Super Trainer Showdown
7-22-00
Chad Mills

   Well, hopefully everyone knows what this is by now. The Super Trainer Showdown, in Long Beach, California. 180 participants in the 15+ age group. Tournament was 8 rounds swiss, with 3 points going to the winner of each match (if you deck them, run them out of benched pokes, or draw 6 prizes). If you were ahead on prizes when time was up, you'd get only 2 points, instead of 3. 1 point if you're tied on prizes when time runs out, and 0 points for a loss.

   Friday i left for CA. Flight delayed a few hours, finally get there just after midnight. play a few games (with scott, clefairydoll, ryan, darkstarm), then come back in the morning to register. I met Tyais and Gordon Kane in line for the tournament, and helped a couple Arizona players out with their decks while waiting/playing before the event started. The tournament was run pretty well, I'd say. Tables all numbered well, postings hard to get to with the crowd, but with that many people... Plenty of judges around, and I think the staff did a great job, especially with 3 tournaments with LOTS of people going on at the same time. Anyway, my deck:

Insane Wiggly

Pokemon: 16
4 Jigglypuff
4 Wigglytuff
4 Scyther
2 Chansey
2 Ditto

Energy: 15
3 Grass Energy
4 Double Colorless Energy
4 Full Heal Energy
4 Potion Energy

Trainers: 29
4 Bill
4 Computer Search
4 Professor Oak
4 Pluspower
4 Item Finder
3 Rocket Sneak Attack
2 Gust Of Wind
2 Lass
1 Nightly Garbage Run
1 Scoop Up

   Before I go into the tournament report, a little on the deck and my choice of it. Pretty simple - get wiggly out turn 2 and start the beat down. Scyther is the best pokemon to start as your active, with build jiggly to wiggly with an energy and a DCE, RSA their energy removals, and have a turn 2 wiggly fully pumped. with pluspowers you take out the 70 HP hay pokemon in one hit, and Item finders can get back the pluspowers if necessary to get 6 KO's in 7 turns if you don't bench them first. That's pretty much how the deck works...Chansey was rarely used, along with ditto and scyther. Wiggly is the main hitter, and the more yo. Anyway, on to the first tournament:

The Tournament

Round 1 vs. Ben Morris
   He was running your basic haymaker... hitmonchan and electabuzz. Listened to all the rulings etc. over speakers, and the tournament commences. i get off to a great start, using Rocket Sneak Attack to take his hand down to energy/pokemon, and get a turn 2 wiggly that starts to run through his pokemon. he finally gets an oak off, and brings up hitmo vs. my wiggly. I lass and play a potion energy on wiggly to give it one more hit and the advantage in the matchup. He ends up taking out the wigglytuff, but I draw my 6 prizes before he can KO any more of pokemon.
Points: 3

Round 2 vs. Patrick Donovan
   This was definately an interesting matchup... Wiggly vs. Arcanine. I get an early wiggly and sneak attacks keep him at bay while I run through his bench and get down to 1 prize. Meanwhile, he's building a growlithe on his bench, and i decide to take out an electabuzz that could take wiggly out in one more turn rather than gust out the growlithe. big mistake. he proceeds to evolve into arcanine and take down to KO my wiggly. running VERY low on cards in my deck, time running out, and his arcanine fully pumped, it'll be close. Gets down to him having 1 prize, me having one prize. Just a couple minutes left, and i bring up ditto. I have 2 chances to get points in this match: 1) get jigglypuff and a DCE to take out his arcanine which has 90 damage counters from 3 take down attacks, or 2) play slow and hope time runs out. I have 3 item finders and a scoop in my hand. i scoop a scyther on my bench so he can't gust it. ditto vs. arcanine. bad decision by me... next turn i would have to play a scyther to scoop, so wasting 2 scoops/turn wouldn't be worth it...if he has a gust it's all over. I item finder another scoop up, spend a bit looking through my discard pile... his turn. he keeps attacking for 50. quick turns for him, long for me. I item finder another scoop, bring scyther out, retreat for ditto... his turn. 50. I look through my discard pile. i'm dead, nothing in my hand, nothing in my discard pile. I computer search. 3 cards in my deck. Chansey, grass energy, full heal energy. 1 prize. must be the jigglypuff i wanted =(. nothing for me to do, really, so i shuffle my 2 cards (took chansey i think) for a bit, look through my discard pile, hand, etc. Time should be about up... keep stalling... and eventually the judge calls time, and we get a draw. He calls judge over, but i can justify slow play with computer search and item finder. hehe, i really shouldn't have done that, but i did and it's over... anyway, that was a free point ^_^
Points: 4

Round 3 vs. Kim
   honestly, after going through 8 rounds of swiss and taking a week to actually write this out, i can't remember much about this game. I BELIEVE it was against a magmar/buzz deck, but that's not for sure. I remeber wrecking my opponent's hand with RSA and taking quick prizes with a turn 2 wiggly... game over early, and went around watching some other matches going on...
Points: 7

Round 4 vs. Jesse
   Magmar vs. jigglypuff. smokescreen, pound, smog, evolve and KO. quick game =(.
Points: 10

Round 5 vs. Carmen
   We start off bad. Ditto vs. lickitung, i have the ditto. i have absolutely nothing in my hand :( She pumps up her bench and gets all set up, while i'm hoping for a topdeck. I manage to oak a few times and get a wiggly powered, and a backup ready on the bench. i take 2 prizes w/wiggly b4 her powered bench overtakes it... no energy left for her, but she manages to confuse my wiggly and take 1 prize. As time runs out, she remembers she didn't draw a prize from a confused wiggly ko'ing itself, so we were even on prizes instead of me winning =/. had i realized this before, i would have played differently. but oh well, i got a cheap point round 2 and i lose a cheap point this round. guess it all evens out...
Points: 11

Round 6 vs. Buzz
   Ack, i can't remember his name but he was Buzz from pojo... I had a sheet with names taken down, but after round 4 I stopped taking notes... Anyway, at the beginning he thought he had 14 points and I had 11. We shouldn't be playing if this is accurate... We call judges to no avail and they make us play while they check on it. Turns out he had 11 points too, and the pairing was correct ;). Anyway, I started off bad with a jigglypuff and not much in my hand. I managed to get an oak and catch back up, and fight back against his haymaker to eventually ko 6 pokemon.
Points: 14

Round 7 vs. Scott Gerhardt
   Ouch, this would certainly be a tough matchup. He was running a hitmo/buzz/mewtwo sponge deck, with promo eevee splashed in for anti-ditto. I actually had a great early advantage, because I was awarded 1 prize card due to him not having english cards to present as translations for his foreign cards. It was a bad ruling IMO, but I'll take it. Now I ask the judge if I get to draw the prize or just put one less out, and the judge says I get to draw it. I think Scott disagreed with that, but I'm glad I asked ^_^. Anyway, he mulliganed to start off, and I got to go first. RSA/RSA/Item Finder for RSA and then Oak took away his hand and gave me a huge early advantage. I ran through a bunch of cards getting an early wiggly, and started KOing his pokemon like crazy. Got down to 1 prize left I believe was when he ko'd my wiggly. He got a couple oaks off and took control of the board, but fortunately i have about 8-10 cards left in my deck, plus an NGR and item finder in my hand, so decking me shouldn't be a problem. I had plenty of time and resources to build up and knock out one final pokemon before our time and decks ran out. If I had actually had to draw 1 more prize, it would have been a bit more of a challenge, but I think I still would have had enough cards left to KO another pokemon... Anyway, the RSA's early on hurt him tot he point where he couldn't recover, and he didn't get the miricle it would take to recover :)
Points: 17

Round 8 vs. Chris Neatherly
   Wow, this is it. Winner goes to top 8 in 4th seed, loser gets knocked back out of top 8. He opens with a magmar and Sneak Attack first turn, and wrecks my hand. I can't recover and he builds up too many pokemon for me to KO with a wiggly i eventually get out. He wins, and ends up winning top 8 and advancing to top 4, where he was eliminated. Losing to 3rd place sure isn't bad ^_^.
Points: 17

   Had a great time there, and since i won the free trip from the phoenix STS, it sure didn't cost much ;). Definately worth going, meeting all the great players, and truly having a good time. BIG thanks to WotC for the tourney and the trip. I doubt i'll be able to attend the east coast STS, but i'll try ;).

Chad Mills (jediman on mIRC) - azkeeper@aol.com