One Hit KO

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  This is Pikkdogs here with his sidekick Pedro, and we are bringing you a Pikk Three article.

Hey Pedro, I couldn’t help but notice that you were absent in my last article.

Yes I was.

The word on the street was that Ed had suspended you for one article, is that true?

Absolutely not.  I was actually traveling in a different dimension that day.

Really, what dimension were you in?

Well, one pretty much similar to this one, except that you were a good Pokemon player.

Okay, let’s just go on to the article.  If you haven’t seen a Pikk Three article before-

count yourself lucky-

As I was saying, if you haven’t seena  Pikk Three article, it is basially a big card of the day article.  It reviews three cards; one card that is popular, one that I feel is under-played. and one that is from a new or un-released set.

Card #1 The Staple-Mew Prime

Description– Mew is a 60 HP Psychic Pokemon with a weakness to Psychic and a free retreat cost.  His Poke Body “Lost Link” lets you use the attacks from any Pokemon in the Lost Zone (either yours or your opponent’s).  He only has one attack, “See Off”, which for one psychic energy lets you put one Pokemon from your deck to your Lost Zone.

Mew has seen some play since its release in Triumphant.  It was first used to assist Gengar Prime in putting Pokemon in the Lost Zone.  However, that deck wasn’t all that good.  Its meager HP prevented it from seeing serious play until this season.  It is now good in a deck that uses Mew and Vileplume to lock your opponent.  It is also the best Gothitelle counter.  You just need to “See Off” something like Cincinno or Jumpluff, and you will be able to OHKO Gothitelle very easily.

Analysis– Well, the 60 HP is never good.  Donphan Prime and Yanmega Prime can easily knock it out.  But, you do have 6 prizes to work with.  If you can lock down an opponent or knock out a very important Pokemon, you will gladly sacrifice one Pokemon.  Another problem with Mew Prime is that if you do not “See Off” early in the game, it can be hard to setup.

The good part about Mew is that he is very versatile.  You can use Mew Prime to trap, mill, Lost Zone, or attack.   The Mew lock deck that is out right now is really good, it may not be the BDIF, but it is awfully good.  Attacking with Mew might take a while, but when you get a good setup you can attack with any Pokemon in the format from a basic Pokemon.

In this Battle Road season you will have to watch out for Mew.  The lock deck will easily beat almost any deck in the format with a little luck.  And even if you don’t play against that deck, you will see Mew in other decks, so you will need to know how Mew is used.

One good way to counter Mew is to play Mew yourself.  If your opponent tries to “See Off” anything, you will be able to use the attack first on your opponent.  You can use Muk’s “Sludge Drag” attack to bring up your opponent’s Vileplume, or you can use Jumpluff’s attack to knock out any active Mew.

Final Rating– 8/10– It is not a perfect card and has a lot of drawbacks, but it is a very useful card in this format.  It also is a very fun card.

Card #2- The Underdog-Lost Remover

Description– Lost Remover is a very simple item card.  It lets you put one special energy card attached to your opponent’s Pokemon, and put it in their Lost Zone.  The card has never really seen that much play.  Last year it did see a little play in a Dialgachomp deck, but it was more of a rogue choice.

Rogue Choice, isn’t that the name of a Bruce Springsteen Album?

I don’t think so. 

Analysis-  I think that Lost Remover is a good card in this format.  Right now almost every deck is playing some kind of Special Energy, mostly either DCE or Rainbow Energy.  Cincinno is the card that has possibly the fastest growing play rate of any card in the format, and Cincinno almost exclusively uses Double Colorless Energy to attack.  There are a lot of other attackers that use DCE like Zoroark, Beartic, and Zekrom/Reshiram.  It can be very disruptive to take away a DCE because it is very hard to get a DCE when you need it.

The major problem with Lost Remover is that it is hard to fit into a decklist.  A lot of Pokemon that use DCE are easy to knock out, so it doesn’t seem right to waste a card on taking out a card that will just get knocked out this turn anyway.  And since it is very hard to get DCE back from the discard pile, putting the card in the discard pile is almost as good as putting it in the Lost Zone.

I do think that this card is as useful as ever and that it could have a great impact on Battle Roads if it gets some play.  One good play is to Lost Remove an active Poekmon’s Special Energy, and then catcher up something on the bench that they were going to use next turn.   This would leave them without an option to attack. 

Final Rating– 7.75/10– This card is really under-played right now and I think it could make a good impact on Battle Roads if it gets some play.

Card #3 The Young Gun-Tornadus

Description– Tornadus is a basic Pokemon with 110 HP, a 1 retreat cost, a weakness to lightning, and a resistance to fighting,  He has two attacks.  The first one, “Energy Wheel”, just lets you move one energy from a benched Pokmeon to Tornadus.  The second attack, “Hurricane”, does 80 damage for CCC, and you move 1 basic energy from Tornadus to a benched Pokemon.

Tornadus is fairly new and has not seen a lot of play so far.  It has mostly seen play in a deck with Zekrom, to be a Donphan counter.  It is also used in the upstart Mew/Cincinno deck, also as a Donpha counter.

Analysis-  I think Tornadus is  fairly cool card.  One way of getting around the
energy moving effect of “Hurricane” is to only attach special energy cards.  If you only have a DCE and a Rescue Energy, there will be no basic energy to move to the bench. 

People mostly talk about it as a Donphan Prime counter.  The rationale is that Donphan Prime can only hit it for 40, while Tornadus can hit it back for 60. 

The problem with that is that a lot of people are playing Zekrom with their Donphan.  So in order to OHKO a Tornadus, all the Donphan player will have to do is to use “Earth Quake” 4 times (or attach Rainbow Energies), and they wll be able to “Outrage” for the needed 120 damage for a knock out. 

Another problem is that if you want to try to knock out Donphan Prime with Tornadus, you will basically need to have only Toranduses in play.  If you have anything else, the Donphan Player will use Pokemon Catcher to bring it active, and by pass the whole Tornadus thing. 

Final Rating–7/10-In some situations Tornadus does work, but I feel that most times Tornadus will not work the way we think it will.  Yes it is still a good card that deserves some play, but I think it has receieved a little too much hype. 

So, Pedro…………That’s all I got for today.  Why don’t you tell the good people how there voice can be heard.

Sure thing.  If you would like to correct all the errors Pikkdogs made, just leave your thoughts about these cards in the comment box. 

So Pedro, how do we normally end things here.

Well, we normally dance to Bruce Springsteen’s song, “Rogue Choice.”

No we never dance here, and that’s not even a song. 

Well, can we show a picture of him dancing?

Sure

Category: Pikks Three | Tags: Lost Remover, Mew Prime, Tornadus