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Stadium Challenge Amsterdam
Professor Championship Date & Location: June 9th, Beurs van Berlage, Amsterdam Time: 2 PM, delayed to 7 PM Participants: approximately 30 By Eskil "Golduck" Vestre Norway Where should I start? This tournament was a bit... different than expected. Wizards Europe's website "Playingpokemon.com" clearly announced that the Professor Championship should start at 2 PM. Just imagine our frustration when we were told that we had to wait until the 10- and 11-14 age brackets were finished with their Swiss Rounds. We had to wait a full 9 hours (from 10 AM to 7 PM)! It could have been worse, though, as I had many of my good Team Europe friends to hang out with during the waiting. Before the tournament: I met up with Freddy K, Edderz, Sentimental_Blastoise, Whatever, SauroN, Super Psyduck, Pablo, Stoney, Kakureon, Michael From & his son and more, as we stumbled across eachother in the giant hall. We did some trading an playtesting and had fun, until 2 PM. Now where's that Professor Event, we started to wonder. I tried to go to the judges table and complain, but some arrogant Wizards persons took me and threw me out of the tournament area. "I need to talk to Peter Coenen (the head judge)" I tried. But they ignored me. O_o Then, all TE Professors gathered and we got to talk to him. The Professor tournament would start when the Swiss rounds of 14-. were finished, we were told. And we were now on round 2 of 7. We decided to go eat something. After eating and having fun at the restaurant, we played in a Single Elimination Modified tourney. I lost to a Dark Tyranitar/Steelix player. He was a nice guy, though. Little did I know that I'd play him again this day... Between rounds, we registred for the Prof Championship. Just a litle while after the side event was finished, the Professor Championship started. The tournament starts: We were around 30 Professors, and we were going to play 3 Swiss rounds of Modified, followed by a Top 8 Rochester Draft. I thought 3 rounds sounded very short. What if I didn't come to Top 8? Was it worth the 500 Euro trip from Norway to Amsterdam just to play 3 Modified rounds? Anyway, here's my deck for the Modified rounds: My painfully unoriginal Gatr deck 
18 Pokémon: 4 Totodile (Fury Swipes) 4 Croconaw (Sweep Away) 3 Feraligatr (Riptide) 3 Cleffa 2 Pichu 1 Smeargle 1 Elekid 24 Trainers: 4 Misty's Wrath 4 Professor Elm 4 Double Gust 3 Secret Mission 3 Trash Exchange 3 Focus Band 1 Time Capsule 1 Narrow Gym 1 Rocket's Training Gym 18 Energy: 18 Water Energy Swiss Rounds Round 1 Me VS woman with Dark Gengar deck She was a very nice opponent. She was 22 years old, and she and her mother (!) both came from Belgium to play here. I got my Gatr out fast and Riptided her Dark Haunters before they managed to evolve. Late game, she got out a Dark Gengar, which ended up killing my Gatr. But then I had only 1 prize left, and drew it by Double Gusting a damaged benched Pokémon. 1-0-0 (3/3 points) Round 2 Me VS Dutch boy with Dark Muk deck Oh no! One of those Trainer-heavy, ultra-speedy Dark Muk decks! Fortunately, I got a good starting hand, and evolved to Croconaw before he got Dark Muk out. If you haven't played Gatr VS Dark Muk before, I'll tell you this is very important in order to win. If he gets out Dark Muk, he can just Double Gust all your Totodiles so you never get to evolve (remember Focus Band won't trigger, because Toto' gets KOd by poison damage). I got out Gatr and riptided a few Pokémon before his second Dark Muk knocked out my Gatr. But I got out Smeargle and Sketched Dark Muk's attack, in order to poison it and shut off the power. With a combination of Smeargle and Pichu, I drew the last few prizes. 2-0-0 (6/6 points) Round 3 Me VS Stoney with Dark Muk deck Oh no, not Stoney! He's one of the best players in the whole country. His Dark Muks are unstoppable! He's also a personal internet friend of mine, and none of us wanted to eleminate the other. We looked at the pairings list and found out that if we draw, we would be guaranteed the Top 8. So why not? We called it a draw. 2-1-0 (7/9 points) TOP 8: The Top 8 is called out. It's: -Me -Stoney -Michael From -SauroN -Kakureon -Whizkiddo -Some dutch girl -The Dark Tyranitar/Steelix guy We sat down at the Draft Pod. It was 9-10 PM now. Then, head judge Peter Coenen told us that it's very late, and he wondered if we should do regular Booster Draft instead of Rochester. I was a bit disappointed, I had looked forward to the Rochester. But since everyone else wanted it to be quick over, I agreed. Actually, I was also afraid that the tournament would last all night. We were going to draft 3 Genesis and 3 Destiny. I decided to go for a strategy: to choose as many Trainer cards as possible from the Genesis boosters, and rather choose Pokémon from Destiny. Trainers would win this thing, I thought. If I'd get Double Gusts and Berries, I'd be more than happy. Here's how my deck ended up: Grass/Water teched out deck :P 
19 Pokémon: 1 Seel (Neo Destiny) 1 Heracross (Neo Destiny) 1 Chansey (Neo Destiny) 1 Gligar (Neo Genesis) 1 Sneasel (Neo Genesis) 2 Chickorita LV. 12 (Neo Genesis) 2 Chickorita LV. 19 (Neo Genesis) 2 Bayleef LV. 39 (Neo Genesis) 1 Meganium LV. 54 (Neo Genesis) 3 Totodile LV. 18 (Neo Destiny) 1 Totodile LV. 13 (Neo Genesis) 2 Croconaw LV. 41 (Neo Genesis) 1 Dark Croconaw (Neo Destiny) 10 Trainers: 3 Double Gust (Neo Genesis) 3 Berry (Neo Genesis) 1 Time Capsule (Neo Genesis) 1 Goldberry (Neo Genesis) 1 Sprout Tower (Neo Genesis) 1 Lucky Stadium (Neo Destiny) 11 Energy: 1 Darkness Energy (Neo Genesis) 5 Grass Energy 5 Water Energy Strategy: Meganium and Bayleefs would be useful, I thought, and Grass is the best draft type. But I was afraid of Fire, so I added the Croconaw line. I thought Croconaw was an awesome heavy hitter, and that his Sweep Away discarding would be ok because I had Time Capsule. Seel is there because I needed a Water Pokémon without Grass weakness. Gligar is and awesome tech card, and teams up with Sneasel for Double Gust madness. A Darkness Energy wasn't half bad, because I could use it with Sneasel or Dark Croconaw. Also nice tech if you just have to do the last, needed 10 damage. Top 8 Me VS Stoney and his Fire/Fighting deck Oh no, not again! This time we couldn't draw. In a Single Elimination Top 8, the loser is really eleminated. But we just had to play. :( He played Fire/Fighting, with Hitmonchans and Slugmas. Hitmonchan's attack was sure annoying, but I managed to get around him with Double Gusts. I also did a crazy stunt by attaching a Darkness Energy and a Berry to a 40 HP Totodile (LV. 13, that is). @_@ Later, Croconaw created some mayor havoc as he knocked out a lot of Pokémon. I won after a while. I felt sorry for Stoney, but he took the loss like a man ;) and wished me luck in the rest of the tournament. Top 4 Me VS SauroN and his Light Dewgong/Sunflora deck Argh, again I had to face on of my internet friends! SauroN lives in Sweden, Norway's neighbour country. He even has visited me in Norway. He's a great guy, and has been among the best 4 players in every STS Qualifier he's attended. He even has placed 2nd two times! I started with a Sneasel, with a Darkness Energy, but no bench. After some Fury Swipes, he had 40 damage on him. I was worried, but got a Goldberry (phew) and kept him alive for several turns. Then I got out a fully loaded Heracross and won by Double Gusting some of his less loaded Pokémon (like Light Dewgong and Light Sunflora). I watched the other Top 4 match. Two Fighting decks, both with Grass weak Pokémon. "You'll win again" SauroN told me. "I'm not too sure", I said, "but it's nice to see some Grass weakness". FINAL MATCH Me VS the Dark Tyranitar guy and his Donphan/Dark Donphan/Dark Octillery deck When we sat down, Peter told us that it'd be a best out of 3 match, to avoid that someone lost a trip to the US because of a bad starting hand. 
From the left: my opponent, Peter Coenen, me and Christoffer (SauroN) Game 1 I started with one Grass Energy, Chickorita and Bayleef. Not too bad. But the problem was that I didn't draw any more Energy for the next SIX turns. I kept Bayleef alive with its Sweet Scent attack, and Berries. But after struggling for these six turns, Bayleef fell and I was left with Gligar, Sneasel and Chansey. His Donphan slaughtered all of them and I lost. I was so happy this was going to be best out of 3. Loosing because of such an Energy draught. That's not very fun. Game 2 Much better. I get a normal start, right amount of Energy and load everything up. I draw 4 prizes, he draws 1. Game 3 This game has become famous on "Wizpog", and started a whole lot of discussions. It's what I'm least proud of out of everything I've done in the Pokémon TCG. I didn't cheat - but I did a very stupid mistake. Let me explain: We both get good starts. He gets out a Dark Donphan (which has 60 HP) with 3 Fighting Energy. I get out a Croconaw with... 1 Grass, 1 Water and 1 Darkness. What I actually wanted on him was 2 Water and 1 Darkness. I did have 2 Water Energy in my hand when I attached the Grass Energy, so why did I? Must have been because I was very tired and it was 1 AM. O_o Anyway, I used Sweep Away and did 60 damage to the Dark Donphan, knocking it out. I didn't notice I had the wrong Energy attached. And my opponent didn't notice. Not even Peter, who has watching all three games very closely (he followed what we had in our hands all the time). So I drew my prize card. My opponent brings out another Pokémon, which I also KO with Sweep Away. But then, I retreat my Croconaw because it was hurt by Darkness Energy. As I put him into the discard pile, we all suddently realize he had 1 Grass, 1 Water and 1 Darkness. I felt horrible. What had I done? I had KOd two Pokémon with the wrong Energy attached! What would happen now? I felt so sorry for my opponent. What an idiot I had been. But Peter says: "You did have the two Water Energy cards in your hand all the time". And that was right. Even if I did attach the Grass Energy, I would only have needed one more turn before Croconaw was ready to attack. Peter told my opponent to draw a prize card, and the match continues. I bring out my Bayleef and use Double Razor Leaf to draw the last half of my prizes. After the game, we shook hands, and my opponent didn't seem angry. But I said sorry again, and told him that I didn't do it on purpose. I think he understood that. But still - I had taken a trip to Worlds away from him. It wasn't a very nice feeling. The Wizards staff took pictures of me, gave me my Professor jacket and promised to contact me very soon. And now, here's what you've been waiting for: PROPS N' SLOPS!!! Props: -to my father, who went to Amsterdam with me -to Amsterdam, which is a beautiful city -to all TE members that showed up and did a great job at the tournaments. -to the 14- Championships, they went very nice -to most of the judged and Wizards staff for being very nice Slops: -to the Wizards staff that physically threw me away! -to me, for doing such an unforgiving mistake in the finals of an important tournament -to Wizards Europe, for announcing on their website that the Prof tourney started 2 PM, when it didn't at all. -to the Prof tournament having only 3 Swiss rounds, so many good players missed the Top 8 by losing only one match. THIS REPORT CAN BE USED ON THESE WEBSITES: -Pojo -Team Europe -Poke-NEO -cardFAQs.com If you wanna put it on your website, just mail me at methusa@vestre.net! |