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Pokemon TCG Decklists and Articles

July 2012

Deck Discussion

Deck Analysis: Reshiboar BW-On

Pikkdogs 2 Comments

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  This is Pikkdogs here with a deck article for you.  This is my first deck analysis for the Black and White on format, so this should be different.  This article will be about Reshiboar, yes Reshiboar.  This deck was first played in the HGSS-on format at Nationals 2011.  It kind of won Worlds that year (if you wanna argue about whether that deck was a Reshiboar or a Magneboar, you should probably get a life), but then it kind of fizzled out in a format with Pokemon Catcher.  But now it could be back, to check for sure , let us look at the deck more in-depth.  I will also give a little of my insight about the new format at the end. Before we get into the article, let us say hi to Pedro.  Hey Pedro do you have a news article for us?

Hey Pikkdogs.  Today’s news article is about the Olympics.  Do you have the Olympic favor Pikkdogs?

Oh I got the Olympic favor.  All the symptoms are there; inactivity, loss of productivity at work, and the belief that archery can be interesting.

Yeah that sounds like it.  As everybody knows the Olympic games started this past Friday with the opening ceremonies, that were kind of weird.  Did you think they were weird Pikkdogs?

Nope, I think that nurses dancing, kids jumping on beds, and Mr. Bean leading an orchestra sounds pretty normal to me.

Okay, I guess.  Now the Olympics are in  full swing with all the weird sports that we kind of know and love. 

The sports might be weird but I love the Olympics.  It is the one time that the world comes together and bonds over their love of sports.  If every day could be like the Olympics there would be no war and famine, we would all live together in harmony and peace.

That sounds nice. 

Plus, it is cool that I can watch rhythmic gymnastics, synchronized diving, and the triple jump and not be called gay.

No, I wouldn’t call you gay for that.  Maybe for that pink shirt you always wear, and for your incessant singing of “Call Me Maybe”. 

Fair enough, let’s just start the article.

Reshiboar- the Basics

Reshiboar is a very simple deck that has been around for a year.  Emboar BW has an Ability called “Inferno Fandango” that lets you attach as many fire energies as you want.  Reshiram BW has the “Blue Flare” attacks that costs RRC, and does 120 damage with a discard of two.  So as long as Emboar is out you can keep feeding energies on Reshiram and keep doing 120 damage.  Reshiram is also not an EX, so you don’t need to worry about giving up two prizes.  The deck works very simply, just keep feeding energies to Reshiram, and you should be good.

Here are some good and bad things about the deck.  The deck is good because it is simple and easy to use.  Almost anybody can play this deck and tech it out how they want it.  Reshiram hits hard enough to 2HKO any EX in the format, Eviolited or not.  It will also take out just about any Stage 1, and most Stage 2’s in one hit.  It is also simple enough to be set up fairly easily.   One bad thing about this deck is that Emboar has a large retreat cost.  If your opponent keeps on Catchering up your Emboar, this might be enough to stifle your strategy.  Another bad thing is that this deck needs a stage 2 Pokemon, that means it is a little less consistent and has only a little room in the skeleton list.

The setup of this deck is very simple.  In my decklist I run Emolga DRE as a starter.  He would be the one that you would want to start with.  If you don’t run Emolga, you can hope that you start with at least 1 Tepig, or with a card that can search him out.  Hopefully by turn 2 or 3 you can get your first Emboar, and then find Reshiram to start your attacking.  Things are fairly uncomplicated from there.

The Decklist

Here is the current decklist that I am using.  Of course it is still early in my testing and this decklist is not perfect.  When I first make a deck I usually make it very simple and bland, so you can tech it out and improve it from the list that I post here.

Pokemon-14

  • 3- Tepig- I can’t tell you how badly I want to go to 4.
  • 1-Pignite
  • 2-Emboar- It would be nice to find room for a 3rd.
  • 4-Reshiram
  • 1-Entei EX- A great card lategame when you are running out of energy.  More of a secondary attacker than something you want to rely on.
  • 2-Emolga DRE- if you can fit in one more, that would great.  If you can find a list that works without it, that’s great too.
  • 1-Mewtwo EX- A good tech that can be used against just about anybody.  You will never know when you will need this card.  You can run 1 more copy if you want.

Trainers-33

  • 3-Energy Retrieval
  • 4-Pokemon Catcher
  • 3-Switch
  • 1-Super Rod
  • 2-Communication
  • 3-Ultra Ball
  • 2-Heavy Ball
  • 3-Rare Candy
  • 2-Random Reciever
  • 4-Professor Juniper
  • 3-N
  • 3-Bianca

Energy-13

  • Fire-13

Tech Options

There are a lot of techs to consider in this deck.

  • Badboar– This is the other Emboar from Black and White.  It does not really help this deck out too much, but it can do 150 damage.  So if you need something that can do 150 damage, this is a good option.  You might need to run the 4th Tepig if you do choose this option.
  • Reshiram EX– This card is pretty much like Badboar, it can do 150 damage for a bunch of energies.  But, it does have sometimes damage itself which can lead your opponent to an easy two prizes.  Badboar might better for a big attacker, if you want one, but it is a judgement call.
  • Rayquaza EX– Rayquaza seems to fit fairly easily into this deck.  You will need to put electric energies into your deck, but it wouldn’t be a huge hassle.  You just need to ascertain that he will help your deck in your local metagame, if that happens then you should change the deck around to accommodate this guy.
  • Bouffalant– He can do 120 damage for CCC to an EX, so why not play this guy.  I don’t know if you need this card, but it doesn’t hurt.

Match-Ups

I don’t want to do a full on Match-Ups section, but I can talk a little about what this deck is good against.

This deck is generally a good all around deck and doesn’t have much that it is terrible or great against.  Most Pokemon in this deck are of course weak to water.  So if you go up against Empoleon or something like Kyurem EX, you can be screwed.  Also, if your opponent can max out their Pokemon Catcher potential (maybe something like Sableye), you also can lose easily.

On the good side, this deck is actually a pretty good match-up against a lot of the decks that are supposed to be good.  Mewtwo EX will be in all decks out there, and since Reshiram discards two energies after it attacks, Mewtwo will have a tough time OHKOing Reshiram.  The fighting Pokemon like Terrakion can’t really OHKO Reshiram, so you should have a good match-up there,  Tornadus is not really much of a threat either.  Zekrom decks can use a Plus Power to get an OHKO on you, but you can do the same.  So that match-up should be fairly even.

My Thoughts About Black and White-On

Okay, now that we are done with Reshiboar for a while, let us talk a little about the new format.  I am not saying that I have tested everything, but I think I have learned a little.  The format so far seems fairly even.  There doesn’t seem to be one card or one deck that can beat up everything.  Mewtwo EX is still the BDIF.  Even though Mewtwo EX doesn’t really have a deck anymore, it fits well into most decks out there, and can do a lot of things against almost all decks out there.  Mewtwo EX is a very versatile card that will be in every deck.

Stage 2’s are once again playable, but the format does still benefit the BBP (Big Basic Pokemon).  Without Celebi Prime, Mewtwo can no longer tear through every evolution line before it starts.  But there are still cards like Eviolite that favor these BBP.  The EX Pokemon are now in full force and they have more HP and hit harder than Stage 2’s.  But, the Quad decks no longer work as well without Junk Arm, so you are going to have to kind of adjust the current BBP decks.  To recap, Stage 2’s are still at a disadvantage, but at least they are a little more playable.

To speak about Supporters, they still will be used in the same way.  You can no longer use PONT, but decks can be changed so Bianca works as well.  I like to use a high count of Ultra Ball in my decks so that Bianca will be even more effective after I discard stuff with Ultra Ball.  Cheren can also come in to supplement things, but it’s not a crazy good card.  N will be a very popular card in the next format.  I know that some people hate this card, me included, but be prepared to shuffle your deck a lot.  Even someone like me who hates N, will be forced to play three copies of this card.  This means that if you have basic Pokemon in your opening hand that you want to play soon, you will want to play it down before the game starts because an N will normally come down on the first turn of the game.  The basic supporter line that I use is 4-Juniper, 3-N, 3-Bianca, and 2 Random Receiver.  This gives us 12 supporters and it seems to work fairly well.  If you don’t use discarding cards like Ultra Ball, you can use Cheren instead of Bianca.

Searching cards have also changed in the new format.  As I said before I tend to favor Ultra Ball because it works well with Bianca.  Heavy Ball and Level Ball work good in decks that have Pokemon that can be searched out by those cards.  I also still like Pokemon Communication.  If you are running a deck that has between 15-20 Pokemon, you should play Communication.  You should be able to almost always have a Pokemon in your hand, so you can play this card to get the Pokemon you want.  We do not have Dual Ball or Collector any more, but these cards along with Emolga seem to do the job well enough.

Here are a couple other random tidbits.  I do not like running two Super Rod’s.

Is this a comment about your feelings on gay marriage?

No.  Anyway- I feel that most decks can still run just one Super Rod.  Call me old fashioned, but one rod seems to work for me.  If you run two you are sure to always have one in your hand early game, and they seem to taunt you, they seem to say that you should have ran more consistency cards instead of this darn discard pile card.  Another tidbit is that I still can’t see anybody playing the Cilan card.  There seems to be room enough for a bunch of energies in today’s decks, so you shouldn’t need Cilan.  I also still like the Eel decks in this format, they work just as well as they always did.  The same goes for the Tornadi in the format.  I’m not sure if I like the fighting Pokemon, but I am not sure.

If anybody has anything to add, please do so in the comment section.

Conclusion

From my testing with the new format, I think that Reshiboar should be a good deck right away.  It may not be Tier 1, but it should be around Tier 2.  If you can get a good consistent list that has a lot of Switches in it, you should have a chance to do well at a tournament.  I think we can safely say that Reshiboar is back!

I am ready to leave, why don’t you wrap things up Pedro?

Okay, since we had an Olympics news article at the start, why don’t we do an Olympics themed “This Day in History’?  On this day in 1976 Bruce Jenner won the Decatholon for the U.S.  This win was monumental for the Americans as Jenner became a national hero.  His life has unfortunately been in a downward spiral ever since, as he is now relegated to the job of Kardashian babysitter and poster child of what can happen when you get your Botox at the 99 cent store.

It is really sad what happened to the guy, he was once a role model for every young boy, and now he is a cautionary tale for every man out there.

Let this be a lesson to every man out there, just say no the Kardashians and the world will become a much brighter place, until that happy day comes in which there are no more Kardashians to prey on single men. 

Well, said Goodnight everybody.

 

PokeClass

Pokeclass: Rayquaza EX, Emboar and Eelektrik Double Deck Analysis

PokemanDan No Comments

(Pikkdogs Note: I saw Pokeman Dan has a new Pokeclass up, so I thought I would post it for him.  I am busy with work right now and am actually trying to test some BW-on decks out, so be patient with me as it might take several days to test and get some articles written.  In the meantime enjoy the smooth tones of our favorite British guy, Pokeman Dan.) 

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6jgVZ60vew&list=UUzM1HARV1PutBD_uHdCQOCg&index=1&feature=plcp[/youtube]

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Pikkdogs Pikks Three: Dragons Exalted Preview Part 2: Registeel EX, Emolga, and Ninetales.

Pikkdogs 2 Comments

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  We are dangerously close to knowing what our Battle Roads format will be, but we are not quite there yet.  So before I go testing decks out and sharing what I learned with you guys, we will look at one more preview article.  This is a special Pikk Three article that will have three card reviews that will all be from the Dragons Exalted Set (one card is not yet confirmed, but he should be in it).  Before we get started, we should say “hello” to my extra-dimensional sidekick Pedro.  Hey Pedro, do you have some kind of news piece to get us started?

Hey Pikkdogs, yes I do.  We will not be doing a news piece, but we do have a this day in history.  Today is the fifth anniversary of the release of the last Harry Potter book.   Do you like the Harry Potter Pikkdogs?

Oh, love the Harry Potter.  A good retelling of the classic story of the young hero who rises to defeat evil.  Plus the Saturday Night Live version of the book gave us a look at Lindsy Lohan in a very tight shirt. Show the picture.

 Why is everything about boobs with you? You don’t even like SNL.

I know, I hate SNL, but if it has to do with Lindsy Lohan’s boobs, I suddenly like it.

We were talking about Harry Potter here, not boobs.  A beloved Young Adult novel series about fighting evil, let’s talk about that. 

Okay, what I really like about Harry Potter is when Harry sticks his wand in the cauldron.

I give up, let’s go to the article. 

Card #1 Registeel EX

Description– Registeel is a 180 HP basic Metal Pokemon with a weakness to fire, a resistance to psychic, and a 4 retreat cost.  It has two attacks, the first one, Triple Laser”, will do 30 damage to three Pokemon for CCC.  The second attack, “Protect Charge”, will do 80 damage for MMCC and will reduce the damage done to Registeel next turn by 20.

Analysis– Registeel is one of the Pokemon that I have been waiting on for a long time.  I first was looking at this card around Spring Battle Roads, I thought it could work well with the healing trainers that were in the format at that time, plus there were still Special Metal Energy in the format.  This is the first metal Pokemon to be playable without Special Metal Energy, so this is something to look out for.  Registeel is cool because he is a nice tank that can snipe for some serious damage, he also can use colorless energies to attack, so that can make him even more playable.  I can’t wait to learn more about this guy.

So far there hasn’t been a whole lot of hype about this card.  Some people have been talking about using him to go against those 30 HP Tynamos that people still use.  But, I don’t know if people are thinking of using Registeel just as a tech, or if they are thinking of using him as a tech in any deck with energy acceleration or DCE.

Let us look at the stats here.  180 HP seems to be where you want to be with an EX.  The fire weakness could be problematic if Emboar is playable like people think he might be.  The psychic resistance will no doubt be a good thing, no matter what happens we do know that Mewtwo EX will still be a great card in the next format.  The retreat cost is of course not good, but we have come to expect bad retreat costs for EX Pokemon.  The first attack is good, and it is what most people are looking at.  For just CCC you can do 30 damage for three Pokemon.  If Registeel can attack 2 or 3 times, you should be able to get a couple KOs from this attack if you play a deck that runs evolutions.  We don’t know if evolutions will be big enough to justify using this attack, but I guess only time will tell.  The second attack is nice.  80 damage is not great, but it is fairly good.  I’m thinking that most people will probably only play it for the first attack, but if tanking comes back people could start using the second attack.

As mentioned before, Registeel EX can be used two ways.  It can be used as a tech against Eel decks, and it can be used on its own as a tanking deck.  I could see people teching in Registeel EX in a deck with DCE just like people teched in Tornadus EP in the last format.  I don’t see it running as a tanking deck right now.  The rotation will take out some of the healing trainers and Special Metal energy, and the loss of those cards will hurt the playability of tanking decks.  So that leaves us with the tech option.  I could see him going into almost every deck that runs energy acceleration or DCE energy.  If you can get him going early you should be able to get some damage spreading early, and that could take out some basic Pokemon before they can be evolved.  There is also a third way to play Registeel, in a spreading deck.  Registeel is not the only Pokemon that can spread, the non-EX Kyurem can also spread thirty damage around.  Since Kyurem is also a water type, he can cover Registeel’s weakness.  With these two guys you should be able to spread a lot of damage around, put these two guys in a deck with Exp. Share, and you should have a decent shot of doing well.  I could also see the new Dusknoir going in this deck.  Although it is not out yet, the newly announced Dusknoir can move damage counters around on your opponent’s side of the field.  This Ability works very well with Kyurem and Registeel EX, and it might make a cool fun deck that might actually work.

Now we shall look at the good and bad things about this card.  The good includes the stats of Registeel, the diverse attacks, and the variety of cards in the format that can compliment this card.  The bad parts of this card include the retreat cost, the lack of tanking in the format in regards to the second attack, and the weakness.  Taking all of these into consideration, I do like this card.  I do not know that this card will be playable since we don’t know everything about the new format, hedging your bets on it will be risky.  But, it is a deck that can do a lot of things well and can fit into almost every deck.  You have to love this diversity, I am looking forward to using this card.

Final Rating– 8/10– No guarantees here, but if I were a betting man I would bet on this card.  It seems like something that should see play in a lot of ways.  I like this card.

Card #2 Emolga (maybe) DRE

Description–  Emolga is a 70 HP basic lightning Pokemon with a lighting weakness, a fighting weakness, and a free retreat cost.  It has two attacks, the first one is what people are hyping, the second one is pretty useless.  The useless one is called “Static Shock”, and will do 20 damage for one electric energy.  The good one is called “Call for Family”, it lets you search your deck for two basic Pokemon and put them onto your bench.  Since there is not really any trainer card that lets you search for basic Pokemon, this could be an important card.

Analysis– I heard this hype last year with Stantler, it was basically the same card and it was supposed to be good, but it was never playable.  You aren’t going to fool me again, but then again maybe you are.  The last format did have both Dual Ball and Pokemon Collector, which took away from Stantler.  Since there are no equivalents of Collector or Dual Ball, perhaps Emolga will be playable in this format.  Let us take a closer look to see if we can learn any more as to the playability of the card.

The stats of this card are not terrible.  This is only a basic non legendary Pokemon, we are not expecting 180 HP here.  We only expect something around 60.  So, the fact that we get 70 is pretty good.  It is good enough to avoid a donk by Tornadus EX and Mewtwo EX, so that is about all you can ask for.  The weakness to lighting isn’t usually a good thing, but lightning attackers usually don’t attack for any amount of damage that won’t KO Emolga without the weakness anyway.  Zekrom does 120, Zekrom EX does 150, and Thundurus does 80.  The only thing you will have to worry about is Zekrom EX, he does have a smaller attack that can be used for a KO.  The resistance will probably be really good because we expect that Landorus, Terrakion, and Terrakion EX will be around in the format.  The resistance doesn’t really matter for the Terrakions, but Landorus can’t OHKO Emolga without a Plus Power.  I do love the retreat cost, that means you can do your job in getting basic Pokemon, and then retreat out of it without having to waste an energy on retreating.  Also, it is always good to promote a free retreating Pokemon and then retreat when you know which Pokemon you want to attack with, so free retreat is always a good thing.

There has been a lot of hype about Emolga.  People have been talking about using up to 4 copies of this card in almost every deck.  The interest really comes from decks that have evolutions in it.  If you just are running about 6 basic Pokemon, you don’t really need Emolga.  But, if you are playing an evolution deck you might need Emolga.  If you can only search for one basic a turn, and it is sniped or made active with Pokemon Catcher, you are going to need to start again.  This could mean that evolutions may not work without Emolga.  Some decks are also using Emolga as a one of tech in some other decks.  It is of course always great to have a free retreat Pokemon.

Final Rating– 5.5/10– I am not sold on the playability of Emolga.  Even though Emolga is a very cute Pokemon and it is one of my favorite, I have been burned with these “Call” Pokemon before.  They haven’t been playable so far, so I am not sure that they will be playable this year.  Perhaps the game will slow down enough for Emolga to be useful, but I don’t think so.  If it hasn’t been good yet, I don’t see a reason that things will change.  I could be wrong like I usually am, but this is just my opinion.  I doubt people will be talking about this card after the first weekend or two of BR’s, but what do I know.  It could be a cool consistency card, or it could be a card that just holds you back.

Card #3 Ninetales DRE

Description– Ninetales is a 90 HP stage 1 fire Pokemon with a water weakness and a 1 retreat cost.  It has the famous “Bright Look” Ability.  This lets you switch one of your opponent’s benched Pokemon with his active when you first evolve Ninetales.  It only has one attack.  That attack is called “Cursed Flame” and costs one Fire energy.  The attack does 20 damage plus 50 more damage for every special condition on the defending Pokemon.

Analysis– Finally “Bright Look” is back in the format!  But, time has not been well to “Bright Look”.  The last time we saw this Ability it was on Luxray Gl Lv.X, and it dominated the format.  Ninetales will not dominate the format, but it could be playable.  We must look into it more to see if it will stay in you binder, be a good rogue card, or if it will be a great card.

There has been some hype with this card.  Of course the big thing about using Ninetales is getting special conditions on the defending.  The easiest way to do that is pairing Ninetales with Amoongus.  Amoongus will confuse and poison the defending Pokemon when you evolve it, so that means that you can do 120 damage with “Cursed Flame.”  The 120 damage doesn’t stop there, you must add 10 for the poison, and add a possible 40 damage if they attack and lose the confusion flip.  All that damage adds up to 170 damage with the confusion flip.  If you add one Plus Power, that will mean that you can OHKO just about any EX Pokemon in the format.  But, that is banking on the fact that they will attack with that Pokemon next turn and then loss the flip.  There are also more Pokemon that can add special conditions to the defending from the bench that you can throw in, but Amoongus is the guy to watch.

Even though there is just about a completed list of this deck ready to go, that doesn’t mean that this deck will work.  I know that even if you run a 4-4 line of Amoongus, you can only expect to get those two special conditions on the Pokemon 4 times.  Seeker would have been good in the deck, but it is now gone.  You still can use Super Scoop Up, but it is not as effective.  If you can find a way to use Amoongus’s Ability 6 times you might win, but it is hard to do this.  I think you are going to find another way to get Special Conditions on the defending in order for this deck to work.  Even though I did outline a way to OHKO almost every Pokemon in the format, it is going to be really hard to hit for that much on a consistent basis.  I think you just need too many things to happen right at the same time for this deck to work, but that doesn’t mean much.  I won’t write the history of Ninetales, only competitive play can do that.

As of now I don’t really see any other combo’s for this card, but it is a good card that may even be used as a tech for the “Bright Look” Ability.  I don’t know if it will be worth it just to get 1 more Pokemon Catcher type thing, but I could maybe see somebody teching a 1-1 or 2-2 line and some Switches.  Without Junk Arm, a late game “Bright Look” could be the difference between a win and a loss.  It may seem like a large thing to devote for just a small reward like another Catcher, but just remember how often you saw lying down a Junk Arm, two other cards, and then saying “Good Game”.  I could see this card being a rogue tech.

Final Rating– 6.25/10- I am not a big believer in this card, but then again I am known to be wrong.  I am the guy who poo-poo-ed Eelektrik, so I am routinely wrong.  I just don’t think the deck is consistent enough to work.  And I don’t know if it is good enough to be a tech.  Only time will tell if this card will be good or not.

Well, that is all I have to talk about.  What do you have to end the article Pedro?

Today we are celebrating the release of the new Batman movie.  You are a big Batman fan right?

Oh, big Batman fan.  Love the Batman.  Love the fact that it is a very psychological character, and the bad guys of Batman are no doubt the best.

Who is your favorite Batman villan Pikkdogs?

I love the Mr. Freeze, because he is a tragic villain who just wants to save the life of his true love.  He seems like a very believable villain, and then Arnold Schwarzenegger had to come and ruin things.

 Even someone who didn’t like Mr. Freeze had to be cringing at that performance, he actually sang the Snow Miser song.

When I heard that his marriage had collapsed and he lost a lot from all of the scandal, I kind of felt happy, does that make me a bad person?

No, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t one.  You probably aren’t one because you make a lot of penis jokes on a website about a kids game. 

I can see that.  Good night everybody.

Opinion

Opinion: U.S. Nationals 2012: What Was Done Right, How It Can be Improved, and My Take on the Loss of Top Cut.

Pikkdogs 5 Comments

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there, this is Pikkdogs here with an opinion article.  We are still in a down time here in the Pokemon world, since I don’t have much to talk about, I thought I would go over some thoughts about Nationals.  In a couple weeks we will have a new set and a new format to talk about, but right now we don’t know much about our format and the only people still playing in the older format are, as Team Warp Point likes to say, keeping things “close to the chest.”  So let’s have a discussion about how to make Nats better, than I will look at the breaking news about Battle Roads that we receieved yesterday.

Before we get into the discussion, let us invite my extra-dimensional sidekick Pedro in to do a news article for us, maybe he will tell us a funny story to save this sorry article from being the crap we all know it will be.  Pedro, what do you have for us today.

Today we have some news about your ancestoral homeland Pikkdogs.

Oooo, some Finnish news, love the Finnish news.  What is it today, another bleach blonde rock band have a fight or something?

No, no rockband, this time it is aliens.  It seems that divers have found a large unidentifiable object off of the coast of Finland.  It is believed to have been down there since the last Ice Age.  While some people think it is just a rock, others state that it does not look like just any old rock.  For some reason silt from the water does not stick to it like it would a rock, there are also evidence of some kind of workmanship on the object, such as straight lines and designs.  While the object is not made of metal, a researcher states that its disc like design could make it appear to be like a typical UFO regardless of the fact that it is not made of metal.  There is no law that states that space craft must be made of metal, not yet anyway.  What do you think about this Pikkdogs?  Do ya think this could be aliens? 

Who knows, possibly.  Maybe its just a weird rock that ancient beings carved things into.  The thing could have been covered up by a flood years ago for all we know.

True, but it kind of seems like a space craft.  But then again why would aliens want to go to Finland, not much there other than fish and saunas. 

Hey, that’s my ancestoral homeland you are talking bout there.

Sorry, well I guess Finland is near Sweden, maybe the aliens were looking for some ancient Swedish blondes. 

Seems like a sound theory.  Well, I guess we didn’t find any aliens today, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t out there.

True, they could be out there helping a fat blogger write an article. 

Could be.

Changes to Nationals 2012: What Worked

There were some great things about Nationals 2012 compared to the 2011 version.  The most obvious thing was that we did not have that awful re-pairing that we saw in 2011.

For those that were lucky enough not to be there in 2011, I will explain to you what happened.  We were called to the player’s meeting much as we were this year.  The wait after the meeting was a little longer than expected, but it wasn’t that bad.  Than they released us to look at our round 1 pairings and we sat down.  That is where the trouble started.

A lot of people were paired against opponents that never showed up.  There were way too many to just ignore, I want to say the number was about 75 but I could be wrong, so they decided to re-pair a lot of the matches.  This was not a 5 minute re-pair, it took a long time for the judges to figure things out.  I don’t remember the exact time it took to get the round going, but I would say it was probably around 45 minutes if not more.  To add up all the wasted time would give you at least an hour, probably much more, of wasted time while we waited for round 1 to start.  Needless to say, this did not go over to well for the players.

In 2012 the first day went very very smoothly.  We hardly waited at all between rounds, and there was almost no wait between the players meeting and the first round.  I was very happy with the efficiency of the judges and the staff, they worked together like a well oiled machine.  So the smoothness of day 1 was no doubt a plus for 2012 Nats.

Another great thing at Nats was the registration process.  In 2011 we just walked up to a table and wrote down our name and pop id number during registration.  This changed for 2012.  This year the judges had a list of players, and you were to go alphabetically arranged tables to get checked off (on) the list.  This made it possible for the staff to easily tell if people were qualified to play or not.  Although the tables were not well marked, there were staff around to guide us to the right tables, so that was good.  While this was great for the main tournament, it was excellent for the Professor Cup.  Last year we had the controversy of the winner of the Professor Cup not being qualified to enter, this year they actually checked if you were qualified before they let you in.  Last year was a disaster, professors felt cheated that the general public was being allowed to enter something that should honor them.  These changes in registration stopped these hurt feelings and made the event run much smoother.

The next great thing relates to the first one, the fact that T-Shirts were given out on the second day.  The T-shirts are nothing special and didn’t come in my size, but they were still pretty cool, and you can’t get mad at something free.  Anyway, this year the T-shirts were given out after the last round in day 1.  This may or may not have been a good thing, if it was a good thing it sure did the job.  The judges in 2011 blamed the long round 1 delay on the fact that people just wanted the t-shirts, and then decided to drop.  I don’t know who would take time out of their day just to get a cheap ass shirt, but apparently the judges thought that this was what was going to happen.  I don’t know exactly why, but round 1 did go by very quickly, it may not have had anything to do with the shirts getting handed out on day 1, but since things went smoothly, it just might have.

I don’t want to talk about the other things that I liked about the tournament too much, but I do want to touch on them a little.  The 64 man pod tournaments after the end of day 2 did turn out very well, even though they almost fell victim to the infamous lunch break that didn’t really happen (more on that later).  League play and the side tournaments seemed to do well, they weren’t perfect, but I can’t think of a way to improve them.  I have heard some people suggest that they add another table for people giving out prizes, this would speed up that infamously slow line.  Although, it may just cause people to take prizes without actually playing a game since the lines would be much faster.  If the lines were only 5 minutes long you could go through two lines and get 2 prizes as easily as you could if there were only one line.  Maybe a slow line is what we need for that area.  I did also like the shops that were at the convention center.  Although the prices were too high, I still enjoyed looking through stuff even though I am too poor to actually buy anything.

What Needs to Be Improved

Here are some improvments that I think they could make for next year.

The first things I want to complain about are the long delays on day two. The delays even forced some people to miss their lunch break on day 2, and that means a lot considering the lunch break was scheduled to be a lot later than it was the previous day.  It was safe to say that everybody was hungry after the first couple rounds.  I know that these delays were not the fault of the judges like they were in 2011, but they were the fault of players taking way too long to finish their games.  I don’t wanna point any fingers but, cough Pooka cough (j/k Pooka, love ya).  I know that the +3 format is doing well in keeping games going quickly, but certain decks can make turns go by very slowly.  This not really anything that the management should change just to make one tournament go faster, but maybe they should have slightly rules for Nationals.  Perhaps at Nationals the judges should be able to institute timed turns, or something to make sure that turns go by very quickly after a certain pre-determined time.  I know doing weird rules like this could end up angering people, but perhaps the speed of Nationals for 1000 people should supercede that of 2 people that are taking their sweet time.  Another possible solution is splitting the tournament into more flights, and letting the flights run independent schedules.  This could confuse people, but it would let people keep on playing as long as they aren’t in a group with a slow moving game.  Even if they don’t make more flights, they could do the same thing with the two flights they do have now.

On a related note, I think that it is time to text us our pairings.  There is just too many people playing now for all of us to go up to a couple boards and look for our names.  Almost all of us have phones, and the ones that don’t can still go to a board to look for a pairing.  I don’t know for sure, but it seems like it shouldn’t be too hard to link our phone number to our POP ID, and to have a text automatically sent once the pairings are up.  They would have to test it out and I know the system wouldn’t be perfect or needed for every tournamnet, but I think it is something that is needed for Nats.

On a related note to the last topic, the game is growing really fast.  Even though there were restrictions on who could attend Nationals this year, we still had the biggest attendance at any tournament ever!  We were just a couple dozen people away from getting a top 256.  Unless the game takes a nose dive for some reason, or the credentials for getting into the tourney are raised, we will have two top 128s next year.  I don’t know if the staff is ready for that.  We will need to probably take the top 64 in to day 3, which would be different.  There are also other time related questions to answer for next year.  This year the professor cup was held at night on days 1 and 2 (maybe three, I don’t know), this left a long day for the professors and the Juniors (who judge the event).  They were already held back until past 10 P.M. each day, we don’t need to make the day longer than it already is.  Perhaps the Professor Cup needs to go back to Sunday, or possibly start it on Thursday night.

Speaking about Thursday night, maybe something should happen on Thursday.  Even though the main tourney doesn’t need to start right away, perhaps they can bring back the draft on Thursday night.  It would give us something to do after 5 P.M.  Someone should try to do something on Thursday night even if it is just a little thing, it is better than what we have now.

Another place where a lot of people think that we can improve Nationals is in the streaming matches area.  The boys from The Top Cut tried to tape some matches, but they were only allowed to do it on a couple top cut matches, and were locked out of the finals.  I think it is time for Nintendo to step up and do some streaming themselves, we shouldn’t have to have a third party come in and do the coverage.  This way it could be professionally done and streamed to people all over the world.  Even if the Top Cut is the only plan they have to stream matches, they should work with them ahead of time to make sure that games from each round are streamed.  This is something that can be fixed easily, so it should be done.

The End of Top Cut?

I am done with talking about Nats, but this is not a super long article and a news piece was just announced that fits an opinion article very well.  During my favorite season of the year, Fall Battle Roads, there will no longer be any top cut rounds.  Meaning that the winner will be crowned by how well you do in Swiss rounds, and how your tie breaking percentages end up.  This was quite a shocking announcement, and I was pretty mad when I first heard the news, but now I have returned to sanity and am able to weigh both sides of the issue.  So here is my opinion on the elimination of Top Cut.  We will start by looking at the advantages of getting rid of Top Cut, than we will look at why it might be a bad choice, next we will look at how this might effect your deck and card choices, and finally I will give you my honest opinon on this issue.

There are good things about getting rid of the Top Cut rounds.  One good thing is that the Fall Battle Roads will be just like the current college football system, without the bowl games.  This means that every game is very important, you will no longer be able to have a bad game and still have a hope at winning it all.  You must now be on your game at all times, this means that games will be more intense because until you lose, every game will be very very important.  I guess you can say that every game is an elimination game now.    This should make for some very exciting games.  Another good thing is that this decision will save us a lot of time.  If the tournament is 5 rounds and you lose round 3 or 4, you may not want to waste any more time and be able to drop a couple hours earlier than you would if there was a top cut.  It also saves time for judges because they no longer have to wait for the top cut rounds to end.  I do understand that less people will be in the hunt for the win now, but it does speed things up considerably in a tournament where winning is not that important, and not too many Championship Points are up for grabs.   Another good thing about not being able to win with a loss now is that it forces people to play more consistent decks.  This could lead to more fun, balanced match-ups instead of a lot of donks.

Of course, there are also bad things about getting rid of Top Cut.  One bad thing is that just one string of bad luck can ruin your whole day, even if you know your deck is better than your opponent’s.  Just one donk now is good enough to stop you from winning your tournmanet.  Another bad thing is that the tournamnet as a whole will be less exciting.  Sure there will be a couple games each round that are very exciting, but the majority of the players will not be very excited because they know they will never be able to win.  Most people like having a chance to win, even though they know it is a long shot.  The final bad thing that I will be talking about is the fact that attendance could go down for these tournmanets.  Even though people usally don’t travel far for Battle Roads, sometimes people do drive a couple hours.  It is very possible that people will now not travel as far if they know that their chances of winning could be foiled by just 1 string of bad luck.  With the previous format people can think that they can use their skills to undo any bad luck that they might encounter, now just 1 aspect of bad luck will kill your day.  I think people will not travel as far if they think that they have a lower chance of winning.

Before I talk about my opinion of this news, I will talk about how this effects deck building.  Now that you can’t afford any bad luck, consistency is more important than ever.  I think that I will play less techs in my decks now, and I will play more consistency cards.  I don’t know what these consistency cards will be, but they could be more drawing supporters and cards like Emolga DRE (that allows you to search for two basics for a one energy attack).  Pokemon that let you draw cards with an attack or Ability will also be very very good in case you run into some bad luck.  Another tip is to not play decks with low HP basics.  I think that if I am worried about the donk, I wouldn’t play anything under 70 HP.  Tornadus EX can hit for 60 on the first turn without too much luck, so you want to have at least 70 HP to avoid him.  There is also a chance that possibly Darkrai EX might be attacking for 90 very quickly, so maybe having decks that only run BBP (Big Basic Pokemon) might be safer.  I might also want to run more copies of basic Pokemon and more Pokemon search cards, so you don’t lose after an early knock out.  It seems that because of the enw rules, Fall Battle Roads will emphasize the need of consistent decks that are bad luck proof.

I think that elminating the Top Cut rounds for Battle Roads is a decent thing for Pokemon to try.  There is no doubt that there are bad things about it, and that doing this is a huge risk, but its nice to see that Pokemon has enough huevos to take a chance.  Running with this format might encourage less attendance and more drops, but it will still be exciting.  Even if you lost a game, the day is not over, you can still pick up championship points and prizes for getting in the top 4 or 8.   The decision to cut top cut rounds will actually not impact the majority of players, it will only effect around 4 players, while the other 30 some players will encounter the same situations that they would before.  If we can shorten your day without screwing up things for the majority, that is a really good thing.  This also makes things easier for the judges, which is a nice thing.  This decision will also help make every game very interesting, so we are ready to see some games that mean a lot.  These close games will be great to experience and watch.  So what if the last round is not as exciting for 10 people, each game will now be very exciting for most people.  The same people will still be vying for some prizes, they just won’t be able to win 1st prize if they do get one of the top spots.  Even though I think that Pokemon should have waited till Spring Battle Roads to try this experiment, I do think that this could be a positive thing.  But, I am not gaga over it, and this decision may end up hurting the game.  Only time will tell.

Conclusion

Well, that’s all I got for you guys. Pedro why don’t you give us another science related news article before we leave.

Okay, another news piece from the world of science is given to us from the Christian Science Monitor.  NOAA, the Nationals Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, recently released a news report denying the exsistence of mermaids.  Some people recently began believing that the fabled creatures could exsist after some scientists have backed an “Aquatic Ape Theory”, stating that humans could have had a human like ancestor that was aquatic.  Do you believe that humans have a relative that lives in the sea?

No, that would be preposterous.  We all know from watching Dr. Who that our ancestors live underground near the core of the earth and look like dinosaur type things.

I refute the scientific validity of Dr. Who, if they are right than almost every interesting thing in human history leads back to London, don’t you think sometimes they would be somewhere else? 

Okay, so maybe they aren’t exactly accurate.  But they always have cute girls on there, that should count for something.

Oh, I think this is another excuse to show a racy picture. 

Excelent idea.

Good Night Everybody!

Card Discussion Is It Playable?

First Ticket – Is It Playable?

coolestman22 11 Comments

Hello to all One Hit KO people who may be reading this article. It’s me, coolestman22, with another article, a rather short one in fact, this time it’s going to be the start of a new series I’m going to do called Is It Playable?, kind of like how Pikkdogs has his Pikks Three articles. What I’m going to do is review an upcoming card and talk about whether I think it will be playable or not.

I’m going to review First Ticket (or Fast Ticket, as Bulbapedia translates it), which is a card that’s sparked discussion on Pokemon TCG forums everywhere, some are big believers in the card, and some don’t think it’s going to be very good.

To start, First Ticket is a card that may or may not be in Dragons Exalted.  Because it was in the mini-set, Dragon Selection, it will probably be in our next set but we don’t know for sure. What it does is you can play it when you start the game if it’s in your opening hand, and if you do, you go first. If your Read More

Pikks Three

Pikkdogs Pikks Three Future Card Edition: Mew EX, Terrakion EX, and Garchomp

Pikkdogs 1 Comment

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  This is Pikkdogs here with a special Pikk three article for you.  This Pikk Three article is not special because it has to take classes in school away from the rest of the class, it is special because it is all about cards that are coming out in the Dragons Exalted set.  This set will come out early in August, but the pre-releases start in just a couple weeks.  We do not know for sure what cards will be coming out in the set, but we do have some that are confirmed. Luckily for us the ones that are confirmed are pretty good.  So let’s take a look at three of the better cards coming out in Dragons Exalted.  I regret to inform you that Pedro will not be joining me on this article.  Pedro is on vacation this week, so he will be off for a while.  I also will probably not be making articles regularly, so bare with us during our vacations. Because this article is about cards that don’t always have official English scans, I will put in pictures of things I ate from my summer vacation.  I know it doesn’t make sense, but if you have ever seen this site before you will know that things rarely make sense.

Card #1 Mew EX

Description– Mew EX is a 120 HP Psychic EX basic Pokemon with a psychic weakness and a 1 retreat cost.  It has an Ability that is translated as “Versatile”, this let’s Mew EX use the attacks of all the Pokemon in play.  It also has one attack that is translated as “Replace”, for one energy this attack let’s you move energy on your side of the field any way you want.

Analysis–  Mew EX is a very interesting card.  It has one of the lowest HP of any EX Pokemon, but people are still excited for the card.  I haven’t heard many people making decks for it yet, but I have heard people saying that they wanted to put it in existing decks.  It is a card that people are wanting to play with, so I think it should have a bright future.

Let’s take a look at the basic stats.  120 HP is very poor for an EX.  The 1 retreat cost is very good, but the weakness is bad.  For right now the career of Mew EX will be measured by how it can do against Mewtwo EX.  Since Mewtwo EX is one of the best Pokemon out right now and it is psychic weak, Mew will have to deal with Mewtwo EX first.  His attack is cool but not really something that would cause anybody to play him more.  Sure Shaymin UL made a career of doing the exact same thing, but doing it as a Poke-Power is different than doing it as an attack.  What everybody is talking about is the Ability.  Having the ability to use either your opponent’s attack or one of your attacks and hit Mewtwo and Gothitelle for weakness will be a huge thing in the next format.  It is something that you will need to plan for, you can’t just splash it into any deck, but if used right, Mew EX could be a great tool for you.

The big question now is, “what is the best situation for Mew EX.”  If used wrong, Mew EX will just be an easy 2 prize for your opponent so you must use it carefully.  He won’t be a good starter, so don’t plan to use a lot of copies of this card.  I could see this card being used in something like an Emboar deck.  If you are using Emboar to put energies on Reshiram and Entei EX, than you can easily fit in Mew EX to use one of your fire Pokemon’s attacks to hit Mewtwo EX for weakness.  It would also be a cool thing to copy Tornadus EX’s attack to get an easy attack off.

There are going to be good uses for Mew EX, but I think that it also has a lot of bad things about it.  The low HP means that a lot of good Pokemon can OHKO it easily.  The retreat cost also gets me, if it has such a low HP you think they would at least give ya free retreat.  The attack also does not really get you out of trouble if you are in any.  Also, the fact that Mewtwo EX can also be used to counter other Mewtwo EXs also might hurt Mew EX.

All things considered, I think that Mew EX will see a lot of play.  It is much more versatile than Mewtwo EX, and in an era where Pokemon Techs will be key, Mew EX will be one of the better ones.  It is almost always going to be helpful to you if you play it, I really like the card.

Final Rating–8/10– It is hard to give a rating to a card that has not came out yet in a format that is not yet finalized, but this is a good guess. I think there will be room for Mew in this format, and that the use of this guy will be handy for a lot of decks out there.  It seems like one of those cards that gives you a lot of options that a lot of the good players will use.

Card #2 Terrakion EX

Description– Terrakion EX is a 180 HP basic fighting type EX Pokemon with a 3 retreat cost and a weakness to grass.  It’s first attack is called “Rock Tumble” and it does 50 damage for FC.  This damage is not effected by resistance, this is a great effect to have with Tornadus and Tornadus EX still running around.  The second attack is called “Pump Smash”, and if Pedro were here he might tell you that “Pump Smash” was the name of a movie he just saw.  Anyway, this attack does 90 damaged and lets you attach 2 basic energies from your hand to any of your Pokemon.

Analysis– There has been some hype about this Pokemon.  With Eelektrik decks still popular a lot of people are wanting to make better fighting decks, and Terrakion EX can sure make these decks better.  As long as lightning decks don’t fall off of the face of the planet Terrakion EX should see a lot of play initially.  The second attack on Terrakion EX makes me think a lot, but I guess we can talk more about that later.

Let us look at the basic stats.  180 HP seems to be the normal for big guy EXs, so that is good.  The retreat cost could be better, but it is expected in a Terrakion card, so nothing new there.  The grass weakness right now is really good, that could change but right now it looks good.  The attacks are pretty good and can be used in a couple different ways.  Overall the stats look very good on this guy and the playability looks good for the near future.

Initially I was just going to say that I think that this is a good card for fighting decks to do a lot of damage to counter lightning decks.  It would be a big tank that could do a lot of damage and take hits.  But, I think with the effect of the second attack this card has the potential to be something much different.  Not many cards can deal a lot of damage and then attach 2 energy cards.  This can open a lot of different opportunities for decks with Terrakion EX in it.  I am much too dumb of a player to suggest a good Pokemon to run with Terrakion, but I think that there has to be another good Pokemon that you can combine Terrakion EX with, besides the normal fighting Pokemon.  Even if there is not a big combo out there with Terrakion EX, I am sure that he will still be a great card.

Final Rating– 8.5/10– I see great things in the future for Terrakion EX.  I am not sure exactly how it will play out, but I do think that this card will see a lot of play.  Not only in mono-fighting decks, but in some different decks.  I can see this card being in some tool boxey like deck, kind of like the Troll deck was last season.  I could see Terrakion EX being a good starter in a deck that features a lot of different Pokemon.  The ability to attach two energies from your hand after you do your big attack is just an amazing ability that opens up so many options for you.  I don’t quite know what is in the future for this guy, but I know that it is all good things.

Card #3 Garchomp

Description– Garchomp is a 140 HP stage 2 Dragon Pokemon with a dragon weakness and a 1 retreat cost.  It has two attacks.  The first attack is called “Mach Cut”, this does 60 damage for F and lets you discard a special energy card attached to the defending Pokemon.  The second attack is called “Dragonblade”, and does 100 damage for FW and forces you to mill two cards.

Analysis– The stats of this card get me excited.  The 140 HP might not sound great in the BBP era, but it is good for a stage 2.  The 1 retreat cost is very good for a non bird 140 HP Pokemon.  So those things are very positive.  It does have a dragon weakness, I am not sure how good or bad that will be since that is  a new frontier for all of us.  It sounds like with Rayquaza EX and this Garchomp running loose it could be a bad weakness, but we never know.  I like both attacks.  The first attack does 60 damage for one energy and discards an energy from the defending Pokemon, this is not a game changing attack, but it is good.  The second attack does 100 damage for two energies and a mill of 2.  The two energy attack is good, 100 damage is good because with 2 Plus Powers you should be able to 2HKO any Eviolited EX.  I do not like the mill of two however, if you do it a couple times a game you should be okay, but if you are thinking of using this attack over 3 times a game you will be discarding a lot of good resources, and that will eventually hurt you.  All of these attacks could get a lot better with the new Altaria (if it comes out in the next set), because he will increase the attacks by 20 damage.  This should get you doing serious damage for 1 energy and an assured 2HKO on an EX for your two energy attack.

I like this Pokemon.  With some good attacks that only cost one and two energies, you should have a pretty efficient deck.  There has been some hype with this card.  I have not heard a whole heck of a lot about this card in terms of exact plans, but I know that some people have been hyping Garchomp/Altaria.  It should be a cool deck and a good card.  Like I said before, it is really hard to forecast how good new cards will be in a new format, but I do think that this should be a good card.

I am kind of hesitant about this card though.  It is a stage 2.  As a rule of thumb for the last format you should stay away from stage 2s.  The BBP do get a little better in the new format, but then again the format does get a little slower, so maybe Stage 2s will be a little playable.  But, just make sure that your deck is fast and consistent if you are putting a stage 2 and some stage 1s in it.  The jury is still out in evolutions in the BW-on format, but if any non-drawing deck can work, it could be this one.

As mentioned, the prevailing wisdom with this card is that it should be paired with Altaria from this set. Altaria is a stage 1 Pokemon that adds 20 damage to each attack by your Dragon type Pokmeon, this extra 20 damage could be stackable (we are still waiting on an official translation).  With 3 Altaria’s in play you can do 120 damage for just 1 energy with Garchomp, and you can still discard a special energy attached to the defending!  If you can get this deck setup and going on any regular basis you should be really good.

Final Rating– 8.25/10– I do like this card, but I am not quite sure about it.  It should be a good card and deck, but I am not ready to step out and say that it will be.  A lot of good players that I have talked to our anxious to test this card and get it going, so that should be a good thing for this card.  Garchomp also seems to be fairly versatile, so it does not just have to be in a deck with Altaria.  I think it could be in a cool tool box like deck if you worked it right.  The future of this card is all in front of it, it should be a bright future.  Just be careful about relying on Garchomp as your main attacker, those 2 cards you discard will eventually end up costing your resources if you keep on using the 2nd attack.

Well, that’s all I got to say

So long and thanks for all the fish!

Opinion

The Top 20 Rotated Cards of 2012

Pikkdogs 14 Comments

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there this is Pikkdogs here.  At rotation time last year I decided to write an article covering the 20 most successful cards that were getting rotated.  Since I am still on vacation and won’t be building any decks anytime soon, I figured that now is a good time to look at doing this article.  Before we get started we should get Pedro in here to give us a news article. Whats in the news today Pedro?

Hey Pikkdogs.  In the news today is Wendee Long, a Texas Middleschool Principle.  She is in the news because she put a camera in her daughter’s locker to catch inappropriate behavior by the school’s basketball coach.  When the word got out that this happened the authorities charged her with crimes that could put her in jail for up to 20 years.  What do you think about this Pikkdogs.

I say we lock her up and throw away the key.  Because that is what would happen if I put a camera in a girls locker room.  If I did that I probably would get burned at the stake.

Well, that’s because you’re a creepy fat middle aged guy.  The principle wasn’t doing it to get a thrill, she was trying to monitor her employees. 

I say that a crime is a crime.  If  you catch teenage girls in their underwear on camera, it doesn’t matter if you are a creepy guy or a concerned parent.

You do have a point there. 

And if I don’t and this lady is proven not-guilty, you can expect me to be dressing in drag and going by the name Pikkarita.

There you go, this website just got even more creepier.  Just get onto the article. 

#20 Celebi Prime

Celebi Prime was ignored for most of its life.  It was known as a “bad” prime and mostly useless.  Around Fall Battle Roads last year I did here of some people using it in a lock deck, but it never really saw a lot of play.  Then Mewtwo came out and all of a sudden Celebi was a great card.  It became one of the most used energy acceleration cards and it elevated the Mewtwo EX to one of the BDIFs.  Celebi instantly became a staple in one of the best decks around, and it had lots of success during States, Spring Regionals, and Nationals.  CMT never really dominated the format like some people forecasted, but it was a always a really good deck.  Celebi Prime was a really good card late in its life and had a great spot in metagame.  For those reasons Celebi Prime is one of the better cards that will be rotated at the end of the season.

#19  Jumpluff

Jumpluff is just about the opposite of Celebi Prime.  Although they each suffer from low HP and times of low and no play, Jumpluff was very successful when it was released.  Jumpluff immediately became a great card when it was released because it was good in a fast deck with both Uxie and Claydoll.  Jumpluff was almost tier 1, or at least tier 2, when the deck was at its peak.  However, after Claydol left the format Jumpluff lost all the chances it had for competitive play.  It did pop up again in  Vileplume decks and some Mew Prime decks, but it never really made its way back into the top tiers.  But, it did have a great run early in its life and some play in the middle, so it deserves a spot in the top 20.

#18  Entei/Raikou Legend and Rayquaza/Deoxys Legend

ERL and RDL are one of the few legends that actually was playable for a while.  I know they are separate cards and should not be combined in one spot, but I’m the boss here and I can do whatever I want.  ERL was a good card early in its life.  It was really good when Uxie, Crobat G, and Claydol were out there, it could OHKO all of them for  lots of prizes.  Everybody has heard horror stories of that card coming into play and taking 6 prizes out of nowhere.  Once Black and White came out ERL lost its play because Poke-Powers began to be fazed out.  RDL on the other-hand was a very good card, but it was kind of like a one weekend wonder.  It was only really good during Nationals 2011.  RDL was put into most Magneboar decks for Nationals and did a good job in one of the most played decks there.  RDL did see some play a little before and a little after nats, but it mostly was only good during Nationals 2011.  These cards did not stay into competitive play for long, but they were good when they were out.  So good that I think they are one of the better cards that are getting rotated out.

#17  Mew Prime

Mew Prime is a card that has been used a long time, but it never really took the format by storm.  It saw a lot of play in different tool boxy like variations that mainly featured Vileplume.  These decks did well, but they never quite made it to the top tier.  Mew decks featured a lot of different attackers including Jumpluff, Crobat Prime, Vanilluxe, Unfezant BW, and some others.  They were always fun decks to play because they were unorthodox in their strategies and they could adapt to a lot of different decks.  Mew did not really have many uses outside of its own deck, although it did get some use in a Stage 1 Rush variant earlier in the season.  But for its ability to always be good, it deserves a place on this list.

#16 Kingdra Prime

Kingdra is another card like Jumpluff, when it first came out it was a good card, but then it stopped being good.  Nobody in their right mind would play it these days, but it was not a terrible play when it came out.  When it first  was printed Kingdra LA was still a good Pokemon to base a deck around.  The release of Kingdra Prime kind of reinvigorated the Kingdra deck and it helped Kingdra stay playable for months after its release.  Kingdra never really picked up after last year’s rotation, and the card has been kind of dead ever since.  Even though the card hasn’t been playable for a while, Kingdra was once a very scary weapon that used “Spray Splash” very effectively to make some really good decks that were very difficult to play and play against.  It was once a good card and good deck, even though newbies would never have known it, that is why it deserves to be on the countdown.

#15  Pachirisu

Pachirisu is an energy acceleration card that came out in the Call of Legends set.  Pachi was just about the only good new card to come out in that set.  Pachirisu was first considered as a card in a rogue Raichu Prime deck, but then Black and White came out.  Zekrom from Black and White was a great card because it was basic and it could hit just about as hard as a stage 2.  Pachirisu just made the Zekrom deck not only hard hitting, but very fast.  For a time ZPST was the best deck in the game, but it was eventually replaced by Zekrom and Eelektrik.  Pachirisu did see some play after Eelektrik came out in faster versions of Zekrom, but for the most part Pachi’s days of dominance was over.  Pachirisu also did play a big part in another deck, Magnezone/Yanmega.  Magnezone/Yanmega was a good deck in its day, and Pachirisu was a card that could hit the field and add a lot more power to the deck.  Pachirisu was a very good card for most of this season that helped a couple decks do very well, for this reason Pachirisu deserves to be on this list.

#14 Judge

We now hit a spot on the countdown with a bunch of trainers.  The first trainer we will look at is the Supporter we called Judge.  Judge at first was a good card because we could yell “Judge!” and a bunch of judges would come scrambling to our table for no reason.  Besides messing with Judges, Judge was a great card because it could even your hand with your opponent’s hand.  This was very important when playing with one of the more popular cards of late last season and early this season, Yanmega Prime.  Yanmega was a very popular card and it could do a lot of good for you with no energy, you just had to even hands before you attacked.  Judge was the most popular way to even hand size because it did three great things for you.  The first thing was that it disrupted whatever your opponent was going to do, the second thing was that it let you draw a new hand, and the third was that it let you attack for free with Yanmega.  So, Judge was very good with Yanmega but it was also good on its own early in its life.  Judge was a card that was put into decks to counter decks like Uxie and Shuppet donk that put a lot of resources into your opponent’s hand to be used next turn.  At one time Judge was a very versatile card that was used for draw and disruption, that is why it belongs on this countdown.  Judge was eventually replaced because Yanmega became a liability in a format with Zekrom BW and supporter draw of at least 6 cards became necessary after the rotation of Uxie.   But, it was once one of the  best cards in the format.

#13  Pokegear 3.0

Pokegear was once a card that came out in HGSS and was thought of as a junk card.  Supporters at that time were more used for searching and supplemental draw, so there was not as great a need for supporters as there is today.  But once Uxie was rotated out, supporters became very very important, and Pokegear was a Junk-Armable card that could get you a supporter almost every time you used it.  Pokegear also let you choose which supporter you want, which gives it an advantage over a card like Random Receiever.  Even though Pokegear never actually guaranteed you a supporter, a lot of people like to use it because it lets you choose what supporter you want to grab from your deck.  Random Receiver came into the format in DEX and kind of replaced Pokegear after Pokemon Collector fell out of favor with most players.  Even after Random Receiver hit the format some people still preferred to use Pokegear.  The fact that you could use the card with Junk Arm meant that you could use Pokegear to get a supporter whenever you need it, that was very important for those games that are close late-game.  For being a great way to get your supporter engine going for a long time this card deserves to be recognized as one of the better cards in the format.

#12 Dual Ball

Dual Ball is a very important card in today’s format.  Today it is used as the most efficient way to grab basic Pokemon from your deck.  Right now we need to use our supporters to draw cards and not search, Dual Ball let’s you search with an item card and leaves you free your supporter usage for drawing.  The format currently does not have a lot of evolutions in it so you need less Pokemon.  That is where Dual Ball comes in, it may not get you a lot of Pokemon but most of the times it will get you enough of the Big Basic Pokemon that you need to get your deck going.  Dual Ball originally was used as a 1 of or 2 of card that some people would use to supplement Pokemon Collector.  It was also used in Uxie Donk decks to search out Pokemon without having to use up your supporter for the turn.  The card was not super popular at first, but it got more and more popular each month until it became a staple in most decks.  It is now a very heavily used card.  Some people do not like to use this card because it relies on flips and they really hate getting double tails with this card, but a lot of people do like the card because the odds favor you getting at least 1 Pokemon most times with the use of Junk Arm.  It was a heavily played card that ended its play on a high note, sounds like a top 20 card to me.

#11  Sage’s Training

Sage’s Training is Ed’s least favorite card, but most people do like it.  It started off as a very rogue card that was not played very much.  But after the 2011 rotation people starting using Sage’s Training as a staple drawing card.  It did make you discard 3 card from your deck, but that was good in some decks like Eelektrik based ones.  In most decks you could just pick the 2 cards you want, and discard the 3 cards that wouldn’t really help in that particular match-up.  This fact made it more useful in decks early in the season when Stage 1 rush decks were popular.  These decks had a lot of techs, so if you had to discard techs that you didn’t want to use, you really didn’t care.  Now decks are a lot more focused on one goal instead of having a lot of different tech cards.  You can’t really afford to discard cards in quad decks right now, so that is why Sage’s fell out of favor.  But, it still was a very good card throughout this season, and good drawing supporters are hard to come by, so this card was very coveted earlier this year.  It may not have had a lot of play early or late in its career, but it still was a great card at some time.  Even though Ed doesn’t like the card, it still is one of the better cards in the format.

#10  Shaymin

To start the top 10 we have Shaymin from Unleashed.  When it was first released, Shaymin was used in rogue decks to move energy, but it did not really take off until Zekrom BW came into the fold.  It was first used in a large scale to move energies attached to Pachirisu to Zekrom.  After ZPST went away, Shaymin still saw a lot of play in decks like Troll.  Moving energies is something that you can’t really do many other ways. and Shaymin is a really cheap and quick way to move the energies around.  It allowed a lot of different options for a player to utilize, and this versatility makes a very good card.  It seems like the best players always played Shaymin because it allowed them different options and more control as to whether they would succeed or fail.  Even though Nationals this year was not the most popular time for Shaymin, it still saw a lot of play in some really good decks.  One thing about Shaymin is that you rarely see it in bad decks anymore, for being a good choice and a popular card I think this card needs to be on the list.

#9  Cleffa

Cleffa is the card that drove everybody wild at U.S. Nationals 2011.  He was a good card because he allowed you to refresh your hand as an attack without any energy attached and allowed free retreat, but the fact that he put himself to sleep made things very flippy.  Combine that with the fact that people played Pokemon Reversal, things at the 2011 Nationals got really flippy.  A lot of people were mad that they had to rely on luck so often, but they all made the decisions to run Cleffa.  Anyway, Cleffa was huge during Nationals 2011 and did still stay playable for the next couple months after.  The ability to get a brand new hand after playing down your cards earlier in your turn and then with a chance to be unhittable next turn was very good about a year ago.  Now we have Pokemon Catcher to get around a Pokemon that can’t be attacked, but Pokemon Catcher was not always in the format.  Cleffa was once a very big wall, it had very good defensive capabilities as well as being something that helps you setup.  It was a really good card that could help your slow deck setup.  Decks right now are a little faster and can’t really use Cleffa as well, but it was perfect for the format about a year ago.  Cleffa saw play in just about every deck, so it was almost a staple.  For being a good wall, a good Pokemon that helps you setup, and a consistency/recovery Pokemon; Cleffa does deserve to be on this list, it was quite a good card about a year ago.

#8  Donphan Prime

Perhaps no attacking Pokemon on this list has had more success than Donphan Prime.  Donphan Prime has had success throughout its life.  When it first came out it was used, than it got really popular, and at the very end it got rogue status.  Donphan was originally used with Machamp SF, then it was used in some other various decks including one with Dunsparce, then this year it saw some action with Machamp Prime and then with Reshiram and Zekrom BW.  Donphan was almost always used as a main attacker throughout its life, there was not really a time where it was not played.  This is very different from a lot of cards on this list.  Donphan was a cool card by itself, it was a stage 1 that had 120 HP and had a Poke-Body that stops 20 damage from each attack.  These stats were very good for the time when it came out, now we have basics doing 150 damage, but Donphan used to be an impenetrable tank.  Being that powerful as a Stage 1 hadn’t been seen in that format yet, so it was a very strong card when it came out.  It never really won a huge tournament, but it did do very well in tournaments for a long time.  So I could see this card being higher on this list, but it no doubt deserves to be high on the list.

#7  Typhlosion Prime

The next Pokemon our list is Typhlosion Prime.  Like Donphan Prime, it came out in the HGSS set as one of the first primes.  Unlike Donphan, Typhlosion Prime was not used right away.  Its use went through the roof during Nationals 2011.  The release of Reshiram BW cried out for some kind of energy acceleration. People usually ran Emboar to put energies on Reshiram, but somehow people thought to use the long lost Typhlosion Prime as an acceleration tool.  He worked better than Emboar because he could attach from the discard pile and did not require the use of trainer cards to get energies back.  He also put damage counters on Pokemon, that usually is not a good thing, but it is for Reshiram BW because he has the “Outrage” attack.  He and Reshiram seemed to work really well together, this partnership took the deck to decent playability throughout most of this season.  It was always a good reliable deck that kind of set the standards for consistency in the format.  It was a good deck to use on beginners because it taught people how to play the game with a deck that took some genius to play but not too much. If or one am happy to see this card go because it is a very hard name to type,  I hope Pokemon like “Ditto” get popular soon.  Anyways,  the deck did very well and that alone set Typhlosion Prime as one of the better cards that we are going to lose in the rotation.

#6 Magnezone Prime

The final Pokemon before we get to the top 5 is Magnezone Prime.  The final Prime in our 3 Prime series is Magnezone Prime, one of the hardest hitting Pokemon in the format.  In fact, Magnezone could do 200 damage  a turn without much of a fuss.  Kind of like Donpahn Prime, Magnezone Prime has had success throughout its career.  It first hit its success after being used in a tournament in Europe a couple seasons ago.  It was combined with Regirock LA to make a consistent deck in an SP dominated format.  After Regirock was rotated it was combined with Emboar BW and RDL to make a very hard-hitting deck that we called Magneboar.  This deck was very good during Nationals 2011, and had a little success after.  When Magneboar finally died, it was replaced with Magnezone/Yanmega which had success through the first half of this year.  This was a deck that a lot of the good players seemed to run.  But, after Zekrom screwed up Yanmega decks Magnezone did drop in play.  It did see some play in a deck with Eelektrik later this year, but that deck never really caught on too much in popularity.  Magnezone was a really cool card because it could always get an OHKO on any Pokemon with enough energy.  It could stop things like Eviolite and resistance with just an extra energy card.  It was really intimidating to play against Magnezone because you never knew when your opponent could pull out an OHKO.  Magnezone was also a cool card because it had built in draw power, it is always good when you can draw more cards each turn.  Magnezone no doubt deserves to be on this list for being a hard hitter and a consistent Pokemon with draw power.

#5  Professor Oak’s New Theory

We start the top 5 with everybody’s favorite draw/hand refresh supporter, Professor Oak’s New Theory.  PONT did see some play throughout its life.  Originally it was used just to supplement Uxie and Claydol in decks.  Most decks would run a couple copies of this card.  PONT became much more valuable once Uxie rotated from the format.  Now PONT and other similar supporters were being asked to carry the bulk of your drawing needs.  It wasn’t long before 4 copies of this card was a staple in each deck.  Some people like me prefer the use of Professor Juniper in their decks instead of PONT, but there is room for both.  There are also decks where PONT works better than Juniper, such as decks that run lots of evolutions.  To put it simply, everybody loves PONT as a card.  Everybody runs 4 of it in every deck and nobody is mad when they get a PONT from a Random Receiver.  It may not be a perfect card, but it is safe to say that it is one of the most useful and well liked cards in the format.

#4 Pokemon Collector

I know what you are saying, “How can you put Collector over PONT?”  While Collector over PONT is a judgement call, I do think that Collector is better than Dual Ball more-so than PONT is better than Juniper.  I also think that Collector has been a staple longer than PONT has.  But enough talk about PONT, we are here to talk about Collector.  Collector came out in HGSS and came out just in time to replace Roseanne’s Research.  Collector was preferred more than Roseanne’s in the name that they overlapped in the format, and that is a lot to say knowing that Roseanne’s was the staple of all staples.  Being able to grab 3 basics from your deck was great because it let you setup any evolution line without the fear that all of your basics will get sniped before they can evolve.  Evolution lines will suffer now with the loss of Collector.  The format may have outgrew Collector, but that doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be considered a great card after being a staple for 2 years.  In fact, I bet most of the people who play today have never played in a format without Pokemon Collector.  It is a great card and it will be weird to play without it.

#3 Yanmega Prime

The last attacking Pokemon on this list is Yanmega Prime.  Yanmega Prime has had an up and down career.  At first it was considered a largely unplayable rogue card because of its lightning weakness and the popularity of Luxray GL.  But once the SP cards were rotated last year, Yanmega took their place as the most dominating and calculating deck.  Yanmega almost ruled the format from Nationals 2011 to the start of Cities 2012.  Its lightning weakness again got the best of him as it left the format thanks to Zekrom BW, but that did not take away how dominant the card was for a good amount of time.  It was very good in different Stage 1 decks with Pokemon like Donphan Prime and Cincinno BW.  It was also very good in a deck with Magnezone Prime.  It seemed like a lot of the best players liked to play Yanmega because it was a very versatile Pokemon that could do a lot of different things.  The ability to snipe for 40 was really good in a format that had a lot of 30 HP baby Pokemon.  It could also do 70 damage to the active, which was not bad in an era with lots of 110 HP stage 1 Pokemon.  The fact that Yanmega could preform all of those attacks for free was an amazing Poke-Body to have, and really set this card apart for a long time.  After Black and White came out Yanmega lost all of its playability, but we all still remember when this Pokmeon dominated the format.

#2 Junk ArmJunk Arm - TR

It is hard not to put Junk Arm at the #1 spot.  No Junk Arm did not dominate throughout its career, but it was the best card of the past year.  The reason I did not put Junk Arm at #1 is that it was not a staple until about a year ago.  Junk Arm was once only a card that was a 1 of option during the SP dominated formats.  It was used just in case you needed to use a 5th Poke-Turn or Power Spray. But Junk Arm started to become a 4 copy staple once the SPs were rotated and great items like Pokemon Catcher and Eviolite were released.  Junk Arm was an amazing card in this past format, it gave you quick access to almost all the good cards in your discard pile with just a two card discard.  Junk Arm ended up deciding games a lot of the times, just an extra Plus Power or Pokemon Catcher was enough to win the game for you or your opponent.  Junk Arm was not just a great card, it was the card of the format.  It effected deck building in every way, all of those Quad decks would never have worked without Junk Arm.  A lot of the decks out now would not work without Junk Arm, it is the card that has shaped the format.  There is no doubt that it deserves to be at the top of this list.

#1 Vileplume

This was a very hard decision.  I know that Junk Arm changed the format and that PONT was everybody’s favorite card, but Vileplume deserves a little boost because it is a Pokemon.  Unlike Yanmega Prime, Vileplume has been a great card throughout its life.  When it first came out it was used with Gengar SF to try to counter the SP decks.  It next got paired with Gengar Prime to try to make a Lost World deck.  Then it got paired with Mew Prime for a myriad of decks and variations of those decks.  It then went into the Ross deck at Worlds 2011, which was the talk of the format for months and months to come.  Then finally it showed itself in Nationals 2012 in a couple decks that screwed up the format.  It was combined with Accelgor, Mismagius, and sometimes Cincinno EP to make some powerful and disruptive decks.  Vileplume had a lot of hype before it came out, and man did it ever live up to the hype.  Vileplume is known as one of the most hated cards in the format, nobody ever wants to see the card in their opponent’s deck because all it does is try to screw your deck up.  It is a very hard card to play against because it takes away all trainers, which are very important in the present and in the SP dominated past.  For those reasons I am crowing Vileplume as the best card that will be rotated in 2012.  It might not have been the slayer of SPs that we all wanted, but it just was a great disruptive card that did a whole lot of good in its time in the format.

 

Well, that is all I have to say about that topic.  I hope you guys liked the article, thought I’m sure you guys would probably put the top 10 in different orders.  And I’m also sure that I missed a couple cards, so if you have comments on the article please leave them in the comment box.  Before we go we need to let Pedro lead us out with a news story.  What do you have for us today Pedro?

Today we are celebrating the birthday of Joe Schuster.

Oh, the book publisher?

No, not the book publisher.  This is the comic book artist who helped to create Superman.  Do you like the Superman Pikkdogs?

Kind of.  I liked Golden Age Superman, but since then he has been way too powerful.  You need a hero with some weaknesses.  If I am going for a DC hero I like me some Batman.

Who do you think would win in a fight between Superman and Batman?

That’s easy, Batman.  Batman has kryptonite.

Okay, sounds reasonable.   Who do you think would win in a fight between Wonderwoman and Catwoman?

Everybody.

Agreed. Goodnight everybody!

National Championships PokeClass

UK Nationals 2012 Report and List – PokeClass Episode 77

PokemanDan 2 Comments

Hey everybody! Saturday the 30th June brought us to UK Nationals, the same weekend as US Nationals and I was excited for the biggest tournament of the year in the UK. Within this episode, I start off by showing you the list I used for the tournament and follow up with how the day went for me.

[youtube width=”640″ height=”360″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoQ8WtUVatk[/youtube]
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Deck Discussion

The Rotation: How it Will Effect Deckbuilding.

Pikkdogs 13 Comments

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  This is Pikkdogs with a deck building article for you.  Now that we are all back from Indianapolis and we have lots of aloe on our sunburns, we can start looking towards the next format.  The next format of course will not include any HGSS sets, so we must start thinking of how to build decks with only BW cards.  Before we get going we should say hi to my extra-dimensional sidekick Pedro. How was the Nationals tournament in your dimension Pedro?

Oh pretty good, I looked at your article and mine seemed pretty similar to yours. 

So it was pretty much the same in your dimension?

Well, I guess things were a lot different,  the Pikkdogs in my dimension got a winning record.

Nice, another joke about my record.  Just get going on your news article.

Okay,  well all of us at Onehitko would like to wish everybody a happy belated 4th of July, and a happy Canada Day for those north of the border.  If we don’t get articles out right away these days it is because I am on vacation and I may be not writing as much.  From that news we go over to a news story about sperm.  A woman in California recently sued the FDA because she wants to use a sperm donor that she knows to conceive a child without following the FDA’s policies and going through a sperm donor. 

If only there were a way to get pregnant by a person you know without going through the FDA?

I agree Pikkdogs.  Just having sex with someone seems to be a lot less complicated than suing the government. 

A lot more fun too.  Someone should tell her she can get pregnant by just having sex.

Okay, well we got that case solved.  Let’s move onto the article now. 

How Decks Will Be Different.

The debate about what sort of rotation we should have is over.  Now we should go and see how decks will change with the loss of the HGSS cards.  We will get into how we can replace some of the cards later, but now let’s just talk about how decks are changing on a broader sense.

Decks will change a lot because of the cards that we lost.  The biggest change is that decks will be less trainer focused.  Because we have lost Junk Arm, we can no longer count on having almost any trainer that we need at any time.  That doesn’t mean that Pokemon Catcher will no longer be played, but it does mean that your decks will not be able to rely on trainers anymore.

It is for this reason that I am predicting the end of quad decks.  No more will you be able to have a deck with 40 trainer cards in it, you will need to have a balanced Pokemon line because you can no longer use item cards as efficiently.  We will see the rise of Pokemon techs.  We will again see Pokemon lines going into the 20s instead of about 4.  We will also see more playable Stage 2 lines.  Even though some stage 2 decks were playable this season, the game should slow down enough that most decent stage 2 Pokemon will be playable.

We will not only have to adjust our decks because of the loss of Junk Arm, we will have to adjust them to replace the draw cards that we lost in the rotation. This season we used supporters for our draw power.  PONT and Juniper were the main draw engines for our decks, but with the loss of PONT we can not always rely on supporter draw.  We still will have cards like Juniper, Cheren, and Bianca to draw cards, but those cards may or may not be enough.  Cheren is a nice card and all, but he is no Professor Oak.  You might need to turn to Pokemon based draw like Empoleon DEX to keep your deck fairly fast.  I predict that overall decks will be a little slower, but Pokemon based draw will be more important than it is now.  Perhaps cards like “Double Draw” Virizion will make a comeback.

The vast majority of Pokemon that were popular during U.S. Nationals will still be in the format.  No use replacing Mewtwo EX, Darkrai EX, or Zekrom because they will all be still legal.  But, that doesn’t mean that all types of decks will be the same.  Terrakion decks will have to change and become more versatile.  Vileplume decks will be gone all together, so item locks will not be that important in the new format.  With new ways to get setup and draw, we are bound to see some new Pokemon pop up into competitive play.  Cards like Empoleon, Emboar, and Chandelure are being talked about being possible top tier decks. But, just because Stage 2 decks will see more play does not mean that the era of BBP (Big Basic Pokemon) is over.  Basic Pokemon and Pokemon EX will still be out there and will still do well.

How To Replace Cards

We will be losing some staple cards when the rotation takes place.  This part of the article will focus on how to replace cards that we will lose in August.

Pokemon Collector/Dual Ball

One of the things about the rotation that will hurt us the most is the loss of Basic search.  We can no longer use Dual Ball or Pokemon Collector, so how can we get basics?  The only ways to get basics right now is to use Level Ball, Heavy Ball, or Pokemon Communication/Ultra Ball.  All four of these cards can only grab you one card, and two of them can only grab certain types of Pokemon.  This means it will be harder to get basic Pokemon out, that means getting  a Catcher Kill on a basic will be very important.  Make sure to use Level Ball and Heavy Ball to your advantage.  For example, if you use Klingklang, you might want to run the copies of Kling and Klang that have a three retreat cost so you can search both cards with both Level Ball and Heavy Ball.  This loss of basic search could force you to run either more decks that have basic attackers, or decks that have space to run large Pokemon lines.

PONT/Sage’s

As mentioned earlier, right now people use hand refresh/drawing supporters as their main draw engine.  PONT and Sage’s are two of the most used supporters right now, and they will soon be leaving the format.  So how do we replace them?  You could replace them by using Pokemon based draw with Empoleon.  You could try to splash Empoleon into other decks, or try to revive this years Empoleon/Terrakion deck.  I think Empoleon will be a tier 2 or 3 deck in the coming year.  Just having draw ability in a deck is very great and will set it apart from other decks.  Empoleon based decks may not be tier 1 next year, but they will be more popular than they were at the end of this year.  If you don’t want to go to Pokemon based draw, you can try to just use N and Juniper.  N is not a great draw card late-game, but maybe you could also play Cheren or Bianca to try to make up for the loss of PONT.  Supporter cards will not be as good in the draw department this coming year, so decks will slow down a  little bit.  We just need to test things to see what combination of supporters will get your deck pretty fast, or if Empoleon or another drawing Pokemon will be the answer.

Rainbow Energy

Rainbow Energy is now dead.  It has been in the format for a long time.  Rainbow seems like a staple in the game.  It seems to have been in the format forever.  It is kind of like radio, we know that it has not always been here, but nobody can seem to remember a time without it.  Rainbow is gone and it is not coming back.  Instead of having a Rainbow Energy, we are having two different energy cards called Blend Energy.  One card will provide Lightning, Metal, Water, and fighting; while the other will provide grass, dark, psychic and fire.  It is in an easy transition, this could hurt some decks that have some specific combos, but for the most part it shouldn’t be a huge difference.  It may be harder to run Darkrai EX with Zekrom, but those are just wrinkles that we should be able to iron out.  This is an easy transition, losing PONT is harder for us, but we should be able to replace Rainbow with Blend easier.

Those are a couple cards that we might be able to replace.  We will lose some cards like Shaymin and Special Dark that we cannot replace, but that will happen with any rotation.  However, we will always need to have a draw engine and how to search Pokemon, those are the two things that we will need to figure out how to do in this new format.

Conclusion

Well, that is about all I have to say about this topic.  I hope you guys have good luck in finding a way to make your post rotation deck.  Now before we go we should let Pedro lead us out with a news story.

Alright, today’s news story is about the city of Paris.  Today it celebrates its 2,050th birthday.  So happy birthday Paris.  Have you been to Paris Pikkdogs? 

Can’t say I have.  Though I think it would be a lot like New York but with more baguettes instead of pizzas.

Did you know Pikkdogs that Paris was named after the Gaulish tribe Parisii?

Nope, I did not.

Well, it was.  It was a proud tribe in the late Roman Empire period who was known for their large numbers of mimes that like to smoke and surrender large tracts of land. 

I think you are just making things up now.

Yeah probably, but that’s all I got.  Happy birthday Paris!

 

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