One Hit KO

Hey OneHitKO people, it’s been more than a month since this site had an article, so I figure I should get something out before Regionals. I’m sorry for not getting something out sooner, it completely slipped my mind. This article is mostly about what decks you should consider based on playstyle and what types of decks you have the most experience

Don’t be the one saying if only.

playing.

First of all, I want to start by saying that these are pretty much just things to try out, they are by no means official guidelines for you. I’m just throwing ideas out for you if you’re completely unsure of what to play, like I am.

I also want to do a little Cities recap and mention what I think the Tier system looks like right now. These are just my opinions, so you shouldn’t base any big decisions off these, I just wanted to give a bit of a guideline for you so that you have a guideline for your own opinions.

The BDIF

Blastoise/Keldeo. I think it’s pretty self-explanatory, actually, Blastoise is a deck that has both a good early game and a good late-game. Blastoise has the …

Hey OHKO people, it’s me, coolestman22 again. I wanted to get something out before Regionals, so I thought I’d do something like the Battle Roads preview I did back in May or something like that. I think what I’ll do is review the dominant decks from Autumn Battle Roads and then give you guys lists or something like that, so, without further ado, let’s get started.

Before I review any decks, I’ll post some results of Battle Roads. The results of the Battle Roads that The Top Cut has followed are the following (To save time I’m only doing the decks I’m covering):

Eels: 25 wins, 21 2nd, 45 3rd-4th.

Hydreigon: 24 wins, 26 2nd, 34 3rd-4th.

Ho-oh: 7 wins, 6 2nd, 4 3rd-4th.

Hydreigon

In my opinion, Hydreigon has proven itself to be the BDIF of this format. Why I never got the deck to work is beyond me, Darkrai must just not like me. Even though the numbers show Eels as the top deck, Eels also has two different variants, and Hydreigon has only one.

The basic strategy of the deck is to use Darkrai EX to attack and use Hydreigon DRX 97 to move energy from one …

Hello all OHKO’ers.  This is James Hall.  I am the newest addition to the highly paid staff here at OneHitKO.com.

INTRODUCTION

First off, I am in my late 20’s and I work as a Web Content Manager for Lincoln Financial Group here in Fort Wayne, IN.  I have an AS degree in Multimedia and a BS in Digital Entertainment and Game Design.  I also run a local league here and am proud to say that Pokemon is revived here.  When I started attending a league back in 2009, there were three of us.  Now, we are sporting a total of 42 people total with an average of 20 a week.  Our Friday leagues are our competitive league designed to prepare for tournaments.  Every other Saturday we have our kids league where it is very laid back and just for fun.  You can check us out at www.summitcitypokemon.com.

I met Pikkdogs at a local tournament about two years ago and we have been buds ever since.  When I first started he helped me with my VileGar deck and we were play testing almost nightly.  We run into each other in the tournaments that are basically northern Indiana/Ohio and southern Michigan.…

Before my Spring Regionals report, a confession: I wasn’t originally planning to go to Regionals. One of the things I like most about Pokémon TCG is its unpredictability—that with so many cards in format, you never know what combinations you’ll see in a tournament. I really enjoyed the City Championships (HS-NVI) format, where there were a lot of viable decks, and the metagame continued to evolve over the course of the winter. I think that some competitive players felt exactly the opposite about that time—that a Cities format with so many decks became a game of rock-paper-scissors-lizard-Spock, where it was difficult or impossible to practice a strategy that would win the most games. But the metagame had narrowed a lot by the State Championship series, partly because of the release of Mewtwo EX, and partly because of the steadily increasing advantage that Basic Pokémon now have. Going into Regionals, it seemed like almost everyone was either playing Zekrom/Mewtwo/Eels or Celebi/Mewtwo/Tornadus. And I didn’t like that one bit. So I didn’t play in any of the States events (though I did serve as a judge at MN States). And I resolved to stay in the Twin Cities last weekend, and …

A big hello to all you OHKOERS out there, this is Pikkdogs here with a tournament report from the 2011 Fall Great Lakes Regionals.  Just a note for you guys, we have been having a lot technical problems with our server lately.  So we apologize for that stuff, Ed is trying to figure out what the problem is and if it will be fixed soon.  We ask that you bear with us with the delays, this article was delayed two days, so we are sorry for the delays.

Intro

                After Zekrom ended the Battle Road season very strong, I was not very excited about the format.  So I did not get a lot of practice in, in fact, I did not decide on my deck choice until about half an hour before the tournament started.  So when I decided to go to regionals, I knew very well that I was never going to cut.  The night before, I decided to make a Gothitelle deck because I thought it would be fun to play.  I didn’t get much chance to play-test it, but the testing I did do did not turn out well.  I could set Gothitelle up, but then my …

Hello all you Earthlings.  Today we have an article about the ending of Fall Battle Roads.  Let me now introduce to you your author for this evening,  the other rock star from Mars, Pikkdogs!!

Why what an introduction, Pedro.  What has gotten in to you?  You usually are not this nice.

Well, I thought I would give you a good entrance to make you feel better about your dissapointing fall battle road season.  

Here we go, I thought there must have been something up your sleeve. 

No, nothing up my sleeve. I just thought it could be pretty bad to go to 6 tournaments without winning any.  0-6 is a tough thing. 
Continue reading "Review of Battle Roads and your first Regionals Preview"

A big hello to all members of Omar-Nation, this is Pikkdogs here.  I hope everyone had fun at Regionals this year.  Because of school, I was not able to make it to my regionals, but the high gas prices made me not so mad about not having to drive over 6 hours.

Even though I did not make it to regionals, other people did.  Regionals were full of a lot of people running a lot of different decks.  This article will give you a short Regionals wrap-up, and give you some tips for testing for Spring Battle Roads.  Regionals will not be a great indicator of what will happen at BRs and Nationals, this is because of new rule changes, but we should still review it anyway.

What won Regionals?

It was no surprise to see what won Regionals.  Here is what won:

7 Luxchomp
2 Vilegar
1 Sablelock
1 Machamp/Vileplume
1 MagneRock

Continue reading "Review of Regionals 2011 and Testing Tips"

After a very disappointing run at states (6-1 then losing in Top 8 at MN States, then going 3-3 in NV) I was sure of two things: 1) I would be playing LuxChomp again and 2) I was going to fit Dialga in my list.  Dialga was only a 1-1 tech, but it helped with a tremendous number of matchups.  Some of the matchups that I want Dialga in against are: Mewperior, Donphan, Uxie/Shuppet donk, Charizard, Machamp/Vileplume and Vilegar.  Add all of these plus the fact that I refused to scoop to Mewtwo (as I did in round 6 of MN States to Radu) and Dialga was going to make the cut.  I was debating a few other spots in the deck, but never questioned the deck itself.  I also had one spot built in because I had determined I wasn’t going to run Weavile G (something I would later regret).  The Lostgar threat turned out to be non-existent and I felt Dialga helped the Vilegar matchup more.  The other change to the deck since states that I LOVED was the inclusion of Twins.  It can tilt the mirror single handedly, and is an all around great card.

That's Andy To the Right (next to Mike and across from Pooka and Nick)

The week before the event, I had my list settled except for three slots.  I was questioning my Energy Gain/Power Spray/Junk Arm count.  I currently had it at 4/2/1.  If felt the extra energy gain helped a lot in the mirror, and the Sprays would be less than optimal against Spiritomb and Vileplume decks.  I later switched it to 3/3/1 and felt that the more well-rounded approach would be better, but I would later regret this change.  I was also debating my Bebe’s/Communication count; I was currently at 2/0.  Jay Hornung advocated Communication, but I felt that the chance of prizing the single Bebe’s that I needed to get Dialga G Lvl. X against trainer lock was too much, so I decided to stick with 2/0.  My last question was whether I would cut my 3-1 Uxie line down to fit 1 Chatot.  I felt that the 3rd Uxie helped so much against the possible wave of Machamp that I needed to leave it in.

I get to the tournament a half hour before registration ends, turn in my final list (I switched the Gain/Spray count that morning) and wait a LONG time before the event gets under way.

Continue reading "Topping Midwest Regionals with Andy Wieman"

Well, I don’t really think I was ever a “hero” but it sounded good in the title. Maybe a better title would have been “Riches to Rags,” but it’s already up there. My previous installment saw me winning the Minnesota state tourney, so that’s what I’m talking about with “Hero” or “Riches.” The “Zero” and “Rags” will be discussed below.

Radu Vs. Andy

Hey guys. This will be a quick post. Check out this YouTube video. It’s an interview I did with Steven Reich of the Poke Press this last weekend right after I got eliminated from the regional tournament. Steven seems like an interesting fellow. I guess he’s been covering Pokemon events for around 10 years, and he runs a league, too. If you want to see more of his videos, check out the Poke Press YouTube channel.

In addition, I am finally posting the pictures that I took at the tournament. They are nothing special, but I figured that I ought to include them somewhere. Those are just after the video.