One Hit KO

Following the fun I had playing a rogue SP based deck at Cities this Fall, I decided to try something similar for States. This time my deck is based around the synergy between Blaziken FB Lv.X and Blaziken PL. My Cities deck had a 1 – 1 tech line of Blaziken FB and I found it was very powerful and could get KOs when you need them. I decided to use Blaze as the basis of my deck. A full deck writeup is forthcoming so I won’t go into the details here. This article is primarily to report my day and the games that I played.

This year the event is in Lansing and we have a good turn out; 74 players in the Masters age division. This means 7 rounds in swiss with a top-cut of 16. I’m at the venue just before registration opens and find a Jimmy Johns nearby and buy my lunch. I’ve learned from experience to be prepared for long rounds and no breaks, so having food on-hand makes that one less thing to worry about. This year my buddy ‘Pinch’ decided to play and we meet up in line to register, do a quick deck check and sit down to a warm up game.

All my PokeFriends are rolling in; Pikkdogs, Evan, Collan, Cody, Ryan and the rest of Team Warp Point, Ryan, Ryan, Joel, Hunter and some folks that I always talk to but don’t know on a first name basis. It’s great to see everyone and to see the anticipation of good tournament on their faces.

The judges call the room to attention, lay out the rules and all of the announcements then give us the go ahead for round 1; the day is underway!

Continue reading "Playing with fire at the Michigan State championship, 2011"

Hello everyone in Omar Nation! This is Joel here with a report on the Michigan State Championships that took place over the weekend in Lansing, Michigan.

Before I go on any further with my report, I’d like to thank Pikkdogs and the rest of the Team Omar staff for inviting me to write for you guys. Here is a little bit about myself, I have been playing since the Base Set, took a hiatus when the first e-reader set came out, then got back into the game around Diamond and Pearl. But enough about me, let’s go on with the article!

I decided to run Luxchomp for this event because that was the deck I felt most comfortable with. Luxchomp has an excellent track record and hasn’t really disappointed me. I’ll post my deck list at the end of the article. For this event, there were 76 Masters, with 7 rounds and a top 16 cut.

Round 1 vs Marvin P with Luxchomp

My first round match was a mirror. I have never met Marvin before but our pre-game talks give off the impression that he is a really nice guy. The game starts and I go first. I start with an Ambipom G and a Bronzong G on my bench, with a Double Colorless Energy, Energy Gain, and Cyrus in my hand. He has a Garchomp C active, Luxray GL and Dialga G on his bench. I go first and get a quick knockout first turn with Ambipom’s “Snap Attack”. He goes, benches a Crobat G, and uses Flash Bite to drop a damage counter on my Bronzong G, then passes. I draw, and get a Pokemon Collector. I get Uxie, Luxray GL and Crobat G. I drop Crobat, Flash bite his Crobat, attach a lightning energy to Luxray, then Snap Attack his active Luxray for 60. He goes, draws, and attaches to his active Luxray and passes. It seems he didn’t have anything playable in his hand, which is odd because there is usually something playable. I Poke-turn my Ambipom and Crobat, I flash bite his Bronzong, and promote Luxray to Bright Look his Crobat. I bite to get a 2 prize lead. It was after this turn that the game started to go downhill for me. He finally draws a Cyrus which allows him to catch up. I made my terrible misplay here as I played Professor Oak’s New Theory over Cyrus, and end up getting a terrible hand followed by terrible draws. He finally catches up and gets a prize lead over me. As soon as he gets his prize lead, time is called. After realizing that there isn’t much I can do in the next 3 turns, I scoop and get a terrible case of the first round jitters. It was a good game though.
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Continue reading "Another Michigan State Championships Report!"

I got back into the game a bit over a year ago, because I thought it would be something that my daughter, Ava, would be into. We started during Cities last season, which didn’t go so hot. By the time States preparation rolled around, though, I knew I needed a new deck, and I chose Gyarados based on several factors. After making that choice, I started looking for the right combination of cards for the meta, and that’s how I got in contact with Austino.

At the time, Team Omar was meeting almost weekly, so I got plenty of practice and experience against multiple decks. With Austino‘s deck help and Team Omar’s playtesting help, I was able to ride Gyarados to 5th place after Swiss in the 2010 MN State Championship. I then dropped before top cut, but it was a decision that I always wondered about. Should I have canceled my other plans? Should I have stayed and played. I felt like my top-8 matchup was favorable, and I think I could have made top4.

This season saw Omar depart the state and with him went the regular playtesting sessions. I hung onto Gyarados and still kept in contact with Austino, but I started playing much less Pokemon. Andy (the reigning State Champion) and I got together to try to get a regular playtesting thing going. It worked well, but as time went on the regular turned into irregular and seemed to fall apart completely in the month leading up to States.

I had thought of switching to a new deck. I had planned on making a new deck for Ava. I had even considered rebuilding Gyarados for Ava and coming up with something completely new for myself. With my hobbytime focus diverted to other things for a while, none of this happened. I decided that I would once again lean on my old pals Magikarp and Gyarados to get me through. I’m a big believer in playing what you’re comfortable with, and this tale just further solidifies my stance, but we’ll get more into that as things unfold.

Continue reading "Gyarados ReRocks Minnesota State Championships (1st Place)"

One of my favorite quotes by Jesus is in Matthew 26 verse 52

“For those who take the sword, will perish by the sword.” (English Standard Version, 2001).

And you say, “Pikkdogs this is a Pokemon site not Sunday School, why are you talking about this verse?”

It is a verse that sums up my day at the 2011 Michigan State Championships.  I tried to live by the sword, but I ended up dying by it.  

The event was held at the Radisson in downtown Lansing, Mi.  We normally play the states out in the burbs, so being in an urban area was kind of a shock.  Besides some parking issues, this new venue wasn’t too bad, although the playing area is smaller than in our previous location.

I decided to play Uxie donk for this event, there were many reasons why I chose this.  1. I was tired of getting pushed around by Luchomp, so I thought I’d play something that could beat it. 2.  Radu wrote a great article on this site that told people how to play the deck in a very easy to learn matter.  With a couple reads through this article I felt I …

Hey all members of Omar-Nation.  This is Pikkdogs here with a strategy article.  This seems like a very simple article to write, but it took me a while to come up with the idea.  This article is about the simple rules of the Pokemon TCG that I have learned in the game.  These rules are tips and tricks I have learned that helped me become a better Pokemon Player.  The rules may be simple, but they are trustworthy practices that will help you win more games.

Before we get to the rules, I just wanna remind you of the State Tournaments that are starting this weekend.  Well, State tournaments are starting this weekend.  Even if your state isn’t holding a tournament this weekend, try to sneak across the border to get to another tournament.  They will be a lot of fun and a great way to show off all of your skills.

I have to give mad props to Omar on this article.  This is because most of the simple rules that I have written down here, were taught to me by Omar.  Although he has not played as much since he moved to California, Omar is still one heck …

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 …

[youtube width=”640″ height=”480″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrQsskW2k08[/youtube]

This week, I go over all you need to know about what to expect at States! I’ll give you the ins and outs of pretty much every deck you will encounter including changes post-Call of Legends and how to play against them all.

Let’s hope this ultimate guide helps you to decide what to run at States.

Thanks for watching.
Continue reading "PokemanDan’s PokeClass Episode 22 – The “State” of the Game!"

Hey Everyone.  This is Pikkdogs here to talk about Tanks in the Pokemon TCG.  In military terms, a tank refers to a heavily armored, slow moving, and hard hitting vehicle.  In reference to the Pokemon TCG, a tank is a Pokemon card that has high HP, is usually slow to setup, and can deal a lot of damage.  This article is all about tanking Pokemon. 

Tanking Pokemon are pretty cool.  They can absorb a lot of damage and deal it right back to your opponent.  The problem is the fact that they are fairly slow and hard to evolve.

So what are some of the strategies that you can use with tanks?  Well, each tanking card is different, but for the most part you would want to get the tank out as fast as possible and then heal the tank.  Healing can be done with cards like Pokehealer +, MooMoo Milk, and Blissey Pt.

Currently in the game there are a lot of Pokemon who can be considered tanks.  Here is a profile of some of the more interesting ones.

Tank #1- Dialga G Lv. X

Description– Dialga G Lv. X is possibly the smallest yet most played tank.  …

Hello everyone! Pikkdogs has asked me to be a part of the Team Omar community! And I’m very excited to do so. I figure the best thing to do is to start by introducing myself!

Hey, I’m Renae. I collect Pokémon cards.

I’ve only been doing so seriously for a few months now. If you know my boyfriend, JWittz, then you may know that we’ve played a big role in each others’ involvement in Pokémon. In high school, some of our peers started playing their old Game Boy Color Pokémon games and it spread all over school. Who would have thought, right? So we both decided to whip out our old games. I started playing Pokémon Yellow because I had always been a Pikachu fan, and Josh played Pokémon Red. It was our “gateway drug”, so to speak, into the world of Pokémon. (Of course we played it and had cards as kids, but this was serious stuff for two high schoolers :P)

So Pokémon Yellow and Red led to Pokémon Diamond and Pearl. At first, I was turned off by the newer generation Pokémon. In fact, until we started playing those games, I didn’t even know that many Pokémon …