Hey gang,


  Okay, this being my first "killer deck" I have
designed, I'm not sure how to go about this. I'll give
it the old college try though.

  I played in a tournament held at Brentannos book
store in Davenport Iowa on June 4th 2000. There were
around thirty-two participants. To my surprise, there
was quite a mix of children, teens as well as some
adults. This made things interesting.

   The deck I have built does contain Japanese
language cards. I will put the translations for my
cards at the bottom of my report for those of you who
would like to know the specifics of certain cards. My
deck is known as "Magnum Assault" and relies on the
new rules of the Gym leaders series. Though I do
believe this rule did apply somewhat during the Team
Rocket series, I don't believe that took it to this
extent. Gym Leaders cards do not count the same as
other cards. So in actuality, you can have four base
set diglets and four Brock's diglets in your deck.

   That is why I built my deck thusly..

4x Hitmonchan (This card is too good.)
4x Team Rocket's Hitmonchan (This card is even
better.)
2x Nyuura (NEO...I am infatuated with Evil Pokemon.)
2x Scyther (Essentially, he's colorless so that is
good.)
2x Chansey (Stalling...nuff said.)

Trainers:

4x Bill
4x Energy Removal
4x Potion
2x Computer Search
2x Gust of Wind
2x Super Potion

Energy:

24x Fighting Energy
4x Evil Energy

 

   When I first built this deck, I never thought it
would work. I was wrong.

Round One: VS. The old standby Haymaker with
Hitmonchan, Scyther, Electabuzz..what have you. My
draw was not so good. I had Chansey and Bill, and a
slew of energy. I won the toss and threw out Bill and
got Scyther and low and behold another Fighting
energy. I figured I could let Chansey soak up some
damage while I built the bench. This cocky, and I mean
cocky, thirteen year old led with Electabuzz, and
proceeded to attach energy and instead of inflicting
ten damage and maybe a little paralysis, decided to
play an energy removal and remove the fighting energy
from Scyther. I didn't know till later on that he only
had one Energy Removal, so that little bit of
annoyance went rather quickly.

   I didn't want to attach any energy to Chansey,
mainly because he was there to stall. He's not weak
against Lightning so I saw no problem in letting him
be a damage sponge. The rounds went buy and by the
time I had used two potions in keeping Chansey around,
my bench was on fire. I had Nyuura with his two Evil
enrgy ready to go, Scyther had three Fighting
attached, one Hitmonchan with one fighting and one
Rocket's Hitmonchan with three Fighting energy
attached. Bill came in VERY handy in getting those
cards. After Chansey was knocked out, and the
youngster took his prize, I decided that I should
bring Nyuura in and let him clean house. I also wanted
to do this because this kid had never seen the card
before and thought it was fake.

   Since Nyuura is the topic of discussion, I'll
translate his attacks..

c: Fury Swipes- Flip three coins, 10x damage for each
heads.

ee: Evil Assault- Flip a coin for each Pokemon you
have in play, does 20x damage for each heads.

   With that in mind, and having placed another
Hitmonchan and my other Chansey on the bench, I had
the opportunity to do 120 damage if I was lucky.
Electabuzz was toasted, I flipped three heads in a
row, missed the fourth and fifth and got the sixth. I
drew the other Nyuura. He brought up a fully powered
Hitmonchan, and decided to deal 40 damage to my
Nyuura. I had to rethink my strategy a bit, he had
another fully powered Hitmonchan on the bench, and two
Scythers, each having two energy apiece attached. My
coin flipping had been pretty good and as much as I
wanted Nyuura to eliminate his entire squad, I
retreated him for free and brought out Scyther. His
resistance to fighting paid off and I cleaned both of
his Hitmonchan away. After drawing an Evil energy and
a fighting energy as prizes, I decided to cure Nyuura
a bit and bring him in to knock Scyther into oblivion.
The Scyther he brought off the bench was all the way
powered with three Grass energy. If it had been me,
considering my Nyuura was still hurting with twenty
damage attached, I would have gone with the fastest
attack I could, he decided to power Scyther to do
sixty instead of thirty. Luck was on my side and I
fliiped four heads and Scyther was history. The
professor oaks were killing this kids deck, and it
became clear that trainers and energy had thinned the
Pokemon down. He had only a Scyther, fully powered
mind you, to take on my fully powered, well staffed
bench. He wised up this round and dealt thirty right
off the bat. I retreated Nyuura and brought out
Rocket's Hitmonchan. He noticed that he had a
resistance to fighting, and decided to power up and
try and knock me out as well. I used an energy removal
and left him unable to attack. I was hoping that he
didn't have another energy in his hand. I was right.
He drew Pinsir and placed him on the bench, and did
not attack. Rocket's Hitmonchan has two very useful
attacks that make up for his 60HP...

f: Cross Counter- After your opponents next attack,
even if Rocket's Hitmonchan is KO'ed, deal twice the
damage as you received.

ffc: Magnum Punch 50

   I used magnum punch for twenty and he drew grass
enrgy and attached it to Scyther and powered him up
again. I don't quite think he fully understood what
cross counter does, or he thought he had alot of HP. I
used cross counter and even though he knocked me out,
I still managed to take him with me. Pinsir came in
and with no energy. I brought Nyuura out and flipped
two heads and two on the next round, leaving me to
take his last prize. A shaky first showing of the
Magnum Assault, but it showed promise.

   The next round was much more cut and dry. Kids love
Pikachu, and pikachu and alot of the colorless line
are weak to fighting. The Pika-killer, as his deck was
known was no match for mine. I had Hitmonchan in play
and Nyuura and Rocket's Hitmonchan on the bench. He
had two Pikachu, one in play and another on the bench,
along with Farfetch'd. He dealt me ten damage the
first round and I dealt fourty. He put lightning
energy on the benched Pikachu and I knocked the one in
play out. Not before he had dealt another ten damage
mind you. He pulled the other Pikachu up and I drew my
prize of a Bill. Bill brought another Bill and an
energy removal. I had attached two fighting energy to
Hitmonchan already, and this being my third turn I
thought a third wouldn't hurt. I cleaned up his damge
first with a potion and after he dealt ten damage and
attached a double colorless to farfetch'd, I decided
to deal eighty damage and claim prize number two. He
brought up Farfetch'd and put another double colorless
on him and threw thirty damage my way. I didn't even
bother playing any cards, I just sent him on his way.
He was a super cool kid though, he had alot of
potential, and he played for the right reasons,
because Pikachu was his favorite and he was having
fun.

   The third round was probably the hardest. This very
goth looking fifteen year pld girl was playing a very
deadly Dark Blastoise and base Gyrados deck. It was
heated battle. We traded off taking the first four
prizes with her beating me to the punch every time. I
needed my trainers and I finally started getting them.
My bench was full. Two fully powered Nyuura, one fully
powered, but very damaged Scyther, one each of
Rocket's and regular Hitmonchan, both having two
energy apiece and alot of damage. Chansey was active
and had ten damage left. Dragon Rage ended that and
left me with one prize and alot of hurt pokemon. Her
Gyrados had just been cured of fourty damage and it
now had sixty left. The bad part was there was a fully
powered, and fully HP'ed Gyrados on the bench waiting.
I decided that I had to pull Nyuura in and hope for
good luck. I put another Hitmonchan on the bench so I
could have all six pokemon ready. Gyrados went down
with three heads out of six on Evil Assault. She
brought Gyrados into the arena and dealt fifty to
Nyuura and left me hoping I could get four heads. I
flipped four in a row and with the twenty damage that
Evil energy causes Gyrados went down and I breathed a
huge sigh of relief. She was very cool too and she
really liked the evil cards. I have a pretty big
collection so I gave her four evil energy and two
Nyuura because she put up an awesome fight!

    The semi-final round went fast. Scyther cleaned up
a slew of Rock and to my surprise, Steel Pokemon. This
was an older guy I was playing against who had a
terrible draw and left Haganearu energyless and I was
on top of my game and I let loose on him. He was out
of basics and lost. I really do not like winning a
match that way, but rules are rules.

    The finals pitted me against a very seasoned
psychic player. His deck was based around Mewtwo and
Alakazam. Four Chansey were in there too. After
leading with Chansey and having two more on the bench
as well as a Mewtwo, I knew I had my work cut out for
me. I Had Chansey in play as well, and he just kept
using scrunch and powering his bench. I just let
Chansey sit while I was powering up Nyuura and
Rocket's Hitmonchan. I attached two energy to Chansey
for the sole purpose of retreating him. I brought
Rocket's Hitmonchan out and a round later Chansy was
100 damage in the hole. He retreated Chansey and
brought Another Chansey in. I decided he need 100
damage too. I ended up knocking that chansey out. It
had no energy attached so I think he considered it
worth it. I drew Nyuura and placed him on the bench
right next to my other Nyuura that had two Evil
already attached. He brought Mewtwo in and I kept
using Cross Counter. It only costs one energy so it
did no good for him to remove my energy because I had
three attached. He used a super energy removal, I
retreated and brought Nyuura in. His Psychic
resistance was a bit of a surprise. I tried to fill my
bench best I could and Mewtwo was shortly disposed of.
Hi bench was now occupied by a movie Mewtwo, a Chansey
and An Alakazam. He brought Alakazam in and swapped
most of the damage to Chansey. I realized I had to
come up with a gameplan quick. My coin flips were a
bit off, but I was willing to give it one more shot. I
lucked out and got rid of Alakazam and he brought
movie Mewtwo in. I do not like Movie Mewtwo. I used
some quick strategy and threw a gust of wind out and
switched him with the wounded chansey. I retreated
Nyuura and brought Rocket's Hitmonchan in and disposed
of him too. Back came Movie Mewtwo. I used my last
gust of wind, and brought an Abra of the bench and
disposed of Abra too. Up to this point, he had not
really been utilizing Mewtwo's powers. In a very short
amount of time, he took out Hitmonchan and I brought
Nyuura back in and was ready to end this. I flipped my
way to Mewtwo's KO and took my final prize, winning
the tournament. He was a nice guy and even I noticed
he was having a bad draw in the game.

   I won one of each of the Team Rocket theme decks
and four booster packs. I decided that since this is
the first tournament I had ever won, that I should
share the wealth. I gave the cool goth girl one of my
theme decks and two of the booster packs, and I gave
the little guy who loved Pikachu the other deck and
packs. They were both very excited and kept thanking
me. I gave the little guy a surfing Pikachu promo that
was traded to me. I wasn't attached to it, and I got
it because another little guy wanted a Charizard very
badly and I decided to trade him. I only had one, and
I don't particularly like the card so I traded him.

   I hope my killer deck report was well, a killer.
Thanks for providing such killer info and news. I may
try out another new deck next weekend. If it's a
killer I'll report it. I'm just glad that it worked
and that everyone had fun. Thanks Pojo!!

-Sakaki-


Dustin Sides
dustyboy_25@yahoo.com

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