One Hit KO

We’ve been doing this Wednesday evening Pokemon thing for a while. It usually oscillates between Abdi’s house and mine. Omar and I are always there, and other team members are usually playing, too. Well, last night marked the last time that Omar will attend the weekly meeting. He’s going away to college. When I left, I could see it in him that he was a bit emotional about it. I didn’t shake his hand or give him a hug or anything. My coldness wasn’t entirely related to the fact that Meghan just relentlessly and repeatedly pummeled me with her Shuppet deck. I just didn’t know how to react, I guess.

On my drive home, though, I was kinda depressed. It’s been a good ride, and I feel like it’s coming to an end. I started to reminisce about the past year. When I left, I told Omar to have a good trip and have fun at college. What’s that? That doesn’t mean anything. So, I thought I’d write this, and he (and I) could keep it as an archive of what Team Omar once was.

Continue reading "History, Death, Rebirth? (or How to Con Your Way Onto a Pokemon Team)"

Hello there to all members of Omar Nation. This is Pikkdogs here to Pikk three cards.  This weeks “Pikk Three” will  be a little bit different.  Instead of highlighting a popular card, an underused card, and a new card; I will instead review 3 cards that have the same theme.

This weeks theme is “Hand Refresh,” so if your looking for a card that can help your deck recover from bad hands hopefully you will find what you are looking for here.

Just for clarification a Hand Refreshing Pokemon is a Pokemon that has an attack that allows you to draw cards.  It is kind of like a starting Pokemon because it speeds your deck up, but it is mostly used towards the middle of the game, whereas a starter is used right away. A hand refresher also normally takes only 1 slot in your deck, where as a person normally runs 4 starting Pokemon.  Having a card that can refresh your hand is really important if you have a bad start, it is sometimes worth sacrificing a Pokemon.

Card #1 Chatot Md

Description– Chatot is basic normal type Pokemon with 60 HP.  He has free retreat, a +20 lightning weakness, and a fighting resistance. It has two attacks.  The first is called “Mimic”, this attack has no cost lets you shuffle your hand into your deck and draw as many cards as your opponent has.  Its second attack is called “Chatter,”  this attack does 20 damage and prevents your opponent from retreating for CC.

Analysis– Of all the hand refreshers in the format right now, there is no doubt that Chatot is the most popular.  He is most often found in SP and Jumpluff decks.  “Mimic” is a great attack that lets you shuffle your hand into your deck and draw a new hand with the same amount of cards as your opponent, which makes it like the supporter “Copycat.”

Continue reading "Pikkdogs Pikks Three: Chatot Md, Plusle SV, Manaphy Ul."

Hello to all in Omar-Nation.  This is Pikkdogs here with another Deck Workshop.

Like many of you out there I am working on post-rotation decks.  I have had little success getting a successful draw engine for a stage 2 deck out of Uxie La, so I tried something different.  This deck uses Ninetails HGSS for a draw engine, which I find to be more consistent then Uxie La in stage 2 decks.                             

Now that I had my draw engine set I just needed a main attacker.  The most popular combo with Ninetails is Chariard Ar, but this has been done too much and is a little slow because of the fact that if you use Uxie La you then lose damage on each of Charizard’s attacks.  So I looked at other Fire type Pokemon and Normal Pokemon.  I saw a deck with Regigas and Mesprit that I liked, but I didn’t like the fact that Regigias’s best attack has a metal, fighting, and water requirement.  Next, I looked at Garchomp SV.

Garchomp …

First of all, I want to make it clear that I’m not trying to rip anyone’s idea off. It should be obvious to anyone that reads SixPrizes regularly that this “Egg-Meg” idea was from the recent Egg-Meg: Optimism for new seasons article by doeigts.

The basis of the deck isn’t completely novel. I mean, the idea of pairing these two cards that came out in the same set should have been considered by many. The same powers have been around since base set. Base Set Venusaur’s “Energy Trans” Pokemon Power does the same thing as Meganium Prime’s “Leaf Trans,” and Blissey Prime’s “Blissful Nurse” Poke-POWER does the same thing as the Base Set Pokemon Center trainer card. You can see that the themes are nothing new. In fact, I played a deck that centered around Chansey, Alakazam, and Pokemon Center in a recent unlimited tournament. It has the same idea, except that it moves damage to an energyless Pokemon, while this Egg-Meg deck moves energy to an undamaged Pokemon. The Alakazam deck I played recently was based off a deck that my wife used to play back in Base Set. When I saw the HGSS cards, I thought about …

Hello to all members of Omar Nation.  This is your buddy Pikkdogs here to tell you about three cards; one which is a card commonly played, one which I feel is under-rated, and one from a new or un-released set.

It is that time of the year, when the players who’ve had a great season pack up to go to worlds, and when the rest of us test our new post-rotation decks.  I hope all of you out there who are not going to worlds are having a better time at building post-rotation decks then I am.  I’m getting tired of all my decks starting really fast and then stalling out on turn 4 or 5.  But, I guess if success was easy it wouldn’t be as sweet.  So I hope that those of us who are having problems will soldier on and eventually find something that works.  Maybe you will find something while I “Pikk” three.                                          

The Staple- Machamp SF

Description: Machamp is a stage 2 Pokemon with 130 HP, a +30 psychic weakness, a 2 retreat cost and 3 attacks.  His most popular attack is “Takeout,” which does 40 damage for 1 fighting energy and knocks out the defending Pokemon if it is an unevolved Pokemon.  His second attack is called “Hurricane Punch”, costs CC, and does 30 damage times the number of heads once you flip 4 coins.  His final attack  called “Rage”, costs FFCC, and does 60 damage plus 10 more each damage counter on Machamp.

Analysis– Well if you want some versatility and brute force Machamp can give it to you.  Machamp has been a very important card ever since the Platinum series came out and introduced SP Pokemon.  This is because Machamp can knock out every SP Pokemon (except Toxicroak G Pt) for just 1 fighting energy.  Talk about a good SP counter!

Machamp decks, with Flygon RR, did very well at Worlds last year and in this years Fall Battle Roads.  But Machamp had fallen out of favor around Cities last year because of the popularity of Unown g, which can cancel out the effect of “Takeout”.  But now Unown g is getting rotated out of the format, so Machamp is once again a Pokemon to be feared.
Continue reading "Pikkdogs Pikks Three: Machamp SF, Super Scoop Up, and Vileplume Undaunted"

A big hello to all of you in Omar-Nation.  This is Pikkdogs here with a deck workshop.

Before we get started I would like to talk a little about Twitter.  I loved hearing you guys tweet during Nationals, and because of that I decided to get into Twitter more.  I have started to tweet about my decks and have found a couple of other people who do the same.  So if you are on twitter I would love to have you follow me and hopefully we can converse about the game.  Also, if you know anyone in the game who tweets also about it, please let me know.  My user name on there is “Pikkdogs.”

Like most of you, I am currently working on getting my decks post-rotation ready.  Some of my decks are working well, and some aren’t.  One that I am kind of on the fence about is Gyarados.

Just a small run through the strategy of the deck for all the new-comers.  Gyarados decks try to discard three Magikarps by turn 2 and then promote a Gyarados SF to do 90 damage with its “Tail Revenge” attack.  To get the karps in the discard pile, most people …

Here’s my report from the master’s division at this year’s Nationals.

First, a little about the event. My daughter and I have been planning to attend Nationals this year ever since we failed to go last year. We knew we were golden when we convinced my wife to come along and treat it like a family vacation. The drive from Michigan was easy, about 5 hours, and we made it with plenty of time to get the early registration t-shirts. We didn’t really grasp the scale of the event until Friday morning though.

The venue was gigantic, easily the biggest single room I have been in for a long time (in fact I am having difficulty recalling another time when I was in a room this size.) There are tons of people milling about. There are people in line for the Video Game Tournament. There are side rooms with vendors, open playing, and just hanging out. In the main room there are separate sections for each of the age groups, one for league play and side events, one for eating with tables and one for the video game stuff too.

Throughout the weekend we see people we know from Michigan …