqueen protecting his leaf bench Pokémon and Mirror Shot’s my Sableye.

The next turn I get Houndoom G powered up and Dark Slash his Forretress. Having the fire tech in my deck really helped as it enabled me to 1HKO any Forretress. I’m glad I put the Houndoom G in as I had been play testing against my friends DialgaChomp deck. It was a fun game and I thought Forretress looked like a fun deck to play with.

(2-0)

Round 3 against Lanturn:

I open with Sableye to his Dodou. I could donk it but I don’t have the Special Darkness in hand. So instead I opt for a Initiative… double tails again. He Collectors and gets a Chinchou, Uxie’s, and something else. He passes and I grab a Honchkrow G, Unown Q, and Crobat G. I target attack and kill his Chinchou. I do repeat this a few turns and kill his Chinchou. He isn’t able to get any Lanturns going and I take 6 Prizes in 6 turns.

(3-0)

Round 4 against DialgaChomp w/ Luxray:

pokemon-paradijs.comI’m playing against Alex whom I lost to in my first tournament last Spring when I played Kingdra and he played Charizard. He opened with Spiritomb and I had only trainers in hand and ended up losing haha. He had also just played against my friends DialgaChomp and defeated him, so I was kind of anxious to see how this match would go.

I open with Sableye to his Luxray and his benched Dialga G. I Initiative for the 3rd time today and finally got one heads. I drop a Cyrus’s Conspiracy out of his had and he is left with only energy and no searching cards. He puts energy on his Luxray and attacks for 30. I grab with a Collector a Dragonite FB, Chatot G, and Garchomp C. I “Disrupting Spy” his deck and reorder his cards to keep supporters out of his hand. I kill him in the next 3 turns with Dragonite FB’s Mach Blow.

(4-0)

Round 5 against Chris w/ Donphan/Machamp:

I knew coming into this match it would be really difficult. We were both undefeated at the time. I open with my Houndoom G and Chatot G with 4 energy in my hand and no supporters. He sets up a Donphan and kills my Houndoom G. I’m not really able to set up and he wins in 3 or 4 turns. At this point I’m still feeling confident I will top cut as my only loss was to someone undefeated.

(4-1)

Top 4:

I placed at 3rd in swiss so I get to play Alex again in top cut.

Game 1:
I open with Crobat G to his Luxray and Garchomp C. He goes first and attaches and passes. I go through my deck with SP Radar and look for Dragonite FB so it can survive a Dragon Rush. It’s prized however and I’m forced to grab my Garchomp C, knowing that if he can get his LV.X next turn I’m in trouble; I also grab a Sableye with Bebe’s and used Impersonate to grab a Collector.

He is unable to get his Garchomp LV.X the next turn and is forced to kill my Sableye with Trash Bolt instead. I consider using Promocroak the next turn but opt to kill his Garchomp before he can get his X out. After that I stay on top of prizes and use Promocroak to kill his Luxray later on. I win this game on prizes.

(1-0)

Game 2:
Not sure what I started with this game, but I think he started with Luxray again. He chooses to go second. I top deck a Garchomp C and attach a Double Colorless to it. Next Turn he grabs a Ambipom G, Garchomp C, and Uxie. He attaches and passes I believe. I Collector and grab my own slew of Garchomp counters getting a Dragonite FB and another Garchomp C. I attach another energy to my Garchomp so its not susceptible to Ambipom G. I snipe out his Garchomp with Dragon Rush.

I’m able to stay on top in prizes again this game. I think at the end I’m up 2-5 on prizes. He decided to scoop the game because he didn’t have much set up left and the winner had to play the Donphan/Machamp from earlier. They were fun games and later he told me he built his deck just the night before and didn’t really care for SP.

(2-0)

Top 2:

I was excited to get into the Top 2 for the first time. I knew I had a low chance of pulling off the victory against this deck as it was speedy and had already beaten me once. But I was determined to give it my best shot.

Game 1 against Chris with Donphan/Machamp:
I open with Sableye to his Phanpy. I Impersonate for Judge as my hand was poor and I wanted to give him few cards to work with. He gets his four cards and has an Uxie in hand. Not looking good. He ends up using two Uxie’s that turn and then Super Scooping another for 3 “Set-ups” that turn. Fortunately for me he is only able to get out two Machoke’s and no Donphan.

I noticed that previous turn that he had no played any supporters or energy. So on my turn I Collector and grab Garchomp C, Chatot G, Crobat G. I use “Disrupting Spy” to reorder his cards and keep Supporters from him. For the next two turns I manage to Garchomp snipe both Machoke’s on the bench getting rid of Machamp threats. He does manage to get out a Donphan but I’m able to switch and use “Healing Breath” with my other Garchomp C.

I remember I ended up using Cyrus Initiative twice and Chatot twice as well. I was feeling pretty lucky throughout the game disrupting him so that he wasn’t able to get Machamp going. I ended up taking 6 Prizes in the end to his 2 or 3.

(1-0)

Game 2:
I was feeling lucky after that first game, but was wary because I knew all it took for him to turn it around was 1 Machamp mowing me down. I open with Honchkrow G and he elects to go 2nd. I drop Azelf from my hand and grab Uxie out of my prizes. I reorder my prizes and commit them to memory this ended up helping me win the game. I use Uxie and I’m able to get a Energy and some other stuff. I use Honcho’s Command and end my turn. He sets up two Machops on the bench and evolves to Donphan. He hits me for 40 damage due to resistance.

pokemon-paradijs.comMy next turn I try and Target attack one of his Machop’s. I can only put it 40 on it leaving him with 10 HP. He decides the next turn to KO my Honchkrow at the cost of killing his own Machop that turn. So I take a prize grabbing a Cyrus’s Conspiracy from my prizes. I Aaron’s collection back my Honchkrow G. With it I Target Attack his other Machop that turn. He hits me again the next turn for 60 this time because he belts it. I decide to Toxic Fang him for poison damage with Crobat G this turn.

This is when it gets interesting. He sets up a Nidoqueen on his bench to heal off his Earthquakes and reducing my Poison Damage. I Garchomp Snipe his Nidoqueen and drop some Crobats on it. The turn after that I Honchkrow G the Nidoqueen. From here on I’m able to let the poison damage take over on Donphan and Earthquake him several turns later grabbing me 2 Prizes. I snipe something on the bench for my final KO.

(2-0)

Props:
Chatot G for being crucial in several games that day
Winning my first ever battle roads
Meeting cool new people
Making some sweet trades

Slops:
Double tails on Initiative twice
Having to drive back

Overall I had a great time at BR’s this past weekend. I cannot attest enough to how good Chatot G and Houndoom G were for me. I have to thank Mike Reynolds for showing me the Houndoom G tech in his Sablelock a few weeks prior. I’d also like to thank Jeff Reynolds and his family for always hosting great tournaments.

Reader Interactions

18 replies

  1. Rocket Prof

    so aside from adding fire to your arsenal is there another advantage to using Houndoom G or is it just to abuse Dialga G (and apparently Fortress’ weakness)?

    • Poet Larsen  → Rocket

      I agree, the only thing he seems to be used as is a tech against dialga G. It may also help against Kingdra, for reducing the damage.

    • Eric Lari  → Rocket

      The Houndoom G could also be used for Steelix and Scizor. Sablelock has a difficult time with decks that can tank because of the low damage output. I’ve playtested it against Steelix and it works fairly well. Its first attack also enable you to keep a wall pokemon from retreating or using poke powers. Which is situational but handy at times.

  2. Evan Baker

    Great report, congrats on the Victory Medal!

    I’ve taken a look at Houndoom G as a Dialga counter as I also run Dark Energy in my SP Varient. I ended up deciding against it because even if you discard the Dark you’re maxing at 120 damage, and with Special Metal reducing damage, that isn’t a guaranteed 1-shot. Do you ever find yourself coming up a few damage short here?

    Either way, excellent article. Chatot G is my #1 least favorite Pokemon to play against!

    • Eric Lari  → Evan

      Often times Houndoom does come up short with Dialga G Lv. X. It depends a lot on whether I can power it up before they get the Lv. X out powering it up. But usually Crobat g can bring them into 1 shot distance and if I know they have powerspray I can Initiative or Judge to take them out of hand if it comes to that.

  3. chrataxe

    I ran into a Houndoom tech while playing steelix at a BR a few weeks ago. It did wonders for the guy. He beat me. I didn’t know the match up very well and I feel if I had a do over, I probably could have taken him down pretty easy. But yeah, it is pretty hoss to fit in so nicely.

    • Eric Lari  → chrataxe

      Yeah I really saw no reason not to run it. It only took 1 space in the deck and added a type advantage. Its not the greatest of Fire techs. But its a lot less resources then trying to fit Blaziken FB in. Plus as you said its not really a card a lot of people play test against often, So it can catch people off guard sometimes.

  4. coreycubed

    I’m the guy who played the Pinecolypse (Everyone Explode Now) deck against you at the Summerville BR :) Just wanted to say it was my first Battle Roads ever, and I was happy to place 8th with a rogue deck! Great playing with you and congrats on your win!

    • Eric Lari  → coreycubed

      Thanks. It was a fun game we played and congrats on doing well in your first BRs. Also I just realized I said in the report you started with Pineco. But I believe you actually also started with Sableye?

      • coreycubed  → Eric

        I think I started with Sableye, but you won the flip since we both started with it. I was glad the deck played well, all things considered. It was pretty consistent… for an explosion deck, anyways. I’ll always keep it on standby just for the fun of running it :)

  5. Anonymous

    This is Alex, lol. Good games man. I look forward to playing against you in CC’s. Nice Sablelock build, btw. To be a newer player you run it better than anyone else I’ve seen.

    Get your practice in!

  6. David Griggs

    Fantastic write-up! We loved having you at the tournament. This is David (Nidoqueen Deck).

    I still think the funniest part of the tournament was when Chris (Donphan-Machamp) during Game 1 of the last round after he missed the donk… everybody was saying he should’ve Pokemon Communication’d for a Donphan instead of Machoke. His response: “And who’s sitting in Top Cut?”

    Pop me an e-mail with your info so we can get you onto our mailing list for Summerville/Charleston events!

    • Eric Lari  → David

      Yeah I remember that it was pretty funny when he said that. I was kind of expecting him to also because I he had got 3 uxie’s off that turn. But I don’t think it was a donk because I had a second benched pokemon at the time.

      But I’d send an e-mail but I have no idea where to send it to haha.

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