One Hit KO

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  This is Pikkdogs here with a Pikk Three article for you.  If you are not a frequent reader of this site I will explain this article series for you.  I will review three cards for you, one card is a commonly used card, another card is one that I think is under-used, and the third is a card that is from a new or yet un-released set.  Does anyone need to go the bathroom?  If not, we can start the show.

Card #1-The Staple-Typhlosion Prime

Description- Typhlosion is a stage 2 140 HP Fire Pokemon with a weakness to water and a 2 retreat cost.  Its Poke-Power afterburner lets you attach an energy card from the discard pile, and a damage counter to any of your Pokemon.  Its attack, called “Flare Destroy” does a lackluster 70 damage for FFC, but it has the awesome effect of requiring a discard from each of the active Pokemon.  The best part is that you get to choose which energy goes in both circumstances, that means you can discard the DCE on pesky Pokemon like Zoroark and Boufallant.

Analysis- Typhlosion…

Ed asked me to write something, so I did. Apparently, I’m part of this guest writer week thing. I hear guys like Jay and Pooka are also doing it! That makes me feel super duper special :P. It would be even cooler if I won a sweet T-shirt like this awesome guy I know did. Eh, you can’t win ‘em all. So, without further ado, let’s get started.

I think I might start doing something like this where I write about upcoming cards currently receiving hype. For each card, I’ll analyze it and then give my opinion on whether or not I think the hype is worth it. You might think this article seems really premature. You might be right, and if this information turns out to be wrong, it’s whatevs. Everything is subject to change. PONT was “bad”, and then it was in an odd LuxChomp list that happened to win Worlds. You never know what the future holds.

You know, with Red Collection, we get a lot of, hmm, unique cards. We get some tools, some abilities, and then like 90 other filler cards. There is one Pokemon with an ability that definitely stands out among the others. That Pokemon is Victini, playfully dubbed FlipTini or reFlipTini. Let’s look at the stats.
Continue reading "Peering Into the Future"

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  This is Pikkdogs here with a card discussion article.

It is no secret that Pokemon cards change value very easily.  Pokemon is one of the cheapest TCG’s out there, but cards that are really useful could command a fairly large price.  This means that cards that are cheap one day can be very expensive the next.  The most popular example is Yanmega Prime.  In the winter and spring Yanmega Prime was about a 5-7 dollar card.  It was used in a couple rogue decks, but for the most part people only wanted the card for fun decks.  Then in July the format changes and Yanmega is a lot easier to play.  All of a sudden that 5 dollar card is up to 14 times more expensive then it once was, commanding a 70 dollar price tag at U.S. Nationals.

Even though Yanmega is an extreme example, it is not unlike the value of other Pokemon cards.  Most cards value in price over their life time.  Some cards like Crobat Prime are hyped and command a high dollar amount early, but then crash and burn a…

Hey all you OHKOers, this is Pikkdogs here with a strategy article. Starting Pokemon have been important since the rotation.  But, the way they are used have changed a lot over the summer.  To find out what will happen with them from now on, lets look back at what happened with Starters.

Before the Rotation

Before the rotation, most decks did not have a starter, decks were fast enough where you could probably do a decent attack on turn 1.  The decks that had a starter were Gyarados and Sabledonk, both of these decks ran Sableye.  Gyarados used it because that made it easier to put Magikarps in the discard pile, Sabledonk used it because it relied on two supporters working together in one turn.  Besides those exceptions, starting Pokemon were laughed at.

Leading up to Nationals

With the rotation Pokemon decks have lost a lot of draw power because of the loss of Uxie.  To respond to the HGSS on format, people have been using starting Pokemon in there deck.  These starting Pokemon have allowed decks to setup quickly without the need for draw power from Pokemon like Claydol or Uxie.

The most used…

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there, this is Pikkdogs here with another article for you guys.  For the top 40 players in North America and the players in Southern California all eyes are on World Championships.  All these people are thinking about is either countering the format or making a deck that will be consistent enough to grind into the main event.  But, for the rest of us, we have our eyes on Battle Roads and the new season.  And the new season means dealing with Pokemon Catcher.

Pokemon Catcher is a trainer card that lets you pick a Pokemon on your opponent’s bench and switch it with the active.  The last time this card was released, as a card named Gust of Wind, it was the best card in the format.  It ushered in an era of dominance for a very fast deck with all basic Pokemon.  The question was will Pokemon Catcher have the same format changing effect as Gust of Wind did?  To answer these questions I decided to test multiple decks in the PC (Post Catcher) format.  The testing yielded some surprising results.  To start this article off…

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  This is Pikkdogs here with a discussion about the card Pokemon Catcher.  This card will come out in the Black and White: Emerging Powers set.  Its effect is simple, switch one of your opponent’s benched Pokemon with the active.  This makes it like Gust of Wind from the base set.  This article will tell you what this card means for the format.  This article will also speculate what the format will be like for this card, and what type of counter the new high HP Pokemon will be to Pokemon Catcher.

Before we start the article, just a little reminder about the contest.  The contest that celebrates my 100 articles is still going on.  All you have to do to enter is send an email to “pikkdogs@teamomar.com.”  In the email just tell us something you like or don’t like about the site.  When you enter you will be in the running to win one of two official www.onehitko.com t-shirts.  To see the complete rules, just read my 100th article celebration post here.  Okay, back to the article about Pokemon Catcher

What it does

Pokemon…

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  This is Pikkdogs here with a second look at the Call of Legends set and the HS  promos. The purpose of this series of articles is to review the playable cards, and take a look at promising cards, to see if they might be playable.  I will not tell you if these cards are playable, for that you must judge yourself.  Its up to you to see if you can make a great deck out of some cards that are under the radar.

Before we get there I just want to remind you guys that unless you guys say you want me to, I will not be doing this with the Black and White set, since it is fresh in our minds.  So that means this is the last of this series of articles………….you guys in Minnesota can stop clapping now.

Call of Legends

There are two schools of thought with Call of Legends.  One school is that it is the worst set ever.  The other school is that it contains a lot of good value cards.  The set was released as a filler set between the HGSS and BW blocks.  It contained cards from the Lost Link mini set, and some cards from the Clash at Summit set.  It also contained many re-prints from other HGSS sets, including 2 versions of a lot of the popular legendary Pokemon.  Like all of these articles, I will not review the baby Pokemon.  Also, I will not review any card that I have reviewed in other articles.  This explains the very short article we have.   So lets see if we can find any  good cards among this small pool.

Continue reading "A Second Look at Each Set: Call of Legends and Promos"

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  This is another continuation in my “Second Look at Each Set” series.  In these articles I go through the playable cards (the ones known and unknown) in each set, and make a case to play them, and a case not to play them.  Hopefully doing this will let you have a greater understanding of the limited card pool that the current modified format offers.

I apologize if these articles seem hurried or are a little messy.  Each article in this series takes a lot of time to put together, so I try to cut a few corners in order to get these articles out fairly quickly.  If you don”t understand something please leave it in the comment box and I will be happy to explain it to you.

Two housekeeping issues to take care of before we start the article.  The first is to tell you guys to watch the site in about a week or so.  I will be starting a raffle fairly soon and have an awesome grand prize to give away.  So stay tuned to hear the details of the contest.  The 2nd item is that I have decided that this series will have just one more article in it, an article looking at the cards in Call of Legends and the Promos that are currently legal.   I decided against doing a Black and White review because its still fresh in our minds.  If you guys would like to see me do a Black and White review, I can do that, just tell me so in the comment box. If we get a couple people who want to see it, then I will do it.    Anyway, on to the article.

I just want to reiterate something that I thought I made clear before, but I guess it
Continue reading "A Second Look at Each Set: Triumphant"

Hey all you OHKOers out there.  This is Pikkdogs here continuing my series of reviewing the best cards and hidden gems on each set in the format.  I am already about halfway through the HGSS block, we are now on Undaunted. 

It seems like some people are confused of the aim of this article.  Just because I talk about a card here, does not mean that I think it will win Nationals.  I am just going over the cards in the set that might be playable in the right deck if everything goes right for the deck.  It’s about finding rogues and different ideas.  Yes Reshiram and Magnezone will clean up at this years Nats, but if I talked about them all day, it would be pretty boring.  So this is out to find some fresh new ideas.

Unduanted

Undaunted was released in the U.S. in August of 2010.  It was made up of cards from the previous Japanese set and many different kinds of Japanese decks that were released.  It also featured legend cards from the newest Japanese set.  Like Unleashed, Undaunted was not known as a  very powerful set at the time.  Just a few cards were hyped from the set, and nobody seemed to be in love with the set.

The Most Played Cards
Continue reading "A Second Look at Each Set: Undaunted"

Welcome to the second part of this series of articles.  These articles look at each set and take a look at both the most played and most overlooked cards of each set.  We are now on the HS: Unleashed set.  The hope is that by looking at the best cards of each set, we will be able to find some new techs or new deck ideas.

Before the article we have a bit of news.  Last week it was announced that the next English set will be called “Emerging Powers.”  The weird thing about the announcement is that it was announced that the set would include over 90 cards including 25 Pokemon that were never printed before.  Since our Black and White set did not have about 25 Pokemon cards that were not in the Japanese Black and White sets, this means that we probably will not be getting any cards from the Red Collection (the second Japanese Set).  Whats even stranger is the fact that we are getting some cards like Krookodile and Scolipede that have not been released in Japan.  So does that mean that we are getting a lot of new cards that Japan hasn’t received yet?  Anyway, it does seem that the next set will contain a lot of unreleased cards from the Black and White sets and cards from the Coballion, Virizion, and Terrakion decks.  Anyway, lets get on to the article.

The Top Cards

These are the top cards that have been talked about and played already.  You should be aware of these guys.
Continue reading "A Second Look at Each Set: Unleashed"