This Pokemon is so weird man.
I went to Indy Regionals this weekend and did bad again with the same bad deck, who could have seen this coming?
I haven't been playing much at all since the LA disaster, I don't think I've attended a single standard local since rotation. I played an afternoon's worth of games on Beedrill but besides that the only Pokemon I played was like 3 nights of TCGmasters with Yihao on Starmie. Slay the Spire cross training obviously doesn't count for anything as much as I would like to cope that it does.
I don't know what's wrong with me right now to be honest, I just don't really have any desire to play standard so I just don't. On Wednesday this week I had some brief last second panic and TCGmastered some Zoroark but I could not figure out how to beat Slop/Bolt if they knew how to Sob, then I fully crashed out on Thursday night when Yihao kept drawing insanely hot regardless of which matchups we played. I tried some Toxtricity, that was as bad as expected, then I tinkered with a Froslass/Munkidori deck for an hour and didn't get anywhere, then I asked Blitzle about his Clefairy deck but he didn't seem super confident, so I just gave up and submitted Starmie again. Theory is I don't like playing the game so I want to try and end games very quickly, if I was a serious player/person I would have been playing Dragapult.
Looks kind of like FroslassIrl idk, I didn't test that much.
My ride to Indy is a Zoroark fangirl and tried for like 30 minutes to get me to switch to the new Zoroark/Froslass list but that deck looked harder than I was willing to first-time so I didn't really entertain it. We arrive in Indianapolis around dinner time, so after reclaiming my room from KK who is in the middle of his own preparation crashout, I retrieve Yihao and his roommate for a meal at the Old Spaghetti Factory. Yihao claims he's never had pasta before (what) and gets the most boring meat sauce spaghetti imaginable, then tells me it tastes "exactly like he thought it would". Sure man.
I walk back to the hotel through a dark bridge tunnel that smells like urine and find KK hunched over the desk tapping away at his laptop trying to learn the VGC format. I scroll on my phone for a bit, check my deck and sleeves, then go to bed. I wake up in the middle of the night like I always do when I'm stressed at tournaments and KK hasn't moved, still grinding Showdown games with the light on. I decide to just roll over and go back to sleep and wake up again at 6, scroll on my phone for an hour, then get hotel breakfast and walk to the venue.
Before I get into game recaps, I want to say that my pairings for this event were kind of egregious, but I probably deserved anything and everything that happened to me anyway.
Round 1
My opponent arrives just a few minutes before the round starts and sets up a camera and does a brief vlog intro. He shuffles for a while on camera, then offers me the deck to cut which I obviously decline because it would be extremely funny if he recorded himself stacking his deck.
My opponent flips over a Latias and we get started. I draw pretty well and get quickly into a Starmie, I Jetting Blow the Latias for 120 and use a Munkidori to KO his only Drakloak between turns with Froslass. He lines up a Fez + Unfair Stamp turn and then tries to play the stamp before I stop him and he instantly concedes.
In game 2 he sets up a lot better and I'm not able to evolve my Snorunt into MFroslass to respond to a dive. I still feel okay about my position but when I go to Secret Box my Energy Search is prized so I just scoop up my cards and go to game 3 because being behind against Dragapult doesn't seem super good for my deck.
I go first again but I miss the Starmie attack and he gets multiple Drakloaks evolved before I can do anything. I don't really draw any playable cards while he's building a very strong Pult board so I just clear the Dudunsparce off my board and pass with a lone Munkidori, telling him my win condition is he forgets to Phantom Dive for the rest of the game. He does not forget, I lose.
Round 2
My opponent tries to stunt my setup with his Watchtowers, but I use my four copies of Ruins to set up and run him over with Starmie, taking four quick prizes on his tiny basics. He concedes after he can't find his Unfair Stamp off Fez draw.
I draw a bit slower in game 2, but I think he mismanaged his energy attachments (there was a purple energy on a Blaziken) and he gets stuck with a Meowth in the active one turn and can't Phantom Dive so I just hit the Meowth for 120 and spread checkmate damage onto his bench.
Round 3
I know how I would like to play this matchup (MunkiLass), but I prize 2 of my 3 Snorunts and have to do Starmie stuff to try and fish the Runts out of the prizes. My Starmie lives for a turn longer than I had expected, and I eventually get to a spot with my Froslass ticks where if my opponent misses respawning his Meganium for one more turn I can win the game, but he has a stadium in his hand, Meowths for Dawn and gets the line back.
I go first (wrong?) and open Snorunt attach pass. He leaves an Ogerpon in the active for some reason so I'm at least able to take the KO with MFroslass, but he uses his next turn to hit me with Dipplin for 100? I'm not really sure how to progress the game here since KOing the active doesn't seem good enough so I go into my Mega Starmie to take out his Dipplin and damage his Bayleef, but he responds with full hand dump Meganium Hydrapple 500 energy KO and then I can't finish the game.
Round 4
My opponent draws a bunch of garbage and I win a quick one with Jetting Blow, then he can't play his hand down enough and gets run over by Mega Froslass one tapping his Lucario in game 2. I have checkmate on board and he tells me he's going to go play sides. Nice guy, ugly games.
Round 5
Do NOT look at my pairing for this round. Going second I'm a turn slow on the Starmie and have to bunch a bunch of low hp guys to try and sack into it with Dudunsparce, but even though I get to Jetting Blow the Munkidori and the Rellor the Unfair Stamp Phantom Dive cooks my board/hand and I lose.
I draw very poorly in game 2, I try to save the hand with a Dudunsparce draw but find some more useless energy cards. Three Drakloaks go up and I don't really have much I can do after my Starmie eats a Dive because I've prized Wally.
During one of these games I'm trying to decide what to do with the 50 from Jetting Blow and say "anywhere but Pult" but if I was actually locked in and understood the game I would probably have hit the Pult for 0 to deny Munkidori damage. Anyway I lose, consider dropping but I decide to continue playing to see if I can generate a truly horrendous record to file as anti Starmie evidence. We chat a bit about 2010 at the table and then again when I run into him a few minutes later at a table we are both interested in watching. Jumpluff?
Round 6
This matchup is usually pretty good because I can quickly take 3 prizes on little guys, then work through a Lopunny to end the game, as it's very hard for them to chain Wallys and stay out of MFroslass range while drawing cards and taking prizes. Unfortunately for me, my opponent's entire hand after his last two ultra balls is 3 copies of Wally which he plays back to back to back and I can't do anything about it.
I prize Mega Froslass and my copy of Wally in game 2 so I'm not able to win. 2-4 now, for anyone keeping track.
Round 7
The mirror is really stupid but it's extra stupid because I have Larry's Skill to neutralize their Mega Froslass. I KO their only Staryu on my second turn going first and then work through a bunch (3?) of Wallys while healing my Starmie with Munkidoris to win the game.
I prize Mega Froslass but have a slight lead in this game so I play until he KO's my Starmie with the second 210 attack before I concede.
Game 3, I prize the Mega Froslass again but I find it off the first few knockouts while keeping my hand small with Larrys. He tries to buy time to Wally by sleeping my Starmie with Ignition Energy Absolute Snow but I flip heads, attach Air Balloon and retreat to blow him up with Resentful Refrain.
Round 8
My opponent flips over a Cornerstone so I assume it's Crustle, also because there's a Crustle next to us, but it's actually Lucario and I avoid getting Solrock donked only because he prized both Solrocks. I evolve into Mega Starmie and pick off his Riolu with energy while setting up Munkidoris. I KO the Cornerstone the next turn and a Makuhita off the bench to protect my MFroslass. After he plays his hand down and KOs my Starmie with Mega Brave, I Lucian him to 6, Munkidori the Lucario below 300 HP and end the game.
In game 2 I have to set up a Froslass because my Ruins keep getting bumped by Watchtowers before I can get enough 20s to progress the game, so I'm super paranoid about my Snorunts being chased, but he just isn't able to play his hand down and gets cleaned up by Resentful Refrain and then Jetting Blow hitting his benched Meowth.
I sit and wait for my friends that are actually good at the game, then we go to a sports bar with a million TVs to watch the electric first half of Thunder-Spurs Game 7. The food was quite good too, they had a famous dipped sandwich that made me very sleepy. I walk through the urine scented tunnel again, find KK absolutely KO'd (probably because he didn't sleep at all the night before) and taking up the entire bed so I roll him over, watch the rest of the game, then go to sleep.
I wake up the next morning and shower before packing up my stuff and heading to the venue around 10. I play a few games of 2010 where I learn that I do not enjoy the Dusknoir deck, watch Blitzle win 1000 dollars, play a few more games of 2010, watch my friends absolutely butcher a Regidrago SSP format game, then get in the car and ride away from the awful state of Indiana.
I'm not going to NAIC and I don't have that many points so this is the end of my second season. The first half was fun even if I punted way too many match points but the post rotation segment made me pretty miserable so I'm not sure how much I'll be playing going forward. As always, thanks for reading, I'll try and find interesting stuff to write about eventually.
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