Deck: Jonathon's Trap
Name: Jonathon Warden
Place: The Merchant Gamer, Cookeville, Tennessee
Date: 12/30/00
Roughly 13 participants, low amount due to dangerous weather

 This report could take awhile, so go ahead and grab a sandwich or
something.

 I'll wait.

 All right then. Ready?

 Then I must say, at the first, that I haven't attended a tournament in
at least a month, the Gym Challenge Prerelease Tourney, I believe. A
tourney in which I placed third, inferior to John Covington (2nd place)
and Cory Beasly (1st place); two of the cockiest players here and
certainly the sorest losers. Fortunately, we have some of the most
positive people to play against here to make up for the above two.
 However, one thing would be different this time. Those of us less
fortunate would win the prize, a box of Neo Genesis Booster Packs. At
$10.00 a person entry fee, one person would walk away a winner, first
runner up; with preconstructed decks, second runner up; 4 booster packs.
And the other ten entrants... well, let's try not to think about that.
 Here's the deck I used:
Jonathon's Trap:

Pokémon: 16
4x Scyther
3x Movie Promo Mewtwo (The Ugly One [videotape])
2x Erika's Dratini
4x Jigglypuff
3x Wigglytuff

Trainers: 32
4x Professor Oak
4x PlusPower
4x Item Finder
2x Nightly Garbage Run
3x Imposter Oak's Revenge
4x Rocket's Sneak Attack
3x The Rocket's Trap
2x Gust of Wind
4x Computer Search
1x Chaos Gym
1x Rocket's Training Gym

Energy: 12
8x Psychic Energy
4x Double Colorless Energy

  I had better explain the strategy before I go to the report. Erika's
Dratini is in there for the huge amount of Haymakers that make an
appearance here. Really well built Haymakers. Movie Promo Mewtwo is
there to take out the many Hitmonchans and Rocket's Hitmonchans.
Scyther's a utility tool, and Wiggly is there to clean things up.

 The tourney is to find people to battle and battle as many as you can
-as quickly as you can (this is important to know for later). Two points
a win, one point a loss.

 A side note: The dastardly, cocky, no-good, and all-around bad guy John
Covington did not show at this tourney. Bring it on next time, big guy.

 Here we go!

Battle #1: Cory Beasly (Koga's Beedrill, Scyther, Hoppip Evolution,
etc.)
 Tourney Status: Forfeit

 Winner of many tournaments, and I decide to battle him first. Wasn't
too horrible. He was only able to get a Beedrill out once, but a Wiggly
and a couple of PlusPowers did him in. After that, what was left of his
Weedles and a Scyther couldn't take Wiggly.
He sulked that he would've beat me had he brought his Haymaker.
Riiiiight. See you around. Side note: Set off trap twice. Drew an Oak
first time. Ironic. Never recovered after that. Kill the Weedles!!!
 Oh, yeah. He forfeited the tourney after my cousin beat him. He quit
for these three reasons:
 1. My cousin beat him.
 2. Jeremy beat him.
 (Jeremy's my cousin, the fact that he's Jeremy and he's my cousin
counts as two reasons)
 3. He was beat with a deck I built for Jeremy. The ultimate insult. Aw,
well.....

 When he did forfeit, the little kids were ecstatic. Ah, children. Such
easy to please creatures.

Record: W-L: 1-0

Battle #2: M. Russell (?)
 Tourney Status: No place

 Can't Remember. Set off the trap midgame. Never recovered. Win for me.

Record: 2-0

Battle #3: Erica Cranker (Fire/Water with Lapras, Magmar, Flareon,
Vaporeon)
 Tourney Status: ("Ha!") No place

 She prides herself on stalling out her enemies. Sheesh.
 She also called me last night to consult her on the deck she'd be using
today. Last night being 11:30. P.M. ("Who needs sleep?/ Well your never
gonna get it./ Who needs sleep?/ Tell me what's that for?")
 Anyways, the Magmars were quickly dispatched by Wiggly and a PlusPower.
The Dark Flareon didn't get far neither. I guess if your "Playing With
Fire" your gonna get burned. Side note: Set off the trap once. This is
the easiest way to lose friends don'tcha know.

Record: 3-0

Battle #4: Kyle Warden (Haymaker)
 Tourney Status: 3rd

 No immediate relation to me that I know of, but definitely no slouch.
And a kind person to play against, too. I say he's a winner anyways.
 He did enjoy picking off Jigglypuffs early in the match because he knew
what lurked if he didn't rid of them. Fortunately, I was able to get a
Scyther to stall awhile then release the Mewtwo on him. Electabuzz was
his last chance -no dice. A Psyburn and Three PlusPowers won the game.
Side note: I had to set the trap off three different times with him, and
he recovered the first two times but not the third one, resulting in his
loss.

Record: 4-0

Battle #5: B. Bilbrey (A Ray Cranker Deck with Misty's Gyarados and Muk
[rolling eyes])
 Tourney Status: Nuh-uh.

 Erica's little brother Ray helped build this kid's deck. No card
advantage at all. That's why the rolling of the eyes. Because the
concept would otherwise be smart.
 But anyways, he started out with a lone Misty's Magikarp. I started
with Jiggly. I tried knocking it out but had no way of getting card
advantage, mainly a DCE and PlusPower (I started out with three Item
Finders in my hand). He had Poliwag and Poliwhirl and Gyarados, all
ready to be played. Scyther made sushi out of all of them.
Win. Side note: Trapped once; never recovered.

Record: 5-0

Battle #6: J. Vidua (?)
 Tourney Status: No place.

 Can't remember. I think this was the little kid that chanted "I'm gonna
lose! I'm gonna lose!" all the way through the match. I told him if he
kept an attitude like that he would lose, sometimes the game is just
based on coin flips. Then I remembered that this was the same kid that
traded all his Oaks to some other kid the other day for some Uncommon
Pokémon cards. He said something stupid like, Oak was useless because
you have to discard your hand.
 Needless to say, I won.

Record: 6-0

Battle #7: Ray Cranker (Fire/Psychic with -Heaven Forbid! Charizard!)
 Tourney Status: Riiiiight.

 I remember Growlithe, Promo Arcanine, and Mr. Mime.... no card
advantage. Trapped him once after he had a full bench. Never recovered.
Wiggly and Jiggly made short work of him.

Record: 7-0

Battle #8: Jeremy McLearran (The deck I built him. Doh! Promo Mewtwo
[the cool looking one], Rocket's Mewtwo, Electabuzz, Erika's Jigglypuff,
PlusPowers, Lass)
 Tourney Status: We'll see.

 Day before I went over to his house and had built this deck for him,
taught him how to use it effectively, and rigorously prepared him for
any situation. I built a Trap to go against him, no problem. A regular
Wiggly, ditto to that. Sponge; killed it. Haymaker; the same. My
Raindance? It took him a few times but he eventually beat that, too. And
a stall similar to Erica's? He destroyed it in record time.
 He wised up and used one of the Lasses on the first turn (Christian
Brown had called Jeremy an amateur for sticking Lass into his deck,
however, he discovered in his match with him that it's actually a useful
card after all). Using Lass meant no trap. Scythers were able to retreat
and hold him off for a while till I could get first a Mewtwo going
(which he promptly gusted in and killed), then a Wiggly (which
Electabuzz made short work of). We were taking prizes every other turn,
but I miscalculated somewhere so he was two prizes ahead instead of one,
so when I thought I could afford to lose one more and send in another
Mewtwo, I discovered I was deeply wrong -and he took his last prize. I
couldn't believe it, but I congratulated him.

 He had indeed passed the test. However, more would follow.

Record: 7-1

Battle #9: C. Mansell (Magnemites)
 Tourney Status: Late entrant. No place.

 I remember this kid! The last time he was here he had seven potions,
ten Magnemites, and 6 Magnetons. This time he passed Deck Check. No card
advantage. Sigh.
 I tried killing a lone Magnemite with a Jiggly, DCE, and Two PlusPowers
on first turn, save me a lot of time. I wasn't able to get the second
PlusPower. Darn. Second turn I put down a Rocket's Explosive Gym. Every
Lieutenant Surge's Pikachu he put down would get tweny damage. I
eventually stopped toying with him and got Wiggly going. Didn't need to
trap him. Win.

Record: 8-1

Battle #10: A. Mansell (Squirtles)
 Tourney Status: Late entrant. No place.

 Actual Dialogue:

 Mansell: You use Jigglypuff?! How do you have so many wins?
 Me: Heads or Tails.
 Mansell: Tails. I mean, Jigglypuffs suck. Now Squirtle's rock. Bubble
kicks a-
 Me: Heads it is; I go first. Flip over cards. Jiggly versus Squirtle.
Attaching DCE,
  attaching PlusPower, Computer Search, PlusPower... Pound. Game.
 Mansell: ****!

Record: 9-1

Battle #11: Christian Brown (Haymaker)
 Tourney Status: Higher than most.

 Know's what he's doing. Doesn't make fun of Lass anymore after being
devastated by Jeremy. Seen Trap in action. Asks if I want to save time
and just shuffle his hand into his deck. We laugh.
 We start. I set off Trap. Survives long enough to recover. I set off
Trap again. Oak. Put down Chaos Gym. Eventually able to get Bills, Oaks;
Tails everytime. Mewtwo ended up wiping out all his Hitmonchans (Rocket
and Regular). Win.

Record: 10-1

Battle #12: Eric Morgan (Wiggly/Mew)
 Tourney Status: Below his average. Not his best day. Bring back
Raindance.
  You might actually go somewhere.

 Everyone was watching this one, Eric's eight years old; and his parents
thought about sending him to the ECSTS, since he can usually clean
house.
 But today was different, no mistakes would be made on my part, and his
deck was not cooperating. Me setting off the Trap first turn didn't help
things for him, either. So he went out with a whimper. Jigglys pounding
everything in sight usually doesn't cut it. Just as well. His family
owns one or two boxes already. Hmm.

"All Gaming Stops Now!"

 Charles (the shop owner) yells as he makes his way from the storefront
to the game room and he, Mrs. Morgan and Mr. Morgan start tallying the
points.

Mrs. Morgan: "Jonathon Warden: 23 points!"
Charles: "Jeremy McLearran: 23 points!"
Mr. Morgan: "Kyle Warden: 23 points... correction that's 21 points!"
Kyle: Arrrggghhh!!!! If only you hadn't of stalled me!!
Erica: Hahahahahahaha!!!!!
Mrs. Morgan: Look at that! Jonathon, Jeremy, and Kyle only lost one
match a piece!
Charles: Sure did!
Mrs. Morgan: Well, if this didn't make it any easier to pick a winner!
Jonathon lost to Jeremy, Jeremy lost to Kyle, and Kyle lost to Jonathon!

Charles: Looks like we're gonna have finals after all...
Mrs. Morgan: (Walks to Game Table) It's snowing, the road's are getting
slicker and it's  getting colder outside. You have ten minutes. Play
quick.

Finals!

 We both had been looking forward to this day, and dreading it, for two
weeks.

 Looking forward to that box of Neo.

 Dreading that we'd have to battle each other for the prize.

 We knew exactly what to expect in every scenario that each of us would
put out.

 Now we had nothing but our wits. And luck.


Battle #13: Jeremy McLearran

 This was it. Teacher versus student. I taught him how to play the game
months ago. Now was the time to see if he would put his tired, old
teacher away.
 Set off the Trap four times. Recovered everytime and his deck was
becoming more dangerous with every match, but he kept his composure. He
was going to turn me into Diglett fodder.

 But I had an Ace in the hole.

 The little dragon (Erika's Dratini) saved my hind end. (When I helped
him constructed his deck we considered sticking in Goop Gas for such an
event... makes me sick to think about it).
 I eventually got out Wiggly, but it had fifty damage. He had
Electabuzz, no damage; all charged up.
 Chaos Gym already in place.
 Pluspower in hand.
 Place card on table, point, pick up the die...
 It came down, ironically, to a roll of the die. Strategy had nothing to
do with this.
 It danced on the table.... as if it knew, that either way, the game
would end.
 It landed on heads. Heads?
 PlusPower worked.
 Everyone around us was ready to congratulate either one of us...
 "Do The Wave for seventy."  I leaned back to stare at the ceiling in
awe. "Game."

 That was it. After months of trying, Jonathon Thomas Warden had finally
won a tournament, I was given the box; which everyone wanted me to open.
But I agreed with Mrs. Morgan that we all needed to leave now, before
the roads got any worse. I had an hour's drive home anyways.
 I gave half the box Jeremy, he deserved it. He gave me one of the
preconstructed decks that he won, Cold Fusion. So we split the pot,
we're a good team. His mother was ecstatic that we won. Hugs all around!
My mom says it's a good way to end my playing.

 What?

 End at my peak?

 Is it my peak?

 Mike Wudhapitak says that hopes this is the beginning of a new dynasty.
I hope so, too. Happy new year everyone, and a toast to future wins!!

Props:
Jeremy's Mom and Dad for taking us down there in the dangerous snow.
Charles at the Merchant Gamer for having such wonderful prizes.
Mrs. and Mr. Morgan for running the tournament.
Kyle Warden- if I or Jeremy didn't have a chance, I would've enjoyed
watching you win. You are a very gracious winner.
Jeremy- excellent job, bud! You've been training hard and listened to my
advice. One day, you'll have an apprentice in a CCG.
Jeremy's Deck- an Anti-Trap and I didn't even think about that when I
created it! Long Live Lass! Plus, Lass is cute, too!

Slops:
Ten dollar entry fee? Ten dollar entry fee? At least there were door
prizes for the ones who didn't place.
To Trap. I'm sorry everyone. It was a cheap, no, I'm sorry correction,
not cheap, It was a stupid way to win. Ninetales will come back soon, I
promise.
Preconstructed decks. You know, Wizards, if you're listening, if you're
really serious about Prop-15, here's an idea: build precons that are
Prop-15 compliant and that are actually playable. Sticking four trainers
in a deck (cold fusion) is not very nice at all.

Questions? Comments? Suggestions? Email Jonathon Warden:
[email protected]

"He who lives by the sword, shall surely die by it." -Jesus