Chad Mills Arizona Collector

It's been quite a while since I went to ACP, but today I finally got back there. My Saturday started out with taking the PSAT's, then immediately going to a soccer game. As soon as I got home from the soccer game, I called ACP - to see what time the tourney started at since I hadn't been in so long. It was currently 2:10 or so, and the tourney started at 2:30. Problem was, I live in Gilbert (AZ), which is a suburb way across from Scottsdale, where ACP is located. So, they signed me up over the phone (thankfully), and after I got there we ended up waiting till after 3:00 to begin. I usually go to Arizona Gamer, but they moved their tournaments up to 11:00, so with soccer I'm having trouble getting up there. I heard from a friend last week ACP had given away a color game boy to his friend, so I was wondering what the prize would be. They said if they had under 50, it would be a N64, over 50 is a dreamcast. Weird prizes for a pokemon tourney, but very cool. :)
Anyway, the format: 6 rounds swiss, 1 game per round (match), 20 or 25 min time limit, after 6 rounds cut to top 8. Top 16 get prizes. There were over 50 people, so they were giving away a sega dreamcast to first, a promo venusaur (from best collection cd) for 2nd, i don't know what for 4th-8th, and 8th-16th was a holo. Here's my deck:

Well, I don't remember who I played, but I do remember what happened. I mulliganed 3 or 4 times, the most all day, and didn't get off to a good start. I ended up with a scyther and magmar up against 2 Gastlys. I went first, retreated for magmar, and smokescreened. He was using the new gastly. Another person I played used the old gastly/haunter for some odd reason. He attacked, but it didn't work. I used smog, and failed to poison. He didn't paralyze me, and I played an energy on scyther before KOing the #1 gastly. He brought up the other one, which paralyzed me. I scooped up magmar, played a DCE on scyther, oaked, added 2 pluspowers with the help of CPU search, and that was game.

I played another kid this round. A slightly longer game this time. ER and SER kept my opponent's kangaskhan at bay while I poisoned him with smog. A couple of oaks later my magmar was up against the basic haunter, and I had 2 scythers on the bench (1 fully powered, 1 with 1 energy). I scooped up the sleeping magmar (i was getting tails a lot!). I played an energy and scyther damaged haunter with slash. Again I flipped a tails to stay asleep, but a scoop up brought out a scyther, which I played an energy on, and slashed for the KO.

Well, this was my least favorite game of the day. It always happens this way, someone gets shorted out a chance to win. My opponent had a bench destruction deck, and I don't remember how the beginning setup was, but he had a zapdos out, and a couple larger pokemon, so he couldn't do any damage quickly. He forgot to put out his prizes, and he had pokemon tradered already. ACP's policy on prizes is if you forget to put them out and you haven't looked at your deck (suck as CPU srch, trader, etc.), then you place them out, if you have looked at your deck it's a game loss. OUCH! That hurt. My opponent used a pokemon trader, so he got a game loss and I won. I personally thought it was 2 prizes, but since the change of DCI penalty guidelines I guess the definition has gotten more vague. I had the old rules that have a clearer definition than the new ones. DCI procedural Error--Major (112, according to the penalty guidelines) is what I would have classified it as - an unintentional disruptive action. A Minor procedural error (111) is like in magic failing "to provide a reliable method to track her life totals." Also, leaving a *GUM WRAPPER* on the table is considered an unintentional disruptive action in some cases...what the heck? Anyway, a severe action (113) is (an example from the guidelines) "a player spills coffee on his deck and is unable to play the match effectively." An example of a major disruptive action is if a player doesn't shuffle his/her deck well enough. Well, it certainly isn't as minor as leaving a _gum wrapper_ (sheesh, I can't believe that!) on the table, and it's not as major as spilling something on your cards so you can't continue, so I'd say it's a major disruptive action, calling for a caution - the smallest penalty - basically a verbal warning. It used to be 2 prizes, but I guess that even changed... Anyway, I really would have liked to just take my 2 prizes and continue, but hey, I'm not gonna complain cause I got the win. But, the reason I play is to have fun, and it's ot fun winning a game like that. I'm pretty confident I coulda taken him anyway :), but who knows, anything can happen. =)

I remember his name cause my friend Nick has been talkin about goin to a tourney with him, but I still haven't seen them both at one together, since this was when I first met Chris (I think that's his name, sorry if I got it wrong). He had a rain dance deck with Blastoise, Articuno, Lapras, and I don't know if there was any other pokemon. I was really worried about this game, cause all the pokemon are weak to lightning, not grass, and my magmar could get KO'd in one hit by Arti or Blastoise. It really wasn't that great of a game, I started bad and ended bad. I just need to be able to KO a blastoise in fewer than 4 turns...I really wasn't expecting to see any Rain Dance before I left, so I didn't worry about it. It was pretty much one-sided, I had no prizes, he had three, when he was down to about 10 cards and I 15. I was trying so hard to deck him, stalling with scoop up or anything else like Scyther's free retreat. I knew 1 gust of wind would kill me. He got down to 1 prize left, and scooped up a blastoise! He would have easily won the game w/o scooping him up. Then, he used gambler, and I thought I would still lose (he'd deck me). He reshuffled his hand (no deck left), and flipped a heads (even on die), so he drew all the cards back and I won. I got really lucky he made that mistake, it ended up costing him the top 8.

Another raindance. Had I expected good players to play raindance, I wouldn't have brought the deck I did, cause my deck was one notch below it. I knew he was a good player, cause I saw him the previous times I played. I won the coin flip, and got to go first. My magmar vs. his squirtle. haha, he probably thought it was funny...for about half a second. I played an energy, a pluspower, and an oak. The oak yeilded one more pluspower, which I played. I also played a comp. search. He almost turned pale, it was kinda funny. I guess I was the same when I found 2 pluspowers were in my prizes. heh, that was a waste. 30 damage to squirtle, his turn. Some turn 1 kill, that was. I shoulda saved the pluspower until after I oaked. Oh well. He had a comp search which he got an oak, more pokemon, and then proceeded to bubble for nothing (smokescreen). I had a scyther on my bench from the oak, so I played an energy on that and smokescreened for the KO. He raindanced with a breedered blastoise and kicked my butt from then on. I had not worried about playtesting against rain dance cause I didn't see it as being played by _good_ players. So, I just then realized I couldn't kill a Blastoise in less than 3 turns (that's with poison from the magmar, then retreating for scyther). 4 Turns is the least it would usually take. Anyway, he went through prizes like crazy, when I finally took out his blastoise, only to find myself up against yet another blastoise. That was game, not even SER could save me, despite the fact he'd gone through over half his deck gettin the blastoises out. Excellent game Wes!

Well, I knew the person I was playing against, I just don't remember his name. I'd played him a LONG TIME before when he
used to go there. It's been a LONG time since I've gone there on a regular basis, and he was gone the one time I went in the
summer (he said he went somewhere for the summer). I went up against a wiggly/scyther deck. I can't remember, but he had
something else too. Anyway, this was a close game. I had some tough decisions to make, and I'm glad the game couldn't have
reached the time limit cause I coulda got in trouble for stalling early on (I honestly had to think about what I would do, and
wasn't even thinking about the time limit). It was pretty close game, though I was a ways ahead on prizes. I ended up KOing
my 6th pokemon just before the time limit. I really know how to play wiggly decks since I used one for so long. Just don't
worry about the haymaker pokemon, just take em on like normal, but don't waste your ER unless you're gonna oak. When they get
a jiggly or wiggly, ER/SER it to death! Since wiggly is the key, the focus of the game keeps you on the offensive if you don't
let them build up a wiggly. They waste all their energy building up wiggly, while you take out their "bench fillers." While
you don't get a lot of energy (using SER's), and a well-timed SER on your opponents part can mess up your plans, that's about
the best way to get away with beating wiggly decks. Great game, it's fun to play someone who knows what their doin like that.
It's the first time in a while I've played someone like that. They've had so much experience they know exactly what to do and
when to do it...what cards to save for later, and what cards to play right now. It's just fun to play someone that has an
incredible skill at the game. I didn't really play anyone that day that did beside him and Wes, to the best of my knowledge.
I might have and they got a bad draw, but people like that usually put up a good fight even if they know if they're gonna lose.

I was facing off with the number 1 seeded player goin into the top 8, Wes, the only one that had beaten me so far. I had a feeling I was gonna lose, cause of the rain dance. However, I would still put up a fight. I got a pretty good hand to start off, magmar and scyther, some energy, a bill, and an oak. Not bad. He started off with I think squirtle and articuno. I went first and smokescreened for 10. Bubble failed, and I played an energy and oaked. I got another magmar, but didn't play it (like many amateurs do...they don't realize that putting a pokemon with a retreat cost on your bench can get gusted up like a SER...unless you're gonna play energy on it right away, or evolve to something important like kazam, or oak, don't play the basic!). I took care of the squirtle with a pluspower and smog. Arti wasn't built up, so he was workin on a squirtle on his bench. The arti just stood up there as a wall. I played an energy on scyther and smogged, and didn't poison. He oaked n didn't get a blastoise out (phew!). From then on, I got too many SER's and ER's for an energy-needing deck to handle. I took out his pokes 1 by 1, scooping up a confused magmar (lapras), and doin whatever I could to keep him from getting a prize...since I knew with just a single breeder and blastoise he'd take over control of the game, at least for a while. Luckily, when he got one out, I had a SER and ER waiting for it, so I took the game! Woohoo, on to the finals for a dreamcast!

Wow, a kid made it to the finals! Must be some kid, with all the teenagers/a few adults there. I heard he was a regular there, and always made top 8. So, I started playin against him. He won the toss, I mulliganed a couple times, which was common that day... It was a fairly close game. I took some control over the game early with oaks and bills, well-timed pluspowers and gusts, and a couple lucky coin flips. It got close at the end...I had 1 prize and 4 cards left in my deck. He had a wiggly out front, stranded without energy (hehe, my favorite situation). There was kinda a weird situation here. It's never before been explained to me the way the tournament director did. Everything has timing, nothing happens at just no time. I was lookin through my discard pile, counting how much energy I had left. I had a pluspower in my hand, 30 damage left on the wiggly, and 1 energy on magmar, no more in my hand. I counted 18/21 in my discard pile, 1 on magmar, and 1 prize left, so I had one left in my deck. He told me to go (actually I had 5 cards in my deck cause after the draw I remember having 4...i think i said 5 earlier). He said go while i was looking through my discard pile, and after about a second he took it back, and tried to play a super potion or something. Since there was a crowd around (finals), the TD was there. He had to ask a person there if looking through my discard pile meant it was still his turn. Certain events have to happen at certain times, nothing just happens "whenever". So, since I started lookin through my discard pile on his turn, and he took back the end of his turn before I set the pile down, it might still technically be his turn. So, he talked to the other guy, and it ended up being my turn. I had 2 bills in my hand I hadn't used for obvious reasons, but now I knew I had 1 energy or 2 (depending on my prize), in my deck still. I billed and got an enegy retrieval, good enough. I saw the look on the kid's face and he knew it was over. I played the pluspower and an energy, and that was game. I was sorry for him, cause he had gotten so far being a smaller kid (than me, probably 7th grade). How would you feel if finally you won all your games and got to the finals, then some outsider comes in that day and beats ya in the finals?

I walked away with a dreamcast (heh, best prize from a tourney yet). There were more than 50 attendees, cause they would only give away a sega dreamcast if there were 50 people. This had been their biggest prize so far I think, cause people were waiting for the attendance to reach 50... Tourney wasn't sanctioned, a 1st place of 50+ woulda helped my rating, but it really doesn't matter too much to me. Next week I have an earlier soccer game, so I might make it to the 11:00 AZ Gamer tourney, if not I'll try to get back out to ACP. Never know, but I'm certainly changing my deck so it'll stand a better chance against rain dance, and still not get slaughtered by any other decks...that's always the hard part. If arizona gamer had had a later start time I woulda probably gone there, but I'm completely happy with ACP, they're a great place, great prizes, great attendance, ok prices, great buy prices, and just all in all a good place to go with friendly people.

PROPS:
ACP for a great tourney, great prize, and letting me join late
ACP for buying all the uncommon fossil 1st ed.'s off me, they don't serve me any purpose but to take up space
Wes for beating me in the 5th round, and givin me a great game in the semi's - proving my deck needs work
Chris for comin and handing me the game in the 4th round
All the people that made good trades with me
All the people that showed up, adding to the prize pool :)
ACP for giving prizes for the top _16_ :) wow! especially for a $3 entry fee and a dreamcast for 1st

SLOPS:
the kid with the prerelease aerodactyl for being so CRAZY not to trade it to me for a charizard AND here comes team rocket (wow!)
I just wanted that SO bad :) I'll get it through the league though. His loss i guess
ACP for the single game/match. I know there's no other way to do it. With 6 rounds, 2/3 would take a lot longer, but I still dont' like it
Arizona Gamer for moving their tourneys up to 11:00, giving me less of a chance of going to tourneys each week...at lest there's ACP!
Billdacat for not posting me, david, and nick's last tourney report!