Hey Pojo,

This week I entered a DCI Sanctioned tournament at Golden Glove in Bakersfield, California. It was held on Saturday, Jan. 15 and about 11 people entered. I decided I would go with Scott Gerhardt's Sponge deck, but with some modifications on the pokemon part. Here's the deck:

<ed note:  Sponge is a deck based around the following principle:  Promo Mewtwo is the most broken card in the environment right now.  Being Psychic, though, he can't do it alone, so adding in the environment's most solid basic in Electabuzz gives the deck the power it needs to overcome anything.  This deck can not fulfill those principles.  It does however fulfull the Haymaker principle of Hitmonchan and Electabuzz are  two of the most solid basics in the game, and work well together.  That is why I call it a Haymaker and not a Sponge.  I'll take the Props, though. *grin*  -Scott>

4 Electabuzz

3 Hitmonchan

3 Ditto

2 Scyther

9 Fighting

8 Electric

4 Dbl Colorless

4 Prof. Oaks

4 Bills

4 ER

3 Gusts

3 Energy Ret.

2 SER

2 Comp. Searches

2 Mr. Fuji

2 Scoop Ups

1 Item Finder

I guess I can't really call it the Sponge without Mewtwo's Energy Absorbtion, but oh well. Now, You may ask why I am not using Promo Mewtwo. I would, but promo cards are not allowed at this place. The reason I am using Hitmonchan is because Wigglytuff is used in a lot of the decks here. Oh yeah, I am also using Scyther because without Mewtwo, I have no protection against Fighting decks. The tournament was double elimination and each round was best 2 out of 3. Well, here it goes.....

Chris was playing a pretty good grass deck with Scyther, Venomoth, and Venusaur. He starts round one by doing the Scyther retreat dance while I power up my bench. After I get a fully loaded Buzz, I retreat Scyther and bring him out to do some damage. The game goes back and forth for a while. At one point, he had a Venomoth out, but I killed it before it got powered up. Prizes were 5 to 3 in my favor, and I brought out a Ditto to slash a damaged Scyther for the final kill. Well, our first game took so long that the judge said these were our final 3 turns. I really didn't want to go on to sudden death, so I just stalled with both of my Scythers, so he wouldn't take a prize. Not much to say about this one.

Overall Record:

Games: 1-0 Rounds: 2-0

Rene's deck consisted of only 4 Squirtle and 2 Blastoise as his Pokemon. I don't know how he could have got the Blastoise out, but he did. He starts with two Squirtle and I start with Hitmonchan and Ditto. He goes first using two Comp. Searches right off the bat, and I bet you can guess what he was looking for. My first turn I drew an Electabuzz. I put him on my bench and Jab Squirtle. He Breedered and got Blastoise second turn. He started powering him up, leaving his active Squirtle for dead. I Oaked and got another Electabuzz and a whole mess of energy. I lay energy on buzz and kill his Squirtle. Next turn he kills my Hitmonchan with a Blastoise and a PlusPower. By this time, I had two powered Electabuzzes and a Scyther. You know what happened. The next game was really easy. He once again starts with two Squirtles against my Hitmonchan. I left him in the whole game, Jabbing his Squirtles to death. I really hate quick games like that.

Overall Record:

Games: 2-0 Rounds: 4-0

Me and this kid were the only undefeated ones so far. He was saying before the match that his deck was going to kill mine. I start off with Electabuzz as my active against his army of fossil Magmars. He runs into energy problems early as I'm able to kill off two of his Pokemon.  I start powering up my bench and he is never able to catch up. Second game he has Hitmonchans, but with the same energy problems. I don't play my Electabuzzes most of the game, but Ditto and Scyther do good enough. On the last play, I see his benched Scyther with 50 damage on it. I use an Item Finder for the gust and let Electabuzz finish it off.

Overall Record:

Games: 3-0 Rounds: 6-0

So now I am definitly in the finals, but I have to wait about 40 minutes for the other people to finish up. I was sure glad that I beat Steven that one game or I would have had to play two other people just as good as us. In the end, Steven beat a kid named Aaron, so I would have to play him again. Well, here's the finals.....

Final Record:

Games: 4-0 Rounds: 8-1

For winning, I got 6 fossil boosters. In them I got holo Hypno, holo Lapras, non-holo Lapras, non-holo Articuno, non-holo Kabutops, and non-holo Hitmonlee. Pretty good. Now it's time for Props and Slops.....

Props to me for winning my first tournament

Props to Steven for playing some good games

Props to Scott Gerhardt for making such a great deck

Props to Golden Glove for the well organized tournament

Props to Ditto for probobly winning me the championship

Slops

Slops to Steven for saying his deck was going to beat mine

Slops to Golden Glove for the $10 entry fee

Slops to the low turn out (there is usually about ten more people)

Slops to Steven's Western Bacon Cheeseburger for making me hungry

Well, that's it! I hope you enjoyed the report!

For questions, comments, or suggestions

e-mail me at:  steff@lightspeed.net

Thanks for reading,

Jeffrey Inman