k-boo's Hashmarks
by Mark S Dawson
December 12, 2000
at Let The Games Begin in Greenville SC
12 participants
3 round Swiss (2-of-3 each round)

This deck was a revisit of what I called my Pretender Deck from
July. The premise was to use my opponent's attacks against themselves.In
doing so I identified 4 potential problem areas:
1) The first being that I was weak to Chans, in that I was basing my
whole attack around Clefable and I wanted to eliminate threats to Clefable.
2) Ditto. I could be stalled out by another Ditto rather easily.
3) My opponent could slow me down by playing weak attack pokemon...
4)... and even worse play Lickitung or Chansey. Lickitung is a high
HP poke with low attacks, a bad combo for mw to face. And Chansey i could
only kill by Double-Edge and that could potentially ONLY damage him but kill
me, so I had to have an answer.
The answers I came up with were:
a) 3 Gust of Winds. This would allow me to Gust up a pokemon with
bigger attacks and make my Clefable a beast. I also went with 3 Item Finders
in case I needed that 4th or 5th Gust.
b) My own Chans. This eliminated my Licitung/Chansey fears cause I
could take those two out pretty quick with Chan and it allowed me to use
Chan against the wimps by doing 20 for a sole energy.
c) And lastly, my own secret weapon, Sabrina's Abra. NObody plays
this at the local tourney but he does have some good points. On top of the
fact that he has free retreat, in this particular case he does 40 to Chan
for a sole energy and he wipes out a Ditto in one shot. I added him to some
decks just to ward off Chan and the over-played (at least here) Ditto. Ditto
players hate to see him.
So the deck ended up as thus:
3 Ditto (I find 4 almost too much. He reminds me of Mr. Mime in that
he is a great card but there is such a thing as too much of either for one
deck.)
3 Clefairy ( a necessary evil)
3 Clefable ( if you can get him out he is just too strong. He can go
toe-to-toe with anybody and he is impervious to energy removals)
3 Chan (still a great fighter and he is worth it just for all the
colorless threats)
2 S. Abra (for the reasons above. he can just plain be a pest)

3 Oak (usually only play 2 but I felt I would need more drawing
power)
3 Garbage Run (I find that alot of games do come down to who is
gonna be decked 1st. Allows me to run a little less energy than I would
normally do. Takes the edge off having to Oak as much as 3 times as
necessary. NObody at the local tourney plays without these.)
4 Energy Removal (just too key a card. Your opponent's strategy
changes drastically upon whether this threat is there or not. I know that I
constantly keep notice of whether my opponent has any and , if so, how many)
3 Plus Power (3 is a rarity for me but I thought it would be enough
since I was banking on getting big attacks outta Chan and Clefable)
2 Computer Search
3 Item Finder (both too obvious)
2 Energy Retrieval ( a great late game card and I don't have to be
so careful as long as I have one in my hand. A security blanket, if you
will)
2 Scoop Up (Great for Ditto and Chan. It is nice to make some of
your opponent's attacks count for nothing)
3 Switch (This card makes me wonder why some people play Full Heal.
This is a Full Heal on steroids)
3 Gust of Wind ( Allows me to control the playing field. I think
that a Gust should be played like a Plus Power, save it for the killshot. Of
course, there are exceptions but I like to use it to get the all important
prize. The only way I use it otherwise is if I need to gust a Jigglypuff,
Abra or Oddish because I am worried about what he might turn into.)

7 Fist Energy
4 Psychic Energy
4 DCE
3 Full Heal Energy (I like this card and all my pokemon, 'cept Abra,
can use.)

HOW IT WENT DOWN:

1st Round v. Farrell w/ a Sabrina pre-construct
Both games I got out my Clefable early and had resistance. There was
not alot she could do. I also had my Abra so I could do 40 to alot of her
pokemon with him. The games went quick and I won both by benching her after
3-4 basics.
RECORD 2-0

2nd Round v. Ben w/ a Tuff Deck
I hated that Ben and I had to play this early. Usually we meet in
the Finals so I took this as a sign that one of us was not gonna make the
playoffs.I had no idea how my deck was gonna react to a Tuff deck but I knew
I had my Chans and Clefables that was gonna give me a slight advantage. Plus
Ben was using Tauros, Buzz and Ditto, all of which I had an answer for.
Game 1 was a gift. I put out Chan as my active and Clefairy on the
bench. He placed one active and we flipped. TAILS. I got to go first. I
found that his sole active was Ditto. I used my computer search to get an
Abra, then scooped up the Chan. I had no psychic energy but I did have the
Oak. So I oaked to get the psychic energy and ended it in my turn. This was
to Ben's chagrin.
Game 2 was a good game. I finally had to deck him as we went got
near the end and I had 13 more cards (25-12 and Ben still had to kill 5 and
I only 3) in my deck and the only cards that were out were Clefables and
Dittos on both sides. So we both minimized for 4 turns before he was able to
get out a Puff and some energy. I had to gust his Puff and in 3 turns I
killed it and he was getting awful thin. He was able to Garbage Run twice
and give him six extra turns but I kept minimizing and had 2 Garbage runs in
my hand so I was able to outlast him and only lose 1 more prize before Ben
decked out.
RECORD 4-0
This was a huge advantage as there were only 2 4-0 players and the
most anybody else had was 2 wins, so I knew that one more win and I made the
playoffs. So I draw for the final round... Bryan, the other 4-0 player

3rd Round v. Bryan w/ a Rainbow Deck (Machop, Magmar, Scyther,Movie
Buzz, Rocket Zapdos)
I won Game 1 handily. I just brought out a Ditto and a second turn
Fable and took out 2 Zapdos with one shot of Clefable. My Ditto took care of
the movie Buzz and 2 shots and a Plus Power wiped out Scyther.
Game 2 started out sad as we both lightscreened his Buzz vs. my
Ditto. I knew I was already in the playoffs so I did not play my best.. I
tried a few stupid things and ended up losing. Now I knew he and I were in
the playoffs. We played the 3rd game (no memory for it) and I lost the coin
flip as we were tied at 3 prizes each when time was called.

PLAYOFFS
1st round , single elimination v. James w/ Tauros Hay
I do not get Tauros. My friend played Tauros and did well two months
ago and now alot of these guys play it. I think it is played out.
I got a bad starting hand. An Abra and a Clefairy. Nice. It only got
better as I was facing his Tauros and a Buzz. Luckily I pulled another Abra
in my 3rd turn. Lucky because it was the only thing I had to keep me in the
game.th turn I pulled the oak and got... nothing. Except another Oak. So I
did it again and got another Clefairy, 2 Dittos, a DCE and a Clefable. This
showed promise. I evolved to Clefable, put Ditto down with a DCE( I already
had the first Clefairy with energy) and was back in it. I started to kill
things with Clefable until he had 60 damage on him when I switched him out
and started using Ditto. I wanted to hold the Clefable until James put
another Tauros on his bench cause I knew it was a one shot kill. Shortly
after he did and I gusted it out and did Rampage(?) for a full 80and got
down to 1 prize card left. Of course I confused myself but that did not
matter since he killed Clefable immediately. But that was my best move of
the day and 3 turns later I took my last prize to win 6-4.

FINALS v. Ben (again)
Ben was able to come back and beat Bryan in the first round of the
playoffs, so it was a re-match. I do not think Ben (or I) make an outward
appearance of it but we have developed a rivalry. I know that Ben likes to
see me lose in the prelims, and potentially knock me out of a shot at the
playoffs, but I know that is cause Ben is a competitor.
Ben is a good trainer. Make that very good and I would put him up
against most. Especially as seeing how I am 39 and him 14. And he has beaten
me more often than I care to admit. So , taking all that into account, I
know Ben did not want to lose 2 rounds to me in one day. And I, conversely,
did not want to lose to him when it counted. This set up the opportunity for
a great match.
Neither of the matches was spectacular (Ben and I have had some
great matches but these were not to be epics).  Both games were well-played
but I won both. It makes me wonder whether my deck had a distinct advantage
over Ben's or did the cards fall better for me?
The most memorable part was how it ended. I was down to one prize
card and Ben needed 2. He had just scooped up his Buzz and would not put it
back out because I had a fully powered Chan active, and he did not know but
I did have a Gust, too. This left him with an undamaged, powered Ditto
active and no bench; while I had an energyless Clefable and a Ditto with a
DCE on the bench. I did the obligatory 40 to his Ditto and he had to use the
Ditto to kill my Chan, leaving us tied at 1 prize card each and in a
stalemate as we had Ditto on Ditto and my lone Clefable on the bench. I drew
and like manna from heaven I pulled a Computer Search. I took the Computer
Search and got a Clefairy from my deck. I then retreated the Ditto with the
sole energy and his Ditto (with 40 damage) beame a 40 HP Clefairy and died.
I got 9 bucks in store credit which I am saving for NEO. I heard
tell that it might be out before Christmas. Thank you for reading. Hope you
all have a great Holiday(s). Feel free to send any comments to
Mark.Dawson@vacorp.com. Later Gator