Mutant Muk
By Matt M.
Town and Country Convention Center
San Diego California
Friday, August 19, 2005
Grinder Report
252 people in 15+

Well, I didn’t win an invite in any of the premier events this tournament season, so we (myself, my brother and my dad) had decided we were going to go to the grinder a long time ago. Fast forward to a week and a half ago…

So we drive down to San Diego (1,000 miles) and check into our hotel on Thursday. We spend the rest of the day finding the Town and Country, finding in what room the grinder will take place and generally wandering around aimlessly.

So Friday after lunch we go to the Convention Center and prepare our decks. My brother was playing Salamence, and I was playing my own version of Muk-ex which I had named Mutant Muk. Our dad was watching, not playing.

Now the part everyone wants to see:

Mutant Muk

Pokemon-7

4 Grimer (TRR)
3 Muk-ex

Energy-15

15 Grass Energy

Trainers-38

3 Aquas Hideout
4 Wallys Training
4 TV Reporter
4 Stevens Advice
2 Rockets Admin
3 Great Ball
3 VS Seeker
4 Pokemon Reversal
4 ER2
4 Potion
2 Crystal Shard
1 Pokemon Retriever

Strategy: I found that removing the now classic Jirachi/swoop combo opens up 8 deck spots, so you can add other important cards. Most importantly, VS Seeker and Potion. You may not understand the Potion, but it is an amazing card when you use it on a Pokemon that has only 100 HP. Also, Potion helps excellently in games against Medicham-ex. And it doesn‘t require you to flip a coin or return a pokemon and all cards attached to it to your hand, like Super Scoop Up. Still don’t believe me? Just read my report.

So the official numbers are announced. In 10- there are 42 players, in 11-14 there are 92 and in 15+ there are 252 people.


Enough with the introduction, lets get to the actual report now.

ROUND 1

Vs. Some guy with a 4-corners that had WAY too many Brelooms.

I have Grimer+Wallys and 2 energy in my opening hand. I go first, and he flips over a active Shroomish, and a benched Slugma and Chinchou. I know my match-ups, so I immediately suspect that he is playing Ludicargo with two Tech lines. Hey, I’ve seen it before. It wasn’t until after the game that I actually realized it was 4 corners. Anyway, I use Taunt to bring up the Slugma, which makes it impossible for him to retreat next turn. He attaches an energy to his benched Shroomish. Then I play Wallys and attach an energy to my newly evolved Muk, and attack the Slugma, poisoning it. He evolves the Slugma, removing poison, and attacks me with Knock Over. My turn, I play another energy, grab another Grimer with a TVR, and KO the Magcargo. He sends out his Shroomish, evolves, and poisons me. I play a couple potions, reducing poisons effect to nothing, and when I run out I finally retreat my Muk with 90 damage for a new Muk. I hold my Aquas Hideout until the guy sends up a Plusle (no Dunsparce?!?) so I can OHKO it. After I take 5 prizes, he sends up a second Breloom, and plays a THIRD Shroomish on his bench, which he quickly Swoops for a Spoink. I have three Reversals in my hand, so I play them, 1 of them is heads, so I win. He didn’t even take 1 prize. Interesting note: I used TVR 6 times in this game, due to my VS Seekers.

WIN 1-0

ROUND 2

Vs. Some Guy With Gardevoir

Once again I have Grimer+Wallys in my opening hand, but when I see him flip over a Raltz, I know this will be the hardest fight of the night. Garde is my WORST match-up. So he gets a Gardevoir up on turn 3 or so and just starts killing things. I eventually take it down, and he is forced to send up a Raltz, he evolves it and uses Life Drain. Heads. I can’t do anything else, so he just smashes me. This one wasn’t even close.

LOSS 1-1

So, now I know that I can’t lose another if I’m going to have any chance at winning one of he available invites to worlds. My brother’s 0-2 at the moment, so he’s already eliminated.

ROUND 3

Vs. some European guy using Medicham with some weird Ninetails Tech

This game I end up Mulliganing 3 times before finally grabing a Grimer. But I have no energy in my hand. -_- Wonderful. Well he starts with Vulpix active and a benched Meditite, attaches to Vulpix and uses Ascension into the Safeguard Ninetails. I top-deck a Muk, so I can’t do anything. He doesn’t have anymore energy, so he passes also. I draw TVR, use it and draw an energy ^_^ So I poison his Ninetails. He’s like ‘but I have Safeguard’ so I say ‘But Muk shuts it off’ He reads Muk a couple times and decides to not call a judge. This games pretty boring, but really close at the end. At the end, I’ve KOed a Medicham and two Ninetails, He’s KOed two Muks, so we’re tied on prizes at 2 remaining each. I attack his active Medicham for 60 (Aquas Hideout) My active Muk has 60 damage on it, and he has 2 Multi energy attached to his Active, all he needs is 1 Fighting energy to win. If he doesn’t have it, I win. He draws, plays 3 basics to his bench (this is the first time I see a Jirachi in his deck) and he plays Stevens for 1 card. It’s a fighting energy. Org. I hate losing like that.

LOSS 1-2


My brother got an easy win in his match, his opponent didn’t show. So he got a bye. Lucky.

ROUND 4

Vs. a cheerful Lady using Metagross with Registeel-ex

This is the third game that I start by not Mulliganing. Cool. I go first in this match and draw a five-star hand, I think it was: Grimer, Muk, two energy, TVR, Stevens, and a Greatball. But when I see what she’s playing, I realize a great hand isn’t all I need to win. Metaoxys usually kills Muk, using little effort whatsoever, but she never gets out the most important card, the Deoxys Metagross. I’m not sure if she even played them… Okay, back to the game. First turn I taunt up a Registeel hoping to poison it and grab two easy prizes, but she quickly plays a Switch to get it benched. I use a Stevens for 4 cards, and from there I set up everything in my deck. I KO a Metagross-ex, and a Pidgeot, She’s having trouble setting anything up without using Quick Search, so she’s forced to sacrifice 2 Dunsparce just so she can get a Metang with enough energy to attack. She Finally KOs one of my Muks, but I already have two more set up on the bench. I almost felt sorry for beating her, she was so cheerful and smiled through the whole match.

WIN 2-2

My brother won his match also, playing against a Metaoxys, so now we’re tied.

ROUND 5

Vs. a guy with Blaziken.

I’m pretty amazed there was anyone playing this deck. Not because I don’t like it, but because the metagame hurts it so bad… I had a very weird thing happen to me this game, but more on that in a minute So I draw my opening hand, and once again I have Grimer+Wallys. He flips over a active Dunsparce and two benched Torchics. I go first and taunt up a Torchic so he can’t SARS. Then he makes an unexpected move; instead of retreating the Torchic for Dunsparce so he could SARS next turn, he takes a risk and attaches to his benched Torchic. So I use Wallys and attach another energy to my now-Muk, so I poison his Torchic. On his turn he uses Admin, getting me an awesome hand and himself a Rare Candy and a Firestarter Blaziken. So he evolves his benched guy and attatches an energy. His Active Torchic now has 30 on it. I quickly ER2 the energy he attached, with the ER2 he got me with the Admin. So I say ‘go’ after my turn and he discards the Torchic like I had attacked it, but I protest saying ‘no, I didn’t attack.’ He gives me a glare that says ‘I hate you so much.’ So he attaches an energy to his benched Blaziken and plays another Torchic from his hand. His active Torchic dies at the end of his turn, so I get a free KO of a Dunsparce, 2 prizes on 1 turn. Cool. He sends up his Blaziken and attacks for 50. I use 2 potions, so my Muk now has only 1 damage counter on it. About now I wish I had another Grimer in play, because my 1 active Muk is the only pokemon I’ve used this game so far. He attaches another energy and attacks for 50 again. I use a TVR and draw another potion, but no Grimer or Greatball. So I use the potion and attack KO his Blaziken. So he sends up a Dunsparce to stall and evolves his benched Torchic, attaching an energy to it. I KO the Dunsparce, so he sends up his only pokemon in play. He evolves the Combuskin into Blaziken-ex, but he doesn’t have an energy for it. I attack, doing half of its life. So he draws an energy and uses Blaze Kick. If he gets a tails and I get a tails, I lose, any other combination and I win. He Roles. Heads. My Muk has 10 HP left. My last turn, I play a TVR just to see if I can finally draw another basic, I don’t get one. So I attack for the win, and I look in my prizes, they’re not there, so I look through my deck, and sure enough, 3 Grimers and 3 Greatballs are all shoved into the last 14 cards of my deck. What’re the chances of that?

WIN 3-2

So in 10-, 41 of the kids made it in, because 1 dropped and didn’t come back. In 11-14, 20 of the kids made it in, and in 15+ only 8 people made it.

So I obviously didn’t make it, only people that went 5-0 made it into worlds. If I were 4-1 I would have been angrier about this, even so, my Resistance was abysmal (about 29%).



So I went to a prerelease on Sunday, and I draft a pile of crap. The only good card I got was a Steelix-ex, but I didn’t draw any Onix OR Metal Energy, so I was stuck to a deck full of 3-1 lines of random things. My record at the end was 1-4. Yuck. In my 4 prize packs I draw another Steelix-ex, making the prerelease worth the entrance fee and the embarrassment of winning only once.

I’d write something about our trip home, but it’s pretty boring. Nothing really happened.


Props and Slops Time^_^

Props:

-Playing 4 basics and only Mulliganing in 1 match
-Potion. It won me two games.
-Using 1 Muk through all of game 5
-Drawing 2 Steelix-ex

Slops:

-Not being able to use Steelix-ex
-8 invites spread among 252 players

Matt M.

Aka. Flaming_Spinach