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The Happy Ice Cream Deck
by Drew Jacob (A.K.A. Footitch)
Central NDA, STS Qualifier
Montreal, Canada
Saturday, April 14th, 2001
48 Participants (I think), 6 rounds of Swiss

I'm actually from Redneck, New Jersey, but I decided
to take a trip up to Canada for the weekend to compete
in the STS Qualifier. I got to Canada on Friday the
13th, the trip took about 13 hours (train had trouble
on the tracks), and I stayed on the 13th floor of the
Queen Elizabeth, in room 1300. Great luck for me.

I got a map and figured out the route to the Central
NDA, and my dad and I took the Metro line there the
next day. I got to the building at about 9:30, and
check-in began at 10:30. I think the
tournament started at 11:00, but I can't remember
exactly. I met my friend Julia from Vermont (who
happens to have the biggest card collection ever), and
also James O'Brien, another kid from New Jersey, who
got 2nd place at the ECSTS last year (11-14). He
seemed annoyed that he wasn't the only one from New
Jersey there, but we played a preliminary game. He
was using Entei, and I had a bad draw so he beat me
pretty fast. I also played a game against Julia, and
again lost, which sure didn't help my confidence for
the rest of the tournament. Of course, that wasn't
going to stop me from playing...

The tournament eventually began, and Julia, who was
15, wasn't allowed to compete, but she tried to get in
anyway. When the head judge announced that he would
find out if anyone at the tournament was over 14 and
would ban them from all DCI-Sanctioned events for a
year, Julia and a few others dropped pretty fast.
Anyway, the pairings were up, and I started my first
round.

Ah, wait. The deck.

The Happy Ice Cream Deck.
Pokemon: 13
3x Sneasel
3x Ditto
3x Rocket's Zapdos
2x Gligar (whoops, no Scyther...)
2x Cleffa
Energy: 19
4x Dark
3x Rainbow
7x Lightning
1x Full Heal
4x Double Colorless
Trainers: 28
4x Comp. Search
3x Prof. Oak
3x Item Finder
2x Nightly Garbage Run
1x Scoop Up
3x Gust of Wind
4x Pluspower
2x Rocket's Sneak Attack
3x EcoGym
3x Gold Berry

NOW Round one began. Heehee.

Round 1: Blaine's Arcanine Deck
I've never really had a lot of experience against
these decks, but this turned out to be pretty
formidable. He was using Blaine's Pokemon (mainly
Growlithe, Vulpix, Arcanine, and Ninetales), and he
had something like 2 Vulpix and a Growlithe when we
started. I had ditto and sneasel, and started beating
him up pretty fast. He got an Arcanine on the bench,
but was never able to power up the second attack. He
did manage to kill my ditto. Vulpix is annoying
because of its pokemon power, which made it take 3
turns to kill with zapdos. He also got out ninetales,
and injure sneasel pretty badly, but I won in the end.
Record: 1-0

A decent start, I went over to see what the big kids
were doing. Apparently, they were having some sort of
8-person single-elimination side tournaments, with a
5$ (Canadian) entry fee, and I think the prize was 7
packs. They had a bunch throughout the day, and this
Japanese guy with a TKO deck was winning them all.
The standings and pairings for round 2 were posted,
and I went back.

Round 2: Augoston Someone with a Steelix Deck
I lost this one pretty fast. I'm not familiar with
Steelix decks, and I couldn't keep the energy on
sneasel (my ecogyms wouldn't come out, and he had
removal). Anyone have any suggestions for ways for me
to take on Steelix with my deck? E-mail me (see
bottom) if you do. Thanks.
Record: 1-1

I was disappointed about the loss, but the tournament
was 6 rounds of Swiss, so I wasn't done yet. I was
hanging out, waiting for the pairings, when an older
kid about 16 or 17 comes up to me. I ask him how he's
doing, and he says he's mad b/c he was kicked out of
the tournament, and they were now trying to get rid of
his friend Auguston (the kid who just beat me). We
get to talking, and he says he and Auguston were
almost single-handedly responsible for talking Wizards
in to holding STS Qualifiers in Canada, and that he
was really mad that he wasn't able to compete. I
asked him why he got kicked out, and he never really
gave me a clear answer, his said he didn't know. They
posted the pairings about then, so I went to my 3rd
round...

Round 3: Regular Haymaker
I didn't really get a chance to play a real game. The
kid (I think his name was Daniel) just kept Billing,
Oaking, ERing, and drawing out his deck. He had 4 ERs
and Bills, and used them all. By the end, he had 3
cards left in his deck, and 5 prizes, so I think he
started stalling, but I just let the thing run (I drew
and passed my turn), and with about 8 minutes left, he
decked out and I won.
Record: 2-1

I got talking with that older kid again, and he said
that he called MT Mike and left this message for him
about the whole thing. At this point I was starting
to think he was a big liar, b/c he was talking about
how he knew MT Mike and the judge running this thing
was going to be fired if he had anything to say about
it. I went to round 4.

Round 4: Haymaker
This was really quite an astonishing match, and there
is an important lesson to be learned from it: Don't
use Canadian coins for the Pokémon TCG. He was
running Buzz, Scyther, and Ditto, among other things,
and the only reason I survived was the fact that when
he used Ditto to beat me up, he got tails all the
time. Another thing which helped me along (and shook
him up bad, perhaps impairing his decision-making
ability and contributing to my victory) was that in
the middle of the match, he shuffled his deck for no
apparent reason. I called the judge over, and
suggested that it was unusual and he might be playing
marked cards. The judge said there was no real way of
settling it fairy, the deck had been shuffled. I just
got to draw a prize, and we continued the game. I won
shortly thereafter.
Record: 3-1

I went over to the adult tournament, and Julia had
lost. She was playing against this kid named Vince,
who was running a really bad grass deck. We gave him
some pointers, our e-mail addresses, and I think I'll
probably see him again at the STS.

Round 5: Uh, Ditto?
This kid was a cocky guy that was telling me as we
shuffled decks that he ran ditto to kill sneasels. I
wasn't sure if he was being truthful or not, but I
didn't see how a rationally thinking individual would
disclose his deck strategy before the game began. Not
taking the bate, I put ditto as my active. I had
cleffa and zapdos on the bench, and he had only
sneasel as his active (HA! I was right!). The game
went fast: DCE, search/oak for some extra Pokes, beat
up. Game.
Record: 4-1

I was getting excited now. If I won one more game,
I'd go to the finals. I continued to talk with this
older kid, and was now thoroughly convinced that he
was unfairly trying to enter the tournament. He was
now on some wild tangent about the message system to
MT Mike, and his parents' last name being on his
answering machine, and some crazy stuff like that
(does anyone know what he's talking about? Feel free
to tell me... But I think he was lying). The point
now was his story was changing every time. I was sick
of him, and I was hoping his friend Auguston got
kicked also, because then I may be able to claim that
earlier loss as a win.

Round 6: Clefable/Mewtwo.
This was a French kid who didn't speak much English,
but was nice enough. I went first, and the game went
pretty quickly, because he couldn't get energy. I saw
Clefairy, Mewtwo, and a Ditto, but the worst he did
was 10 damage to Sneasel with Mewtwo, and I eventually
ran him out of Pokes.
Record: 5-1

They handed out the prizes to all the runners-up, and
when I saw I wasn't one of them, I knew I was going to
the finals! Alright! I asked James about his winnings,
he had also gone 5-1, because in round 6 he had lost
to some little kid with a... Cyndaquil deck? I thought
he was joking, but I would see later on how true his
words would be.

Quaterfinals: Auguston with Steelix, again...
Well, it was perculiar how he tried to start, and
something was up. I was paired up with some kid named
Steve, and Steve was playing against some other kid,
and Auguston was playing me. He had 3 onix as his
starters, and as we began, I was feeling uneasy
because I knew now that I would lose, and I called the
judge over just to verify that he was my assigned
opponent. The judge saw him, and immediately began
waving his arms and shouting and telling him to get
out, he never wanted to see him again, I won, and that
was it. At the end of the tournament later on, I
noticed my score before the finals was changed from 15
to 18.
Record: 6-0 (haha!), Quaterfinals Complete.

Here's what had happened. Auguston and that other kid
who was telling all those stories earlier were both 16
year olds, and had signed up under the names of other
people. Apparently, those "other people" had their
pictures in the DCI database (but when did thet DCI
start photo-IDing? I never figured this part out...).
The judge took Auguston's picture, and was going to
compare it against the kid he had signed up as.
Auguston knew this, and stole the head judge's camera.
The judge got it back earlier and asked him to leave
the tournament, but he didn't, the pairings weren't
changed, and now Auguston was in trouble. So it
turned out he was cheating and a thief, and I was now
going to the semifinals, guranteeing me at least a box
of boosters, win or lose the next round.

Semifinals: James O'Brien
Ah. It was then that I thought it would be finished.
I knew he was good, and I didn't think I could do it.
Suprisingly, he started with Cleffa and nothing else.
I had Gligar active, and ditto on the bench, and I
went first. I don't exactly remember my hand, but it
had DCE, lightning energy, and computer search, among
other things. This was enough to win on turn one. I
played search, got a pluspower, and slapped it on
Gligar. Then, I almost died. I put down a lightning
energy instead of a DCE by accident. Realizing the
mistake, I returned it to my hand, and put down DCE.
James didn't object to me taking back the lightning,
but when he saw the DCE he knew he could lose and he
started saying I couldn't do that, it wasn't legal,
you couldn't do it in Magic either... so I called the
judge over, he said it was legal, something called the
Minus One Claus allowed it. This wasn't enough for
James though, and he got the head judge over, who said
the same thing. There was nothing he could do but
make threats about how he'd tell Wizards, get it
changed, and have my prizes taken away, whatever. I
flipped for the baby power, and boom, heads, I win.
Record: 6-0, Semifinals complete.

James wouldn't stop calling me names and saying I was
dishonorable and stuff. I tried to be a good sport,
but I got fed up with his rantings and his being a
sore loser, so I made a remark about the fact that I
won and he didn't, and what was he going to do about
it, it was the funniest thing. I also proceded to
tell him what he could do with his Cleffa when he got
home, but then it was time for the next round, the
finals, against...

Finals: Little kid with a... CYNDAQUIL DECK!
I thought I had been drugged. This was a little kid,
no more than 11, about 4' 8" tall, and he was in the
finals. James really had lost to him, as well as
almost every other person who played him. We started
out. I had ditto, with both Gligars on my bench, and
he had Cyndaquil and Ditto, I think. He was faced
with the same predicament that the French kid from
round 6 had, and couldn't get the energy. I killed
him with ditto, and the worst he ever did was
fireworks.
Record: 6-0, Finals Complete, I WIN!

Heehee, I won, I was king of the world, I felt great.
I would've felt sorry for James, except that he had
been sore about the whole thing, even though he got a
whole box and I only got 24 packs, but I did get the
STS Package, which included plane tickets, hotel room
tickets, and the advanced placement at the STS (Match
byes for me, not you, James! HA!). I'll probably give
the hotel and airline tickets to Julia (if they're
transferrable), but the byes are going to help me a
lot at the STS, and I'm glad Wizards did that for this
year's STS. And now its time for everyone's
favorite...

Props and Slops
Props to...
-Well, madd propz to the kid who played Cyndaquil. I
look forward to playing you again at the STS.
-Me, for winning.
-Pojo, for posting this
-Julia, for coming along, and being a good sport about
not being able to compete. Look forward to seein' you
at the STS
-Vince, who was just a really nice guy
-The head DCI Judge there, very hot-tempered, but if
it wasn't for him, I probably wouldn't be writing this
report right now.
-My packs! My rares were: Bellosom, Murkrow, Lugia,
Focus Band, Magby, Sneasel, PokeGear, Togetic, EcoGym,
Steel Energy, Dark Energy, Ampharos, Donphan, Energy
Charge, Recycle Energy, Feraligatr (the crappy one),
EcoGym, slowking, Dark Energy, Super Energy Retrieval,
Mary, and Heracross.

Slops to...
-James, for obvious Reasons
-Auguston and his crony, that big liar. I hope they
never show their faces at another DCI-Sanctioned event
in their life.
-Julia, who wore a Digimon shirt. Sorry, I had to...
-Card-Flip Game. Makes nice wallpaper, though.
-My packs. I continue to get Super Rods in [nearly]
every pack.
-Me. I never told anyone, but I'm the same guy who
miscounted the trainer's in Tim Smith's deck at the
STS (he mentioned me in his KDR). I'd like to take
this opportunity to publicly apologize to Tim, who, if
it weren't for me, would probably have won the STS.
I'm really sorry, man. I hope I see you there again
this year.
-Canada, I mean c'mon, you lost to a Jersey boy! Shame
on you.
-Wizards. Ban Sneasel, RSA, Comp Search, and SER.
Restrict everything else that causes problems (eg
Cleffa, Scyther, Wiggly, Buzz, Zapdos). Then, we
might have a decent environment. And there's no
reason you can't get the rights to do it from Media
Factory.

That's it! Hope you guys and gals enjoyed it. My
E-Mail is drew_jacob@bigfoot.com. You may send hate
mail there, but I will make you cry. You may send
viruses also, but you parents will slap you when they
find that on the next morning you will not be able to
boot up your computer.

Peace out all,
Footitch