Intro
I was able to compete in the first regional of the 2027 season in Baltimore and had a good run at it. I decided to write a tournament report to reflect on my good plays, my misplays, and things I would do differently. Hopefully seeing how I break down my performance can help others reflect on their own run, by recognizing room to grow but also being proud of their achievements.
Predicated Meta Game
World’s 2026 definitely shook up the meta heading into Baltimore. While it wouldn’t be an exact prediction for Baltimore, a few key shifts were present: The rise of Alakazam, the fall of Festival Lead, and Hedrick’s sixty becoming the undisputed best way to play straight Dragapult. Other noticeable changes included Excadrill flopping, Zoroark and Slowking with lower finishes than expected, and Crustle sneaking into cut. With these shifts in mind, I wanted to play a deck that could take advantage of this shift.
Deck Choice/List
Whenever I prepare for regionals, I try to lock in my list as early as possible. I want to know my sixty front and back, be able to play to my outs at any given point in the game, and just feel comfortable with how the list runs. Before Worlds, my top three choices were Hide and Sneak, Slowking, and Hydrapple. Hide and Sneak did not seem like a bad choice on paper, but in person, I bricked more often than I got to play the game and I knew I didn’t want my regional run to be decided by that. The rise of Alakazam directly correlates with the fall of Slowking, since that match up is highly favored for Zam and Slowking into Pult can be iffy as well, I decided it wasn’t the play for me.
As for Hydrapple, my sister decided she wanted to play it before she left for UNCW for the semester so I gave her all the cards needed for the deck and I did not want to find extra copies to build another one within two weeks. So taking some inspiration from Henry Chao’s Worlds list, Justin Newdorff’s NAIC list, and adding my own touch I settled on my final sixty about a week and a half before the event.
I didn’t want to commit to four hammers because I feel like four hammers aren’t really needed. One crucial heads when it matters was usually all that’s needed to flip the game, playing two hammers should statistically equal the one heads per game so I was fine with it. During one of my test games where I failed to get multiple drakloak on the board, I looked at my hand of Rosa’s and Dragapult ex and thought “rare candy would go so hard here”, so I added it and I suddenly was able to come back and win so many more games. Swapping second Crispin for Judge was my last change and finally made the list feel cohesive. For reference, I fell back to the low 1500s on ladder while testing for Baltimore and after I adjusted to my final list I was able to get to the mid 1800s within a few days.
The winner of the tournament had made a video about hitting 2000 elo on the ladder a few days before the tournament, which is a very good argument for using the ladder as valuable practice.
Tournament Prep
One aspect of tournament prep that gets overlooked is knowing the “skeleton list” of all the popular archetypes. What this means is if my opponent flips over dreepy and plays a crushing hammer, I should know about 52-55 cards from their list just from knowing the archetype alone. Now, the top players are always trying to find the best 60, so it is hard to pinpoint the exact best 60 for every event, but you can only innovate pult so much at this point. But the easiest way to practice this skill is to watch a handful of tier lists videos, find the top ten decks or so that are being consistently placed in the B tier or higher and study the best lists off of limitless from the most recent in person tournaments.
This way you can see the most popular builds and the popular techs and adjust your list and strategy accordingly. You can also assume your opponent has done a similar study on skeleton lists and use that logic against them. This idea alone was enough to keep rare candies in my list, my opponent would assume I didn’t play it and I could take advantage of that for at least one game each round. I still was shaky in the mirror at times, but between hammers, candy, and judge, I was able to “scam” mirrors a good amount of the time. Walking into the room, I knew if I could dodge the mirror enough, I could have a good run.
Round Breakdowns
I was blinding first, I know Pult should go second, but going first into so many matchups in theory gives me the edge that I decided to risk it. I will gloss over games that were incredibly one sided while I will dive deeper on more interesting games and board states. The rounds with the most detailed turn-by-turn breakdowns and board states are rounds 5 and 8.
R1: Pult/Blaziken LL 1st/1st
Historically, I don’t do so great in the first round. I get nervous and typically make some misplays that I don’t typically make. I win the flip and choose first and my opponent flips over a dreepy while I start duskull, what a lovely start to my morning. My morning gets worse when I discover my lone budew is prized, which means that I have to get double dreepy off poffin, pad for drakloak, and hope for the best next turn. They set up dreepy and budew, play Meowth for Lillie’s, benches a torchic, and retreats into budew. Now knowing that I’m up against the Blaziken version, my confidence has dropped. This version is the worst one for pultnoir because there is so much energy acceleration and they can go faster with rare candies especially when they are not item locked.
My opponent was being pretty passive and we were both able to set up decently well. I eventually took the first knockout with pult, but was not confident in my position. I was immediately stamped into a decent hand. I had Lillie’s for next turn and they took out a benched dreepy that had damage on it so I could use fez if I found it. I recovered as best I could and I wasn’t out of it yet. I had a small line where I could get back in the game with rosa’s and adrena brain because my opponent attacked again with the damaged dragapult and healed the wrong pokemon with munkidori. I could take three prize cards but I would still need boss for game the next turn.
I whiffed the ideal play and instead went into a jet headbutt knockout on the active and played red card. My opponent needed boss for game and had already discarded two so I was hoping to get lucky, but they had boss for game with a blaziken knockout. Game two was a none game, I started Fez, attached an energy and passed. I got item locked and drew buddy poffin for turn to add insult to injury. I didn’t get to play the game and ended up scooping in about 5 turns or so. I didn’t let the first round get to me though, there was a bit of bad luck in game two and there were a lot more games to be played.
R2: Crustle WW 1st/1st
I got sent to the depths of hell at the 2000 tables for this round. My opponent dropped a card from his deck while shuffling, I didn’t see it but he went, “Oh no, my Kangaskhan!” So I was able to narrow his deck down to slop box, slowking, or crustle and I was happy with all those options. I had a mulligan that revealed a regular dragapult hand with no indication of the ghosts. He started Kangaskan and I started dreepy. I played poffin to get ghosts and he immediately slumped down in his seat. Crustle is about a 90/10 match up and the games played out that way. I watched Henry Chao’s recap video from worlds and he explained that cursed blast and attack with dragon headbutt on drakloak is better than attacking with dusknoir so I used that strategy to take out his first crustle and then I was able to hammer off mist, play jamming tower, curse blast to take out the second crustle a couple of turns later.
He scooped and game 2 played out a bit differently. I prized my dusknoir and my opponent whiffed dwebble for a few turns so they started loading up the Kangaskhan. I whiffed pult and energy to win the game when he had lone Kangaskhan and I had double dusclops set up. He found second kangaskhan next turn and attached mist energy to that one. I was able to piece together double cursed blast, phantom dive to take out the kangakhan next turn and hammer off the mist to spread damage. He then benched dwebble, switched into and used ascension. I attached energy to drakloak and phantom dive to spread damage to the kangaskhan. I used Dawn to get Meowth for boss next turn and my opponent conceded.
This game was a nice confidence booster where I knew my lines and executed my strategy well.
R3: Grimmsnarl LL 1st/1st
Clearly Grimmothy took our breakup a bit hard and he got his revenge. I won the coin flip, chose first, and started duskull. My opponent started munki so I assumed it was the mirror. I got double dreepy and budew down and passed. My opponent played Gwynn discarding a munki and snorunt and the irony of the situation hit me square in the face. For those who don’t know, I played only Grimmsnarl for about a year straight with good placements, including a top 128 at a regional, so having it as an autoloss and actually hitting it when it was less than 2% of the room was kinda funny. I tried my best to win game one and I was one turn off from being able to do it.
I had five prizes left, and could take four prizes during my turn and all my opponent would need was boss for game, because they already had a backup Grimm on board, which they were able to find off the red card. Game 2 played out similarly where they had access to spikemuth and were able to get set up under item locked. I ended up scooping after it was clear I couldn’t make a comeback. I think it’s valid to scoop a game early when you are in a bad position in a losing set. It gave me more time to reset my mental before the next game and I don’t particularly care to waste mine or my opponent’s time when I know I can’t win.
R4: Crustle WW 1st/1st
These games were incredibly one sided and played out very similarly to my round 2 games where I was able to use dragon headbutt, plus cursed blast to take out the crustles. The most notable thing about this match was that it was the most fun game of pokemon I’ve played at a regional ever. My opponent was very good natured and hilarious. He even said if you’re gonna play a deck like crustle you can’t take it too seriously because of the match up roulette. He made a joke to one of the judges saying his opponent was too goated and had the nuts and the judge responded you could always eat one of her cards and then ask for a deck check afterwards.
I was about to play crushing hammer and he went 3, I said what? And he responded it’s gonna be a three, I was like Bet. I rolled, it was a three, we both threw our hands up and went whooo! We had such a great time that even other players around us said that they had fun watching us have fun. All this to say that while regionals are a competitive environment, you should still have fun and enjoy playing the game with other people who also enjoy the game. This was a great game to help reset my mental and a good reminder that it’s a game and should be fun.
R5: Slop box WLW 2nd/2nd/1st
This match up is pretty even, I believe pultnoir might have a better match up than straight pult, but it’s probably pretty close to 55/45 matchup. Game 1 my opponent goes first and starts wellspring Ogrepon while I start dreepy. She attaches water, benches teal mask, draws a card and passes. I start with crushing hammer to get rid of the water. This was a crucial heads because most lists only play one water energy meaning as long as I kept up item lock, my opponent could not torrential pump. I open double poffin to get Dreepy, budew, and double duskull to be aggressive. I played Lillie’s, attached energy to retreat, and went into itchy pollen. My opponent played cyrano to grab kang, latias and meowth.
She retreated into kang to draw two, attached to the wellspring ogerpon and passed. I set up my board more by evolving into dusclops and drakloaks, attached energy and itchy pollened. My opponent ran errand, benched bolt, played Crispin to attach two energy to bolt, then retreated and sob locked the budew. That was a bit annoying but I played judge for some disruption, attached to the other drakloak, benched a Dreepy and prepared for next turn. With no liability pokemon on the bench and with everything except budew being able to evolve, I was in a good position. My opponent made a few actions and ultimately took the knock out on budew with sob. My turn plays out ok, I hit unfair stamp, but whiff on dusknoir.
I don’t necessarily need the dusknoir this turn, I can take two prizes this turn and then four prizes next turn as long as they bench Clefairy or Meowth, but considering their ace spec is likely unfair stamp, I wanted it on board and ready. I knockout the wellspring ogrepon and spread damage to latias, teal mask, and bolt. They whiff disruption, and bench Meowth and Clefairy to power up the Clefairy with Crispin to take the knockout. I responded with dusknoir onto Meowth and was able to use Rosa’s to power up the second pult to take the win. One misplay from my opponent that we talked about while setting up for game two was taking the knockout with sob instead of the bolt who had two energy and was full HP.
Attacking with that would have forced me to use a ghost to kill it and set up another ghost to take a four prize turn the following turn. Game two was a very interesting game where I managed to make a big comeback after a horrendous start. I also made my funniest play of the tournament during this game. I start Meowth, with a pretty poor hand of Judge, Boss, Ultra Ball, an energy and a couple night stretchers. Luckily my opponent had a slower turn by starting wellspring, attaching energy to it, benching a bolt, and passing. My top deck was another energy, I played ultra ball, discarding a boss and energy to grab a dreepy, attached energy to Meowth, and played Judge.
My hand was three supporters, one was a Lillie’s for the next turn, and a night stretcher, so I passed with the Meowth in the active. My opponent drew for turn and immediately played Crispin to attach to wellspring mask and used torrential pump to knockout dreepy and damage Meowth.
I actually did not mind this play for a few reasons: They are taking one prize and the likelihood of them being able to do that again next turn when their board is just wellspring and bolt was very low. At this point, I know my best line is to not go into itchy pollen and instead focus on cleaning up my board by getting Meowth off the board. I top deck energy for turn, attached to Meowth, recovered the dreepy with stretcher and played Lillie’s. I did not find stamp from here, but I don’t think I needed it as my opponent had five cards and a weak board state, so it was better saved for a later turn anyway.
I was able to get multiple dreepy and double duskull on the bench and had a solid hand for the next turn. My opponent played Lillie’s for turn, which was honestly best case scenario for me, no energy acceleration from Crispin and no Cyrano to set up was giving me the time to recover. They did not find much off the Lillie’s, they found teal mask and used teal dance but ended up passing.
I was excited because that meant I could remove the cat from my board which would disrupt my opponent’s prize map while allowing me the chance to use two cursed blasts during the game. I attached to Meowth, played Lillie’s and was able to get drakloaks and both dusclops on board. I benched an extra dreepy and used tuck tail to damage the wellspring ogrepon and promoted the dreepy. I somehow managed to get back to a decent position after my rough start so I was pleased that I was able to find a line to actually play the game.
My opponent was able to find some pokemon to start filling up their bench and ended up using Crispin to power up a Clefairy to take the knockout on dreepy, taking them to four prize cards left.
I played out my turn, used stamp, but unfortunately missed a way to announce phantom dive. I passed with drakloak in the active, one on the bench, and two benched clops.
My opponent played a Crispin to power up Bolt and retreated and took the knock out with bolt.
I made a risky play here to stay in the game, I wanted to clear my board and have my opponent have to take out my pult to win the game. They had two energy on teal mask, so they could likely knock out something that wasn’t pult if I put it in play. Considering they were down three Crispin, I was pretty confident it would buy me a turn, but I wasn’t sure if I would be able to close the game out the next turn. I popped dusclops on the active and dusknoir on the benched Clefairy which left my opponent with one prize left and I took a four prize turn.
I needed Boss for game, but neither it or ultra ball were in my hand. My opponent stamped me into Dawn and Rosa’s and they were able to piece together a kangaskhan attack with glass trumpet, energy switch, and turn attachment. She flipped tails and was like show me boss and I was like you stamped me with no draw on board, I’m not THAT lucky as I showed her my hand when I top decked energy for turn. I think I played that game the best I could and it was probably my best played game of the tournament.
We had over twenty minutes left for a game 3, so time was not a factor for us. I got to go first, starting budew and double poffin to get double dreepy and double duskull set up and passed. My opponent started Kangakhan, used run errand and was able to get a few pokemon down on her bench including wellspring ogrepon and Meowth to grab Crispin. She played Crispin and purposely put the water energy to hand, attaching a different type of energy and avoiding the play from Game 1 that was key in me avoiding a detrimental torrential pump. It was a good play because I flipped heads on hammer to start my turn. I played Lillie’s for turn and was able to end my turn with energy on a drakloak, two drakloak, one dusclops, one duskull and one dreepy on board and item locked my opponent.
I was a bit concerned about a crispin play here to take out my dusclops. Depending on the board state, I usually need to announce cursed blast twice to win the match up and if they take out the clops, I’m not sure I would have time to set up a second one. My opponent attached an energy to wellspring and played Lillie’s for turn. They retreated and sobbed my budew. I’m still in a sketchy situation so I decided now was a good time for Judge. I split my energy between drakloaks, but the second clops is prized and I don’t find dusknoir. I item lock again and the disruption worked, my opponent just used sob for the knockout.
I was able to respond with unfair stamp, found pult, energy, and rare candy into dusknoir. I decided to not use dusknoir and just take the two prizes off wellspring and spread six to Meowth. I do think this is a misplay, I should have used Dusknoir to take the four prize turn here because my opponent could possibly go wide with area zero and then use chein pao to clean up her board on the same turn. Granted, an area zero had not been played the whole set and I played unfair stamp so the likelihood that she could pull that off and have a knockout on my pult with little energy in play was very low. She does manage to knockout my pult with enamarous after benching Clefairy and making a double energy switch after accelerating psychic with glass trumpet to the kangakhan.
I was able to piece together the boss on clefairy, reestablish another pult and use dusknoir to take my last four prize cards. My opponent called out my misplay after the game but mentioned they prized chein pao so they could not have made that play anyway. These were really good games where I was able to capitalize on my opponent’s misplays and keep my misplays to a minimum.
Rd 6: Honchkrow LWW 2nd/1st/2nd
I had fun playing this round. My opponent was an older man who was at his second regional. He went to Pittsburgh last year, but got overwhelmed and dropped, so he was happy he was having a better time this tournament. He placed his deck on the table face-up and I saw an archer so I knew it was either Mewtwo or Honchkrow and I felt pretty confident into both match ups. It turned out to be Honchkrow. I may have gotten a bit overconfident in game 1 and misplayed by using the dusknoirs to take out both articunos instead of focusing on the attackers in the late game. My opponent was able to take two early prizes, first one with a giovanni on a dreepy and then knocking out the budew the next turn.
I responded with the double dusknoir pop, into stamp and a phantom dive to go to three prizes while my opponent was at two with two cards in hand and two murkrow on board. I don’t use this phrase lightly, but when I say my opponent “hit the nuts”, it was absolutely insane. He drew for turn, evolved into honchkrow, and played Ariana to draw seven cards. I was thinking, ok that’s pretty good. He attached energy to active, played team rocket’s factory to draw two more, and then benched fez to draw three more cards. At this point, I was thinking, ok that’s REALLY good. He then played pokegear, found a supporter from it, played roto stick, found another supporter, then played transceiver for yet another supporter.
I knew I had to be cooked, but I needed to see all six supporters to believe it. He announced the attack and showed me six supporters and I couldn’t even be upset about it. I was like, “You actually got there, that’s awesome, I’ll go first.” Game two was over pretty quickly, he whiffed turn one proton and struggled to find more pokemon under item lock. Once he took the first knock out, I used dusknoir to take out his articuno, unfair stamped him and then knocked out the active honchkrow with phantom dive. He couldn’t get back into the game after that. He went with a hail mary torment, but I responded with adrena-brain, jet headbutt to knock out his last pokemon.
He was astonished that we were going into game three with 20 minutes left and could actually finish the game. I responded that I try to play fast and not take too long on my actions so games can finish in the 50 minute time limit. Game 3 he went first, found Proton, and was able to get a decent set up with energy and rocket’s factory draw. I hit heads on hammer, played Meowth to get Lillie’s, and item locked my opponent. My opponent responded with a Giovanni KO on Meowth using ignition energy. I found stamp and was able to progress my board state. My opponent was able to get the knockout on my budew, but their board was Honchkrow in active, one murkrow, and two articuno on the bench.
I managed to find dusknoir to take out the benched murkrow, recovered the duskull to keep the pressure on and used phantom dive to take out the honchkrow leaving them with no attacker. He was able to get a murkrow back on the board but had to pass. I went rare candy dusknoir to knock out the murkrow, played judge, and knocked out the articuno, which put me down to two prizes left and him down to one. My opponent benched a murkrow and passed, I played Meowth for boss to guarantee that another attacker doesn’t hit the board and my opponent conceded. My opponent said he had a lot of fun playing with me and I was a lot more fun than the other pult players he hit.
I told him some pult players take themselves too seriously. As I was telling him this, the pult player beside us crashed out after losing to the Zoroark match up. Please do not snap at your opponent over deck choice or the match up, players can play any standard legal deck they would like and they do not control who they play against.
Rd 7: Alakazam/Dundunsparce WW 2nd/2nd
These games were very one sided and I don’t have much to say about this match up. I’m not sure if my opponent just did not play the genesect, but they never had it on board before they took the first knock out and I could respond with unfair stamp. One thing to note from this round, is that my opponent played psyduck which can make the match up kinda weird. They had a slow start game one so I didn’t need the ghosts to board wipe and then in game two, they either prized it or chose to bench dunsparce instead of the duck and I was able to board wipe them and stamp them on the same turn.
Rd 8: Dragapult Hammers WT 1st/1st
I will admit, I was feeling pretty good going into this round. I did not claw back from 1-2 to not make day 2. I got to my table and everyone around us was ID’ing so I asked my opponent if she wanted to ID and she responded with depends, do you want to tell me what you’re playing? I made a face and was like I can after you agree to the ID. She was like we can play then. It is always ok if your opponent does not want to ID, but it is not ok to try and get information from your opponent to decide to ID or not as some kind of power play. I wasn’t annoyed at having to play but more about how my opponent went about it, so naturally I was determined to win.
I made my best play of the tournament this game to make an insane comeback so please enjoy this dramatic retelling. I won the flip and decided to go first. I had a strong feeling this was either the mirror or crustle and it turned out to be hammer pult. My opening hand is kinda bad, I start Fez, poffin for dreepy and duskull because I have clops in hand, attached to Fez, and passed. My best out here is to try and go for an early Fez snipe. At least that was my out until my opponent flipped heads on a hammer. My opponent had started budew, played poffin for double dreepy, benched and attached to their fez, benched Meowth for Lillie’s, benched one more dreepy and item locked me.
I evolved into clops and played Lillie’s to hit absolutely nothing. I decided to pop the clops on the budew, which in hindsight was a bit aggressive, but I had nothing else and my hand could not get worse so I went for it. I attached to the Fez and passed. My opponent immediately went into Crispin to the Fez, hammered off my energy again, evolved into double drakloak, flipped the script, AND unfair stamped me! She recon’d twice before announcing cruel arrow on my lone dreepy. But, hope is not lost because I got stamped into MY stamp!
I played the stamp, benched a dreepy, played Lillie’s, played poffin for dreepy and budew, stretchered for my third dreepy, attached to fez and item locked my opponent.
My opponent did not find much off their two recons, they played down risky ruins, bossed Fez, and sniped another dreepy, putting them at three prizes. Now here’s where I start to see my line. I drew every card I could before I started to put the pieces together. I benched munki to take the damage and attached dark energy to it before bumping the stadium. I had Ultra ball for Meowth in hand for the next turn for Rosa’s. I could retreat next turn with energy attachment for turn but I needed to move the two damage to one of the drakloaks this turn, so that I could move the one I had on the Fez to the same drakloak the next turn to take it out with the damage counters from phantom dive.
I had rare candy in hand, but I found it after I had evolved into double drakloak so I could not go into pult this turn, but I could get into dusknoir next turn. I decided to poffin for the duskull. I bossed the Meowth and passed.
All the decisions I made during this turn relied on my opponent playing optimally under the assumption I was not running rare candy in my list. From her body language and her last turn I could tell her hand was not great, but she was still confident she was going to win. The boss for disruption would make her prioritize finding an energy to retreat to still keep up the aggression and it made it impossible for a phantom dive to be announced next turn. The strongest bet I took in choosing not to item lock was that she would not find pult. If she found pult, my line was dead and I had no chance of a comeback. My line was also dead if she decided to snipe the duskull or the damaged munki, I avoided the munki line by purposely healing the damage from it this turn and not the fez.
Since my opponent assumed I was not playing rare candy, taking out another drakloak was the best play, if she knew I had candy, taking out the duskull is the best play. I held my breath as she played out her turn, she found the energy to retreat, did not evolve the drakloak, and sniped one of my drakloaks just as I predicted. I was so excited as I played out my cards for turn. I drew all I could, evolved into pult, played Meowth for Rosa’s and attached to Fez for turn. I ultra balled for dusknoir and evolved it with rare candy, and it was at this moment my opponent started to look panicked and wrote what I’m sure was “RARE CANDY” in her notebook.
I then moved the one from my fez to the drakloak putting it at 60 HP, I cursed blasted the other drakloak, and phantom dived to knock out the Fez and drakloak to put myself at 2 prizes left and leaving her with a board of dreepy and Meowth. I must admit I was very proud of myself for that play and knew that I had put my opponent in a tough spot. She promoted dreepy, evolved it, used its ability, and stretchered for Fez. She finally hits tail on a hammer and plays Lillie’s. I get red carded, she retreats into fez and passes. I look down and realize I have no draw on board and no boss in hand, so I played Lillie’s, got boss for next turn, attached to pult, retreated into budew and item locked my opponent.
She drew for turn, used recon, started shaking her head, and finally conceded.
I saw that we had thirty minutes left in the round and decided to reoffer the ID because it was ridiculously hot at the tables and I wanted a break before Day 2 started, she thought about it and said no, I’d rather play, we might naturally tie and I was like cool. I went first again, we both start munki, I make the stupid “it’s like looking in a mirror” joke as I played poffin for double dreepy. My hand is weak with pult, boss, stamp, couple of energies and pad. I attached active, played pad for drakloak, and passed. My opponent went right for hammer to remove the energy and then played Crispin, which made me do a double take at the board and start to think of how I can take advantage of this situation.
She was then like I’ll take that ID now if you are still offering. I laughed and said hold up now, wait a second! My hand was still pretty weak and I had no guarantee I could get into something good next turn. But, I ultimately decided I was feeling a bit generous, and who’s to say she couldn’t make a big comeback like I did in the last game, so I agreed to the ID. I think the lesson to learn here is to keep your ego in check, your opponent can make the “impossible” play happen, and playing like your opponent is already out of the game is one of the worst disservices you can do to yourself while playing.
I’m guilty of it too for my round 6 game 1, I played like my opponent would never be able to get everything he needed to and got punished for it. Regardless, I locked up my spot in Day 2 and took a break to celebrate with friends before the final round of the day.
Rd 9: Greninja/Dusknoir/Mega Starmie WW 2nd/2nd
My opponent’s deck was a pile and a half, but it was fun to think on my feet and learn the match up on the fly. We both started duskull, which led me to believe it was the mirror. This was my opponent’s first day two and he was excited to be here. He played poffin and started to mumble about awful prizes while doing his search. He benched froakie and another duskull and made another comment about prizes. I advise against making these types of comments because they give your opponents information to use against you, you already have terrible prizes, no need to give your opponent that information. I had no clue what his list was at the time, but from my very limited experience with greninja/dusknoir decks, I concluded that either ignition energies were prized or dusknoir was prized.
My opponent benched another froakie and ended his turn. I drew for turn, played double poffin to set up, played Lillie’s and ended with an itchy pollen. While I was fairly confident my call out on the energy was correct, I was still concerned about a bench snipe next turn with some grand tree shenanigans. My opponent evolved into frogadier and played Lillie’s for turn. They evolved into a dusclops on the bench and passed. I played Lillie’s for turn and was hoping to get a rare candy to protect one of my dreepys, but could not find it. I did get multiple drakloaks and one clops set up and item locked again. He does take a knockout this turn with tera Greninja using its first attack, so I was able to dodge a snipe attack.
I responded with rare candy dusknoir, a dragapult ready to attack, and unfair stamp. I got the knockout on the active and spread damage to the froakie on the bench, leaving my opponent with only a damaged froakie and dusclops on the board. My opponent played Lillie’s and was able to find grand tree to get into a greninja, but he did not have the right energy to attack so he conceded. For game two, my opponent went first, started duskull, and opened double poffin. He benched Starmie, double Froakie, and another duskull. This game was overall uneventful, I was able to find stamp after Mega Starmie was used to take the first knockout and also used hammer to knock off the one energy on board and swung the momentum back in my favor.
My opponent was never really able to get back in the game at this point and I made a board wipe play with dusknoir a couple of turns later. It was an interesting deck, but it struggled to set up both games, and I was able to disrupt after the early knockout in both games. I ended the day 6-2-1 and felt good going into Sunday.
Rd10: Slowking WLL 2nd/2nd/1st
This was my one loss of the tournament where I think I could’ve won it if I had played a bit better in game 2 and if I knew the crispin/munkidori/drapion build better. I knew what my opponent was playing because I actually sat beside him round 9 and recognized the absurd amount of the terapagos UPC chunky dice he had. I was not playing shaymin, but I knew my lines into slowking, which are to keep the low HP guys to a minimum and charge up the fez. In Game 1, I was able to keep to this strategy pretty well, but I benched one too many little guys. My board was budew in the active, fez, two dreepy and a duskull.
I hit heads on a hammer so I had one turn to evolve up and I was able to hit rare candy dragapult to protect my board a little bit better. It also created an interesting board state that made my opponent choose between a trifrost or sniping the fez with the zerora attack. My opponent ultimately chose to snipe the fez which I believe is a misplay, I think they should have taken the opportunity to take the three prizes, one of which would be my dusclops. I responded with night stretcher for the fez, unfair stamp, dusknoir, but I whiffed the energy acceleration and had to go with itchy pollen. My opponent played ciphermaniac’s and passed so I used cursed blast on the benched slowking, played watchtower and judge.
I knocked out the active and spread damage to the latias and benched slowpoke. My opponent attached telepathic to slowpoke to get Clefairy and munkidori, played double wondrous patch on the clefairy and swung for knockout. I responded with rare candy dragapult into Rosa’s to knockout Clefairy and slowpoke. My opponent then used primecatcher to gust up a duskull that I benched last turn and brought up his munki. He attached dark and passed. I was able to retreat and take the last prize. I pulled the win out but it was more on account of my opponent’s early misplay rather than me making great plays. I don’t recall much about board states from Game 2, but I do remember losing to another double wondrous patch Clefairy.
I used two cursed blasts which meant my opponent would only need to take out two pults to win the game and I don’t think I made that realization before I decided to use them for a non-game winning play. Game 3 I had a rough start, I started budew, played poffin for double dreepy, and benched a duskull from hand. I had no out to a supporter, besides boss for next turn, and no ultra ball to start setting up fez. My opponent has a very slow turn with just slow poke and munkidori on the field. He attached boomerang energy and passed. I hammered off the energy, evolved into drakloak and found a night stretcher off the choices.
I used budew to end my turn. My opponent attached dark energy to munki and passed. I reconned into another drakloak and off the next drakloak, the choices were buddy-buddy poffin and stamp. I had to choose stamp, but I was not feeling good for next turn. My opponent evolved into slowking, played Crispin, put down academy at night, and used it to use trifrost, knocking out both drakloaks and budew. I played stretcher and then unfair stamp. I was able to get set back up, but I was so far behind and I would have to use cursed blast to get pult into the active at some point. The unfair stamp worked, my opponent went draw pass for three turns, but it ultimately did not matter.
I used cursed blast to take out the benched slow poke and knocked out the active. My opponent responded with ciphers to set up clefairy to take the last two prizes. My gameplay this round was not ideal because I didn’t really know what I needed to play around in this build of slowking.
Rd 11: Alakazam Dusknoir WW 1st/2nd
These were incredibly one sided games. Game one I had a pretty good play after my opponent used kadabra’s attack to knock out the budew, where I went rare candy, stamp, dusclops onto one benched abra and wiped out all the potential attackers in one turn. Game two, my opponent went draw pass for 3 turns and struggled to get into the game and I had a similar board wipe play.
Rd12: Pultnoir WLW 1st/1st/1st
Game 1 was pretty favored for me where Dawn was the MVP for getting my munkidori, dusclops, and dusknoir under item lock to complete a strong board wipe play. Game 2 I flipped tails on a crucial hammer that would have prevented my opponent from playing boss for turn to win the game. They only had fez on board for draw, found stamp off fez, and found boss off stamp. Game 3 my opponent made quite a few egregious errors. My opponent started moltres and I started budew, benched duskull, and passed. I had an energy in hand and thought about attaching to the duskull because my opponent could knock out my budew, but if they did choose that over their own item lock it would be a big misplay, so I chose to hold the energy.
My opponent played poffin for Dreepy and duskull, benched Meowth for Lillie’s, played Lillie’s, benched Fez and budew, but he attached fire to Moltres and chose to take the knockout instead of retreating to budew. This was my best case scenario and I intended to capitalize on his misplay. I attached to duskull, night stretchered for budew, and played Lillie’s. I found fez and buddy poffin for double Dreepy and I also hit unfair stamp. I played stamp and used flip the script to hit rare candy dusknoir. I also hit hammer heads to knock off the fire energy. This may have been a bit greedy of me and I probably could have waited another turn, but I decided to curse blast the lone Dreepy, benched another duskull, and promoted budew to item lock.
This allowed my opponent to see five more cards, 1 for turn, 1 prize plus 3 off fez, but I was confident with the item lock, my opponent most likely would not find another Dreepy and even if they did, it would be one at maximum based on how his board was set up. My opponent attached psychic for turn to Moltres before flipping the script, then played Crispin to attach fire energy to Moltres and knocked out the budew again. I think my opponent struggled with knowing how he wanted to end his turn which led to the awkward budew bench with no item lock turn 1 and the two energy Moltres attack in turn 2. Also, make sure to draw all the cards you can before making actions if you don’t already have a supporter in hand you know that you want to play.
If my opponent had chosen to use fez before attaching psychic energy, he could have attached an energy to fez to threaten a cruel arrow later. Even though my board appeared weak on turn one, you have to play like pult can always make a comeback, so in my opinion, always go with the item lock over the easy prize card. I was able to go rare candy, dragapult, Crispin, found red card, evolved into dusclops, and attacked to knock out the Moltres and duskull. My opponent was not able to get back in the game and I was able to win the next turn. I think I made pretty good plays this round, but capitalizing on my opponent’s misplays was what sealed my win here.
Rd13: Team Rocket’s Mewtwo WW 1st/1st
I need someone to run the odds of hitting a local at the biggest regional ever because it actually happened when I had to play Dick. My opponent had a very unfortunate non-game for game 1 where he had the energy to attack with mewtwo on his second turn, but not enough benched pokemon to attack. I was able to set up and board wipe for the win. Game 2 was a better game, I started budew and set up double Dreepy and double duskull. My opponent got down three spiders and an articuno and played Lillie’s for turn. They got a couple of energy in the discard pile and passed. I was able to start evolving into drakloaks and a dusclops and ended my turn with item lock.
My opponent progressed their board by evolving the active and one of the benched spiders into spidops, used double charging up and took the knock out on Budew. I responded with unfair stamp and got the pieces I needed for a pult attack. I also found dusknoir to take out the benched spidops, I used night stretcher to recover dusclops and take out the benched tarantoula, and knocked out the active leaving my opponent with a lone articuno and leaving myself with three prizes. My opponent was able to recover and get some more pokemon in play including 2 baby spiders, an articuno, a Mewtwo and mimikyu. They attached an energy to Mewtwo and passed. I played Lillie’s for turn and made a very risky play here.
I decided to bench a duskull because I had taken the second dusclops out of the prizes so I could more likely take the win next turn, however this would open me up to the game losing play of mimikyu copying phantom dive with clefairy on the board to take three prizes. I was ok with this risk because there was still plenty of time for game three and I was very comfortable with the match up and I wasn’t confident my opponent could make the combo anyway. I knocked out the active articuno to go down to two prizes. My opponent whiffed the combo, but they decided to promote the benched spidops to the active instead of the Mewtwo which gave me the win without having to dig for the boss since I had dusclops in hand.
I do wish we had more of a game for game 1, but game 2 had some more interesting gameplay.
Rd14: Mega Kangaskhan/Bouffalant WW 2nd/1st
Last round of the day, if I win it’s my best record yet, if I tie, it matches my current best record and if I lose, 9-4-1 is still a decent run. My opponent had a mulligan with lumiose city, psychic and dark energy, and Crispin so I had no idea what I was playing against. I was thinking mega absol or maybe a unique crustle build, but my opponent started munkidori, ultra balled for Kangaskhan, attached retreated to draw two and then passed. I still did not know what I was playing against so I went with a 3 Dreepy, 1 duskull set up since I started budew and ended with itchy pollen. My opponent attached to the active, played Lillie’s, drew two, and then benched two bouffalants which finally told me what they were playing.
Granted, this still isn’t a ton of information on their build since it’s not a popular archetype right now, but I was betting the acespec was hero’s cape at the very least. They played down lumiose city to bench psyduck and ended their turn. I was really not a fan of the psyduck on board, it was only the second one I’ve hit all weekend, but it definitely made me switch up on how I played the game. I hit heads on a hammer to knock off the energy from last turn. I got into three drakloak and started using my abilities all in a row. On the last one I had to decide between a dawn and an energy, so I set those two cards down to check my hand, but I accidentally grabbed my deck instead and saw the bottom card.
I quickly realized my mistake and set my deck back down, but my opponent had already called a judge, we explained the situation, they came back quickly and said it’s just a warning, no knowledge gained, please be more careful. I usually try to be more careful with my board, but it was the last round of the day and luckily it was a very minor mistake. I finished my turn and announced itchy pollen and funnily enough my opponent immediately goes pokegear and I stopped him after he draws the top seven cards but before he looks at them. Before I can say just put them back on top of your deck, he calls judge again, gets a warning and gets told to put them back in the correct order on top of his deck.
Those were my only judge calls during the tournament both of which were very minor. We laughed about it after the judges left and we were both more careful for the rest of the games. Most of the rest of game 1 was pretty uneventful, for my first attack I bossed up a bouffalant for the knockout, and placed all 6 damage on the psyduck. My opponent was never able to announce an attack the whole game between never playing Crispin and choosing instead to attach to the munkis at multiple points throughout the game. He knocked out my budew with adrena brain and passed for his turn, I played watchtower and stamp before attacking and knocking out psyduck. He drew for turn and then decided to scoop.
Game 2 started very similarly, but on his third turn, he was able to announce rapid fire combo to knock out my budew. I was not ready to attack so I bossed a bouffalant, recovered the budew and played stamp. I was able to get budew back in the active and I had both my stadiums, jamming tower and watch tower, in hand. I decided to play jamming tower in case he drew into air balloon, which I knew he played and held onto the watch tower until I was ready to attack. He found the stadium bump and Crispin. He decided to double attach to the bouffalant and attacked with it to knock out budew. I managed to attack with pult and knock out the bouffalant and spread damage to another one.
I had also hit heads on a hammer to knock off an energy on the Kangaskhan. I still held onto the watch tower for next turn. I did not read the bouffalant card but it did return damage of six damage counters so now my opponent needed to only flip heads twice to knock me out.
I don’t know if I could’ve played around that anyway but I should’ve been aware. My opponent also hadn’t benched psyduck this game so I benched duskull last turn to see if I could get a cursed blast off. My opponent found energy, used Lana’s aid to recover an energy for next turn and a bouffalant and only flipped one heads to leave me with a whole ten hp left. I would’ve had game in hand with rare candy, poke pad but I forgot to prize check and realized the dusknoir was prized. I also did not draw into munki and dark energy to heal my pult so I decided to evolve into clops, attach to a benched drakloak, flipped hammer heads again to discard from the active, played down watch tower and swung, deciding to pressure the munki with the six damage counters.
My opponent decided to play Lillie’s and then attached dark energy to munki to use adrena brain and KO my pult. This put them at one prize left and my bench was not great. I decided to promote fez, which is definitely wrong. I had not seen an energy switch once during our games and he had already played Lillie’s for turn so he was not announcing an attack. I should have promoted the drakloak with energy. He passed and I whiffed on Crispin, so I evolved into dragapult and also evolved into dusclops to avoid the double adrena brain lost, played red card, attached to active to retreat, and used jet headbutt. My opponent whiffed energy, stadium, or boss and asked me to show them the energy for phantom dive next and conceded once they saw it.
This was probably my sloppiest round of the tournament, but I pulled off the win.
Conclusion
I had a great time at Baltimore both from the great run and all the great support I received from my friends during my run. I did get lucky with most of my matchups, but it still takes skill to play optimally in 14 rounds. I was able to identify better plays I could’ve made in most of my matches and I need to study some of the more obscure deck lists before my next tournament. But for anyone going to Louisville, I think the meta has widened a bit where you don’t have to pick a deck based on being prepared to hit mostly dragapult. Be prepared for a lot of slop box, and an increase in Alakazam and slowking.
I recommend watching videos from Celio’s network and omnipoke for quality information about meta gaming and skeleton lists. My list is not the most consistent, but it is a fun version that will most definitely take your opponent by surprise once or twice during a tournament. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions about this run or any match ups in general. Shout to my sister Ella-Ashleigh for helping me create the board state images and thank you for reading!