A
Rogue Deck for the ECSTS
by
Johnny Burton
Meadowlands
Exposition Center
Secaucus,
New Jersey
Sunday,
January 24th 2001
250
to 300 participants 15 and up
This was an awesome event put up by wizards of the Coast and was a lot of fun.
I didn't do very good on Saturday at the STS with my Dark Vileplume lock
deck. So I decided to make a different deck just for fun. Surprisingly
I finished with a record of 7-2 and ended up getting 10th place. I had a
DCI rating of 1811 at the time and was supposed to get 2 byes, but for some
reason I got 3 byes. Little did I know that byes hurt your Op-Match Win
percentage and because of getting 3 byes I didn't get into the top 8. Well,
enough talking and heres my deck....
A Rogue Deck for the ECSTS
Pokemon----20
3 Brock's Sandshrew--Level 13 (Defense Curl)
3 Brock's Sandslash---Level 34 (Needle Ball)
3 Diglett---------------------Level 15 (Dig Under)
3 Dark Dugtrio------------Level 18
2 Gligar
2 Magby
2 Rocket's Hitmonchan
1 Cleffa
1 Wooper
Trainers-----20
4 The Rockets Trap
4 Erika
4 Rocket's Sneak Attack
3 Professor Elm
3 Imposter Oaks Revenge
2 Resistance Gym
Energy-----20
20 Fighting Energy
In retrospect I think I could've taken out some energies and put in maybe one or
two more trainers, but my only intention for this deck was to have fun and I
did. Before the STS I had only play tested the deck twice and that was
late at night on Saturday and before the rounds had started for the STS.
This deck can actually do a lot of damage to a Donphan and Dark Alakazam decks.
Get out 2 Dark Dugtrios and start hitting there babies for 20 or 40 damage
when they retreat. The other strategy is to poison them with Gligar or
Brock's Sandslash and force them to retreat. Also Dark Dugtrio's power
gets around those pesky Focus Bands on those Cleffas and Magbys. Anyway
here's how the tournament went for me.
Round 1 vs. bye
Round 2 vs. bye
Round 3 vs. bye (probably lost getting to the top because of this)
Round 4 vs. John Salila---Donphan Deck
This was an awesome game because he made it a lot of fun. This game was
very slow because he wasn't getting out Donphan as quickly as he could've
because I trapped him and he had 2 cleffas down which made it hard to do some
damage
and I never got out my Dark Dugtrios until he had gotten out his Donphan. I had
drawn two prizes and he had only drawn one prize when the round had ended and
the game went to me for a Judicated victory, but my opponent was very nice and
decided to forfeit the game to give me all three points. I liked this game
the best because of my opponent. He made the game fun. Thanks John!
Winning this game put me in an eight way tie for first. 4-0
Round 5 vs. Bill Marra----Blaines Arcanine deck
This game was pretty tough because he was powering up his Blaines Arcanine
pretty well, but I countered his Cinnabar City Gym with my Resistance Gym.
Then I brought up wooper and knocked out his Blaines Arcanine that had 10
damage on it and one gold berry. Later on in the game he powered up
another Blaines Arcanine and knocked out my only wooper. Now the time was
running out and his deck was low in cards. The prizes were 3 to 2 and he
was up one prize. The game look like it was over when he told me he had
two more time capsules in his hand. Later on I figured out he was
bluffing. I decided I was going to try and stall with my babies for 4 more
turns, but I didn't have to because he accidentally played a professor elm and
decked himself. I think he thought he would have one more card in his
deck. Just that one
mistake cost him the game. After that round he had to leave which later on
hurt my Op-Match win percentage. It's too bad he left because he had a
very good Op-Match win percentage and was a very good player. I think he
could've made it to the top 8. Winning this game put me in a tie for first.
5-0
Round 6 vs. Tom Hanly--Feraligtr Deck
Saturday I had to play Tom and he beat me then, but Saturday was a harder battle
for Tom because I shut down his trainers and had grass pokemon. That game
almost came down to a couple of coin flips. But on Sunday the game did
come down to two coin flips. He had a Totadile and a Cleffa (I think).
He stalled with Cleffa and was powering up his Totadile. I played
Rocket's Sneak Attack and his hand consisted of two crocanaws, one Feraligatr
and four water energy. Then I played two The Rocket's Trap and both
of the coin flips were tails. In the next two turns he had Feraligatr up
and running. I had
Rocket's Hitmonchan fully powered up, but I had to use his cross counter attack
to try and knock out his Feraligatr. He got some trainers out and was
using double gust and warp point to bench my Rocket's Hitmonchan. Then
when Rocket's Hitmonchan was the only one left he did 20 damage to it and next
turn he did 40 damage and that was game. I would just like to say to
Tom... Congratulations on winning the Super Trainer Showdown and I hope
to see you at the WCSTS. Losing this game only put me down to 9th place.
5-1
Round 7 vs. Andrew Hendela???--Slowking/Murkrow/Mewtwo
This was the closest game I had ever played. He got out his Slowking and
two murkrows and 2 Mewtwos throughout the game. This game was eye for and
eye all the way through. It came down to use both having two prizes left.
I tried to poison his Mewtwo with Gligar but failed. During his turn
he knocked out my Gligar. He had one prize left and I had two prizes left,
but I knew how to win. I brought up my Brock's Sandslash and did Needle
Ball for 30 damage and poison. Now he had 50 damage on his movie Mewtwo
Promo. During his turn he was too afraid of retreating because of my Dark
Dugtrio so he just Psyburned for 40. Now he had 60 damage on his Mewtwo.
I knew the Mewtwo was going to die by poison alone so I put down a Diglett,
attached an energy to him and did dig under for 10 damage to his Slowpoke that
already had 40 damage on it. I knocked out the Slowpoke and then the
Mewtwo was knocked out by the Poison damage. That turn I got two prizes
and that was game. Winning this game put me in 6th place. 6-1
Round 8 vs. Andres Rodriguez---Feraligtr Deck
This was the worst luck I could have. I drew my hand and the only
basic there was Diglett, with 4 fighting energy and 2 Rocket's Trap. On
top of that he went first. The game started and he had a Cleffa and a Totadile.
He retreated his Cleffa
and brought up his Totadile and did Fury Swipes and did only 10 damage. My
turn, I draw and get an energy. I play 2 Rocket's Trap and trap him with
no cards in his hand. Then I do 10 damage to his totadile. His turn,
he draws a card and puts an energy on his Totadile and again does 10 damage.
My turn, I draw a Brock's Sandslash. Then I attached an energy to my
Diglett and did 20 damage to his Totadile. His turn he draws a card and it's a
Misty's Wrath... How lucky is that? He plays the Misty's wrath looking for
a Crocanaw... He find the Crocanaw and that's the game. In the end Andres
got
9th place and also had two losses. He beat me for 9th place by 400
hundreths of a percentage. That's 0.0441. If we would've tied, him and I
would've both gone to the finals. Losing this game put me in 12 place, but i had
the best
Op-Match win percentage. 6-2
Round 9 vs. Alvin Leu???---Slowking/some grass/Dark Alakazam
In this game he got out three Slowkings and this is where it became a baby fight
because he wasn't getting out the cards he needed and I was trying to use
Magby's Sputter. Whenever he Eeeeeeeked I would use Imposter Oaks Revenge.
Eventually I killed off the Cleffas with my Dark Dugtrios and Sputtered.
next turn I trapped him and he still wasn't getting out dark
Alakazam. He was forced to use his Slowkings and I knocked them out using
Gilgar and Rocket's Hitmonchan to finish up. Gligar was very useful
because with him I was able to get around the gold berry he had attached to him.
On his Last turn he put down an Abra. I had a fully powered bench the whole game
and he was struggling to get out the cards he needed. I was pretty lucky,
but the game seemed to go my way anyway. Winning this game I thought I had
made it to the top 8, but from out of nowhere my resistance dropped 4 percent
and that put me out of the top 8. 7-2 and finished 10th.
Even though I didn't make it to the top 8 I still had a lot of fun and probably
got more attention than the winner. For those who were there during round
5.
Time for Props and Slops
Props:
To Wizards for the Tournament
To Shawn for trying to explain to me why my Op-Match Win% went down
To all of the *nice* people that I met at the STS
To all of my opponents for a good game
To Wizards for the packs they gave out. (I got two Rocket's Zapdos out of 4 Gym
Challenge
packs)
To June 24th for being a day I will *ALWAYS* remember and I
mean *ALWAYS*.
Slops:
To the kid that cheated three different times against my sister
To that crappie hand that I got with one Diglett. LOL
To myself thinking that this was a crappie deck
To Adres Rodrigeuz for not tying with me. Jk
To myself being sooooooooooooooooo close to the top eight
And finally last but not least to those busy highway roads that almost got my
family killed
on the way going to the STS.
P.S. 7th to 17 place all had 21 points..The deciding factor was Op-Match Win %
For any questions about the STS just email me at
Jbawesome@aol.com
Johnny Burton