Haymaker With A Twist v 1.3
by Will Wright
The Gaming Connection
Maryville, Tennessee
Saturday August 5th, 2000
Gym Heroes Pre-Release Tourney
35 participants
 
   This is the very first time I have ever sent in a killer deck and this one did perfect for me. We started out at 10:00 am with 35 people playing at a new gym I had never been to so I had no idea what I was up against. Everyone was given 2 brand new Gym Hero Unlimited booster packs with the chance to win up to 12 more packs. With some time to deck construct and the ability to add any of the new cards I pulled which were as follows:
2) Misty's Tentacruel Holo (1 in each pack)
1) Erika's Exeggutor
1) Erika's Gloom
2) Brock's Goldbat
1) Lt. Surge's Magnemite
1) Secret Mission trainer
1) Lt. Surge's Pikachu
2) Sabrina's Gastly
1) Misty's Poliwag
1) Blain's Vulpix
1) Brock's Zubat
1) Blains' Charmander
2) Erika's Exeggcute
1) Erika's Bellsprout
1) Misty's Duel Trainer
1) Energy Flow Trainer(Great Card!!)
2) Rock Energy Cards w/Gym logo
and we all received 1) Misty's Seadra Pre-release holo
 
I added the 1) Energy Flow Trainer to my deck and took out 1 of my 3 Ditto cards. We had to play as many people as we could within the 3 hour limit. The gym leader changed one rule saying you could battle the same person again as long as you battled 4 different people in between. No forfeits, all 6 prize games. 2 point for a win, 1 point for a loss. I played 14 games and won all of them. Here is my card list for the tournament.
 
Haymaker With A Twist v 1.3 
 
Pokemon:
2 Ditto (I did have 3)
2 Chansey
3 Scyther
4 Electabuzz
3 Hitmonchan
 
Trainers:
4 Bill
4 Oak
4 Scoop up
2 NGR
2 GOW
2 Energy Remove
2 Super Energy Remove
2 Comp Search
2 Item Finder
1 Energy Flow (For each of your Pokemon, you may return any number of Energy cards attached to it to your hand.)
 
Energy:
4 Double Colorless
8 Electric Energy
9 Rock Energy
 
I played against a variety of decks including Turbo Wiggly, Classic Haymakers, Rapidash/Magmar, Onix/Hitmonchan, Charizard/Wigglytuff and most decks had the new Gym Hero cards in them which made it very hard to know what to expect. The closest I got to a loss was against the Rapidash/Fossil Magmar deck. After flipping about 20 tails in a row I drew my last card and took out her Rapidash with my Ditto doing Agility for 30 and taking my last prize. I went up against a Dark Muk and handled it fairly well with a ditto and doing Sludge Punch and poisoning right back, then scooping up and watching him get knocked out. My Hitmonchans took care of all the Wiggly/Chansey combos and when I saw an Onix or other Rock type Scyther took um out. I scored 28 points but did not place in the top 8 for the prizes even though the majority of those that did place I had won against prior. Several of the top winners would not play against me "To save my record" and settled more on the rapid win against ones they knew but I still felt my deck did excellent. I loved the combo of Energy Flow/Scoop Up trainers and wish I had more than 1. There was 3 matches where I kept going up against Fossil Magmars that caused the game to be drawn out and as most should know this deck is made for speed and never to stall. There were several matches where Hitmonchan took out jigglypuff before Wiggly could get played or was energy removed several times. I did happen to come in 2nd on the "Most Sportsman Like" award which I am very proud of and was awarded by votes from everyone at the tourney, especially since I was in a new gym and knew no one but made several friends and had a super great time! Oh and as far as my Mulligan count: 13 matches no Mulligan, 1 match double Mulliganed and my opponent single Mulliganed.
 
Props to the owners of the Gaming Connection for being so very nice and allowing everyone to play.
Props to Wizards for coming up with this tourney
Props to everyone I played against for being very honest and fair
Small slops to the rule change that allowed repeat plays with the same person vs 1 game w/ each person rule.
 
Thanks for reading my report!
-Will Wright
alisalami@hotmail.com
 
P.S. Sorry for not doing a play-by-play but 14 matches in 3 hours was a lot to do.