Lucky 1st place finish with Gothitelle at Surrey's Battle Roads Tournament - Part 3

Top Four vs. Trevore Read (Bearplume)
Game 1
Trevore was essentially running a Ross structure with four Beartics as the headline attacker. I knew going into the match that it was a good match up for me, just because I believed that Gothitelle had the advantage in being able to play trainers and hit over the wall.

The first game actually turned out to be quite the chore as we both failed to set up for the first 15 minutes or so. I dropped Tropical Beach early in the game and we both made ample use of it, although I think Trevore probably came out ahead, being able to play most of his cards to set up Vileplume early and Beaching for precisely one card almost every turn.

Lucky 1st place finish with Gothitelle at Surrey's Battle Roads Tournament - Part 2

Round 4 vs. Sam Park (Magneboar)
There were only five 3-0s left in the tournament, which meant that I was essentially sitting at the head table with people who might be top cutting. Sure enough, I get paired with another familiar face. Above me in the table were Christian and Trevore. Christian was a super keen Pokemon player who only started recently. He accompanied me to Tukwila and was inspired to build his own Zekrom deck. He had already played a BR just the day before in Redmond, WA and was doing very well this tournament. Trevore arrived on the mainland with a large group from Vancouver Island and, well, you’ll see what he’s playing below.

Lucky 1st place finish with Gothitelle at Surrey's Battle Roads Tournament - Part 1

After the BR at Tukwila, I took my Gothitelle deck and tweaked it slightly. The big change to the deck was the addition of a single Switch. I tried out a few other changes but most of them didn’t stick. Mostly, I swapped around the draw supports a bit and called it a day (in fact, when I was writing up the list, I was actually surprised that I was no longer running four Sage’s, but I shrugged and trusted that I must have had a good reason to do so at some point).

Saviour?

Kindle vs. Books: Which side are you on?

So, I've been asked to comment on this article by Sara Barbour. It is basically an op ed on why the author prefers books over electronic/digital representations of books. If you are unfamiliar with the Kindle, watch the video review below and prepare to become uncomfortably familiar with it:

In her article, Barbour admits that she avoids the Kindle because she is afraid that she would be tempted (to use it and, possibly, replace her collection of books). She prefers books because of intangible things, such as sentimental value and "the experience of reading." So where do I stand?

How to Play Like a Pro

New article by yours truly up on Pokegym.net: http://pokegym.net/forums/showthread.php?t=155087

Here are the key points:

The Set Up
Typically, you should be seated at your table and ready to start well before the judges declare the start of the round. However, even if you're not ready, you still get two minutes to shuffle and set up at the start of the game.

Help Build Heroblock City!

Well, if you didn't know, I am one of the creators of Escapecraft 3 and the Escapecraft Dual. The Escapecraft series was one of the forerunning adventure/escape maps in Minecraft and has gained acknowledgement and praise from Notch himself.

Shortly after releasing Escapecraft 3, merlinus12 and I began the prep work required for our next big project, Heroblock City, which was to serve as a spiritual successor to the Escapecraft series. Our aspirations were big, as we sat down to plan a map that was easily ten times larger than Escapecraft 3 (which, by itself, was already imposingly large). Here is an early tour of the city:

 

Unfortunately (well, fortunately for him), merlinus12 found a new job and had to move, leaving him super busy and without a gaming PC for several months. However, since the beginning, we had intended Heroblock City to be a community project and I have decided to proceed with this project on my own while merlinus12 is effectively AWOL. So here we go.

Let's Tour Heroblock City! Monster mob texture pack

New video is up! Check it out: