2005 Gym Challenge
TJ Collectibles
Milford, Mass.
6/12/05
47 Participants

Ok let me start out by saying that this was a lower than expected turnout for this Gym Challenge. I guess because other Gym Challenges were scheduled the same day. Another reason might be is that the peeps that already won their trips decided not to come out and play. So we had a total of 47 participants. 11 were in the 10-under, 12 were in the 11-14, and 24 played in the 15+. Let me cut to the chase and get to the tourney report. I’ll have my decklist at the end. I decided to yet play again HexLock with some minor adjustments. We play 5 rounds today and then cut to the Top 8.


Round 1 vs Gino (G-Dog)

It figures we play 1st round. Gino and I talk all the time on IM and he is also a fellow Duel Masters player. He thinks I’m running my Slaking deck today but I’m not. Gino is playing Ampharos-ex with the Feint Attack Cacturne. So basically both his attackers are weak to my entire deck. He stand no chance from the starting gate. I get up a 2nd turn Hariyama-ex and start to knock-off his hand. I discard a Amphy-ex on one of the Knock-Offs. He gets a Cacturne out with Boost and does 40 to me. I attach another energy to do 80 and ko the Cacturne and then I’m poisoned. All he has is a Mareep and Flaffy. He promotes the Mareep and evolves his Flaffy to Amphy-ex. He flips tails on Mareep and I knock-off again to ko Mareep. He brings out Amphy and cant do anything. I end up doing 160 to Amphy-ex due to weakness and win the game.

Record 1-0

Round 2 vs. Steve Palumbo (EZ1 on the boards)

Steve introduces himself before the tourney to me as he recognizes me. Steve and his son J.R. are in the New England area visiting Steve’s mom. They are visiting from Nevada. They get a great week to vacation since it has been so hot the past few days in the 90 degree weather. But the humidity is a killer here in the East. Since there is a Gym Challenge near by they decided to stop by and play during their vacation. I’m glad they did because they were both formidable opponents. Steve already won his trip to Worlds via the Utah Regional with a Green Heal deck. His son JR hasn’t and that what he is playing for today. Today Steve is running Muk-ex with DX Grumpig as backup. I know if I get up and running I can quickly overwhelm him. I start with a Makuhita active and a Slugma benched against his Grimer and 2 benched Spoinks. I go 1st and have no energy. Meanwhile he plays a TV Reporter on his turn and discards a Muk-ex to his chagrin. I found out that he has another one as he evolves his next turn. But before that he taunts out my Slugma. I top deck a Magcargo and since I know that this will be my only Smooth Over before Muk comes out I smooth over for a Steven’s advice. Basically next turn the Muk-ex becomes active and what kills me is that Steve Rocket’s Admin. me. I draw absolutely crap and after my Magcargo and Makuhita go down all I have left is a Dunsparce. I paralyze him for 5 turns in a row and am able to build up Hariyama-ex to ko his Muk-ex. But the Grumpig’s easily take care of Hariyama. I cant get my Grumpig’s as 2 are prized and Steve ends up winning.

Record 1-1


Round 3 vs. Matt

I see Matt all the time at this venue but we have actually never played. Matt is also an area Gym Leader and is definitely the best player from his group. Matt is running a strange Green Heal deck with Zappy-ex. I go 1st and SAR’s for my set up. Matt gets set up decent as he gets a 2nd turn Green Essence Sceptile from Emerald. My Dunsparce inflictes 10 damage to his Sceptile, but Sceptile is immune to status effects due to Green Essence. He eventually ko’s my Dunsparce. I promote a Magcargo with Scramble and ko his Sceptile. This screws up his set-up as he had another Treecko with energy and is building up a Grovyle. I Warp Point out Magcargo when I eventually get Hariyama-ex built and Reversal his Grovyle with 3 energy for the KO. He sends up his Sceptile-ex with only 1 energy. He Green Heals for a couple of turns but eventually Hariyama-ex is dishingout 80 damage per turn and Green Heal cant recover. I end up winning the game after I ko 2 of his other weenie Pokemon.

Record 2-1

Round 4 vs. Joe (FireFighter095Reborn)

Joe decides to go with his Gardy deck and we are both 2-1 at this point. He knows that I am playing Hex-Lock and that I am weak to him. Basically a loss here for one of us will knock us out of contention. We roll to see he goes 1st. I roll like real low maybe a 4 or something like that and Joe ends up rolling a 1. I go 1st and start with a lone Makuthita. Joe starts with a lone Wobby. This is terrible for me. He thought it was a terrible start for him but actually I cant do any damage to Wobby once I evolve. I attack for 10 damage. I do end up evolving into Hariyama-ex since it was ruled that Knock-Off will still cause the opponent to discard a card. Also I locked in Battle Frontier since Joe is running Pidgeot in his deck. So the Knock-Off commences. I end up Knocking-off 4x in a row and the next few 4 turns and this is what I discard – Boost, Boost, Gex, and Pidgeot. Joe cant believe and neither can I. His hand is destroyed. He does get a Psy-Shadow Gardy built while I build up 2 Grumpig on the bench with a Magcargo. He eventually switches out the Wobby and ko’s the Hariyama with Gardy. I ko the Gardy with Grumpig. Then he ko’s my Grumpig with his Wobb. I take out his Wobbs with my 2nd Grumpig. It goes back and forth until we both have 1 prize left. I have another Hariyama built and he has his last GEX with only 1 Psychic energy attached to it. He stalls with Wobbs against Hariyama again. I play a Reversal on his Gex and get tails. I Smooth Over for another Reversal and get heads this time. I do 80 damage to his GEX. His only chance is to top deck a Boost energy. He doesn’t and then next turn I ko the GEX for the win. Joe is so disappointed since it was a great game but he couldn’t get the win. Good Game Joe.

Record 3-1

Round 5 vs. Adam (Pokey from the boards)

Pokey hasn’t played in a long time due to it being his Senior year and preparing for College, sports, work, etc. and stuff. Pokey still has his Blaze build and is the only undefeated player at this point. We ponder the scenario about him giving me the win so that we are both 4-1 and the chances are of both of us making into Top 8 at 4-1 are real good. He decides against it and wants to play it out. I go 1st and set up with Dunsparce and SAR. I get a 3rd turn Hariyama-ex with Battle Frontier and start stripping his hand while inflicting 40 points of Damage. I kill his hand but I don’t get the Bex that he is holding. He tries to stall with a couple of Dunsparces but fails on tails. Lol. He gets the Bex out with only 1 energy as I stripped his draw power and energy earlier. I eventually take down Bex in 2 turns. He really cant get built as his Topdecks are like 3 Rare candy in a row. I pummel his other Torchics and take all 6 prizes to his none.

Record 4-1

After a while Top 8 is announced and I am in 3rd place with Dave in 1st and Pokey in 2nd. Keep this in mind as eventually all Top 3 will fall in the 1st round of playoffs.

Top 8 - 1st round vs JR

Like I mentioned before JR is Steve Palumbo’s(EZ1) son. JR is running Blaziken with a Moltres-ex and Speed Deoxys-ex tech’d in. His dad gives him some words of advice before the game and then we start. I go 1st and have a Dunsparce, Makuhita, Hariyama-ex in my hand with an energy and some Trainers. Chances are he is going to start with Dunsparce so I start with Makuhita attach energy and do 20 damage. He SARs and gets a Pidgey, Torchic, and Jirachi. He switches for the Pidgey since it has resistance. I play a Steven’s and get a Crystal Shard. I evolve and lock in a Battle Frontier attach energy play the Shard and do 40 to the Pidgey and discard a Pidgeot from his hand. He decides to keep the Pidgey active and evolves into Combusken and attacheds energy. I ko the Pidgey and knock-off HPS Stadium card. He sends out Jirachi and makes a wish for Blaziken. I build my bench and have Magcargo out and Grumpig by now. I attach another energy to Hariyama-ex and ohko the Jirachi. He sends out Dunsparce and now he has 2 Blazikens benched with one fully powered. I ko the Dunsparce for my 3rd prize. We trade damage back and forth until 1 of his Blazikens ko’s the Hariyama. I have another Built and send that out. I send it out and ko the Blaziken. I have now drawn 4 prizes. Somehow JR makes an incredible comeback with Fire-Starter Blaziken swarms and trading prizes 2 for 1 does me in. Since he his taking out 2 prizes each time my Hariyama-ex is ko’d. JR takes Game 1.

Game 2:
This game is very interesting as we trade prizes back and forth early on. I still have both Battle Frontiers prized as I find out early on when I go to Smooth Over for them so JR gets the Pidgeot out and Quick Searches each turn. JR has the clear advantage all game and builds a Bex this game. I can ko the Bex with Grumpig and Scramble as he is ahead on prizes. This ties us up 3-3. He gets out a surprise Moltres-ex and also a speed Deoxys-ex. His Moltres-ex swings into Grumpig for a ko since it was already damaged from Fire Stream earlier in the game. I pull off another Grumpig and a Pokemon Reversal on his Deoxys-ex to get me down to my last prize. He plays a Pokemon Retriever for the Deoxys-ex since my bench is also weak to Psychic and ko’s the Grumpig. It is now tied 1-1. I send up a Hariyama-ex with 2 energies. 2 minute time limit is called and I can finish my turn with a win with the right cards. JR jas a 13 card hand so I CopyCat that hoping for my last reversal. I have 16 cards left in my deck. Out of the 13 I do not pull the Reversal. Had I done so I could of attempted to Reversal his benched Dunsparce for the win. I don’t and he attacks with Deoxys to ko my Hariyama for the win.

Great games JR.

So I continue my streak of losing in the Top 8 during the 1st round. Like I mentioned earlier Dave, Pokey, and myself all lose in the 1st round. JR goes on to play Gino(G-dog) and ends up winning to win a trip to Worlds.

So 15+ winner was JR Palumbo with Blaziken
11-14 winner’s deck was Milotic-ex/Crobat-ex
10 and under was Ludicolo (Deoxys from the boards little bro)

Props to:

• Mary and Liz for always bringing freebies and goodies to share. Thanks for the nice cold bottled Water in Top 8 Mary!
• Dave for making it to Top 8 with Cacturne-ex/Muk-ex deck.
• TJ and his crew of Judges, BJJ, PokeBob, and Cheryl.
• My 6 year old Johnny Jr. who went 2-2 in his 2nd ever tournament.

Slops to:
• Curse of the Top 8. This was my second Top 8 in a row only to lose in the 1st round again.
• Lower than expected turnout.


So here is my actual decklist:

Pokemon (19)
4 - Dunsparce
4 – Makuhita (Emerald)
3 – Hariyama-ex
2 – Spoink
2 – Grumpig (DX)
2 – Slugma
2 – Magcargo (Smooth Over)

Trainers (26)
4 – TV Reporter
4 - Steven Advice
3 - Celio’s Network
3 – Pokemon Reversal
2 – Battle Frontier
2 - Warp Point
2 – Copycat
2 – Crystal Shard
1 – Professor Oak’s Research
1 – Island Cave
1- Scott
1 - POW

Energy (15)
12 - Fighting Energy
3 - Scramble Energy


Well I hope you enjoyed this article and please feel free to revise this decklist to fit your needs and playstyle accordingly. Also please contact me at JSChimento@aol.com or AIM me at JSChimento if you wish to discuss this article or any decks.

There is me in the middle with the SU Jersey and Joe and Ray (Lumaga1) on the sides.