Double CC - with or without Chandelure?

Hey all The Deck Out followers!

Haters gonna hate

As promised, today is a time for a double CC report once again. I thought, I wouldn’t play Chandelure anymore but once again I was wrong. Also, I changed my deck for the second Cities so in the other tournament I didn’t play Chandelure. Well, what did I play? That you must find out on your own by reading this entry.

Anyways, I still needed at least 2 Top4 placements from my 3 remaining Cities so after these tournaments I only have one CC left. I can say that, I didn’t reach my goal this weekend but I’ll surely do it in my last Cities. I have no other choice. After the last Cities, I’ll tell you why I need to get this many CC points.

So without further chit-chat, let’s get into the tournament report.

Here was my Chandelure list this time. I wanted to play Cobalion since I hadn’t tried it out yet and I assumed that the metagame would be full of Kyurems. I was right, but still…

Pokémon:

4x Litwick(CFF)
4x Lampent
4x Chandelure
2x Doduo
2x Dodrio
2x Cleffa
1x Pichu
1x Chansey
1x Blissey
1x Jirachi
3x Oddish
2x Vileplume
1x Cobalion
=28

Trainer:

4x Pokémon Collector
4x Twins
2x N
3x Pokémon Communication
2x Tropical Beach
3x Rare Candy
4x Sage’s Training
=22

Energy:

6x Psychic
3x Special Metal Energy
1x Rescue Energy
=10

As you can see, I added Cobalion but the rest of the deck stayed the same. I would have wanted more Rescue Energy but didn’t find room for them. I was fully prepared against Kyurems but I didn’t believe that Durants were all around. Gloom would be good when playing against Durant because Vileplume is very hard to get to play without Gloom against Durant.

Anyways, into the tournament.


1. Round Magnezone/Eelektrik/Thundurus/Zekrom

I got a decent start but didn’t draw for a Vileplume with Eeeeks and Sage’s for a long time. He didn’t draw into his Magnezones either. We both Eeeked like 5 turns because he didn’t activate my Twins and once he took his first prize, the game started going. The problem I had in this game was that I didn’t draw in to any Twins at any point of the game. I missed Dodrio the whole game, which made my life really hard. I would have won the game if he didn’t flip paralyze heads with Magnemite in one of the early turns or if I had flipped tails from the late game Eeeeek. However, those coin flips combined to my lack of Twins decided the game into his favor.
0-1

I was pretty frustrated since the tournament was small and I couldn’t afford to any loses since the tournament was very small. (5 Swiss and Top4). I would need a 4-1 to get through.
0-1

2. Round Mirror

I hate mirrors because they are mainly decided by who goes first/ gets the first Chandelures. Well, my opponent started the game but used T1 Sage’s and discarded 2 energy from the Sage’s. I know that Chandelures don’t run that many energy so they can’t afford discarding in the early game that many energy. Thanks to that, I decided to Luring Light his Dodrio into the active position in T2 and it won me the game. He struggled in drawing into energy and I could do the damage with my Chandelures. In T5 I killed 2 Lampents with Cursed Shadow and his only Chandelure  with Jirachi and cleared the table.
1-1

3. Round Durant

Ugh, Durant. I either need a turbo 2 Chandelures and Dodrio or Chandelure and early Vileplume. I got pretty lucky here since I got a T3 Chandelure and Vileplume and won the game pretty easily since I did get one N secured into my hand. His Durants died and there was no way for him to get them back.
2-1


4. Round ReshiPlosion

This is a pretty easy match-up. I just let 3 of my Chandelures to get 120 on them, healed them with Blissey and just run through him and took the remaining 3 prizes with Jirachi. I think he only got 2-3 prizes during the whole game. It was Chandelure at its best.
3-1


5. Round 6 Corners

He didn’t ran Spinarak but I didn’t know that so I couldn’t risk starting with a Baby. That’s why the game was pretty difficult in the beginning however once I got Chandelure attacking his Kyurems were useless. I also got Blissey healing all of my damages from the field and the trainer lock did the rest of the job. 6 Corners loses so much when it can’t use its Junk Arms, Switches and Catchers that one Absol isn’t enough to counter a Chandelure deck.
4-1


So I got into the top cut. I was pretty happy since I got the 4 CP points and that was enough for me. However, thanks to my resistance due the first round loss, I had to pair up with the 5-0 Durant. I knew, I could just check my opening hands and decide whether to play or not. He also run Rotom, Smoochum and Spiritomb so I could hope for bad openers. Well, let’s see what happened.


Top4 Durant

1. Game

I had no draw in my opening hand and just draw passed 3 turns because he was able to Crushing Hammer my only energy away. While I draw-passed, he Devoured for 1. He didn’t get anything until the 4th turn when he started to Devouring for 3. I didn’t get anything during the whole game, gg.
0-1

2. Game

He once again opened with Durant but this time he didn’t have Rotoms prized. My opening hand was horrible once again so there was nothing for me to do. Twins don’t do that much against Durant, lol.
0-2


So, I finished 4th and got 4 CPs. That’s all I needed but I must admit that the tournament was pretty anti-climactic. It was funny that the Kyurems were all around but I managed to dodge them the only time when I played Cobalion. I did nothing with Cobalion during the whole tournament.  I either played against autowins or autolosses and there was nothing that I or my opponents could have done better. I was satisfied with the result but I wasn’t happy with the game. Waiting for the Next Destinies…

Here is the top4 of the tournament:

1. Six Corners
2. Durant
3. Magnezone/Eelektrik/Thundurus/Magnezone
4. Chandelure/Vileplume


Anyways, in the second tournament I had already decided to run Durant. Well, for those who don’t know that EVERY TIME I have played a donk/flip deck, I’ve done horribly - now you do. When I played Uxie donk last season, I went 1-5 and had horrible opening hands and flips the whole tournament through. Usually my heads percentage is something between 25%-30% so that's one of the reasons I'm such a consistency fan - I have no luck at all.

Durant once again was no exception. My tournament and games were a laugh so I will only give you the highlights of the matches. Of course I will give you my list as well (btw this very same list of mine won the Seniors in the same tournament).

Pokémon:

4x Durant
1x Rotom
=5

Trainer:

4x Pokémon Collector
3x Pokegear 3.0.
1x Xtransceiver
3x Twins
3x N
1x PONT
4x Juniper
2x Victory Medal
1x Black Belt
1x Seeker
3x Catcher
4x Crushing Hammer
2x Lost Remover
4x Junk Arm
4x Revive
4x Eviolite
=44

Energy:

3x Rainbow
4x Special Metal Energy
4x Basic Metal Energy
=11


1. Round Magnezone/Typhlosion

I hit 1/6 Crushing Hammers heads, got T3 Collector after 2 Ns and my 4th Durant was my last prize with Mischievous Trick,  gg.
0-1


2. Round Kyurem/Cobalion/Electrode

He got 5 Energy from a T2 Energymite without Research Records  but I used 2 Lost Removers, Catcher + Seeker trick to clear his field off energy. I miraculously won the game.
1-1


3. Round Mirror

He went first with a T1 Devour for 4. I also missed out energy from Juniper, which cost me the game. He had 2 cards in the deck when I decked out. There was nothing I could’ve done differently in the game. Durant mirrors are such skill-based games.
1-2


4. Round Vanilluxe/Vileplume

This match-up is almost an autowin. Well, he went first, got a T2 Plume, T3 Vanilluxe. Nuff said… I did kill his Vanilluxe with Black Belt + Vicegrip in the late game but he somehow he had everything once again in his hand. I think he was about 7 cards away from decking out when the game ended.
1-3


Well, you guessed it, I dropped. Ironically when I was 1-3, the 4-0 decks were all Durants. I guess I’m just a bad player since I couldn’t win with Durant while the others do, lol. Joking aside, I felt angry at the game. There is nothing I wait more than the change of the first turn rule and the new set. I think EXs will make the game slightly better but the real problem (the T1 rule) still stands. I wonder how long will players have to stand this ridiculous rule. I think I have to use my Japanese contacts to get in touch with PCL or something to make that change.

Here is the finals standings of the tournament:

1. Six Corners
2. Typhlosion/Reshiram
3. Durant
4. Zekrom/Tornadus/Eelektrik


Conclusion


If you look closely at the top4s of these two tournaments, you can figure something out of the metagame. In the first tournament Six Corners got just the right match-ups and ended up winning the only Durant of the tournament thanks to awesome topdecks and bad flips from Durant. The Durant vs. Six Corners match-up is in Durant’s favor but Six Corners got luckier. As for me in the first tournament, I got the only bad match-up against in top4 and I would have been in the finals if I have played against any other top4 deck.

As for the second tournament, it was full of Durants. That explains the weird ReshiPlosion finishing as the second place. ReshiPlosion faced 2-3 Durants in the Swiss and played against Durant in top8 and top4 as well. What I learned from these two tournaments, is that the tournament result is in a this black & white metagame decided by the match-ups. A not that good deck like ReshiPlosion can get very far as long as it can play against the right decks. I think that’s the reason Six Corners ended up winning the both tournaments. It doesn’t have an autoloss match-up and can play consistently against any match-up. The Chandelure match-up is difficult for Six Corners but Chandelure had a very difficult time in the Durant metagame so the amount of Chandelures decreased radically in the metagame.  

Anyways, thanks for reading and I’ll get back to the ordinary articles in the upcoming entries. The new set is about to be released so Impact Crater: Next Destinies is coming. Also, I have a lot of Mewtwo EX based deck articles and Mewtwo EX card analysis coming up as well. I’ll also get some more interesting interviews for you as well. My first featured writer will make his debut in the very near future as well so please let me know your opinions about that when it’s released!

Thanks again for reading and feel free to leave any comments!