Zoroark

Working With Ditto: A Review of 1-1 and 1-0-1 Techs

Hey OneHitKO people, it’s me, coolestman22 again, here with another article to try to help keep the site going. I said in my last article that I would try to write about the techs Ditto brings to the table, and I decided to do just that.

Anyway, Esa wrote a neat article about how good Ditto is on his blog (Which I recommend reading if you haven’t), but

Techs.

he didn’t go over the usefulness of the techs you could set up via Ditto. He mentioned a few, and he did a bit of reviewing them, but he didn’t go that much in detail.

So without further ado, I guess I should start the article. Please do note that these are not ranked, they’re just there in the order they came to my head in.

Dusknoir BoC

Dusknoir is probably going to be the most popular Ditto tech. The Ability is just so powerful that if you manage to get a Dusknoir out, it will probably lead to a few prizes by itself. You could also use it to take out your opponent’s all-important Stage Two Energy accelerator, or use the damage from the EX they retreated to kill their active EX with energy.

However, without Ditto, the second a Duskull hits the field, it is very likely to be Catcher-killed, even without Junk Arm in format. That is why you need Ditto to play a Dusknoir tech. If you can get a Dusknoir out, it is a very powerful thing to have on the field.

Zoroark BW

Zoroark is an interesting tech (I wonder how many times I’m gonna say that this article), but it’s not one I’m big on this format. Last Cities I played a 1-1 in my Audino Box deck (That was my crazy stupid rogue that I would have played if I had gone to one more Cities) to hit Chandelure, Magnezone, Cobalion, and other things for “I win”. It was extremely good, but I had to cut it because of space concerns.

I don’t think I like Zoroark all too much now, however, because nowadays it just doesn’t have anything to hit for either weakness, OHKOes, or an effect. The main meta things now are Rayquaza, Landorus, Darkrai, and Keldeo, and Zoroark just isn’t good against any of those.

Maybe in another format, Zoroark will be really good, but I doubt that will happen any time soon. It does have a secret rare in NXD, so if the rotation is NXD-on maybe Ditto will allow for it to be good.

Ninetales DRX

Ninetales serves as a 5th Catcher. If your opponent sees four Catcher in your discard pile, they will probably play differently until you Junk Hunt them back (if you do). However, if you play a Ninetales you’ll be able to use a Catcher

The Other 5th Catcher

that they likely won’t see coming, and therefore it will probably be much more devastating.

Also, who wouldn’t want an extra Catcher? If you have space for a 1-1 Ninetales tech and you don’t play Rare Candy, Ninetales might just be the best possible tech you can play with Ditto. I really like the surprise factor it has, and having a 5th Catcher can win games.

The reason that Ninetales wasn’t played in BW-DRX is, of course, there was no surprise factor, and the Vulpix is likely to be Catcher-KOed. With Ditto, you get the surprise factor as well as a higher HP basic to sit there instead of a Vulpix (Which matters in the case of Mewtwo or Darkrai), and if they put enough damage on the Ditto you can Transform it into something else.

Serperior BW

Serperior is an interesting tech indeed, and it’s one I have experimented with in my Hydreigon deck with success. It brings me back to the days where 1-0-1 Nidoqueen RR techs were a thing because of the old Rare Candy rules. Serperior is just a stackable version of that, and in Darkrai mirrors it can be devastating (It’s practically an Eviolite that can’t be Tool Scrapped and reduces more damage the longer it goes unattacked). I have found that with Serperior you can switch Darkrais around via Dark Trance, and then slowly heal all of them when they get damaged.

It’s also really good against the Night Spear damage that Darkrai does to the bench. Suddenly, that 30 becomes 10 before your opponent can do anything. So with Serperior in play that 90-30 becomes a 70-10, and if you retreat to a fresh Darkrai it will become a 50-0 or 50-20 depending on whether they Night Spear the same Pokemon.

Against other decks it isn’t too shabby either if you’re using Darkrai. If you Eviolite your Darkrai the Keldeo is only doing 90 (Assuming 3 waters) or 110 (Assuming four waters), and then you make that 70 or 90. If you retreat to a fresh Darkrai that turns into 50 and 70.

I’m not going to keep talking about Serperior, but I have found it’s great in any Darkrai deck, especially Darkrai/Hydreigon. With Ditto, you can disguise your Serperior tech as something more prominent and then go Transform-Rare Candy-Serperior.

Krookodile DEX

This tech probably isn’t as legitimate as the others, but I feel like giving it a shout-out. What it does is that it has an attack called Bombast that does 40 damage for each prize card you’ve taken. What this does is that if you’ve already taken five prizes, it will OHKO anything barring Wailord with Giant Cape and Regigigas EX/Tornadus EX with Asperita City Gym and either Eviolite or Giant Cape.

This pretty much cancels the need for a game-winning Catcher because you have a card that can OHKO everything meta regardless. However, the attack costs four energy (Two Darks included) and in any Darkrai deck you’re likely to have extra Night Spear damage somewhere that can be moved around with the most likely better Dusknoir tech. So unless you’re playing some weird Zoroark variant, Dusknoir is likely the better call if you have the Darks to make playing Krookodile somewhat reasonable.

However, it does have a cool shiny version from Dragons Exalted, so for league play if you want to use your shiny Krookodile you can.

Bronzong NXD

This would be the anti-Max Potion tech that the format needs so much. It has existed, but it’s always been Catcher bait. However, with Ditto a 1-1 Bronzong NXD tech could turn your Hydreigon match in the right direction seeing as they need to attack with Hydreigon to OHKO unless they have a Dark Claw, and if you can hit the Hydreigon somehow first they will have to either retreat and not OHKO Bronzong and instead try to Night Spear it to death, and even then you can either power up a Raikou or other sniper or Catcher it out. If they only have one Hydreigon in play this could win you the game.

Leavanny NVI

Leavanny is probably not the best tech you can play, but it certainly has its ups.

Imagine you’re playing Hydreigon/Darkrai and your opponent is playing Terrakion EX/Terrakion with at least 2 Tool Scrapper. You’re not going to be able to keep your Eviolites when you need them, so what do you do? Get your Leavanny out. Leavanny will single-handedly win you the matchup against any deck with Terrakion if you manage to get it out, and it also makes benching Cresselia/Mewtwo/etc. a less risky decision. However, it isn’t something I’d recommend unless your meta is full of Terrakion.

Reuniclus BW

Reuniclus is an interesting tech, and I can see a couple of uses for it. Imagine you’re playing Blastoise/Keldeo, and you need to heal your Keldeos. Reuniclus can give you a turn or two of invincibility before it gets Catcher-killed, and you can put the damage pretty much anywhere you want, meaning that the damage you have in play can be spread out to 10 or 20 everywhere and likely not making any difference. Since Reuniclus is going to get Catcher-killed anyway, you won’t get your field flooded.

Another play is that if your opponent uses all four Catcher, you can Transform-Rare Candy-Reuniclus and gain invincibility until they either use a Ninetales, Junk Hunt, or your field floods.

You should probably put 80 damage on Reuniclus itself unless you’re playing against Darkrai, Chandelure, or Flygon, because the Reuniclus is going to get knocked out, so you may as well heal 80 (Even if your opponent has used all of their Catcher, it’s still the safe play).

Reuniclus is certainly an interesting tech, but it will likely take a back seat to Dusknoir and Ninetales, and other preferred Ditto techs. It’s something to experiment with in any deck that plays the Ditto and Rare Candy already, and it may end up being the tech you like the most.

Empoleon DEX

Empoleon is basically a draw engine if you get it out. If you run Waters or Blends for Attack Command it’s useful too, but Empoleon is mostly just a way to discard useless cards and get out of N lock.

However, this is a lot more useful than that paragraph makes it out to be. N lock can be the difference between a clutch win and a devastating loss. Hand-reliant decks that play Ditto and Rare Candy such as Blastoise and GothGor should definitely consider Empoleon as a tech to not only provide a draw engine to get out of N lock but to also to use Attack Command in clutch spots.

Salamence DV

Salamence was probably the only hyped Pokemon from Dragon Vault unless you count Rayquaza, but it probably isn’t going to live up to the hype. However, it does make for an interesting 1-0-1 tech for its Ability. While you don’t have Hooligan’s or other things to reduce it more, forcing your opponent to discard until they have four is really good, especially if you force them to draw cards somehow. However, there are much better techs to use, and Salamence is probably best used as a fun thing for league.

Milotic DRX

Milotic is an interesting tech because it’s not for the late game, but instead more of an early game set-up assister. Having a triple Computer Search can be great for slow decks and it’s something I would consider in any slow deck.

However, starting with a 30 HP Feebas isn’t something I would look forward to.

Shiftry NXD

Giant Fan.

Oh, god. This would be hilarious if someone pulled this off. However, Shiftry’s flippyness makes it unviable for anything other than league play.

But it would be hilarious if someone pulled off a Giant Fan. I think I’ll play a 1-0-1 line at league just for the lolz (However, I don’t think I’ll ever top my Carnivine DEX tech in Hydreigon)

Toxicroak BoC

Toxicroak is like a Psychic-type Terrakion, except it uses any energy. This is great against Mewtwo if you manage to surprise your opponent with it, because it will OHKO any non-Eviolited Mewtwo and with a PlusPower or Tool Scrapper you can get around that.

Toxicroak is an interesting tech in any deck that has a hard time against Mewtwo, and the surprise factor works really well with it. I think I’m gonna test Toxicroak a bit in some decks, and you certainly should too.

Chandelure NVI

Chandelure is another interesting tech that would see zero play without Ditto. I felt it was worth a mention, but as I described it I thought of more and more uses for it and now I think I’m gonna try it out.

Remember back in the day when Kingdra Prime was considered a tech? Well, this is like a triple Kingdra Prime when you can somehow get it active, whether it’s via knockout, or whatever. A Chandelure tech combined with Night Spear can get the OHKO on more things and it can also get knockouts on the bench, and it’s also useful for knocking out EX’s with either Dragon Blast alone or extra Night Spear damage, and it can serve as the single or triple PlusPower you need for the knockout when your active gets killed. And because Hydreigon can give anything free retreat, it’s no big deal to get it out of the way.

It’s also useful in Blastoise because whenever you need extra damage you can either retreat or use a Switch if you play it, and go to Chandelure, get extra damage on the board, and Step In. I could see someone playing either Hydreigon or Blastoise variants with a 1-0-1 or 2-0-2 Chandelure line just because of the lack of need to worry about retreating Chandelure.

Vanilluxe NXD

Vanilluxe is probably going to be another rarely-played one, but I can see people liking a Warp Point a turn. Not only is Vanilluxe a free Switch whenever you need it, meaning that it’s not only whatever you want active when you want it and an out of special conditions, but it also puts pressure on the opponent. For instance, let’s say you’re playing against Darkrai/Hydreigon and they just whiffed the Max Potion and only have two Darkrais out. They are forced to either promote the damaged Darkrai, give you a free hit at their Hydreigon (Remember that they whiffed the Max Potion last turn, which means they only have one hand to get it if any unless they Skyla for it),or give you a free prize on a Sableye or something else with low HP, and you can always Catcher something else up if you don’t like what they gave you.

Drifblim DRX

Drifblim is an interesting tech that I would consider in any metagame with a bunch of Special Energy, because it can hit really hard once some hit the discard pile. It is a good tech in either Hammertime or Garchomp decks because they both run cards that discard Special Energy. When you get 3 Special Energy in the discard pile suddenly Drifblim is swinging for 150, and with Enhanced Hammer and Mach Cut you can usually discard your opponent’s specials. Now with Ditto it’s more of a surprise tech and you can get away with a 1-1 line if you can hide it.

Well, that wraps up this article. You guys know I like when you leave comments, so any discussion is welcome. I’ll try to get another article out sometime this week. So ta-ta for now, and I’ll try to get something out soon.

Budget Zoroark: Cheap Tournament Pokemon Deck Undefeated (For Real This Time)

Here’s my quick tourney report from Outpost 2000 yesterday. Ava had a birthday party to attend at a waterpark sort of place, so she didn’t join us. I got Petra to play, though. Apart from that, the big news was that another fellow joined us. Some of you may remember the days when this site was named www.TeamOmar.com. Well, the team’s namesake, Omar, graced us with his presence. I handed him my Quad Terrakion deck (for which he had to scrounge 4 Terrakion).

Petra ran Ava’s Donphan deck. It’s a pretty simplified deck, and I simplified it even further for Petra. Essentially, it runs 4 Virizion as a starter. On turn 1, you attach an energy there and Double Draw. On turn 2, you bring up Donphan and start attacking. Yeah, there’s more to do that that, but not a whole lot more.

I ran the “Budget Zoroark” deck. The list I ran can be found in the Cheapest Pokemon Deck article.

Round 1: Guy From Saint Cloud with Tornadus EX, Regigigas EX, and Beartic (Petra Vs. Paul) Read More

Budget Zoroark: Cheapest Pokemon Deck At $35

It says $70. I say $35.
I don’t know where I get these titles. I’m sure you can make a cheaper deck, but this will beat it (unless it’s Fighting type). Also, $35 is just the Troll ‘n’ Toad price divided by 2. I dunno if you can get the cards for that price, but I’m pretty sure you could get close.

I’ve been working on this deck lately, and I think this is the best route to take it. I have now added 4 Rescue Energy. They really help the deck recover, and the deck just has to be doing 120+ damage every turn. If you miss a turn of damage, you’re on track to lose.

To assist with this recovery, I experimented with DCE, but it just doesn’t cut it. The problem is that the deck usually needs a 1st turn Ascension. Ascension requires darkness energy. If you have 4 Rescue and 4 DCE, you’re diluting the dark energy pool too much. Sometimes you can get away without the Ascension, like if you draw into Zoroark right away, but it’s usually key.

After adding the 4 Rescue, I also ended up dropping the Special Dark energy. The deck started life running 4 Special Dark and 4 Plus Power (on top of the Dark Claw). This early build could often do 150+ damage right off the bat. Well, if you can do 120 damage, you can still usually 2shot anything even Eviolited. It is a bit sad that you will now miss the OHKOs on Eviolited 130HP basics, but the deck just has to have a semi-consistent way of getting 2 energy in a turn. I already discussed why I think DCE can’t make the list, so Dark Patch is our alternative. To fuel Dark Patch, you need basic dark, and you have to discard them early to make it work.
Read More

Budget Zoroark: Undefeated

Yeah, you read that title right.  This deck was undefeated.  You might think that means I won a Victory Cup, but the operative word in the sentence is “WAS.”

So, if you’re following along, I built this deck for my daughter.  Then, I decided it would be a good OneHitKO.com Budget Challenge deck.  She wasn’t ready to play it, so I slightly tweaked it for myself and decided to take it to Battle Roads.

Here’s the list I ran.  I’ll go over my matches, and then discuss how the deck can be improved.
Read More

OneHitKO.com Budget Challenge: Zoroark Rush Deck

Win games for just $31!

Last time we did the OneHitKO.com Challenge, things didn’t go quite as planned. At the end, I discussed doing some sort of budget challenge the next time around. Well, things again didn’t go as planned and real life took its toll. I didn’t quite get around to working out a real challenge for the rest of you to participate in, but I do have something going on anyway.

Last time I wrote about how I was getting my 5-year-old into the Pokemon tournament scene. Well, I don’t think she’s quite ready, but I have been working on a deck for her. Interestingly enough, I think it’s a great deck for the OneHitKO.com Budget Challenge. Depending on the incarnation, I think you can purchase the deck at a place like Troll And Toad for anywhere from $30 to $90. If you already have some cards (which most of us do), or if you can trade/buy some cards locally or at cheaper places (like scrounging eBay for deals), I think you can easily cut those figures in half.
Read More

Jordan’s Rogue Way and a Worlds Decklist

Hey everybody, my name is Jordan Baker. I’m 22 years old, I live in Michigan, and I’m a founding member of Team Warp Point. I’ve been playing Pokemon for just about two years now and you’ve probably never heard of me. My biggest accomplishment is making it to the top 16 round two years in a row with stupid ridiculous decks. Stupid, funny, quirky, gimmicky decks are sort of my specialty. I don’t really like playing meta decks and I despised SP decks with a passion when they were in format. However, I won’t play a deck just because it’s rogue, I also want it to be good.

I’m going to give you a really quick recap of some of the decks I’ve played over the past two years and then discuss my current deck that I’ll be playing for Worlds this year.

My love affair with rogue decks started last year at Regional’s.  Jumpluff had just come out and I decided that I wanted to play it. There were a lot of other people playing Jumpluff at regional’s, but most of these were JumpLux variants relying on Luxray G. Lv. X. My list played a heavy Sunflora line, and 3-2-3 Metagross LA, which has a built in Pokemon reversal in the form of a Poke-Power. For some reason the deck worked and I made it into the top cut, and past the round of 32 before being eliminated in the top 16 by JumpLux.

After regional’s we got Unleashed and my Nationals deck was born. I played Blastzel with 3-3 Floatzel and 3-3 Claydol. I started out 4-0 at Nationals before running into a Luxchomp list running Entei Raikou Legend. I had four Pokemon with 80 HP in play and my opponent took 4 prizes in one turn with Thunder Fall. I figured that ERL was going to be pretty rare and I went on with my day. Unfortunately my next opponent also played ERL and was able to pull of a quintuple KO. Needless to say, I wasn’t having a good day. I lost another game somewhere down the line and ended up dropping.

Probably my proudest rogue moment was playing Rampardos (PL) at this year’s regional championships. Nobody had a clue what Rampardos did or how to play against it. If I went second I was often hitting for 80 1st turn for just one energy. It had a surprisingly good Luxchomp match-up and I ended up making top cut. I beat a DonChamp deck in top 32 before running into my work nightmare in the round of 16. Mesprit. Rampardos relied heavily on Uxie drops and Unown R’s to get rolling as well as my own Mesprit and Crobat drops. My opponent’s Mesprit drops destroyed that plan.

OK, enough talking about out of format rogue decks that nobody cares about, or ever cared about. Onto what everybody actually wants to see.

Below you will see a different take on Stage 1 Rush. This is a list that myself and my brother Evan Baker have been testing for the past month.

Decklist? Decklist.

Pokemon T/S/S Energy
4 Yanma
3 Yanmega Prime
3 Zorua
3 Zoroark
3 Chinchou
3 Lanturn Prime
1 Pachirisu Cl
1 Cleffa
4 PONT
3 Copycat
2 Juniper
4 Communication
4 Reversal
3 Junk Arm
1 Switch
1 Pokegear
1 SSU
8 Lightning
4 DCE

In our testing this deck has a favorable matchup against just about everything except Yanmega/Magnezone. which is probably 40/60 unless you can get a good start and consistent energy drops.

I know many of you are going to be looking at Lanturn Prime and wondering why it’s in there. In actuality, it’s an awesome card right now and definitely overlooked. For a DCE and 1 lightning Lanturn OHKO’s just about everything that is big right now. Donphan, Reshiram, Yanmega, Typhlosion, Kingdra, etc. That much versatility in a single Pokemon is pretty impressive. Sure it get’s OHKO’d by some of these Pokemon too, but only Donphan is quicker and a smart player with this list should easily be able to outplay the traditional Stage 1 rush list. Being able to hit for two different weaknesses is really nice. 

Pachi is in here for the Magnezone matchup. A well-timed Pachi drop allows you to OHKO a Magnezone without your opponent ever seeing it coming. It is also useful in the rare occasion when you need to add a couple extra damage to Lanturn’s Powerful Spark attack. Super Scoop Up and Junk arm allow you to use this tactic multiple times if necessary.

The rest of the deck is pretty self-explanatory. It definitely takes some skill but the versatility of this deck allows you to outplay your opponents in a format that is basically luck based/attach and attack right now.

Who knows if this deck will still be viable when the new set comes out. It’s basically a Meta-counter right now so it really just depends on what the Meta is in a month’s time. Catcher will definitely help this deck. Everything retreats for cheap and reversal is already a huge aspect of the strategy.

Hopefully the deck works out at Worlds. I’ll be grinding in and Evan has an invite, so I guess we’ll see what happens.

This article is part of OneHitKO’s Guest Writer Week for August 2011. Please check out all the articles in the series, and please give the authors your feedback in the comment section below.

  1. Michael’s article about upcoming Japanese cards.
  2. Radu’s article about his Mew/Muk/Jumpluff/Vileplume deck and how it can be made better.
  3. Pooka introduces Worlds 2011.
  4. Alan’s article about how to run a Pokemon league.
  5. Jay. H takes a look at past formats of the game.
  6. Jordan’s article about running rogue decks and his worlds decklist.

That concludes our our first Guest Writer Week. Thanks to you authors and readers for making it a success! Hopefully we can do it again soon.

Pokemon Black & White Mall Tour @ Mall of America

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 see some of the stuff we zoomed by before, so we headed back to wait in line to play the new videogame. In line just ahead of us was a loud group of Team Rocket cosplay girls and a bit behind us was the Lesky crew (with Troy sporting a new tattoo which I should have captured on film). All the cosplayers were one of the more interesting attractions of the day, actually. It gave the event a fun and friendly feel.

Speaking of cosplay, we ran into Umbreon along the way. After the event, I looked him up. Apricot the Gerbil had a password giveaway, which was quite cool. Ava really appreciates the Mew bouncy ball she received.

Oh yeah, at one point, we headed back to get our noon movie tickets. We were informed that they ran out. All they had was 2:00 ones. Well, Ava had to be at a hockey game at 4:15, so that wouldn’t work. We found a young couple of Pokemon trainers before leaving and donated our 2PM tix to them. Hopefully they had a good time at the movie.

We did finally meet up with our friends, but we were all done with the stamping by then. We walked around with them and ended up meeting Grumpig. When we decided to leave, they went to wait in line for the wheel spin. Man, that line was LONG. I’m so glad we bolted through the stamp process early.

Here are our pictures. It was fun. States is coming up on Saturday. I’m definitely not prepared.