Monday, December 5, 2011

Double tournament report w/ Chandelure

I would love to play with this art
Hello to all The Deck Out followers!

This weekend was something special because it was my first real tournament weekend. I attended on Saturday in Turku City Championships and on Sunday I played in Sweden, Stockholm City Championships. I had played only in 1 Battle Roads earlier this year and if you want to check out how I did, read my tournament report.                 

The tournament weekend was also the reason for not being on a computer this weekend so sorry for the late answers for your comments!

Anyways, before even going to the tournament I knew that I wouldn’t want to play anything that included Reshiram or Zekrom. I also wanted to play a new deck so I can have a surprise factor in the tournament. That’s why I decided to go with Chandelure/Vileplume/Dodrio. I got the original list from my Japanese friend Ukinin-san and I modified it quite a bit. The final list looked like this.



Pokemon:

4x Litwick(Teleportation Burst)
4x Lampent
4x Chandelure
2x Doduo
2x Dodrio
3x Oddish
2x Vileplume
2x Cleffa
1x Pichu
1x Jirachi(CL)
=25

Trainer:

4x Pokémon Collector
4x Sage’s Training
2x N
1x Professor Oak’s New Theory
4x Twins
2x Tropical Beach
3x Pokémon Communication
3x Rare Candy
=23

Energy:

8x Psychic Energy
4x Rescue Energy
=12

I’ll do an deck analysis of this deck later because I’m pretty sure that it will achieve the tier1 spot very quickly. The deck’s idea is to trainer lock your opponent, use Cursed Shadow 2 times a turn (Thanks to free retreat that Dodrio gives you) and attack with Chandelure when necessary. Last prizes are easily picked up by Jirachi. Chandelure has the magical 130 HP so nothing can really OHKO it unless they do some tricks first. In this deck, attacking is a very important part of the strategy because auto Confusion and Burn is VERY good in this format and alongside with trainerlock. Some of you may wonder why I didn’t run Promo Litwick – the reason is simple – I don’t own any.

The other version of this deck includes Blissey Prime and is even more concentrated on only to Chandelure’s Ability. I didn’t want to go with this strategy because in my opinion it has more weaknesses and isn’t as good (excluding in the mirror). However, I will include the Blissey Prime version into my upcoming Chandelure entry as well.




Anyways, into the report. It’s a tradition for Finnish players that we play first CC / SPT in Turku and then take a night boat to Sweden where we play on Sunday. It’s the highlight of tournament season for many players and I love to go to Sweden every time when possible. However, first we had Turku City Championships. I played the list I wrote up into the beginning of the entry.


1. Round (Tyranitar Prime/Mandibuzz/Zoroark)

Well, this was something I surely wasn’t expecting. Chandelure has practically no weaknesss because its weakness is Darkness. This player had nothing but darkness Pokémon in his deck. When he opened with Zoroark and Larvitar on the bench I was very nervous. However, the game went pretty smoothly because I got Vileplume and Chandelure up in no time while he struggled with his set-up. He drew only 3 energy in the whole game which made things very easy. When the Tyranitar was ready to attack I had already 3 energy on the Chandelure and when he flipped his first confusion flip tails, I just Cursed Shadowed 2 times and took last prizes from the remaining Pokemons.
1-0

2. Round (Gothitelle/Reuniclus)

When he opened with Gothita, I knew that I was against a very good match-up. The funniest thing was that I started the game and got a T2 Chandelure. He didn’t have a supporter (excluding Twins I guess) and so I started just spreading with Cursed Shadow and tried to avoid drawing a prize so he couldn’t set-up at all. In the end I just killed his both Gothita’s with Cursed Shadow at the same time and he didn’t set-up at all in the whole game.
2-0


3. Round (Zekrom/Tornadus/Pachirisu/Shaymin)

This played had donked all the game he had won. Well, I went first, got a nice T1 Playground and he didn’t even get a T1 prize. I got a T2 Vileplume up with Sage and the game was settled. ZPST has not much to say against 130 HP trainerlock decks without Eelektrik.
3-0

4. Round (Typhlosion Prime/Reshiram)

This was one of the games were I again went first and got a T3 Plume with Twins. My opponent managed to get only 1 Quilava up before the trainer lock and no Typhlosion so he was in problems with his energy manipulation. Thanks to trainer lock he struggled in getting Typhlosion in to the game and he also had problems in getting energy in to the discard pile because Junk Arms didn’t work. This game went pretty much like all the others, fast Plume is devastating against trainer heavy Reshiram or Zekrom decks.
4-0

5. Round (Typhlosion Prime/Reshiram)

This was completely different game than the 4th round game. I didn’t have a single draw card in my hand and neither did he. He topdecked a supporter 2 turns before I did and it gave him an edge he needed to win the game. At one point of the game I could have had a chance if he had flipped tails from the Confusion but because he didn’t I lost a Chandelure with 3 energy and wasn’t able to mount a comeback.
4-1

6. Round (Zekrom/Eelektrik/Tornadus/Rocky Helmet)

I was on 4-0 so I’ll make the top8. I knew it but the thing that made me worry was that this game was against a downer pairing. It might just destroy my tie break so I wouldn’t get through to top8. Since I didn’t sleep a single second in the previous night my playing was getting sloppier all the time. I didn’t notice any huge mistakes in this game but after the game I knew that I didn’t play at my best level. The thing about this match-up is that Rocky Helmet is so good against Vileplume IF you are able to get it before Vileplume is up. I got Vileplume up in turn 6 which was way too late so the field was full of Rocky Helmets once the game got going. Nuff’ said, I lost the game.
4-2


So I lost a downer pairing to my own mistakes and wasn’t really happy at myself. Nevertheless, when I checked the standings I was 5th. All my opponent played very well and that’s why the last round loss didn’t’ really affect my tie break that much.


Top8 (Gothitelle/Reuniclus)

1. Game

This was the guy from the round 2. The first match went pretty much like our Swiss match. I started the game, got a T2 Chandelure and spreaded my way to victory with 1 Chandelure. I killed all his Pokémons in one turn so he wasn’t able to activate his Twind once again.
1-0 (5-2)

2. Game

This match was way more difficult than the previous games. He started and got Gothitelle up which make things difficult. Once I got rid of Gothitelle with Cursed Shadow and Eerie Glow something really funny happened. I didn’t have energy in my hand and my opponent flipped 3 heads in a row from Gothorita’s Deleting Glare. I just started spreading damage all over the field and he moved them the best he could with Reuncilus. In the end the damage on the field was just too much and I finally got a 2nd Chandelure attacking, which sealed the win for me.
2-0(6-2)


Top4 (Reshiram/Typhlosion)

Game 1. and Game 2.

I don’t remember from these games that much besides for the fact that I won the games pretty easily. I think he had draw problems in the both games and there wasn’t just much to play. In the first game he got Typhlosions up with Candy, which I killed easily with Jirachi and in the 2nd game he didn’t get a single Typhlosion up because I got an early Plume. The games were over in under 30 minutes.
2-0 (8-2)

Finals (Zekrom/Eelektrik/Tornadus/Rocky Helmet)

1. Game

This was the same deck than in the round 5. but it was piloted by a different player. This was by far one of the best and toughest game of the whole weekend. I had to give 3 prizes for free before I got a decent set-up due my horrid draws from the Tropical Beaches (no Twins). At this point of the day I hadn’t slept for 25 hours but I forced myself to concentrate. I won the game with only 10 damage margin thanks to 2 very important Lampent’s Luring Lights. With Luring Lights I got time to spread some more damage on the Eelektriks and took 3 prizes in the last turn of the game. I was very happy that I could make a comeback even though I had a horrible draw.
1-0

2. Game

This game was just like things should go. I only gave 2 prizes before I got a set-up and had everything going very quickly and smoothly. I spreaded the damages on Eelektriks, attacked on Zekroms and if any Pokémon had Rocky Helmet attached to it, I just Cursed Spreaded it to death. It was just like a script that went in a way it should have.
2-0 (10-2)

Top4 of Turku

Esa J. w/ Chandelure/Vileplume/Dodrio
Tuomas K. w/ Zekrom/Eelektrik/Tornadus
Öjvind S. w/ ReshiPlosion
Miska S.  w/ Six Corners(Virizion/Kyurem/Zekrom/Reshiram/Terrakion)


So after a very long day I managed to win the tournament. I was very happy and tired. However, now wasn’t the time to rest but to eat. We sought for a restaurant from Turku but all the restaraunts were full because it was Saturday evening. In the end up we ended to eat at Hesburger (local McDonald’s like place) and I almost fell asleep while eating. Well, we managed to get on the boat and strolled around the cruiser a bit. In the end I was so tired that I didn’t have energy for anything and just went to cabin and fell asleep immediately. 32 hours with no sleep has its consequences.


Araknofobia in Stockholm

The boat was in Stockholm 6:00 AM at local time and we went to a local McDonald’s to spend 3 hours. I wrote up the decklist which I changed for one card. This was because I knew that people were prepared against my deck and other Vileplume decks by teching Spinarak into their decks. With Spinarak they can just attack Cleffa all game long and because trainer lock decks don’t run Switches, they win the game when the time and +3 turns are up. It was something I didn’t want to lose to so my Stockholm tournament list looked like this.


Pokemon:

4x Litwick(Teleportation Burst)
4x Lampent
4x Chandelure
2x Doduo
2x Dodrio
3x Oddish
2x Vileplume
2x Cleffa
1x Pichu
1x Jirachi(CL)
=25

Trainer:

4x Pokémon Collector
4x Sage’s Training
2x N
1x Switch (ex-PONT)
4x Twins
2x Tropical Beach
3x Pokémon Communication
3x Rare Candy
=23

Energy:

8x Psychic Energy
4x Rescue Energy
=12

So now I was immune to Spider Web if I don’t trainerlock myself with Vileplume. The Swedish tournament wasn’t as big as the Turku tournament but we still had 5 rounds and top4. So let’s get down to the tournament.


1. Round (Klingklang/Vileplume/Cobalion/Victini)

We both had bad starts but I got a Cleffa Eeeeking for 2-3 turns. I set-upped for Plume but soon noticed that he but Oddish into his deck with Communication so gave up on the Plume idea. Klingklang would be scary if it got attacking with Gear Grind because double heads would be possible thanks to Victini. That way Chandelure would be OHKOed and I would be in trouble. That’s why I decided to kill Victini with Cursed Shadow and noticed that his 2nd Victini was prized. He managed to hit one double heads with Klingklang but it really didn’t matter because I got another Chandelure attacking quickly enough to get the attacking Kilingklang confused.
1-0


2. Round (6-corners w/Spinarak)

6-corners is very good match-up because I can Cursed Shadow things that don’t have Outrage and just attack to Outrageing Dragons thanks to confuse. He had Spinarak which made me play carefully but I got a hyper start and started the game. T2 Chandelure with 2 energy and T2 Plume and Tropical Beach of 6 cards. My opponent looked at his hand T2 and knew that there wasn’t much to do so he scooped.
2-0

3. Round (Zekrom/Tornadus/Eelektrik/Rocky Helmet)

This was against the same person who I lost to in the first tournament. My start was once again a super good and I just crushed through his deck because his start wasn’t that decent. I got Plume before he got the first prize, which usually means that Chandelure has the game.
3-0

After the 3rd round we had a lunch break. I was so tired because I only got to sleep for 4 hours on the boat that I fell asleep during the lunch break. I woke up for when the pairings of the 4th round were put up.

4. Round

I completely forgot.
4-0

5. Round (Cobalion/Kyurem/Electrode)

This match was very important for me. I lost the game because I played the game just like all the other match-ups. In order to win this match-up I needed to adjust into the match-up but because it was my first time playing this exact match-up up, my game plan was completely wrong. Since I don’t run Blissey Prime Kyurem gives me huge problems and Electrode screws up my Twins engine. With Chandelure it also takes tons of turns to get 6 prizes against 120 HP Pokémon with only Cursed Shadows. It was a lesson to learn and I was happy that I learnt it in the last Swiss round.
4-1


Top4 (6-corners w/ Spinarak)

1. Game

Just like in the 2. round I got a super start while my opponent struggled with his set-up. He managed to attack with Kyurem once and when I confused it, he hit tails from the 2nd Glaciate and scooped.
1-0 (5-1)

2. Game

Now I didn’t have to worry about Spinarak because he couldn’t use it to win on time because I won the first game. He got a good start with T2 Virizion attacking while I had 2 Lampents prized and horrible draws from every Eeeek and Tropical Beach I used. I was frustrated because everything went as wrong as they can go.
1-1 (5-2)

3. Game

Spinarak was now a real threat. I made a HUGE misplay in T2 when I played Candy before I used Communication. This almost costed me the whole game and due that mistake the whole game went to a confusion flip. If he had flipped heads from Confusion heads my whole game would have been screwed. In the end, he flipped tails which gave me the one turn I needed to set-up my 2nd Chandelure. Of course I wasn’t happy that the game was decided on a flip but it was completely my fault and that’s why I’m nevertheless satisfied with the conclusion of the game.
2-1 (6-2)


Finals (Cobalion/Kyurem/Electrode)


1. Game

In the last round of Swiss I noticed that Vileplume disrupted me more than his deck so I changed my game plan completely. I decided not to even try to get Vileplume in to the play and just play the game with Chandelure and Dodrio. Thanks to no Plume, my deck became faster and I had so much more resources for getting Chandelure and Dodrio. This game plan proved to be a success and I hadn’t much of a problem while I was able to confuse Kyurem before much of harm was done. He also had two awful Energymites which sealed the game for me.
1-0 (7-2)

2. Game

We both had slow starts but he ended up getting few early Glaciates which made my life difficult. I never got Dodrio up, which turned out to be a huge problem. With only 1 Cursed Shadow a turn and not enough energy to attack Kyurem and Cobalion finished the game pretty quickly.
1-1 (7-3)

3. Game

We had 30 minutes left so we were in no hurry. I drew my opening hand and I had Litwick, Lampent, Chandelure, energy and Dodrio in my hand. Thankfully he mulliganed two times so I got Sage’s Training into my hand. I started the game and used Sage’s. Didn’t get a Rare Candy. He had a lone Cobalion in the beginning, attached energy and passed. I knew I was in a very strong position now, because I might be able to eliminate Voltorbs before they blow up if I got a fast enough set-up. He draw passed for 2 turns and it was enough me to set-up. I got 2 Chandelures and Dodrio up and there wasn’t much of what he could do. Tropical Beach helped me to set-up and I didn’t use a single Twins during the whole game. Once I had 2 Chandelures attacking, the game was practically over. It was a shame that the last final match wasn’t much of a game because of his draws&pass start.
2-1 (8-3)

Top4 of Stockholm


Esa J. w /Chandelure/Vileplume/Dodrio
Zenja I. w/ Cobalion/Kyurem/Electrode
Tonu T. w/ ReshiPlosion
Jouni L w/ Six Corners(Virizion/Kyurem/Zekrom/Reshiram/Terrakion/Spinarak)



Conclusion

All in all, the whole weekend was a great success. I won the both tournaments I played in and the deck worked extremely well. My hope towards the healthiness of the game rose about 400% percent because the format is nowadays much more than dull ReshiPlosion or Zekrom mirrors that are all about brainless prize racing. Chandelure vs. Coba/Kyurem/Electrode match-up is one of the most interesting match-ups in a very long time and I really feel like this season will be a much better season than it first looked like in the World Championships.

If we look at the Cities results from the Pokegym topic, it really shows the same thing. The variation in the decks is sooo much bigger thanks to Noble Victories that it’s unbelievable. I can once again call Pokémon TCG a great card game and I hope that anyone who has played in City Championships this year feels the same way.

Thanks for reading my report and feel free to comment. My next entry will probably be the second Eye on Japan article but when I’ll be releasing it – I’m not 100% sure. It will be released this week, that’s for sure. For up-to-date info about my blog like it on Facebook or follow it on Twitter!

29 comments:

  1. Good Job Esa :). I really like the concept of Chandulure, and your list looks pretty solid.

    Nathan

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  2. This was a good read, props. Your round 4 in Stockholm was against the same deck and player as in the final of Turku. We both had bad starts and I only got 2 prizes before you set up, so the game was over from that point on. Thanks for the good games in Turku.

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  3. Congrats for your double victory, Esa. :)

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  4. 32h without sleepping and finishing 1st is nice. I did 60h sleeping only 2 hours and finished 2nd at Regionals, which means I slept 2 hours I shouldn't. Anyway…

    Would you mind putting the decks of the tops for each tournament ?

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  5. Congrats on the two wins Esa! Sounds like you had a good time :)

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  6. So, is there any chance of this deck working for those of us who will never have any Tropical Beach to play?

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  7. I was just playtesting with my Chandelure build (Which only runs 3 energy total (rescue)) and my friend told me you'd made one. I was so curious, and then I saw two Tropical Beach, and I cried.

    I really like the deck. I really want Tropical Beach. Give me 2.

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  8. You might remember me playing the Blissey version of the deck in Stockholm. I noticed that the amount of Pokémon is too great in that deck and it then reduces the amount of draw in the deck, at least. I lost 2 of my games to the lack of draw and consistency. Definitely gonna try the more attacking version of Chandelure next time.

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  9. chandelure also took 2nd place in my cities which featured 6 rounds of play and a top cut of 8. it lost to a zekrom-genie-eel deck in the finals.

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  10. I'm still unsure which version is better (Fast, with Max Potion, Defender and low energy count or Trainerlocking). Do you test faster version?

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  11. Nathan: Thanks a lot! Yeah, the list worked very well and it was very consistent.

    Keksik: Thanks for the fix, I'll edit it even though I still don't remember the game.

    Tonu: Thanks!

    Zarmakuizz: Yeah, I should've slept at least a little bit xD I forgot to put the top4,thanks for pointing that out!

    oTYo: Yeah, I had very good time and the deck worked very well!

    musicmark: Tropical Beach is the more important, the less you have energy in your Chandelure deck. I think my deck isn't as reliant as the non-attacking Chandelure decks but nevertheless it's very important in the deck. If you don't have Tropical Beach I could suggest playing more hand refreshing cards like N, PONT or Copycat.

    Crawdaunt: Haha, yeah as I said in the above comment, I really think Tropical is the more important the less you have energy. Even though I have 16 Tropical Beaches, I can't give any of them sorry xD

    Jayem: Yeah, I saw you playing the deck. I think Blissey version has a better mirror match-up if you can get it working as well as this deck. It would have been cool to play against you. Good luck for the next tournament!

    Matijslax: Thank you for your belief in me!:D

    Anonymous: Looks like the finals went just the opposite way around than in our finals.

    Shun: I haven't tested the non-trainerlock version of this deck because this deck worked very well from the start. I think the deck won't reach its best potential if it doesn't have trainerlock because Defender can't really defend all your Chandelures and killing Dodrio also makes your life very difficult. I can easily say that the energyless or my list are equally good as long as they have Vileplume in them.


    Thanks for all the comments, great that you liked my report!

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  12. Chandelure NV is now in the Top5 bestsellers of the pokemon section @ trollandtoad.com !
    What have you done !

    Cpf.

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  13. Anonynomus: I certainly hope that it isn't all me like Celebi Prime was. Thankfully I'm not the only player doing well with Chandelure. In fact, in Japan, the shiny Chandelure is the most expensive playable card in the format.

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  14. Are you going to update the decklist out?

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  15. Anonymous: I'll be updating it once I've got time for it tommorrow.I've been so busy with everything the few weeks that haven't gotten time or energy to do it. Thanks for reminding!

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  16. Did you find you wanted a Gloom or two?

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  17. This was one of the games were I again wnt first


    Just wanted to post that you misspelled 'went'.
    The irony is right now I'm supposed to be proofreading a piece I wrote for English class :P

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  18. Spider Web if I don’t’

    you also had an extra ' XD

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  19. It was just like s script that went in a way it should have.

    That 's' should be an a

    :P

    by the way i'm not hating the articles, just want the best for you :P

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  20. Anonymous: There were one game where I really wanted Gloom because I struggled with getting Rare Candy/Sage's/Tropical Beach into my hand. I think every space in this deck is valuable so I don't feel like Gloom is necessary but sometimes it's good. I didn't need it that much in the 2 tournaments I played but I'm pretty sure that some players might need it many times during one tournament. It's completely a personal preference.

    Gallade: Thanks for fixing those, I'll edit the article! But don't worry, I know how to write those words they're just typos :D

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  21. If there's one card I found myself wanting playing this deck, it was Seeker. Seeker would give Jirachi versatility in taking back energy in the discard from a bad sage. It also allows you to retreat a chandelure with damage, seeker it up and evolve a lampent (while giving you energy back to use).

    As long as you seeker when they don't have damage on their bench, you're set. That said, I don't know if the deck absolutely needs it, but I think it could help.

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  22. Crawdaunt: Seeker is a very nice tech in this deck. You can use it on Jirachi, on Chandelure if needed and on Blissey if you play it. As you said, the timing of it is hard because you don't want to heal your opponent's benched Pokémons. I'll make an entry about Chandelure somewhere in the future where I'll surely include Seeker as a tech and to the other sample list.

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  23. Glad to hear Esa!
    And yesterday, I found a worlds set of Tropical Beach (7+2 promo cards) for $155 total. I live in Canada so both the French and English versions are good to use here! I'll be selling the other languages on eBay and should be able to come out about even :P I'm just glad I found the listing before anyone else. $155 for full set of tropical beach is really cheap!

    I'm looking forward to playing this deck and maybe some Ross variants (Landorus/Machamp is a fun list I'm working on) in the future with TB support.

    Also, first time I've heard of Spinarak being used. Kinda funny that it could work really by just stalling endlessly.

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  24. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  25. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  26. How is Spinarak a problem for Chandelure? Chandelure can simply Eerie Glow for the OHKO then proceed to retreat next turn. Can someone please explain?

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  27. Daniel: No need to spam. When Spinarak locks your Cleffa T1, you can't do anything. They just stall until the time and turns end and get 1 prize after that. They win the game. That's why it's a problem.

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