u/Top_Kec

Played at a local match yesterday and my opponent pointed out that I was doing and it never really registered that I was doing that until he did, not sure if its considered annoying/bad manners.

I think this is okay for my own plays? I think I do something like:
"I draw for turn, hilda for loak, telepath. Attach telepath, find duskull, duskull, (shuffle deck) cut? Now recon for..." obviously slowed down as I take the time to search my deck and stuff.

But for my opponent, I observe what they're doing and narrate out their plays. If I see them use poffin for example, I'll verbally say "poffin", and when they take out cards, I also narrate their choices, example "Dreepy, Budew". Likewise, if they attach energy from hand, I say something to the effect of "hand attach psychic". If stuff hits the discard, I say something like "Ultra ball, toss Gwynn, budew" etc.

I think its a (bad?) habit because I'm trying to keep track of the board state and everything, but now I'm not sure if I should try to keep it in my head instead.

I'm looking around in some online decks for Straight/Hammer pult and I'm noticing that some of them run a 1-1 line of Dudunsparce, but I'm not entirely sure why?

I can understand the benefits of it, chiefly being a recyclable draw power that can sit on the bench and burst out draw if needs must. It also has good synergy with Risky Ruins, allowing you to get a cycle-able source of 20 damage for munkidori to shift over whenever necessary.

On the other hand though, Fez already exists in the deck for burst draw power, and the recyclable nature of the risky ruins activation seems somewhat too little too late, since if you constantly are digging for extra damage to push onto your opponent, its strange that your opponent can't source the damage for you (and even if they straight KO your mon, that gives you an open bench to supply that 20 damage to move with munki). I can understand though that fez may be less than desired if say, opponent stamps, then doesn't take a KO.

Furthermore, it only being a 1-1 line makes it such that if one or the other's prized, it becomes a functionally dead card until you un-prize it. Sure the odds aren't super high that both are prized, but still not a good thing? Likewise if you have to discard it for any reason (ultra ball etc), the other card becomes a dead card.

At one point, I ran a 2-2 Dudunsparce line with Yveltal in my Pult deck (no hammers), but in that situation, I feel like they were reasonably significant because it was much easier to recycle the Dunsparce while trapping something in active and having the recyclable damage mean something, and also it being a 2-2 line made me able to use them easier. But that's quite a different way to play pult, I think.

Dragapult already has a ludicrously strong draw engine in the Drakloak engine, so I'm not entirely sure if Dudunsparce patches things up that much. If its just free slots in the deck just to put things together, wouldn't something like Shaymin or Handheld Fan be useful to help mirrors, or Slowking/Waterpon's bench sniping?

For context, I'm playing in person. I live in Singapore and we use a different system for major tournaments. At the end of each season, we have a Master Ball League which is approximately equal to a regionals, with around 700 participants. We play Bo1 for day 1.

I've been playing since OBF, and something I've always wanted to do was to hit day 2 at an event. I've always had a trend of doing decently and throwing at the end of a tournament to knock me out of day 2 contention.

For this event, it was a 7 swiss rounds, and anyone who does better than 5-2 gets to day 2 (we don't have ties)

I decided to bring N's Zoroark with Hero's Cape, plus a 1-1 Mega Lopunny line to deal with crustle/TR's mewtwo decks (fully admitting that I take Ls to grass decks)

As per last time, I initially went 4-1, then threw my last two rounds because of hard misplays. And thinking about it, I 100% could've played through them!

The first loss was to an RB due to somewhat poor draws, and my opponent playing really well, no issues there.

The second loss was to a Hop's Trevenant deck. The scenario was that I had shaymin (and cramorant) retreat locked via Yveltal Clutch. I had one munkidori on board, and had damage counters on both munki and zoroark. On my field I had only pecharunt and zoroark as 2 prizers, my opponent had 2 prize cards remaining. I also had a N's Darmanitan too. I recgonised that my opponent had attached all his mist energy, so getting out of retreat lock was generally not possible, and I had 6 prizes remaining. My misplay here was not moving damage counters off Zoroark, instead moving them off munkidori. I had Hero's cape in hand, so I had no choice but to place the cape on Zoroark and eventually undo the lock with munki to shaymin+take kos on 2 benched mons. But then he responded with boss ko pecharunt for game (with snorlax). Had I moved damage off zoro, and caped pecharunt, I could've prevented him taking 2 prizes in that turn and win the next (with some munki boss flamebody cannon shenanigans, since I had basically drawn through my deck, had N's Castle, 2 PP ups, and enough resources to re-establish another munki). This was a pretty simple solution that I'm pretty disappointed I didn't see.

The third loss was to a rocket's mewtwo. This was even worse. I opted to go first, had in my hand poke pad, mega lopunny, hero's cape. My Buneary wasn't even prized but I opted to Poke Pad out Zorua, effectively losing me the game. The card that exists specefically to fix my poor matchup was staring me in the face and I ignored it.

This loss stings I think not just because its my third year of throwing, but also because this is I think the hardest I've practiced for such events only to throw. My final opponent was someone I knew who played from MEG and he locked his day 2 in on his first big event. I'm happy for him and all, but I just wonder what's up with what I'm doing to whiff it after I believe now 7 of similar scale events.

Call me unskilled and mid if you must, I fully admit I'm below average at best, mediocre probably. To an extent, I feel like I'm not deserving of decent achievements.

And I know a way to approach it is to just have fun playing knowing you did your best, but I can explicitly point to my last two losses and say I did not play my best. I'm not gonna blame deck bricks or anything on something that was completely avoidable.

So yeah, in general, what are some tips to feel better and come back after eating a huge loss?