One Hit KO

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  This is Pikkdogs here with an article about the Pokemon document called, “The Spirit of the Game.”  This is a document that is rarely talked about on websites like this, but is supposed to be vital to any Pokemon player.  So I figured we should talk about it and analyze it.  We can talk about what we like about it, and what we don’t.  But first, we must get a news article from Pedro to start things out.  Hey Pedro, what do you have for us today?

Hey Pikkdogs.  Today, CNN is reporting that there is controversy with Sweden’s Minister of Culture.  It seems that she was attending an art exhibit opening and she ate a piece of a cake that was in the form of a stereotypical African figure.  Groups representing African Swedes are calling for the minister to resign after they feel that Africans were portrayed in a racist manner. 

Well this is quite a controversy, who knew there were black people in Sweden?

True, I always imagined that the whole country is full of blue eyed blondes who wear tight T-shirts and frolick in a meadow all day. …

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  This article is for beginners, and it is about the tools that Pokemon players and collectors use.  When you first thought of playing a game, you probably never thought of using things like sleeves, binders, and deck boxes.  But, all these things are very important.  So let’s look at what some random douche, me, has to say about these things.  We will begin by looking at things you  need like randomizers, sleeves, deck boxes, binders, and playmats.

Randomizers/Damge Counters

There is a really good chance that one of the first Pokemon things you ever bought was a theme deck.  Theme decks are nice because they teach you the rules of the game, give you some cards, and give you a rule book with some other stuff.  That “other stuff” contains things like a coin and damage counters.  The coin is a cheap plastic thing, and is very hard to flip.  I have tried to flip those, but I end up either not flipping it or hitting my opponent, more often than I do a successful flip. The damage counters are not much better, they get too messy and obstruct the card so you can’t read it.  The better way to fix these problems is to use dice.

Almost everybody uses dice for both damage counters and randomizers.  When using as a randomizer, you treat evens as heads and odds as tails.  There are a couple rules for using dice as randomizers.  The first rule is that the dice must be transparent and have rounded edges.  To make sure nobody weighs a die so that its finally resting position is on one side, the dice must be see through when you hold it up the light, just so everybody can see there is no weight inside of it.  The die also must have rounded edges on it, I’m not really sure why this is a rule, maybe one of our readers can explain why.  The second rule is that die you use to flips must be different from the ones that you use for damage counters.  This rule is to avoid confusion when your randomizer die lands close to your damage counting dice.
Continue reading "Ya Gotta Gear Up!!! Pokemon Style."

Hello everyone out there in Omar Nation, this is Joel here with another article. This time I want to talk about leagues, and how they are an important part of the Pokémon Trading Card Game community. As a league leader myself, I cannot stress how important leagues are, and how much fun participating in one can be. I have been running my league for the past 3 years now and it is one of the busiest leagues in the Metro Detroit area. But enough about my league, lets go on to discuss what a league is, how it is ran, what makes it different from a tournament, and how it’s important to the Pokémon TCG community.                         

What is a Pokémon League?

A Pokémon league is an official Play! Pokémon event that is usually run once a week. Leagues provide players with a casual playing and trading environment for players of all ages. Most leagues are free to enter, however some charge a small fee (usually under $5), the fee is usually to help cover the cost …

Ava and I attended the Black and White Mall Tour on Saturday. It was a pretty well run event for the most part. We were planning to meet some friends at about 9:45. Unfortunately, we had car troubles (dead battery), so we ended up arriving just after 10AM. The first showing of the Zoroark movie was at 10, and they got in. We missed it.

We kinda got hosed on the whole movie deal. We arrived at the first info booth at about 10:10. It was too late for the 10AM movie, but we were told that they hadn’t yet received the 12:00 movie tickets. We’d just have to come back.

Ava and I then proceeded to rush around the mall to get 5 stamps before the lines became unbearable. It’s a good thing we did. After getting 5 stamps, people then had to wait in line to spin a wheel to see what prize they would receive. When we got there (at about 10:45), there were exactly 0 people ahead of us. We waltzed up and spun. Ava got a Snivy stylus. I got a Snivy patch. And there was much rejoicing.

We then decided to go back to …

What is MRDIF?

I am sure you all have heard of the new popular acronym (at least new to me) BDIF, witch stands for Best Deck In Format. Well I decided instead of writing an article about the Best Deck in Format I would write an article about the Most  Ridiculous Deck in Format, or MRDIF. For this article I chose to write about Gyarados as the MRDIF because I feel it really is!

How Do You Play Gyarados?

I realize that a lot of people already know how to play Gyarados but for those of you who don’t I’ll go over it briefly for you. Basically the goal of Gyarados is to discard Magikarp using cards like Regice and Junk Arm. You may ask “why would I want to get rid of your basics?” Well that’s because Gyarados’s “Tail Revenge” attack does 30 damage times the number of Magikarp in your discard pile for no energy. There are some cases where you do need to use cards like Pokemon Rescue to recover a Magikarp because Gyarados got KOed but you mostly rely on Rescue Energy now to recover Gyarados.

Ways to Play Gyarados!

In all of my experimenting with …

Hey all you members of Omar-Nation.  This is Pikkdogs here. I will speak to you soon about the release of the new triumphant set, but today I will talk about age divisions in Pokemon.                                                                          

Speaking of Triumphant, this weekend is the start of pre-release tournaments.  So if you can, head out to your local tournament this weekend and get involved in the tournament.  This set should be pretty impactful, even with the recent news that Lost World will not be in the set.

We all know that Pokemon is a game that is popular with younger people.  I admit that I too played the game when I was young.  But, the fact is that Juniors and Masters are different.  We run different decks and play different styles.…

Hey everyone in Omar-Nation, this is Pikkdogs here with an informative strategy article.

As we know, after this month’s Worlds tournament, SP decks have become even more popular.  But since then the new Vileplume card has come out, some people think this will change the format.  The interweb has been abuzz lately with players talking about trainer lock.  There is two distinct camps, one saying that SP decks will endure past trainer locks easily, and others who have tested the matchup and don’t see a way for SP decks to continue.                                                                                                              …

A big hello to all members of Omar-Nation, your buddy Pikkdogs is here to bring you a quick strategy article.

We all know that most decks in the upcoming format will rely on Uxie LA for draw power.  Just by putting him on your bench you can draw until you have 7 cards in your hand.  A lot of decks will be counting on getting good draws with Uxie for their deck to work.                  

But we also know what the counter to Uxie La is, Power Spray.  As long as you have 3 Pokemon SP in play you can play this card on your opponents turn and cancel out the effects of your opponent’s Poke-Power.  And without drawing those extra cards, most decks are locked down.

So Power-Spraying Uxie is good, but what are the best ways to use Power Spray, and what ways can you get around Power Spray?  Here are a list of ways to use Power Spray effectively and how to play against it effectively.

Ways to use Power-Spray

1. Use it Early– The most effective Power Sprays come …

It looks like the post-rotation format has been officially announced. Take a look at the official announcement at Pokemon.com.

Here’s what the new format will include.

• Diamond & Pearl—Majestic Dawn
• Diamond & Pearl—Legends Awakened
• Diamond & Pearl—Stormfront
• Platinum
• Platinum—Rising Rivals
• Platinum—Supreme Victors
• Platinum—Arceus
• Rumble
• HeartGold & SoulSilver
• HS—Unleashed
• HS Trainer Kit

What do you think about that? Personally, I’m disappointed. I was hoping for more of a clean slate to start working on new decks. The metagame will shift, but it doesn’t look to be a major change.…