Archive for February, 2012

Strategy Article: Reading Your Opponent

Tuesday, February 28th, 2012

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  This is Pikkdogs here with a strategy article.  Before we get into the article, let me introduce my sidekick Pedro.  Hey Pedro.

Hey Pikkdogs.

What bit of trivia do you have to tell us today.

Well I have two things for you.  The first thing we can talk about is the fact that Nintendo has announced what our Spring set will be.  In May the set Dark Explorers will be released.  It is expected to contain most of what was in the Japanese Dark Rush set.  As you might guess, it will focus on Dark Pokemon.  It will also have EXs and Full Art EXs of Raikou, Entei, Darkrai, Tornadus, Kyorge, and Groudon.  Look for more news to come on this set in the coming weeks.  This past weekend was the weekend of the Academy Awards, did you have an Oscar Party Pikkdogs?

Well as a matter of fact I did have an Oscar party.  It didn’t have anything to do with the awards though, I just had some beers with the grouchy guy who lives in my dumpster.

Sounds like fun. 

It was.  But getting  a little serious here, the …

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Deck Analysis: Mewtwo, Pikkdogs Tries the New CMT (Celebi Prime, Mewtwo EX, and Tornadus)

Sunday, February 26th, 2012

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there, this is Pikkdogs here with a deck analysis for you.  I finally got along to test a Mewtwo deck, I tried the new CMT version of the Mewtwo EX deck.  The old CMT deck was around in Battle Roads and it was like Stage 1 Rush, but it had Mew Prime in it.  This deck is nothing like it, but it does have Tornadus in it, just like the original CMT.  This deck also has Celebi Prime and Mewtwo EX. Before we get to the article, let us welcome my sidekick Pedro. What do you have for us today Pedro?

Well I have some news in the field of Biology.  Fox News is reporting the researchers who are studying a group of Blacktip Reef Sharks are reporting that the sharks make friends with other sharks. Researchers state that the Sharks form groups with similar sharks based on age and other factors. Kind of like a clique in high school.  They use the group for protection and to increase their chances at survival.  Are you surprised to hear that Sharks make friends Pikkdogs?

Well of course they make friends, how else would …

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Pikkdogs Pikks Three: Celebi Prime, Exp. Share, and First Ticket

Thursday, February 23rd, 2012

A Big Hello to all you OHKOers out there.  This is Pikkdogs with a classic Pikk Three article for you.  This is an article where yours truly reviews three cards.  One cards is usually a well played card, one is a card I feel that is under-rated, and the final is from a new or yet to be released set.  Before we get things started, I would like to take this time to bring back a fixture of this website, my sidekick, Pedro.  Hey Pedro.

Ummm. Hey Pikkdogs.

Are you mad Pedro, just because I left my extra-dimensionary sidekick for like 2-3 weeks, doesn’t give you an excuse to get angry.

I’m not mad because of that.

Good.

I’m mad because when you reprogrammed my inter-dimensionary porthole, you set it to the universe in which that new Rob Schneider Sitcom happens in. 

Three  weeks with Rob Schneider, that must have been hell.
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The Dragons are Coming!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Monday, February 20th, 2012

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  This is an article that is kind of about a set profile and card reviews.  You might understand it later, hopefully. The article will mostly cover the Japanese Dragon Selection Mini-Set.  The scans of it were released a couple weeks ago, but I am just getting to it now because all of the NV hoopla.  Since their are currently no English scans of the Dragon Selection Mini-Set that we are talking about, I will instead show you pictures of a tv show that I liked when I was 4…. Noozles.  Now I know it doesn’t make sense, but only good websites bring you things that make sense, we don’t want you to have your standards too high.   

If you have been listening to any Pokemon news from Japan, you will have heard a while ago that we will be getting a new type of Pokemon.  It will be the Dragon Type and it will consist of the Dragon Pokemon that have previously been scattered into other types.  The Next Japanese Set will probably contain more Dragon Pokemon, since the sets will be called Dragon Blade and Dragon Blast, but for right now the only Dragon Pokemon in Japan have came from the Dragon Selection Mini-Set.  This is another one of those small sets that gets released in Japan between sets.  The set itself is very “mini,” only 20 cards were in this set.  Most of the cards  haven’t been that earth shattering, but there still might be a couple gems in it.
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Stupid Deck Idea: How Bout a “Round” of Applause? Seismitoad + Wigglytuff Deck

Saturday, February 18th, 2012

Jiggilly Pufff. Jiggilly………….Puff………Jiggillly Puff..Jiggilllleeeeeeeeee.

Oh sorry, A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  This is Pikkdogs here with a Stupid Deck Idea.  The Stupid Deck Idea is a type of article that we do when we have an idea for a deck that either isn’t that great, or that we haven’t tested enough.

The deck in question today is Seismitoad and Wigglytuff.  It may seem like  a weird deck to make, but it actually is a pretty simple idea.  So let’s take a closer look at this deck and see if it is any good.

The Basics

Before we go into how the deck works, let’s look at the decks three main attackers; Wigglytuff, Seismitoad, and Palpitoad.

Wigglytuff is a 90 HP Pokemon with a fighting weakness and a 2 retreat cost.  The first attack, “Round”, does 20 damage times the number of your Pokemon in play that have an attack that is named “Round.” The second attack, “Hypnoblast”, does 60 damage and lets you flip a coin, if heads you put the defending Pokemon to sleep.  Of course, we don’t really care about “Hypnoblast,” I don’t see anyone really using this attack.  “Round” could be a good …

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A Three Pack of Mini Articles: Your Favorite Card Art of 2011, How EXs Effect States, and Ask Pikkdogs?

Thursday, February 16th, 2012

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  This is Pikkdogs here with a 3 pack of mini articles.  First, we have some old business to catch up on with, the award for best artwork in 2011.  Then, we have a new www.propokemon.com premium content article from Alex Fields, and I will bring you an exclusive look at that article. Finally, I have an idea for an article or two that I might want to do, I will run it past you guys, and we will see how it goes.  So, let’s get on to the article. 

Section 1: The Award for Best Overall Card Art.

If you have read the article about card art a couple weeks ago, you will remember that I did an award show type article that celebrated the best in card art.  I gave awards in many categories like: Best Full Art, Best Aerial Scene, and Cutest Card Art.  But, I let you guys pick your favorite overall card art.  Before we give away the last award, I just gotta say that I really liked doing the article this year.  This type of article is always very tough and labor intensive, it is not …

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One Ant to Rule Them All, One Ant to Find Them, One Ant to Bring Them in, and in the Darkness Mill Them.

Tuesday, February 14th, 2012

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  This is Pikkdogs with kind of  a deck profile of Durant.  All of the Pokemon writers right now are concentrating on Mewtwo EX and all the other EXs that just came out last week in Next Destinies.  But, a comment on my last article made me think that we are doing all this wrong.  At the end of the Cities season there was one deck that dominated all other decks, and yet we are not talking about it.  So let’s talk about it, let’s talk about Durant.

History and Basics

Durant is a milling deck.  Milling is a term that comes from Magic the Gathering.  There used to be a card named Millstone, and Millstone made your opponent put two cards from their library, or deck, into their graveyard, or discard pile.  Ever since this card came out, the act of discarding cards from the top of your deck has been called “milling.”

Durant came out in the Noble Victories set.  At first not many people recognized how good it was.  They dismissed it as a deck that had a good premise, but they thought that it couldn’t mill enough cards …

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Deck Ideas from Next Destinies

Saturday, February 11th, 2012

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  This is Pikkdogs here with an article about decks from Next Destinies.  There is no question that Next Destinies will be an impactful set.  The set is chock full of cards that will make it into decks right away.   This article will kind of overview some of these decks and explain what they are all about.  Of course I can’t cover every deck, so this will be just the major changes.

New Deck(s)

Mewtwo

The card that has literally been the poster boy of Next Destinies is Mewtwo EX.  He is also probably the focal point of the only great new deck that will come out of Next Destinies.  There is no doubt that ND cards will be in a lot of decks, but the Mewtwo deck is the only one that is really new to the format.

Since you can only play 4 Mewtwo EX cards in one deck, that will leave you  with at most 56 cards to work with.  If you add in cards like Eviolite and DCE, that still gives you about 50 cards to work with.  If you add in the staples and some …

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Stupid Deck Idea: Amoongus and Leafeon

Wednesday, February 8th, 2012

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there, this is Pikkdogs here with a Stupid Deck Idea.  I must admit that I haven’t tested many new cards right now, but one rogue idea has inspired me.  That is the idea of pairing Amoongus and Leafeon.  I know its not a good deck, but it is a fun deck.  So we are going to be talking about that soon.

First, I just want to make an announcement.  I feel that my articles are becoming a little stale and that I should change things up, so I think that I am going to give Pedro a break.  Maybe Pedro will come back after a while. Maybe I will find a different format and change things up, but right now I shall go it alone. Chances are that Pedro will just take a week or so off, but we will see.

Amoongus and Leafeon

The Basics

There was  rogue deck going on in the Battle Roads season that featured Roserade and Leafeon.  The decks aim was to do damage for one energy with Leafeon while Roserade sits on the bench.  If you attach an energy to Roserade you can give  a …

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The Second Annual Pikkes- Awards to Celebrate Pokemon Card Art

Sunday, February 5th, 2012

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  Last year I had an idea around awards-show time to give awards to the best card art in the format.  This year I decided to keep the tradition up, and name it after one of the best people I know, me.  Pikke (Pick-e) was my nickname in school, so I decided to call the awards the Pikkes.  No  matter what attractive chap the awards are named after, the Pikkes are all about greatness in card art.  And what a better time to have an award show, with the Oscars coming up around the corner.

A lot of Pokemon writers don’t mention card art, and only talk about playability.  But, card art is something that connects to the card collector and the serious player.  We all can appreciate a good piece of card art.  Not all of us can appreciate Mewtwo EX, but we all can appreciate how beautiful a Full Art card is.  I think its nice to take a step back from competitive play now and then and just appreciate something as simple as card art.   So let’s take a look at how we are going to give out …

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