One Hit KO

Hey guys.  I just got done reading Jak Armstead’s latest article over at ProPokemon.  I think it covers a lot of good points about how the new cards will impact the tournament scene.  He presents new possibilities as well as the impact on current popular decks, and each time he presents a decklist.  I just did a quick count, and it looks like there’s at least 10 decklists in there.

First, he discusses Mewtwo EX which can’t be ignored.  Everyone is discussing it, but he’s got some very good points.  Here’s an excerpt in which he’s discussing a new deck that could be built around Mewtwo EX.

Mewtwo decks are going to form an important part of the metagame for State Championships, and learning how to play against them, and how to play with them, is going to be a major test for players. The two Prize mechanic will lead to the kind of intense strategic encounters not seen since the days of Gardevoir/Gallade decks back in 2008. Then, as now, the taking of Prizes will need to be carefully planned. Taking the initial KO with a Mewtwo-EX will generally be something to avoid, as all it will take is for the opponent to drop their own Mewtwo, a Double Colourless Energy, and a PlusPower and then you will find yourself down on Prizes. Learning to master the ‘Mewtwo Wars’ is essential for anyone with aspirations to win in the upcoming format.

Click here to see the full article at ProPokemon.

Later, after that discussion, his 6133 word article gets into how the new cards effect current established archetype decks.  Here’s one example where he’s discussing the current reigning City’s Champion, Magnezone/Eelektrik.
Continue reading "Teaser: “Next Destinies: How it Will Impact the Game”"

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  This is Pikkdogs here with a Pre-Release tournament report.  I usually wouldn’t write you a PR report, but it could provide a nice break for me while I write my next article, which may take a little while.  Why don’t we take this time to welcome my extra-dimensionary sidekick Pedro.  How was your weekend Pedro?

Pretty good, a nice sports weekend.  We had the Pro Bowl, the NHL All Star Game, the finals of the Australian Open, the Royal Rumble, and even some Free UFC on Fox. 

I watched that UFC on Saturday.  There is no doubt that it takes a man much tougher than me to step into the Octagon, but on Saturday it seemed like UFC is just an excuse for two dudes to cuddle in the corner of a cage.

Those are big men, I wouldn’t be calling them gay. 

I didn’t call them gay, I implied it.  Plus, they always wear those bright T-shirts, you can’t wear that many pastel colors without some questions.  Let’s get onto the article before I say more things that I will regret.

The Introduction

I did not plan on …

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  This is Pikkdogs here with your ticket to winning your Next Destinies Pre-Release.  ND PR’s start this weekend!!  So if you can, try to go out and hit some PRs.  They are great because they help support your TO, and they give you the best chance to get some great cards.  You not only get 8 packs, but you get a chance to do some trading with everyone else at the event.  Most people don’t go to a Pre-Release to win, but if you do win, it could give you some good momentum going into states.  Plus, it is always good to win.  Some places give the winner an extra pack, while others just give the winner bragging rights.  Here is what you need to know to win the NV pre-release.

Basic Pre-Release Tips

If you never played at a tourney before, here is what happens at a normal Pre-Release.  You sit down at a table, and a judge will come over and hand you 6 packs.  You open all of your packs, and then build a 40 card deck consisting of only the cards that you have pulled, and basic energy cards that are provided to you by the TO.  If you pulled any special energy cards you can play them, but they will not be provided to you.

When building your deck, the most important thing to focus on is consistency.  Most modified format decks have cards like Professor Juniper and Pokemon Communication that greatly increase consistency, you don’t have these in your pre-release.  So it will be harder to get Evolution cards out. and other cards that you only have 1 card of.  What you need to do is run cards that increase consistency, for example you can run Simisear. He has the “Collect” attack that let’s you draw 3 cards for just 1 energy.  Or you can run Lapras #25, he let’s you search your deck for 2 basic Pokemon and put them onto your bench.  But, consistency usually means running a lot of trainers.  In this set, we do not have a lot of search or draw trainers.  We do have Level Ball and Heavy Ball.  Level Ball lets you search out a Pokemon with 90 HP or less, while Heavy Ball does the same with a Pokemon that has 3 or more in their retreat cost.  Energy counts in a PR deck usually run around 14.  If you pull a Cilan or 2, you will be able to run about 12 or 13.  Along the same lines, make sure to not run too many energy types.  Cilan will help you with energy consistency, but try to run at the most 3 types of energy.
Continue reading "Pikkdogs Guide to Winnning your Next Destinies Pre-Release"

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  This is Pikkdogs here with a Pikk Three article for you.  I don’t expect to hear anything about the next set until Thursday or Friday, so while we wait for all the card scans and the official list, let’s do a Pikk Three article.  This time it will be an old school Pikk Three, with one card that is used a lot, one card that I feel is under-rated, and one card is from a new or yet to be released set.  But first, I must introduce my extra-dimensionary sidekick, Pedro.  Hey Pedro?

Yo.

I was thinking-

That’s a first.

Will you let me talk for one moment.  Geez, extra-dimensionary sidekicks ya can’t live with em, ya can’t destroy their interdimensionary portholes.  As I was saying, I was thinking that since you have been with me on my articles for so long, there are probably new readers who don’t know much about you. 

Could be.

So, why don’t you re-introduce yourself so that new readers will know who you are, and it won’t be so weird. 

I think the ship has sailed on the weird thing, but I’ll go along with …

Well, I’ve discussed much of this already, but I thought I should give a bit of a wrap-up to finalize this season’s OneHitKO.com Challenge.  Yeah, I said “this season’s” implying that there may be others on the horizon.  That’s a bit of an open-ended question at the moment, but we can discuss that later.  Let’s first get to the positives and negatives of this challenge.

Negatives

When I first dreamed up this crazy plan, I had several goals.  My overarching number one goal was to build community around this project.  Have we succeeded in that?  Well, I think it’s been mostly a unmet goal.  Looking at webserver statistics, it seems that the site is getting slightly more views now. I can’t be sure if that has anything to do with the challenge, just the fact that there have been more articles lately, or just the fact that City Championships were in full swing. Since I can’t undoubtedly attribute it to the challenge, I won’t.

What I originally hoped for (and expected) was that many people would come together and each donate maybe 4-8 cards.  I would have a bunch of random “junk” to sift through and build from.  Making a deck out of this card pool would be my challenge while donating would be yours.  Unfortunately, that didn’t happen really at all.  I had only 3 real donators, and, of them, I already had a friendship with 2.  That means that only 1 person decided to go out on a limb and risk sending me cards in order to be part of something greater.

My losses outweighed my wins.  I had a goal to go better than 50/50 win/loss in any given tournament.  I missed one tournament and had to drop one round early from another (both events I see as negatives in their own right).  I did go exactly 50/50 in 2 of 3 tourneys, but I never achieved greater than that.  This makes me feel as if I misused the generous donations and failed on my end of the bargain (even though it was always a goal and never a promise).
Continue reading "OneHitKO.com Challenge: Wrap-Up with Budget Engine"

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there, this is Pikkdogs here with my extra dimensionary sidekick, Pedro.  I decided that since we are not going to get information about the new set until next week, why don’t I do another article for beginners?

Because you stink.

Well, I do, but at least I know a little about the game.

A little is right. 

Just so you know Pedro, I do admit that I had a terrible Cities season, but I came to a decision that it is because I am cursed.

Go on.

So, instead of wasting time play testing, I instead am going to do the scientific  thing and try to break the curse.  I already know a couple ways to break a curse, but if any of our readers know something, I would appreciate it.

So what are you doing with all the curse breaking stuff?

I will compile a list of things, and then do all of them before states.  It probably won’t work, but it should make for a pretty cool article.

Well, that would be a first.
Continue reading "Pikkdogs Has Some More Tips for Beginners, and a Stupid Deck Idea: Chandelure Decklist!"

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  This is Pikkdogs here with a special edition of Pikk Three for you.  As we enter in to the big calm that is the Cities to States break, we don’t have a lot to talk about.  So let’s look ahead to some cards from the Next Destinies set.  This set is coming out at the beginning of next month, and Pre-Releases start in about a week.  So a lot more info will come out on this set in the future, right now it is shaping up to be quite an impact ful set.  Before we go into 3 card reviews, let’s say hi to my extra-dimensionary sidekick Pedro.

How’s it hanging Pedro?
Continue reading "Pikkdogs Pikks Three: Gardevoir ND, Skyarrow Bridge, and Shiftry ND"

Sign that was up at the event.

Continue reading "I Turned Left When I Should Have Gone Right: Two City Reports"

Special Delivery

Early this week, TAndrewT contacted me and asked me for my address. He had a package to send me. Well, things didn’t go well for TAndrewT and the postal service, and we thought that the package might not arrive before this week’s finaly City Championship tournament. Instead of sending the cards to me via snail mail (does anyone use that term, anymore?), TAndrewT sent me a list of cards on Friday. He swore that he’d hand-deliver them to me the next day, and since he was judging, I figured I could bank on him being there.

Click on the pic to the left if you want to see what he donated. I think he really wanted to see how the deck and I would do if things were taken to the next level. For the final Cities here, I think he wanted the challenge deck to be a real contender. Thanks to you donators, here’s the list I was able to run today.

Continue reading "OneHitKO.com Challenge: Grand Finale"

This one came to me a bit out of left field.  This guy named Rafal sent me an email, because he was excited about my OneHitKO.com Challenge.  The problem is that, because my final City Championship is in 2 days from now, I couldn’t really justify having him send me cards.  They probably wouldn’t even arrive in time.  I started discussing things with him about building decks on a budget and under other constraints, and it came up that him and his friends were finding themselves in a similar position.

Rafal himself was in a good position, because he had been able to trade and borrow into cards good enough to build a workable 6 Corners style deck.  He said that, other than a Cobalion and a second Kyurem, he’s got it pretty set already.

However, he has 2 friends that are finding it difficult to build a competitive deck.  He was able to send me one of the lists, so we’ll talk about that one here.  The other, by chance, is a Raichu Prime / Eelektrik deck, which I have personal experience with.  Maybe we’ll get to that deck at a later date.  For now, let’s talk about Chandelure/Leafeon/Samurott.

We should get straight to the decklist, and then we can discuss how this deck can be improved.  I’d like lots of comments on this article, so maybe we can help get this guy sorted out.  Remember that he’s on a budget, so stuff like “add 4 Catcher” might be useless.  I’ll try to get some info on what his restrictions are, but for now, just try to keep “cheap” in mind.

Continue reading "Deck Workshop: Chandelure/Leafeon/Samurott"