One Hit KO

Hey all you OHKOers out there, this is Pikkdogs here.  Recently it came to my attention that I have passed the 100 article mark.  I waited till now to celebrate it because I didn’t want to start this during our Nationals coverage.  But now that Nationals is out of the way, we can party down.

To celebrate my 100th post, this article will be special.  It contains information about a contest, short biography, an excerpt of my interview featured in the upcoming issue of The Rolling Stone, and some other fun stuff.

The Contest

Last winter we had a contest for the first anniversary of the site.  That contest didn’t go so well, so I thought I would try it again.  Perhaps the last contest was a little too difficult, so this contest will be easy.  All you have to do is send an email to “pikkdogs@teamomar.com.”  In this email we ask you to tell us something you like, or do not like about the website.  Thats all you have to do.  Everyone who submits a successful entry, will get their name placed into a drawing.  When the contest is over, I will select two names at random.  The winners will each receive one www.onehitko.com t-shirt, just like the ones that Team Omar wore at nationals.  The shirt is an exclusive just for this contest, it features Zekrom on the front of the shirt, remember this is the only time we will be offering these.

Again, to win, all you have to do is send an email to “pikkdogs@teamomar.com” by midnight on Sunday July 24th.  Unfortunately, because of shipping costs, we will not be able to send prizes outside of the contiguous United States.  We also ask that you only send one email per person.  Of cours, we reserve the right to change the contest at any time, although we do not see this situation happening.

The Bio

It recently came to my attention that when I never told you guys anything about me when I started writing on this website.  So I figure after 100 articles, I can probably start the introduction.

I am a 24 year old who currently lives in the Detroit, Mi area, but was born and raised in a little town in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan called Wakefield.  I recently graduated with a Masters in Library and Information Science, and currently work as a librarian in a Seminary in Detroit.

I started playing the game when it first came out.  My friends Frank and Jerry picked up the game as well and all three of us learned how to play together.  Frank and Jerry were okay players, however, I was not.  They beat me in cards a couple times before they got tired of playing against me.  I eventually lost touch with the game,  because I didn’t really have the funds to play a TCG back then.

Then in Februrary of 2009 I  was sitting at my apartment being bored.  My roomate had just left for a card tournament, and I started thinking that I should start a hobby as well.  At first I wanted to play Magic like them, but nasty memories of Frank and Jerry popped into my mind.  So, I started thinking of other hobbies, while I was watching TV.  I clicked through a couple channels until I found an old Pokemon movie on.  At first I just watched the movie for a while, I started to think about the TCG and how fun it was.  I decided to check if it was still around, it was.

I will leave any other biographical information for the Rolling Stone interview, but that is basically all you need to know about me.  I am not a great player, my biggest accomplishments are finishing in the top 8 at Michigan States 2010 and finishing this season ranked 9th in the very competitive state of Michigan.  I do not have the laundry list of accomplishments that other writers have, but I am an experienced writer who has a lot to offer beginners.  I love writing on this site to help others and to connect with other players.  It was nice seeing all you guys at Nats this year, and hope I can connect with more of you at other tournaments.

The Rolling Stone Excerpt

Below is an excerpt from my upcoming interview with the guys from Rolling Stone magazine.

Thanks for coming in for the interview Pikkdogs, what inspired you to write for www.onehitko.com?

Great to be here guys.  Actually ever since I started playing this game I have been writing.  I didn’t start writing for Ed and the guys until I was about a year into it, but I wrote from day one.  I started with small stuff like “Card of the Day’s” on Pokegym.  Then I honed my Pokemon skills by helping people with their decklists on www.pojo.biz.  I responded to so many posts on there that it wasn’t even funny, it was time consuming but it helped me hone my skills.  All of that writing led me to write my first article on www.sixprizes.com.  Ed contacted me because of that article, and we could say the rest was history.  But, if anyone out there wants to be a Pokemon writer I would say to start small on stuff like cards of the day, and work your way up.

You get a lot of negative feedback and some might say you don’t get the respect from a lot of other people in the community that other writers do.  What is your response to that.

Well, I guess any respect I get has to be earned I don’t think I have earned respect on the top tables like people like J-Wittz has, so it just make sense that he is more respected than me.  If you look at the 6P Underground they have writers with 100 times better credentials than I do.  That part doesn’t bother me.  As for the negative feedback, a lot of it is deserved, I’m not the best player or writer so it’s good to be put back into your place once in a while.  But, a lot of the negative feedback is just haters hating, and you just gotta ignore that.  I know I do good at what I do, that’s all that matters.

You have had a lot of epic matches in your 2 year career, what would you say was your best match.

Wow, there were so many good ones, that its hard to pick just one.  I can say that some of my buddies like Robert Hall have given me great matches.  One especially great one was against fellow writer Joel Howe and his SP deck at a BR this year.  I played a Vilegar deck and narrowly took him down in the first round.  But, I gotta say the match I am most proud of was my top 16 match at Michigan States 2010.  I had barely squeaked into Top Cut as the 16 seed, and my real close friend Jona had skunked the competition on his way to an undefeated record.  I came into the game just feeling lucky to be around when I saw Jona who was confident after his recent win at a Cities tournament.  I didn’t think I would have a shot, but I was able to beat him in straight games to move on in the tournament.

What was your favorite deck to play?

I gotta say it was at that same State tournament when I played Flyperior.  The object of the deck was to mill your opponent’s deck by discarding cards with Flygon X’s Poke-Body and Rhyperior DP’s Poke-Power.  It was a real unique deck that was awfully fun to play.  Whenever I locked someone with that deck I felt really powerful, and that’s a great feeling.  I ended up having to put the deck away thanks to Garchomp C Lv. X, but  still have the memories of striking fear into my opponents.

If you could change the game, how would you do it?

Great question. I think the game has gotten 100 times better in the past year, however there are always improvements to be made.   It’s no secret that I don’t like having to play alongside Juniors, so getting rid of the kids would be nice, if a little too unrealistic.  Aside from that, I don’t think this game is that broken right now.  Pokemon Catcher scares me, but so have a lot of other things in the past, and the game has survived them.  If I could change one rule, it would be about the first turn.  Numerous people have suggested that the person who starts should be allowed to use Trainers and Supporters, but not attack.  I think this one help balance out the luck factor a little.  But, I think the system we have right now is good enough.

When it comes to the game, do you have any role models?

Well nothing comes to mind right away.  I have learned a lot from a lot of people like Omar, my old roommate, and my opponents that I have played; but I wouldn’t say that they are my role model.  I guess I try to model my performance on one of my sports heroes, Brett Favre.  Favre was cocky and confident, but never over confident.  He thought he could make every pass and used that confidence to make most of his throws.  He didn’t think the play was over until the whistle was blown, and I think I try to play with the same spirit.  For the most part, I don’t play meta decks, but still come to every tournament prepared to win it knowing that I will fight till my 6th prize to come out of the match victorious.  I rarely get down on myself, and try to think that the game isn’t over until the judge pry’s me off of the chair.  Also like Brett Favre, I like to text pictures of my genitals to women who work for the New York Jets…… okay so maybe he did not inspire me that much.

Thanks for the interview, before you go, can you tell us if you had any regrets about your Nationals performance and do you have a message for your readers/.

I didn’t win, so ya gotta regret that.  Also, I still think in a way Reshiphlosion sure came out of nowhere, and man did it get to me.  If I didn’t play so many of those, I’m pretty sure I would have topped no problem.  I guess I didn’t test enough.  Also, gotta thank my readers.  If there wasn’t someone out there benefiting from these articles I would not be writing.  Some of my fondest memories of the game were when someone took a deck I made up and posted here and won a Battle Roads, and when one of the readers said they got into the game partly because of me.  I never thought I would have any effect on people, so I gotta give it up to the readers.  Thanks for the interview guys.

You can pick up the full Rolling Stone article on news stands………ahhh…… probably never.

Top Ten Reasons Why You Lost U.S. Nationals

One last part of my 100th article celebration will be a top ten list.  Yes I know I’m stealing it from Letterman and about half a dozen people who did it on Six Prizes, but I hope mine is…… well…..funny.

The Number 10 reason you did not win U.S. Nationals.  Your Yanmega Prime got ran over by Omar’s Car.

Team Omar vs. Yanmega = One Hit KO

Don’t ya hate when that happens.

Number 9.  Your team overslept because they stayed up too late watching re-runs of the Golden Girls.

Oh that Betty White.

Number 8.  You were banned for tweeting pictures of your private parts to TPCI head David Schwimmer.

Ya don’t wanna do that.

Number 7.  You were about to leave for U.S. nationals from your hotel,  but you decided to stay with the waffle maker instead.

Mmmmm waffles.

Number 6. Your opponent was good.

Always tough.

Number 5.  You were gonna play Magneboar, but you had to play Volbeat/Illumisile because your little brother traded your deck for a poodle.

I do like Poodles

The Number 4 reason that you didn’t win U.S. Nationals.  They rotated Uxie.

Yeah, thats a problem.

Number 3.  You wanted to play Primetime, but your Yanmega’s were abused  by a Magnemite as  Yanmas, and were totally afraid of its own bench.

Number 2. Lindsay Lohan walked away with both halves of your RDL.

Hey come back!!!

And the Number 1 reason why you didn’t win U.S. nationals. You didn’t make it to your top 64 match because you couldn’t let that big Pikachu that was walking around beat you at a league game.

Tepig maybe, but not Pikachu.

There you go.  I hoped you liked this 100th article celebration.  Ya probably learned a little about me, finally, and I hope ya laughed a little at the top 10 list.  I wish you all good luck on the contest, and hope a lot of you guys choose to enter.  Check back next time, same bat time, same bat channel, for a regular article.

So long and thanks for all the fish!

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