Queendom

by Jeremy Maron
Town & Country
San Diego, California
Saturday-Sunday, August 20-21, 2005
165 total participants

 

Decklist:

4 Nidoran F
3 Nidorina
4 Nidoqueen
3 Pidgey
2 Pidgeotto
3 Pidgeot
1 Feebas
1 Milotic

4 Desert Ruins
4 Celio's Network
4 Rare Candy
4 Copycat (adam and Pablo used 3 Copycat)
3 Great Ball
2 Steven's Advice (adam and Pablo used 3 Steven's Advice)
2 Rocket's Admin.
1 Mr. Briney's Compassion

6 Grass
4 DRE
3 Heal (adam and mukdip used 2 Heal)
2 Fighting (adam and pablo used 3 fighting)

Strategy:
With 4 Rare Candy and 4 Celio and 4 Nidoran and 4 Nidoqueen and 3 Pidgey and 3 Pidgeot and 3 Great ball, it's really hard to get a BAD hand. Most of the time by the second turn you get either a turn 2 pidgeot or turn 2 nidoqueen and start toxicing. Then you use Power Lariat ASAP. If they do heavy damage to nidoqueen, retreat for a pidgeot or another nidoqueen. Let that take some damage and retreat again. Then play Feebas RC Milotic and heal everything off. Briney is for a reusable Milotic. Heal is for medicham ex especially. Say you get sky kicked for 60, then you heal 10 so you're down to 50, and they have no way of KOing you the next turn. The 3/2/3 Pidgeot helps vs ZRE type decks, since you can get out 2 Pidgeots ASAP, and they can either POW/Reversal/KO one or the other, they can't ko both in 1 turn. 4 Ruins helps vs all decks with ex, especially Blaziken, since most blazikens don't play more than 3 gyms. And it helps vs decks with 4 BF. I think the reason this deck worked is cause queen has 120 hp so it's hard to ko, it's not an ex so you don't get 2 prizes for killing it, grass is an uncommon type, and it can do up to 100 damage.

--------------------------
If I was going to Worlds I wanted to use my trusty Rocket deck. I didnt think it usually lost to anything, except T2 decks.

But to recap everything with nidoqueen, our team got friends with the Japanese one day a few months ago and gave us one of their Nidoqueen lists. It looked weird cause it had 3/2/3 Pidgeot. It also had Pokemon reversals and a tech zapdos ex to kill the opponent's Pidgeot. After a while we stopped using it. It lost to a lot of stuff and only went like 50/50 vs everything.

Later plaidlesspez heard that Pooka did well with his Nidoqueen deck. His version was queen/cargo/lanturn/sparce/jirachi and 1/1 Milotic. He heard Pooka killed all the rocklocks he went against.

Just before USA nationals pez was thinking of a deck to use. He decided on nidoqueen with hardly any testing. He thought it would be good since toxic is pretty good vs T2 decks. So he took out the reversals and zapdos from the japanese version, and put in 1-1 milotic from pooka's version, and some tech cards, but no stadiums! He only went 5-3 cause he was donked. He missed the top 32 cut.

But 5-3 is still pretty good, so he decided to test it more for Worlds. I didn't think much of it, I was like "You have no chance vs grass decks". I still thought rocket was the best deck. Then pablo (mudkip) would start testing it too. I tested mostly rocket vs it. We went about 50/50. I usually won when I had a good start, they won when they had good starts.

Eventually they convinced me that rocket would have a tough time vs T2. And when I asked them how would nidoqueen beat all the grass decks at worlds, they were like "What grass decks? Vileplume ex sucks, and Sceptile loses to medicham." I thought about it and realized maybe they're right.

So I started testing Nidoqueen with them. We always made nidoqueen go 2nd to try to put it in its worst situations. When we would playtest nidoqueen, say for example I was playing T2 and didn't draw the energy I needed to ko nidoqueen, then I'd be allowed to just grab an energy from my deck and ko nidoqueen, or grab a counterstadium from my deck if I don't draw one so that I can counter their ruins. We needed to make nidoqueen as disadvantaged as possible in our games to see if it could live up to snuff.

Nidoqueen definitely had the most trouble with Zapdos ex and Dark Slowking and Blaziken. If they went first and had a decent start then queen loses. But if queen has time to setup, they can get up 2 pidgeots. So if 1 gets gusted and killed, the other one is still around to QS.

So then I decided to use queen for worlds.

Round 1 vs Shawn with ZRE
My hand was awful and he goes first. Then a judge comes by and Shawn asks her if we are re-pairing. She answers yes, so we scoop up our cards, look at the new pairing sheet, and it's exactly the same. lol. So we resetup, and I ask if we should reroll to see who goes first. He lets us, so we reroll and I go first. Plus my hand is better than before. And I don't think he drew what he needed in his 7 card opening hand. So I started with Pidgey I think, he started with Rayquaza ex DX. After a few turns he played a zapdos ex and moved all energy to it and KOed my pidgey. I rare candied my nidoran to nidoqueen and toxiced the zapdos. I put a ruins in play and shawn couldn't draw what he needed so after a while I won. GG!
1-0

Round 2 vs Steve Silvestro
We setup and my opening hand is kinda bad, I have a Feebas, Nidoran, and some other stuff. I put my Nidoran face down active. Before the game, Meganium45 comes by and says something like "Let's all meditite!" Then steve says "Meditite? I hope you're playing Meditite." So I'm thinking to myself "Why does he want me to play meditite? Is he using psychic?" So I ask Steve if I can switch my face down active. He lets me. I play my Feebas face down active and move Nidoran to the bench. We start and it doesn't seem like he has that good of a hand, cause he keeps SFing with sparce. He does some damage to feebas and I briney it and put queen active and go aggressive and attack with it, since he's putting mostly rainbows into play he can't retrieve them with DX metagross. But he gets really unlucky with HL metagross, flipping 8 tails in a row. I win after a while. GG!
2-0

Round 3 vs Eric Craig with 4 corners
I was afraid of his deck once I saw the Shroomish hit the bench, since he might be playing the grass Breloom. He does play it, so I put an energy on 1 queen for toxicing, and another energy on a benched nido to get it ready for when my active dies. Then I attach a DRE to my active queen and KO his something (don't remember). He puts a shroomish active, attachs breloom and a DRE and kos my queen. I put active my other Queen, KO his Breloom. He eventually KOs my Queen and we're tied on prizes and he puts togetic active. I clutch it with pidgeot. Time runs out and he can't KO pidgeot, so I clutch it next turn for the win. GG!
3-0

Round 4 vs Ness with Medicham ex
It goes back and forth, his POWs are annoying me, but I finally win. I don't remember much about this game. GG!
4-0

Round 5 vs Go with ZRE
It looks like I'm gonna win after KOing an electrode ex and something else, but he plays flawlessly and POWs me twice, admins me, I can't topdeck DRE or pidgeot, so I lose. GG!
4-1

Round 6 vs Japanese person with machamp (sorry I forgot your name)
It looks like I'm in trouble after he rare candies his machop into machamp 2nd turn, attaches a boost and str charm and tries to KO my pidgeotto, but flips tails and does 40. After a while I get setup. I have a nidoqueen active with 20 damage. I don't want to heal with milotic yet cause I think I should take a risk here. The chance of queen getting koed with 100 hp left is low. He would need a heads too. He plays another boost, str charm, flips heads and KOs nidoqueen. It goes back and forth like that for a while. In the end he called over a japanese judge, that judge told the american judge something, then the american judge said that he wants a time extension. But he doesn't get one. Next turn he does something, I'm not sure exactly what he's doing but I think it's quick search. The american judge asks me if I know what he's doing, I say no. Then that judge asks the Japanese judge what he's doing, and the japanese kid says he's doing quick search. I say ok. Then the american judge asks me if I'm English. I say no I'm American. Sorry I'm getting off track uhhh so I clutch his machamp, he does 50 damage to pidgeot, and prizes are tied and time has run out so I retreat for queen and do 90 for the ko. GG!
5-1

Round 7 vs Ken with Spinning Tail
I get up a Nidoqueen kinda quickly and start KOing his stuff. I win after a while. GG!
6-1

Round 8 vs MUKDIP with mirror
Mudkip practiced the mirror a lot and I never did, so I made a few mistakes that cost me the game. In the end, time ran out with 5-5 prizes and he got the next prize to win the game. GG!
6-2

Top 32 vs Yohei with Electrode ex/Magcargo/Delcatty
Game 1: I underestimated this deck. The first game my hand was alright, but he exploded his trode, attached 230943 energy to delcatty, KOed my queen. I had no energy left in play so whenever I would play an energy to something, he would just POW that Pokemon and KO it.

Game 2: My hand was good, I got a turn 3 queen and he had trouble drawing into stuff.

Game 3: This went down to the wire. In the end there were 3 minutes left and he exploded his trode to put me at 2 prizes left, him 4 prizes left. He calls over the Japanese judge. The japanese judge tells the american judge something, then the American judge tells me that Yohei thinks I'm playing slowly. But I don't think I'm playing any slower than I usually do. I just like to think about all my moves before I make them. He attached all the 230943 energy to Delcatty and KOed my queen. His Delcatty already had some damage on it so I clutched it with pidgeot. Next turn he KOs my pidgeot to tie it up. My turn I bring up a second pidgeot and clutch it to win. He showed SOTG after that game. GG!

Top 16 vs Ness
Game 1: My hand is decent. I get up a nidoqueen pretty quickly and start toxicing stuff, desert ruinsing stuff, and win after he takes 3 prizes. Near the end of the game I hit my head with my fist at my stupidity for not quick searching when he had a Jirachi active. I thought it would cost me the game but it didn't.

Game 2: This game is unfair for him. I go 2nd and celio for a nidoqueen, and do nidoran rc nidoqueen toxic. He can't wishing star since he's poisoned, so he concedes. GG!

Top 8 vs Jaime with rocklock
This was definitely the best rocklock I've ever played against. It used Jirachi and Lanette instead of dunsparce so it was a lot faster in setting up.

Game 1: He sets up quickly, and I stupidly play Feebas to my bench, thinking there's no way he plays rocket's tricky gym. Well he does, and I shake my head at my stupidity. I concede soon afterward. During this game by accident I use celio's network and pull out a rare candy from my deck. I do that because I was planning on celioing for a pidgeot, then QSing for the rare candy. But I got confused and messed up. I got a caution.

Game 2: This time he doesn't setup too quickly but I do. I get 6 evolutions in play and keep doing 90 with nidoqueen. I heal myself with Milotic after taking massive damage. I look on the clock and there are 8 minutes left. I decide to stop thinking about what move I'm going to make, and stop using quick search, so I can save time. So my turns are just like this: Draw a card attach energy attack. That happens for a few turns, then he concedes! Thanks for doing that Jaime.

Game 3: He doesn't get a good hand I think, and I scratch his larvitar with nidorina for 40 damage. Next turn he draws nothing and concedes. GG!

After this the camera guy says I had a pained look on my face. That was just cause I REALLY hate when I make mistakes when I play.

Top 4 vs........PABLOW! Nooooooooo!
Game 1: His hand is bad, mine is good, he concedes after a few minutes.

Game 2: My hand is bad, his is good, I concede after a few minutes.

Game 3: We have 46 minutes left for this game which is plenty o time. I get ahead 4-6 prizes, but like I said Mudkip knows the mirror in and out and I never had practice with it. So I make some minor mistakes but they add up so then he starts to catch up and ties up the prizes at 3-3. A few minutes later it's 2-2. I again shake my head at my stupid mistakes. Finally mudkip draws his last card and I'm expecting him to admin to shuffle his hand into his deck so he doesn't run out of cards. But he plays Copycat. He asks me how many cards are in my hand and I say 10. He counts the number of cards left in his deck and there are 10. He goes oh no. I ask him why didn't you play admin? He shows me his discard. He already used them. So there's no way he could've stopped decking himself. I know it's a cheap way to win sry pablo.

Top 2 vs Ross with Spin tail/Electrode ex/Magmar/Magcargo/Delcatty
Game 1: I felt kinda good knowing that most his deck was weak to fighting. I had an ok hand this game and got setup. I had an energy on my active queen and nothing on any other queens. So instead of putting a DRE on my active queen and KOing magmar and risking him exploding trode ex and attaching 23433 energy to spin tail and grinding me for the KO and POWing whatever I attached energy to, I instead put an energy on my benched queen and just used toxic. He retreated for the spin tail, exploded, attached 23433 energy to spin tail and KOed my queen. I put my other queen active and attached DRE and koed his ttar. He conceded after that.

Game 2: My hand is awful. I concede after 3 turns.

Game 3: My hand is better, and this game goes similar to Game 1. GG!

After this people kept shaking my hand and stuff, but I didn't know who most of them were lol,

Props

POP and PUI and Pokemon USA and Nintendo

Avmozz for giving away lots of cards

TO and all its members and ex-members - Mudkip, plaidlesspez, TheGhazFactor, Patriarch, JasonthePwnda, Josher. I wouldnt've made over 100th place without yall.

plaidlesspez for basically inventing the nidoqueen deck and saying it was good when I thought it wasn't and showing good SOTG after getting donked to not make the top 32 cut and giving me a Copycat for free.

Mudkip for showing good SOTG after the cheap top 4 win and refining the nidoqueen decklist and giving me a Pidgeotto for free.

Mudkip and plaidlesspez for testing with me everyday.

Japanese - Last year I didn't go to Worlds and I heard people saying they won because they were expert coin flippers and always flipped heads and I believed them. But now that I played them in person I see I was wrong. They played flawlessly and flipped equal amounts of heads and tails.

TRUK for translating japanese decklists into English

SuperWooper for his "Who Won Regionals?" thread which helped us out with our research

amphyrules for testing the best medicham ex/hariyama ex deck against me many times

All of my opponents

Everyone there (almost everyone) :o

Steve silvestro for not getting angry after flipping 8 tails in a row with HL Metagross

lukerct104 for trading me his Milotic

People that told me I was bad - If it wasn't for you people I wouldn't have a reason to try to prove anyone wrong and wouldn't try as hard to win.

People that let me autograph their cards

GrandmaJoner for letting me test vs the best Blaziken deck in the world in apprentice many times. (Blaziken is hard for Queen to beat.)

Anaheim

Lugia ex

Venusaur

Kabuto

Dunsparce

Medicham ex

Setzer Gabbiani for giving me directions on how to receive calls in apprentice

Dark Umbreon for testing vs me and giving me tips

Anyone/Anything I forgot

 

jermy101

jermy101@aol.com