Brew City Old School Showdown : Seeing the Love
How did I get here?
I have never played at a retro tournament ever. I've played standard since I started playing this game casually in 2008. I have been someone that mainly plays on a local level with an occasional league challenge, league cup or regional here and there. Recently I decided to start looking into building past format decks to show people at my local league how the game has evolved over time and I'm just nostalgic for the old stuff. I had connected with other fans of retro TCG formats online and was informed about this tournament coming up. Now I was hesitant at first since it was for two formats I was not familiar with but some friends of mine convinced me these formats are pretty interesting. Another factor I had in mind is that this could be the biggest retro tournament in recent memory. Most retro in person events are usually smaller affairs or exclusively online since most of the people that enjoy retro is spread throughout the country. If there is going to be a hyped up retro event, I have to be there.
Too bad I have no experience with Base - Fossil and Prop 15/3. I didn't even know of Prop's existence until this event was announced. I had read about the tournament that Jason Klaczynski played in back in the day but I was not familiar with the rules or any meta at all.
So what are we playing?
Let's talk the process of deck building prior to leaving the events. For Base - Fossil I just check out Jason Klaczyski's blog Wigglytuff Magmar and just slapped that together. I would not know the folly of my ways until we sit down to do some play testing.
This is the list we leave with
For Prop 15 there was more thought put into this. Prop was what I was personally more interested in because of the fact that the format hasn't been defined yet. There wasn't an automatic BDIF. One of the biggest differences with this format is the 15 trainer rule. Before the new invention of the "Supporter card" trainers just ran wild. Wanna play 4 Professor Oaks this turn? Go for it. Wanna Energy Removal 4 energies? Ouch. That hurts. Oh and we drew Item Finders to get those really good cards back? Yeah they were pretty good and I find this format to be a good way of balance this instead of a ban list for example. I look at this rule and go "So because the trainers are lower, games will run slower and either the trainers are more valued and/or pokemon are now more valued for their attacks and abilities." With this thought in mind I scroll through Jason's blog once again and see the Alakazam Vileplume deck. I like this idea but I want something different. Better perhaps? …..
After this initial testing, trying between Erika's Vileplume and Dark Vileplume, I thought the trainer lock would be deadly in this format.
The Dark dragon evolution line - I saw something here. The Dark Dragonair's Evolutionary Light Pokepower to once per turn grab an Evolution Pokemon from the deck and put it into my hand. I thought this Dragonair in combination with Dark Dragonites ability to grab basics from the deck quick (while running Pokemon Breeders in the deck) and Vileplume being involved I thought "Oh hit with the dragons and trainer lock my opponent before they set up"
After the suggestion of others for the basic attackers I was leaving with a psychic build as Muk hurts this deck bad bad.
This is the deck we leave with
Going to the tournament
Initially I was going to fly to the tournament but due to some financial issues I just drove. I will not do this ever again. Driving through West Virginia is not worth it. The rest of the drive was very easy but the roads get scary in WV.
Tournament Location
Before getting into the decks and games played I wanted to show some love towards the location this event was held at. The Mana Vault is fantastic. Nice open space, staff that was friendly and communicated well and you can very much feel that this is a store that listens to their community. This is a store that is run by fans and for fans of card games. This store is now my personal favorite card store. Even just buying cards and using the computer to the side makes the process WAY smoother overall. Props to Sam and the team for adding to this amazing experience.
Day 0
I am so glad I got in a day early for some play testing. https://x.com/Whimsicast?t=df5395_5KdX5BG-hqOZoTw&s=09 and I did some fun games with 2010 and SUM-LOT
After some fun games I started play testing around with my Base-Fossil and Prop 15/3 deck to see what would happen…………so I lost every game that night.
Day 1 Base-Fossil
As people started to flow into the store, the air became electric. The space began to fill with fans of these classic cards that are just about as old as I am.
Credit for this event cannot be stated without shouting out 2 legends of the game - Jason Klaczynski (3 time World Champion) and Andrew Mahone (9th at 2015 World Championships). These two helped elevate this event to be as big as it was. Jason for helping organize and getting the word out on the event where as Andrew directly promoted the event on his channel for all of his fans to hear about. Without these two this event wouldn't have blown up as much as it did. Again special thanks to these two legends.
The Deck
I felt as though Wigglytuff would get smacked crazy hard. Tried the Magmar and Energy Absorb Mewtwo builds of Wigglytuff but something just seemed better.
Lickitung
Using Lickitung and Magmar to stall I felt this was much easier to perform in this format than trying to draw all my prize cards. The Chansey is there as just a big wall to be annoying. We don't really need Double Edge much here. The Aerodactyl is there for the Mysterious Fossil (being a card when knocked out the opponent takes no prizes so just a one turn stall if need be) and just Aerodactyls ability to shut off evolving. It was this or Muk but I thought I'd see more Pokemon evolving than abilities in this format. Moltres is there to speed up the deck out and the fighting resistance is crazy good. This card saves me if a Hitmonchan shows up. Imposter Oak may seem like an unnecessary choice but it's to help combat shenanigans of people holding onto their Lass for late game protecting them from deck out. Is it necessary? Nah but can be cheeky though.
Also I have played 0 games with lickitung
LETS GOOOOOOOO
START OF THE EVENT
Let the games begin
Round 1 - 1-0
Marc Kilgore
He was playing for prizes and I was playing for the deck out. This deck seems to be more of a counter evolutions kinda deck but sadly I was a bad match up for him. Just sat back and waited till he decked out. This was the game where I learned how to play the deck. Don't be aggressive and I just kept track of how low the deck size is.
Round 2 - 1-1
Joe Szeluga
So the ACTUAL game I started Mysterious Fossil thinking it counts as first turn active. I was wrong. Whoops for some reason I thought in playtesting prior to the event that they did count for some reason so I got turn 1 donked. That's the whole reason I only ran 2 fossils in the deck. We played a fun game after that and still lost and got to see the deck in action. I like this deck. Can cover a wide range of decks in the meta. Nicely done Joe. Congrats on the Top 4 finish. Well deserved.
Round 3 - 1-2
Zack Cantin
Zack is one of my homies and I know is someone more experienced with Base - Fossil than I am. He clearly has the upper hand and was just about one step ahead of me in this game. Congrats Zack. Well deserved.
This report is titled "Seeing the Love" and there are multiple reasons for that. One of them being what I saw after I finished my game. I see Jason doing a stream game.
As this game goes on
Players would often just watch the games still in progress. This is something I see even on a local level with players that are not even one time World champions. Jokes aside it is always nice to see fellow players still show an interest in how other people play this game, what strategies people go with, see how plans play out in real time, etc.
Round 4 - 2-2
Brandon Arizmendi
From what I remember Brandon had a dud hand and was just Fetching with Khan and then Moltres stalled the Hitmonchan for a few turns and just waited until he decked out.
Round 5 - 3-2
Lynne Hoffman
Again another just chip away at their board and wait for deck out BUT this game was extra saucy because as the game progressed I, early on, discarded Imposter Oak as that's what I would normally do because I never need the card until late game and then I can just Item Finder it later. They have 3 cards in hand and 3 in deck.
My turn - Item Finder into Imposter Oak for game. No Lass for you if that's what your pocketing in your hand. I then look over my should to Zack Cantin and I go "Bro I got the Imposter dub" and he give me an excited thumbs up and goes "Yoooo sick"
Round 6 - 4-2
Connor Corr
Connor had a pretty slow start and didn't seem to be drawing anything he needed. This was my only win by drawing all my prize cards. I was scared at first seeing Charmander thinking "If there is a possibility of Charizard that could be a problem" since it could one shot anything on my board but I see here it just went to Charmeleon so nothing to worry about.
END RESULTS 4-2 ending in 12th place out of 41 players.
Final Thoughts Post Base-Fossil
Honestly I was expecting to end with a 1-5 or 2-4 since I didn't put a ton of effort into this deck but looking back honestly just change the strategy a little and I'd run it back. I have a few cards I think could work with this deck concept. I think adding a one of or multiple Gamblers would help.
I will cut the Aerodactyl since it wasn't necessary at all. Either I'll swap with Muk or just have this deck be just Magmar and Lickitung. Also heavy Scoop Ups, Mr.Fuji and Pokemon Center.
Overall exceeded my expectations and will continue to adjust this list for future events. This event has also made more appreciate Base - Fossil more and making me want to build a couple more decks.
LETS TALK THE TOP PLAYERS
At this point I stayed at the store to observe the top 8 and to play casually with anyone that was still there.
While they are fighting for the top spot I am testing for Prop 15/3
TOP 4 COMMENCE
FINALS COMMENCE
Congratulations Edgar and thank your for signing my Hitmonchan for me. If you'd like to see how it all unfolded here is a link to the vod of the tournament.
Final Thoughts on the Base - Fossil Tournament
I had a lot of fun. I had low expectations for myself here but the Day 0 playtesting and deck swap saved me here. There's some adjustments I'll make to the deck but overall satisfied. I shall return to Base - Fossil in the future. Very fun era to try out for the first time.
DAY 2 - PROP 15/3 ☠️
Prop 15 was the format I came for since this is a format that I view as sort of unexplored territory in the retro format scene. There is still plenty of growth in this format to try to find new deck builds.
The Deck
So here's the logic in my head. Get Vileplume fast and then after that rotate between attackers and win. Nothing too complicated here. Also Pollen Stench is underrated in my opinion. Before the tournament Zapdos was Mewtwo but I felt Mewtwo was just too slow.
The Prop 15/3 tournament was a smaller affair with having about half as many players as the Base - Fossil tournament. Ended up with 19 players in the tournament.
Let's get to the tournament
Round 1 - 1-0
Joe Szeluga
Only disappointed Andrew wasn't streaming the Prop 15 tournament because this game I crushed and would have loved to have people see this one. This game was a good back and forth but I got Vileplume out turn 3 and Dragonair having Psychic resistance swung this one in my favor. This is the one game I feel this deck functioned the way it was built for.
Round 2 - 1-1
Kyle Bies
Clefable is just so good here. That card alone won this match but I know Kyle is a quite experienced player and his deck having answers to plenty of problems in the format. Smart plays Kyle.
Round 3 - 1-2
Christopher Miller
Chris is smart. How do I know? He had a Clefable that's how. Easy dub for him. Congrats Chris.
Round 4 - 2-2
Marc Kilgore
Chris got Trainer locked early and it hurt him baaad. Just got chipped away while he essentially just sat there.
Round 5 - 2-3
Sam Bolender
I knew Sam would likely win this one as we test played the day prior and the Surge's Electabuzz is pretty good. I very much slept on that buzz. Congrats Chris.
Final Thoughts on my Prop 15 Preformance
I ended with 12th/19th. Makes sense. I didn't stand a chance with this meta. What did I learn? That I will not to play this deck again. I wanted to go kinda risky with my choice. I thought the format was going to be slower paced because of the lower trainer count but instead everyone just ran Wigglytuff Rapidash which would just cook me. Next time stage 2 pokemon are not the route. I just made a poor meta choice. I sadly wasn't able to stay to document the top 8 matches due to the long drive back but congrats to Brandon Arizmendi for taking the Prop 15/3 tournament home in the end.
Showing my love
Biggest thank you to Jason Klaczynski and Sam Bolender. Without these two meeting this wouldn't have been possible. The love of the game made this happen. Another massive thanks to Andrew Mahone for promoting and streaming this event. That brought this to a whole different level. Also thanks to the rest of the Mana Vault team for the very smooth and fluid tournament. No complaints and would happily come back if there is another retro tournament here.
The Drive Back And Final Thoughts
On my long way home I popped on F.D.Signifier, one of my all time favorite YouTubers, where he does a breakdown of the Kendrick VS Drake beef. I had been following this beef since around the release of Drake and J.Cole's First Person Shooter and even then I never expected anything even close to where the beef ended up at. Point being that I turned on what would help center me. Bring me back to my reality. Hearing about a man getting destroyed by someone clearly better than him for fair reasons. After this I relistened to Mr.Morale and the Big Stepper.
SONG OF THE EVENT
The Heart Part 5 by Kendrick Lamar
This is the song defines my feelings on this tournament. In this song Kendrick lays out to the rap world that it needs to save itself from losing grasp from the culture. The energy he brings to this song is like someone trying to to perform CPR on someone he truly cares about. This is the energy I felt at the event. Something the community hasn't felt at LEAST since prior to the pandemic. There was an energy of people just here for the love of the game. People that got to feel like when they were in 1996-2000. It's a feeling you can't get anywhere else.
It was great to experience my first in person retro tournament. I was very glad to see plenty of my friends that I engage with online in peroson. In the future I just need to playtest more but I am way more familiar with Base - Fossil now. I'd like to try to attend and document in the future the NAIC retro side event(s) and the Gencon retro event they do each year. I'd also want to visit the Double Rainbow Cup but that's a bit out of my budget currently and I've never been to Japan but that would be the dream. If theres other retro In person tournaments let me know. I'd love to attend/document these events. Also this is my first tournament report so any feedback is appreciated. There will be more of these to come from me in the future. Stay tuned.
Thank you for reading
Zach Klinefelter
BONUS PHOTO
