One Hit KO

Hey everyone, Cheffords here with a few hard learned lessons from my first Battle Roads this spring.

First off let me say that I had an abysmal day, only getting 1 win out of 5 matches! It is because of this poor showing that I decided to write this article, because you have to look for the silver lining no matter what. So, even if you have a losing day, you can reflect on what you’ve learned and apply that to your next outing.

Continue reading "What I (re)learned at Battle Roads – Okemos, MI"

A big howdy to all members of Omar nation, this is your friend Pikkdogs.  A month or so ago I wrote a “Ten Step” article about trading Pokemon cards online.  This month I will follow that up with another “Ten Step” article, this one is about starting the Pokemon TCG.  

I am a huge follower of the POJO message boards, and at least once every few days we have people posting questions about how start playing the game.  So this article is for all you newbies out there.  Hopefully you’ll be able to take something away from this article and be another step closer to top cutting at worlds.  So without further ado here are my ten steps in joining the Pokemon TCG community.

1.  Decide what you want to do.

     This may sound like a vague step, but it is very important.  First you must decide what you want to get out of the Pokemon game.  You may just want to build a couple of fun decks to play with your friends a couple of times a month.  If that is all you want out of the game, there is no point in spending countless hours pouring over …

Woohoo!!!! After about a year of playing competitively, and only about 3 months after the whole team of team omar was put together and created, we have our first team win. Who cares if it was just a battle roads, its a victory no less. The win came from me, and ill give my report on the day. But, other then me winning, we did have another team member t4 with Charizard. Dont know how he did it, but he did.

Anyways, the deck of choice i had going into the tourney was Gengar Garchomp C. The reason for it is because of the snipe ability. I thank whomever created the deck (i believe Kendall, but idk how to spell it)for creating it and sharing with the world the idea. So, on to the report. This tourney had 28 Masters, 4 away from top 8, so its 5 rounds cut to top 4, and the best part was that of the 28 people, 7 were team omar representitives

Round 1: Me vs. Gyrados/Kingdra Prime

The game starts with me starting a Garchomp C. He starts Sableye just like every other gyrados deck in the world, and a regice on the …

This idea is simple AND stupid, so it’s got a lot going for it.

Step 1: Steal someone’s Flychamp/Nidoqueen decklist. I’m sure you can use Google, but I’ve found a couple for you here and here in case you’re lazy.

Step 2: Rip out the Machamp line and replace it with Kingdra Prime. You should end up with something that looks like this.

2 Trapinich [SW]
1 Trapinich RI
2 Vibrava RI
3 Flygon RI
1 Flygon Lv.X RI
2 Horsea LA
1 Seadra LA
2 Kingdra Prime UL
3 Baltoy GE
3 Claydol GE
1 Nidoran RI
1 Nidoqueen RI
1 Unown G GE
1 Uxie LA

Continue reading "Stupid Deck Idea: Flyking (Flygon, Kingdra, Blastoise)"

Greetings to the members of Omar Nation.  Pikkdogs is back to “Pikk” three cards to review.  As always; one will be a staple card, one will be a card that I think is underrated, and one from a new or unreleased set.

I had a talk with the producers of  “Pikkdogs Pikks Three” and concluded that this will probably be the last article that has UL cards in the “Young Gun” segment.  I think its time to move on and look at some of the cards that have been released in Japan and are on their way across the Pacific (or Atlantic, depending which side of the country your on and which way the plane is flying).  But thats to look forward in the future, and this is now.

The Staple- Expert Belt

Description– Expert Belt is a trainer from the Arceus expansion.  If you are a newcomer it is a card you will see a lot, and you must learn how to use wisely to win.  It is very easy to just play this card Willy Nilly whenever you draw into it and attach it to your main attacker.  But, to win consistently you must know when to …

Greetings to Omar Nation, once again I am Pikkdogs, and I am here to “Pikk” and review three card; one being a staple, one being an underrated card, and one being a card from a new or unreleased set.  As always, feel free to comment on the reviewed cards and let others know what you think of them.

On a side note, just a reminder for everyone out there that the Spring Battle Road season starts very soon.  So start finalizing your battle road decks and get ready for some fun tournament action.  I love Battle Roads because they are fun informal tournaments where the pressure is off.  So I hope you all have fun at your local BRs.

The Staple: Uxie La.

Description­-  Uxie is a very useful and a very versatile card, but let’s start the analysis by looking at Uxie’s stats.  It’s a basic Pokemon with 70 HP, a +20 weakness to Psychic,and  a 1 retreat cost.  Its Poke-Power is awesome; it’s called “Setup” and lets you draw cards until you have 7 cards in your hand when you play him.  Its attack is also decent; its called “Psychic Restore” and it does 20 damage for …

He swings for 100 damage (belted).

His attack hits for 80 damage (100 with belt).

He’s got 100HP (Expert Belt attached).

He’s got 150HP (if you attach belt).

How many times have you seen phrases like these? They’re all over the Pokewebs. We get it! The Expert Belt gives your Pokemon +20 HP and +20 damage.

Why doesn’t anyone write up a new deck analysis like this?

“When you attack with Kingdra, you can take 2 prizes if you KO the defending Pokemon (when he’s belted).”

OR

“One of Luxray’s drawbacks is that the opponent takes two prizes when you KO him (with Expert Belt attached).”

How about we all just quit with the gratuitous Expert Belt inclusions in deck posts? Raise your hand if you don’t understand that you can attach an Expert Belt to do 20 extra damage and add 20 HP to your Pokemon. Nobody? Good!…

Hello to the Omar-Nation.  This is Pikkdogs again, and I am once again Pikking three cards.  One card that is a staple, one card that I feel is underrated, and another from a new or unreleased set.

Sorry for the lateness of this post. Final exams mixed with an illness and my moving to forced me to miss a post last week.  But, this week I am back to give you a little insight into the Pokemon TCG. As always, feel free to post your thoughts, comments, or reviews of the cards in the comment box.

The Staple- Dusknoir Diamond and Pearl

Description-Dusknoir of course is a stage 2 Pokemon, it has 120 HP, a 3 retreat cost, a +30 weakness to Dark, and a -20 resistance to Normal.  These stats aren’t too impressive, but aren’t that bad either.  120 HP is decent and the resistance helps against Flygon and Garchomp C  But that retreat cost is pretty high.  It has 1 attack called “Hard Feelings.”  This attack for PPC places five damage counters on the defending Pokemon and one more for each prize your opponent has taken.  “Hard Feelings” is nothing special, its damage output will only average …

I don’t yet know if this will be a recurring column or not. I would like it to be, but I’m not sure how well it will be received or if it’s something I will maintain. You see, I have deck ideas every once in a while. This seems to happen more when new cards come out. Usually, I come up with some great new idea. I write up a skeleton decklist, and then I ponder it. In the short term, the pondering process often results in minor tweaks. In the long term (being probably less than a day), it generally results in scrapping the idea because it’s not going to be competitive enough.

I don’t have a lot of opportunity to play weird decks at home. I’d love to try these ideas at league or something. The problem is that I often don’t own all the cards (especially for sets that haven’t been released yet). Also, league is only once a week, and I don’t make it to every session.

This means that the “Stupid Deck Idea” usually doesn’t make it past the initial decklist, therefore I will never know if the idea had any actual merit. As it is, these “Stupid Deck Ideas” may have some usefulness. Maybe the Pokemon have some good synergy, but the trainer line was all wrong to support them. Maybe there’s a hidden combo that hadn’t been widely considered before, but without testing, it’ll never be discovered. Maybe a year or two from now a new card comes out that makes the deck work, and people can find this archive. I don’t know. All I know is that the idea is going to get shelved, so I’ll put it here and see what happens. Maybe it gets universally ignored, but maybe someone takes it and runs with it.

So, that’s the setup for “Ed’s Stupid Deck Idea.” Today’s installment is “Goose King.” It combines Zangoose Platinum with Kingdra Prime from Unleashed.

Continue reading "Stupid Deck Idea: Goose King"