Companion Chronicles: Lucas: 11 - High Stakes TCG Double-Header

A couple weeks ago, Nate came over to Melbourne to play in a League Cup and get one last chance at an N's Zoroark Champion Playmat. This was the last weekend to play a Cup before this quarter ends and a new playmat is made.

The only thing getting in the way of going to this cup was a "Win-A-Box" 2 hours later, which offers a ~$200 Booster Box as a prize to the winner. On the one hand, the cup *should* bring in harder competition (it's people's last chance to get Pokemon official points towards World's or a special 2024 season promo card). But.. that means the good competition will be at the cup and the PRIZING will be up for grabs! In the end, I let the guest decide and Nate chose to go for the playmat; he was also pretty close to earning his 2024 season promo card, a nice cherry on top if he could win.

In my last blogpost, I said I was going to play a familiar deck.. well, Saturday morning I changed my mind and let Nathan know why. A very strong local, probably my main competition in the Melbourne area, was recently testing a deck that Hard Counters Dragapult. I'm talking 70% win rate AND this guy would be well versed in the matchup. He was most likely coming to the cup, so I'd have to pivot.. and I pivoted to a post-rotation version of the deck Nathan used to play. For those who forgot, it's based on using Roaring Moon and a bunch of Ancient cards to boost its Vengeance Fletching attack.

This deck relies a lot on sequencing cards right to maximize your odds to draw what you need, but that kind of stuff comes pretty easy to me and the rest of the plays are super straight forward. Also, if you miss the cards you need, you can just say "unlucky" and not think about how your play affected your chances to win. I had practiced this deck a bit, but wasn't as familiar with it as Dragapult.

The Cup

A pretty measly 8 Masters (oldest division) players showed up to this cup, along with 5 people in the Juniors or Seniors divisions (12u and 12-16). The 8 Masters means that we won't have a top-cut (playoff), and the 5 kids means there will very likely be two undefeated Masters players after 3 rounds of Swiss. In short-- this sucks.

Round 1 - ??

My first round of the tournament my opponent flips over ---- Marnie's Impidimp! Cool! Except, that card isn't legal to play until weeks after the tournament, and still isn't legal at the time of writing. In most self-respecting cups, the player would get a DQ for illegal cards and it'd be lame, but it happens. The only problem here is that the JUDGE HIMSELF told this dude he could play this deck. Sheesh. We were able to get things straightened out and someone lent my opp a Dragapult deck to play. He clearly had never played it before and I won after a pretty dragged out game. 1-0.

Round 2 - Gardevoir

In this matchup, I should be able to take the first KO on my opponent and try to gust up a Gardevoir at some point for 2-prizes to win. The matchup isn't that crazy in my favor, maybe 60-40 or 55-45 if the opponent is good, but it's favored. Welllll this game I was KOd first and wasn't able to make up the ground. I had a chance on the last turn to find one of my 3 Boss's Orders in my 20-something card deck, but missed them all. With a loss here, I'm no longer able to win the cup. 1-1.

Round 3 - N8's Bolt

Nate is here to try to get some points, and his tie-breakers are better than mine, so I concede. I beat Nate in our "fun game" and he places 3rd (or 4th?) and gets some packs that we split. 1-2.

Cup Wrap-up

Well, that was pretty anti climactic. Nate drove 3 hours to go 2-1 with one fake game. Hold on. How long does it take to play 3 games? Chat, I'll tell ya; a little less than 2 hours. We've got time for the Win-A-Box Tournament.

Win-A-Box Tournament

Now this was the tournament that was promised. We hit 18 players, meaning the winner will get a full Booster Box and the top-8 players would get prizing. This is different than what's in the poster, but don't worry about it. We're looking at 4 rounds of Swiss and an 8-player top cut playoff.

To top it all off, the local I was scared of (who did play that hard-counter deck) decided not to show up to this tourney. Dragapult time.

The actual list I played is a few cards off, but nobody cares

Round 1 - Gholdengo

Buckle up, fuckle heads. I played a bunch of Gholdengo decks at this tourney. It has pretty linear paths to victory in most matchups (use Make It Rain to KO your opponent over and over), so my locals spam the hell out of this deck. I've always had a pretty hard time into it, but my opponent doesn't really make it hard for me in round 1. 1-0.

Round 2 - N8's Bolt (Reprise)

Nate thought I would be playing the Roaring Moon deck again, which beats his Raging Bolt deck up, so he was pretty distraught to see we matched up. When I flipped over my first Dreepy, he was pretty excited! His Raging Bolt was specifically built to throw off his opposing Dragapults and steal away wins. Then, his excitement turned back to sadness when he realized that I, the person who helped him make those changes, was his opponent. So I wouldn't be caught off-guard. The game was tight, but he wasn't able to be aggressive enough to win. 2-0.

Round 3 - Gholdengo #2

For the record, you can't repeat opponents until the top cut, so this is a different Gholdengo. And unfortunately, it's piloted by the one other local that scares me. This kid had beaten Nate once already at the cup earlier, so I've gotta get payback. For the Mir family!!

I lost. 2-1.

Round 4 - Mirror?

I said 4 rounds of Swiss earlier, right? Alright, good. That's what I heard too. Asked the Tournament Organizer (TO) about that before this round. Locked in. 4 rounds of Swiss and an 8-player top cut. I look at the sheet and there are 8 total players with 2 or more wins though 3 rounds of Swiss. That means I can safely Intentionally Draw (ID) and still have enough soccer-style points, win=3 tie=1 loss=0, to be top-8 no matter what. Cool. I ID and beat the guy pretty easily in the game we play for fun. 2-1-1.

Round 5 - Hydreigon Zoroark

HUH? We're doing 5 ROUNDS OF SWISS? And I just ID'd against an opponent I was confident I could beat anyways? What the hell happened. Well, the TO messed up the bracket format and I guess it's hard to switch off of the official Pokemon-sponsored TO software, so we are playing 5 rounds of swiss followed by a 4-player top cut. My ID is a huge problem, because I functionally just intentionally put myself in the top-4 bubble, and only if I win. I'm trying to not sit down and start these games until I get a concrete answer from the TO about what the hell is happening, but he just says "Don't worry about it, it'll work out." He always does good by his players, so sure. I'll just play. And tilt. Looking back, I think he was just hoping I would win.

Thank god this guy's deck was wack. I drew pretty shit and still got it. 3-1-1. I had better tie breakers than other two 3-1-1 players and got into the top-cut as the lone 3-1-1 player.

Semi Finals - Gholdengo #3

I play against the scary Gholdengo player from Round 3 who handed me my only loss again. In the meantime, he beat Nate again. His Mir Boy record on the day is up to 3-0. He's literally farming the shit out of us, and Nate and I should both have a good matchup into his deck. The top cut is Best-of-3 with a 50-minute timer. Let's get into it.

Game 1 is a long and grinding game. It goes back and forth, but I'm able to enter the final turns with only a slight disadvantage. My opponent makes an overly passive play and the tide swings back into my favor. I am able to take the first game with just 15 minutes left on the 50-minute clock. 1-0.

Game 2, I just take it slow. I didn't slow play my actual actions (illegal), but with just 15 minutes left, I took a calculated risk that my opponent wouldn't be able to take prizes fast enough to actually win. I used Budew to prevent my opponent from taking prize cards, and never benched a Pokemon worth 2-prizes. He would have to take 6 KOs to win the game. My opponent wasn't playing any faster than normal, which surprised me. When time was called, he had only taken 2 prizes. No chance to win. We play out the extra turns and Game 2 ended in a tie, giving me the match win.

Finals - Gholdengo #4

Yup, 6 actual rounds played (we don't count the ID) and FOUR Gholdengos. This was another rematch, but this was against my round 1 opponent. I'm one series away from winning this booster box. Second place gets 22 packs, but first gets 36!! I offer my opponent to split the 1st and 2nd prizing, because it was 9pm. Mine and Nate's TCG day started at 1pm. We are in the damn thick of it and all I had to eat since 1pm was one of Nate's Little Ceaser's Crazy Puffs-- I don't eat when I'm grinding.

The TO says we can't, so we play. Game 1 was another long one, taking about 35-minutes again. This game wasn't very close, but a prize-checking mistake on my part gave my opponent an opening that I was not anticipating. I had two prizes remaining, and two cards I had written down from my early-game prize check were never drawn from them. Okay, cool. I should have my Bloodmoon Ursaluna in the deck to win, right? Wrong. I wrote down a card that wasn't actually in my prize cards, while Bloodmoon was. Shit. I was still able to close it out, but sheesh. 1-0.

Like last round.. my opponent isn't playing any faster than normal. He may even be slower. I look back to the clock after we each finished out first turns, and I see we only have about 10-minutes remaining. The judge is clocking our actions to make sure we don't take too long (illegal-- can result in prize-card penalties). He says we're both doing fine. Tick-tock.. My opponent takes his first prize card with ~7 minutes remaining and I already know it's over. I don't bench any 2-prizers, use Budew exclusively, and he time is called while he still has 4 prize cards remaining. Another timing based dub makes me the CHAMP.

Win-A-Box Wrap-up

I won a box! Right now they're going for ~$250 on TCGPlayer. For a $30 entry, that's not too shabby. I also get to take home a bunch of Prize Packs, and a little Hoothoot!