Lost Zone Tournament 1: 2nd place Hide and Sneak

Dragapult is supposed to be the best match up for hide and sneak, but that really depends on if you can survive unfair stamp. I started with a dead hand with patrat in the active, my only out to get into the game was to attack with Banette next turn. I had to move shuppet to the active and use night stretcher to recover the energy in case of item lock. There was also the possibility of shuppet being KO’d by my opponent’s munkidori since it already had an energy they could play Crispin to retreat the active and attack with mind bend. My opponent did have Crispin but chose not to take the KO so I was able to use Banette to get a Lillie’s for next turn. From Lillie’s, I got secret box and a bunch of sneakers to discard. I was able to get a decent board set up and find both lucky helmets, one for Banette and one for Dhelmise, it’s important to try and have one on the active before taking the first knock out. I was stamped into a dead hand, but from the helmet draw I got telepathic psychic energy to grab clefairy and another dhelmise. I got red carded and again, the helmet draw kept me in the game and I was able to get the knock out and go down to one prize card. My opponent hammered my only energy in play, bossed the clefairy and passed. I was able to use Gwynn to draw into air balloon and energy to close out the game. It was a close game and if I had whiffed a turn I could have easily lost.

This matchup is favored for my deck because I can usually start the prize trade first and I can spread and take multiple knock outs toward the end of the game. My opponent went first, got fan Rotom and had a bench of full of birds for next turn. I played Lillie’s and whiffed on pokemon search, but I had Lillie’s for next turn. I don’t think I had another basic pokemon here so I was nervous I could lose next turn. My opponent had a slow turn, they evolved the active into trumbeak and retreated into fan Rotom and passed. For my turn, I played Lillie’s and got into some sneakers, pad and ultra ball. I actually misplayed here, I thought I had a Banette or Dhelmise in my hand when I played pad to grab poltchageist. Since my only ball search now could only grab one, I decide to go with Dhelmise because I had telepathic in hand and wanted to set my bench up without double attaching to the active shuppet. I benched the tea guy and Dhelmise, used telepathic and retreated shuppet to take the first prize. Getting Banette might have been the better play just to get any card that I wanted, but my hand was decent and I would have access to a KO next turn so it was ultimately a decent play. My opponent had another slow turn with no attack. I set up my board some more and took the knockout. My opponent pushed a second Rotom and played Dawn to grab turtle, trumbeak and toucannon. At this point, I assumed second noctowl was prized (the first one got discarded off prism tower earlier). They attached energy to turtle and passed. This next play is questionable on my end, but I decided to boss the turtle to damage it instead of playing Lillie’s here. My logic was to avoid going to red card range and to have an easy KO with spiritomb later. However, I failed to really look at my opponent’s list and didn’t notice the chein pao. My opponent used Dawn to grab the chein pao, the noctowl and another toucannon. From the noctowl they grabbed Crispin and area zero. They could’ve attached and manually retreated, played area zero and then chein pao to get rid of it. They would have missed the attack but that would have essentially nullified my last turn. They instead attach energy and KO my active and from this point I’m at a comfortable lead, where I just need to chain Dhelmise attacks to win. I had a couple of sloppy plays, but I did get the win.

This is one of the worst matchups for hide and sneak, to have a shot at winning, you need to go first, never whiff an attack and don’t prize flutter mane or air balloon. I went second, prized air balloon, and whiffed first attack so I knew I was going to lose very early on. My opponent played well and I had no outs to play to.

My opponent bricked so I won’t do a play by play for this round, but I will take the time to say I think the deck concept is very cool and how I would approach the match up if we had gotten to play out a full game. I knew I needed to keep my board small to avoid trapping and for any energy manipulation to move to something else that could attack so I had one Dhelmise and two Poltchageists in play. I honestly didn’t want to bench the Dhelmise at all but I had to swing with something. I don’t play any switch outs so getting trapped was a concern. I also focused on discarding any basic pokemon to avoid getting them benched via flute. If my opponent got double bastiodon and sudowoodo trap on my Dhelmise, I could have been infinitely trapped. I think to more consistently beat hide and sneak maybe consider a mist energy or lean more heavily into sudowoodo trap. However, I don’t see hide and sneak ever being above 10% so teching more for it is probably a waste.

This game was very slow at the beginning. My opponent started kyrumem and prized latias and I started with a pretty dead hand. It was a lot of passing back in forth until I was able to discard four with help from prism tower and boss my opponent’s slowking for the first knockout. My opponent was able to get in a couple of attacks but never found latias and I was able to chain dhelmise attacks so they scooped and we went to game 2.

It was my turn to have bad prizing this game. I prized shaymin and the third Dhelmise. Hide and sneak can win without shaymin by staggering Dhelmise…but you need the third Dhelmise for that strategy to work. So I ended up benching clefairy to survive a second trifrost, which is so bad because my opponent played the zerora that snipes ex pokemon. I was immediately punished for it when I got sniped the next turn. Unfortunately, I did not learn my lesson because I put clefairy right back on my bench. My opponent attacked with annihilape to take out both Dhelmise on my next turn which was such a good play. I then threw the game by swinging with clefairy for not a knockout when I definitely had more Pokémon to bench in my hand. I still think I lose that game from that position because I don’t have a way to take two prizes next turn.

I prized shaymin again (that guy did not want to show up to work), but I have access to all three dhelmise this game so I’m still in a decent position. I pull off the turn two attack to damage the fez with two Dhelmise in play. My opponent responds with the trifrost with boomerang energy. My opponent has a two card hand with a lucky helmet on the active and fez on the bench as draw power. I benched the third Dhelmise, attached energy and bossed fez to take two. Usually, I would leave the fez for a later knock out with sinistcha, but considering shaymin was prized, lucky helmet on active and fez was the only other draw, the aggression here was fine. I did get shaymin off the prizes so I could play a more spread game if I wanted. From this point, I got really ahead and I was trying to stay ahead. I should’ve been thinning my deck some more as I had access to ultra ball in my hand. I didn’t play Lillie’s because I also had Lana’s and Boss in hand, but I should’ve tossed the Lillie’s with the ultra ball. I also played down shaymin when I really didn’t need to, my opponent could’ve taken a prize off of it over two turns with back to back annilihape attacks which was very much a possibility so that was my misplay that gave my opponent an out. My opponent did go into annihilape during their next turn but they placed the damage on poltchageist, who ignores effects of attacks, instead of shaymin. From this point, I knockout slowking, they whiff next turn and I swing into kangaskan and boss it the next turn for game.

A couple of misplays from me and my opponent but overall a good game.