One Hit KO

You may have noticed, but I’ll say it anyway. Pikkdogs already alluded to it in his previous post. What was once TeamOmar.com is now OneHitKO.com. We’re hoping that the new name better represents what the site has become. It’s grown larger than just a place for a few guys to share their ramblings, and we’re really pleased with the site’s growth.

People from all over the world are reading and posting here, and we feel like they’re all part of the “team.” The problem is that we feel the name “Team Omar” might be too exclusive. People are reading, but we’d like to see more people contributing (commenting, writing articles, submitting videos, etc.). The new identity is our attempt at making this a place where everyone will feel welcome to participate.

This isn’t Omar’s website. This isn’t my team’s website. It’s a place where everyone can go to share information and read quality articles about the Pokemon Trading Card Game.

To help usher in the new name and URL, we’ve also given the website a facelift. I think it adds a freshness to the site. It definitely gives the site a new feel, but it’s still the same content you’ve come to expect. We hope you like the new look, the new name, and all that it represents.

One Hit KO for the win!
Continue reading "Introducing “One Hit KO”"

Hey everyone in Om……ahhhhhh…… lets start this over.  A big hello to all of you O.H.K.O.ers, welcome to my first article on the new www.onehitko.com.  As you might know, Ed has changed the name of the site from “www.teamomar.com” to “www.onehitko.com”, to better represent what the website has become.  Ed will probably make  the official announcement soon.  This website was originally made to communicate between a couple people, and had a name to reflect that.  Now, this website is a trusted source to Pokemon players all over the world, and should not be limited to just one team.  Anyway, lets go and talk about the new deck that I just made.

How I Thought of It

I thought of this deck about 2 weeks ago while I was jogging.  I was thinking of how I can stand out in a format filled with Sabledonk, and I decided that I needed to start with Spiritomb.  The only way to guarantee a Spiritomb start is to run only 4 Spiritombs, and no other basic Pokemon.  Since Spiritomb does not evolve and cannot do any damage, I needed to think of another way to attack.  I first thought about using fossil cards.  But, …

Continue reading "Deck Analysis: Who Let The Dogs Out?"

A  big hello to all members of Omar-Nation, this is Pikkdogs here with my quarterly “Top 10 Impactful Cards” article.  This article counts down the top 10 cards that will be impactful on the game.  Not all these cards will make an impact now, some will not show up in a deck for about a year, but I think all these cards have a great chance of impacting the game.

I was able to head north to a pre-release this past Sunday.  After I attended church service with my Brother, I took the 30 minute drive north to Brighton, Mi.  I ended up going 0-3 and not getting a lot of trades done, but I did pull some decent cards.  Regardless, I had a pretty fun time with all the players and judges in Brighton, Mi.  I also met up with a cool Poke-Dad, I’m bad with names but I think his name was Dave.  He was a big Team Omar fan, so it was nice hanging out with him.  So shout out to Dave and his son!

The Pre-Release was very fun because it was fun to open the new Black and White cards.  With cards like Emboar, Samurott, Pikachu, Zekrom, and Reshiram being valued so high, it was like Christmas all over again.  There are some great cards in this set, so lets see how these cards will effect the format.  Since the format is up in the air right now, it will be very hard to tell, but I guess if it was easy anyone could write this article.

10. Pokedex-

There are not a lot of good trainers in this set.  When people think of trainers in this set, most people only think of one trainer, Professor Juniper, but Pokedex might change all that.   Pokedex lets you arrange the top 5 cards of your deck in any order.  But, with the lack of draw power in the coming formats, the ability to control your top decks is awesome.  The format may not let players play this deck, because of the lack of deck space, but if there is room this card is great.  It is a very versatile card that can be played in any deck (except a Vileplume deck).  Before the rotation, this card works well with Uxie La.  It also works well with Nineatils HGSS.

Continue reading "Top 10 Impactful Cards for Black and White"

Hey everyone in Omar Nation, this is Pikkdogs here with a piece of news and an opinion article on Play Pokemon.

We just had an announcement from Play Pokemon, that let us know that a HGSS-on rotation could happen in July, just before US nationals.  Here is the link to the announcement:

http://www.pokemon.com/us/news/op_bw_modifiedformat-2011-04-25/

While I think that a rotation is necessary for the format, I disagree with the recent announcement by Play Pokemon.  If they did not announce a rotation at the launch of the Black and White, why wait a couple of months?  People have already spent about a month not planning for a rotation, and now Play Pokemon plays the “maybe” game with us.  They are wasting the time of all the players by possibly forcing us to prepare for 3 different formats in the span of just 3 months.  If I wanted to play 3 different games, I would do so, but I only want to play 1 game at once.

Lets back up a little bit.  Last fall Japan’s organized play announced a rotation and a rules change that will effect their format alongside the release of their Black and White sets.  The rules were kind of strange and included things like being able to use Trainers and Supporters on the first turn and having Supporter cards go straight to the discard pile.  Fast forward to April 4, 2011, when it was announced that we also get the rules changes but not the rotation that Japan got.  This meant that we will have a format that had a lot of donk decks. A lot of people were upset by the rules and lack of a rotation.  They stated that the format had forced players to rely  more on luck than skill.

Continue reading "Opinion: What has Play Pokemon Been Doing?"

A big hello to all members of Omar-Nation, this is Pikkdogs here.  I hope everyone had fun at Regionals this year.  Because of school, I was not able to make it to my regionals, but the high gas prices made me not so mad about not having to drive over 6 hours.

Even though I did not make it to regionals, other people did.  Regionals were full of a lot of people running a lot of different decks.  This article will give you a short Regionals wrap-up, and give you some tips for testing for Spring Battle Roads.  Regionals will not be a great indicator of what will happen at BRs and Nationals, this is because of new rule changes, but we should still review it anyway.

What won Regionals?

It was no surprise to see what won Regionals.  Here is what won:

7 Luxchomp
2 Vilegar
1 Sablelock
1 Machamp/Vileplume
1 MagneRock

Continue reading "Review of Regionals 2011 and Testing Tips"

After a very disappointing run at states (6-1 then losing in Top 8 at MN States, then going 3-3 in NV) I was sure of two things: 1) I would be playing LuxChomp again and 2) I was going to fit Dialga in my list.  Dialga was only a 1-1 tech, but it helped with a tremendous number of matchups.  Some of the matchups that I want Dialga in against are: Mewperior, Donphan, Uxie/Shuppet donk, Charizard, Machamp/Vileplume and Vilegar.  Add all of these plus the fact that I refused to scoop to Mewtwo (as I did in round 6 of MN States to Radu) and Dialga was going to make the cut.  I was debating a few other spots in the deck, but never questioned the deck itself.  I also had one spot built in because I had determined I wasn’t going to run Weavile G (something I would later regret).  The Lostgar threat turned out to be non-existent and I felt Dialga helped the Vilegar matchup more.  The other change to the deck since states that I LOVED was the inclusion of Twins.  It can tilt the mirror single handedly, and is an all around great card.

The week before the event, I had my list settled except for three slots.  I was questioning my Energy Gain/Power Spray/Junk Arm count.  I currently had it at 4/2/1.  If felt the extra energy gain helped a lot in the mirror, and the Sprays would be less than optimal against Spiritomb and Vileplume decks.  I later switched it to 3/3/1 and felt that the more well-rounded approach would be better, but I would later regret this change.  I was also debating my Bebe’s/Communication count; I was currently at 2/0.  Jay Hornung advocated Communication, but I felt that the chance of prizing the single Bebe’s that I needed to get Dialga G Lvl. X against trainer lock was too much, so I decided to stick with 2/0.  My last question was whether I would cut my 3-1 Uxie line down to fit 1 Chatot.  I felt that the 3rd Uxie helped so much against the possible wave of Machamp that I needed to leave it in.

I get to the tournament a half hour before registration ends, turn in my final list (I switched the Gain/Spray count that morning) and wait a LONG time before the event gets under way.

Continue reading "Topping Midwest Regionals with Andy Wieman"

Hey everyone enjoying TeamOmar.com, Joel here with a new take on a popular favorite: Gyarados. With the new Black & White rules coming into effect, there has been lots of discussion on how the game will change. In my opinion, fast decks will be faster, slow decks will still be slow, and Sableye is going to see a lot of play. I figured with the new rules, I would go back to testing an old classic: Gyarados. Gyarados has proved to be a strong deck that can hold it’s own against SP’s, and has seen a lot of play over the past year, top cutting at many Battle Roads, Cities, Regionals, Nationals and Worlds. With the new first turn trainer rule, Gyarados can be a force to be reckoned with. I put together a Gyarados list and tested the deck under Black and White rules and the deck has brought me good results. I’ll share my list and discuss how I play it.

Pokemon:
4 Magikarp (SF)
3 Gyarados (SF)
4 Sableye (SF)
1 Ditto (LA)
1 Crobat G (PT)
2 Uxie (LA)
2 Mesprit (LA)
1 Azelf (LA)
1 Combee (SF)
2 Regice (LA)
Trainer/Supporter/Stadiums
3 Broken Time Space
2 Pokemon Communication
3 Expert Belt
4 Super Scoop Up
4 Pokemon Collector
2 VS Seeker
2 Energy Exchanger
4 PokeTurn
3 Seeker
3 Junk Arm
Energy
3 Rescue Energy
3 Dark (special)
3 Warp Energy

Continue reading "A new take on Gyarados"

Hey all, this is Pikkdogs here with a preview of the Black and White Pre-Release event.  I know most people don’t play pre-releases to win, but if you want to here is how you can do it.  

To start with we will look at some of the better cards for the pre-release tournaments, than we will look at the top cards that you will want to trade for.

Before we do that, we will do a little review of Pre-Release strategies.  One thing you do is play almost all of your trainers.  There are no trainer cards that are useless for pre-releases in this set, so you should probably play all trainers that you pull.  Another handy tip is to get all the draw/search power that you can.  The Call of Legends set had a lot of great Pokemon cards that allowed you to draw and search.  For Black and White, this is not the case.  There are a only a couple cards that let you draw and search.  The last tip is to play what you have.  Stage 2’s aren’t great in pre-releases, but if you pull a 3-2-1 line, you would want to put it in.  Or, if …

Continue reading "Your First Black and White Pre-Release Preview"

I am pretty sure that Ava’s favorite thing about Regionals is the art station. Thanks to PokeMama Camile, Ava has a place to hang out between rounds. It’s great that I know where she is, and it’s enjoyable for the kids that like coloring/drawing.

There isn’t a whole lot to say here. It was requested that I post some more artwork, so here it is. If anyone else has art like this to show, let me know.
Continue reading "Ava’s Art From Regionals"

Well, I don’t really think I was ever a “hero” but it sounded good in the title. Maybe a better title would have been “Riches to Rags,” but it’s already up there. My previous installment saw me winning the Minnesota state tourney, so that’s what I’m talking about with “Hero” or “Riches.” The “Zero” and “Rags” will be discussed below.

Radu Vs. Andy

Continue reading "Midwest Regional Championships Report: From Hero To Zero"