Where: Hasting's of Las Cruces
When: Sunday April 30, 00
24 players, DCI Sanctioned
Email: thlayli@greatwhite.com
Deck: The Squirtle Squad!

Pokemon: 12
4 Squirtle
2 Wartortle
3 Blastoise
1 Dark Wartortle
2 Dark Blastoise

Trainers: 33
4 Pokemon Breeder
4 Professor Oak
4 Challenge!
4 Bill
4 Nightly Garbage Run
4 Gust of Wind
3 Item Finder
2 Computer Search
2 Mr. Fuji
1 The Boss's Way
1 Gambler

Energy: 15
15 Water Energy

There is a cool little game that you can play with this deck that I call
second turn seventy.  The point of the game is to imagine the worst
possible scenario that you will be playing against.  Next you try and get
Blastoise on the bench with a fully charged Dark Blastoise as your active.
If you do it, you win.  Now on to the tournament report.


 1st Round vs. James and his killer Lapras
Haven't played James in a while because he works on Saturdays.  Now that
the tournaments are on Sundays, he can play again.  Last time we played he
had a pretty solid Nidoking deck going on.  This time around he was playing
a deck with four Lapras, four fossil Magmar, and 40 trainers.  Excellent
deck.  I mulligan 5 times.  He thinks that I have a stall deck and opts to
only draw four extra cards.  My opening hand has 1 Squirtle, 3 gusts, 2
Energy, and an item finder.  Ouch.  I lose the toss, and he reveals a
Magmar.  He has two Magmar out and a Lapras. He places an energy on Magmar
and smokescreens.  I draw Dark Wartortle.  I gust out the other Magmar,
place an energy, and bubble.  I get past smokescreen, but don't paralyze.
He places an energy on the active Magmar, retreats, uses energy removal,
and smokescreens me again.  I draw an Energy.  I evolve into the Dark
Wartortle, place an energy on it, gust out the hurt Magmar, and Double
Slap.  Two Heads.  He retreats, smokescreens again, I draw Blastoise.  I
gust him out, and Double Slap for a KO  (My prize is Breeder).  Out comes
his Magmar that smogs for the win.

Record 0-1

2nd Round vs. Roman's Killer Karp 
Roman is playing Raindance w/Gyrados.  He is one of the people that helped
me playtest this deck, so he knew exactly what to expect.  When Roman and I
both play raindance, we also have the rule that the first one to deck out
wins, rather than loses.  Makes the games more fast paced and fun.  Of
course, since we were in a tournament, we weren't playing by those rules.
The game begins with me pulling two mulligans.  He wins the toss, and has
three Rocket Karp out.  To my relief, he has no Squirtle.  I on the other
hand get two Squirtles, a Breeder, The Boss's Way, and 3 Energy.  He places
an energy on a benched Karp, and passes the turn to me.  I draw Oak.  I
place and energy on Squirt, and bubble.  He computer searches for a
Squirtle, places another energy on the benched Karp, and lets me go.  I
draw gust.  I use The Boss's Way to get Dark Blastoise, Breeder my active,
into it, gust out the Squirtle, drop and energy and Oak.  I computer search
for Blastoise, and Breeder the bench.  Oak once more, drop energy, Item
finder for the Oak, and drop more energy.  I KO the Squirtle with Hydro
Cannon.  He sends out a Karp.  He Oaks a couple of time, and benches a few
squirtles, and evolves his Karps into a Dark Gyrados, and a Gyrados.  He
leaves the already hurt Karp out there.  I gust out the Dark Gyrados, and
Hydro Cannon for 70.  He brings out the other Gyrados, and does Rage.  I
retreat, send up Blastoise and Hydro Pump for 50.  He rages again, and I
pump for the KO  Roman never recovers because I KO the Squirtles for the win.

Record 1-1

3rd Round vs. Joe's Mean Green Machine
I have to say that I like Joe's deck.  It is just a straight forward deck
with a clear purpose and no wasted space.  Venusaur, Pinsir and Scyther
with some energy and healing.  I only mulligan 5 times.  I ended up second
turning the regular Blastoise in the active slot, but that was enough to
take out the Bulbasaurs.  Third turn Dark Blastoise is on bench and ready
to go.  The game was quickly over, with gust of wind taking out whichever
Pokemon had energy.

Record 2-1

4th Round vs. J.R.'s Buzzes
This was a very fun game.  J.R.'s deck has 4 Electabuzzes,  4 Lapras, and
three copies of all that trainers that he likes.  I mulligan 6 times, and
J.R. takes 6 cards.  I'm to find out later that this is to my advantage
because he only drew one basic, (Lapras), and had to Oak away his fat stack
of trainers to pull out the Electabuzzes.  It was a close game in the
beginning, but I was able to get two Dark Blastoise, and two Blastoise out.
 J.R. played energy removal and super energy removal every turn, but it
didn't end up helping him because of the garbage run/oak combo. Three turns
before I actually won, J.R. told the judge that I had won, because he had
two Lapras out with no energy, and four buzzes in the discard..  After
discussing the game with J.R. we both agreed that he could have won the
game if he searched for plus powers in the early game, rather than the
buzzes that he put on bench.  He didn't realize that I only had four basic
in the deck, and was thinking of the long term, rather than trying to win
in the first few turns.

Record 3-1

5th Round vs. Billy's Gengars
Every tournament that Billy has played in, I have seen him play Raindance.
Imagine my surprise when he pulls out a fossil Gastly against me.  I don't
mulligan this game.  I pull two Squirtles, water energy and Oak.  I get
Dark Blastoise up second turn as my active, and Blastoise up third turn.
The game is over by the fifth turn.  Billy is excited nonetheless because
he got bored of playing Raindance, and my deck gave him a few ideas on how
to change up his deck with the Rocket cards.  I can't wait to see what he
does.

Final Record 4-1
I end up taking first in my age group because everyone in the entire
tournament had at least one loss.  There was a four way tie for first in
the 11-14 group, and they had to do a playoff.  This is by far one of the
best tournaments that I have played in.  There were no sore losers because
there was not one person that dominated.

Props and Slops

Props to all the people that are playing decks with Lass, Rocket's Sneak
Attack, and LV. 60 Mewtwo, because it is forcing all the ER/SER people to
the bottom of the pack, and letting people play more creative decks.

Props to Billy for playing a deck that he isn't comfortable with.

Props to all the ER/SER people for making the metagame easier.

Props to Roman for going through his whole deck first turn, and decking out
second turn during playtesting.

Props to all the people that donated Squirtles the that I used magic
markers on to make a true Squirtle Squad, sunglasses and all.

Slops to Creatures for making us look at such horrible art on such a
wonderful card.  (Promo # 14)

?'s, Comments and Money go to Rey Berrones, thlayli@greatwhite.com DCI #
22669098

-Thlayli
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"Life is NOW!"
                                -from Richard Adam's "Watership Down"
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