With the Battle Roads season winding down, and with our very own Ross Gilbert reminding me that I’ve yet to talk about my Battle Roads experience, here is a quick rundown of how Battle Roads has gone for me thus far, along with a full-on report at the end. I didn’t think that all of these experiences would warrant reports in themselves, but it’s been made known to me that there is an interest in this sort of thing, so here goes! Note that most of this information is taken from my Trainer thread at HeyTrainer.org’s Tournament and Organized Play section, but I will expound on some of these matches a little bit to give it the ole SixPrizes exclusive.
Bremerton, WA w/ Darkrai/Hydreigon
soundbiteblog.comRound One: Rayquaza/Eelektrik – L
Round Two: Darkrai/Hydreigon – W
Round Three: Garchomp/Altaria – L
Round Four: Garchomp/Altaria – W
Round Five: Garchomp/Altaria – W
3-2, 0 CP
This was the first BR of the season, and I wasn’t sure what to expect. I hadn’t had enough time to prepare as I would’ve liked, so I opted to run a fairly stock Darkrai/Hydreigon list, as my limited testing had shown me that it was Tier 1, and I had yet to acquire shiny Rayquazas.
Not much to report on for this event, other than it was the event that taught me that the Battle Carnival Hydreigon list was terrible inconsistent, at least for me. As I spoke about in my last article, I immediately changed my list to include more consistent cards: Deinos, additional Rare Candy, a Super Rod, etc.
Overall, 3-2 isn’t a terrible record, but it wasn’t enough to snatch CP either. Disappointed, we move on…
Renton, WA w/ Darkrai/Hydreigon
forums.guru3d.comRound One: Rayquaza/Eelektrik – W
Round Two: Rayquaza/Eelektrik – L
Round Three: Shedinja/Mewtwo/Ninjask – W
Round Four: Darkrai/Hydreigon – W
Round Five: Emboar/Registeel – W
Round Six: Darkrai/Hydreigon – W
5-1, 6th, 6 CP
I don’t remember too much of this event. The Shedinja deck I played against was apparently good, but it never got set up in our game. The Emboar/Registeel deck was piloted by my good friend Grant McClellan, and designed by my good friend and teammate Lane Tower, who is legitimately the funniest, most entertaining person you’ll ever meet.
Outside of that, it was a pretty standard event, and it felt good to get on the board.
Bellevue, WA w/ Darkrai/Hydreigon
en.wikipedia.orgRound One: No Idea, Sorry – W
Round Two: Rayquaza/Eelektrik – L (Made a very dumb misplay)
Round Three: No idea, Sorry – W
Round Four: Darkrai/Hydreigon – W
Round Five: Terrakion/Groudon – L
Round 6: Darkrai/Hydreigon – W
4-2, 17th, 0 CP
Since I know it’ll come up, I’ll talk about the misplay here…
I was playing a local dad from our area named Michael Burke. We get into a position that I find typical of the Rayquaza/Eelektrik vs. Darkrai/Hydreigon matchup; he takes an early lead, but I’m able to recover by setting up multiple Hydreigons and evening up the prize exchange via Shaymin. I can’t remember the exact boardstate, but it eventually gets to a point where we’re topdecking for several turns, with him needing to hit a Fire, and me needing to hit a Max Potion and have him miss his Thunder Fang flip to win.
I go on tilt and when I finally do draw the Max Potion, I immediately windmill slam it, forgetting to Dark Trans my energy. I still had a shot at this point, but in the end I lost due to not being able to see energy.
This is a rookie mistake and, as I consider myself one of the slower, more thoughtful players in the game, I can’t believe it’s one I made. Luckily I was able to tilt over lunch break and not let it affect me too badly.
Lacey, WA w/ Darkrai/Hydreigon
Round One: Ho-Oh – L
Round Two: No idea, Sorry – L
Round Three: Darkrai/Hydreigon – L
0-3, DNF, 0 CP
I can’t explain what happened here. I had never played against a good Ho-Oh list in a tournament before and probably misplayed terribly, and due to awful tilt I have almost no memory of the other two games. I ragequit to play Kaijudo and cheerlead my friends.
Lakewood, WA w/ Darkrai/Terrakion/Mewtwo
en.wikipedia.orgRound One: Garchomp – W
Round Two: Ross Cawthon w/ RayEels – L
Round Three: Hammertime/Musharna – W
Round Four: Garchomp – W
Round Five: Paul Johnston w/ Empoleon/Accelgor/Mew – L
Round Six: Lane Tower w/ RayEels – W (Concession)
4-2, 9th, 0 CP
At the suggestion of my good friend Brit Pybas, I decided to switch from Darkrai/Hydreigon to Darkrai/Terrakion/Mewtwo for this event, under the rationale that it was a very toolbox-like deck that could attack the metagame if said metagame was predicted correctly and the deck was piloted correctly.
Unfortunately, I didn’t give myself enough time to test the deck and was often left having to discern what the correct line of play was on the fly. My game vs Ross Cawthon, for instance, was a slaughtering. He made me look like I didn’t even deserve to be there.
All of my other games were pretty uneventful, and although bubbling the cut always hurts, the fact that I lost to a great player and a very good player playing my auto-loss brought down the sting a little.
Seattle, WA Battle Road Report
Before I get into the actual report let me do a little bit of shilling for Card Kingdom. If you’re not aware of thisplace, it’s absolutely ridiculous. Not only is it a huge space in itself, with a separate tournament room, wood tables, wood chairs, and hardwood flooring throughout, but it’s also one of the cleanest, most well-lit gaming stores I’ve ever been in (and we have it pretty good here in the northwest).
Oh, did I mention that there is a cafe/bar also in the building, with coffee, tea, real food and ciders/wine/beer? Legitimately the nicest, most well-run card store in the world. If you’re ever in the Seattle area and are interested in any kind of gaming, you owe it to yourself to check this place out.
Moving on, I decided to switch back to Darkrai/Hydreigon for this tournament. I think it’s Tier 1 and it’s the deck that I’m most comfortable with. I don’t feel comfortable giving out my entire list, but as I’ve said before, my list is heavily focused on consistency and relies on Shaymin EX tricks to end most games. We have exactly 40 Masters, which means we’ll have six rounds and several 4-2s will be missing the cut.
Round One: ??? w/ Garchomp
This was a standard Garchomp match. He gets a much better start than me and destroys my board early, but eventually he runs out of Pokémon Catchers and I’m able to reestablish a board state and sweep from there. There’s not much to say about this match as it was pretty boring, although I have to admit that I did think I might lose when I was down 3 Prizes. Luckily I kept it together and was able to pull it off.
Not going on tilt and not scooping early is something I’ve been working on this year. In the past few years it was common for me to develop tunnel vision when losing, and because of this I’m sure that I prematurely scooped games, or threw them away by not being mentally in it. So far I’ve avoided this, and I feel like I’m playing better than ever.
1-0
Round Two: Caleb ??? w/ Rayquaza/Eelektrik
It’s apparent from the get-go that he doesn’t play Shiny Rayquaza, a fact that makes me quite happy. I generally feel like the Darkrai/Hydreigon vs. Rayquaza/Eelektrik matchup is favorable for the Darkrai deck, but I know that some others disagree. Generally I’ve found that RayEels gets set-up first and takes several prizes, but the Darkrai player can take a few cheap prizes to even things up before establishing a Shaymin Lock — that is, where you have a Shaymin killing everything and your opponent has no outs to it — for the last prize or two.
pokemon-paradijs.comThis game was no different, although it was awfully close. It’s always fun to have good, interesting games, but it can be quite nerve racking as well.
Caleb ends up getting second at this event, one of his first ever, as far as I’m aware!
2-0
Round Three: Matthew Oslakovic w/ Rayquaza/Eelektrik
Matt is one of my best friends and someone I test with on a fairly regular basis, and it always sucks to have to play your friends. This game goes much like the one described above, except I get incredibly lucky to draw my final Catcher off of my N to 1 to take the last prize with Shaymin. Matt, although serious and obviously not fond of losing, was very respectful throughout the entire game and is one of the best anti-tilters I know. Look for his name to come up more and more soon. :)
3-0
Round Four: Jerin Head w/ Rayquaza/Eelektril
Sorry for the boring recaps, but this game went pretty much exactly as described above, except that my opponent was the one to get lucky off of an N, drawing his last Juniper to draw his last Supporter for the game. I’ll be honest and say that I was a little tilted after losing like that, but after listening to some Cruel Summer and reflecting back on the game and how I had won my last match, I was over it pretty quickly.
3-1
Round Five: Sorina Radu w/ Empoleon/Mew
Sorina is one of my very good friends, and the person whose apartment I was staying at for this event (after going backstage at a Chiddy Bang show the day before!). This game was pretty dumb, as she gets absolutely nothing set up after the first few turns, leading me to eventually kill two Empoleons with Night Spear in one turn. If she hadn’t drawn dead this would probably have been a much better game, but alas.
For what it’s worth, we played a quick game for fun after and she was dominating me, so there’s that.
4-1
Round Six: David Cohen w/ Zekrom/Eelektrik/Tornadus EX/1 Stadium/0 Terrakion/0 Dragon Types/Zekrom-EX
KWfunfact: I’ve never legitimately beaten David in a tournament. He’s conceded to me (scoopgate etc), but I’ve never been able to crack the code for real.
This game, however, I thought I actually had a chance! He gets a pretty decent set up, but so do I, and eventually I get ahead on prizes. He turns it around quickly though, and before long we’re tied at 1-1. I set up a Shaymin and, with game on board, N him to one card!
It’s obviously a Juniper, he plays it, gets a Catcher, and seals the game.
4-2
BulbapediaI knew at this point that I would get anywhere between 4 and 13th place, meaning that I would miss a Victory Cup no matter what, but I was very live for points. Additionally, my resistance was insane, as Jerin went 4-2, Caleb went 5-1, Matt went 4-2 and Sorina went 4-2. I didn’t know the exact math, but I was pretty sure I was 4th, and luckily my prediction came true! I pulled an Altaria in my packs, was happy and relieved with my ten points, and went home. Congrats to Cohen for winning, and to Tyler for getting second! #bsideforlife #tybg
Conclusion
That’s all I’ve got for this week. In the coming weeks I hope to do a Battle Road report or two (assuming I do well!), and I’ll most likely do a Face of Modified: Autumn Regionals 2012 in the days leading up to Regionals.
Mostly importantly though, I’ll be writing another Mailbag column! Assuming this article goes live on Wednesday, I’m giving everyone until Sunday, September 30th to write into me either here in the comments section, in my personal email at wisdomisyourheroatgmaildotcom, or on Twitter or Facebook at @kwisdumb and /kennywisdom, respectively. Be sure to include whether or want your name/email publicized, and feel free to ask about anything and everything!
xo
kw
There is no ‘Shaymin Lock’ when Rayquaza EX can OHKO it.
What do you think are the most overlooked cards in this format?