Morgan Hill, CA Battle Roads Report: 3rd with BlastGatr

I got into actual play this year, along with my girlfriend, after a ten year stretch of not playing at all. We are both 18, so yay for Masters. I have this weird personality quirk where I will refuse to play anything that is currently “the best” so when I went to choose a deck, I immediately threw out anything SP based. Instead, I went with an “under-turtle” (bad pun groans go here) deck, BlastGatr. Nicknaming my particular build of it “Snipestoise”, I’ve done decently enough in my three battle roads so far. The list is nothing too special, and the exact counts are just personal choice. I work at a grocery store (Who are “the people in your neighborhood”), and as luck would have it, had the midnight shift the night before. I went to bed at 1am, and got up at 5:45 to drive three hours. Ironically, this was my best BR of the three. Seems sleep is inversely proportional to winning. So, on to the list:

Pokémon – 20
3 Squirtle UL
2 Wartortle UL
2 Blastoise UL
1 Blastoise PL
3 Totodile HS
2 Croconow HS
2 Feraligatr Prime
1 Floatzel GL
1 Floatzel GL LV.X
3 Uxie LA
T/S/S – 27

2 Pokémon Collector
2 Prof. Oak’s New Theory
2 Interviewer’s Questions
1 Copycat
1 Flower Shop Lady
3 Pokémon Communication
1 Luxury Ball
4 Poké Drawer +
4 Rare Candy
3 Super Scoop Up
2 Warp Point
2 Dawn Stadium

Energy – 13

13 W

pokebeach.comFirst Round: Vs. Electivire FB / Shaymin / Garchomp C
My opponent was younger than I. He apparently had a better deck, but left it at home, and threw this deck together from his binder. Sucks, it has happened to me before too. My starting hand contains an Uxie and a Squirtle, so I play down the Squirtle, and hope not to get donked. He starts with a lone Electivire FB. He “wins” the coin flip, draws, and passes. I thin out my hand, then lay down the Uxie. From there, I draw into a Pokémon Collector and get set up fairly quickly. I get Floatzel GL and the level X set up on my bench (thank you free retreat) as a precaution, but he has trouble doing much of anything.

He manages to get the Garchomp C LV.X out, but by then, I’ve practically won already. Six kills, six “Hydro Launchers”. In the end, the only kill he got was an Uxie, so Floatzel was kinda pointless.
1-0

Second Round: Vs. Sorta-Mirror
My second opponent was an older player, and she was running Blastoise UL, Starmie RR, and Floatzel UL. Just like last round, I set up quickly, with an Uxie in my starting hand. This time I use the Blastoise PL, and thanks to Buizel and Totodile having low HP, swing two “Dual Launchers” for 4 Prizes, with an “Aqua Press” in between. She manages to get her own Blastoise UL up, but by that time, I’ve killed her Floatzels, and she has no way to get enough energy. Turns out she was running a 4-4-4 Blastoise UL line.

2-0

Third Round: Vs. DialgaChomp with 1-1 Blaziken FB
This guy was awesome. He had an amazing Drifblim hat, and it looked perfect. He gets an amazing start as is common with SP variants, and sets up well before I do. I get Blastoise PL out, but he sprays my Dig Wells and my two Uxie drops. I manage to take a whole 1 Prize. (He ended up winning the tournament.)

2-1

pokebeach.comFourth Round: Vs. Typhlosion Prime / Ursaring Prime
This one was by far my favorite match. He gets a bad start, and is able to get Ursaring out, but not the Typhlosion. He does not run Rainbow Energy, so I simply sit there, taking the 30 damage a turn, while using Blastoise UL to snipe his bench for easy prizes. He finally draws into the Rare Candy and Typlosion, but by that time, I had Floatzel GL protection on the bench. He made the mistake of erasing my Dawn Stadium with a Broken Time Space, so when he killed Blastoise UL, I simply played it back entirely thanks to “Water Rescue”, used Rain Dance to get the four energy, and sniped again. He killed Blastoise twice, but by then, I had enough of a prize lead to win. Amazingly fun match.

3-1

And that was it. We had one person short of a Top 4 cut, and I got third. I got two packs of Undaunted, and the shop owner was cool enough to let us trade them for any other set. I picked up two Arceus boosters instead, but didn’t really draw into much. Still, a very fun day. After the event, I hung out a bit and traded some, in my quest to build my girlfriend a Charzard AR deck.

So, I’m always open to new ideas, comments, and suggestions. Pull no punches. If my deck is missing something obvious, feel free to throw it at my face, hehe.

Reader Interactions

21 replies

  1. Jack Snell

    Hell dude, no Bebe’s search. Congratulations on the 3rd place, my only advice would be to remove Copycat and the 3 SSU to add in a Squirtle, Gatr Prime, and 2 Bebe’s. I might also find a way to fit in a couple DCE. Otherwise good deck, but CHARIZARD FOREVER!

  2. Martin Garcia

    mmm there are things in that list i dont like, so here are the changes i would make, hope you like them:

    -2 dawn stadium
    -1 totodile
    -3 water energy
    -3 SSU

    +2bebe search
    +4 DCE
    +2 expert belt
    +1 collector

  3. Anonymous

    Exploud seems good just becuase you don’t want to play the number 1 deck doesn’t mean you should autolose to it.

  4. Poet Larsen

    YOu might want to run 3 ul Blastoise so you can get your snipers out faster. Also if one is prized that means you have only one good sniper. an Azelf will help out a lot to get set up a lot faster.

  5. Zackary Ayello

    I’ll go ahead and answer some of your questions and comments.

    First, about the Exploud line. Assuming you mean a 1-0-1 line, i’ve actually tried it. But, i found it to not be useful, as my area’s meta has a whole opne or two luxchomp players. No, seriously, most SP players here either run fire SP, or Dialgachomp. As for the Bebe’s Search, yeah, that was a mistake on my part, i’ve since added two. I just chose to faithfully post the exact list i used at my BR. As for adding in DCE, i’m not entirely sure which pokemon would use it. Blastoise UL? Picking up waters to rain dance with dawn stadium means self-healing built in. Blastoise PL? A better idea I suppose, but with rain dance, there’s no point if I can just play down two waters instead. I can see one or two DCE, but surely not 4. Feraligatr prime uses four water energies, and more importantly, every DCE in my deck and less water means dig well is less effective, and Wash Out only works with water energy.

    Dawn Stadium was a personal choice by me, as i was tired of people using luring flame and me being stuck burned. I’d love to run a third collector, but money is tight, so that’s a matter of time. Expert belt i have three of, but it seems every time i run them, it just doesn’t help much. Since it only adds damage to the active, the only matchup it helps majorly is the Charzard AR matchup. I plan on adding one azelf for -1 uxie, but i’m going to wait for the League print one, so that i don’t spend a fortune.

    I do have a third Blastoise UL, but i’ve found that 2 is enough, thanks to Floatzel hanging out on my bench. As for removing the SSU, i plan to cut the 3 SSU to two hunters and an extra slot once triumphant comes out. I also plan on, once money and time permits, changing the UL squirtles to PL ones, to combat the turn one luxray donk.

    Lastly, to Pikey, thank you. I try to make my writing a bit off the wall, but fun to read. I’ve always loved water type decks too, and I can’t wait to see what kind of broken card the new water starter’s final evolution is.

  6. Alex Pike

    I think this is one of the only Tournament Reports I’ve read recently that I actually put in the effort to read it. It was nicely written and I like the deck. I’m a big fan of water decks at the moment and intend to test out Blastoise soon.

    Was a nice read, thanks ^^

  7. Travis Yeary

    I’m so happy! It’s not a luxchomp battle road report or a luxchomp analysis or a luxchomp… Article! So glad to read about a deck thats actually interesting!

      • Travis Yeary  → Zackary

        lol you play redshark? I can’t find anyone who plays that game. They made it a little too hard to find people to play on that program. But I’m used to fighting a deck like this XD I fight blastgatr quite a few times a week… just a slightly different build, but I like this one, you actually have dawns stadium lol.

        • Zackary Ayello  → Travis

          Yeah. I use it to play friends of mine since they don’t wanna drive for every match. If you feel like playing a few rounds, toss me an email @ zayello33 @ gmail (dot) com

        • Zackary Ayello  → Travis

          Yeah. I use it to play friends of mine since they don’t wanna drive for every match. If you feel like playing a few rounds, toss me an email @ zayello33 @ gmail (dot) com

  8. Malik Ahmed

    Hey I’m so glad you played Snipestoise! I played a BlastGatr deck at Battle Roads and had a BLAST (LOL PUNS R AWSUM). I was so surprised at how well it did! I beat two Luxchomps, a Charizard deck, and even an interesting Garchomp SV deck. I really love how much fun it is, and I really wanna keep running it.

    My deck is extremely similar to yours, except I have 3 Spiritomb as well. Not only does Spiritomb speed up getting out Feraligatr and Blastoise, it helped me DESTROY the SP decks I faced. I also don’t see any BTS in your list. It’s such a great feeling to see your opponent aghast when Blastoise comes back to your hand with all of its energies thanks to Floatzel, and completely restored and ready to annihilate the next turn thanks to Feraligatr and BTS. I would love to hear whether or not Blastoise PL helped you at all. I considered it, but went with a 3-2-3 Blastoise UL line that worked pretty consistently.

    • Zackary Ayello  → Malik

      Blastoise PL was worth its weight in gold, actually. Getting that one extra needed energy via Dig Well, as well as being able to attack for only 2 energy, was a huge deal. I often got two prizes per turn thanks to chaining this and warp points with Floazel’s free retreats.

    • Zackary Ayello  → Malik

      Blastoise PL was worth its weight in gold, actually. Getting that one extra needed energy via Dig Well, as well as being able to attack for only 2 energy, was a huge deal. I often got two prizes per turn thanks to chaining this and warp points with Floazel’s free retreats.

  9. venny kid

    Does Judge hurt this deck at all? I know it relies on energy from your hand… Just wondering…

    • Zackary Ayello  → venny

      I got judged like twice. However, judge doesn’t hurt too badly, because i generally keep at least two water energy on the bench, ready to be “washed out” to blastoise anyways. A few judges in a chain would sure hurt, but so far, so good.

  10. Steven Hernandez Steven Hernandez

    Hey I remember you from the tournament :) I’m Drifloon guy! Great Report!

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