One Hit KO

We at Team Omar have just heard some disturbing news from TPCI.  It seems like one of our most beloved Pokemon, Claydol has taken a turn for the worse.  He was rushed from his Malibu estate to the Pokemon center late last night.

In an official statement released earlier today, Nurse Joy stated that Claydol is suffering from “severe exhaustion.”

It seems that trainers have been asking him to use “Cosmic Power” so many times over the last three years that they have worn the Clay Doll Pokemon out. Many trainers are gathering at the Lost Tower to pray for Claydol’s quick recovery.

As we all know, Claydol was formed thousands of years ago when clay statues were exposed to cosmic rays.  Although he has been around for a long time, Claydol’s popularity shot up in February of 2008 after perfecting his Cosmic Power technique. Since then, he has had little rest. Witnesses claim to have seen him use Spinning Attack, but even then, it was usually proceeded by Cosmic Power.

Claydol, now resting in an undisclosed Pokemon Center, still vows to make the upcoming trip to Hawaii in two weeks to be available for the 2010 Pokemon TCG World Championships.  Baltoy, a close friend of Claydol’s, has confided that, if Claydol survives the tournament, he will promptly retire and leave the Pokemon TCG forever. “It’s his one last chance to go out on his own terms,” explained his Clay Doll counterpart.

Continue reading "Prognosis Negative!"

I’ve been playing Porygon a bit. The deck is definitely fun to play, because it does a lot of things that aren’t really possible in most decks. Setting up can be slow if you don’t get the right pieces early, but with Call Energy, TS-1 Evoluter, Roseanne’s, Bebe’s, etc. you can usually get a good double supporter (thanks to Download) plus Claydol turn on turn 2 or 3.

There are two main problem areas that I’ve found: getting energy and losing TMs. They both stem from a single problem, though, and that is letting your active Porygon take damage.

The deck can run on very little energy, and you could easily win a game with only 2 with the right draw and matchup. The problem is that your active Porygon-Z will, at some point, take damage. When that happens, you will want to retreat, Switch, Warp Point, etc. You would usually have another Porygon-Z waiting on the bench, and it’s easy to Install TMs onto the waiting Porygon. What is not easy, however, is getting energy onto the waiting Porygon.

The same issue applies to TMs. Sure, you can move them around, but what happens when your active gets KO’d? …

Well, we went to the Rapid City Pokemon League on Saturday. It was the morning after a pretty good snow storm (and Christmas), so they didn’t get a good turnout. They said that they’d usually get around 20 players, but they got 3 (besides Ava, my two brother-in-laws, and myself). I was hoping to earn some Claydols, but they didn’t have any. I ended up with a new Uxie and a Snorlax. The guys there were cool, and they taught me how to play 2-vs-2. I accidentally won our first 2-on-2 match when I double-donked each of their only Pokemon for the win. The second game was much longer.

Ava wouldn’t play at league. She did play around and one of the guys played her Next Quest TFG with her, so that was cool. After league, though, I was getting convinced that Ava would not play in the City Champ on the 10th. I asked her if she still wanted to, and she said she did. I told her that she’d have to practice with me every day, and she agreed.

Sunday evening, I got her to play against me. I used VERY suboptimal green deck (Beautifly) against her, and …