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 …

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A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  This is Pikkdogs here with a wrap-up of 2011 U.S. Natioanals.         

Now since the card Pokemon Catcher will come out in the Emerging Powers set, the format will totally change, but that is after Worlds, so we can still have a small discussion of this format.  I myself will not be headed to San Diego for worlds, but since anyone of our readers can attempt to grind in the day before the event, I will cover the decks as if I were.

This article will mainly focus on what the format is currently like, and what decks are considered tier 1 or 2.

The Format

This first part of the article will address what I think are myths about a great format.  Don’t believe all you hear about the format.  A lot of people are saying that this format stinks because it is all luck based.  While I admit that luck is always involved in this game, I say that it is no different than the previous few seasons.  They say that the winner of the game is based on who starts first …

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I’m back, and I’ve had some time to reflect. The lesson is test, and test against all the decks you think will be tier 1. In retrospect, I only did one of those things. Early on, I decided to build a Reshiram/Emboar deck. I did it in my own style, though. I wanted to see if I could build it without any of the extra baggage I thought went along with most builds. My goal was to have the deck set up and then Blue Flare six times for 6 One Hit KO’s. It could definitely do that.

I played the deck a bunch, and it did well. There were issues with it, but they weren’t insurmountable. I had problems when I faced larger Pokemon (that I couldn’t one shot), so I put in Reversals and more Plus Power to try to get strategic KOs when necessary. With the changes made to accommodate these inclusions, the deck became unreliable and very inconsistent. I put it back the way it was and decided to just run it without the Pokemon Reversal (but still had 1 Circulator).

I went on vacation just before Nationals, and I even played for a bit one day at league in Rapid City. I did very well in my matches there, so I thought things were going well. I also had built a ZPS/Yanmega deck that I had a friend play against me several times. This was actually a good deck (even though my quick build of it was suboptimal). The problem here was that Reshiram has a good matchup against Zekrom. It can usually OHKO all of the Pokemon in ZPS (including Yanmega in this case). As it happened, each time, my wins were reinforcing bad behavior.

Continue reading "Reflections On My Pokemon Nationals 2011"

Hey all you OHKOers out there, this is Pikkdogs here with an article to finish up my nationals report.  I will give you the rest of the report, then will share my decklist, and finally I will give you some thoughts and musings about the tournament and the format. 

Day 2 Tournament Report

So, the last time we left our hero, he finished Day 1 with a 4-2 record, and knew that he needed to win out or go 2-1 and get a lot of help in order to make top cut.

Team Omar wakes up a little later than the previous day, and we try to scarf down some waffles and biscuits and gravy before we head downtown.  We get into the play area at about 8:35 and people are already about to being their match even though play was not scheduled till 9.  So I go and introduce myself to my opponent who says, “Darn I thought you weren’t gonna show.”  This guy actually turns out to be a little of an annoyance to me, I don’t know him, but he didn’t seem all that nice.  Classy Freddy Blassie might call him a “Pencil Neck Geek.”

Round 7-Magneboar

He starts Tepig and I am unsure what he is playing, so I collector for both Phanpys and Oshawotts.  I finally see a Magnemite and figure that I should work with Donphan.  I have a little trouble setting up and have some bad draws, but am able to exchange a couple prizes.  I have particular trouble getting the right kind of energies, the DCE’s kept
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I’m back with some more pictures and the continuation of my weak little report.

I needed to win out on the second day. If I did, I would (most likely) make top cut. If I lost any of the day’s matches, I’d be playing in side events.

Continue reading "Nationals Day 2 (Ed’s Quick Update)"

Hey Everybody, this is Pikkdogs here to talk about the first day of Nationals. I know I promised to be tweeting while I was there, but that didn’t happen because of phone problems.  I hope to make it up to you with this bigger report.  Along with the match report of my games the first day, I will give you my thoughts on everything about nats.

The Location

Of course, this year’s U.S. nationals were located in Indianapolis.  The city is a decent choice, the location is only really bad for the people on the extreme edges of the country.  One bad thing about the city was that it was jam packed with people.  No matter where you went for lunch there was a million people standing in line.  Due to the city also holding several basketball tournaments and other events, the city was over crowded.  It was quite annoying, a quieter smaller city might be a better choice.

However, we will never find a perfect location.  Indy has a lot of hotels and is well equipped to handle us Pokemon Players, somethings are just a little inconvenient.

Continue reading "Pikkdogs Nationals Report Part 1"

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Well, day 1 is over. I am not doing well. I chose to go with the deck I knew best, and unfortunately it’s garbage. I thought it wasn’t great, but I didn’t think it was this bad. Take a look at some pictures of day 0 (arrival/registration) and day 1 (the actual event) and read how the first day of Swiss went.

Continue reading "Nationals Day 0 and Day 1 (quick update)"

A big hello to everyone in Omar-Nation.  This is Pikkdogs here with a deck analysis.  We just got done with a long card analysis series, now that we’re done with that we can talk about decks again.  

Before we get to that, lets talk about Nationals.  It’s looking like me and the team omar crew will be going to Indy.  I would love to be able to meet some of you guys at Indy.  If you wanna get in touch with me, the best way to do it would be to send me a tweet.  My handle is “pikkdogs”, just tweet me.  And for those of you who are wanting to keep up on national news at home, I will be sure to tweet what I see.  You can either follow me now, or I will try to make my tweets public before the event.

Also, we should talk about the National tournament in the magical land of Can-a-da.  Those Canadians took a break from watching hockey and drinking maple syrup to play a couple games of Pokemon.  The popular card in Canada was Yanmega Prime.  The free attacking made the card very quick and versatile.  It was in a lot of the top 16 decks.  Kingdra was a card that also saw a lot of unexpected play.  Canada usually is a little more rogue than the U.S. and their nats is a lot smaller than the one south of the border.  I do not expect to see a lot more Yanmega because of the Canadian Nats, so don’t change your deck too much.  If you have a deck that does not have a favorable matchup towards Yanmega, you might wanna think about changing, but don’t overreact too much.  Players in the U.S. have a lot of money and will play more expensive decks like Magneboar and Reshiboar.
Continue reading "Deck Analysis: Magneboar"

Hey all you OHKOers this is Pikkdogs here with an article about choosing a deck for nationals. 

Lately when people see me they ask: “Pikkdogs, what are you doing looking in my window?”  And then they ask me, “Which deck should I run for nationals?”  This article will be about the second question.

By the time your read this article, you will probably be celebrating the 4th of July (if your in the U.S. of course), and I will be sitting by a parade and consuming my fair share of adult beverages.  But, it will be just about a week before the start of Nationals.  By this time you should have your deck choice made, and are narrowing down your choices of techs.

But, if your like me, you probably are not on that schedule.  So if you are still trying to figure out which deck to pick, lets look at some principles for choosing a deck for nationals.  Here are six principles that you use to guide you on making a deck choice.

1. Do Something Silly.

By this I mean, don’t just netdeck a deck, put something in it that is uniquely yours.  You will have to be …

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