Hello children!  This tournament was held at Time Warp Comics and Games in
Cedar Grove, NJ on May 13.  The tournament was non-sanctioned, Swiss style. 
There were 15+ people there and the entry fee was $5.00.  I had been playing
my mono-fire Arcanine cleaner for some time and doing extremely well with it.
 I was getting tired of it, though, so I decided to try out a new deck and so
the Fire/Psychic Clefable Center was born.

Clefable Center V 1.0

Pokémon (14)
4 Clefairy   (Just there for evolving.)
3 Clefable  (Copy one of the defender's attacks for 1 energy is amazing.)
4 Fossil Magmar  (Solid, 1-2 energy attacker.  Included to counter heavy
Scyther usage in this area.)
3 MP Mewtwo  (can do a lot with 1 energy such as getting all his energy back.
 Counters Clefable's weakness.)

Energy (20)
10 Fire
10 Psychic

Trainers (26)
4 Bill
3 Oak
3 CPU Search
3 Gust of Wind
4 Pokémon Center
3 Energy Removal
3 Super Energy Removal
3 Energy Retrieval

The strategy of this deck is pretty simple.  I try to get Clefable out as
soon as possible so that Clefairy doesn't get KOed in the early game.  Then,
I begin to attack with Clefable, Mewtwo, and Magmar who have low cost attacks
that do a good amount of damage.  Just when the opponent thinks he is about
to get a few KO's, I use Pokémon Center to clear damage off of all of my
Pokémon.  The discard cost doesn't set me back much since I have retrieval
and low energy cost attacks (or in the case of Mewtwo, I can easily get my
energy back).  This is a very frustrating deck to play against. 

Anyway, on to the report:

Round 1: Alex w/ Haymaker
Alex is a good player but this time he ended up getting a really bad draw
against me.  I benched a Clefairy and started Magmar active.  I went first
and eventually destroyed his lone Hitmonchan on the third turn with Magmar's
attacks.  He wasn't able to get a special punch in due to my Energy Removals.
 He ran out of basics (Record: 1-0)

Round 2: Kid w/ Water Deck
I was supposed to get a bye this round, but this kid (I didn't catch his
name) showed up late.  The judge decided to let him in, give him a Round 1
loss, and make him play me for Round 2.  This was a long match even though I
dominated the whole time.  He started with a Kangaskhan and I started with
Magmar.  He didn't put a single energy on the Kangaskhan and tried to power
up an Articuno on the bench, which I prevented with a good dose of ER and
SER.  I eventually KOed his 'khan with Magmar and he promoted the Articuno
which was finally fully powered.  He KOed Magmar but I brought up Clefable
and used his moves against him for a two turn KO.  Thanks to Clefable and
Promo Mewtwo (and a few centers to keep them out of the discard pile) I
easily disposed of his remaining Seel, Clefairy, and Articuno after some
time.  I collected my last prize by searching for a gust of wind and gusting
his Squirtle for an easy KO by MP Mewtwo. (Record: 2-0)

Round 3: Cole (PokéPunk) w/ Anti-hay "Kryptonite" Deck
Cole has always been a formidable opponent and we have a bit of a friendly
rivalry going on.  This time, I got Clefable out very quickly and knocked
around his MP Mewtwos with their own attacks thanks to Clefable's resistance.
 Clefable stayed out for most of the match with some occasional help from
Magmar and Mewtwo.  His ER and SER (which he has tons of) did no good against
my cheap moves.  Centers kept me healthy the whole match.  He didn't take a
single prize and I took all of mine for the victory. (Record: 3-0)

Final Round: Jamie w/ Insane Wiggly Deck
Jamie has a great deck but like myself, he's usually a very unlucky player. 
Today, on the other hand, was a different story.  He was on a role and he and
I were the only undefeated players left.  The game was even early on.  His
Psychic resistant Pokémon and MP Mewtwos got the best of my MP Mewtwos but my
Magmars quickly answered back.  At 3-3 prize count he got his Wigglytuff
powered with a full bench and it was all downhill from there.  My Clefables
got some good hits in but Wiggly + Plus Power spelled the end for my 70 HP
monsters. This was a good game but ultimately Jamie came out on top by
collecting all his prizes.  A very frustrating game indeed because he just
plain dominated the late game. (Final Record: 3-1)

Well, for my 5 bucks to enter, I came in second overall and won 20 bucks
store credit which I'll use to buy some Rocket packs.  All in all it was a
great day and the prize was a nice bonus.  Congratulations to Jamie for a
great tournament.  He was due for a victory.

-Jim T.
<A HREF="jimhim03@aol.com">JimHim03@aol.com</A>