"Back in the game"- A 2nd place Tournament Report!

     Hello fellow Pokemon players! After a 3 month hiatus from Pokemon due to extreme involvement in Boy Scouts and after school activities... I'm back in the game! To make up for a lot of articles not done over the months, I am going to do at least 1 article up until Tuesday!

The Deck


                     Vespiquen can be very menacing if played right.

     Since I found out I was going to a Friday tournament that Friday, I had to make a Vespiquen deck on the fly (no pun intended). I managed to get a decent Vespiquen deck with what I had and this is the deck I played:

Pokemon-26

4 Combee AOR 9

4 Vespiquen AOR 10

3 Eevee FFI 80

3 Flareon AOR 13

1 Jolteon AOR 26

1 Vaporeon AOR 22

2 Spinarak AOR 5

2 Ariados AOR 6

4 Unown AOR 30

2 ShayminEX ROS 77

Trainers-27

3 Professor Sycamore

2 Lysandre

1 Professor Birch's Observations

1 Blacksmith

1 Xerosic

4 VS Seeker

4 Battle Compressor

4 Ultra Ball

3 Level Ball

2 Acro Bike

1 Trainers Mail

1 Jamming Net

Energy-7

4 Double Colorless

3 Fire
     Now for the explanations for a few weird deck choices:

3-3-1-1 Eevee, Flareon, Jolteon, Vaporeon Line

     I chose a 3-3-1-1 Eeveelution line for one fact: I need Blacksmith to recover lost energy but I also have to cover other weaknesses. Another reason that I chose to have a heavy Flareon count is the presence of Mega Sceptile.

2-1 Acro Bike, Trainers Mail

     The main reason I chose aggressiveness over conservation is because I need a way to discard Pokemon other than Ultra Ball and Battle Compressor. Another odd thing is that in total I only have 11 cards to discard Pokemon with. That is covered by Level Ball because I can easily search out an Unown with it, so I can still get Pokemon in the discard with Level Ball.

1 Jamming Net

     I ran Jamming Net over Head Ringer or other helpful consistency cards because of my Tyrantrum match-up. Since Tyrantrum usually starts off with Giratina/ Aegislash, I put in the Jamming Net just to counter those to where my Vespiquen will survive with 10 HP left.

The Tournament



          One of the biggest threats out there...

     Now for the 3 round report (As a side not this is a one round swiss)!

Round 1 ??? w/ Night March 0-0-0

     My Round one opponent thought that this was an expanded tournament so I let him change out his BW-LTR cards. Then we started the game. I went first and had an amazing start with approximately 11 Pokemon and 3 Combee's out on the field. He had a decent turn and got a few Night Marchers into the discard. After that I managed to get a turn 2 vespiquen and knocked out his Joltik. Finally, we went back and forth nocking out a Pokemon each turn (I used ShayminEX on the Joltiks) and I won with the prize count 0-2 (Lysandre for his benched ShayminEX).

Round 2 ??? w/ Lucario/Bats 1-0-0

     My round 2 oponent was my round 1 opponent's older brother. I went first again and had a decent 8 Pokemon-in-the-discard-pile start. Then he got his Lucario set up and couldn't use any bats the whole game due to bad bat draws. We kind of went back and forth of me taking the offensive side and him stalling. He almost succeeded, but I used a VS Seeker and grabbed Professor Birch's Observations and flipped a tails! That gave me four more turns to get the game done and I had 3 Prizes left. I won due to him not getting another Pokemon off of a Shauna.

Round 3 ??? w/ Tyrantrum/Giratina/Aegislash 2-0-0

     My round 3 opponent knew (at least he thought!) that he had the game in the bag because he ran 2 AegislashEX's. And even worse on my turn one I only had 20 Pokemon in the deck (And no Shaymins)! So I was getting worried because he had an Aegislash and Giratina start. Thankfully he drew dead for the rest of the game and I won.

     And the results came in! Jimmy got 1st Place with 3-0-0, I got 2nd with 3-0-0, and ??? got third with ?-?-?. As always thanks for reading!