One Hit KO

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  This is Pikkdogs here with a Pikk Three article.  Of course this article like all the other Pikk Three articles, it will review three cards.  One card will be a card that is played a lot, another will be a card that I think is under-rated, and the third is from a new or yet-unreleased set.

Before we get to the article, I have an announcement to make.  The announcement is that there will soon be a big announcement about the site.  I know some of you might know about it,  but I will wait until this coming week to make the announcement.  The only thing I will tell you is that the announcement is big and will make the site really cool and really fun.  Stay tuned for more details.

Card #1 The Staple: Zekrom Black and White

Description– Zekrom is a basic Lightning Pokemon with 130 HP and a 2 retreat cost.  He is weak to fighting.  His first attack, “Outrage”, does 20 damage (for CC) plus 10 for every damage counter on this Zekrom.  His second attack, “Bolt Strike”, does 120 damage for LLC and does 40 damage to Zekrom.

Analysis– Zekrom was used a lot since it was released, and saw some decent play in the North American nationals.  It even won Canadian and Mexican nationals.  But, Zekrom got thrown around in U.S. Nationals and was no where to be found later in the tournament.

The 130 Hp is amazing for a basic and works great with “Outrage.”  The 120 attack is also good, but it can be hard to get the lightning energies on him fast.  The downside of Zekrom’s attack is that he damages himself making him more OHKOable.  This effect can be stopped by using Defender.  Defender lets you stop 20 of the damage that Zekrom does to it self, and 20 more damage that your opponent does to you, this adds up to the 40 that Zekrom does to itself.  In the future, it looks like there will be a tool version of Defender, so that will make Zekrom even more playable.

Zekrom is lucky that it has weakness against Yanmega.  Yanmega Prime will be very popular next season and Zekrom can OHKO Yanmega with his Outrage attack if he has 4 damage counters on him, or with “Bolt Strike.”  So I am pretty sure that Zekrom will be around in the format for a long time.  Zekrom is mainly paired with Pachirisu and Shaymin.  Pachirisu lets you lay down 2 lightning energies with Pachirisu, and Shaymin lets you move those to Zekrom.

Final Rating– 8.5/10- Not a big fan of Zekrom since its hard to power up Bolt Strike and I don’t wanna damage myself.  But I can’t deny that ZPS is a great deck and will be popular for a while.   

Card #2 The Underdog- Metapod HGSS

Description-Metapod is a stage 1 80 HP Grass Pokemon.  Metapod is weak to fire and has a 2 retreat cost.  It has a Poke-Body called “Green Shield”.  This body gives all Grass Pokemon no weakness.  Metapod’s attack is “sharpen”, which does 20 for CC.

Analysis– Well this is another one of the grass tech cards.  Its stats are horrible and cannot attack at all, but his Poke-Body could be very useful with Yanmega Prime.

If you were to pair Metapod with Yanmega you might have to give up some other techs, but you would be able to conquer Zekrom and Mangezone Prime, 2 Pokemon that are keeping Yanmega down.  The good thing about Metapod is that you probably will only need a 1-1 line of it to be effective.

The bad part of Metapod is that Pokemon Catcher will soon be out, and it will not be hard to take out bench sitters.  Even if the opponent cannot knock out Metapod, just having it active with that 2 retreat cost could be destructive to your chances of winning.

Of course you don’t need to play it with Yanmega.  You could also try it with Tangrowth, Serperior, and Jumpluff.  It is a very versatile card that is splashable into any deck with a grass Pokemon.

Final Rating–6/10– I really like the idea of adding it to a Yanmega deck, and it almost seems mandatory in a Serperior deck, but nobody has proved that it is a great card yet.  I would have rated it higher, if Pokemon Catcher wasn’t coming out.  Now that it is, you can still play Metapod, you just have to be more selective when you do.

Card #3 The Young Gun- Recycle

Description– Recycle is a trainer that was in the Japanese Black Set.  It is expected to be released in English with the Emerging Powers Set.  This card kind of reminds me of Good Rod, but it is better.  It is a trainer card that lets you flip a coin, if heads you can take a card out of the discard pile and put it on the top of your deck.

Analysis-  Right now we don’t have a trainer that can consistently return a Pokemon or Supporter to your hand or deck.  This card could change all that. I think it has the potential to be a staple, although its hard to say how much playability a card like this will have next year.  All signs point to this being a pretty good card late game.   Although it is flippy, the ability to get a Professor Juniper back from your discard pile could be really amazing.

One way to deal with the flippiness is to use it with Junk Arm.  If you flip tails, odds are that most of the time you will flip heads the second time if you Junk Arm it back to your hand.  But we all know how flips go.

Noctowl pairs beautifully with this card.  Notice that if you flip heads, the card goes to the top of your deck, not your hand.  To get it into our hand, you can use Noctowl’s “Night Sight” to draw that card.

The downside of this card is obvious.  Why would you want to waste precious space in your deck for a card that might work if you by chance need it?  It is situational, but we won’t know how good it is tell we get it in our packs and we test it.

Final Rating– 6.5/10– As I mentioned, this card could be a staple or it could be as useful as a card like Pokeball.  We don’t know if this card has a great future, it certainly has not been hyped at all.  I am not sure what will happen to this card, but if I had to ebat I would say that this card could be pretty good…maybe.

Thats all for today kiddies.  Please make sure to leave you thoughts and ratings of these cards in the comment box.

So long and thanks for all the fish!

Category: Pikks Three | Tags: Metapod HGSS, Recycle, Zekrom Black and White