One Hit KO

It’s the moment, I’m sure you’ve all been waiting for. The OneHitKO.com deck has finally made it’s public debut. This Sunday, we had a tourney at Outpost 2000 and Beyond. Masters had 5 rounds of Swiss, and here’s the story of how Eelektrik and Riachu got along.

Before the tourney got going, I needed to take care of 1 major issue. I still needed 4 Pokeball. I was able to get the donation I needed, so it was all systems go.

Round 1: vs Paige with Reshiram/Vulpix
I think I only ever saw Reshiram and Vulpix in this match, as she never got a supporter. She started out by burning my Pikachu with Vulpix’s Singe attack, which was annoying. Once I got Raichu, evolving healed the burn, and I started rolling. Unfortunately for her, I was able to easily KO Vulpix and she brought up a 2-energy Reshiram. I had to attack it, but I knew she’d get the return KO. I popped the Rocky Helmet down and attacked for 120. This meant that she could retreat and lose all her energy, pass (and then I would probably just KO Reshiram), or attack (which would KO her Reshiram). During this turn, I think she Communicationed for another Reshiram (just to keep herself in the game). She attacked giving us both a KO and promoting her Reshiram. I brought up Pikachu, and did a Tail Slap for 10 (even though I had Raichu in my hand). This meant that she couldn’t easily return KO with Outrage, and I could do 120 next turn. That’s what happened leaving her with a lone fire Victini, and I started the day…
1-0

Continue reading "OneHitKO.com Challenge: Tourney #1 Report"

This will be just a quick post letting you guys know that I got a new donation in the mail today. Today Coolestman22′s envelope arrived. Here’s the contents.

3x Dual Ball
2x Professor Juniper
2x Professor Oak’s New Theory
2x Junk Arm
1x Max Potion
1x Thundurus

This is very exciting to me, because it gives the deck a “real deck” sort of feel. Junk Arm can really aid in getting those early energy discarded while obviously providing trainer options via reuse.

PONT and Juniper are probably the best draw supporters I could have asked for. Juniper may be a bit tricky in specific situations (like when I have a Eelektrik or Raichu in hand), but it nets the most cards while also potentially discarding energy. PONT is probably the best refresh supporter available, and now I have 4.

Continue reading "OneHitKO.com Challenge: Coolest Delivery"

First off, I need to share some disappointing news. Our first City Championship is on Dec. 10th. I had this marked on the calendar and was rather excited to kick off this challenge business.

Well, I got a small bit of bad news when my daughter, Petra’s, hockey practice schedule was announced. Her 3rd practice of her first season is conflicting. While contemplating how I could work around this (drop early from Cities, have my wife take her to practice, etc), I received an email about her team pictures. This event starts at the same time as the City Championship. Now, this pretty much seals it. I have to take Petra to pictures and practice. You see, I’m also one of the coaches. I might get away with missing a practice, but I should be in the team picture.

On top of this, it’s a pretty bad move for me to ask my wife to take Petra to these events. She’s pregnant with our 4th daughter, and she’s having some issues that make it pretty bad for her to exert herself. Maybe she could sit through a practice, but I really don’t think she could deal with pictures, as it’s like chaos everywhere at those things.

I wouldn’t normally bring my personal life into the discussions here, but I feel like I’m letting people down. I don’t really know how many of you care what happens in this OneHitKO.com Challenge experiment, but I feel like I have committed to playing in all the local City tourneys. I don’t want to start it out like this, and I really don’t want people to think I’m skipping out because of the cards/deck or anything like that.

Continue reading "OneHitKO.com Challenge: Disappointment and Optimism"

This will be a short post.  I don’t have a whole lot to say other than I received the first cards for the card pool.  If you’re following along, you may want to open up the Challenge page and take a look at the card pool as I just added the new list to the page.

Pikkdogs’ package was larger than expected.  (I assume Pedro would make some comment here, but I sent him on some meaningless errand to keep him out of my head.)  It contained the following cards.
Continue reading "OneHitKO.com Challenge: First Donation Received"

I got an email today informing me that Pikkdogs sent in an envelope for the OneHitKO.com Challenge. It seems that he was waiting for me to announce the theme deck I’d be using as a base for the card pool. Well, in a way that’s why I waited to announce it. I wanted the donations to drive the deck instead of the donations being driven by the choice of theme deck.

I’ll take what I can get, though, and Pikkdogs has already informed me about what I’ll be getting. I figured that I’d take the opportunity to discuss what he sent, how it will help form the initial decklist, and maybe you’ll get a glimpse of my thought process that will go into these sessions. First of all, let’s look at the list of cards he sent. If you missed the last installment, you may also want to see the Ember Spark theme deck cardlist.

1-Pikachu
3-Raichu Prime
3-Tynamo
3-Eelektrik
4-Engineer’s
3-Minun
2-Black Belt
1-Victini (Fire Version)

Continue reading "OneHitKO.com Challenge: Initial Cards, Initial Deck"

In an attempt to “spark” your interest, I’m going to announce the preconstructed theme deck I plan to add to the card pool. My daughter, Ava, has offered to let us use her Ember Spark deck. Please understand that I do not want to base a deck around this. It’s not meant to be a basis for the deck I play.

Please don’t look at this and think, “He needs this Fire/Lightning Pokemon to go with that list.” If you want to send fire/lightning types, great, however I’d rather just trash all these Pokemon listed here and build something entirely from what you provide. I also need to make sure I have a tourney legal deck, and that’s the reason I’m adding this theme deck to the card pool. I have no allegiance to red or yellow at this point. It’s ultimately the donation-based card pool that will dictate which Pokemon will make the cut. If you want to help out with that send an email to challenge@onehitko.com or fill out the form over here.

When I discuss these cards in the OneHitKO.com Challenge, I will have a different perspective than I’d normally use for discussing tournament-viable cards. One main difference is that, in a tourney-ready deck, you would not choose a card that had an obvious “better.” For example, you wouldn’t play Pokemon Reversal over Pokemon Catcher. Catcher is clearly better. Most similar cards are less obvious, but players get into a consensus leader sort of mentality. For example, for draw supporters, most people would use PONT or Juniper over Bianca.

The point is that this does not make Reversal, Bianca, or any other cards with a better “bigger brother” bad cards. It just means that there’s generally a better choice available.

Well, when there’s not a better choice available, then the “not bad” choice becomes, well, not bad. It may even the best available.

That’s the way I will have to evaluate the cards in the OneHitKO.com Challenge. No longer are cards rated against the overall modified-legal pool. They’ll have to be evaluated on their general usefulness. Once the card pool is further along, then the cards can be weighed against each other.

So, let’s look at the cards in the “Ember Spark” deck. I can’t rightfully compare these against each other, but I can comment on their general usefulness in a yet-to-be-built deck.

Here’s the card list.

Continue reading "OneHitKO.com Challenge: Ember Spark"

The Motivation: Okay, so maybe announcing the idea without discussing the plan wasn’t the best. I know that some people are very skeptical, but I’m hoping that you stick with me and hear me out. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, you might want to read the OneHitKO.com Challenge: Announcement before continuing.

Before I go further, let me dispel some obvious (as in I understand why you’d make them) misunderstandings. I’m not expecting people to build me a top-tier deck. I’m not doing this to save time, and I’m definitely not doing this to save money. I’m doing this as an experiment to build community around something new that I hope will be exciting and enjoyable for all participants.

I keep using the word “experiment,” because I feel very unsure about all of this. At times, I’m very excited about trying something new and crazy. At other times, like now, I feel fairly down, because I wonder if anyone will care to become part of this thing I’m hoping we can create together.

The main problem is that it’s a crazy idea, and I don’t know anything like this that has been attempted before. I’m hoping that makes it unique and intriguing, but only time will tell. I really want to find people that are willing to help me create something new and build a community that works together to make something out of nothing. I hope that is enough motivation for some to take the initial leap. Then maybe others will see how it’s working and join in later.

Continue reading "OneHitKO.com Challenge: The Plan"

Prologue: This is not a charity. This is a community-building experiment. I have plenty of cards, and I’m not poor. I’m not begging for handouts. I’m hoping that we can team up and work together to build something new and exciting.

Intro: I woke up one Saturday morning a few weeks back, and instead of getting out of bed right away, I had an unusual chance to hang out and be lazy for a bit.  While I was slowly waking up, I had an idea.  I’ve been thinking about it ever since, and I think it’s finally time to start implementing it.  I’m excited to try it.  Once you get what’s going on, I hope you will be too, because it heavily involves you.

Before we get into the idea itself, I want to give a bit of background.  I feel that this is important to add credibility to my part in all of this, so here’s a quick overview of my Pokemon experience.

Background: When the game first came out, I got into it quite a bit.  I mainly just played at one shop named Mirkwood, but I attended many of the weekly tournaments there.  I also helped run their Pokemon league, and I was appointed as the gym trainer for a while.  Well, that lasted until just after Fossil came out.  I won some tourneys back then, but I kinda feel like they don’t count.

I re-entered the game around this time 2 years ago.  I started with the City Championships, attended 4 in the area, and didn’t do particularly well.  Leading up to States, I decided to build a real top-tier deck.  At that tourney, my first States, I dropped after Swiss.  I didn’t really think much of dropping, as Pokemon wasn’t a huge thing to me at the time.  In retrospect, it seems a bit crazy.  Had I stayed, I was 5^th going into top cut.
Continue reading "OneHitKO.com Challenge: Announcement"

I forgot to bring my camera for both days this past weekend, so I don’t have my usual slew of unfocused pictures. Because of that, I thought that I wouldn’t write much, so I didn’t take any notes. This is all from (my poor) memory.

Here’s a micro report from The Source Comics and Games on Oct. 15th. I knew that there was another tourney the next day, so I thought that if Ava was done playing, I might drop. I didn’t want to drop if there was a chance I could still win, but in the back of my mind, I almost hoped I’d hit that 2 loss mark early. We had a party to attend as a family, so it would be good to get home a bit earlier.

Juniors had 8 players. Aiden wasn’t there with his Beartic deck which has beaten Ava’s Donphan deck in the 2 previous events. Unfortunately, Paul decided that Beartic was the clear best deck (as it had won the previous 2 events) and decided to play it. I think Ava lost to Paul and forgot about Exoskeleton to lose another one. In the end, she snuck in at 4th place and got her third top-4 in 3 events.

Continue reading "Battle Roads Double Header Weekend in Minnesota"

Alrighty guys, here we go. MN’s second Battle Roads of the season was on Oct 9th at Outpost 2000 and Beyond. I’d say we had a better day than the previous weekend, so

You mean you didn’t totally scrub out, misplay for a game loss, try to blame it on the judge, and barely make 50/50 on the day?

What the? Who let Pedro in here?

Continue reading "Battle Roads #2, Victory Cup #2"