#lost box

I have been playing the Pokémon card game for years. I think I started playing the card game casually in 2021, masked up in a Dunkin Donuts in the summer. (Because Covid was real and my family wasn’t taking it seriously.) I started playing with a friend of mine, who was super cool and taught me how to play. It was a good excuse to get out of the house. The beginning of 2021 was rather rough for…

Just one event this weekend and it was a little like 15 player League Challenge. I've been super busy lately and it's early on in the season so hopefully I don't get punished too hard for not going to literally every event all the time because that is expensive and exhausting.

Saturday, Aug. 5: League Challenge, 4th Place (3-3)

I played turbo Lost Box again for the hell of it. Still a pretty awful list but the deck is so powerful it doesn't often matter. I honestly didn't miss Raikou at all this event. (I finally found my copy of it though so I can play a better deck next time!)

Here's how it went: T vs Miraidon T vs Lost Tina W vs Mew W vs Chien-Pao

Starting 0-0-2 is very fun in these tournaments. I was pretty checked out after the second one! But winning the next two guaranteed 4th and the possibility of that happening scared 2 people away from IDing so...small victories?

I actually ended up pairing into the only 3-0 (who also happened to be a friend I've been playing with since I was like 14) in the last round which was a little weird to me as there were other people with better records than my 1-0-2 that could've paired him instead. That man had been drawing god hands all day and he finally hit the end of the streak against me. Good beats, I guess?

This was my first weekend of competitive play for the new season. Here's what I got up to:

Friday, Jul. 21: Weekly League, 3rd place(2-0-2)

No CP awarding going on here, but I do these to get games in with a couple of friends every now and then. I played Gardevoir with a Lost Vacuum and a split of Forest and Sky Seal Stone.

Here's how it went: T vs United Wings W vs Palkia T vs Lugia SS W vs Fusion Mew

Played against my testing partner in the last round and absolutely blew him away with the Sky Seal Stone he didn't know I put in my deck. We usually know each other's lists very well, but he had just gotten back from vacation and I took our resulting testing drought as a fun opportunity to surprise him.

Saturday, Jul. 22: League Cup, 20th Place (3-3)

Played the same list as the day before. Daniel Altavilla, Chip Richey and his brother were there playing, along with a few other local friends. The cup ended up with 40 players and was an absolute blast.

Here's how it went: W vs Inteleon Urshifu L vs Lugia L vs ArcUmbreon W vs Fusion Mew L vs Chien-Pao W vs Lugia SS

So close but so far. I can't say I didn't have fun though. I definitely had variance not go my way a good number of times.

In Round 2, I played a Temple of Sinnoh and Iono'd my opponent to 2 cards. I needed them to whiff a counter stadium for a turn to have a chance and they...didn't. Kind of unlucky, given that they hadn't thinned their deck much that game but such is life.

In Round 3, I lost after missing a highly probable Boss's Orders for game. On my final turn, I had 9 cards left in deck. I drew for turn, taking me down to 8. I used Mew's Mysterious Tale finding an Ultra Ball, thinning my deck down to 7. I used Refinement to draw 2 cards, taking me down to 5. Then, I played the Ultra Ball to find Shining Arcana Gardevoir, played it and used Shining Arcana to draw 2 more cards, leaving my deck at 2. My 2 remaining Boss's Orders were in the bottom 3 cards. Woof.

The other loss I'm honestly not sure how I managed. I had some awkward draws but it felt okay-ish. I probably just made a couple misplays that I can't remember. No X-2's made cut that day so I didn't feel too bad about it.

A friend ended up taking it down with UrshiInteleon. I probably would not have fared well in that top cut anyways.

Going 3-3 at my first League Cup of the season is a time honored tradition with 3 seasons of history behind it, so...yeah. Tradition!

Sunday, Jul. 23: League Challenge, 3rd place (2-0-1)

I was conflicted on if I even wanted to go to this one. I hadn't heard good things about recent changes made to this store, but I decided that Championship Points are more important than well run events so there I went.

I was a little burnt out on Gardie, so I decided to sleeve up Turbo Lost Box, turn my brain off and have some fun. I couldn't find my copy of Raikou V and didn't have extra Forest Seal Stones handy so I ended up just playing a weird suboptimal list. It was just a small event after all. Most of the more invested players in the area travelled the extra hour to the League Cup that happened on the same day.

Here's how it went: T vs Chien Pao W vs Lugia W vs Lugia

There was supposed to be a fourth round, but the organizer made a mistake. I wanted to play more Poke, so I was left a little disappointed but it is what it is. There were 3 2-0-1s by the end and my resistance ended up being the worst.

One story I really do want to share is that my round 3 opponent conceded after seeing his opening hand, packed up all his stuff and declared "I'm going to go home, get drunk and watch Tokyo Ghoul." and then did exactly that. My opening hand was fire and I'm a little sad I didn't get to play it out but at least I got a funny story out of it.

My testing partner ended up getting first with Fusion Mew though! The car came home with 25 CP so...profit?

That was the whole weekend for me! Pretty uneventful but I got to play three days of Poke so I have minimal complaints.