molerator @ seattle

I did not make phase 2 at Seattle, losing in R7 and then tying a meaningless game in R8. I'm typing this on my hotel roommate's laptop off a few beers, so don't expect any of the nice Pokemon icons and decklist graphics until I get to my computer next week. What you can expect is salt, accountability, horrifying matchups and some miscellaneous chatter. Maybe I'll come back and edit this later.

Star Grunt, 2nd Luxcape were edits to tackle Zard, Absol, Grimm.

Some words about preparation I haven't written yet. 
Leading up to this tournament logically I wanted to play Gardevoir. I'd been playing it to locals all month, it's position seemed decent and the power level high. Pidgeot on the other hand, was basically untestable on ladder because of all the ASC stuff, and the Absol matchup was not great in theory because of their watchtower and hand control. One slight problem - I dislike playing Gardevoir! I grumbled through basically every step of practicing the purple deck (worst lobotomy ever) and finally bailed on Tuesday (way too late) to tinker with my Pidgeot list instead. Star Grunt was a natural inclusion to try and get some more chances into Absol and Grimm, the main shifts from the Toronto meta I disliked, and the second Luxcape to give Turt more sticking power was an easy change too. Mesagoza is Pidgeot 50% of the time while Artazon is Pidgeot 0% of the time. I thought about a Frillish for Dengo + general annoyance for all of Wednesday Thursday and Friday but didn't open RK9 a single time because I didn't want to cut a stretcher or a Cipher. I woke up on Saturday morning at 5 am and thought about it one more time then went back to sleep. Work in progress!

Assorted Seattle Travel Section I will fill out later. 
I arrived in the city on Thursday night, got dinner and hung out with a normie friend I hadn't seen in a few years, then went to sleep without thinking too much about Pokemon besides answering her boilerplate questions about how the game and tournaments work. This city is fine if extremely overpriced, would visit, wouldn't live here. Hills suck, sky is super gray. Had ramen, xiaolongbao, pho, and stuff from a bakery. Also a sandwich, hotpot, tonkatsu, and a boba like yogurt drink. I also walked around a sculpture garden I liked and went to look at gum on walls which is highkey gross but visually cool.

Round 1

Dengo WLW
I do a quick search for my opponent's name and actually find an extremely scary Joltik list from Vegas with switch, tool scrapper + prime catcher, Iron Leaves. Luckily he isn't playing that. Solrock flips over and Dengo gameplay ensues. Both rocks are Turo'd out of play quickly and discarded, but I manage to catch Mega Mawile and it's 2 retreat cost with a flute. Multiple turn play, gust the Mawile and Nacli retreat lock, then transition into Elgyem after I Ruffian off the Air Balloon so the Mawile can never attack or move.
Game 2 I open Feebas pass, get donked by Solrock. Game 3, he whiffs gear and is so unhappy I know his hand is cooked, so I attach to Pidgeot and donk his Solrock when he passes back to me. Fair is fair! If you've read my other posts you'll know that this is actually the first and only time all month I've won Round 1, so at least that's over with.

Round 2

Grimmsnarl WLT
This matchup is horrible, but not if they don't know how to play it! During Game 1 I use Elgyem, Fans, and gusts to survive double Froslass for long enough to Penny all of my support pokemon out of play and watch his Grimmsnarls and Munkidoris freeze to death. The Froslass with the air balloon ends up with something like 6 dark energy at one point. 
During Game 2 I prize my Star Grunt and am not able to disable Grimmsnarls in one turn, so I take a lot of extra damage. On a critical turn near the end of the game, I have a chance to Penny my Latias out of play with like 160 damage on it, but for some reason decide to wait a turn to get more value or something? Idk. I then get my Penny Iono'd to the bottom and my Pidgeot removed with Devo, and I'm a turn short of being able to clean my board. 
I ask my opponent about a gentleman's agreement before G3 and he says he's not super comfortable in the matchup so would be okay with a tie. I am not super happy about this but don't want to push him at 1-0. After time is called and we go through +3, I'm in a position where I'm going to win if I draw into an energy off Fez to use on my Turtonator or Elgyem, but obviously we can't play out the turn so we tie. Yay.

Round 3

Dawnzard LWW
I open an unplayable hand and Penny my lone Nacli out of play after like 2 turns of not drawing any relevant cards and watching a Dawnzard board develop on the other side of the table.
During the second game I sus out that there's only 1 Jet Energy because of the Waterpon. After the Jet is committed early for some reason I get a Noctowl stuck in the active hitting a fanned Sudowoodo for 60. I pad back 2 Pennys which causes him to concede.
My opponent opts to try to play his Dawnzard deck with no owl pieces during Game 3, which someone also tried on me in Toronto but I think is never going to work. To make matters worse, he prizes his only copy of Pidgeot so finding this single Jet Energy is an actual fanfiction. I use Elgyem to put all the fire energy in his deck on a Duskull because the other Duskull has become a Dusknoir under Psyduck. The venue alarm goes off at some point during this sequence and we pause play even though we probably could've kept playing. Some random walks by and says we should keep playing because it would "suck to tie" but I just ask my opponent for gents instead, and he agrees. At the end of turns I'm 1 turn away from being able to finish deckout with Xerosic Iono, so my opponent, an extremely honorable gentleman, gives me the win because he hasn't used Burning Darkness for 20+ turns and has 5 Fire Energy on a Duskull.

Round 4

Joltik Dengo LL
Tournament starts to go in the toilet here but I will do my best to keep you all entertained. My opponent opens Joltik, benches Iron Hands and I am extremely unhappy. The AceSpec in this deck is actually trolley but I choose to Genesect block this anyway to stall setup. I find an energy and kill the Joltik with Sudowoodo to try and stunt his setup, but he topdecks Brock for Latias Joltik and does his Joltik stuff anyway. I Boss Impound the Latias and get Amped after he Turos, then manage to stick him with a Star Grunt + Elgyem combo to disable the Iron Hands. From here I make one huge error which is forgetting the cost of Arm Press. After I've removed both lightning energy from the Iron Hands, this thing obviously cannot attack with one attachment, but somehow an Arm Press goes through and KO's my Pidgeot. At some point in here I either decide not to or forget to Luxcape my Elgyem and it dies to something stupid like Make it Rain for 100. I manage to Elgyem a million irrelevant energy onto his Dengo with an Air Balloon while holding naked Iron Hands in the active with live Milotic, but the stupid Joltik on the bench that I've left a Metal Energy on evolves into Galvantula ex and now I'm going to lose to Iron Leaves + Boss. If I was better I probably could have figured something out with Iono/Xerosic to trim his hand so if he ever draws the Iron Leaves without Boss I can Erika it and win, but I am not very good at the game so I just lose.
I make a fake prize trading attempt in game 2 before I just pack it up and sign the slip.

Round 5

Dengo WW
This one was pretty easy, he didn't know what Milotic did. I trap this Lunatone in the active for a while while he's still drawing cards, then Xerosic a huge hand and watch him deck out.
Game 2 I get him with the infamous "Mind Control Kang" manuever which is when I push the Kang to draw cards, then the Dengo player loses their mind and benches Genesect, Solrock, Lunatone + commits their Balloons to try and find the knockout. My Kang goes down, I stick the Genesect in the active, Ruffian off the Air Balloon, then Elgyem every attachment off of it for the rest of the game.

Round 6

Pultzard LWT
I prize my Trolley, can't set up a good enough board, and lose to a Boss candy Zard combo at the end of a quick game.
I set up great this time, Elgyem a million energy onto an ill-advised Budew + flute the board out of a second Charmander so no energy acceleration is coming for the rest of the game, we are trying to see if I don't notice an attachment or something. I float the idea of the gents during Game 2 and am shocked and dismayed when my opponent says he's "down to tie." Why on earth would we ever be "down to tie" at X-1-1? Hello? Do we understand how the tournament works? How match point thresholds work? AHHHHHHHHH.
Anyway I'm cooking him in Game 3 but the clock is my enemy and if my opponent wants to tie we're going to tie. Very cool.

Round 7

Pultzard L
I'll take some accountability for this one and say I should have just won game 1 and then maybe we would be playing on Sunday. My opponent gets all the way down to 2 but I'm taxing his energy the whole way and eventually create a naked Charizard and stick that in the active. My opponent keeps playing though and is doing his recons and draw supporters so I know something is left. I decide it's Turo because that is a card that is good in Pultzard and set up my Milotic and retreat lock the Latias, which I figure should convert since the Pultzard deck can't attack with Latias at all. Instead what happens is I get hit with a hard switch card + Jamming tower to take the last 2. Nice dude, hard switch is a real cool card and super useful in the current metagame. I definitely believe this was worth the deckslot! Realistically what I should've done is just taken the energy off the Pult, either with Ruffian or Elgyem, but I'm a moron and don't deserve match points.
I actually have a pretty good prize attempt in game 2, killing every Charmander with Blustery Wind while I weave in Elgyem and Ruffian to remove Luminous Energy from Drakloaks. I'm a bit too slow though and obviously my attacker isn't good enough to close the game in time when they evolve their board into stage 2s. I'm eliminated. Judge walking by sees my thousand yard stare and asks if I'm okay so I fake a smile and lie.

Round 8

Charizard + MegaZard WL
This one is honestly a wash because if I was playing for stakes I would have 1-0d this guy but he was cool and clearly having fun so I played pretty fast to give us a chance to finish the second game. This Zard deck has 2 jets, a turo, a mist, 7 fires, 2 super rods, and a tool scrapper, all of which is to say yikes. I take advantage of his inexperience in the matchup during game 1 and Elgyem all the fires away from Zard onto a ChiYu. There's a Tatsugiri on the board too that sits in the active a lot while I slight shift to disarm Charizards. I get my LuxCape on Turtonator tool scrappered at one point which is an insanely annoying card to play against, but I do manage to get rid of all the fires.
Game 2, the board is too thin and the MegaZard is looming the whole game. There's like 5 energies on a Zard Ex and I can't wager the whole game on Tool Scrapper prized, so I try to Iono to stabilize since all 3 boss are down, but he draws into a super rod Fez combo to take his last prize on my benched Elgyem with Cruel Arrow on the last turn of time. This matchup seems really bad with the heavy fire count and much higher damage cap, but if I really didn't want game 2 to finish I could have pumped the brakes. 1-0 manuevers in R8 after elimination against an opponent who was nice to me seemed like bad karma though so I abstained.

The deck was fine. Even though I hit some egregious matchups, if I played like 10% better I could easily have converted a lot of these lost or tied sets. I would like to blame the horrible poisoned Ascended Ladder, KK for Leap Out Curse, and my own general incompetence. In the future, I might be pushing for gents when I sit down a round or two earlier in the tournament because apparently not everyone understands how this stuff works! Next is Houston.

Operation Two Braincells: Gardevoir Ex is still too hard

Welcome back y'all, I played a league cup today. My preparation for this event was honestly terrible, I played Jelly Gardy on ladder for like 6 hours and went negative, then stayed up super late last night helping Yihao test a terrible pile. I woke up like 30 minutes before I had to leave, started sleeving a PultZard deck, then decided I didn't want to play that and grabbed my Gardy deck from last week and made some approved changes.

     

Drifloon greenlit, 2 charm. Would like another CC but I do not have edit permissions on Gardevoir ex lists.

Round 1 

Venusaur L
Well, best to get the throwing out of the way early I guess. I think this matchup should be really good with the Drifloon even without LuxCape, but I can't count or sequence so things go sideways at the end. The game goes mostly smoothly, I take 1 on a Bulbasaur with Scream Tail, 2 on an Ogerpon with Gardy, then just have to get through a Venusaur to close out the game. I've been sprinkling damage on his side of the board with Munkidoris and have a bunch of counters banked up on a Fez that was punched by Ogerpon earlier in the game but he gust kos that with a clean Venusaur to take away my counters. On my second to last turn I do some griefing and miss the knockout with a million cards in hand. I have access to 7 purple energy, including 1 stuck on my Gardevoir from Miracle Force, Drifloon + charm and two Munkidoris. What I can do to get to the 380 number is embrace 5 onto Drifloon, move 30, embrace 1 onto Gardex, move 30 (10 left from a previous 40-10), Turo Gardex (I have a second one) embrace the last 2 energies onto Drifloon to get 110 for Balloon Blast 330. What I do instead is embrace a bunch of energy onto Drifloon, realize I'm short, then Iono and hit for 180. The next turn I Iono again after he heals/runs away but somehow use 3 monkeys and don't have a clean 310 Gardevoir to hit with and die to 6 energy Ogerpon. Some really awful gameplay to start the day, deserved 0-1.

Round 2 

Greninja W 
My opponent goes first, drops some little guys but misses a water attachment for his Froakie so I'm not under a lot of pressure. I Lillie into TM:evo and ultra ball as well as one copy of Kirlia, so expecting Budew, I ultra ball for Gardevoir to evolve next turn then use the TM to get a Kirlia onto the board. My opponent tries to get around this by evolving into Dusknoir and Pidgeot, blowing up my Ralts, and using TM Devo on my Kirlia, but he has to use his Grand Tree to do this, so I just Lillie my Gardy pieces back into the deck and evolve up this way. With a Gardevoir on the board and some Munkidoris camping down Duskulls it's pretty hard for me to lose. He tries some weird stuff with gust trapping and paralysis flipping but I just Turo and attach my way through it and eventually set up a board where he can't even attack with Greninja without instantly losing the game.

Round 3 

Zoroark Gengar W
I pair into a senior playing some dark type box, which in theory should be really good for me but I have to sweat like crazy to convert because on my first search I find out both of my Gardevoirs are prized. I start attaching to a Munkidori on the bench to try and take a prize with Mind Bend. I would have preferred to start with a dark because it's less suspicious, but all I have are purples. I don't think he knew the problem I was having, because he plays Secret Box for boss to take out my Kirlia on the bench but dumps his whole hand to do so AND goes in with a Binding Mochi Yveltal that he pinged with Toxtricity + poisoned with Pecharunt. I mind bend and unprize a Gardex. For the rest of the game, the poison and Toxtricity damage causes him to draw zero cards because I can always dodge Fez, and I cruise to a win using my single prizers hitting big numbers.

Round 4 

Absol W

I go first, set up some Ralts and get down a Monkey Dark. They trolley and energize to Absol on their turn, then I evo into double Kirlia with 2 draw supporters in hand. One of my Kirlias gets bossed and clawed but my hand and subsequent draws are good enough to respond with Drifloon 240 onto the Absol. With no darks on the bench I am reasonably confident that I won't get double Adrena Brained + boss on Gardy, and I'm right. They Penny into Kang and try to energize again, so I Iono all their energy to the bottom, spread some damage onto the fresh Absol and hit the Kang for 240. They get some darks down to KO my Drifloon, but can't do this and claw, so on my turn I CC up the Absol and Mew copy Claw to take 3 and rip a boss out of their hand. The heavily damaged Kang comes back into the active, gets healed a bit with ice cream and monkeys but is promptly blown up anyway by Drifloon for a clean 3-3 prize map. Time to ID into cut!

Round 5 

Slowking W
Or I thought so, anyway. My opponent has suspect resistance and a homie ID in an earlier round has caused a possible bubble at 3-1-1. I'm down to send the ID and see what happens but he wants to play so we shuffle up and start our game while everyone else is circling tie and making plans to get food. I get cleanly into a Gardevoir while being item locked because I draw into Kirlia evo off a supporter. I've been attaching to the Fez I started this whole time to threaten Cruel Arrow on Slowpokes and charm the Munkidoris I bench to stay out of Kyurem range, so his first Slowking attack is Haxorus to KO Fez. No Cruel Arrow today, sad. I respond with Iono to 4 and Mind Bend to threaten KO on both Slowkings the next turn. He actually flips heads and uses Kyurem to KO a Kirlia, but I am super happy to absorb 220 damage onto my board to send back at my leisure. I wipe both Slowkings with Adrena Brain and CC Miracle Force, but my Scream Tail is still prized so I can't chase the next Slowpoke and get Budewed. I take the Budew with another monkey trigger, unprize my Scream Tail, snipe the Slowpoke and go to 2 while loading more counters onto his Fez, creating a checkmate board.

Top 8 

Boltik LWW
I eat one of the steamed buns I packed for the day (is it ego to expect a long day including top cut?) and shake hands with my opponent. Going first he Squawks a hand with some Raging Bolt looking stuff but then benches a Miraidon and gets Joltik + Hands, revealing Boltik. I evo into Kirlias and then Gardevoir while he's doing his Joltik stuff, but am struggling to discard energies. I get the first hit but the best I can do is Munki KO Joltik + punch Miraidon for 140 with Clefairy. Maybe Scream Tail Punch Hands would have been better? He gusts twice to go down to 2, then we kind of sit around while I Iono him low and set up prizes for later before he finally manages to find a Sada for game. I feel like I could have played this better but idk.

I go second again, this time I have no energy issues and KO Hands with Drifloon, KO Bolt with Clefairy, then Scream Tail a bench sitter for game. 

We start game 3 with very little time which I am extremely aware of. I go first, bench some Ralts and Munkidoris, but he misses energy for Jolting Charge, so I evolve into Gardevoir and wait. I respond to his Jolting Charge with Charm Frillish - he's lost so much energy from his Squawk or has it in hand so he can only load 3 on Hands. All he can manage on his last turn is an Arm Press 160 KO  so I just CC his Squawk and KO it with Gardy to take the lead in time. I celebrate by eating my other baozi.

Top 4 

Dengo WW

My opponent gets off to a slow start and is only in the game due to my donated Artazon, but what this means is he's very low on Gimmighouls. I try to take advantage of this with a quick Scream Tail KO but he's able to boss and KO my Gardy as well as a picnic basket to neutralize Tail. A few problems with this play - he attaches the VitBand to Dengo, he discards his super rod with Secret Box, he's board locked out of Mawile, and there's 8 energy in the discard pile with 3 metals showing. I charm my Frillish and start announcing Oceanic Gloom over and over. He's able to get a KO on my Kirlia but I set up the Gardevoir again over a few turns to thwart attempts to break item lock with Boss, and now there are 10 energy in the discard pile. I ask if he plays Lana or a non item way to get energies back and he concedes.

Game 2 I go first and get down some Ralts and a Munkidori. I think I have decent odds to get Candy Gardy the next turn, but he looks sadly at his hand and plays Turo on his lone Gimmighoul. On to finals! 

Finals

Dawnzard LL

Game 1 was pretty weird. I win the flip and choose first, gettting down a Ralts behind a Munkidori start. My opponent opens the Klefki so has to play his Prime Catcher to unlock Fan Rotom. Unfortunately the Ralts I grabbed was with Artazon and he actually has the energy in hand to take the knockout so I am pretty far behind. I go back in my deck with Artazon and find out that I've prized my other 2 Ralts and my Frillish so I can't Iono item lock like I want to. Luckily I do find a stretcher off Iono and rebench my Ralts, then mind bend his Fan Rotom. He takes a KO on my Munki with Charizard, and I respond with Secret Box into Candy Gardy Mind Bend. Jet is prized on his end so he can't actually Jet Boss my Gardy and settles for flipping on the Munkidori (heads). I Mew his Zard, he uses Terapagos to go down to 1, and I can't find a way to prevent him from winning while progressing since all my charmed attackers I can use to remove his Terapagos will die to Joust. Is it right to keep Clefairy around for this case?

I go first again and get down some guys while refusing to donate my Artazon. He misses Charmander which is great for me and he Sobs my active Scream Tail after I use it to evo into Kirlias. Not complaning about donated damage. I decide that I can take it slow because he's behind and hit his Dusclops for 80 forcing him to evolve into Dusknoir and pop it on my Munkidori. The Dawn he gets off the prizes finds some basics and a Pidgeotto and he sobs my Scream Tail again. I've been holding a few Ionos the whole game and refuse to play them because his hand is obviously dead, so he decides not to grab Pidgeot because I would instantly Iono that to the bottom. I think I make a mistake here when I decide to hit his Wellspring for 120 to try and set it up for later, but I should be allowed to snipe off the Pidgeotto without too much danger. He topdecks Pidgeot and starts to put on pressure with Prime Catcher Gardy. I mind bend the Zard, he jets out of confusion and KOs. On my last turn I have an Iono in my hand but also a Gardevoir and some Arvens, I think I was maybe just supposed to Iono and hope to hit candy Gardy off draw + Fez, but I try and Fez into one of my two candies, miss, then feel forced to play Arven (should still maybe Iono) to KO his Zard with Mew and use Adrena Brain to set up win for the next turn. He shows me stretcher + super rod to get Charizard and the energy back and I concede. 

I congratulate my opponent, we chat a bit about the season, then I catch the bus home, which takes forever with like a 15 minute delay. +40? I guess it's +8 or something idk. As always, thanks for reading!

Funslop: Exploding Energy, Burrito

I make my way up to Evanston on the purple line to obtain a burrito from Tomate Fresh Kitchen and play a funny deck at a Thursday night league challenge. I get off the train at Noyes, pick up two burritos - Carnitas for me, Carne Asada for him - and get in my friend's car for a quick drive down to the shop.

 

Many cards were picked up and read tonight, including but not limited to Acerola, Forretress, Pokevital, Crisis Punch, and Therapeutic Energy. 

Round 1

Dengo L
I instantly pair into my friend I got dinner with, who knows what I'm up to tonight. He starts Solrock and I know I'm not allowed to bench a Pineco until I can find Forest to instantly evolve + pop it, so I don't get to attack until he's gotten through my first Kang. Luckily my hand that was slow to set up Forretress is full of Acerolas so I play it 4 turns in a row to stop him from finishing the game. Unfortunately for me I am not flipping heads on Rapid Fire Combo AND I've prized my Crisis Punch in the last 2 so I can't actually win the game without double heads on this next turn. I Iono to 1, CC a Dengo without energy, and flip 1 heads for 250. He draws 500 cards and finds the knockout because of course he does.

Round 2

Dengo W
I pair into another Dengo and manage to get into a quick Forretress with an early Cipher for Forest. She drops a Watchtower and knocks out my first Kang, but when I play Acerola on my turn and punch her Dengo, I can tell she doesn't know what the card does, as she's digging for cards and playing superiors to line up a knockout. Out of the goodness of my heart I stop her from discarding energy before she declares an attack, explaining what's going on. The end of this game is kind of awkward because I'm not drawing into a stadium and can't play any supporter except Acerola. On my last turn my multiple pokegears are unable to find an Acerola to continue my loop or a Cipher to get to crisis punch so I Iono to 1 + CC her Fez and flip heads.

R3 

Flareon L
I feel like I must have messed this game up because I don't think this matchup is as unwinnable as this game felt. Classic Eevee start on the other side, Fan Rotom for Pidgey, Eevee, Noctowl, no attachment. I think from this board I'm allowed to bench a Pineco because I don't know how likely Boss + attack or Wellspring are from a board with no energy or Tera, but I am a tiny little baby and decide I'm going to wait for the Forest combo instead. On the next turn my active Kang gets punched for 130 and I still don't have the combo but with a Pidgeot and a live Flareon I'm definitely not allowed to bench the Pineco so I have to wait another turn. They commit to Carnelian to knockout my active. I finally have the combo but I have to Cipher for it so I can't Acerola or Iono. I do make a mistake where I Cipher for a Watchtower to drop on the next turn since I only need one combo piece, but if I get Bravery Charm to attach active I can't lose to Jet Black Belt which of course is exactly what's in his hand. I feel like this matchup has to be insanely free if I get to go first, but maybe I should work on utilizing that second braincell instead.

Edit: Realized I can probably just crisis punch the Flareon and they should never be able to break my Kang lol.

Next to me I watch Sky put a frustrated Eevees player in the chamber with Pidgeot. Nice! 

R4 

Slaking W
My opponent flips over a Fan Rotom but his grabs off Fan Call are Slakoth Slakoth Farfetch'd which is definitely not what I was expecting. He uses Colress to get Triple Accel (which I think is weird) and Watchtower then TM:evos into double Vigoroth. On my side I'm holding a stadium bump and immediately pop my Forretress to thin energy out of the deck onto my board then Kang draw 2 into a Boss to knockout one of his Vigoroths. He evolves his remaining Vigoroth into Slaking but doesn't find a useful energy this turn (might have been expecting to use Reversal) so is only able to hit my Kang for 20 with Reversal Energy Farfetch'd, which I heal off with Ice Cream to stay out of Slaking range. I boss his Slaking and smack it for 200, he runs away to hit me with Jet Fan Rotom and Ionos me + drops another Watchtower. I bump this with a Forest, then CC his Slaking back and Iono him before taking the knockout. He recovers a Slakoth, which I boss and knockout again. This whole time he's been developing a Dusknoir on his bench - he pops into my active and hits for 70 with Fan Rotom. I dig for my last boss with triple gear but whiff so I cipher both Pokevital A and Ice Cream into my hand and negate his entire turn, then flip heads on his active Fez anyway.

This deck is kind of fun for an obvious meme, I played it kind of poorly but I could definitely see myself playing this to another challenge this format with some changes. I don't think Pokevital A is correct, Miracle Headset seems broken in the absence of a Pal Pad to prolong the Acerola chain. I also am not really sure what this bravery charm is for, a second Crisis Punch or a Petrel/Town Store could be nice to naturally draw into the TM without Cipher or play it multiple times to not have to flip against Dengo or other 2 prize beatsticks. If you made it this far, thanks for reading! Don't play this deck to anything you care about!

Operation Two Braincells: Gardevoir Ex is too hard

 

I am a passionless lump without creativity so I played Gardevoir with a Drifloon to my League Cup today. I got to top 4 by some miracle despite my many attempts to punt games, with the final decisive throw coming in g3 of T4.

I changed one card (-CC +Drifloon) and mostly regretted it.

First throw of the day before I even make it out of my house: I leave my dice bag on my bookshelf in my room and have to buy dice from the shop before round 1. 

Round 1

Dawnzard L
I sit down and apologize to my opponent for the delay since I didn't have any dice. They open terrible, missing Fan Rotom and passing with a Fezandipiti in the active. I item lock them and start to set up my board but they eventually make a Charizard using Dawn and play 3 straight gusts including a raw prime catcher with no Pidgeot or Hoothoot through me spamming Iono to win the game. Cool.

Round 2

Rockets Mewtwo W

I pair into Rockets. Not much interesting happens this game as I item lock him until I'm ready to start taking prizes and spreading Munkidori damage. I do make a small mistake where when I'm using Mew Ex's Genome Hacking to blow up his Mewtwo, I load both extra psychic energies onto the same Munkidori and get surprised by a Sneasel and it's bench snipe attack. I take a bunch of prizes with Scream Tail and my Gardevoir is never under threat from Mewtwo's low damage cap.

Round 3

Mega Manectric W

I pair into a pretty new player playing a Mega Manectric deck. He bricks and I destroy him by wiping his Tynamo and Electrike over and over with Munkidori pings.

Round 4

Dengo W
Next I play against Dengo. She misses energy under item lock for a few too many turns and neglects to TM:Evo her Buneary before I can ping it down with Munkidoris under Frillish, effectively lost zoning it. Up a few prizes I convert into prize taking mode and close out the game.

Round 5

Dengo T
Another Dengo. After I recover from a turn 1 boss KO only Ralts, I did my best to throw this game, kind of haphazardly spreading out my Munkidori damage between a few bodies which isn't even good because of the existence of picnic basket. Eventually with him on his last prize but board filled with damage, I have to try and convert the board with Munkidoris. Unfortunately I've prized my 3rd Dark energy and am out of recovery so I need to pull it off the prizes. If I did this spread in a more focused manner mostly onto the Mega Lopunny, I think I could have taken all 6 prizes at once here, but I need too many pings to convert, miss the Dark off the Munkidori prizes I take and we tie.

Round 6

Gardevoir W

Win and in for cut, I hit Gardy mirror. I start slow with no supporter for a few turns but get into a Gardevoir and some Monkey Darks. My opponent benches a Shaymin but declines to make a second Munkidori so I slowly overwhelm their board with damage from my three Munkidoris and eventually get rid of both Gardy lines on a turn I Iono them low, then camp Ralts off the board.

Top 8

Alakazam WW
Game 1 I whiff my stadium bump to get rid of Battle Cage for like 3 straight turns at the end of the game but finally find it and wipe his whole family paired with an Iono.
Game 2 he chooses first and I item lock him with two monkeys and start taking Abras off the board. He surprises me with a Dudunsparce ex that I immediately explode with my Drifloon (maybe the only good thing this idiot did all day) while taking another Abra with double Adrena brain. This matchup was less weird than I remember.

Top 4

Dengo WLL
Game 1 he responds to my early Frillish with Mega Lopunny and I explode it with my Drifloon. I then kill a Dengo with cape Scream tail and take the last 1 with Miracle Force the next turn.
Game 2 I prize a bunch of energy and my secret box so I sit on a deadish hand for a few turns. I have a decent attempt near the end with a Mind Bend check but he reveals a Switch I wasn't ready for.
Game 3 we start with very little time (I am not super happy about 50m Bo3 in cut but that is not the reason I lost) and I unfortunately start Clefairy so I decide to just go for the prize race, swinging with back to back Drifloons. There's a random Frillish on my board during most of this game that should have been a Munkidori, and I don't have enough damage or an Iono to check him at the end of the game so I send this weak Frillish attempt to tie us up on prizes since we're in turns. He slams Fez + Genesect that he pulled off his last set of prizes and draws into enough energy to close. Hector correctly points out if I'd been using my 1 monkey trigger every turn more responsibly I could have set up win on my last turn but unfortunately I am a single celled organism and kept using it on the active before swinging for knockout.

All my friends abandoned me while I was playing in cut so I don't even get to eat dinner with friends. I get on my train and ride it home malding, typed this up malding, and will still probably be malding for a few more hours.

AHHHHHHHHHHH. Another Top 4, so I probably have to go to more cups this month.