TCGONE 2004 Tournament Report 3/27/21 - 2nd Place

(Note: This tournament report was originally posted to the Snowpoint Temple Facebook group)

Hey all it's Mert and I'm back again with another 2004 tournament report. Similar to last month, I was confident in Crobyss's matchup spread to bring it to a second consecutive tournament, and also similar to last time... I was the only one playing it. This time around Beedrill SKR took the tourney by storm with strong performances by Jay Hornung and Axel Sjilov, and it caught me somewhat off guard. Overall I think I played alright, but I floundered in the later rounds with some poor misplays and bad game awareness.

The matchups:

R1: Gardevoir L

R2: Muk W

R3: Muk W

R5: Gardevoir W

R6: Beedrill W

R7: Shiftry W

Finals: Beedrill/Exploud LL

R1 vs

Nino Brodar

with Gardevoir (0-1)

This match was a lot of back and forth, with me taking two prizes early with Gorebyss in an agressive start, but he eventually assembled a good board state that slowly wore me down, including a pesky Bellossom that slowly healed off damage from his Gardevoir ex and made it harder for me to hit my numbers. Towards the end of the game I made the incredibly risky decision of hitting his Gardevoir ex with a Sudden Flash from my Dunsparce, which combined with my Crobat's Triple Poison from the previous turn, would knock out his Gardevoir ex (if he didn't have a switch card in hand the following turn) and net me two prizes. Thankfully, I hit heads on Sudden Flash and he didn't have a switch card, so I took two prizes. I managed to stall with Sudden Flash for a while longer, trying to get Desert Ruins damage to accumulate while I built up a Gorebyss on the bench. I sadly missed a crucial heads on Stun Needle for the game, and I entered losers' bracket.

R2 vs Ahoodedman (Muk) (1-1)

Muk isn't a bad matchup for Crobyss, since all pokemon in the deck have low retreat costs and nothing in it plays poke-powers. I got a lucky Zubat-Candy-Crobat start and started attacking his Grimers. He got Muk ex active pretty fast and started poisoning my pokemon, preparing to attack with Slimy Water. I managed to knock it out with Gorebyss's Mystic Water and slowly gained the advanatage from there, which he couldn't come back from.

R3 vs Tyraniboah (Muk) (2-1)

This game went by quick. I got another lucky Crobat start (with the only grass energy in the deck) and Tyraniboah had a pretty poor starting hand, from which I used Flutter Trick to strip away an Energy Removal 2 from his hand, which contained 5 grass energy and another ER2. He bounced back slightly with a Desert Shaman, from which he benched another Grimer and a Team Aqua's Hideout. But by this point my board was set up enough where I could KO his Muk ex and Grimer with powerful Mystic Waters from Gorebyss.

R4 vs

Nino Brodar

(Gardevoir) (3-1)

I don't remember a lot from this game other than that I managed to accumulate damage extremely quickly and take out his pokemon faster than he could take out mine. Sounds stupid, I know, but this game was nothing but a game where the deck ran exactly as planned., but didn't feel like a total wash. And there was a lot less flip luck, too.

R5 vs

Jay Hornung

(Beedrill) (4-1)

Both of us had fast starts, but I may have made a misplay early in the game where I had an opportunity to take out his lone benched Magnemite with a Mystic Water and potentially set him back, but I didn't want to waste such a valuable resource so early, so I attacked his active instead. We both set up powerful board states, but if If I could pick a single point in the game where the momentum began to tip in Jay's favor, it would have to be during the midgame, where we were both equal in prizes. I had a Gorebyss with Double Rainbow Energy attached in the active, and had another Gorebyss on the bench along with a Crobat and some other pokemon. I had the option of taking the KO with Gorebyss, or retreating into Crobat and using Triple Poison to bring the Skitty to 10 hp. My line of reasoning for this was that I knew I had to OHKO the Beedrills since the damage they took could easily be healed off by a Super Scoop Up or Mr. Briney's Compassion. Crobat couldn't OHKO, so I decided to save my Gorebyss until I had a definite opportunity to OHKO. In hindsight, I wish I would've taken the KO on Skitty with Gorebyss, because Jay retreated his Skitty and took the next prize, putting me at a disadvantage in the prize trade. Still, Jay played perfectly that game, and won in a close match. However, he scooped because he had to leave, so I moved on to the next round.

R6 vs Dewgonnadie (Shiftry) (5-1)

This was the finals matchup from last tournament, so I was aware of what the deck could do and played more cautiously than last time. I had a great start, and got a crucial Warp Point to KO his Skitty, hindering his setup. After I KO'd his first Shiftry, he managed to get 3 consecutive heads with Sudden Flash to leave my Gorebyss stranded active. But by the time he managed to build up another Shiftry and KO my Gorebyss, my other Gorebyss OHKO'd it with Mystic Water thanks to the DRE he attached to his Shiftry to attack. He couldn't mount much of an offense after that, and scooped.

R7 vs Axel Sjilov (Beedrill/Exploud) (5-2)

The finals was played out in a best 2 out of 3 format, with a bracket reset if the loser won the first match. I was familiar with Axel's deck after playing against it a few times over the last couple weeks, and was apprehensive about how to approach attacking it, which factored into my losses. Part of me wanted to power up Gorebyss fast to take out the Beedrills, but I was also wary of the spread damage they would be subjected to if I didn't keep them as Clamperls. I ended up going on the offensive and set up 2 Gorebyss and 3 Crobats by the endgame. But I got careless and made some misplays getting my pokemon slowly KO'd. I decked myself out looking for a Gorebyss in my deck which would have given me game, but it ended up being prized.

The second game didn't go much better, as I was at a momentum disadvantage for most of the game, which combined with the fact that I prized 2 of my 4 Gorebyss, made for a grindy game that ended in an ATM Rock KO on my last Gorebyss. Props to Axel for winning with such a unique rogue deck, and I hope to play him in the next tourney.

Props:

-Going from 1 to 2 Warp Point was insanely helpful with all the special conditions going around, and I might even bump this up to a 3 count or consider adding a Switch or Briney in the future.

-Lowering the count of the Crobat line while bumping up the Rare Candy count helped for consistently getting pokemon out. I only really recall bricking in the first game.

-Lowering the Desert Ruins count to 1 was definitely the right move, I faced few ex pokemon in the tourney, and a single copy of Ruins definitely helped add that helpful extra damage in those matchups. Would not cut.

-TheAquaPiplup on TCGONE for organizing this tournament and recording some matches (seriously dude how do you do this all the time)

-Jay for scooping against me (lol jk)

Slops:

-Not totally sold on the Desert Shaman count yet. While I believe running 3 or (God forbid) 4 is unnecessary, I'm not sure if only running 1 is the right call either. Hand disruption in this format is very limited, so having the opportunity to slow your opponent's momentum can be advantageous, but if they play a Delcatty/Magneton engine, then this often ends up being worse for you than your opponent. Might consider dropping a copy and seeing how that goes.

-Running a single copy of grass energy wasn't a hinderance, but it would've been nice to get some extra damage on the board by dropping it for another psychic energy instead. Still, I like having having more outs to attacking with Crobat without getting the damage reduction from DRE.

-Sloppy play and poor resource management in the later matches against Jay and Axel caused me to miss opportunities that could have led to an advantage for me. Looking forward to Jay's analysis of how decking myself out was actually a brilliant strategic move.

In the end, I'm satisfied with my performance and I'm glad we got 14 players today to support the growth of the format. In regards to next time, will I make another run with Crobyss, or bring something totally different? (regirock????) Looking forward to next month's tourney!