High Point, NC Battle Roads Report

Hey everyone so after going 1-3 in the first Battle Road with Groudon, Mewtwo, Terrakion NVI, Registeel I was really mad because the only other times this happened was when I went 0-3 and 1-4 at a prerelease. So I decided to redeem myself! I didn't even get to test until Sunday afternoon because I had to go somewhere where I entertained myself trying to beat Pokemon Silver (best...game...ever). On Monday I went to another Battle Road so before I give you the actual report let's take a look at what happened on the days before the tournament.

The Night Before
 
So the night before the tournament was just sitting back and testing what I think to be the best deck this early on which is Darkrai/ Hydriegon.

I played a few games with this deck against my friend Vinny with Ho-Oh and on the first game I made a strategy. I used Night Spear to sacrifice a Darkrai and hit a Terrakion for 70 and Ho-Oh for 30. Then I hit the Terrakion with another Night Spear and 30 to a benched Mewtwo. He then hit Darkrai for 100 and I retreated and used Dragonblast for the KO on a Ho-Oh. He then used another Rainbow Burn and I used Max Potion and hit a Catcher to get another KO on Mewtwo. He then got a Retaliate KO on a Darkrai while making the prizes 2-1 in my favor. I had a 1 card hand from N and it was a Dark Patch. So I got Bianca off of the topdeck and the last card was a Catcher. I used Catcher on Rufflet to Grand Flame for the win. In the other games I had the exact same routine. Use Darkrai and Entei to set up Dragonblast knockouts on the EX Pokemon while knocking out Terrakion at the same time. I won a bunch more this way and we decided to do one more game and he rolled me with a Mewtwo with about 8 energy.

The List
So knowing that I always do well with rogues (not recently), I played an interesting list with Entei to counter Terrakion and Potion to add to the healing power. I also knew that I could only lose to Mewtwo if I got a horrible start followed by a late Night Spear.

Pokemon-13
3x Darkrai
1x Entei
2x Sableye
3x Hydregon
1x Zwelious DRE 96
2x Deino NVI
1x Deino DRE 93

Trainers- 33
4x Professor Juniper
4x N
3x Bianca
2x Random Receiver

4x Pokemon Catcher
3x Dark Patch
3x Rare Candy
3x Ultra Ball
3x Max Potion
2x Potion
2x Level Ball
2x Eviolite

Energy-12
4x Blend GRPD
8x Darkness Energy

The Tournament
So it was a 30 minute drive and we were there! Better than the 1 hour we usually drive. So I see all of my friends there and get ready for round 1. The tournament has exactly 10 Seniors so 4 rounds and top 4 get points. If you don't know how the new season works go here: http://www.pokemon.com/us/play-pokemon/championship-series/championship-points/#structure

Round 1 vs. ??? (Zekrom, Eelektrik)
So in this round I got a horrible start but barely managed to get set up in time. I got a quick Hydreigon with Darkrai powered up but nothing after that. I do remember him knocking out Darkrai with Zekrom and me drawing into another Darkrai. I bench it, send up Hydreigon, and stall for a few turns with Max Potion. Then I hit an N and got the Blend Energy I needed to use Dragonblast to KO an active Mewtwo. He hits me for 100 and benches a Zekrom EX. Since I knew that I had discarded 1 Hydreigon and my last was prized I immediately used Catcher on Zekrom EX and just in the possibility that he runs Terrakion I use Grand Flame and he draws and passes. Because of this I know that I am in board control. I move the energy on to Darkrai and knock out Zekrom EX. I just took 4 prizes straight! He uses Bolt Strike to KO Sableye and I use Junk Hunt with another Sableye to get the Catcher. He uses Bolt Strike again to KO Sableye and I catcher up a Mewtwo with 30 on it and Dragonblast for game. A really great first game that in the beginning I thought I was going to lose.
1-0

Round 2 vs. Bruce (Registeel, Regigigas, Garbodor)
So he went to all 3 of the Tournaments this weekend and won the Sunday one. I get a horrible start and try to catcher up Garbodor and stall for a while but I also use Fire Fang to burn him while he uses a Potion to heal it off. I hit him for 90 trying to get him to flip tails going into my turn so that I have a miniature lock. He flips 5 heads and then going into his turn he flips tails which breaks my 'lock'. After that I know its game because he send out Registeel, catchers up Hydreigon, and uses Triple Laser to snipe the bench to win the match. All in all a bad game for me because of how much Darkrai/ Hydreigon hates Garbodor shutting off half of the deck. Combined with a strategy similar to troll, this game was just bad.
1-1
 

 So now was lunch break and me and my friend ate in like 10 minutes and traded a bunch of Darkrai and Groudon for a booster box and opened it! We pulled 4 EX cards which were Terrakion, Mew, Registeel, and Full Art Rayquaza! So probably the best lunch break ever.

Round 3 vs. Jake (Rayquaza, Rayquaza EX, Eelektrik)
I just feel bad for Jake in this game because he got a slow start combined with not hitting Switches when I used Catcher on Eelektrik. I did get a Night Spear on Rayquaza EX and hit an Eel for 30. He attaches an Eviolite and hits me for 120. I Juniper hoping for a Max Potion and miss it. I hit Ray for 70 and he knocks me out by doing 60. I hit a Catcher to bring up an Eel and take 3 prizes by using Night Spear. He can't do much and passes while I hit Catcher on Emolga to take 2 Prizes to get the win. It seems like every time me and Jake faces one of us wins and then next time we face the other wins. (It's weird)
2-1

Round 4 vs. Logan (Registeel, Blissey)
So I suddenly go blank and can't remember what he's playing and get a little nervous. When he flips over a Registeel it all comes back to me. Logan is a good player but when he has a deck like this up against my deck going second it just isn't a real game at all. So I was overjoyed when I got to go first because this was the first time I have gone first all weekend. I use an Ultra Ball and Level Ball to get Deino and Entei and attached a Dark to Sableye. I also get Dark Patch on to Darkrai and use Junk Hunt. This game was fairly easy because of the deck he was playing and I kept using Grand Flame to win. So I knew there was going to be 1 3-1 that didn't get points so I was nervous until standings came up.
3-1

So when standing came up I got 4th which gave me 10 points. Yay! Only 1/40 of the way to Worlds. So I was satisfied with the way my tournament went and my friend went 1-3 so not so good for him. I'm going to 1 or 2 Battle Roads next weekend and hope to win a few. I wouldn't change my deck any considering Entei helped me have an auto-win for 1 game and helped me play it safe in my other games. Also in a testing game I was being such a troll! My opponent used Volt Bolt on a Darkrai and then I used Potion on him. After that he used Volt Bolt again on Darkrai and I hit a Max Potion to heal 170 damage which really hurt him. See you in my next article.



-Troll