One Hit KO

Well, regionals has come to an end, and its time to start preparing for the next set, HGSS Unleashed. Since 6 new primes are being released, and 3 new legends, there is plenty to chat about. With the primes (Kingdra, Crobat, Ursaring, Lanturn, Steelix, and Tyranitar) there are some new decks that can be made and techs to be considered. The new legends are the coupled dogs of Raikou, Suicune, and Entei. Please note that the analysis on the cards are before i have seen any trainer or supporter card of this set.

As far as the primes go, the only ones that i can see that will be competitive in some way shape or form are Kingdra and Ursaring. Kingdra is a Crobat G every turn, so if you had multiple Kingdras, you can add extra damage anywhere. On top of that, if he has a belt, he will do 80 damage with no discard effect. The only drawback this card has is when you see a fire match-up, or a deck that runs fire cards in it, because the base damage goes from 60 to 20. Ish. It’s a good thing that the original Kingdra we have grown to love isn’t cycled out yet. :) Luxray GL is the other huge issue, but then again who doesn’t know that when they are playing water?

Continue reading "HS Unleashed: Primes, Legends, Next Please"

Hello to all the Team Omar readers.  This is your buddy Pikkdogs with what I hope will become a new column here at teamomar.com.

A couple of weeks ago I asked Ed if I could start writing more on Team Omar and he said sure.  After a little bit of discussion we came up with this article.  If you guys like these articles, each week or so I will pick three cards and run a review of these cards.  The first card will be a staple card (catering to the new player), the second will be a card that I think is under-rated, and the third card will be a card from an upcoming set.  Hopefully you guys will like this article, and write your own mini-reviews of these cards.  So lets start the reviewing.

Card #1– Cyrus’s Conspiracy PT

Card Description– The first card I will be reviewing is the staple card, “Cyrus’s Conspiracy.”  This card was released in the first Platinum set, and the metagame was never the same.  “Cyrus’s Conspiracy” is a supporter card that allows you to search your deck for another supporter card, a basic energy card, and a trainer card that has…

Continue reading "Pikkdogs Pikks Three: Cyrus’s Conspiracy, Bench Shield, Blastoise Unleashed"

Hey guys. This will be a quick post. Check out this YouTube video. It’s an interview I did with Steven Reich of the Poke Press this last weekend right after I got eliminated from the regional tournament. Steven seems like an interesting fellow. I guess he’s been covering Pokemon events for around 10 years, and he runs a league, too. If you want to see more of his videos, check out the Poke Press YouTube channel.

In addition, I am finally posting the pictures that I took at the tournament. They are nothing special, but I figured that I ought to include them somewhere. Those are just after the video.

Continue reading "Interview and Pictures From WI Regional"

Following my good showing at the Michigan State Championship (we won’t mention my meltdown in top-cut), I knew for sure that I would be taking the same deck to Regionals. The problem I had was I wanted to do a little tweaking but wasn’t able to do any play testing at my local league. Fortunately I have a group of friends at work that like to play during our lunch. I built Pikkdog’s Flyperior deck and a typical CurseGar to play against. I figured out a nice tactic against the Flyperior deck, but wasn’t realy consistant in winning. Testing against CurseGar was really tough on me (I don’t think I won a single game) and it taught me a lot about how that deck works.

Based on my testing, I decided on the following tweaks to my deck:

-2 great ball
-1 pokedex
+1 Copycat
+1 Unown G
+1 Cyclone energy

I didn’t get to test these tweaks, but I printed my deck list, packed my bags, and hoped for the best in the morning. We live in Michigan and the event was held in Indiana, this meant we were in for a drive that Google Maps says is 2 hours long. This of course didn’t count the construction underway on our route, so make it 2 hours and 30 minutes.

We arrive, get registered and wait for the day to get underway. Age division rosters get posted and masters has 146 players, 8 rounds of swiss parings with a top cut of 32. I planned on taking notes throughout the day and did pretty well, but as the day wore on I got more and more disctracted so the details of my later matches aren’t as strong as my earlier ones. Here’s how my day played out:

Continue reading "Pokemon Regional Championship, Angola, Indiana"

“Austino’s Gyarados” No, it’s not a new gym leader’s Pokemon, but maybe it should be. After all, Austino rode Gyarados to 3 top cuts in States/Regionals ultimately grabbing second place in the CO regionals earning him a 2 round bye at nationals and a $1000 scholarship. All it got me was 5th (after Swiss) in MN states and 17th in the WI regionals.

Let’s take a look at the deck that helped Austino and I get all those match wins, but first I should provide a little background on why I am posting about Austino’s deck in the first place. Leading up to states, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to play. For a while, I had been thinking SP, but whenever I played it, it just didn’t feel right to me. I’m not saying that I didn’t have fun playing it or that I couldn’t play it well. It’s just not my style, I think. I could have worked it out, but I wanted something that felt more natural to me. I researched a lot, and I came to the conclusion that Gyarados would be a good fit for me. I started building the deck, but I got stuck on what techs to run in it. Lots of people were running Luxray. I tried that. Omar built a version with Blissey, but I wasn’t sold on it. I was really worried about the SP matchup and a bit worried about things like Mime and Spiritomb. I tried tossing in things like Combee, Promocroak, Relicanth, etc. I still wasn’t getting the feel that I was searching for.

Continue reading "Austino’s Gyarados Decklist"

Going in to regionals, I felt a bit ill prepared. I had wanted to run Jumpluff, because playing it pleases me. I didn’t get much play with the deck, and when I tested it with Omar about a week and a half before regionals, he handed me like 5 consecutive losses. After that, I felt much more comfortable with the Gyarados I played in MN states. I decided to use the same deck, which put me at ease.

Most Gyarados builds would have a pretty similar core. Some people tech in Blissey, Luxray, and maybe even Donphan. I didn’t. Enough about my deck, though. If you want to read about that, see this article about Austino’s Gyarados. Let’s get to the regionals action.

Continue reading "Riding the Bubble in Wisconsin Dells"

Hello all, it’s Pikkdogs here with an article for TeamOmar.com.  Many of you Pokemon players are at regionals now, or will go there soon, or have just gotten back from one.  I love big Pokemon tournaments.  You get to show off your skills, meet new people, and most importantly get to trade cards.  Trading is important for growing a card collection, it would be a lot more expensive to get a lot of cards if you could only buy packs and singles.  Now what if I told you that you could trade like it was regionals every day.  You can, by trading online.  This article will profile my ten steps for successful online trading.   Even though I’m not the best online trader, I have been trading for  over a year and have learned many things that will help beginners.

The Ten Steps

1. Asses your goods.  My first step for effective online trading is to assess your collection.  I recommend that you go to your binders or card box and make a list of all the cards you have that people might want.  You can do this step gradually, taking a small inventory the first time you sit down, and then add more cards to your list later.  When you are making your list make sure to make a list of the imperfections that each of your cards have, such as that scratch on the corner of your Dialga G.  Then add to the list any other things you have of value.  This includes other trading card games, video games, and especially money.  Many people will trade video games for cards, and every trader loves to receive money.


Continue reading "Ten Steps to Effective Online Pokemon Card Trading"

Tomorrow, we’re heading out to Wisconsin Dells, WI. We will head to the hotel, and wake up Saturday morning ready for the Midwest Regional Championship Tourney. My daughter, Ava, and my wife will be making the trip with me. All three of us plan to participate in the tournament.

Our front-man, Omar, has some real-life event to attend to, and Abdi is staying back to support him. Lesser known/mentioned teammates Meghan and Charlie will also be staying in MN. I think means that we will be the only “Team Omar” representatives there, but there’s a chance that Tre and Louis might try to catch a ride, too. I don’t know if they’ll be able to make it with us, and I’m not sure where they’ll sleep. If you’re heading from Minneapolis to the Dells and have some room, leave a comment. I know it’s late, but it might work out.

Ava will be the cute 6-year-old girl. I’m assuming that nobody here really cares much about Juniors, though. My wife would probably rather be left anonymous.

As for me, I will try to wear something that says “Team Omar” or “www.TeamOmar.com” on it. I wanted to have some shirts …

Continue reading "Pokemon Midwest Regional Championship Wisconsin Dells"

First of all, I’ll try to give credit where it’s due. It sounds like Bret Brander, the New Mexico state champ, was asked to explain the Pokemon TCG, so he came up with this video with Ian Brander (his brother) and Disney Gonzalez.

If you want to read more about Bret, check out this article in the The Gazette of Colorado Springs. If you’re going to regionals in Denver, maybe you can get him to sign a Donphan for you. He’s obviously on his way to rap stardom.

Continue reading "Rap Video Explains The Pokemon TCG"

Some call it the Secret Florida Deck. Others call it Sablelock (Sablock), Sabledonk, Sableye Honchkrow, or Sableye Garchomp. Does it win by donking? Does it win by locking your opponent? Does it win by starving them of resources? Does it win by controlling their hand? Let’s just say that it wins by making the opponent lose!

I’ve not seen the deck around here, but I can say that it is causing a bit of a stir on the interwebs. There are a bunch of people discussing this deck in various places. Let’s go through the list. No, not the decklist, yet. Here’s the list of who’s talking about the deck:

1) People begging for info about the deck that took 2 of the top 4 spots in Florida and was seen topping at other states.
2) People like Curry/Silvestro that obviously played the deck, but don’t want its secrets made public.
3) People that have played against the deck and either got donked or annoyed to death.
4) Trolls

Now we can add “5) Team Omar” to that list.  I’m not going to pretend that I know the deck.  I just want to fan …

Continue reading "Sablelock (Sablock), Sabledonk, Sableye Honchkrow, Sableye Garchomp, …"