Evening, PoJo!

Well, Fossil has just now gotten around to the hobby stores of the Tri-State
(OH, KY, WV) area - and about time, too!  This deck's created from Base Set
and Jungle only, and it served me very well in a tourney a couple weeks ago
(Oct. 2nd) at the Afterword Café in Huntington, WV.  The tourney was
sponsored by our local Hobby Exchange, and included 32 players.  Each match
consisted of a best-of-three set of games, each with 15-minute time limits
(though it reduced to 10 in the final rounds, as the café was beginning to
open for dinner!).

Here's the deck: The Green Machine

Energy x 24

Grass x 20
DCE x 4

Pokemon x 19

Bulbasaur x 4
Ivysaur x 2
Venusaur x 2
Scyther x 4

Chansey x 2
Kangaskhan x 2
Jigglypuff x 3

Trainers x 17

Bill x 2
Prof. Oak x 2
ER x 2
Gust of Wind x 2
Pkmn Breeder x 2
Pkmn Center x 3
Pkmn Trader x 2
Scoop Up x 2

Round 1: vs. Chris

Chris was a lot younger, and very inexperienced.  He had Pokemon of almost
every color in his deck, and not enough energy.  He also didn't know a lot
of the advanced rules.  I felt pretty bad about having to play him, but I
tried to give him a few strategic tips as we played.

Game 1: I started with Scyther and had a Khan on the bench.  He started with
a Staryu and no Water energy.  I played a Grass energy, then a DCE, and
Slashed for the kill.  Chris started to look through his deck for a Pokemon
to replace Staryu, and I had to explain to him that he had lost the game due
to an empty bench.

Game 2: Again, I started with Scyther; this time two Jiggly's on the bench. 
Chris started with a Machop and a benched Voltorb.  He went first, powering
up his Machop and Low Kicking Scyther for 20 HP.  I played a grass energy
and Swords Danced, and the next round he Kicked me again.  I laid down a DCE
on Scyther and Slashed for 60 HP and the kill.  He didn't have any energy to
help out his Voltorb, and he hadn't drawn any more basic Pokemon.  I Slashed
his Voltorb on my next turn for the game and match.

1-0

Round 2: vs. Todd

Todd was another inexperienced player, but he did have a theme to his deck. 
He played a variant of the Brushfire deck which really only amounted to
throwing in a couple of Scythers.

Game 1: I got a Scyther out for a third-round, 60-HP Slash on his active
Charmander.  The Charmander had already done 40 HP of damage to my Scyther
with Scratches; luckily, he hadn't drawn any Fire energy.  He also didn't
have any benched Pokemon, so that ended the first game.

Game 2: Disaster!  He started with two Ponytas, and I only drew two
Bulbasaurs.  I don't need to tell you how fast that one ended.

Game 3: Oddly, almost an exact repeat of Game 1.  This time, he did have
Fire energy, so I retreated my Scyther in favor of Chansey.  One lucky
Scrunch and a DCE later, I Double-Edged his now-evolved Charmeleon for the
game and match.

2-0

Round 3: vs. (another) Chris

I can't say enough good things about this guy.  He was very entertaining to
play against, and his deck was very well constructed.  The only downfall he
had was his reliance on the Poliwag line, which hurt him against my mostly
Grass creature lineup.

Game 1: I started with an active (surprise) Scyther and Khan and Chansey on
the bench, and Chris started with a Dratini and a benched Poliwag.  I
Grassed and Swords Danced, and he powered his Dratini with a Water energy
and Pounded me.  Next turn, I Grassed again for lack of a DCE and Swords
Danced a second time.  He evolved to Dragonair, DCE'd, and Slammed my poor
Scyther for (luckily) 30 HP.  I ER'd the DCE on Dragonair and Slashed it for
60 HP.  He didn't play any energy his next turn, so I Slashed again for the
kill.  When he didn't draw any more Pokemon on his next turn, he conceded.

Game 2: I started with only one Pokemon: Jiggly.  Fortunately, he started
with just one Poliwag.  On my first turn, I Lullabyed his Poliwag and
(amazingly) it stayed asleep for the next two turns while I Pounded it to
death.  By this time, we'd each drawn two more Pokemon; I had two Khans (one
in my hand), and he had another Poliwag and a Chansey.  He brought Chansey
in, laid down a DCE, but failed to Scrunch.  I retreated Jiggly and brought
in a Khan, threw a Grass energy on him and Fetched a Trader.  Next turn, he
threw another DCE down and Double-edged my Khan.  I drew Bill, and Billed
for Bulbasaur and a Scyther.  I played Scyther, powered him with Grass
energy, and used Khan to Fetch, this time a DCE.  Chris played a Water
energy on Chansey and Super Potioned it away.  Then he played (ouch)
Defender and Double-Edged again.  I replaced Khan with Scyther.  The next
turn probably won the game for me, as I drew another Bill which got me a
Breeder and an ER.  I immediately Traded the Khan in my hand for a Venusaur
and played Bulbasaur.  I  ER'd one of Chansey's DCE's and Swords Danced.  On
his turn, Chris powered up a Poliwhirl (he'd been building a pretty good
bench while stalling with Chansey) and failed a Scrunch.  On my turn, I
played Venusaur and DCE'd Scyther for a killing Slash.  The rest of the
match was fairly straightforward: I used Scyther to wipe out the rest of his
bench (including a Poliwhirl and Poliwrath) by using Energy Trans and
Pokemon Center to keep Scyther nearly invincible.

3-0

Round 4: vs. Saed

Saed is a regular at the café, and I had played against his Haymaker several
times before.  I was dreading the match, but he got called away about five
minutes before we were scheduled to play, and I sat the fourth round out.

4-0

Final Round: vs. Gary (no kidding!)

Gary is an absolute Pokemon genius.  He could have beaten my deck pretty
handily except for one thing: he had never collected any Jungle cards.  He
used a Psychic deck, and his strategy was like clockwork.  In his first four
rounds, he had locked down opponents, decking them in some games and using a
Dragonair wall in others.  The one card that could have won him the tourney
was Mr. Mime.  Although I put the Jiggly's in my deck to deal with a Mr.
Mime attack, he probably still would've beaten me.  he was just that good. 
Enough about that.

Game 1: I get a good start with an active Scyther and two benched Khans.  He
starts with Mewtwo active and Dratini and Abra on the bench.  He starts by
playing a Psychic energy on Mewtwo.  I draw Trader and swap an Ivysaur for a
Venusaur.  Then, I play a Grass energy on Scyther and Swords Dance.  To make
a potentially long story short, my Scyther cuts through his Mewtwo with help
from ER's.  I have to Scoop the Scyther when his Dragonair starts wailing
away, but by then I have a Venusaur out, so I send out Khan, Trans some
Grass Energy onto him, and Comet Punch for (ugh) 20.  His Dragonair starts
pummeling Khan with Hyper Beam, but I'm plentiful on energy, so his
Dragonair goes down after a couple more turns.  He replaces it with a
powered up Mewtwo and uses Psychic to inflict 50 HP.  I do the old Pokemon
Center / Energy Trans trick to heal Khan and Punch Mewtwo for 40 HP.  Next
turn, he Barriers while powering a second Dragonair.  I manage to ER the
remaining Psychic Energy off his Mewtwo, and by this time I've gotten two
more Scythers out onto my bench.  I Fetch a Grass energy (woo-hoo!).  He
conceded after another four or five turns, largely because he'd been Oaking
too severely and had only five cards remaining.  The game had run over the
10-minute limit, and he knew the only chance he had was to get on to the
next one and hope for a win.

Game 2: Easily the best game I've played, and the finest game anyone's ever
played against me.  Sadly, I don't remember much of the details of this one,
largely because it was very intense (the prize pot of $64 sitting right next
to our table didn't calm our nerves at all).  He used his Dragonairs and
Alakazam to maximum potential.  After I'd played both my ER's, there was a
point when he almost had me walled out.  His Dragonair was beating on my
second Scyther (it had already killed another Scyther and a Khan) and
depleting my energy reserves like crazy.  Luckily, I got a Venusaur into
play and quickly began Trans'ing energy around to compensate.  He Gusted my
Venusaur to the front two turns later and whittled off another energy card. 
I didn't have any Scoops or Centers handy, and my energy count was low, so I
kept Venusaur up front and Solarbeamed the Dragonair, which was already
wounded, for the kill.  Gary brought up a wounded Chansey which already had
a DCE attached, attached another DCE to it on his turn, and Double-edged
both Pokemon into the discard pile, along with all but one of my energy
cards.  He brought a powered-up Kadabra to the front, and I brought out
Chansey.  I drew a DCE, immediately played it on Chansey, and Scrunched with
a lucky flip.  At this point, I knew I had lost the game.  Amazingly, though
(I'm not one to rely on coin flips), I successfully scrunched for the next
two turns.  He conceded, which surprised me because he definitely had the
upper hand.  I asked him why he conceded (arguably, not the smartest thing
to do in that situation), and he pointed to his draw pile, which only had
one card remaining.  We each had two prizes remaining.

I ended up winning the entry fee pot of $64.  I also retired The Green
Machine.

Props and Slops

Props to James, who conducted the tourney under insane time constraints.
Props to Chris #1 for promising to learn the advanced rules and enter the
next tourney.
Slops to Todd for losing ungracefully (though he didn't throw his cards).
Slops to Saed for owning a beeper that goes off every fifteen minutes.
Props to Gary for an amazing match.
And a big Props to Tyler Grund for running the Machine through the garage
when I first made it.  The Jiggly's have served me in good stead!

Thanks, PoJo.  I'll type at you later.

Herschel Jeffrey
jhj001@hotmail.com