One Hit KO

Here’s a deck that I think will fare quite well when the HGSS set comes out. Omar has run a similar “Lady Gaga” Deck, but I can’t condone such behavior (because of the name). Let’s just focus on the Dialga Garchomp Deck for now. We will start with the following deck that Omar has built and tested, which he posted about before.

Pokemon: 19
3 Luxray GL
1 Luxray GL Lv. X
2 Garchomp C
1 Garchomp C Lv. X
2 Bronzong G
1 Dialga G
1 Dialga G Lv. X
2 Uxie
1 Uxie Lv. X
1 Toxicroak G (Promo)
1 Lucario G
1 Crobat G
1 Unown G
1 Azelf

Trainers/Supporters: 29
4 Cyrus’s Conspiracy
4 Roseanne’s Research
4 Energy Gain
4 Poke Turn
4 Power Spray
3 SP Radar
2 Night Maintenance
1 Aaron’s Collection
1 Bebe’s Search
1 Luxury Ball
1 Expert Belt

Energy: 13
4 Call Energy
4 Electric
2 Psychic
2 Warp Energy
1 Metal

The thing is that this is a fairly known deck by now. There isn’t a whole lot to say about it. Luxray can Bright Look up an opposing Pokemon and pretty much own it in one shot …

I just had to post this artwork I received from my daughter last night. I guess this is what Ava thinks I work on all day. Just in case you can’t tell what’s on the screen, there is a Pokeball followed by “Team Omar”. Under that there is one of the many Pokemon cards featured on the website.…

I just got done laying out a plan for our Pokemon Deck Workshop. If you are confused by how this article looks, go back and read that.

Now, let’s get to building me a winning LuxApe deck. Here’s the deal. I recently got myself an Infernape 4 Lv. X and an Uxie Lv. X. Now, I want to use them for fun and profit (where profit may be league stamps, premier rating points, etc.). What deck should I build? I think the obvious choice is Luxray GL with Infernape 4. Let’s start there. What else do I need? Other people run all kinds of crazy stuff that should be considered, but that’s not part of the article, that’s part of the discussion. I’ll wait to add my thoughts to the discussion until after I get at least one comment, and we’ll build the decklist together.

Here are my guidelines for this deck:
1) It needs to include Uxie Lv. X and Infernape E4 Lv. X.
2) I want it to be fast, because that’s how I roll.
3) I want it to abuse some game mechanic(s) that most decks don’t use, plan for, have a hard time …

I really like how this website is shaping up. We’re getting a good amount of interesting Pokemon TCG articles here. We’re even getting more and more traffic from people searching for information about different decks and cards. In fact, our top search is for info about a dialga garchomp deck, so Omar will need to write an article titled “Dialga Garchomp Deck” in the near future. [winks and points finger at Omar]

So, the site is becoming a good repository of information, but I feel like we’re missing out on it being a good resource/medium for discussing things as a team and working together to create something or come to a decision as a whole. A tournament report really ought to be one guy’s take on what happened, and the comments are probably just going to be like “good job” or whatever. Reporting about how a deck worked while play-testing or in an actual tournament/league situation (like what I did with The Problem With Porygon) could generate some interesting discussion if others show up and have questions/comments, but it really is just another report. These things are in the past, and therefore they can be somewhat standalone and …

I tested out a Palkia Infernape deck last night, matching up against 4 very different opponents and decks. My idea was that Infernape 4 Lv. X could replace Luxray GL Lv. X as a way to bring up the opponent’s benched Pokemon for setup disruption while the well-known combo of Mesprit and Palkia G Lv. X would lock the opponent’s Poke Powers. Here’s the list. It’s pretty much Omar’s Palkia Power Lock deck with Infernape swapped in.


Pokemon: 22
1 Azelf LA
1 Azelf MD
3 Palkia G
1 Palkia G Lv. X
2 Infernape 4
1 Infernape 4 Lv. X
4 Mesprit
3 Uxie
1 Uxie Lv. X
1 Bronzong G
1 unownG
1 Toxicroak G
1 Lucario G
1 Crobat G

Trainers/supporters: 26
4 Cyrus
4 Rosie’s
4 E-Gain
4 P-turn
3 P-Spray
2 NM
2 SP Radar
1 Bebe’s
1 Aarons Collection
1 Luxury Ball

Energy: 12
3 Call
5 Water
1 Warp
1 Psychic
2 Electric

I think power lock style decks will be good against the metagame while it’s in flux due to HGSS hitting the scene. For me, though, I think it’s not my style. I need something a bit harder hitting and quick. …

I don’t have a great article to go with this. I wanted to post these decklists mainly for archival reasons, but if you are someone that’s stumbled upon these, please feel free to leave any questions in the comment section. I’d be happy to elaborate on how the decks play.

First off, I want to present what I feel like is the basic T1 Shuppet Donk decklist. This doesn’t have any specific tech in it. That would be left up to the player to tweak. All this deck does is aim for a T1 double-donk. When it misses that mark, it will almost always get a single OHKO on its first trainer turn. Your first trainer turn will be maddening for your opponent as you cycle through the majority of your deck looking for Expert Belt, 4 Plus Powers, Shuppet, and an energy. On the way there, you will, no doubt, be dropping Crobat G for damage, Poke Turning him for more damage, Poke Blowering for damage, and Super Scooping for damage (or for Uxie’s Set Up Poke Power).

The draw engine is powerful enough to deck yourself on the first turn, but with Shuppet you don’t need to do …

Im thinkin that this next set will change how people play the game completely. There are a lot of new weapons starting up, pokemon prime, better trainer cards, and my favorite, double colorless energy.

Because of this, i think some decks will re-emerge, and some will start to emerge. Lets begin with decks that will start next season:

Fire deck: Typhlosian HGSS, Charizard AR, Ninetales HGSS
This deck is one i think will see a lot of play. Being able to play 2 energies a turn, draw 3 cards a turn, and do more for each fire pokemon out is a big deal. The charizard, being your main attacker, will tank anything you have, since it will have 160 life with an expert belt, and do roughly 80-100 damage for 1 energy with that belt. Yep, 80-100 with one. Or, 130-150 for 3. Take you pick. Dialga, get owned. This deck should see play, seems very consistent since there is a beter draw engine then claydols, and it benefits charizard to. Some key things this deck will prolly tech is a 1-0-1 exploud line to get rid of the consistent weakness of water everywhere. As for other techs, i …

I brought my/Ava’s Shuppet Donk deck to test with Team Omar last night. I know that some people just hate the idea of Spiritomb AR in a Shuppet deck, but I wanted to see if it could help against SP. I think I played 4 matches, and 3 of them were against different SP decks. If I recall correctly, I only won 1 game. Even that one was questionable, because (for testing purposes) we replayed an early risk I took that would have resulted in a loss for me.

The funny thing is that I found all my matchups to be fairly positive. I feel like Shuppet should get completely owned by SP, but with the right Spiritomb start, I can stall the opponent enough to get a few early KOs. If one of them happens to be a Dialga G, it might just win me the game. As it was, I only did well against the fighting-heavy SP mainly due to weakness. I did pretty well against Abdi’s SP deck, too, until he realized exactly how my deck worked. Then Dialga shut me down. I had a really close and odd match with Omar (who reminded me multiple …

So, i decided to play Palkia lock instead of lady gaga because i havent played gaga enough to know what to do in a lot of situations, so i went with a pretty basic lock that consists of Palkia g, luxray g, and then as counters i had promocroak g for luxray g and ambipom for garchomp c. here is how it went.

Round 1 vs Mamoswine G Empoleon G….

This was a joke. i won in i think like 4 turns, and his first 4 turns consisted of energy drops and his only basics were the ones listed above. idk if he know what was goin on or if he was just playing because it was free, but whatever, point being it was over 4 turns, and thats all there is to it.    1-0

Round 2 vs Beedrill

So, i play my buddy alex round 2. Everytime i play against him, it seems like he is using beedrill, and i am using a plox type deck. Turns out that was the same thing for today. He starts a baltoy, attaches a grass energy, and ends his turn. i figured id he gets powers with beedrill im screwed, …

I’ve been playing Porygon a bit. The deck is definitely fun to play, because it does a lot of things that aren’t really possible in most decks. Setting up can be slow if you don’t get the right pieces early, but with Call Energy, TS-1 Evoluter, Roseanne’s, Bebe’s, etc. you can usually get a good double supporter (thanks to Download) plus Claydol turn on turn 2 or 3.

There are two main problem areas that I’ve found: getting energy and losing TMs. They both stem from a single problem, though, and that is letting your active Porygon take damage.

The deck can run on very little energy, and you could easily win a game with only 2 with the right draw and matchup. The problem is that your active Porygon-Z will, at some point, take damage. When that happens, you will want to retreat, Switch, Warp Point, etc. You would usually have another Porygon-Z waiting on the bench, and it’s easy to Install TMs onto the waiting Porygon. What is not easy, however, is getting energy onto the waiting Porygon.

The same issue applies to TMs. Sure, you can move them around, but what happens when your active gets KO’d? …