April 2011

Introducing “One Hit KO”

One Hit KO Representative, Hitmonchan
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! Read More

Deck Analysis: Who Let The Dogs Out?

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  This website was originally made to communicate between a couple people, and had a name to reflect that.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, I relized that you can start with fossils, and that they would interfere with Spiritomb’s “Keystone Seal” Poke-Body.  I finally came with the idea of using Legend cards.  The rules do not allow you to start with a legend, so there is no chance of starting with it.  Most legends also have good attacks, so it would be easy to knock out Sableye, Crobat G, or Uxie.

Now that I thought of using Legend cards, I had to decide which ones to use.  I thought using about 3 legends would be good, it would leave me plenty of room for supporters while giving me a good chance at drawing into at least 1 half of a legend.  So, I went through each legend and judged if it would work.  Dialga/Palkia Legend, didn’t fit because its a weird card that just adds prizes or takes away Pokemon, that doesn’t really counter Sabledonk very well.  Darkrai/Cresselia Legend doesn’t really work either, it just moves around damage counters and weird things like that.  Rayquaza/Deoxys Legend doesn’t really fit either, it can do a lot of damage but its attacks are too expensive and requires discarding.  Kyorgre/Groudon Legend is a great card, but its attacks are just too expensive for this deck, time might be called before you can load up a KGL.  The same energy problems that effects KGL, is an issue with HO-OH Legend.  Lugia Legend’s attacks only cost 3 energies, but they require you to discard 3 energies.  So none of those legends worked out, but the Legendary Dogs were perfect. 

There are 3 of them, and most of them have attacks that only cost 2-3 energies.  The best thing is that since the cards are related to each other, they use the same kinds of energies.  Entei/Raikou Legend can do 90 damage for just two energies, or can do 80 damage to any Pokemon with Poke-Powers on the field.  This is especially great for Sabledonk, because Sableye is the only Pokemon that will survive a “Thunder Fall” attack.   ERL will be your biggest attacker in the deck.  Suicine and Entei Legend can do 80 damage and burn the defending Pokemon with the “Buring Inferno” attack, which will cost you  only 1 fire energy and 1 DCE.  Raikou Suicine is the legend that I use the least, but can still be a good attacker.  Its “Aurora Gain” attack does 50 for WCC, but it heals 50 damage.  Its “Thunderbolt Spear” attack is good incase you are playing a different deck with a high HP Pokemon.  It can do 150 damage for LLC, while doing 50 damage to itself.

So, that was a long introduction.  The question is does the deck actually work?  Can it stop a Sabledonk? The answer is a resounding “yes”!  I admit that I have not tested the deck 100 times, but in my initial testings the deck has crushed Sabledonk every time.  Here is the strategy behind it.

How To Play This Deck

You will always have a Spiritomb start.  It will most likely be a single Spiritomb.  Your opponent can instantly win by starting with a Sableye, Special Darkness Energy, and a Crobat G.  All they would need to do is to attach the Special Dark, and use Crobat G’s “Flash Bite” to make sure Sableye has more HP then Spiritomb.  Then, Sableye can use “Over Confident” for the knock out.  But, the problem is they will rarely get all of these three cards to start with.

They will probably start first and then pass.  What you need to do is to use Pokemon Collector to get the other 3 Spritombs.  Trust me, unless you can get 2 Legends out on one turn, you will need a lot of Spiritombs for when you break the trainer lock.  You will pass, then your opponent will either attack (if he has an energy) or pass.  Next, you will probably have half of a legend card in your hand, so use Bebe’s Search or a hand refresh card to try to get the other half.  Put down the legend and attach an energy.

By this time, you might have lost a Spiritomb, unless you took a long time Mulliganing it is probably better to put up a second Spiritomb.  You will draw and probably use a hand refresh card.  Then attach an energy and work on getting a second legend out (probably ERL).  When they knock out the second tomb, promote the now fully powered Legend, use Twins to setup your 2nd and 3rd legend, and the game should be over. 

There is no way that a Sableye can beat a legend card, so as long as you didn’t run out of time you are golden.  When you get the 2nd legend the other player will probably scoop.

So that is how the deck works, now is the part where I talk about the bad parts of the deck.  The most obvious one is that you will have to mulligan a lot of times.  Usually I only have to mulligan about 2-3 times, it normally does not have an effect on the game.  It mostly just gives them more trainers that they cannot use.  The second bad part of the deck is the fact that you may not be playing Sabledonk.  Sabledonk will be the most played deck at this years Battle Roads, but if you even play 1 deck that is not Sabledonk, you could be in for a world of hurt.  Even decks that are considered to be way below average will have a good chance of beating this deck.  This deck was made for the sole purpose of beating Sabledonk, and thats all it can do.  Perhaps the deck can be teched to deal with other decks, but that will be up for you to decide.  So, the decision to play this deck is based on the metagame of your Battle Roads.

The List

So now we know how I made the deck, what it is, how to play it, and how it can fail; lets look at my sample decklist.  This is just a basic version of the deck and can be teched to play other matchups.

Pokemon-16

  • 4-Spiritomb Ar
  • 2-2 Entei/Raikou Legend
  • 2-2 Raikou/Suicine Legend
  • 2-2- Suicine/Entei Legend

Trainers-29

  • 4- Pokemon Collector- Use it early, ignore it later in the game.
  • 4-Bebe’s Search- The most important supporter after Collector, you need this to get your first full Legend.
  • 3-Cyrus’s Conspiracy- To get an energy card, and a supporter that you need.
  • 4-Twins- You will probably be a prize or two behind before you can attack.  Twins makes it easy to get Legend pieces out.
  • 2-Professor Juniper-Great card, but you don’t always want to discard Legend pieces.
  • 3- Profesor Oak’s New Theory
  • 2-Engineer’s Adjustment
  • 2-Sunny Shore City Gym
  • 1-Expert Belt
  • 2-Sage’s Training
  • 2-Fisherman

Energy-15

  • Fire-6
  • Lightning-7
  • Water-1
  • DCE-1

Playing Other Decks

This deck was made for one purpose, to beat Sabledonk.  I never imagined that I would be pitting it against other decks.  This was more of a concept deck then a real one.  I wanted to see if it was possible to beat Sabledonk, now I can say that it is.  But, there is no use in playing a deck if it can’t even play the deck that it is designed to beat.  If a player tries to play this deck, they may not even see Sabledonk if everyone isn’t playing Sabledonk.

So, because of this fact I tried to test this deck against other decks.  The only other deck that I knew was going to get play besides Sabledonk is Gyarados, so that is the only other deck I tested against.  After making some changes to the list, I found out that Gyarados is just too fast for this deck.  Gyarados gets 3 prizes before the other deck can attack.  Once a couple of Legends hit the field the play becomes balanced.  “Who let the dogs out” will probably get a couple knock outs right away with RSL.  But at the end Gyarados will win because each Legend that it knocks out nets them 2 prizes.

Even though the Gyarados testing didn’t go too well, I was happy with what happened.  Most of the games were fairly close and if Gyarados didn’t have weakness on two of the three legend cards,  the game would have been totally different.  I think that if other decks are popular, this deck might have a shot at beating them.

Conclusion

So there is the deck that I made up.  What do you guys think of it?  Do you think that a deck that can only beat 1 deck will be able to work?  Or do you even care about Spring Battle Roads this season?

Top 10 Impactful Cards for Black and White

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.
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Opinion: What has Play Pokemon Been Doing?

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.
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Review of Regionals 2011 and Testing Tips

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
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Topping Midwest Regionals with Andy Wieman

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.

That's Andy To the Right (next to Mike and across from Pooka and Nick)

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.
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A new take on Gyarados

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
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Your First Black and White Pre-Release Preview

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 you pull a 3-2 or 2-2 line of a good stage 1, you will want to focus your deck around it.  Okay, lets stop with the tips and move on to the best cards for the pre-release.

  1. Lillipup/Herdier–  Herdier and Lillipup are some of the only Pokemon that let you draw cards.  Lillipup will allow you draw 1 card for 1 energy, and if you evolve to Herdier you can attach an extra energy and draw 3 cards.  Lillipup will probably be a good play even if you do not pull Herdier.
  2. Cinccino– This is a great card for a Modified format, and a pre-release.  A Stage 1 that does a maximum of 100 damage for CC, will just about win you any pre-release game.  If you pull it, play it no matter if you only pull a 1-1 line.
  3. Bouffalant #91– This Bouffalant will allow you to do 90 damage for only two energies if you had a Pokemon knocked out last turn.  If you add in 2 more energies you can do 80 damage, which is good for a pre-release.  He also has a great 100 Hp. 
  4. Throh-Throh is also a basic Pokemon with 100 HP.  For FFC his “Stone Throw” attack does 80 damage.  The ability to do 80 damage for only 3 energies on a basic is amazing.
  5. Maractus #12– This is a basic Pokemon that has 90 HP.  For 3 Grass energies you can do 50 damage and then heal from Maractus the number of damage counters that you put on the opponent.  50 for 3 isn’t great, but healing is pretty awesome.  This can make Maractus quite a tank.
  6. Zoroark- This is a Stage 1 100 HP dark Pokemon.  His first attack, “Nasty Plot” sounds dirty, but its a good attack that lets you search your deck for any card, it costs only one dark energy.  Its second attack is “Foul Play”, which also sounds a little dirty.  For two colorless energies you can use any attack on the defending Pokemon and use it as the effect of this attack.  For a pre-release, this attack can be a little un-predictable, but its a good card for countering a good stage 1 or 2 Pokemon.
  7. Good Stage 1’s– I won’t review them all, but this set has a lot of good Stage 1 Pokemon.  Here is a good list of them: Simisear, Simipour, Simisage, both of the Pignites, Darumanitan, Swanna, Zebstrika, Dewott #30, and Klang (which I think is also the name of tbe first Klingon to visit Earth).  Most of these cards have the ability to hit fairly hard for not a lot of energy.  A fast stage 1 can be about as good as a Stage 2.
  8. Pikachu– I know its a secret rare, so you will be lucky if one or two people will pull one at your event.  But, if you can get it, I would play it.  For one energy, you can use “Energize,” which attaches one lightning energy from the discard pile to Pikachu (read- use with Professor Juniper).  Then, next turn you will be able to do “Thunderbolt” for LLC, which does 80 damage.  It does require a discarding of all energy attached to Pikachu, but it only has 60 HP so it will probably be dying soon anyway.
  9. Mandibuzz– Its not a great card, but it does have an attack called “Punishment”.  It will allow you to say “I punish you!”  Which is always something cool.  “Punishment” does 100 damage for DCC on a stage 2 Pokemon, but it only does 40 to any other Pokemon. It also has an attack called “Blindside” that can snipe for 50 for one Dark energy if there are any damage counters on that Pokemon.  This will almost guarantee you about 2 knock outs from benched basic Pokemon, if you can put damage counters on the bench.

As you can see, there are not many cards that add consistency, but quite a few cards that do a lot of damage.  I predict that weakness will be pretty important in the games, so make sure you have a card that can cover your weakness.  This is usually not too hard since you normally pull a wide variety of cards.  Okay, so we know what to do for the event, here is what you have to trade for.    

  1. Cincinno– I already explained this card, so there isn’t much to say.  If you see someone pull one, offer them 5-8 dollars of trade value.  Every player should have at least 4 of these cards.
  2. Emboar #20 and Samurott #32–  These will eventually be 2 playable cards, so trade for them if you can.  I would say about 4-5 bucks of trade value is right on the money.  Every good player should eventually have a couple copies of each card.
  3. Professor Juniper– This is gonna be a card on par with PONT and Copy Cat.  Get a bunch if you can.  I would put about 3 bucks of trade value on it.
  4. Reshiram #113/Zekrom #114/Pikachu- These cards may not be great for the modified format, but they will be fairly rare.  If you can get them they will either help you complete your collection, be good trade bait, or easy to flip on Ebay.

Those are the only must have cards from the set, although Reuniclus and most of the trainers are also good.  I hope with this guide you will be ready to do well at the Pre-Release, and get some good training done.  If you think I left some good Black and White cards off the list, please include them in the comment section.

So long and thanks for all the fish!

Ava’s Art From Regionals

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.

Ava At PokeMama's Art Station

Togepi Eggsecutor Pichu Cubone Mew Pikachu VictoryHat

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. Read More

Midwest Regional Championships Report: From Hero To Zero

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

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