"SELLOUT DECK"
BY
John Evans
STS QUALIFIER EVENT - TOWSON TOWN CENTER
TOWSON MD
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2000
ROUGHLY 32 PARTICIPANTS (IN THIS "FLIGHT")


Greetings! As the 39-year old father of two Pokemaniacs , ages 10 (son) and
4 (daughter), who became addicted to the game after learning it so that I
could teach my son , I recognize that I am NOT the typical Pokemon  player -
wrong "demographics". In keeping with that, this will NOT be the typical
deck report, for better or worse. ;^) Frankly, I am not overly taken with
the really exhaustive "So I put an Electric Energy on my Electabuzz on Turn
One and did Thundershock. I flipped. Heads! He was paralyzed. His turn, he
drew a card and put down one Fighting energy, then passed. Then, on Turn
Two, I." kind of report. That is obviously some folks' cup of tea, but I
frankly skim those reports looking for the key turning points. With that in
mind, you won't find a turn-by-turn, card-by-card breakout of every turn of
every match here. Rather, I am going to try to focus a bit more on
overarching strategy, where applicable, with a little basic play-by-play,
and to offer some observations on what I saw.

My report covers my visit to the Super Trainer Showdown event held on 10
September at the Towson Town Center Mall in Towson, Maryland. It was about
an hour and forty minute drive for us, but well worth it. At this point,
before TOO many of you bail on me, let me add that the event I attended was
a LOT of fun and I heartily recommend that as many of you attend an STS
event as can manage it!

DECK: I like to play non-Archetypal decks as a rule, but from reading about
the various West Coast STS events, and from talking with a few Poke'
veterans, I had to concede that if I wanted to have a decent chance of
surviving past Round One, and justifying my lengthy drive, I was going to
have to go either Haymaker or Turbo-Wiggly. With that in mind, I crafted my
"Sell Out" deck - so-named because it is everything a non-archetype loving
player like myself generally despises.

My minor contributions were a few Full Heal energies, which I figured might
come in handy in an environment where there would be many Jiggly/Wigglys
(SLEEP), Electabuzzes (PARALYSIS), and Fossil Magmars (POISON). Because of
the potential presence of No Removal Gym, I also completely abandoned Energy
Removals  (ERs) and Super Energy Removals (SERs) in favor of three Rocket
Sneak Attacks (RSA) and three Rocket Traps, hoping to strike directly at the
Trainer-driven, card-burning engines of the Tourney decks (like mine!) that
I figured would dominate the landscape. Strategy? Pretty basic, obviously -
draw and cycle cards like a fiend, strike as hard and fast as possible, and
use RSA and Trap to keep down opponents' hands early, limiting their ability
to strike back with their Trainers.  I figured that if I could get ahead of
my opponent, establishing my Pokemon and getting a few early KOs, I could
weather the point where those Trainers came back up in their decks -
assuming I was not able to defeat them before that point.

Ditto was mainly thrown in as a "wild card". I was tempted to go with
Erika's Dratini, given that the event was likely see a LOT of Basics in
play, but opted for Ditto for its greater flexibility, and because it is not
as vulnerable to the popular Wigglytuff. Scyther probably needs no
explanation, but just in case, among its many other virtues, it provides
great cover against Wiggly's main foe, Hitmonchan.  The same rationale,
turned on its head, explains Hitmonchan's presence - he is there to slug
OTHER Wigglys, and to deal with Electabuzz, Lickitung and Chansey.

POKEMON - (15)
4 Jigglypuff
4 Wigglytuff
3 Hitmonchan
3 Scyther
1 Ditto

TRAINERS - (30)
4 Oak
4 Bills
4 Plus Powers
3 Rocket Sneak Attack
3 Rocket Trap
3 Computer Search
3 Gust of Wind
2 Item Finder
2 Nightly Garbage Run
2 Scoop Up

ENERGY - (15)
3 Full Heal Energy
8 Fighting Energy
4 Double Colorless



REPORT:

I was entered in the early afternoon "Over 15" (in my case, the WAY, WAY,
WAY Over 15!) tournament.while talking with folks after deck check, I
discovered I was one of the few there (among those I talked to) who had
never really been in any STS events or major tourneys prior to this one. 
That was not terribly reassuring, but then again, perhaps my
readily-confessed status as a novice would lead one of my opponents to
figure me for an easy mark, and let him get a bit overconfident - hopefully,
of course, I could prove that overconfidence to be misplaced! On the other
hand, a lot of folks seem to equate age with skill, and since I had age
aplenty. ;^)

ROUND ONE: My opponent was using a Fighting Deck with some support from
Scyther. Hitmonchan and the surprising Brock's Rhyhorn were in his Fighting
mix.  I was able to use a Rocket Sneak Attack (RSA) to remove a Computer
Search from his opening hand, and was also able to use Trap to trim his hand
down at several points early in the match. In the meantime, I was able to
use my Oaks, Bills, and such to quickly develop and power up a Wigglytuff.
>From there on, I was able to pretty well run through five of his Pokemon,
with the help of some Plus Powers, before he could recover from the early
effects of the RSA and the Traps.  He made a solid bid to retake the
initiative, ER-ing a Double Colorless off of Wiggly, but he then threw tails
with Rhyhorn's 70 pt attack, sparing Wiggly from a major smack-down. I was
lucky enough to have another Double Colorless waiting in my hand and was
able to lay it down on Wiggly for the Wave and the win.

ROUND TWO: I was very happy to see that I was not destined to be "one and
done"! However, in this round, I mulliganed, which made me a bit nervous -
with the speed of the decks I was seeing, the thought of giving my opponent
two extra cards off the bat did NOT make me feel too secure.  My opponent
put down a Rocket-set  Squirtle, and I opened with an active Scyther and a
benched Jigglypuff. I was once again able to use an early RSA to take out a
Gust and then to follow it with a successful Trap to trim his hand.  By my
third turn I had three Fighting energy on Scyther , and a Comp Search and an
Oak gave me three Plus Powers (PP). Scyther's Slash plus two of those PPs
KOd Squirtle, and as my opponent had no one on the bench, that ended the
match. I learned he was running what he called a "Rain-Maker". a Rain Dance
variant with Base and Rocket Blastoise, Articuno and Lapras. Thankfully, I
had seen NONE of those!  Don't think this round tells you too much about the
relative merits or strengths of our decks - my opponent got a VERY
unfortunate opening draw, especially in light of the two extra cards.

ROUND THREE: My opponent in this round had a deck which featured Jigglypuff,
Hitmonchan, Scyther and Mewtwo (I don't recall ever seeing Wigglytuff, but I
am assuming he was in the mix somewhere!).  This was the first "classic"
Tourney deck that I had faced today. Once again, early RSAs and Traps
enabled me to greatly reduce his hand and to take the early initiative. I
was able to quickly develop a Wigglytuff and a solid bench (including a
second powered Wiggly ready to take over when the first went down!), and
with the card advantage, ran through four of his Pokemon. However, my
opponent kept scrapping and soon hit his own run of Oaks, Bills and RSAs
(giving me a taste of how annoying it can be to be on the RECEIVING end of a
well-timed RSA!), which enabled him to establish a solid fighting presence.
Any thoughts of a quick win evaporated as he made clever use of his Item
Finders to recycle key Trainers to stay in the match and to largely even the
balance in the arena. By this point, however, my early-gained prize
advantage enabled me to basically trade KOs with him, and win the match.

ROUND FOUR: Poke'- rube that I am, I was simply so happy to have made it
this far that I perversely felt no pressure at all in this match, despite it
arguably being the biggest of my afternoon! We had quite a little crowd
watching, which was kinda neat. I met my opponent's son and he met mine as
we shuffled our decks for the match.  He had an interesting deck, and I had
seen it in action during Round Three, as he had been seated next to me and I
had watched a good portion of his match once mine was done.  His deck was
basically a Haymaker, but it featured Rocket Hitmonchan, Rocket Scyther, and
Movie Mewtwo, which gave it a slightly different flavor than the 'standard'
Haymaker. He also had a Goop Gas or two thrown in (to address Erika's
Dratini, Mime,  Blastoise?), although it was no factor in our match.  For
that matter, neither Cross Counter nor Shadow Images had an impact in our
match either, although I had seen both used to devastating effect in his
earlier Round Three bout.  This one was a pretty straight slugfest, but a
very entertaining one.

My opponent opened with a Mewtwo and no bench, and I had hopes of an early
(if cheap!) win. I had Jiggly out, with Hitmonchan benched - pretty
promising, given Jiggly's Psychic resistance. I was able to once again use
RSA and Trap to good effect, trimming away his hand. Maddeningly, I could
not follow up on his diminished hand and take advantage of  my golden
opportunity, as I simply could not draw an Oak, Bill or Comp Search, and
could only pound with Jiggly as he piled non-Psychic energy on Mewtwo. My
hopes of a possible quick win were dashed after several tense turns as he
soon benched a second Mewtwo, drew an Oak, Scooped the damaged Mewtwo, and
we were off and running. From that point on, the match seemed to run in
cycles - one of us would seem to take the initiative, then the other would,
depending on who hit his Oaks, Comp Searches, etc.

Once he got rolling, my opponent erased my early advantage quickly, and I
soon found myself on the defensive, still not able to hit my Oaks. I used
Jiggly's SLEEP to buy time and had a real run of luck as four unsuccessful
Sleep flips kept a powered Mewtwo "stranded" as his Active. My opponent
finally got another Scoop, scooped Mewtwo (with Mewtwo's ability to recycle
energy from the Discard pile, he has to be one of the most "scoopable"
Pokemon), and was able to get his Team Rocket Hitmonchan into the mix - not
good for my Jiggly, who was doubly-susceptible to the already crushing
Magnum Punch.  The whole match took on a very Rock/Paper/Scissors feel as
both of us rotated our Pokemon, constantly looking to exploit weakness for
double damage, or to capitalize on resistance to pound on hapless foes. At
one point, he Gusted out my Ditto and quickly blew it away with Mewtwo, my
Ditto having mimicked Mewtwo's weakness to Psychic attacks.  At another
point, I was able to Gust out his fully-powered Team Rocket Hitmonchan to
face my Wigglytuff, who was backed with a bench of three. It probably
appeared that I had taken leave of my senses, but  I was able to then attach
two Plus Powers to my Wigglytuff via an Item Finder and a Comp Searched Oak,
to Do the Wave and KO him - my opponent laughed and sportingly challenged me
to do THAT again. ;^)

The match came down to me having two prizes remaining and him having one,
with me sporting a fresh Scyther and a badly damaged one (only 10 HP
remaining!) against his active Mewtwo and benched  Rocket Hitmonchan. I was
running low on remaining deck, but still had a slight chance, especially as
I had not one but TWO Traps in my hand. I played both - hitting both would
empty his hand, hitting one would take a nice bite out of it.and threw TWO
tails, reaping the flipside of my earlier luck with those Sleep tosses.  The
next turn, he used an Item Finder to pull a Gust from his discards, brought
out my damaged Scyther, and blasted it with Mewtwo, to end my Tourney run.

It was quite a match. I would certainly have loved to have won, but to some
extent, having never expected to make it this far, I could appreciate that
at least I had gone out in a hard fought contest. I guess one of the
benefits of being a Tourney novice is that you can take great pleasure in
simply making a good run. I happily accepted the prize bag, and basked in
the glow of an invitation to the STS at the Meadowlands, a cool Pokemon STS
hat, and twelve Gym boosters!

OBSERVATIONS -

Ø The whole experience was great, and if you are a novice player, I think
you will find it well worth it if you can manage to attend an STS event,
even if you have to travel a bit to do so. The staff was extremely friendly
and courteous, and it is a real treat to be able to talk the game with so
MANY Pokemon fans from a wide area. There are lots of fun events for the
younger set and to simply let you decompress, and lots of Poke'-atmosphere
(you have to enjoy the spectacle of the imposing Lt Surge and the goofy
Impostor Professor Oak strolling through the mall!). Plus, you get some cool
free Poke'-loot (stickers, some nice card checklist pages for your binder,
etc)!
Ø I will also say this, for the novices' sake - unless you are there
STRICTLY for fun, I think you simply must build yourself a Haymaker or
Wiggly variant. As a fan of non-archetypal, quirky decks (at our League, I
generally play with Dark Arbok, Nidoking, or Slowbro-based decks!), I wish
it were otherwise, but the simple fact is that I did not see any other type
of deck make it much past Round Two. An anecdotal observation at a single
event, granted, but.
Ø While my final matchup was a very competitive one, one factor that
definitely helped my opponent was that none of his Pokemon had a weakness
versus any of mine. Granted,  the resistances of Jiggly/Wiggly and Scyther
certainly helped me out, but none of my guys were ever hitting his for
double damage, while he could Gust out Jiggly/Wiggly (when he had Hitmonchan
active) and Hitmonchan (when he had Mewtwo active) and score single-hit KOs.
Ø I was surprised that I did not see a SINGLE "No Removal Gym" (NRG) in
play. Not a one! At the same time, it seemed to me that the decks I saw
sported a lot fewer Energy Removals (ER) and Super Energy Removals (SER)
than I am accustomed to, and less than was reported in most of the West
Coast STS decks. It is as if many trainers had conceded that the
availability of NRG lessens the playability of ER/SER, and had either done
away with them or greatly lessened their numbers. I wonder. at least at the
event I attended, someone running the "normal" tourney compliment of 5-7
ERs/SERs could have played them with impunity, and perhaps to great effect .
Maybe that will change after Gym has been out for a while and more of those
rare NRGs become available (quite a few folks were looking to trade for
them, which may be an indicator that folks were simply having a hard time
accumulating enough to play in their decks by the time of this event). An
interesting metagaming question to ponder.
Ø Similarly, I saw only two decks with Narrow Gym - and one of them was my
son's! This surprised me because I figure that a non-Wiggly Haymaker could
put it to good use - it  basically gives all of your Pokemon a resistance of
ten to a fully-powered Wigglytuff, eliminating the 'full-bench Wave plus one
Plus Power" KO of Haymaker Pokemon that is a staple of the Turbo Wiggly
deck. In addition, having a couple Narrow Gyms in hand enables you to also
stock a couple of ERs/SERs, since you can potentially counter the NRG card.
All that being said, I saw almost no decks using it.
Ø I was MIGHTILY impressed with the RSA/Trap tandem. RSA's impact is obvious
- targeting Trainers without having to shuffle your own back in (as with
Lass) is great - but a perhaps less-obvious benefit is the sneak-peek you
get at your foe's hand, giving you some idea as to his energy, evolutions,
and so on.  Given the incredible Trainer-density of most Tourney decks (from
what I have read and seen!) I think I only played one RSA all day where my
opponent did NOT have a potentially valuable Trainer to send back to his
deck (and even that knowledge was valuable!). Unless and until Prop 15
changes the playing field, I think Sneak Attack will remain a powerful
Tourney card in speed decks. Trap is also terrific, despite the coin flip.
As touched on above, I think that the Tourney decks are so obviously
Trainer-heavy/energy lean, and that many Tourney players play their Trainers
so quickly, that small hands are often common. Given that, making a player
shuffle three cards back into their deck can really slow your opponent's
pace. I often seemed to Trap foes when they had three or four cards in hand,
which was great. These cards were especially effective early in the matches
- hitting an opponent with one or both in the first few turns, and
especially, with some real luck, on the FIRST turn, often enabled me to get
a BIG jump on them. Granted, those Trainers are not discarded, and WILL
surface at some point, but with the speedy Tourney decks, you may well have
won by then, or, at the least, be up on prizes to the extent that you can
essentially afford to trade KOs.
Ø There is no getting around the role of luck in the world of Pokemon, and I
am not simply referring to coin flips. Don't misunderstand me, skill in both
deck design and deck use is important.but in a fast paced single elimination
tournament such as the STS, where so many similarly-designed decks are going
head to head, I don't think you can get past the role of fate in the
proceedings. A bad opening draw can send you to the sidelines in a blink of
an eye. Winning that opening coin-flip so that you unleash those RSAs and
Traps before the opponent can play can be devastating.  You can have an
empty hand and "top deck" an Oak - or your opponent can! And, obviously,
your draw of opponent can be critical. I mention this mainly for the sake of
other novices like me, and especially the younger novices  - do NOT get
discouraged by early reverses. I talked to several invitation winners who
told of being bounced in the first round of other "flights", with the same
deck that had now carried them within reach of the final prizes. The
gentleman who bested me in Round Four told me he had suffered that fate
earlier in the weekend. Don't use luck as an excuse, certainly - maybe you
DO need to modify your deck, taking advantage of hard-won lessons learned -
but be realistic about the experience, and try to have fun with it! And DO
try to sign up for more than one flight if possible (we did not manage to),
to avoid the disappointment of a "one and done" scenario after all of your
preparatory efforts.
Ø Again, for novices.This may be exceedingly obvious, but do NOT discount
the role of Item Finder in your deck. Granted, you must discard two cards to
use it, but it allows you to recycle valuable Trainers without drawing down
your deck (decking often being an issue with the aggressive decks used in
Tourneys!).  You can reach back into your discard for JUST the right card
for the occasion (witness my defeat via an Item Finder-retrieved Gust in my
last match!). I found it invaluable, time after time, throughout the day.
This is especially true in matches that are not over quickly - towards the
end, you can often painlessly discard the two cards to use Item Finder.
Don't discount this valuable card!


Well, that's it! If you want to talk some Pokemon, feel free to e-mail me at
jreiii@hotmail.com (prefered!), or code3@webtv.net.  It may take a bit, but
I will try to get back to you!  And good luck to my fellow novices who take
a shot at the upcoming STS events! Hope to see some of you at the
Meadowlands!  - Mr. E

PS - Since it seems traditional, let me offer kudos to Kendall, Mark, Lloyd
and company, for making our small Poke' Gym at "Between Books" a great
training ground for would be Trainers!