Bold Statements with Pikkdogs

by Pikkdogs ~ October 22nd, 2011.

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  This is Pikkdogs and his sidekick Pedro here with a new opinion article.  Nobody has posted anything on the site for a while, and I sure couldn’t think of anything to write about, so I decided to do an opinion article and give it a fancy new name.  In this article I will make some statements about the game, and then try to back them up with facts or observations.  But first, Pedro has some news for you.

Yes indeedy.  The new set Nobel Victories will be starting it’s pre-releases next weekend.  So expect some articles about the set to be coming up this week.  Hopefully our friends at www.pokebeach.com will be having the scans for that set out very soon.  And make plans to hit up the pre-releases in the coming weeks.  Tournament Organizers rely on their players to support them at these events, and it is a great way to get new cards from the upcoming set.  So make sure to get out to one of those, they will be a lot of fun. 

So what have you been up to lately Pedro?

Well Fall is my favorite time of year.  I’ve been watching my fair share of American Football.

Really your a football fan?  What’s your favorite team?

Well, I always root for my alma mater, the Susquehanna University Crusaders.

Susquehanna U.  Isn’t that Bullwinkle’s Alma Mater?

No, that was What’samatta U. 

Oh, well do you like to do anything else in the fall. You know what’s popular right now, those corn mazes.  Farmers let people into their corn fields and plow them so it is easy to get lost, and then the people have to call 911 to find a way out.  Do you like to go to the corn mazes?

Is that code?

Yes.

Well, then yes, I like to go to the corn mazes. 

Ok enough tom foolery, lets get on to the article. 

Statements #1- No Reshiphlosion or Reshiboar deck will win Fall Regionals. 

Everybody knows that this year there will be two dates for regionals, one in the fall and one in the spring.  The Fall regionals will play with exactly the same format that was just used for Battle Roads.  So expect to see a lot of the same decks and strategies.  My first bold statement is that the second most winning-est decks at Battle Roads, Reshram decks, will not take home and trophies, or medals, or whatever else they give out this year to the first place winner.

According to my sometimes questionable math, there will be eight regional championships held in the fall.  This means there will be less than 10 chances to win a regionals this fall.  Compare that to the 100 some Battle Roads that occurred a month before, there will not be a lot of tournaments.  This means that only the best decks will have a shot to win, there will be no bad decks that are able to slip by with a win.

I am not saying that Reshiram decks are bad, they are really good.  But I think it takes something pretty special to win regionals.  Reshiram decks will get a lot of play, but I think the bulk of the better players will be playing either Zekrom, Primetime, or a Stage 1 Rush variation.  With most better players playing these three decks, that does not leave a lot of quality players playing Reshiram.  I think that by the time the top cut rounds narrow down to the top 4 or so, Reshiram decks will be all but gone.

Zekrom is just faster than Reshiram and can disrupt their early game start.  Depending on the build, Reshiram decks usually have an even matchup with Stage 1 decks.  And some of the better players play Primetime, and it can be really hard to knock out a great player.  I think the odds are not in Reshirams favor.  It will have a good showing,  but it just isn’t good enough to consistently beat other decks.  While it has been consistent enough to win some BRs, and will be consistent enough to do well at Regionals, I believe it will come home without a first place win.

Statement #2- Victini will open up a new door for rogue players 

We do not know all of what will be in the Noble Victories set yet, but we have received word that we will getting “Victory Star” Victini.  This Victini let’s you re-flip for any coins that you flipped for an attack on your turn.

There are a lot of Pokemon out there that have attacks that would be awesome if they did not rely on a flip.  Audino EP, Sharpedo, and Lilligant EP are just some recent examples.   While Victini will not guarantee that you will be able to get 2 heads on Sharpedo’s “Strip Bare” attack, it will double your odds of doing so.

You can strip someone bare in Pokemon?  I better start getting  my Sharpedo deck ready.  

I know, that’s gonna be awesome.  Anyway, all those flips for Paralysis that you couldn’t count on before, you can now almost count on.  Paralysis will start to be a great aspect of the game, and people will need to tech in more Switches and Vileplume counters.  The amount of Pokemon you can now use Victini with is very big, so he will be used in a lot of ways. This is why he will usher in a new era of rogue decks.

Here are some Pokemon that would benefit from Victini.  Beedrill Unleashed has two flippy attacks.  One does 50 dames times the number of heads on two coin flips for one energy.  And the other attack does 20 damage and poisons and paralyzes for a coin flip for GC.  It is not a great Pokemon, but could be decent in the right deck.  Metagross UD is also better because of Victini.  It has an attack that costs MMCC, but it does 50 times the number of heads you get off of 4 coin flips.  Now three energies is a lot to put on a Pokemon, but you should have a decent chance at doing 150 damage.  You can also take advantage of Special Metal Energies.  He is also resistant to Gothtielle, so that could be a decent counter.

While none of these decks seem like the BDIF, I think Audino, Sharpedo, Beedrill, Lilligant, and Metagross will be a lot better with Victini.  I think a lot of these decks will see play, and if they get lucky maybe some of these will do well in some City championships.

Statement #3- Junk Arm is the best card in the current format. 

While there are a lot of cards in the format that are really good, I think Junk Arm can be considered to be the best.  Of course, Junk Arm is a trainer card that lets you discard two cards from your hand, and then  take a trainer card from your discard pile and put it into your hand. Junk Arm - TR

The reason why Junk Arm is the best card in the format is because the format is reliant on trainers, or items.  This is a very item heavy format.  Some of the better cards are items, like Pokemon Catcher.  Items like Switch, Energy Retrieval, and Dual Ball  also let you get out of some tight situations.  The ability to choose whatever item card you want late in the game is very great.  Of course if you get Junk Arm in your opening hand, it isn’t very useful, but there are times that every card is not that useful.

Almost every deck runs 4 Junk Arm.  The only decks that don’t max out on Junk Arm are Trainerlock decks that use Vileplume.  Every other deck uses 3-4 Junk Arms, and is reliant on them later in the game.

Junk Arm also works well with Professor Juniper.  If you need to use Professor Juniper to get a new 7 card hand, Junk Arm makes sure that those items you discarded can still be useful later.

I think because of the amount of play it has and how reliant on it most decks are, Junk Arm is the best card in the format.

Statement #4 We are still suffering from the decision to allow Pokemon SP into the format. 

This is one statement where I really go out on a limb and tick people off, but I think the decision to bring Pokemon SP into the format was a terrible one, and it is still hurting us today.

Before you jump all over me on this, let’s start from the beginning.  Pokemon SP were introduced in the Platinum sets and were not much of a big deal right away.  Deafen lock was an okay deck and Palkia Lock was nice, but these decks were on par with other decks of the time.  Then Luxape came out and this deck also did not dominate the format.  It was great, but there were other decks that were just as good.  But with the addition of Garchomp C, SP decks became unstoppable.  SP decks basically could not be beat consistently.  This was because players could adapt to different decks and change their decks enough to beat almost any deck around.

The dominance of SP evidentally did not sit very well with Pokemon, because in July of 2011, one of the biggest rotations in history was announced.  7 sets were taken out of the format, leaving us with only 5 1/2 sets for nationals.  Although things appeared fine at nationals, a lot of people did not like this big rotation.  It left us with decks that were not very complicated.  Since we only had about 5 sets in the format, we did not have a lot of cards to choose from.  This left us with a format that didn’t have a lot of variety.  Sure one deck did not dominate all others, but the low card pool made us pick from only 5-6 decks.  If there were about 10 sets in the format like there normally is, rogue decks would have been able to come out and liven up the format.

Today we are left with a format that still has a very small card pool.  Although players do not complain about the small card pool, they do complain about how the format is full of decks that run auto-pilot, and matches are determined by luck.  I think that if we had more cards in the card pool, we would have decks that would be more complicated, and games would be more interesting.  We would not have the auto-pilot decks that we have today.  Most decks today basically are auto-pilot.  You set one guy up, like Typhlosion Prime, and then use his Poke-Power to power up your attackers, and then go on from there.  Or you setup 2 of your main attackers, and then use their big attack to do damage.  We used to have decks that had 20+ Pokemon, and a lot of techs like Dusknoir DP.  They required strategy to decide which Pokemon to get out first.  But, the decks right now are not complicated and do not require a lot of skill, and players are starting to complain.

What they don’t realize is that it is all the fault of SP decks.  Because of SP decks Pokemon had no choice but to give us a ridiculously small format, and give us simple decks to work with.

Well that is all that I have to say, how bout you Pedro?

Yes,  I have another Bold Statement.  My statement is that Pikkdogs will not win any Regionals next month.

I don’t think that that is a very bold statement.

Well I agree, but I just thought people should know.

Okay, well this is Pikkdogs signing off saying So Long and Thanks for all the Fish!

 

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