One Hit KO

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there, this is Pikkdogs here with a Pikk Three article.  As always, these articles are a three pack of card reviews.  One is on a popular card, the second is on a card that I think is under-rated, and the third is from a new or yet to be released set.  Before we go on to the reviews, let us first welcome my colleague from a different dimension, Pedro!

Hey Pikkdogs.

So, Pedro what do you got for us today.

Well today we have some news from DARPA.

The 90’s MTV cartoon?

No, that was Daria.  This is a government agency called the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

That is a horrible name for an agency.  I like the more classic and simple names like CIA and FBI.

I guess the guy who does the naming must have been sick that day.  Anyway, DARPA has announced that it has made a robot Cheetah that has broken the Robot Land Speed Record. 

I didn’t know they had a robot land speed record.

Well they do.  It only runs about 18 miles an hour, which is faster than an average jogger, but way slower than a sprinter, and many times slower than an actual Cheetah.  But it is a step in the right direction. 

What direction is that.?

Well I guess that’s the direction where Robots can out run humans and kill them to take over the Earth. 

Oh, that doesn’t sound good.  Hey Pedro, if you could have a robot version of any animal, what would it be?

I would do a robot monkey, so it could talk to me in sign language. 

Good one.  I think I would go for a robot brown bear, so it could protect me against the government’s robot Cheetah’s that are apparently coming to kill me.

Can a Robot Brown Bear stop a Robot Cheetah from killing somebody?

I would think so.  Or maybe I could use a Robot Honey Badger, because you know what they say, “Robot Honey Badger don’t care.”

True, good one.  I think it is high time that you start the article.

Card #1-The Staple: Thundurs EP

Description– Thundurus is a 110 HP Lightning Pokemon with a fighting weakness and a 2 retreat cost.  Thundurus has two attacks.  The first attack is called, “Charge”, it let’s you search your deck for a lightning energy card and attach it to Thundurus.  The second attack is called “Disaster Volt”, and does 80 damage plus a discard of one.

Analysis– Thundurus was released in the Emerging Powers set and was quickly cast aside in favor of another member of the Kami trio, Tornadus.  It really didn’t see any play during Battle Roads, but it started seeing some play during Cities.  It was mostly used in decks with Eelektrik.  It was used as a starter.  It was good because it could get an extra energy out on the field on turn 2, and then discard an energy card on that turn.  Discarding was good because it allowed the energy to be attached again with Eelektrik.  It was never a super popular card, but it was a respected option in a couple good decks.

Now that Zekrom EX has came out, Thundurus is again being called on as a starter.  As long as your Zekrom deck is not the speedy type, having Thundurus in your deck is pretty good.  He won’t solve all of your problems, but he is a decent starter and can attack for a decent amount.

The bad thing about Thundurus is that he will never be a great attacker.  It is not 2004, and 80 damage is no longer enough to be a good attacker.  110 HP is also actually kind of low right now.  He is OHKO able by most of the good Pokemon out there.  So it is not a great card that will be put your deck over the edge.

Final Rating– 7/10– Not a great card, but it could be a decent card in a good deck.  It is probably not a card that will make a huge difference,  but it could improve consistency a little.  80 damage is good early, and could be decent late, but “Disaster Volt” will never be an attack to be relied upon.

Card #2- The Underdog-Virizion EP

Description– I bet you guys are kind of shocked to see this Virizion here.  But, we will talk about that stuff later.  Virzion is a basic Grass Pokemon with 100 HP, a 1 retreat cost, a water resistance, and a fire weakness.  It has two attacks.  The first attack, “Giga Drain”, does 30 damage and lets you heal from Virizion the amount of damage that you did to the defending Pokemon.  The second attack, “Sacred Sword”, does 100 damage for GGC, and you cannot use the attack next turn.

Analysis-  This is a very interesting card to have in the current format.  Not many people have ever talked about this card, so it is kind of new to the format.

As mentioned, nobody has ever really used Virizion EP in a deck.  Some people did use Virizion NV, but no thought was given to the Emerging Powers version of this Pokemon.  Along with having no play, there was also no hype with this card.  So, any play of this card will be new.

So, let us talk about the basics.  100 HP is good, but not that great right now.  The 1 retreat cost is good, and especially great with Skyarrow Bridge in the format.  The weakness here isn’t that bad, since most fire attackers do 120+ damage.  But, it does still hurt a little with attacks like “Outrage”.  The water resistance is nice for Kyurem, but its not the most useful resistance.  Though, it is really nice to have some kind of resistance, since a lot of Pokemon don’t have any.   The first attack isn’t that great.  Healing is good, but not that great in a Pokemon with only 100 HP.  The second attack is decent.  100 damage is decent, but three grass energies is a lot.

The good thing about this card is that it works well with the CMT deck that is being played right now.  It already runs Skyarrow Bridge.  This card not only gives it free retreat to get out of trouble, but it lets you switch your attacker after a “Sacred Sword.”  This card also works with Celebi Prime, who can attach an extra grass energy per turn.  This means that you can get Virizion setup fairly easily.

Virizion is not a great secondary attacker, Tornadus is better, but it does possibly have a place as a tertiary attacker.  It is not always needed, but sometimes in CMT you need to attack with someone else than Mewtwo EX.  Virizion does require one more energy card, but he does do 20 more damage per attack.  He is not needed, but he could be another extra attacker that has a little more attack power than Tornadus, and doesn’t require any other cards for support.

Of course, there are some bad things about Virizion.  He is weak to Reshiram, which is not great.  He also only has 100 HP, which is kind of feeble for a Basic Legendary Pokemon now-a-days.  He also does can not take advantage of DCE like Tornadus can, which does hurt a little bit.

Final Rating-  6.75/10– Not an amazing card, but I would think that it is an acceptable tech in CMT.  It won’t make the decks better by leaps and bounds, but maybe by a little hop.  I did test this card a little bit, and it is kind of nice to use this card late in the game.  The DCE doesn’t really make too much of a difference, because by the end of the game you normally have exhausted all of your DCEs on Mewtwo EX anyway.  Overall, it seems like an acceptable rogue tech in CMT.  It does deserve a little talking about.

Card #3- The Young Gun- Battle City

Description– Battle City is a stadium card that is only avaliable in the Mewtwo EX box.  The effect of the stadium let’s you draw one card if you get heads on a coin flip.  Each player is able to use the stadium card while in play.

Analysis– Battle City has yet to be played in a tournament, and it didn’t have much hype after its release.  But, that might be due to the fact that nobody knew it was coming out, rather than the card being bad.  When people did know about it they did talk about it being good for Durant decks.  Durant decks can always use another draw engine.  I don’t know if its worth getting rid of  a Crushing Hammer for it, but putting Battle City in this deck seems to work.

This card works in Durant because of three reasons.  One is the obvious, for more draw power.  Draw power is rarely bad, and Durant decks are always needing access to more cards, so this card works fairly well.  It won’t give you a lot of cards, and in fact, there is no guarantee that you will ever hit heads on the coin flip, but it could be a decent tech.  The second reason why it works in this deck is because your opponent will never want to use it.  They do not want to get rid of their own deck, so they are not likely to use this card very often.  This gets rid of one the weaknesses of this card, your opponent being able to benefit from the card.  The third reason I love this card is because there is no way that this card can be in  play while Skyarrow Bridge is in play.  Skyarrow Bridge is a good anti-Durant card because it makes it harder for the Durant player to trap one of your Pokemon in the active spot.

I could also see a non-Durant player to use this card.  It could also be used in another deck to get rid of Skyarrow Bridge, since the card is being used a lot.  And, it is always nice to have more draw power in your deck.  It is not a great card in a random deck, but if you have some extra deck space, this card will be disruptive and increase consistency.

The bad things about this card are two-fold.  The first bad thing is that it requires a flip.  You have no idea if you are going to be able to use this card or not.  There have been a lot of stadium cards that require flips lately, and that part of the card is really reducing its chance of seeing play.  Being able to draw 1 card is not game breaking, so I don’t see why we have to flip.  But anyway, the flip does really hurt this card.  The second bad thing about this card is the fact that your opponent can use it to.  Since it also has the flip, the chances are that your opponent will help your opponent more than it helps you. So, if it might help your opponent more than it helps you, why would you want to use your coveted deck space for it?

Final Rating–7.25/10– Right now it should only be used in Durant, but it can be decent somewhere else. The flip sucks and the fact that your opponent can use it sucks, so there are a lot of negatives about this card.  It does have a spot in the format right now, that is a good thing.  But, if Durant goes away, I doubt anyone will ever want to play this card.

So that that is quite enough about the cards, why don’t you come in here and Pedro and wrap this thing up?

Okay, today we have a bit of news from our friends at www.propokemon.com.  They ran a news story this week about the Spanish Video Game team at the UK Nationals.  It seems that during the night, the Spanish team had a Poo fight.  Apparently they got drunk and started throwing their own feces  at each other in the hallway of a motel.  The Poo Fighters were escorted from the hotel by the cops, and could be facing sanctions from TPCI.  Since one of the Poo Fighters ended up winning the whole darn tournament, his win and his prizes are in jeopardy.  They could possibly remove the victory and all of his prizes pending an inquiry into the situation. 

You know Pedro, you try to get in the article writing business to mix Pokemon and comedy, and sometimes God just lobs one over the plate for you.  Sometimes life just goes your way.  That is what it was like when I heard this story.  This is my favorite story ever, Pokemon Poo Fighters.  My next thought was, “When did ProPokemon become CNN?”  That was kind of odd that they were doing investigative reporting.  Kind of making the rest of us look bad.

I was thinking, that since U.K. Nationals saw a type of Spanish Civil War of Poo Fighting, do you think it will escalate to World War II levels at worlds.  The real life Spanish Civil War did happen just before WW II, so it would make sense that we could have a large worldwide feces fight happening at Worlds. 

That would be something to talk about.  But, I still love this story.  I do know that poo fighting is a bad thing, and that Pokemon probably should punish someone, but that doesn’t tarnish the greatest Pokemon story I ever heard.  Do you know anything else about this story?

Well, we have a couple of unconfirmed reports.  Some reports stated that there were other national teams at that same hotel, and they also had some activity in the fight.  Unconfirmed sources report that the French surrendered right after the German team invaded the territory of the Swiss team, which remained neutral.  It is also said that the Russian team flung some poo as they were retreating  out the door into the cold night, some Germans followed them, but they eventually froze to death.  The Italians were going to get involved, but they were too busy making pizzas.  Members of the U.K. team also joined the fight, but they stayed a comfortable distance away, instead of hand to hand combat, they dropped their poo from paper airplanes as they stood across a lake.  Some people also report some American activity.  Though they never flung any feces, the U.S. is  reported to have sold a lot of their own feces to both sides, making a ton of cash. 

I think we could go on all night talking about this story, its just amazing.

But, we do have to let these poor people go sometime, so good night everybody!

Category: Pikks Three | Tags: Battle City, Thundurus, Virizion EP