One Hit KO

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  This is Pikkdogs here with another Pikk Three article for you.  This will be a special Pikk Three, where I will review cards that are considered Durant counters.

For those of you that know Ed personally, I have just received some great news.  Ed and his wife welcomed their fourth daughter Friday morning.  Baby Primrose is 9 pounds and 21 inches.  Both her and Ed’s wife are doing well.  So, big congrats to my buddy Ed and his wife, very happy for you guys.  On behalf of myself and the OnehitKo community, Congrats Ed we wish ya guys the best.

So now onto another baby, Pedro.  Let us see what Pedro has for us today.  Can you give us a news article to start things off Pedro?

Well sure Pikkdogs.  Foxnews.com is reporting that a Turkish shampoo company is being asked to pull its newest commercial from the airwaves.  It seems like the commercial features Adolph Hitler speaking to men and telling them to buy this new Shampoo.  Jewish activists are appalled that a company would use someone who is associated with hate and genocide as a spokesperson.  Would you buy shampoo from HItler Pikkdogs?

Shampoo, no.  Mustache cleaner, probably.  The question is, is it too soon?  I grew up watching “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure,” and that had Napoleon eating ice cream and Ghengis Khan playing hockey.  Napoleon and Ghengis Khan both killed thousands, maybe even millions, of people.  Ghengis Khan once conquered a territory, and poured melted silver into the eyes and ears of the former leader of that kingdom.  These were not good people, yet I grew up with them being a “ziggy piggy” and playing hockey in the mall, and nobody seemed to think that that was wrong.  If people in the media can do that, I don’t think it’s fair to single out that one shampoo company for a Hitler advertisement.

Do you think Hitler could “eat the pig” like Napoelon did?

The bigger question is will anyone get all these “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure” references?

I doubt it.  You are better off just going to your article.

Than let’s do it.  Cue the first review!

Card #1-Victini #15

Description– Victini is a basic 70 HP Fire Pokemon.  He has a water weakness and a 1 retreat cost.  It has one attack, and it is called “V-Create”.  This attack does 100 damage for RC, but if you do not have 5 Pokemon on your bench the attack does not do any damage.

Analysis– To start off our look into Durant counters we have Victini.  This is known as, “the other Fire Victini.”  There were so many Victinis released in Noble Victories that this one got lost in all the hoopla.   It was probably the one that got the least amount of hype.  But not from me, when it was released in Japan’s Red Collection I immediately saw how good of a card it was.  It seemed to me like a basic Cincinno BW, but that needed 2 energy cards to attack.  100 damage for 2 energy is always going to be good, I know that this card is the best out there, but it seems to be better than the amount of hype it got.

After its release, I cannot recall it getting that much play.  At first I thought it would help revitalize the ailing Stage 1 Rush deck, but I can’t recall anyone giving it the time of day.  I did use it in my Mew Prime/Unfezant/Vanilluxe deck as a Durant counter during Cities this season, but that’s the only play that I know that it had.

And that brings us to what we are here to talk about, Durant counters.  I think that Victini is my favorite Durant counter.  He is the only one on this list that is a basic Pokemon, so that is really great in a format where every card slot is crucial.  He does take one fire energy, but a lot of people are using Rainbow and Prism energy in their decks, and these energies work with his attack.  His attack is good because it does 200 damage to a Durant.  There may be some way to stop something that does 100 damage to a Durant, but you would have to run a lot of Defenders and Special Metals in order to survive 200 damage.  Because Victini is so versatile and powerful, I think he is the best Durant counter out there for an average deck.

There are some bad things about Victini.  70 HP is not good, and it can easily be KO’ed by your opponent’s Cobalion.  He also takes 2 energies to attack, this is not good in a format where Durant can run 8 energy removers.  It can be very hard to keep only 1 energy on the field at once, let-alone two.  He also needs a full bench to be able to attack.  This is not a huge problem because most decks run a lot of basic Pokemon and have a lot of Dual Balls and Pokemon Collectors.  But, I could see a situation where this could be a problem.

Final Rating–7.5/10- Gotta love this Victini.  He is the most splashable Durant counter.  Whenever he sees a Durant, he cannot help but destroy it.  Sure they can try to take his energy away, but they will do that to every Pokemon they face.  It will always be a game of, “can I flip heads on Crushing Hammer.”  For all that it is I would say that Victini is a great Durant counter, and almost every deck needs a good Durant counter.

Card #2-Volcarona

Description– This is a Durant counter that I saw this past weekend at States.  I hadn’t considered it too much before, but it is not a terrible card.

Volcarona is a 110 HP Stage 1 Fire Pokemon with a 1 retreat cost and a fire weakness.  It has two attacks.  The first attack, called “Fiery Dance”, does 30 damage for R and lets you attach one basic energy card from the discard pile to one of your Pokemon.  The second attack, called “Heat Wave” does 60 damage for RCC, and it also allows you to burn the defending Pokemon.

Analysis– Let’s start with the basics.  110 HP isn’t terrible for a stage 1, though its always nice to have more.  The 1 retreat cost is about all you can hope for from a fire Pokemon.  And the water weakness is not that horrible in this format, its fairly good.

As mentioned, I have seen this card played at States 2012.  I don’t think I heard any hype from this card, and this card was not played during Cities.  So any play that this card gets is fairly recent.  I haven’t found any decks online that have the card in it, but a few have mentioned it as a secondary attacker in  a fire deck like Reshiphlosion.  Now, I think some people are using it as a Durant counter in non fire decks, because it works well with DCE.

Although you will need to evolve Volcarona, it is still a good Durant counter because you may only need 1 energy to attack if you run a decent amount of Plus Powers in your deck.  Sure its first attack only does 30 damage, but with a Plus Power, that damage goes up to 80 on the fire weak Durant.  That will be enough to OHKO one that has a Special Metal on it, but no Eviolite.  If they do have Eviolite on it, you may need to use “Heat Wave.” Although this attack does use two energies to attack, a lot of decks use DCE’s in them anyway, so it should be an easy fit in most decks.  Since “Heat Wave” also brings the burn into the game, it can also be good against those high HP SP Pokemon that seem to survive forever.

The bad things about Volcarona are obvious.  It is a stage 1 and that means that it takes up 2 spots in your deck.  It also means that it is twice as likely to be prized, and that it is harder to get out without being knocked out first.  There also is no guarantee that the one energy attack will knock out a Durant.  Because of Crushing Hammer and Lost Remover, it is very important to knock out Durant with only one energy, which this deck can do, but cards like Defender and Eviolite can stop that.  This card is also reliant on Plus Powers and DCE, if your deck does not run a lot of those cards, you can’t run Volcarona.

Final Rating– 5.5/10- Not a huge fan of this card.  Though it is useful against the EXs and a decent Durant counter, I think cards like Victini are much better Durant counters.

Card #3 Zebstrika ND

Description– This is the only Durant counter on this list that does not attempt to knock it out right away.  This card does not use weakness to knock out Durants, instead, it tries to provide an item lock to slowly choke the life out of the Durant deck.

Kind of like David Carradine?

Well, kind of.  But, if I talk any more about that we could get censored again, so we should just leave it like that.

Zebstrika is a 90 HP Stage 1 Lightning Pokemon with a fighitng weakness and a free retreat cost.  It has two attacks.  The second attack is called “Lightning Crash,” it costs LLC, and it lets you snipe for 80 at the cost of discarding all of the energy attached to him.  The first attack is what we are all here for.  It is called “Disconnect”, and it does 40 damage for LC.  The effect is that it also stops your opponent from playing item cards during his/her next turn.

Analysis-  Let us again start with the basics.  90 HP is fairly terrible, though you are not going to put him in a position to be attacked anyway, 90 HP is actually decent enough for what you are using him for.  The free retreat cost is always amazing.  It is always great to have something that you can use to just retreat for free whenever you need to.  The fighting weakness is terrible.  Again, you probably are not going to use this guy when a fighting Pokemon is around, but that doesn’t mean that this card has to have terrible stats either.

This card received absolutely no hype when it came out in Next Destinies.  Every body was talking about all of the EX Pokemon, and nobody cared to talk about Zebstrika.  Despite the lack of hype, it got play right away at the ECC as a Durant counter.  I think the deck even made Top Cut, it did turn a lot of heads at the ECC and here in the U,S.  It did not receive a ton of play at the States in the U.S., but it did see some play.  I even played against someone who used it with Mew Prime.

It can be hard to see why this card is a Durant counter, so I will show you how.  “Disconnect” does 40 damage and stops all trainers.  This means that your opponent cannot remove energy or replace fallen Durants.  The plan is to just keep this 40 damage up until all the Durants are gone.  You will be like a Burmese Python slowly  constricting your prey until it eventually cannot do anything.

Hey Pikkdogs, if Burma is no longer a country, shouldn’t they call it a Myanmarish Python?

No.

Anyway, on to the bad stuff about Zebstrika.  Like Volcarona, it is a stage 2 Pokemon which means you need to devote 2-4 spots in your deck just for him.  That is a lot for a Durant counter, so you will be investing a lot to your Durant counter.  Yes, you can use it in other match-ups, but it is more useful against Durant.  The amount of damage it does also scares me.  If it only does 40 damage, that means 30 of that damage can be taken away because of an Eviolite and a Special Metal energy.  That means you would only be doing 10 damage, and you cannot take out Durants 10 damage at a time.  You will need to do that 40 damage, so if they attach the Special Metals and the Eviolites early, you are in trouble.

Final Rating–6/10– It does work in some Zekrom decks.  If you have some space you can throw some Zebstrikas right in there and have a decent Durant counter without having to run any other kinds of energies.  It can be fueled up fairly easy with all of the Eelektriks that people are playing now, so getting this thing out isn’t a huge deal.  I don’t think this is a great tech against Durant, but if you are playing a lightning deck, this will probably work better than trying to bring in fire energies.

Well, Pedro, that is all I have today.  Do you have something for us to close out the article with?

First, we must tell everybody to check out the OneHitKO store.  We now offer singles on the same website where you get all of your questionable strategy and deck articles.  So, make sure to help out the people who are helping you out by doing your shopping at the OneHitKO Store.  We offer fair prices on everything from the Next Destinies set, and we will soon have the best cards from other sets.  So, please follow this link and check out the store.   If you are a rebel, you can also follow this link to get you to the store, but don’t follow this link, because that’s to a Noozles video.

Love the Noozles.

Anyway, for our real news story to close things out.  Surgeons at George Washington University Hospital are reporting that this past weekend’s heart transplant on former Vice President of the United States, Dick Cheney, has been a success.  Doctors say that the world will probably have to deal with Cheney for about 10 more years.  Do ya like the Dick Cheney Pikkdogs?

Of course not, nobody likes Dick Cheney.  I think he even creeps himself out when he thinks of himself.  I do kind of have positive thoughts when I think about him, because he seems very close to a real life Penguin from Batman.  All he needs is an Umbrella and a couple of henchmen and he could be the perfect Batman villan.

He would have to change his last name to Cobblepot though.

Wouldn’t that be the best name, Dick Cobblepot?

No, sounds too much like a porn name.  And if anyone knows anything about us two gentlemen, it is that we don’t like to be involved with porn in anyway. 

That’s right.  Now I must go to…………….water my plant.

Is that what you call it now?

Just end the article!

Good night everybody!

Category: Pikks Three | Tags: Victini #15, Volcarona NV, Zebstrika ND