I'm every Chandelure (CC Report)

The last stand

Hey all The Deck Out followers!

This weekend I was in my last City Championships. The tournament was in HGSS-NVI format but the main focus of the whole weekend was to test for ECC. I modified and tested a lot of different decks for ECC and at the moment I’m pretty clueless what I’m going to play. I’m still thinking about some kind of Mewtwo/Celebi Prime variant but it’s very difficult to choose between the best variations.

This entry is not to discuss about ECC metagame etc. because ECC is just a week away and you’ll get a full update once I go and play there. In both of our “test tournaments” there were 2 Durants in top4, which wasn’t a surprise. Durant is a very strong deck against any Mewtwo EX variants because if you open with Mewtwo, Durant will crush you. However, Mewtwo EX is great against everything else.

The testing was on Saturday and because Durant did very well with almost no changes from NDE, I knew that Durant would be as dominating in the CC as it was in the test tournament. For a very long time I thought that ReshiPlosion would be a great play if I faced only Durants through the whole tournament. However, since the tournament was only 5 rounds and top4 I needed a very consistent deck. And what deck is consistent as MetaNite? You guessed it.

Pokémon:

4x Litwick(CFF)

4x Lampent

4x Chandelure

3x Oddish

1x Gloom

2x Vileplume

2x Cleffa

2x Doduo

2x Dodrio

1x Jirachi

=25

Trainer:

4x Pokémon Collector

4x Sage’s Training

1x Copycat

2x N

3x Twins

4x Pokémon Communication

2x Tropical Beach

4x Rare Candy

=24

Energy:

3x Rescue Energy

8x Psychic Energy

=11

As you guessed, it’s Chandelure once again. This time a VERY stripped version of Chandelure. I knew Durant was going to be big so I adjusted the deck to the maximum against Durant and it really paid off in the tournament as I’ll soon explain. You can say the list is Durant-proof. There’s  a Gloom because I want to get Vileplume up ASAP against Durant. Also, there were 4 Communications and 4 Candies, which I don’t usually run in Chandelure, once again to max out set-upping the Plume. I also run only 3 Twins because it’s a dead card against Durant. I maxed out the energy since if I can get Chandelure hitting for 50 against Durant, the game is very quickly mine. With this deck, I only had one goal in mind – to defeat Durant with Chandelure. Some changes costed me the victory of the tournament but still I was very satisfied with my build.

1. Round (ReshiPlosion)

Well, it seemed that I wasn’t the only one who was thinking that the tournament would be full of Durants and that ReshiPloson would be a viable option. However, he got a Reshiram start while I got a decent start with T3 Plume and Chandelure. I controlled the whole game and he only got 1 Typhlosion Prime up during the whole game. Autowin match-up is an autowin match-up.

1-0

2. Round (Zekrom/Eelektrik)

I was very surprised that I still hadn’t faced a Durant in this point. This was a normal Zekrom/Eelektrik deck and I got a turbo start with T2 Vileplume AND I started the game. I think he only used like 1 Trainer during the whole game and naturally he wasn’t able to set-up properly. Usually I use Jirachi to finish things in this match-up but for some reason he had such a horrible draw that I didn’t need Jirachi at any point of the game. 3 Chandelures were pouring damage everywhere during the whole game.

2-0

3. Round (Durant)

At this point there were three Durants in 2-0. So of course I was going to face on of them. Well, no worries, this was the match-up I prepared my whole deck for. And as I said, it really paid off. I started the game with Collector and Cleffa. Thanks to Durant’s 1-2 mulligans and my T2 Sage’s, I got T2 Vileplume, Chandelure AND Dodrio. Well, I didn’t do anything with Dodrio but it was a nice addition. In T2 I knew that I would have the game because he had 1 Durant prized and never got Durant rolling due the trainer lock. The easiest Durant game I’ve ever played.

4. Round (Zekrom/Eelektrik/Smoochum/Ditto/Tornadus)

Ok, so this is an very easy match-up. I think I have lost this match-up  only 1 or two times during the season. If I lose it’s usually because of prizes or something like that. Well, of course I had 2 Lampents AND a Jirachi prized in this game. I got off a quick trainer lock once again but it was no use because even though I tried killing his Pokémons to get the prized Pokémon, I couldn’t get anything decent from the prizes. My final 3 prizes included 2 Lampents and there was really nothing I could do. His Ditto tech was also a really nice one, even though it’s a free prize for me, it disrupts me at the same.

3-1

5. Round (Durant)

As I said in my earlier CC report, I NEEDED to get the points from this CC. That means, I couldn’t have afforded to lose this game. Durant isn’t the match-up I want to play against when I need to win. My opening hand was a bit shaky but I got a T2 Chandelure and T2 Gloom. I knew I was off a good start and while his 1 Durant was prized he didn’t Devour for 4 in the first 2 turns. Of course I got a T3 Vileplume with a risky Sage’s that paid off. I had a N in my hand and started spread damage on his field. The trainer lock disrupted him for some reason more than it does usually against Durants and he even lacked energy at one point. Once again, I completely dominated Durant.

4-1

Top4 (Durant)

1. Game

This was a Durant player, I didn’t face in the Swiss. He had the similar list to my previous tournaments’ list so of course I was happy that he had done well with my list. I still wasn’t fully confident with my match-up against Durant but as my deck kept working like a dream in the first game as well, I didn’t need to worry about it. I had  T2 Plume and Chandelure ONCE AGAIN and completely destroyed him. I guess I had something like 20 cards in my deck when the game ended.

1-0 (5-1)

2. Game

He mulliganed 6 times and still my hand wasn’t good. It was pretty funny to look at while I drew my mulligan cards that were completely useless. Once he had mulliganed 6 times he asked the judge to shuffle his deck. Ironically the judge did shuffle him a basic to the opening hand. Fortunately for me, it was Rotom xD He started the game and I got T2 Lampent, which I used to drag Rotom to the active spot. He managed to retreat and N’d me for a better hand. I got Vileplume and N’d myself. I finally got the Chandelure in T3-4 and started to spread the damage. This was a lot closer game than the first one but I still managed to have about 10 cards in my deck when the game ended.

2-0(6-1)

I watched the other top4 game (Durant vs. Zekrom/Eelektrik) and didn’t know which I hoped to get against in the Finals. Durant should be a difficult match-up but the built really worked against Durant and I already lost to the Zekrom in the Swiss. Well, the Zekrom ended up winning the third – very close – game and it was time for the last Finals of the CC series.

Finals (Zekrom/Eelektrik/Smoochum/Ditto/Tornadus)

1. Game

I got a great start compared to his horrible one. I crushed him.

1-0 (7-1)

2. Game

Once again a got a decent start with a quick Plume but relaxed me for a bit and he hit the Thunder Wave heads on Chandelure, which I could have avoided by playing more carefully. I didn’t it was such a big deal because I was in a good board position but since my Lampent decided to prize themselves again, I was in problems. The game was pretty tough and I can admit that he won completely on coin flips. He managed to paralyze my Chandelure’s 3 times in a row with Thunder Wave and OHKO them after that. The game ended me flipping a Baby sleep heads. If I had flipped the Cleffa sleep tails and waken up in my turn, I would have won the game. I was frustrated.

1-1 (7-2)

3. Game

Well, I had a few good opening hands so of course I managed to get the most horrible one in this game. I Sage’d 2 times during the 2 first turns and knew that I was in problems. In this game my Lampents AND Litwicks decided to prize themselves. I had to discard a Lampent for an early Sage and while he KOed my 2^nd Lampent in T2-3, having 1 Lampent prized was too crucial. I really play the best under a fair amount of pressure and in difficult situations but I did something that I don’t usually do – I thought for too long. I would have had the game even though everything was prized and my opening hand was horrible but I run out of time. The saddest part of this was that I was only one turn away from winning the game. If the time had ended in his turn, I would’ve had the game. The last time a lost due time was in 2005 Worlds top32 so I was VERY frustrated. I’m a very fast player thanks to my experience so this was a completely new situation for me. Well, anyways GG.

1-2(7-3)

So I got 5 CP points was my goal so I can’t be that upset. However, as I have promised in me entries throughout the CC series, I’ll know answer the question WHY I need so many CP points.

The Finnish bye system

That’s why. The Finnish bye system is developed by my big brother and it goes like this. The byes for Nationals aren’t decided from wins of the tournaments like in most countries and like in Finland the previous 6-7 season but from the CP points, the player has earned during the whole season. However, there’s a catch – tournament’s outside Finland doesn’t count for this. That means my Stockholm CC victory was in vain (I haven’t even received the prizes yet) and any CP points from ECC will go in vain as well. To reach the best finish limit of CCs for the bye system, I needed to get a decent amount of points from this City.

I’ve done fairly well during the whole CC season so why I need to get as much point as I can? Well, that’s because I didn’t play in the autumn Regionals. One can say I handicapped some players even 10-20 points by not playing in the Regionals. I didn’t think of that before the CCs started but it’s how the system works and there is nothing to whine about that.

The bye system awards the top4 of CP Points with 2 byes in the Nationals and places from 5-8 with 1 Bye for Nationals. If I’m able to get in the top4 of even one Spring Regionals, I’ll be guaranteed to get 2 byes so at the moment I’m pretty happy where I am. However, I wouldn’t be in this position if I hadn’t played so well in the CCs.

At the moment the bye system standings look like this:

41p Jouni L
29p Mauri V
26p Esa J (me)
26p Miska S
----------------- 2x bye
17p Henrik L
14p Toni T
13p Mikko A
12p Tom R
---------------- 1x bye

As you can see, I’m in good position but I have to keep at least top cutting in the Regionals to get 2 byes.

Conclusion

The deck worked great, the weekend was lots of fun and I get what I came for. All in all, it was a huge success but of course it wasn’t a perfect weekend. ECC will be next weekend and I’m very excited to play against many players across the Europe once again. I’m still clueless about the final built for my deck and the testing in the weekend only messed up my mind. If you happen to see me in ECC/play against me in ECC, please let me know if you read my blog!

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