#jason klaczynski

[pkmntcg4gbc]

3-time TCG World Champion Jason Klaczynski has a fantastic site that examines Pokémon TCG metas from 1999 to 2016. He has very recently included a section on the Game Boy Color game, so naturally I had to share it. It mentions some minute details that I was not aware of -- such as the initiator of a Link Battle always winning the coin toss, along with PlusPower boosting Peal of Thunder -- but it's relevant either way.

[pokemon-card-of-the-day]

Hi! Was wondering where you learn all this info? So interesting that you know so many different facts all the way back to base set

My first pack of cards being from the Base Set helps, though admittedly it is very easy to remember things wrong when they were over 20 years ago.

What really helps cover for that, especially recently, is that there are a ton of good resources now, and even ways to play with people with older cards online. TCGOne lets you play with a lot of the older cards (Base Set up through Majestic Dawn are all there, as well as HeartGold & SoulSilver onward), though there are still bugs to be worked out. There's also sites that go into some of the history of the game that are worth looking into, and even some more recent discoveries in old formats. Lickitung is a top Pokemon in some of the oldest formats now, for example, and people play Rocket-On with Slowking translated correctly and that changes the game a ton. I'll leave links to two of them here, though there are some others as well. https://jklaczpokemon.wordpress.com/ Jason Klaczynski, 3-time world champion, has a lot of details here, especially going in-depth on earlier formats. From the e-card series onward he tends to focus on unofficial formats with blocks of cards, but those seem to play reasonably well (as long as you avoid that Rayler deck in EX series, which is a big pain to face). https://ptcgarchive.com/ This site has a ton of tournament results from old tournaments, as well as a bunch of deck lists. Worth looking into if you're interested, though there are naturally some gaps in info for tournaments held so long ago (and often being less organized than the game is today!)

[pokemonblog]

Video: Enrique Avila repeated the phrase “I’ll pass” to pave his way through 2015 US Nationals using a deck focused on soaking up damage with Wailord-EX

Video - Enrique Avila repeated the phrase “I’ll pass” to pave his way through 2015 #PlayPokemon US Nationals using a deck focused on soaking up damage with Wailord-EX:

According to the The Pokémon Company, Wailord-EX is probably best remembered from Enrique Avila’s second-place finish at the 2015 US National Championships, but new cards like Hoopa have helped Wailord-EX resurface in the Expanded format. Hoopa joins several new cards that helped breathe new life into the version of this deck that Evan Smith used to win the Dallas Regional Championships Senior…

[we-are-tcg]

So I'm watching the Regionals live stream and LOOK WHAT KLACZYNSKI IS PLAYING! BLEH!

[we-are-tcg]

I finally watched the US Nationals finals

If you want to watch one of the Semi-Finals and the Finals from Nats, you can go to this link: http://www.twitch.tv/pokemon/v/6954050 Masters’ TCG starts around 2:55:00 the Seniors Finals are on the stream as well earlier, but I didn’t watch those. If you click “Keep Reading” you’ll see my reaction to Masters’ Finals, there are spoilers so don’t click if you want to see the outcome yourself.

I really wanted Wailord to win. Enrique’s biggest downfall was that he was paired with Klaczynski in the finals. That’s in no way a slight against Ben Moskow, if Ben had made it to the finals with Metal/Toad, it probably would have been just as good a matchup.

The main reason Wailord-EX (Stallord, Wait-lord, Millord) did so well at Nationals—I think—was because of the surprise factor. Surprise factor plays a huge part in big Pokemon tournaments and we see it all the time. Flareon/Leafeon/Empoleon is a great example, and plenty of decks in the past as well. Here’s the reason why surprise factor (with an exceptional deck, doesn’t work with any old deck) works: it puts the opposing player in a position they have no experience defending against. A lot of times you get into the rhythm of a certain deck and you can sometimes go into autopilot mode—you play cards without much thought because you’re so used to playing the card that way at that time. But if your opponent’s strategy differs from the strategy you’re used to defending against, those same moves aren’t as applicable and can actually harm your position.

Game 1 of the Finals is a perfect example. Obviously this was Klaczynski’s worst game (because he lost it) but he made some crucial mistakes that lent Enrique the win. Namely, Klaczynski put too many Pokemon on his bench. He must have forgotten that none of his Pokemon were in any real danger, so he popped down his extra Seismitoads and Shaymins because that’s what you do right? Well, those extra Pokemon were susceptible to Lysandre, putting Klaczynski in the awkward position of having to spend more resources to get back control of his position. This is precisely the mistake that Enrique and other Wailord players preyed on, and why I think Wailord did so well.

While this trickery worked against so many players in Swiss, it only took Klaczynski one bad game to realize his mistake and adapt to this new scenario. By game 2, he realized two things:

1) his Pokemon weren’t going anywhere. There was no need to ever bench a 2nd Seismitoad because his first one would never get KO’d. That means he can focus on getting all 7 energies in his deck on just ONE Toad and force Enrique to dig for his 4 Team Flare Grunt and 1 Xerosic. Then the only other threat would be the Suicunes, the simplest answer to that was bench 1 Trubbish with a Float Stone on it so it can’t be Lysandre-stalled.

2) and this is the big one. Why rush? Why bother playing Sycamore and Shaymin-EX? All he needs to do is draw-pass until all the pieces of the puzzle are in his hand, and here are all the pieces: DCE, Muscle Band, Hypnotoxic Laser, Virbank City Gym, and (the most important piece) N.

I’m going to take a paragraph to explain why N is the most important card for that combo. The draw-pass part of Wailord’s strategy serves 2 purposes, one is they’re trying to move the game along as fast as possible to make decking out their opponent quicker; the other purpose is as their Wailords are racking up damage over the course of 4-6 turns, they’re collecting lots of cards from their deck, ready to play AZ, Cassius, or Max Potion when the time is right. After Klaczynski plays all the other puzzle pieces to start the damage train on Wailord, the last thing he does before attacking is play N, possibly putting all those healing cards back into Enrique’s deck. Meanwhile, Klaczynski is also putting all of his draw-pass-collected cards back into his deck, prolonging the deckout. This became particularly beneficial towards the end of game 2 and all of game 3 when there were so few prize cards, meaning less cards coming out of his deck.

It goes to show why he’s such an upper echelon player, he figured out the best possible strategy to beat Wailord with Toad/Garb, which is why it sucked for Enrique that Jason was his finals opponent. I also wonder about nervousness on Enrique’s part. He looked very calm and collected for most of the game, and he was clearly very experienced with that deck. But it’s Nationals Finals and you’re facing the three-time World Champion. Was Enrique at the top of this game for those matchups? At one point in the finals, he forgot to use Rough Seas, was it a fluke? or did his nerves get the best of him? Would it have changed the outcome? Maybe; maybe not.

Anyways, if anyone wants to chat about the finals with me, my ask box is open. Please, send me your thoughts! I want to see other points of view!

Happy Battling! -Ethan