December has finally arrived and that means it is time to deck the tournaments with battles! City Championships season has started and that means there are plenty of Championship Points to go around. Some cities in the United States are able to host multiple Cities throughout the month of December and January. That means trainers will be rushing to these events just for the chance to earn Championship Points.
The City Championship tournaments are a series of best-of-one rounds that features a Top Cut. Those who make it to Top Cut get Championship points which will help them qualify for Worlds in San Fransisco.
With the beginning of Cities, I decided that it was time to hit the town and try out my deck. This week we are going to recap my experience at a Cities where several decks and players were hoping to break through for the chance to win Championship Points.
The Deck
I had just came off from a successful League Challenge using Heavy Metal so I decided to go ahead and play some Heavy Metal again. Though, after a few days on Pokemon TCG Online, I was unsure. It seemed like Steel was running too slow in a meta that featured BREAKthrough. I was losing a lot of games against decks such as M Mewtwo EX, Night March and other match ups that I thought I would be stronger against. Things didn’t look good and I wasn’t sure which deck to use.
I knew Metal like the back of my hand and which match ups would be bad. I could get everything set up with just a few good cards. After thinking about it and figuring out what had to be changed, I decided to go with Metal. After all, the meta is still fresh after the release of BREAKthrough and nobody knew what was going to be played at Cities. So I went ahead and play with what I know best. Something that can take heavy hits and hit hard right back.
Below is the deck that I played with at the City Championship I attended.
Pokemon: 16
Bronzor (PHF 60) x3
Bronzong (PHF 61) x3
Dialga EX x2
Aegislash EX x3
Heatran x2
Registeel x2
Shaymin EXTrainers: 32
Professor Sycamore x4
Professor Birch’s Observations x3
Pokemon Fan Club
Lysandre x2
Xerosic
AZ
VS Seeker x3
Ultra Ball x3
Level Ball
Evosoda x2
Switch x3
Battle Compressor x2
Muscle Band x3
Steel Shelter x3Energy: 12
Metal x8
Double Colorless Energy x4
If you remember correctly, this Metal deck is the same one that I took to a League Challenge a few weeks ago. The only difference is that I added a Shaymin EX to my deck.
I was adamant about not using Shaymin EX in my Metal deck. I felt like the deck didn’t needed this card in order to be successful due to how quickly I was able to set up during practice and the League Challenge. I also didn’t want to worry about my opponent using Shaymin EX as a late game Lysandre target for an easy knockout.
The problem was that I was finding myself stuck with hands that didn’t give me too many options. I would be stuck with a hand that didn’t give me much of a chance to set up and stare at Ultra Ball or Pokemon Fan Club with thoughts of use it to get a Shaymin EX to draw cards. I would then remember that I do not use Shaymin EX in my Metal deck then proceed to continue to dead draw. With that said, I decided to drop a Pokemon Fan Club and put in a Shaymin to help me use Set Up to dig deeper into my deck.
The rest of the deck stayed pretty much the same. I would always start my games by benching Bronzor to evolve into Bronzong by using Evosoda or other methods to grab them from my deck. I would have a Pokemon in the active, hopefully Aegislash EX to shield me from attacks as I power up an appropriate attacker using Bronzong’s Metal Links ability to attach Metal energy from the discard. If I wanted to discard energy from my opponent’s EX Pokemon then I would use Registeel’s Forbidden Iron Hammer. If I wanted to prevent my opponent from attacking with their EX Pokemon then Dialga EX’s Chorno Wind was the way to go. Heatran was used to hit things hard.
My trainer line was there to help me get set up. Pokemon Fan Club was used to grab my Basic Pokemon and sometimes Shaymin EX. This was quite helpful as I was able to use my Supporter for the turn but also grab more cards to get much needed resources. Battle Compressor helped get some Metal energy into the discard early game while also discarding Supporters so I could use later on in the game via VS Seeker.
A few things I wanted to mention about my card choices. The first thing is about Pokemon Fan Club. I have been thinking about using Brigette over Pokemon Fan Club. It would be much more useful for me to grab more non-EX Basic Pokemon such as Bronzor, Registeel and Heartran but it was also much more restricting. During play testing, I found myself in situations where I needed to grab a few EX Pokemon because I had too many Basic Pokemon on my bench. There were other times when I wanted to grab both an EX Pokemon and a non-EX Basic Pokemon but Brigette just wouldn’t allow me to do that. So I decided to stick with Pokemon Fan Club because of how much freedom of choice it gave me in picking Pokemon from my deck.
The next thing I want to address regarding card choice was my decision to not included Float Stone in my deck. I could have easily dropped or or two of my Switch and replace it with Float Stone but I decided not to because of flexibility. Float Stone is nice to attach to a Pokemon who you plan to use as a pivot after a Pokemon was knocked out. I could always send out a Bronzong with a Float Stone attached to it. That way I could Metal Links from the active Bronzong and Metal Link from a benched Bronzong to one of my Benched attackers. Then I could retreat the Bronzong with a Float Stone with my ready to attack Pokemon. The problem is that there are times that my opponent will just Lysandre in one of my heavy retreat cost to stall for time. If I already have two of my Float Stone on my Pokemon then I have less ways to get a Pokemon out of the active.
Also, there are things like Startling Megaphone, Xerosic and Giratina EX who can either get rid of Float Stone or prevent the usage of it. When using Switch, I can use it whenever I want and the only thing that will stop me is Seismitoad EX or Trevenant. Also, Switch allows me to do some sort of mind tricks with my opponent who would be unsure if their stall tactic will be successful due to the fact that I may or may not have a Switch in my hand.
Now that we have talked about my deck, time to talk about matches!
The Tournament
This City Championship had six rounds where players had thirty minutes to play one match. Winners will get a win under their belt while a lose will hurt their record. If you record was good then you may get a spot in the Top Cut to play more matches.
All I wanted to do was do decently well and try to play as many games as I could. If I made it to Top Cut then that means I get to play more games which wouldn’t be bad. So let see how I did while playing some Heavy Metal.
Round One: VS Fairy-M Mewtwo Y
I started this City Championship playing against a Fairy build that features M Mewtwo Y. Xerneas would use Geomancy to attach Fairy energy from the deck to Pokemon on the bench. Aromatisse would move Fairy energy around using Fairy Transfer to make M Mewtwo Y hit hard using Psychic Infinity.
I knew that if I let this deck set up that it wouldn’t matter if my Metal Pokemon had resistance from Psychic type Pokemon. M Mewtwo Y would just run them over thanks to all the energy on it and my Metal Pokemon. Registeel wouldn’t live long enough to knock off energy and it was going to be too much for him. Aegislash EX would just be setting up for his own downfall thanks to the amount of energy it took to attack with him. Dialga EX would be my best bet but it will only stall for time until another M Mewtwo Y would be set up and be used as another attacker. So my best best was to knock out the Fairy backbone if given the chance. That way all the energy would be stuck on a single M Mewtwo Y or not even allow Xerneas to pull out Fairy energy from the deck.
Luckily for me, I was able to see the benefits of Shaymin EX quick in this match. I was able to get a Shaymin EX in my opening and along with an Ultra Ball. I had grabbed a Registeel and use Shaymin EX to get as many cards as I need which helped set up my bench and get Registeel in the active to start attacking. My opponent went Supporter dry which was unfortunate which worked to my advantage. Either way, I had a strong start to a match up that could have gone grim for me if I wasn’t careful.
Result: Win (1-0-0)
Round Two: VS Dragon-Metal
My second match was going to be a tough one as I faced Dragon-Metal. This deck uses Tyrantrum EX who can hit for 190 damage. Even worst, Aegislash EX wasn’t going to be able to shield me from Tyrantrum EX if it has a Double Dragon Energy due to the dragon’s Despotic Fang ability which allows it to chew up anything. Giratina EX was also in this deck as a secondary attacker and issue out it’s infamous Stadium/Tool/Special Energy lock if needed. Lastly, this deck ran a Pokemon support line in the form of Bronzong to retrieve lost Metal energy and Zoroark to “Stand In-Retreat” between attackers.
The biggest issue when it came to this deck was dealing with Zoroark. I knew I had some time before any of my opponent’s attackers could attack so I wanted to make sure to get as much damage on his Pokemon as I can while also doing what I could to prevent his set up. That means using Registeel to knock off energy from Tyrantrum EX. Though the problem was that Zoroark with a Float Stone attached would always “Stand In-Retreat” to prevent me from taking knockouts.
I have played this game before where opponents would try to prevent me from taking prizes by hiding their heavily damaged Pokemon on the bench during my Klinklang days. They wanted to keep the game going and try to tie against me. If anything, I plan on that to happen because I know eventually I will get a Lysandre to knock out their damaged Pokemon. If anything, my first Lysandre target would be the Zoroark so I could knock it out and prevent and more Stand In-Retreat hijinks. That way my opponent would be unable to send up Pokemon to sponge up my attacks. Even more, if my opponent did eventually set up Bronzong then he couldn’t effectively attach energy to any his Tyrantrum EX to attack. Especially if they are heavily damaged.
The problem was that I never got a Lysandre. This held me back in taking the knock outs I needed as my opponent swap between Pokemon to attack and shield using Zoroark. I was able to do enough damage where my next attack will knock out his Pokemon but they kept retreating to the bench and replaced with healthy Pokemon. My opponent eventually used AZ to bring up a damaged Tyrantrum to put it back on the bench fresh which was later use to run though my Pokemon. Another problem I faced was that even if I used Dialga EX’s Chrono Wind attack in an attempted to prevent my opponent from attacking, it would be useless. That is because once a Pokemon hits the bench, all previous effects on that Pokemon is gone. Zoroark made sure that happen thanks to it’s Stand In-Retreat tricks.
By the time I got a Lysadnre, the game was pretty much over as my opponent had fresh Tyrantrum EX ready to bite into my Pokemon to take his remaining prizes.
Result: Lost (1-1-0)
Round Three: VS Fairies
After a lost in round two, it was time to play against Fairies which features M Gardevoir EX. I know that this deck would want to get as many Fairy energy on the field using Xerneas and then have M Gardevoir EX overpower everything with arrows. This could be bad but I had the type advantage.
I knew that I would need to get Aegislash EX loaded up with enough energy to one shot their M Gardevoir EX. That would mean getting energy into the discard quickly and try to do as much damage as I could using Heatran or Registeel in the meantime.
The problem was that I had two Bronzor prized. There was even more irony as right after I had discarded my two Bronzong thanks to a Professor Sycamore (Which I didn’t want to use), I had taken a two prize knock out only to see they were the two Bronzor I needed a few turns earlier.
Needless to say, I was able to use Registeel, Heatran and Bronzong to press the cold steel pressure on my opponent’s Fairy Pokemon. Their was some attempts of stalling using Lysandre to pull my heavy Pokemon into the active. Luckily I had a Switch in hand to get my Pokemon out of the active and replaced with the cold steel of my Pokemon’s blade.
Result: Win (2-1-0)
Round Four: Blue Milk v2 (Seismitoad EX-Empoleon-Miltank)
In my next round I faced an interesting deck that used Seismitoad EX, Empoleon and Miltank. I had heard rumors about an Empoleon deck but had no idea what it did but it looks as if I was going to find out.
The idea of this deck is to use Seismitoad EX as the main attacker. It would used Quaking Punch to prevent me from using my Item cards. If it has a Muscle Band then it will be doing 50 damage. If Empoleon was out on the field then that was when things get interesting. Empoleon had an ability called Dignified Fighter which gave my opponent’s Basic Pokemon attacks an extra 20 damage to them. That means Seismitoad EX was doing 70 damage plus item lock. My opponent would use Archie’s Ace in the Hole to put Empoleon into play. Miltank was in the deck to take advantage of the fact that Empoleon was a Stage 2 to do even more damage with Powerful Friends.
This was going to be a tough match because I will be unable to use my item cards. That means no Battle Compressor to discard Metal energy to jump start my Bronzong’s Metal Links. That was maybe the worst part of the item lock as I had Pokemon on the bench who wanted to attack but couldn’t get energy attached to them because there was none in the discard. I had Registeel discard some of my opponent’s energy but my opponent had Water energy to attached. He was even smart enough to discard his Double Colorless Energy using Professor Sycamore so he could damage my Aegislash EX with Seismitoad EX. This eventually escalated to where he could Grenade Hammer my Aegislash EX with one hit.
Meanwhile, I was wondering where my Dialga EX was and wishing I could use Ultra Ball to search him out.
I eventually got a my revenge by attacking Seismitoad EX with an Aegislash EX ready for combat. My opponent tried to keep his toad from being two-hit knocked out by using Rough Seas but he knew that Aegislash EX was going to win out on this battle. Though I made a mistake. I had benched a fresh Aegislash EX in order to ensure I have an attacker ready once my damaged Aegislash EX went down. My opponent saw this as his chance to properly heal up his Seismitoad EX without getting damaged in the process so he Lysandre my benched Aegislash EX. He then proceeded to attack it and heal using Rough Seas.
I just drew and pass as my Aegislash EX was stuck in the active and I had no means to retreat it. Meanwhile my opponent simply healed his Seismitoad EX. I knew I had to retreat quickly before my opponent knock out the active Aegislash EX and heal his Seismitoad EX beyond the point where Slash Blast won’t result in a knock out. Then in the turn before my opponent would knock out my beached Aegislash EX and ensure that his Seismitoad EX wouldn’t be in the range of returned KO from my eager to battle Aegislash EX, I drew a Steel Shelter.
That was my key to victory as I played my Stadium and took refuge in my Steel Shelter. That would mean my opponent wouldn’t be able to heal up his Seismitoad EX using Rough Seas. He could try to wait out the game until he drew into another Rough Seas but he knew that could give me the chance to use items if he didn’t attack. Though attacking would mean that I will get to send up my Aegislash EX with three energy to return KO his Seismitoad EX. Though at that point of the game, my opponent must have knew he was spent as he his deck was close to being gone and had no way to mount a counter-strike. That is when my opponent decided to call it quits and scoop.
Result: Win (3-1-0)
Round Five: Primal Groudon EX
In my fifth round, I saw myself facing Primal Groudon and his goons. That meant my opponent was playing with Wobbuffet to take hits and prevent me from using abilities and Robo Substitute as he power up his massive Primal Groudon EX. My opponent was just going to put Wobbuffet and Robo Substitute in the active to prevent me from taking prizes as he slowly power up his Groudon EX to destroy my Metal army.
I knew that I just had to keep on attacking and get rid of all his walls. That way I could force his Primal Groudon EX into the active to take hits. My Pokemon wouldn’t stand a chance against Primal Groudon EX once it’s rampage began. So I had Heatran just knock out Wobbuffet and Robo Sub after another.
I had one back up plan which was to use Dialga EX to use Chrono Wind. That way I can prevent my opponent from attacking me and using Gaia Volcano to blow up the Stadium along with my Pokemon. Though I realize that maybe it would be best to not set up Dialga EX too early as it could be Lysandre into the active and become Primal Groudon EX’s first victim. So I decided to use AZ to put Dialga EX back into my hand and place him on the field once I get Primal Groudon EX into the active. That way I can trap it and even if he could attack, the big earth titan will be unable to attack.
Once I was able to trap Primal Groudon EX into the active, all I had to do was soften up the beast before showing off Full Metal Impact.
Result: Win (4-1-0)
Round Six: Treveant-Gengar
I finally made it to the six round and I was located at the top table. I was kind of surprise that I made it that far in this City Championship. It also meant that I was facing an opponent who wanted and had the chance to win the whole competition. One of the first things he did was offer to Intentional Draw.
I am not a fan of ID as it means that we do not get to battle and it just seems like a cheap way to get into Top Cut. Especially if there are players who are battling hard in the final round in hopes to improve their record so they could get into Top Cut. Though I really wanted to do more battles. That just mean that I could battle some more so I can write about even more cool decks. So I accepted the ID and went to get dinner to prepare for what would most likely be a shot in Top Cut.
I did ask my opponent what deck he was running which was Treveant-Gengar EX. If we did battle, I think the match was 50-50. I could battle during an item lock but it would be slow. If I had Steel Shelter out then Gengar EX will be unable to poison me. If Aegislash EX was in the active then I could eventually knock out a Treveant once enough energy was on him. Aegislash EX could even take hits from Gengar EX if it had any Special Energy attached to it. So it wouldn’t have been one sided and an interesting match if we had decided to battle it out.
Result: Tie (4-1-1)
Top Cut Round 1: Yveltal EX and Friends
I was in Top Cut with my Heavy Metal deck. I figure that this would be interesting as this was my second time in Top Cut and I was at a table filled with serious competition. There was two Entei decks which I didn’t want to face because they will melt my Metal like a hot knife cutting though butter. Literally.
Top Cut has hour long matches where the winner is determine by best two-out-of-three. So all I had to do was win two matches which could be bad as I sometimes stall out games due to what my deck does via Dialga EX, Registeel and Aegislash EX.
The deck I was facing in my first Top Cut match was Yveltal EX with Yvetal (baby) and Zoroark. This deck just wanted to attack and do a lot of damage thanks to it’s easy to set up attackers. It goes in fast and hits hard. Zoroark was not just used to Stand In-Retreat to switch out attackers, it was also used hit hard thanks to Mind Jack and my full bench.
I knew that I had a chance against this type of deck. It loved playing Double Colorless Energy in order to do more damage using Yveltal EX and Zoroark who just needed a DCE to attack. I would just need to use Aegislash EX to put in the active so he would be force to not use DCE to attack with. I would then have to use well planned attackers such as Registeel, Heatran, Dialga EX and even Aegislash EX to hit back and take out his attackers.
In my first round, things went nicely. I was able to get Registeel ready to attack. I used Forbidden Iron Hammer to knock off some energy off Yveltal EX to keep his attacks from happening. I used Bronzong to pull energy from the discard and took a few prizes. Though this Dark deck worked quickly with Zoroark hitting hard and knocking me out. I tried to counter attack and shield using Aegislash EX. Bronzong was pulling energy up from the discard to make sure my counterattack was well fueled. Though in the end, Hex Maniac came into play and my opponent used a heavy DCE loaded Yveltal EX to knock out my Aegislash EX.
My second match didn’t go too well. My opponent knew right away that he needed to knock out my Bronzong if he wanted any chance to advancing to the next round. He did just that by using Lysandre to pull them into the active and knocking them out with (baby) Yveltal with a Muscle Band attached to it. After that, I went into the defense and tried to put as little Pokemon as I could on my bench. That way Zoroark won’t be an effective attacker. I saw that he put Darkness energy on Zoroark which gave me the hint that he was going to use that as a heavy attacker. I was right because that was the only thing he could attack my Aegislash EX with thanks to his Yveltal EX had a DCE attached.
Eventually it got to the point where I had Dialga EX use Chrono Wind to make things even more awkward for my opponent as he had to switch to Zoroark to attack and hit Dialga EX for little damage due to my small bench. I was able to get off one Chrono Wind to hurt Zoroark. He then knocked out Dialga EX. I had an Aegislash EX on the active with a Double Colorless Energy who could give the return KO. I was hoping for a Steel Energy but didn’t get it.
Though, this situation did put my opponent in an awkward situation as he wasn’t sure if I had the cards I needed to take a knock out on Zoroark. I also didn’t think he was quite ready to deal with Aegislash EX as he was trying to play around it for parts of our game. Either way, he called my deck annoying which was a win in my book. Though, my opponent was able to get his knock out and advance to the next round.
Result: Lost (4-2-1)
Overall
I was really impressed with our run during this City Championship. I was worried that with all the new cards from BREAKthrough would leave my Metal Deck in the dust. Though it looks as if my Metal Army got to march on and take out the competition. Even though we lost, the battles were amazing and I had tons of fun playing a deck that I have always been comfortable playing.
There are a few ways that I could improve my deck going into the future. My last match in Top Cut made me consider running the Bronzor from BREAKthrough. This Bronzor has sixty HP which means it could have lived an attack from a Muscle Band wearing Yveltal. So there was a chance that maybe I could have gotten a Bronzong set up during that last match which could have put me in a better position in my second match in Top Cut. The reason why I have been wary of using this Bronzor is that it has a two energy retreat cost. I like the 50 HP Bronzor because I could start with it in the active and use a single energy to retreat it out of the active with a Pokemon I got during my first turn by using Ultra Ball or Pokemon Fan Club. This maneuver would be difficult and could set me back on attacking if I did this with the 60 HP Bronzor. Though, the extra 10 HP does have it’s pros.
Overall, I am pretty proud with how my Metal Army and myself did at this Cities. I am excited to see how the other Cities are and maybe I will compete in another one. If anything it means that I can use these experiences to talk about even more deck and tell you guys about them. So keep an eye out for more coverage in the future!
