League Challenge are a nice way to get your feet wet and see what is being played in your area by other TCG players. They are quick tournaments that are held regularly enough. You get together with a few people in your area and duke it out against each other. It involves building a good deck and playing it correctly in order to take a place in the Top Cut.
I am a busy person so sometimes I can’t make it to a League Challenge for one reason or another. Though this past weekend I had some free time to attend a League Challenge. This League Challenge took place on the eve of BREAKthrough becoming legal for tournament play and Cities Tournaments. So the metagame may change pretty soon with so many new cards and strategies entering the metagame . Though, I really wanted to try at least one League Challenge before everybody start rushing to Cities with their big and fancy decks and ideas. I also figure it would be a good idea to attend a League Challenge to help prep my mind for Cities and to start thinking on a competitive level.
This week on TCG Jump, we will be recapping my League Challenge experience using a variant of an old favorite of mines featuring some Heavy Metal. How did my mechanical army fair against the mighty chaos dragons and midnight parades? Let take a look and also talk about what to expect once BREAKthrough becomes legal for this upcoming weekend round of tournaments.
The Deck
The story of my deck choice for this League Challenge was rather interesting. I was pretty set on playing a Giratina-Lugia featuring Bronzong deck for this League Challenge. I have been playing this deck for the last few weeks and have been rather successful in my battles online and in-person at my local League. I enjoy the consistently that the deck has and how it can really pull the wins once it gets set up. The only cons of the decks is that it relies on Special Energy and leaves itself open to Enhanced Hammer and Xerosic. Also, sometimes I just feel bad for my opponent as I see their look of frustration on their faces as I keep taking prizes from them or knock off their energy using Crushing Hammer.
That all change once I got to the League Challenge and found out that the people I knew were playing some sort of Giratina variant. I didn’t want to be playing a deck that everybody else was playing. I also didn’t want to be having a miserable time because I wasn’t quick enough to get a Chaos Wheel set up before my opponent start Chaos Wheel me and barring me from using Double Colorless Energy and Double Dragon Energy.
Once I decided that I wasn’t going to be playing Giratina-Lugia, it was time for me to go back to an old favorite of mines featuring some heavy metal and a bell. I had a Metal deck that I have been experimenting using some cards from BREAKthrough just laying around in a deck box. I figured I would just take out all the BREAKthrough stuff that I couldn’t play and replace it with cards that could be useful. Below is the deck that I had messed around with and used during this League Challenge.
Pokemon: 15
Bronzor (PHF 60) x3
Bronzong (PHF 61) x3
Dialga EX x2
Aegislash EX x3
Heatran x2
Registeel x2Trainers: 33
Professor Sycamore x4
Professor Birch’s Observations x3
Pokemon Fan Club x2
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 have been following TCG Jump for awhile now then you will notice that this list is rather similar to my Klinklang-Metal deck that I took to Nationals. You would be right because this is just that deck minus the Klinklang line and all the other things that were rotated out. All that was left of the deck was Bronzong, Dialga EX and Aegislash EX. I saw what I had left and decided that I needed to add some fresh oil into the line up now that we had a few new openings in the deck.
The whole purpose of this deck is to try to attack as quick as possible and disrupt my opponent if I can. The original plan of this deck was the same as the Klinklang-Metal deck which was to hide behind Aegislash EX to take hits while I set up on the back. Though that changed as soon as I started to play the deck. It looked like I kept starting off with my new additions such as Heatran and Registeel who could easily start attacking with a Metal and Double Colorless Energy. This put some pressure on my opponents as they were faced against an attacking metal monster by my second turn. Heatran was placed in the deck to act as a quick attacker and possibly knock out those pesky 130 HP Pokemon such as Crobat and Yveltal that the majority of my Metal Pokemon have difficultly doing with one hit. Just one Steam Blast from Heatran meant one prize card for me and one less Pokemon on my opponent’s field to attack with. Registeel was my solution to all those decks relying on Special Energy. Most notably, the Giratina decks who rely on Double Dragon Energy. Registeel’s Forbidden Iron Hammer did some decent damage while also discarding energy such as Double Dragon Energy that my opponent’s EX Pokemon had on them.
While Heatran and Regirock were in the active, I had time to set up my bench with a few Bronzong and to power up Aegislash EX and Dialga EX. So when my opponent was done dealing with the opening act of Heatran and/or Regirock, they now had to deal with Aegislash EX who wasn’t going to be damage by whatever Special Energy they had left and Dialga EX who could wipe their Pokemon away from time.
During the limited time I had to edit my deck from BREAKthrough to Pre-BREAKthrough Standard, I was trying to figure out my numbers for Heatran and Registeel. My friends were saying that I should run Registeel to deal with all the Special Energy running around. I agreed with them on that but I wasn’t sure on the number. Though one friend said to simply go two-two on Heatran and Registeel. Both Pokemon would be useful to start off with and could serve a purpose. That surely paid off as you will hear soon enough.
The Trainer line up was pretty interesting as I had to find ways to dig into my deck without the use of Shaymin EX that everybody was relying on. I have seen too many Jirachi EX getting knocked out and didn’t want to see Shaymin EX being knocked out as well when I think it wasn’t going to be as useful as Jirachi EX. After all, I did only use Jirachin EX to get me clutch Supporters when I needed them. So I tried a new method that I learn from using Giratina-Lugia that involves Battle Compressor and VS Seeker.
I had decided to up my count of VS Seeker and include a few Battle Compressor. I would use Battle Compressor once to discard two Metal Energy to use later for Bronzong’s Metal Links ability. The Supporter I discarded would be either AZ or Professor Birch’s Observations. The idea is that I will draw or have a VS Seeker to use to grab Professor Birch’s Observations and use it to refresh my hand.
I loved using Professor Birch’s Observations. It helped me preserve resources that I would have discarded had I used Professor Sycamore. It also had no negative to it. If I had flipped heads then I would get a new hand of seven. If I had gotten a tails then that means I would get a new hand of four. Both seemed pretty amazing and I didn’t mind getting four new cards. Especially once my deck had thinned out thanks to a few Battle Compressors.
The Evosoda and Level Ball was placed in the deck to help find Bronzong to evolve my Bronzor. Level Ball proved to have many uses as I either grabbed a Bronzor to place on the field or a Bronzong to evolve. Evosoda was just something left over from the Klinklang-Metal deck that was useful in seeking out evolution and it proved useful in this deck too with the Bronzong.
I played three Switch in this deck to help moved my big metal guys out of the active position due to my actions or my opponent’s. These guys were big as my lightest Pokemon was Bronzor with one retreat cost. Everybody use in the deck minus Dialga had three energy retreat cost. If one of those heavy guys got put in the active in my opponent’s attempt to drag out the match then they were going to be stuck there until I get a Switch or find a way to get an AZ. Luckily Dialga EX had a simple retreat cost. Overall, the majority of the Pokemon in this deck really did give meaning to Heavy Metal.
Overall, this deck was much quicker to Klinklang-Metal. There was no glowing blue protective layer to these mechanical soldiers but that was replace with a need to go into battle quickly to damage my opponent. That was mostly thanks to playing Double Colorless energy which took my Pokemon from thirty to eighty in no time. That doesn’t mean that my games ended quickly as this metal deck had it’s own ways to slow down my opponent.
The Tournament
Now lets talk about the tournament. This League Challenge had five rounds against a gauntlet of dragons, dark birds and whatnot that all wanted to take Championship Points. All I had was a legion of Metal minions that I had put together not too long ago. So let see how we did based on what I had and my know how.
Round One: Vs M Gardevoir EX-Fairies
I was worried that I would be sent though the fire during my first round by being matched against a Giratina variant deck. Imagine my surprise when I found out that I was matched up against a Fairy deck which my deck had an advantage against.
That doesn’t mean we could take it easy. An experience player knows that things do not always go right and sometimes a bad hand could make an easy match go bad. Also, Fairy can hit pretty hard if you let them get enough Fairy energy on the field for M Gardevoir EX to hit hard with Brilliant Arrow. I could also lose my advantage if I let Gardevoir EX use Shining Wind. This attack removes Gardevoir EX’s weakness for a turn while doing a hundred damage. That could knock out any of my Pokemon while preventing me from taking easy one-hit KOs.
This was when I learn that my new Metal deck was much quicker then my old Metal. I had started off with a Heatran EX and simply put a Metal Energy on him. I eventually got a Steel Shelter out and a Double Colorless Energy attached. All I needed next was a Muscle Band to knock out the EX Pokemon clean. Luckily I got just that and began to knock out all the Fairies that came our way. The fae had nothing on the cold steel that kept being dropped on them.
Result: Win (1-0-0)
Round Two: VS Night March
The second round featured a deck that I dislike playing against. It was a parade that I certainly had no interest in watching but was force to. This deck was going to take their time getting ready and all I could do was watch and pray that it doesn’t start marching anytime soon. Then to make matters worst, the deck was being piloted by a new player. I had to be on my toes because I had no idea what to expect from this person. All I could do was put up my best shield and pray that it held up long enough.
And that is what I did. I started off with Aegislash EX in the active which made it impossible for my opponent to knock it out using anything that had a Special Energy attached. Luckily, Night March plays mostly Double Colorless Energy so Aegislash EX could stay in the active for quite awhile.
The new found speed of this deck came though again as I simply attached a Metal and Double Colorless Energy to Aegislash EX to start slashing away Pumpkaboo and Joltik. My shield may have fallen but eventually my Metal might pull though to stop the parade in it’s tracks.
Result: Win (2-0-0)
Round Three: VS Toad-Giratina
During my third round was when things started to get tougher. I was up against a Toad-Giratina deck which could crack the armor of my Metal army quickly if I don’t have the right cards. Even worst, Seismitoad EX could easily could keep me from setting up by denying me access from my Item cards.
I started the match with exactly what I wanted for this match up: Registeel. To make things even better, I had a Metal and Double Colorless Energy in my hand. All I had to do was just attach my Metal Energy and DCE in order to start removing energy from my opponent’s Pokemon. The problem was that my opponent had his own way to remove energy in the form of Crushing Hammer. He had set me back a turn and was able to hurt Registeel a bit before I was able to use Forbidden Iron Hammer to knock off some energy from Seismitoad EX.
Eventually my Registeel went down as my opponent had set up Giratina EX to prevent me from using my DCE. Though by then I was able to get Dialga EX out and start using Chrono Wind. This was thanks to a pair of Bronzong I had on my bench who was ready to use Metal Links to attach Metal energy from the discard. This put my opponent in a pinch as he couldn’t attack using his Giratina EX nor did he knew how to handle this situation. He couldn’t simply retreat because that meant lose more of his special energy. He tried to remove Dialga EX from the active but found out that Dialga EX’s Chrono Wind effects the opponent’s active Pokemon.
It was a battle of endurance as my opponent relied on Giratina EX and Seismitoad EX to do damage while I kept using Chrono Wind and well timed Full Metal Impact to take my knockouts. Chrono Wind really came though as I prevented my opponent from attacking and made him rely on coin flips for Super Scoop Up and Crushing Hammer. Though the luck had to stop eventually. My opponent tried to stop my Metal army from advancing by using Lysandre to trap a heavy Metal Pokemon in the active but I always got out of it thanks to Switch. The final thing that lead to me winning the game was when my opponent did a last ditch effort by putting one of my Dialga EX in the active by using Lysandre. Luckily, I had a Double Colorless Energy that made it easy for me to retreat the heavy metal time dragon and go to an attacker. That was enough to make my opponent concede after a long match that wasn’t going to end well for him.
Result: Win (3-0-0)
Round Four: VS Yveltal EX
It was now time for round four. This time it was against John Kettler who is a successful player from the area and has several big tournament wins under his belt. He was the player that many people was expecting to win the League Challenge and was also a player with a 3-0-0 record like myself. Our match up was bound to happen and I had a tough match ahead of me as I knew that Dark was one of my deck’s toughest match up. It was back when the deck featured Klinklang and it still is without Klinklang.
That said, I realize that my deck had some speed to it that the old deck didn’t have. I made sure to take advantage of that by having Heatran ready to attack as hard as it can while I set up my bench to prepare another attacker. A Metal and Double Colorless Energy made me quickly attack and try to get some damage off on his baby Yveltal.
This match was a rather interesting one as we both knew each other deck was rather curious in it’s own way. His deck was a streamline Darkness deck that wanted to attack quickly to take knockouts. Mines was a slower deck that relied in enduring hits and slow down the opponent. Both decks were doing what they were suppose to which was good. Though both players had made mistakes.
My major mistake was that I used a VS Seeker to get a draw Supporter from the discard instead of a Lysandre. Why did this matter? Because there was a loaded Yveltal EX on his bench that was heavily damaged from an earlier run in with one of my Metal soldiers. My active was a Registeel which could easily knocked and set back John for a few turns. I was so focus on the baby Yveltal that could have also been knocked out that I didn’t think about the real threat. I did get the knockout but also lost my Registeel next turn while allowing my opponent to keep his momentum.
Eventually I started to play more aggressively as I knew that my deck was thinning out and time was running low. If I wanted to win this match then I would need to take some knock outs. So it was time to take out Aegislash EX and Dialga EX to hit hard and fast. It was a matter of time as I went from having five prizes down to one prize left with John having only a single card left in his deck and two prizes left.
Though that was when our match ended. I had sent out a loaded Aegislash EX in the active and he sent out his loaded Yveltal EX with a Double Colorless Energy. John had attached a Double Colorless Energy to his active Yveltal EX and did what I was waiting for during our game. He used his VS Seeker to call up a Hex Maniac in the discard to turn off my Aegislash EX’s Mighty Shield ability and knocked out my best shield of defense to take his final two prizes.
Granted, I saw this coming and I should have knew better to put all my cards on to Aegislash EX. I had a Heatran on the bench that could have taken a knockout and if it did get knock out by his Yveltal EX then I could have powered up another attacker to slow down the game or stall out the game to a deck out. Either way, I was too eager and had my defenses crashed.
Make sure to check out John’s article on 60 Cards to see how you should start and finish your Cities. Though I would suggest you do that after you finish reading this article!
Result: Lost (3-1-0)
Round Five: VS Colorless M Rayquaza EX
It was now time for the final round of the League Challenge and it was up against a Colorless M Rayquaza Deck. I started off with my best shield, Aegislash EX. Though he was feeling the burn as my opponent simply used Rayquaza EX’s Intensifying Burn to put constant heavy damage on the sword and shield.
That all changed once I got three energy attached to my Registeel and with a Switch as I put my metal golem into the active to knock off that Psychic energy on Rayquaza EX. This happen a few times as my opponent tried to get something going. I could tell that my opponent wasn’t drawing hot as he had no Supporter nor could do anything but pass and Mega Evolving to prolong the life of his active Pokemon. I wasn’t drawing hot either but I had all I needed in order to ride out the game until I got a draw Supporter.
I simply kept going with my Registeel to knock off energy and just slowly take down the sky dragon. My opponent may have taken out a Registeel but I had another to go to disarm the situation. Eventually I got an Aegislash EX ready to attack and take down the big dragon with a swift attack. Once that was done, the mighty dragon fallen to a steel blade.
Result: Win (4-1-0 Final)
Overall
I ended the League Challenge with a 4-1-0 record which was good enough to earn second place. That was pretty nice after using a deck that I modified at the last minute. Granted, I had plenty of experience with the deck due to the previous season.
The addition of another Dialga EX and Registeel really did make this deck compete with all the other decks in the League Challenge. Both of these cards made my opponent’s deck slow down to a pace that I could control the game and set things up on my bench. Dialga EX would keep my opponent’s EX Pokemon from attacking while Registeel will slow down my opponent’s set up by discarding energy. Heatran made a great beginning attacking to do heavy damage on my opponent. It could either knockout an EX Pokemon with two hits if it has a Muscle Band attached our could knock out a 130 HP Pokemon with four energy. The deck still has trouble with not doing enough damage to take knockouts. Sometimes my Metal Pokemon will attack but will be short by ten or twenty HP from a knockout. This will either result in a knockout for my opponent or simply my Pokemon taking damage that I wouldn’t want to have taken. Either way, this could be a positive as leaves my opponent with heavily damaged Pokemon which can be knocked out later or sooner.
For a future that involves BREAKthrough, there are some changes I could make. The first one is to replace my Pokemon Fan Club with Brigette. The deck plays a nice amount of Basic Pokemon that includes my Bronzor, Heatran, and Registeel line. If I could get them on my bench quickly then I could reduce my reliance on EX Pokemon and afford to attack quickly with one prize attackers. I could possbily also get my Bronzong up quicker too with less Pokemon in my deck to potentially draw from. Though the drawback of this is that I would not be able to grab an EX Pokemon with my basic Pokemon like Pokemon Fan Club allows me to do.
The second change I could do is include a Stand In Zoroark and Float Stone. This could take the place of my Switch. This way I can easily switch between attackers when I need to. Though, the problem is that my deck could become a bit slow down though to setting up another Pokemon. What I could do is simply put in a Float Stone. That way I could always attach it to a Bronzong and promote that one when a Pokemon is knock out. After that, I could simply power up another attacker during my turn and simply retreat the active Bronzong with a Float Stone after a few Metal Links.
I am quite proud with how my Heavy Metal deck played. It certainly rocked the League Challenge and made my opponent’s feel the pressure of our beat. It may have lost the Klinklang line but the deck still has plenty of ways to put my opponent into awkward situations. The future my break with all the new cards coming into play just in time for Cities but Metal end up proving to be durable enough to withstand through all of this.
