Almost Hay
                             Texas Game Company
                              Allen, Texas
                            Thursday, 5-2-02
                               8 players


Hello. It is John E. Kettler/Thegreatcell again. This time I report on an interesting tournament. If you have read any of my other reports, then you will know that my greatest challenges were Jordan and Danny. Well, I got lucky today! Jordan had to go to work, and Danny was no where to be found, so my odds of winning increased greatly! However, I still had many people to worry about:

List of competitors:

1st: Johnny Kettler $
2nd: Nick*
3rd: Allen
3rd: Karen
5th: Amanda*
5th: Jacob*
5th: Aaron
5th: Jonathan
*= played against

One more thing to mention. I recently built an old school haymaker, and exchanged a few of my deck's good cards for poor ones.  Amazingly, this change saved me from losing the tournament! Here is almost hay:

Pokemon (14):

2 onix (neo)
2 steelix
2 cleffa
1 igglybuff
2 scyther (jungle)
1 rocket's scyther
2 rocket's zapdos
1 electabuzz
1 rhyhorn?

Trainers (20):

2 pluspower
2 prof. elm
2 prof. oak
3 potion
4 gust of wind
1 computer search
1 rocket's secret experiment
3 energy removal
2 misty's wrath

energy (26)

6 leaf
7 lightning
6 fighting
3 metal
2 dce
2 rainbow

This was a fun tournament, and I took on some good competition.

Round 1: Vs. Jacob

Not much about this game. I started off with a good hand, and managed to fry many lizards and ponies. Eventually, I won the game. However, both of us were good sports, and tried our best.

Round 2: Vs. Amanda

In this game, I started out with a decent hand, but my opponent had a couple creatures that were quite aggressive.
After many pokemon corpses littered across the battlefield, I managed to gain control of the game, and I later won.

Intermission:

I probably spent more time waiting for people to finish rather than play. After my two games, I watched Karen's game against Aaron. After some intense fighting, Karen won. I Then watched Nick's long game against Allen. Eventually Allen was defeated by Nick. I was now about to play my toughest game yet.

Round 3: Vs. Nick

Let's just say that my starting hand was horrible. All I drew was a rhyhorn, A steelix, and loads of energy. Generally, the first rounds of the game just consisted of rhyhorn and totodile leering each other. This stalling later saved me when he got his croconaw out, and it also gave me the time to topdeck an onix. eventually, he evolved into feraligatr and killed it. Next turn I oaked for many new options. After a while, his gatr died, and I instantly gained the advantage. I encountered Another gatr later, but eventually wiped it out too. My final challenge was a dark feraligatr. After much bloodshed, I fried it with a nearly charged up metal zap. After all those g8trs, I got past a few babies for the win.

Aftermath:

For my success, I got 9 foil fire energy cards, as well as my name on the board! Since Game Co. had all but 3 of my foil energies, Jason (one of the employees) said that if they get any more in, then they will give me 3 of them. I have about a month until the next tournament, so I will be honing my skills, and you can bet on a post-tournament report!