One Hit KO

Pokemon TCG Decklists and Articles

Ed

OneHitKO.com Budget Challenge

OneHitKO.com Budget Challenge: Zoroark Rush Deck

Ed 14 Comments
Win games for just $31!

Last time we did the OneHitKO.com Challenge, things didn’t go quite as planned. At the end, I discussed doing some sort of budget challenge the next time around. Well, things again didn’t go as planned and real life took its toll. I didn’t quite get around to working out a real challenge for the rest of you to participate in, but I do have something going on anyway.

Last time I wrote about how I was getting my 5-year-old into the Pokemon tournament scene. Well, I don’t think she’s quite ready, but I have been working on a deck for her. Interestingly enough, I think it’s a great deck for the OneHitKO.com Budget Challenge. Depending on the incarnation, I think you can purchase the deck at a place like Troll And Toad for anywhere from $30 to $90. If you already have some cards (which most of us do), or if you can trade/buy some cards locally or at cheaper places (like scrounging eBay for deals), I think you can easily cut those figures in half.
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Teaching Pokemon

Deckbuilding For Teaching Tournament Pokemon To A Child

Ed 9 Comments
Petra Doing a Magic Trick at Battle Roads?

This BR season, I wanted to do some sort of OneHitKO Budget Challenge, but life took its toll, and I really didn’t do much Pokemon for a while. We hit up states, but we were fairly unprepared. Now that a new set is out and a new BR season is already upon us, my plans will have to wait for some other time.

What has happened, though, is that I think it’s time to teach my second daughter how to play Pokemon and get her in on some tournament play. This past weekend, I brought Petra (my second daughter behind Ava) to Battle Roads. Ava and I played, and Petra watched. She sat with me quite a bit, and she was excited each time I won. We cut the day short, when I dropped (which helped TAndrewT get second on the day). The whole thing sparked the idea to get her started on playing the TCG, but she’s only 5 years old. How can we pull it off?

This article won’t get too deep into my plans for Petra. I hope to get to that in a future article. I will, however, discuss a bit of what I did when Ava was getting into the game 2 and a half years ago.

What I did at the time was take a known deck and childproof it. I did everything I could to choose a deck that had a single goal and build it in a way that limited all the options. You might say that I wanted an “autopilot” deck, but to a 6-year-old (as Ava was at the time), even “autopilot” requires plenty of thought.
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State Championships Tourney Report

Quad Terrakion Deck – MN State Championship 2012

Ed 17 Comments

I really thought that I wasn’t going to make it to States this year. Part of me thought that I should make a strong effort to defend my title, and part of me thought that the effort would be wasted if I couldn’t attend anyway. I had it in the back of my mind that I might make it to the tourney, so all along I had been putting together a CMT deck. I really actually wanted to play a straight Celebi/Mewtwo deck (without Tornadus or any techs), but I didn’t want to go out of my way to buy a bunch of Mewtwo if I might not even use them.

I did end up scraping together all the pieces for a CMT minus the 2 Mewtwo EX. When I decided to try opening the OneHitKO Store, I bought 3 boxes of Next Destinies. I figured that if I did end up able to attend MN States, then I could just borrow a couple Mewtwo from the store for the day. Well, that idea fell apart rather quickly when I opened 3 boxes and saw a total of ZERO Mewtwo EX.

The weekend before the tournament, my wife went to the hospital 3 times with pregnancy issues, and I thought that each time we might have an extended stay there while delivering our new child. Nothing came of that, and on the Monday before States, I ended up emailing TAndrewT and talking about all of this. I told him essentially the same thing I just told you, still unsure that the pregnancy would last through the following weekend of MN States. I also added that I had considered Durant and straight 4-Terrakion deck.

I didn’t know if I even cared to build a deck at this point. Pokemon wasn’t a pressing issue, and I had barely played since Cities. Andy replied with, “Well, if you need Terrakions I have plenty for you to borrow.” and I thought that this sounded like the only plan I was going to come up with on late notice.

I netdecked a list, and I threw together the deck proxying the Terrakion (I had all the rest except for 1 old style Revive in place of the new one). There’s a guy here at work that I’ve been playing against over lunch sometimes. He has a Zekrom/Eelektrik deck (which I figured would be popular), so I challenged him to a match. Unfortunately, he didn’t have the deck with him, so he played an old Emboar/Reshiram deck of mine. The first game went very quickly as I lost due to not getting more than 1 Terrakion out. I think the deck wasn’t very shuffled yet, and 2 Terrakion were prized. The next game was a real match, and I think I ultimately won when he decked out. This one game turned out to be my only real tourney prep, though. Other than that, I never played the deck until the day of the tourney. At the tourney, a junior (another co-worker’s kid) challenged me to a game, and I ran though his Pokemon very quickly. Going into the tournament, I had only played one real and it was against a non-metagame deck.
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Website

OneHitKO Store – Pokemon Cards For Sale

Ed 8 Comments

Hey guys, it’s Ed here to talk to you about something new going on at OneHitKO.com. Maybe you’ve noticed the new ads around the site, but maybe you’ve been conditioned to ignore all the advertisements. I really can’t blame you for ignoring the ads. I mean, I do appreciate when you guys have clicked on the ads in the past, but let’s be honest. They ads are rarely related to anything you care about and they can get annoying.

Lately, Pikkdogs has been busy providing you guys with plenty of entertaining Pokemon TCG content. As a side note, we really ought to thank him more for that.

While he’s been writing articles, I’ve been working on something new, The OneHitKO.com Store. I just got it working, and while I’m pretty proud that it’s up and running, I know that it still definitely needs work. As you can see from the look of it, it’s a low budget operation.

We are currently only selling Next Destinies cards, and the shop looks a bit weak. I know. I mean, take a look around here. The site works, and we are pleased to have so many loyal readers. We’re not kidding anyone, though. Aesthetics is not the focus. I’m working on the issues, though.

I want this new idea to work out, because I think it will be a good thing for our readers. Ultimately, I want us to be able to provide any cards you guys might need, but right now we have to start somewhere. I also want to make it look more professional, but I just think that it’s better for us to get something up and running ASAP than to get it perfect before launching.

What does this mean to you? Well, we’re hoping that OneHitKO readers will support the site by patronizing http://shop.onehitko.com. Whenever you need some cards, all we ask is that you check out the OneHitKO Store and see if we have the cards you’re looking for.

Please consider taking a moment right now to browse our Pokemon Card Shop. Leave us some feedback about what you think. I know the selection isn’t impressive yet, but we need to start somewhere. Also, keep in mind that I will be editing the store quite a bit in the near future. The look and feel of it will likely change.

If you experience any technical difficulties, be sure to let us know. If you don’t like something you see (layout, pricing, etc.), let us know. If you make a purchase, leave a comment here and let us know.

Thanks guys! I really think this will be a better way bring you both the information you need and the cards you need to act on that information. The process will require some growing and learning, but I’m excited about this new way for us to serve the Pokemon TCG community.

ProPokemon

Teaser: “Next Destinies: How it Will Impact the Game”

Ed 7 Comments

Hey guys.  I just got done reading Jak Armstead’s latest article over at ProPokemon.  I think it covers a lot of good points about how the new cards will impact the tournament scene.  He presents new possibilities as well as the impact on current popular decks, and each time he presents a decklist.  I just did a quick count, and it looks like there’s at least 10 decklists in there.

First, he discusses Mewtwo EX which can’t be ignored.  Everyone is discussing it, but he’s got some very good points.  Here’s an excerpt in which he’s discussing a new deck that could be built around Mewtwo EX.

Mewtwo decks are going to form an important part of the metagame for State Championships, and learning how to play against them, and how to play with them, is going to be a major test for players. The two Prize mechanic will lead to the kind of intense strategic encounters not seen since the days of Gardevoir/Gallade decks back in 2008. Then, as now, the taking of Prizes will need to be carefully planned. Taking the initial KO with a Mewtwo-EX will generally be something to avoid, as all it will take is for the opponent to drop their own Mewtwo, a Double Colourless Energy, and a PlusPower and then you will find yourself down on Prizes. Learning to master the ‘Mewtwo Wars’ is essential for anyone with aspirations to win in the upcoming format.

Click here to see the full article at ProPokemon.

Later, after that discussion, his 6133 word article gets into how the new cards effect current established archetype decks.  Here’s one example where he’s discussing the current reigning City’s Champion, Magnezone/Eelektrik. Read More

OneHitKO.com Challenge

OneHitKO.com Challenge: Wrap-Up with Budget Engine

Ed 19 Comments

Well, I’ve discussed much of this already, but I thought I should give a bit of a wrap-up to finalize this season’s OneHitKO.com Challenge.  Yeah, I said “this season’s” implying that there may be others on the horizon.  That’s a bit of an open-ended question at the moment, but we can discuss that later.  Let’s first get to the positives and negatives of this challenge.

Negatives

When I first dreamed up this crazy plan, I had several goals.  My overarching number one goal was to build community around this project.  Have we succeeded in that?  Well, I think it’s been mostly a unmet goal.  Looking at webserver statistics, it seems that the site is getting slightly more views now. I can’t be sure if that has anything to do with the challenge, just the fact that there have been more articles lately, or just the fact that City Championships were in full swing. Since I can’t undoubtedly attribute it to the challenge, I won’t.

What I originally hoped for (and expected) was that many people would come together and each donate maybe 4-8 cards.  I would have a bunch of random “junk” to sift through and build from.  Making a deck out of this card pool would be my challenge while donating would be yours.  Unfortunately, that didn’t happen really at all.  I had only 3 real donators, and, of them, I already had a friendship with 2.  That means that only 1 person decided to go out on a limb and risk sending me cards in order to be part of something greater.

My losses outweighed my wins.  I had a goal to go better than 50/50 win/loss in any given tournament.  I missed one tournament and had to drop one round early from another (both events I see as negatives in their own right).  I did go exactly 50/50 in 2 of 3 tourneys, but I never achieved greater than that.  This makes me feel as if I misused the generous donations and failed on my end of the bargain (even though it was always a goal and never a promise). Read More

OneHitKO.com Challenge

OneHitKO.com Challenge: Grand Finale

Ed 19 Comments
Special Delivery

Early this week, TAndrewT contacted me and asked me for my address. He had a package to send me. Well, things didn’t go well for TAndrewT and the postal service, and we thought that the package might not arrive before this week’s finaly City Championship tournament. Instead of sending the cards to me via snail mail (does anyone use that term, anymore?), TAndrewT sent me a list of cards on Friday. He swore that he’d hand-deliver them to me the next day, and since he was judging, I figured I could bank on him being there.

Click on the pic to the left if you want to see what he donated. I think he really wanted to see how the deck and I would do if things were taken to the next level. For the final Cities here, I think he wanted the challenge deck to be a real contender. Thanks to you donators, here’s the list I was able to run today.
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Deck Workshop

Deck Workshop: Chandelure/Leafeon/Samurott

Ed 6 Comments

This one came to me a bit out of left field.  This guy named Rafal sent me an email, because he was excited about my OneHitKO.com Challenge.  The problem is that, because my final City Championship is in 2 days from now, I couldn’t really justify having him send me cards.  They probably wouldn’t even arrive in time.  I started discussing things with him about building decks on a budget and under other constraints, and it came up that him and his friends were finding themselves in a similar position.

Rafal himself was in a good position, because he had been able to trade and borrow into cards good enough to build a workable 6 Corners style deck.  He said that, other than a Cobalion and a second Kyurem, he’s got it pretty set already.

However, he has 2 friends that are finding it difficult to build a competitive deck.  He was able to send me one of the lists, so we’ll talk about that one here.  The other, by chance, is a Raichu Prime / Eelektrik deck, which I have personal experience with.  Maybe we’ll get to that deck at a later date.  For now, let’s talk about Chandelure/Leafeon/Samurott.

We should get straight to the decklist, and then we can discuss how this deck can be improved.  I’d like lots of comments on this article, so maybe we can help get this guy sorted out.  Remember that he’s on a budget, so stuff like “add 4 Catcher” might be useless.  I’ll try to get some info on what his restrictions are, but for now, just try to keep “cheap” in mind.

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OneHitKO.com Challenge

OneHitKO.com Challenge: Decklist & Other Discussion

Ed 10 Comments

I got some cards from Coolestman22 since the last tourney, so the list was a bit better than the previous run.

The additions were:

  • 1 Zekrom: Excellent damage output without the energy discard that all my other attackers have
  • 1 Thundurus: Second turn 80 damage and puts 1 energy in the discard
  • 1 Pokemon Communication: Gets my evolutions
  • 1 Great Ball: Maybe the best addition (gets Junk Armed a lot)
  • 1 Pokemon Circulator: I gets me out of certain situations, but is also annoying when you know Catcher is in format.
  • 1 Professor Juniper: Great draw supporter for this deck

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OneHitKO.com Challenge

OneHitKO.com Challenge: Tourney #2 Report

Ed 9 Comments

I have to admit that I’ve been disappointed with the number of participants in the OneHitKO.com Challenge. When I first proposed it, people said that it might get low participation, but I didn’t expect it to be this low. I figured locals would chip in. I figured that some people would fine the idea oddly intriguing. I figured that, for the cost of a stamp, thinning your card pool of stuff you didn’t intend to play could be turned into entertainment. I guess I figured wrong.

Now, I’m not all sad or anything. In other ways, I’m very pleased with how things have turned out. I’m playing a deck that I otherwise never would have used in tourneys, and I’m having fun with it.

I’m happy with the cards that have been donated. There’s another area in which things have exceeded expectations. When I expected to be running a deck full of the best picks from random junk, I’m running a deck with 3 Primes, several popular trainers/supporters, some great dragons, and one of the most impactful Pokemon of the moment.

My goal was to build a community around this project, and in that I feel like I’ve failed. I’ve been thinking of ways I can continue with a similar experiment/project, though. Again, it’s not all bad, but it’s not what I aimed for. I have ideas for future targets, though.

My in-game goal was to go better than 50/50 in any tourney. Let’s get to the report.
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