Heroic Adventures Battle Road Report with Empoleon/Stunfisk

http://youtu.be/ybj4Mm6dydM

Hello everyone! For those of you that don’t know, I typically write UG articles for 6P. However, I’ve made it my goal to write a report about each of my Battle Road events and post them either on my blog or on some other site that I like to visit.

On Sunday, I participated in my 4th Battle Road so far this season. Last weekend I played Empoleon/Stunfisk on Saturday and Garbodor/Terrakion/Registeel on Sunday. This weekend I played Eelektrik/Zekrom on Saturday and Empoleon/Stunfisk on Sunday. This article will discuss my second tournament experience with Empoleon/Stunfisk.

I decided to play Empoleon/Stunfisk yesterday because the metagame seemed very favorable for it. There were very few Eelektrik or Hydreigon variants. Garchomp/Altaria along with Garbodor had a pretty strong presence. Furthermore, quite a few people were itching to play the new Ho-Oh EX variants. All of these matchups are pretty good for Empoleon. Here is the list that I ran!

The list is slightly different from the one I played last Saturday. I am very happy with the changes. I’ll talk a bit about some of additional changes that I might make after the report.

In total, we had 19 Masters at the Heroic Adventures Battle Road in Edwardsville, IL yesterday. The tournament organizer ran another local event at the same time as this one, so the local Masters were divided between the two tournaments. We had 5 rounds with a point pay-out to the Top 4.

Round 1: Garbodor DRX/Cobalion NVI/Terrakion NVI

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I went first and opened with both Emolga to his Terrakion. I have T2 Empoleon in hand. I bench a Piplup, then Call for Family grabbing another 2 Piplup. He benches a Trubbish, Catchers up a Piplup, attaches a Fighting to Terrakion before playing a Professor Juniper. He then plays down a Cobalion and passes. I Rare Candy the active Piplup to Empoleon, attach a W Energy, play an N and hit the Terrakion for 80.

He attaches a Prism to Cobalion, evolves to Garbodor (he doesn’t have an attached Tool) and passes. I Rare Candy into another Empoleon, evolve my other Piplup into Prinplup and hit the Terrakion for another 80 and take a prize. He promotes Cobalion, attaches a Fighting and hits my Empoleon for 40. I bench a Stunfisk and hit the Cobalion for 80. He attaches a Metal to Cobalion, benches a Terrakion-EX and uses Iron Breaker to put my Empoleon up to 120.

I play Switch, promote a different Empoleon, Max Potion the Empoleon with 120 and hit the Cobalion for 90-grabbing another prize in the process. He promotes Terrakion-EX, attaches a Fighting and passes. I Attack Command for 80. He attaches another energy to Terrakion-EX and hits me for 50. Again, I Attack Command for 80. He attaches a 3rd energy to Terrakion-EX and uses Pump Up Smash to Knock Out my Empoleon.

I promote my Stunfisk and use Muddy Water to Knock Out the Terrakion-EX and put 20 on Garbodor. He is able to get a few more Pokémon, but is never able to get enough energy to attack me again. I sweep through the rest of his Pokémon with my Empoleons. Although he never got a Tool on Garbodor, it really would not have mattered — Diving Draw is really just a bonus… not a vital asset to the success of an Empoleon deck.

1-0

Round 2: Gothitelle EPO 47/Accelgor DEX

youtube.comI went second and opened Piplup to his Gothita. I had a T2 Empoleon in hand and lot of other Items. He plays a Cheren on his first turn, benches a Shelmet and puts my Piplup to sleep with Gothita. I get rid of some Items, searching for a Prinplup in case he does Rare Candy to Gothitelle on his turn. He plays another Cheren and I am really worried about T2 Gothitelle because his hand is huge at this point. However, he just put me to Sleep again.

I quickly Rare Candy to Empoleon, Pokémon Communication the Prinplup back in for another Piplup and play N. I play down an Emolga and a Stunfisk allowing me to do 60 with Attack Command and Knock Out the Gothita and grab a prize. He got a pretty good N. He evolves Shelmet to Accelgor, benches a Mew-EX, Darkrai EX, Gothita and attaches a DCE to Accelgor (I’m not sure why he didn’t attach to Mew-EX instead… definitely a mistake) before playing an N of his own. He uses Deck and Cover and promoted Gohita… I think — can’t really remember.

Anyway, I play a Switch, promote Stunfisk and Catcher up his Darkrai EX. I use Rumble for 80 and preventing him from retreating. He benches a Shelmet and passes. I hit the Darkrai EX with Rumble again — putting it up to 160. He plays a Switch — ugh — and promoted Shelmet. He benches a Bulbasaur, attaches DCE to Shelmet and evolves (again I don’t know why he wasn’t attacking with Mew-EX). He plays a Catcher to bring up the Empoleon with 60 already on it. He uses Deck and Cover — putting me up to 120.

I Catcher up the Bulbasaur and pass. He just passes and my Empoleon dies coming into my turn. I promote Stunfisk and Muddy Water the Bulbasaur and the Darkrai EX with 160 on it — grabbing 2 Prizes. He Rare Candies to Gothitelle, attaches a Blend to it and passes. I use another Muddy Water to put 20 on Gothitelle and get the Bulbsauar up to 40. He attaches a DCE to Gothitelle and passes.

I use Muddy Water again and put 20 on Gothitelle and Knock Out Bulbasaur — getting another prize. He promotes Gothitelle and hits my Stunfisk for 50. I use Rumble — putting the Gothitelle up to 80 and preventing her from retreating. The Gothitelle does another 50 to Stunfisk and gets their second prize. I promote my Empoleon and Knock Out the Gothitelle. He promotes a Mew-EX, benches a Gothita and attempts to put me to Sleep. He either failed or I had a Switch because I Catchered up the Gothita to grab my last prize for game.

2-0

Round 3: Garchomp DRX 90/Altaria DRX

pokemon-paradijs.comI went second in this game and opened Emolga to his Gible and Swablu. He played another Gible and used Sand Attack. I played a Piplup and flipped heads to use Call for Family grabbing another Piplup and Stunfisk. He evolved the benches Gible to Gabite and played an N. He used Dragon Call to grab a Garchomp then Rare Candied his active Gible into that same Garchomp. He used Mach Cut to do 60 to my Emolga.

He N’d me into a very strong hand. I Rare Candy to Empoleon, evolve my other Piplup into Prinplup, Catcher up his Gabite and play N. I whiff on energy even after using Diving Draw and pass after retreating my Emolga for a Stunfisk. He attaches 2 Rescue Scarves to Gabite and Garchomp, retreats his Gabite for Garchomp, evolves into Altaria and hits my Stunfisk for 80.

I Tool Scrapper both of his Rescue Scarves, attach a Blend to my active Stunfisk, Catcher up his Altaria, evolve to Empoleon and bench another Piplup and Stunfisk. I Muddy Water, hitting the active Altaria and benched Garchomp for 20. I believe he Catchers up my Empoleon, retreats for Garchomp and hits my Empoleon for 80 after benching a Swablu. I play a Max Potion — removing the damage and Catcher up the Altaria and hit it for 100 with Attack Command. He evolves the Swablu to Altaria, plays a Gible and hits my Empoleon for 80.

I Switch to a Stunfisk and use Muddy Water putting the active Garchomp up to 40 and putting 20 on the benched Gabite. He Knocks Out my Stunfisk with Dragon Blade and I respond KO with Empoleon — hitting the Garchomp for 100. He promotes the Gible, Rare Candies to Garchomp and hits my Empoleon for 80. I believe I Max Potion this damage and hit the Garchomp for 90. He just hits me for 80 and I respond with Attack Command for the Knock Out. He promotes Gabite, evolves to Garchomp and Knocks Out my Empoleon.

I play an N and hit the Garchomp for 90. He hits me for 80 and then I respond with 90 and the Knock Out after playing another N. He promotes Gible and uses Sand Attack, I retreat Empoleon for another Empoleon and Knock it Out leaving him with just Altaria. I believe this was the last turn of time and I win. This matchup is pretty favorable for Empoleon/Stunfisk — especially if they aren’t running Max Potion.

3-0

Round 4: Ho-Oh EX/Virizion NVI/Tornadus EPO/Sableye DEX

pokemon-paradijs.comThis was a very good game, but a lot of things went wrong on my side of the field. I went second and opened Stunfisk to his Sableye. He benched a Virizion and attempted to confuse my Stunfisk with Confuse Ray. My hand is filled with nothing but important Items (Pokémon Catcher, Tool Scrapper, Super Rod) and Juniper. So, unfortunately I have to Juniper that all away otherwise I’ll never get anything going. I hit a Blend then Muddy Water both Pokémon for 20 after benching a Piplup and another Stunfisk.

I realize that, after searching my deck, I prized 2 Piplups. At this point in the game I don’t think this will be that big of an issue. I end up being quite wrong, however. I wasn’t able to take notes on this game, so the rest of the game won’t be as detailed as the past few games, unfortunately. He doesn’t attempt to bring a Ho-Oh EX into play — instead going aggro Virizion.

Of course neither Empoleon or Stunfisk do very much damage to Virizion when it has an Eviolite. However, I am able to use my other Tool Scrapper to remove an Eviolite from his Virizion and am able to grab 4 Prizes only giving up a Stunfisk and Emolga in the process. Unfortunately, my 2 Piplup are the last 2 Prizes.

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Furthermore, I am forced to use both of my Max Potion to keep my Empoleons alive, the rest of my Catchers to prevent Virizion from doing too much damage and my other Super Rod to get back Energy (he was using Enhanced Hammers on my Blends) and Basic Pokémon (I prized my 2nd Emolga and a Stunfisk in addition to the 2 Piplup). So at this point I have 2 Empoleon with 40 on one and 80 on the other, 2 Stunfisk and an Emolga in play and he has 1 Tornadus with 90 and a Virizion with no damage — neither of them have an Eviolite.

He promotes Torndus, flips head on Rebirth to get a Ho-Oh EX into play, attaches an Eviolite, retreats and Knocks Out my Empoleon. I can only hit the Ho-Oh EX for 140 since I can’t get another Basic and he retreats for Virizion and passes. I hit the Virizion for 60 with Attack Command. He gets another heads on Rebirth, plays an Energy Switch to get another Energy on the Rebirthed Ho-Oh EX, retreats and Knocks Out my Empoleon.

I promote a Stunfisk and Knock Out the benched Tornadus, finally grabbing one of those prized Piplups. Unfortunately I wiff on my last Rare Candy to get my other Empoleon out after I play the Piplup. The benched Virizion had 10 HP too much left to be Knock Out with 2 Muddy Waters so I can’t win that way either.

He runs me through with that Ho-Oh EX and I lose. This was a very good game… but I am still a bit bitter about all the little things that went wrong (prized 2 Piplup + other Basics, first turn Juniper on all those important Items, Rebirth flips, etc.). He went on to the win the event.

3-1

Round 5: Tornadus EX/Terrakion

pokemon-paradijs.comI wasn’t able to get notes on this one either — so unfortunately this won’t be too detailed. I believe I go second and he opens Tornadus EX to my Stunfisk. He plays a second Tornadus EX and gets the first turn 60 after playing a Juniper and Battle City. Like my last game, I open with only a Professor Juniper + important Items (in this case, both Super Rod), but I am forced to play it.

I get a Piplup and an Emolga, attach a Fighting to Stunfisk and hit the benched Tornadus EX for 20. He Knocks Out my Stunfisk and I promote Emolga. I Rare Candy to Empoleon and use Call for Family, grabbing 2 Piplup. He Catchers up one of the Piplups and Knocks it Out. At this point I start attacking with Empoleons. He Knocks Out another Piplup — so I am only able to access 2 Empoleon since both of my Super Rod were discarded first turn.

In general, I don’t think this is a very good matchup for Empoleon — especially when Tornadus EX goes first and gets first turn 60. I am only able to Knock Out 1 Tornadus EX before he grabs all 6 Prizes. He went on to get 3rd place.

3-2

So, I miss out on top cut ending the day at either 5th or 6th. The top 4 looked like this…

• 1st — Ho-Oh EX/Virizion/Sableye/Tornadus
• 2nd — Eelektrik/Zekrom
• 3rd — Tornadus EX/Terrakion
• 4th — Registeel-EX/Accelgor

I had some really good games over the day and am still liking Empoleon quite a bit. I still think it was a great choice for the day. Had I not gotten such rotten luck in Round 4, the chances of me winning would have been pretty high.

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So, some thoughts on the list. As you can see, first turn Professor Juniper ended up really hurting my games in rounds 4 and 5. Had it been an N, things probably would have been much different. Unfortunately, that is an unavoidable problem at the moment. I’d like to play 8 N… sadly that’s illegal. I will probably try dropping the Juniper for additional Cheren/Random Receiver. Bianca is particularly awful in this deck — whenever I have Empoleon out I usually have a very large hand (which makes Bianca useless).

The Supporter situation we are in is probably the worst thing about the format. I really like this format aside from the lack of strong Supporters. This problem would probably be less severe if we had something like Cleffa HS, Smeargle UD or Uxie LA — but we are without those kinds of support too.

Aside from the Supporters needed to get set up, Empoleon is more unaffected by the lack of Supporters than other decks due to Diving Draw. This is one of the main reasons I love him! I’m not sure if I’ll play Empoleon this weekend or not. Lots of testing to be done between now and then!

Props to you for reading!

~Colin