One Hit KO

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.

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