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Worlds 2004 Tourney report

By: Paris “Hedge”   Chicago, IL U.S.A

 

    So I got in Thursday night, august 19^th I think.  Everything is cool… all meh pals like YJ and Sean and Magnechu are down in the hotel hallway playing Pokemon on tables, chairs, plant stands, and the floor like it was Woodstock. It was a long plane ride down to Orlando from Chicago, so I go up to my room with my mom for bed.

Now’s a cool time to post my deck list I s’pose.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

A friend of mine, Matt Gillespie, was reeling off random combos to me over the phone one day, and he was joking and said… “Jumpluff Gorebyss.” And I just stopped him and said, “Thanks for the worlds idea Matt.”  It was mighty cool… we ended up playing that deck, card for card, at the major tourney.
 

Anyways, enough jibber jabber, here’s my list, “Gorepluff.”

Pokes: 21

4 Hoppip (AQ)

3 Skiploom

4 Jumpluff

3 Clamperl

3 Gorebyss

4 Dunsparce (SS -_- )

 

Energy: 16

3 Double Rainbow

4 Multi

4 Rainbow

5 Psychic

 

Trainers: 23

1 Oak’s Research

3 Copycat

4 Steven’s Advice

3 TV Reporter

1 Nurse

2 ATM Rock

3 Desert Ruins

3 Rare Candy

2 Warp Point

1 Crystal Shard

   

 

Aug. 20. Friday

 

Aug. 22  Day one of Worlds

 

Well, I got up late and almost missed making it down there… apparently our hotel room phone lines were severely screwed up and we missed our wakeup call. Luckily a pal of mine came to my room to look for me. =/.

Cutting to the chase now, you’re prolly dead sick of me talking. ;x

 

Round one

Vs. Kid I’d seen somewhere before with Swampert deck.

I was very nervous before this game; especially since I was at table one, fighting a proven archetype, with a TV guy filming us. However I ended up owning badly, with an end result of 0-4 prizes. My Jumpluff came out second turn with a rainbow and resisted the water types whilst I quickly picked off Mudkips and Dunsparces and built up a Gorebyss or two on the bench. He finally got swampy ex out, but I did hefty damage with ‘pluff from its weakness to grass, warp pointed, did good damage to another swampy ex, then ATM Rock’ed for the win.

1-0

Round Two

Vs. Kid with Metagross deck that got mistakenly paired up with me for about 5 mins first round, but was corrected.

I had a little more confidence now… Steven Davis, USA Nationals Champ and a good friend of mine was playing his blaze right next to me, so it was reassuring to see each other winning at the same time. This match I had 1^st turn Gorebyss with a DRE that ripped through his Sparce, Jirachi, and lone Beldum swiftly for the win.

2-0

 

I finished that match so quickly I took a 15 min breather to get some water, use the washroom, and check up on my friend Kevin in 10- (who was 2-0 btw :D).

 

Round Three

Vs. Odd Walrein deck that ran all three castforms + Pokenav o_O.

This was an interesting match…. It was one of those matches where your opponent always thinks you’re cheating and keeps on calling the judge over to try and catch you, while in truth they’re just mad that they’re getting owned severely. All I can say is I just got this dude bad because he kept forgetting that Jumpluff resisted Water and he used his Walrein’s crush draw MAJORLY incorrectly.

3-0

Round Four

Now I was getting really confident… 3 wins and 0 losses; only 2 more wins needed to be guaranteed T32. It was all good until I saw that…. I was fighting my good friend, AND US Nationals 11-14 Champion Steven Davis. My first Blaze battle of the day…. Ahh what a match it was. Up to this match, I had never won a game against Steve, although he always seemed to hold a fear of battling me I never really understood. But I fought it out good today… This was Worlds, and I wasn’t givin’ up much if I had a say in it. I quickly remembered that Steve made a graaavvvee mistake in his decklist last night, forgetting to add countergyms in his blaze. I therefore played Desert Ruins as quickly as I could (which was about 4^th turn) and it was my game from there. I went on to be slightly behind, but I did a brilliant move with Rock TM and Warp Point to take 3 prizes in one turn and pull ahead. I ended the match with my 2^nd warp point and a clamperl +RC + Gorebyss + DRE on an active RS blaze. GG Steve, veryy good game.

4-0  (o.O)

 

Round Five

I was on a streak… I needed one more win to make the cut… Little did I know I was in for a severe serve thrashing.

  This match was against a Japanese kid that ended up becoming the 11-14 2004 World Champion.

He played a Speed Magma deck… verrry good build, and we had a fun spout about “Who’s Desert Ruins will be the last standing??” I ended up being whipped 6-0 on prizes, but I didn’t care, because it was fun, I got to fight a soon-to-be world champ, and it really is cool to mingle with peeps of another language and laugh and try to talk and stuff. :P

4-1

 

Round Six

Figured I had to win one of three, so 1 loss was ok, thought I might win this one…

But I didn’t K.  Swampert again… Would’ve pwned it too, but I JUST HAD to get stuck fighting with Clamperl and a hand full of energy for five turns while he built a DR Magneton to take advantage of my weakness for the game.

4-2

 

Round Seven (Final Round)

Now I’m mighty ansy. I have to win this or I’m out of T32. OR, as many tell me, I could take an intentional draw to make the cut. I was never fond of ID’s; I felt that they were a skunky way of getting out of a match, just to win. It shows that you care more about winning than playing for the spirit of the game. I was tempted… this match was against a little Japanese kid, prolly 11 yrs. old, playing one of those darned speed magma decks… He said to me, “ID?” “ID???”  I said,

“No.” “No.”  He called a translator over and that dude turned to me and said, “Intentional Draw?”

I said, “No Thank You.”  And the little Japanese kid shrugged his shoulders and pulled out his deck. I rolled 1, he rolled 20. I started with a Hoppip and energy, he started with a Magma’s Groudon and draw power. And he thought he would win. BUT HE DIDN’T! MUAHAH! Ok, so here’s how it went. He went first, attached energy. I drew, got another energy, and held my cards (for fear of the ten dmg, dark energy, and basics for the game). He attached and passed. I drew and topdecked TV Reporter, played it, got Jumpluff, Rare Candy, and Clamperl. Double Heads, GG. Wow.

5-2

 Well, I was hoping that the T32 rounds would be Sunday, because I was dead tired, but they weren’t, so I fought it out Saturday night…

Game 1 of 2-3

Vs. Noob with Walrein Arcanine deck, when Walrein Ninetales ex is much better ;) .

This was a looonnnggggg game; quite a few mulligans, stalls, and a general slow gameplay mode. I ended up losing this one somehow…

0-1

((Sorry if these descriptions are kinda shaky, but it was late and I couldn’t remember much.))

Game 2 of 2-3

Another slow game. I won this one, simply because he forgot about my water resistance soo much. -_-.  I think the time was something insane, like 15 mins left for the last game by the time this one ended.

Game 3 of 2-3

Well, we both tried to pull ahead quickly, and he succeeded because of my Clamperl start with crud for backup. However, I started to take the field with 5 mins left and had the game, however time ran out whilst he was up by one prize, so I lost…

 

  Now it’s time for everyone’s favorite part, Props and Slops. ;)

 

SLOPS:

-         To anyone who ripped any little kids off of their prizes; I saw a lot of that crap.

-         To Pokemon Center for not being cool and selling ALL of their stuff in the parking lot. :P

-         To any of the sore losers who thought they were the best and lost their butts, and blamed it on luck.

-         To anyone who cheated. Not saying anyone did, but I include it anyways just to make sure I nail anyone that did. ;/

 

PROPS:

-         To Nintendo and PUI for giving us this whole event, the party, all the cool stuff, and the chance to play with people from other countries in a game we all love. YOU GUYS OWN MAJORLY!!!!!

-         All my friends for helping with my deck, fine tuning it, dissing it thus making me want to play it more to show them all, and a special thanks to Matt for randomly saying the combo in the first place :-P .

-         Gotta say thanks to my mum and family for supporting me.

-         Thanks to Pojo and Pokegym and whoever else supports this article.

-         Thanks to my lucky hat for getting me soo many heads on Jumpluff, and anyone who signed it there.

-         Dave Schwimmer (ahh I bet I spelled that sooo incorrectly ;x) for all that he did for me, and for anyone else who supported me and my mom and the ID’ing issue and thanks for making the ID worth 0 points now.

-         Thanks to this article for having more Props than Slops  :P .

-         And I wanted to humbly thank myself for NOT accepting that final ID request by my opponent, for playing the deck that I did, and for doing well at my first World Championships.

 

~Hedge

{Coolhedgie}

[Paris Garavaglia]

cello1126@aol.com