One Hit KO

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  This is an article that is kind of about a set profile and card reviews.  You might understand it later, hopefully. The article will mostly cover the Japanese Dragon Selection Mini-Set.  The scans of it were released a couple weeks ago, but I am just getting to it now because all of the NV hoopla.  Since their are currently no English scans of the Dragon Selection Mini-Set that we are talking about, I will instead show you pictures of a tv show that I liked when I was 4…. Noozles.  Now I know it doesn’t make sense, but only good websites bring you things that make sense, we don’t want you to have your standards too high.   

If you have been listening to any Pokemon news from Japan, you will have heard a while ago that we will be getting a new type of Pokemon.  It will be the Dragon Type and it will consist of the Dragon Pokemon that have previously been scattered into other types.  The Next Japanese Set will probably contain more Dragon Pokemon, since the sets will be called Dragon Blade and Dragon Blast, but for right now the only Dragon Pokemon in Japan have came from the Dragon Selection Mini-Set.  This is another one of those small sets that gets released in Japan between sets.  The set itself is very “mini,” only 20 cards were in this set.  Most of the cards  haven’t been that earth shattering, but there still might be a couple gems in it.
Continue reading "The Dragons are Coming!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Jiggilly Pufff. Jiggilly………….Puff………Jiggillly Puff..Jiggilllleeeeeeeeee.

Oh sorry, A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  This is Pikkdogs here with a Stupid Deck Idea.  The Stupid Deck Idea is a type of article that we do when we have an idea for a deck that either isn’t that great, or that we haven’t tested enough.

The deck in question today is Seismitoad and Wigglytuff.  It may seem like  a weird deck to make, but it actually is a pretty simple idea.  So let’s take a closer look at this deck and see if it is any good.

The Basics

Before we go into how the deck works, let’s look at the decks three main attackers; Wigglytuff, Seismitoad, and Palpitoad.

Wigglytuff is a 90 HP Pokemon with a fighting weakness and a 2 retreat cost.  The first attack, “Round”, does 20 damage times the number of your Pokemon in play that have an attack that is named “Round.” The second attack, “Hypnoblast”, does 60 damage and lets you flip a coin, if heads you put the defending Pokemon to sleep.  Of course, we don’t really care about “Hypnoblast,” I don’t see anyone really using this attack. …

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  This is Pikkdogs here with a 3 pack of mini articles.  First, we have some old business to catch up on with, the award for best artwork in 2011.  Then, we have a new www.propokemon.com premium content article from Alex Fields, and I will bring you an exclusive look at that article. Finally, I have an idea for an article or two that I might want to do, I will run it past you guys, and we will see how it goes.  So, let’s get on to the article. 

Section 1: The Award for Best Overall Card Art.

If you have read the article about card art a couple weeks ago, you will remember that I did an award show type article that celebrated the best in card art.  I gave awards in many categories like: Best Full Art, Best Aerial Scene, and Cutest Card Art.  But, I let you guys pick your favorite overall card art.  Before we give away the last award, I just gotta say that I really liked doing the article this year.  This type of article is always very tough and…

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  This is Pikkdogs with kind of  a deck profile of Durant.  All of the Pokemon writers right now are concentrating on Mewtwo EX and all the other EXs that just came out last week in Next Destinies.  But, a comment on my last article made me think that we are doing all this wrong.  At the end of the Cities season there was one deck that dominated all other decks, and yet we are not talking about it.  So let’s talk about it, let’s talk about Durant.

History and Basics

Durant is a milling deck.  Milling is a term that comes from Magic the Gathering.  There used to be a card named Millstone, and Millstone made your opponent put two cards from their library, or deck, into their graveyard, or discard pile.  Ever since this card came out, the act of discarding cards from the top of your deck has been called “milling.”

Durant came out in the Noble Victories set.  At first not many people recognized how good it was.  They dismissed it as a deck that had a good premise, but they thought that it…

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  This is Pikkdogs here with an article about decks from Next Destinies.  There is no question that Next Destinies will be an impactful set.  The set is chock full of cards that will make it into decks right away.   This article will kind of overview some of these decks and explain what they are all about.  Of course I can’t cover every deck, so this will be just the major changes.

New Deck(s)

Mewtwo

The card that has literally been the poster boy of Next Destinies is Mewtwo EX.  He is also probably the focal point of the only great new deck that will come out of Next Destinies.  There is no doubt that ND cards will be in a lot of decks, but the Mewtwo deck is the only one that is really new to the format.

Since you can only play 4 Mewtwo EX cards in one deck, that will leave you  with at most 56 cards to work with.  If you add in cards like Eviolite and DCE, that still gives you about 50 cards to work with.  If you add in the staples…

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there, this is Pikkdogs here with a Stupid Deck Idea.  I must admit that I haven’t tested many new cards right now, but one rogue idea has inspired me.  That is the idea of pairing Amoongus and Leafeon.  I know its not a good deck, but it is a fun deck.  So we are going to be talking about that soon.

First, I just want to make an announcement.  I feel that my articles are becoming a little stale and that I should change things up, so I think that I am going to give Pedro a break.  Maybe Pedro will come back after a while. Maybe I will find a different format and change things up, but right now I shall go it alone. Chances are that Pedro will just take a week or so off, but we will see.

Amoongus and Leafeon

The Basics

There was  rogue deck going on in the Battle Roads season that featured Roserade and Leafeon.  The decks aim was to do damage for one energy with Leafeon while Roserade sits on the bench.  If you attach an energy to Roserade you can…

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  Last year I had an idea around awards-show time to give awards to the best card art in the format.  This year I decided to keep the tradition up, and name it after one of the best people I know, me.  Pikke (Pick-e) was my nickname in school, so I decided to call the awards the Pikkes.  No  matter what attractive chap the awards are named after, the Pikkes are all about greatness in card art.  And what a better time to have an award show, with the Oscars coming up around the corner.

A lot of Pokemon writers don’t mention card art, and only talk about playability.  But, card art is something that connects to the card collector and the serious player.  We all can appreciate a good piece of card art.  Not all of us can appreciate Mewtwo EX, but we all can appreciate how beautiful a Full Art card is.  I think its nice to take a step back from competitive play now and then and just appreciate something as simple as card art.   So let’s take a look at how we are going…

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  This is Pikkdogs here with my quarterly review of the next set.  I usually review the set by taking a look at the top 10 cards that will have an impact on the current format, and this set is no different.

This set is a very impactful one.  This set givs us a card that might dominate the format, and a bunch of other cards that are really good.  We even got some trainers, stadium cards, and special energies.  This set will shape what will be played at the top tables at States, though, it may not be to the extent that we currently think.  Before we start the countdown, let us welcome Pedro to the conversation.  How’s Pedro doing today?

Doing well.

Do you got any news for us today?

Well, not too much going on. February 8th is when you can start buying Next Destinies packs from the stores.  February 8th is also a holiday, it is National Kite Flying Day. 

So if you don’t pull a Mewtwo EX, you can go fly a kite.
Continue reading "Pikkdogs Presents: The Top 10 Most Impactful Cards from Next Destinies"

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  This is Pikkdogs here with a Pre-Release tournament report.  I usually wouldn’t write you a PR report, but it could provide a nice break for me while I write my next article, which may take a little while.  Why don’t we take this time to welcome my extra-dimensionary sidekick Pedro.  How was your weekend Pedro?

Pretty good, a nice sports weekend.  We had the Pro Bowl, the NHL All Star Game, the finals of the Australian Open, the Royal Rumble, and even some Free UFC on Fox. 

I watched that UFC on Saturday.  There is no doubt that it takes a man much tougher than me to step into the Octagon, but on Saturday it seemed like UFC is just an excuse for two dudes to cuddle in the corner of a cage.

Those are big men, I wouldn’t be calling them gay. 

I didn’t call them gay, I implied it.  Plus, they always wear those bright T-shirts, you can’t wear that many pastel colors without some questions.  Let’s get onto the article before I say more things that I will regret.

The Introduction…

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  This is Pikkdogs here with your ticket to winning your Next Destinies Pre-Release.  ND PR’s start this weekend!!  So if you can, try to go out and hit some PRs.  They are great because they help support your TO, and they give you the best chance to get some great cards.  You not only get 8 packs, but you get a chance to do some trading with everyone else at the event.  Most people don’t go to a Pre-Release to win, but if you do win, it could give you some good momentum going into states.  Plus, it is always good to win.  Some places give the winner an extra pack, while others just give the winner bragging rights.  Here is what you need to know to win the NV pre-release.

Basic Pre-Release Tips

If you never played at a tourney before, here is what happens at a normal Pre-Release.  You sit down at a table, and a judge will come over and hand you 6 packs.  You open all of your packs, and then build a 40 card deck consisting of only the cards that you have pulled, and basic energy cards that are provided to you by the TO.  If you pulled any special energy cards you can play them, but they will not be provided to you.

When building your deck, the most important thing to focus on is consistency.  Most modified format decks have cards like Professor Juniper and Pokemon Communication that greatly increase consistency, you don’t have these in your pre-release.  So it will be harder to get Evolution cards out. and other cards that you only have 1 card of.  What you need to do is run cards that increase consistency, for example you can run Simisear. He has the “Collect” attack that let’s you draw 3 cards for just 1 energy.  Or you can run Lapras #25, he let’s you search your deck for 2 basic Pokemon and put them onto your bench.  But, consistency usually means running a lot of trainers.  In this set, we do not have a lot of search or draw trainers.  We do have Level Ball and Heavy Ball.  Level Ball lets you search out a Pokemon with 90 HP or less, while Heavy Ball does the same with a Pokemon that has 3 or more in their retreat cost.  Energy counts in a PR deck usually run around 14.  If you pull a Cilan or 2, you will be able to run about 12 or 13.  Along the same lines, make sure to not run too many energy types.  Cilan will help you with energy consistency, but try to run at the most 3 types of energy.
Continue reading "Pikkdogs Guide to Winnning your Next Destinies Pre-Release"