SUM-LOT Tourney #4 Tournament Report - 3rd Place

 

After having a successful run in the last SUM-LOT tourney with Blacephalon, I decided to use my pet deck for this tournament: Quagsire DRM/Naganadel LOT, or QuagNag. Although it wasn’t on many peoples’ radar until the tag team sets, I believe QuagNag is underrated in this format for several reasons. 

 

For one, it’s basically stall-proof. Stranding an undesirable Pokemon active and energy denial strategies won’t work as any pokemon in the deck can be an attacker thanks to the killer combo of Charging Up and Wash Out. The lack of reliable ability lock in the format is also a boon to QuagNag.

 

Secondly, the deck has a wide variety of attackers that can vary in effectiveness depending on the situation. Naganadel can hit psychic-weak Pokemon and swing big with Turning Point, Lugia-GX can OHKO Tapu Lele-GX and even send Pokemon to the Lost Zone, and of course Quagsire has an unlimited damage ceiling.

 

The deck isn’t without its weaknesses, however, as eliminating the Quagsires and removing Wishful Baton from the attacker before knocking it out can cause the deck to run out of steam. Still, I was confident enough to bring it to this tourney. This is how the matchups went.

 

R1: James G (Malamar) W

R2: Sean T (White Kyurem) L

R3: Adam K (Hoopa/Regigigas) W

R4: James G (Malamar) WW

R5: Kyle P (ZDT) LL

 

 

Round 1: James G with Malamar (1-0)

 

Going into this matchup I was dreading to face his Chimecho with its Bell of Silence attack, which would prevent me from playing any Pokemon with an ability from my hand during my next turn (so anything besides Wooper, Poipole, Lapras-GX and Lugia-GX). He won the coin flip and elected to go first, so with an active Poipole and a Wooper from his mulligan on the bench, I prepared for the worst. Luckily, he started Inkay and prepared another Inkay on the bench along with a Giratina, putting a damage counter on my Wooper. On my first turn I opted to play my hand down and use the Cynthia in my hand instead of grabbing a Lillie with Lele to draw an extra two cards, because I feared placing too many 2-prizers on the bench early on. I ended my turn with a Poipole in the active spot and another Poipole and 3 Wooper (one with an energy attached) on the bench. In hindsight it may have been smarter to attach and retreat to the damaged Wooper, which may have costed me extra energy on the board in the long run. The next turn James got his Malamars online and KO’d my Poipole with Giratina, placing 4 damage counters on his benched Oricorio. I promoted my Wooper, evolved the benched Poipole, benched Lapras-GX and used to Brooklet Hill to find Volcanion Prism Star and bench it. I used my Lillie in hand to draw a full 6 cards and found Quagsire and a Wishful Baton, swinging for 120 on Giratina, 10 shy of a KO. Giratina KO’d Quagsire and put 4 damage counters on his benched Lunala Prism Star, so I moved the 3 energy on Quagsire to Volcanion. Sadly I didn’t have any energy in hand to use Jet Geyser, so I used Sauna Blast for my first KO of the game (I think I benched a Poipole this turn). James then played Mimikyu and used Copycat for my Sauna Blast, KOing my Wooper after a Guzma. I returned the KO with Sauna Blast, now only down 4 prizes to James’ 3. The sequencing in the midgame gets a bit fuzzy, but I remember James using another Guzma to bring up my last Quagsire which I had evolved recently and used Sauna Blast to KO it. This was either with Mimikyu or his newly played Marshadow-GX. My hand was a bit dead at this time as I had attempted to search for my second Lele only to find it was prized, so I grabbed my last Naganadel anyway. I didn’t have any energy in the discard at this time, so I potentially made a misplay used Jet Geyser to promote his Oricorio with only 10 HP remaining. My reasoning behind this was less about wanting to switch his active and more about getting Naganadel ready as a potential attacker since I had ran out of Quagsires. So, I used Sauna Blast to KO the Oricorio and bring the prize count to 3-2. His Marshadow-GX then used Copycat for Sauna Blast, putting my Volcanion at 20 HP remaining. I manually retreated into Naganadel and swung for 320, KOing Marshadow-GX. With this I managed to grab Lele off the prizes. The prize count was now 1-2, and I was anticipating a KO on one of my damaged GXs to seal the game. To my surprise, he didn’t get it, and found his Necrozma-GX instead to use Black Ray GX to put my Lapras-GX and Lugia-GX at 50 HP and 70 HP remaining. I dropped my Lele, found Guzma, and he scooped. All in all a very close game, and could have gone either way.

 

 

Round 2: Sean T with White Kyurem (1-1)

 

In my opening hand I had Wooper, Poipole, and Lapras-GX. Judging by how he didn’t play any 2-prizers, perhaps opening with Lapras was a bad move. I started off well, getting an energy attachment on Lapras and Ultra Balling for another Wooper. I held onto the Cynthia in my hand so I could evolve into Quagsire and Naganadel next turn. Sean gets a perfect turn 1, retreating his Tapu Koko into Arceus Prism Star, dropping a White Kyurem and Pheromosa, attaching a Wishful Baton to White Kyurem and using Trinity Star to power up White Kyurem. My Lapras was also conveniently left at 160 HP remaining. I used Blizzard Burn to KO the Arceus and got return KO’d from White Kyurem. I used the Wishful Baton I had attached to move the energy to Quagsire, but I couldn’t find another Baton to replace it. With 4 energy on Quagsire I barely KO’d the active White Kyurem, but he followed up with another one thanks to Baton and I was left with no energy on board. I had an idea for a play where I would Ultra Ball for Lugia-GX and Guzma up his other benched White Kyurem and use Lost Purge, but since he had Shrine of Punishment in play and only 3 prizes remaining, I didn’t want to risk putting a 2-prizer in play. So I found Volcanion Prism Star instead and Guzma’d up White Kyurem to use Sauna Blast instead to soften up his bench. In hindsight I should have just taken a KO with Quagsire on a benched Tapu Koko or Pheromosa to put myself at 3 prizes. He KO’d my Volcanion with White Kyurem and I promoted another Quagsire. The only Pokemon I had in deck that could tank a Freezing Flames was Lugia-GX, but it wasn’t feasible to take the rest of the prizes with it since he only had 2 remaining to my 4. So I just KO’d the damaged White Kyurem with Quagsire. He once again got the return KO with White Kyurem. Now he was at one prize, so the Pheromosa he was powering up in the background was ready to swing for 180 with White Ray. I didn’t have an out to KO the active Kyurem and also KO the Pheromosa because of my lack of energy on board from a lack of Batons and also because I was running out of Quagsires, so I scooped. I probably should have started with the Wooper and focused on single-prize attackers throughout the game instead of opening with Lapras, which led to me losing the prize trade. Onto losers’ bracket.

 

 

Round 3: Adam K with Hoopa/Regigigas

 

I went first and started Poipole against his Solgaleo Prism Star. In this match I was looking out for Crushing Hammer/Plumeria discarding my energy and then lost zoning it away with Girafarig. I dropped another Poipole from hand and attached a water energy and Wishful Baton to the active Poipole. Then I used Lillie and drew into an acro bike which I used to put a Lugia-GX in hand since I didn’t need the Wishful Baton, along with an Ultra Ball which I used to discard a water energy and Lapras-GX to search out a Wooper. On his turn he played Mars, so I spread out my 5-card hand and he chose my Tapu Lele-GX in the middle, which initially worried me because the rest of my hand was 2 Quagsires, Lugia-GX, and a water energy. On my next turn I drew into Ultra Space which I used to search for Naganadel, evolve the active Poipole and benched Wooper and use Turning Point for 60 after resistance. On his next turn he max potioned the damage away and used Steven’s Resolve. My next turn I dropped Lugia-GX and retreated into it, using Charge Up and Wash Out to power up Lost Purge GX for game.

 

 

Round 4: James G with Malamar

Game 1:

 

As I was expecting during our first game, James gets Chimecho going immediately during his first turn. I started Poipole, so I attached an energy and used Spit Poison after I had benched Volcanion Prism Star and Tapu Lele-GX to get as much use out of my abilities as possible before they were shut down. The next couple of turns played out very interestingly, as James couldn’t get a heavy offense going during his Echoing Chime turns and I kept taking hits with Poipole active while powering up Volcanion on the bench. The damage he was doing with Echoing Chime was, after weakness, enough to go even with the poison tick damage. In the end, the poison damage won out and I took my first prize, free to play abilities again. James powered up a Dawn Wings Necrozma-GX and ko’d my weak Poipole with Dark Flash. With my Volcanion all powered up, I guzma’d his only Malamar in play for a Sauna Blast ko. This positioned me well as Dawn Wings was now in range for either a Lugia-GX or Lapras-GX ko. Because he was behind on prizes, he was able to use Moon’s Eclipse GX and ko my Volcanion. Since he was protected from damage the next turn and I didn’t have a Guzma in hand, I couldn’t attack Dawn Wings. Sadly a Wooper had to be sacrificed. I was afraid of James promoting his newly benched Necrozma-GX to ko Wooper because I had no way to ko it in return. Thankfully that didn’t happen, so using the Wishful Baton on the Wooper, I moved a water energy to Lapras-GX and along with the one I had attached previously and my attachment for the turn, I hit the perfect 160 I needed with Blizzard Burn for the ko. James scooped, and we went to game 2.

 

 

Game 2:

 

This game James started Chimecho off the bat, and I started Wooper. But just like game 1, I was able to drop Tapu Lele-GX to find more cards, although this time Volcanion was prized. This time Wooper had to trade hits with Chimecho for a few turns before it retreated into Ultra Necrozma-GX to ko Wooper. I used Ice Beam GX to try and trap it active for a follow-up KO, but James used Guzma to get a powered-up Ultra Necrozma back to the active and ko my Lele. Down 6 prizes to 3, I finally managed to attack with Quagsire with a Wishful Baton attached to ko the Ultra Necrozma. Thankfully, I drew Volcanion from the prizes. This was followed up by James bringing out Giratina from the discard to ping my Lapras-GX and second Lele and ko my Quagsire. James chose to place the 4 damage counters from Shadow Impact on Giratina. I dropped Volcanion and retreated from my second Quagsire into Volcanion to ko Giratina with Sauna Blast as well as the Chimecho on the bench which was left at 20 hp from Wooper earlier on. I knew my out to victory was by koing his Lele, so I tried to get rid of as many cards as possible to maximize drawing into it since both my Leles had been used up. With 3 Malamars in play, James powered up a Lunala Prism Star from scratch and ko’d Volcanion for 200. With the Wishful Baton from Volcanion combined with the 3 energy on Lapras, I was able to amass enough energy on my last benched Quagsire to Guzma up Lele for the game.

 

 

 

Round 5: Kyle P with ZDT (3-2)

 

Game 1:

ZDT has a lot of little ways to make the matchup favorable, including Feather Arrow damage to quickly pile on damage for Zoroark kos and Field Blower to get around Wishful Baton. That combined with high hp GXs makes taking kos tough. Kyle goes first and starts Zorua to my Poipole, playing Cynthia on his first turn and Professor Elm’s Research on his second to fully establish his board. I had a plethora of search options during these turns but could never find enough basics to bench, perhaps due to poor sequencing. I was able to Hydro Pump his Zoroark for 120 on turn 2, but he was easily able to get the return ko. With the DCE on Zoroark and 2 energy on my Tapu Lele, I was 10 damage shy of the ko, so I Guzma’d up his Alolan Ninetales to stall. He got out of it with his own Guzma and his momentum and his momentum carried him the rest of the way while I was stuck with a hand full of energy from a poor Lillie draw.

 

Game 2:

This game my most crucial misplay was not starting with the Lapras in my hand, since my opening hand wasn’t very good. Starting Lapras and using Collect from the first turn would’ve been massively helpful in improving my draw, where I also had trouble finding basics. I used an Ultra Ball to find a Volcanion Prism Star instead of a Poipole, which was another misplay. The hand I drew after a Lillie had a Brooklet Hill and no outs to a Poipole, which stung as the 2 Wooper I started with were the only ones in my deck and the Lapras I had benched turn 2 meant I had no more targets for Brooklet Hill. Not much to say about this game other than I was always a turn behind on most actions I should’ve taken. I did get to use Lost Purge again this game against a Zoroark, which was cool.

 

 

 

Props:

-Volcanion Prism Star being a tanky legend that was the reason I won most of these games

-Wishful Baton absolutely carrying my energy acceleration

-Lost Purge.

 

 

Slops:

-Playing unnecessary GXs in the White Kyurem game

-Not sequencing optimally in the ZDT games

-Pokemon/search lineup still being a little wonky

 

 

I don’t think anyone has optimized QuagNag yet, as I think there’s a plethora of ways you can customize it to your liking. Ditto Prism Star, Onix LOT, Palkia-GX UPR/FBL, are a few examples of Pokemon that can be added. The search options can also be adjusted according to the Pokemon count, since there’s numerous types of ways to search Pokemon in the deck. It could also be worth testing tools like Exp Share and Choice Band to find more efficient ways to keep energy on board and hit bigger numbers. I’d love to play the deck again in the future, as I still think it has untapped potential in this format. It has a unique matchup spread that balances out the meta, being basically stall-proof and favorable against Blacephalon while having more trouble against bulky GX decks, which have trouble against said stall decks. I would definitely consider tweaking this list and trying again with it in the future.