My Sponge v1.2 (Electric/Psychic)
by James Kimbell
All About Cards
Lousville, Kentucky
Saturday, August 5th, 2000
36 Participants(the limit, i dont know if they all showed up)

GYM HEROES PRERELEASE TOURNAMENT

This was my first tournament.I walked in to the store, payed my 5 Bucks, and
got got my 2 Boosters and misty's Seadra. I looked in the boosters to see if
there was anything good enough put in my deck, there wasn't. M's Seadra's
good, though. After everyone that was coming got there, the tournament
bracket was made. It was single elimination with best of 3 matches. The
prizes were:

Winner: 10 boosters
2nd: 6 boosters
Final four: 3 boosters

All the boosters were Gym Heroes. When it got down to the last two, they
could elect to each get 8 boosters instead of battling.

My deck:
Pokémon: 10
4 Electabuzz
3 MP Mewtwo
3 Ditto
Trainers: 33
4 Oak
4 Plus Power
3 Bill
3 Computer Search
3 Lass
3 Scoop Up
3 Gust of Wind
3 Energy Retrieval
3 ER
2 SER
2 Item Finder
Energy: 17
7 Electric Energy
7 Psychic Energy
3 DCE

You'll notice the only difference from my last "My sponge" Killer Deck Report
is Ditto instead of Scyther. Ditto is so much faster, it's not even funny.
And we all know sponge decks emphasize speed. The strategy is to win really
fast, like first 3-4 turns. with 4 plus power and 4 oak, it's hard not to.
Not that I have a bad late-game though, I've got Scoop Up, Energy Retrieval,
and item finder. Now onto the matches:

Round 1: Me against Some guy with colorless deck
    Game 1: I got a HUGE early game lead on him, taking out a brocks
lickitung and wigglytuff in two turns each with the same electabuzz. I used
all four plus power in the first two turns. I kept energy removing him, too.
He was not prepared for the speed at which the sponge operates.
    Game 2: I mulliganed twice which gave him enough bait pokemon to send out
and die to stall while building up a chansey. When chansey, came out, I
supered it and double edged it twice with a ditto. That was his last
pokemon.After that game he  went and built a haymaker.

Round 2: Me vs. Jake with AreoSponge
    Game 1: His deck only has 2 oak. I knew that so i turned to ultra turbo,
knocking  out 2 electabuzz and a scyther with a ditto in 6 turns. I lassed
him early, after oaking and laying down some plus power.
    Game 2: He started with a lone scyther to my electabuzz. He put a grass
and swords danced. I put a lightning energy and 2 plus power on buzz, removed
the grass, lassed away his whole hand, then thunder shocked. Next turn i
thunderpunched with heads for the win.

After those quick matches, i looked at my future competition. My brother was
still in the tourney, and would face me in the next round! I saw my friend
Sean Lefler win in the first round rather swiftly and easily, only to get
beat by Andy Jacobs, the creator of the 7/14 Deck report, Psycho. Check it
out, its cool.

THE FINAL FOUR

Round 3: Me vs. Andy Kimbell(my brother) with Haymaker/Energy Denial
    Everybody there hated to battle my brothers deck. it was so evil. It has
4/4 energy removal and 4 full heal energy.
    Game 1: I got a nasty hand of mewtwo and 4 psy, 2 lightning energies. His
scyther made quick work if me.
    Game 2: Almost the exact same thing happened, except to him. I beat his
lone dratini on turn 2.
    Game 3: We both got our strategies, but my my plus powers at critical
moments gave me the edge. Our electabuzz, my ditto, and his scyther ripped
through each other at lightning speed. I just barely came out on top, taking
6 prizes to his 4 or 5, i cant remember.

Those games were so fast We got done before the other 2 of the final 4
fininshed one battle. They were andy jacobs and some guy named tommy. Tommy
won one , then andy, then tommy again. Tommy asked me if I wanted to call it
a tie and split the first and second place prizes, I said no.

For the championship: Me vs. Tommy with Damage Swap
    Game 1: I thought I could win on first or second turn. I came so close.
But then he got the game to go excruciatingly slow with retreating, invisible
wall, centers, and potions. It came down to this: His Kadabra with 3 Psy
energy ready to super psy next turn for the win against my lone ditto with 1
electric energy. I had 1 prize left and three cards in my deck and drew a
bill. Hoping for a miracle, I used and got an oak and a DCE. I slapped down
the DCE and super psyed for the win.
     Game 2: I got that dreaded hand of mewtwo, energy, and no card drawing.
He beat me with a TR abra.
    Game 3: I started with a mewtwo to his mime. I kept removing it. The game
stayed like that for so long until I drew an electabuzz, benched it, scooped
mewtwo and(with lots of plus powers) proceeded to KO mime TR abra and MP
Mewtwo, each in two turns.

Yay! I win the tournament! I got 10 Gym Heroes boosters and bragging rights.
I won't say what was in the boosters because nobody cares. Sean was a little
disgruntled about losing, and kept saying that Andy cheated. I'm going to
change my deck by replacing the bills with secret missions, the lasses and 1
SER for 4 Sneak attacks, and 1 SER for an ER.

Props and Slops:
Props to: Scott for inventing the sponge
Props to: Lass for being awesome

Slops to: Mewtwo for being resisted so much
Slops to: Base gastly(I think you know why)

James Kimbell
Jakimbell@aol.com