Pokemon TCG City Championships 2014-Madison, WI: Masters Division Top 8

Matt Marusik

The following is an interview with Matt Marusik, one of the top eight finishers in the Masters Division of the Pokémon TCG 2014 Madison City Championship:

Where are you from, and how did you get into the Pokemon TCG?
I’m from West Allis, Wisconsin, and I started playing TCG competitively (kind of out of the blue) towards the end of last season. Me and my friend just made decks and got really into it. I did collect the cards and know a fair bit about the rules prior to that, however.

Aromatisse is a lesser-played deck in this format. What’s the basic strategy of the deck?
The basic strategy of the deck is to have your big ex attackers take hits and use Aromatisse’s Fairy Transfer Ability to move their energy away and Max Potion the damage, then move the energy back. You also have to play based off what deck your opponents are playing. For example, if you were to play against a Yveltal deck you would probably rely more on Keldeo ex to be able to Rush In to cure from being Lasered.

Why Keldeo instead of Virizion, and what were some of the other cards in your deck?
Well, with the heavy amount of Donphan that I’ve seen in every tournament so far this season I played a Keldeo ex instead of the usual Virizion ex because I can hit Donphan for weakness. I also played a Malamar ex and its Ability puts the defending Pokémon to sleep if you attach an energy card from your hand to him, something I noticed that worked really well for me. The only “weird” tech in my opinion was that I played Lysandre's Trump Card. It was a great mid-to-late game card to get my resources back.

What worked well for the deck in the tournament?
I had gotten paired up against a lot of decks that I was familiar with and knew what to do against. I also lucked out and didn't have to play VirGen (my deck’s worst matchup) until top eight.

What didn’t work so well, and are there any changes you might make if you used it again?
Well, I only lost one round of Swiss, but that was because I dead drew. So, overall I was not too upset with how it worked out, and I probably wouldn’t change anything on the list, except for maybe trying to find room for Enhanced Hammer.