Toys R Us Official Pokemon League Event
                                   Saturday, January 15th, 2000
                                              Tigard, Oregon
                                      32 persons participating



Hello.  My name is Matthew and I am a 31 year old man who loves Pokemon. 
After some 8 months of battling with my other adult friend Pokefreaks, I
decided to try my luck at some tournaments in my area.  Even though I broke
even, I was unhappy with the lax attitude of some of the judges, and their
unwillingness to reprimand several children who were outright cheating.  It
just wasn't organized very well, so I'm going to try my luck at another shop.
In the meantime, though, I managed to sign up for the Official Pokemon
League at my local Toys R Us, and was pleased to see that I'm not the only
adult who plays at these things.  There was a Gym Leader right there the
whole time, there was no arguments from anyone, adult or child, and it seemed
as if everyone there had a lot of fun, I know I did!  Anyway, I was hoping an
adults perspective on a League Event would be interesting for any readers, so
here goes.




Keepin' it Basic Haymaker

4 Hitmonchan
2 Hitmonlee
3 Ditto
3 Scyther
3 Mysterious Fossil
2 Aerodactyl

3 Plus Power
3 Energy Removal
3 Super Energy Removal
1 Pokemon Trader
2 Computer Search
3 Gust of Wind
2 Bill
2 Professor Oak
2 Pokemon Center

22 Fighting Energy


I'm a mono-color deck fan, but nowadays, you have to have something special
in mono decks to stay on top.  This deck has what I think are a very nice mix
of Pokemon, and a good theme that is quickly unraveled by using Trainer cards
wisely.  Anyway, the League Events are not quite the same as a card shop
sponsored tournament.  The pace is slower as there doesn't seem to be a time
limit, and it seems you can battle whoever you want instead of hoping to get
paired up against someone you want to play.  Also, a lot of people there were
just playing for fun, using decks that wouldn't probably win any tournaments,
but were very fun to playtest.


So, the first round match-up is Me vs. Blaine.  Seriously, that's his name,
he's my boss' kid and he is 8, but VERY good at Pokemon.  I taught both him
and his dad how to play and they play A LOT.  They are addicted.  We shuffle
and we're off!  Blaine is using a Mono Grass deck with emphasis on Venusaur
and Exeggutor, with a few other basics.  Well, to make a sad short story even
shorter, I drew only Hitmonlee to start with and by turn three, Exeggcutor
had finished me off.  I couldn't pull a basic, he did'nt have any benchers to
Stretch Kick, so down I go. Oh, well, I tell the kid good job, and say maybe
we can play again.  0-1


I eventually end up trying my luck against a 15 year old guy named Kevin, who
is playing with a modified Rain Dance deck.  Well, talk about a change in
luck!  From my opening hand I've got almost all the cards I need and in
almost the right order.  I start with Scyther, Hitmonlee, and Ditto.  He
starts with Krabby, Squirtle, and Articuno.  By turn six or so, Squirtle and
Krabby are knocked out, and I just evolved my Fossil into Aerodactyl.  He
does'nt seem able to draw any good trainer cards, and since he can only use
basic Pokemon, I just play energy on all my Pokemon until Hitmonlee can
finish off his bench.  Articuno never even gets off the bench.  He tries to
stall a bit, but Hitmonlee ends up knocking out all 6 pokemon needed to win. 
He is a very good sport and shakes my hand as we tell each other "good game".
1-1



Next up is Bryan, whom I end up playing 3 times in a row.  He is an adult,
and has some cards that I do not such as a League Promo Pikachu.  After
playing 3 times, I would classify his deck as a Rain Dance Destroyer, because
it is Mono-Lightning, with emphasis on quick attacks and bench damaging
tactics.  Well, I guess my luck continued to hold, because we managed to play
3 games in less than half an hour, and the closest he came to winning was
knocking out my Ditto in the second game, by gusting it onto my bench with 60
damage on it.  I managed to get Aerodactyl out by the 5th turn in all 3
games, and he was unable to get him up there long enough to finish him off. 
He wanted to play again, but I had already agreed to play someone else. 
However, he also was a good sport, and we agreed to play each other next
week.  4-1



Next I played someone also named Matt, and he had a weird deck consisting of
Psychic, Colorless, and Water.  I think his plan for the deck was to stall
people into running out of cards, but it never became an issue in the 4 games
we ended up playing.  To sum up the four games(since I'm sure this is already
so long no one will read it)  I never started a game with less than 3 Pokemon
in play or in hand, whereas he usually only had 1 or 2, his colorless walls
were obviously outmatched by Hitmonchan and Hitmonlee, and when he brought up
Articuno finally, I just brought up my Scythers or Dittos, and that was that.
Once again, Aerodactyl showed up fairly early in all these games, never
later than turn 7 or so, and he only managed to evolve 1 Pokemon(Abra to
Kadabra) before that became a moot point.  He was not such a good sport,
however, and proceeded to dis me and my deck, saying it was cheap and
cheesey.  I told him that I had just been very lucky today, and that he
played a good game, but he just walked away cursing me.  Oh well, whattaya
gonna do?  Yell at a kid?  I don't think so.  8-1


With only 25 minutes left to play, I found one more person to battle.  A
young lady named Melissa with a Mono-Grass deck based around Venusaur and
poison Pokemon.  We played 2 games in 25 minutes because the first game was
VERY short, she only pulled one basic, Bellsprout, and Hitmonchan finished it
off in two turns. Whoopee....I feel so cool.....not.  Anyway, on the second
game, I got scared.  She managed to get Venusaur out on turn 4 and then
started putting energy behind Exeggutor and Pinsir.  With some energy
removals, I manged to stall until I got Ditto and Hitmonlee charged up, and
even though she did manage to knock out one of my Hitmonchans and one of my
Scythers, by then I was fully stocked and used Dittos version of Big
Eggsplosion to knock out Exeggutor, and then used Ditto and Hitmonlee to
finish off Venusaur for our final prize card.  She was very polite, and we
shook hands and parted friendly.  10-1


Time was pretty much up at this point, so we all went to get our badge books
stamped and chat about the days events.  Most everyone had a great time, and
even those people who did'nt win but a couple games had a lot of stamps in
their books, so everyone was that much closer to earning a badge!  I was glad
I decided to come, and no one gave me a hard time because I was an adult
playing what is generally perceived as a childs game.  Hey, it's fun, what
can I say?  So, anyway, I went away feeling pretty good about my deck and,
even though I was obviously lucky, I feel it's above average and would use it
again in a tournament just to see if it could hang with the hardcore gamers
out there.  All in all I very much enjoyed my first Pokemon League event and
hope to attend many more in the future, as well as some local tournaments.  I
just hope my luck holds out!


Thank you for listening to this old man ramble,

Sincerely,
Matt Brenneman
Stitchcore@aol.com
Pokefreak til the end!