By Kenny Wisdom
I’m back from San Diego, and decided that for my next article I would write about my Pokemon Worlds 2011 Last Chance Qualifier experience. As you’ll see, my time in the tournament was rather short, but I thought it would be a good way to re-introduce readers to my work here on the site, and the LCQ/Worlds in general is definitely a hot topic in the community as a whole. I’m a little pressed for time (still dealing with a backlog of work and other real-life issues in a post San Diego world), so without further ado…
Round 1: BYE
I’m not sure how many of you followed the LCQ this year, but they changed to a single elimination format (as opposed to the format which most tournaments are run under, Swiss). What this means is that they have to find some way to get to a power of 2. Since they can’t turn people away from registration or otherwise limit/fix the number of people playing, they decided to give the majority of players byes in the first round, with the idea being that after this round there would be a perfect power of 2, so that they could eventually give the top 16 or top 8 players remaining invites to Worlds.
I didn’t do a whole lot during the bye round. Everyone else besides one person from our group all got byes, so we mainly just watched his game, wandered around the tournament center, and awaited when we would finally get to play. Which we eventually did, as you’ll see…
Round 2: Yanmega/Vileplume
I was playing MegaZone w/ Kingdra, so when I saw my opponent flip over a Yanma and an Oddish I wasn’t necessarily downtrodden, but I knew that I was playing against a good player with a real deck, and I knew that Vileplume could be a serious problem for me, if I wasn’t careful.
Game 1: He gets out Vileplume on turn 2 and there’s simply not much I can do. The game is legitimate and goes a while as I try and mount a comeback, but it just wasn’t meant to happen. I let the game go on for quite a while, hoping that if time was called on Game 2 or 3 that I would have an advantage. Not sure if that was the right call or not. I eventually scoop up when I realize I simply cannot win.
Game 2: I have more confidence going into the second game, becasue I get to go first. Unfortunately I open with a hand of Horsea and 6 unplayable cards, and then draw a 7th unplayable card. He Tyrogues me twice while I fail to do much of anything, and am eliminated from the tournament.
I was a little bit better, but at the end of the day I lost to a great opponent, so there’s not much I can say. Good Game.
So, that’s all I’ve got. The week was still amazing, as a member of my team ended up winning the Pokemon World Championship in the Masters Division, and a member of our team in the Junior division grinded in. After those types of results I really can’t complain about much of anything, haha.
Next week I’ll be writing about the Emerging Powers set and the best competitive cards from it, so check back then for your Kenny Wisdom fix!
xoxo,
kw