February 2012

Strategy Article: Reading Your Opponent

Pikkdogs February 28, 2012 7 Comments

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there. This is Pikkdogs here with a strategy article. Before we get into the article, let me introduce my sidekick Pedro. Hey Pedro.

Hey Pikkdogs.

What bit of trivia do you have to tell us today.

Well I have two things for you. The first thing we can talk about is the fact that Nintendo has announced what our Spring set will be. In May the set Dark Explorers will be released. It is expected to contain most of what was in the Japanese Dark Rush set. As you might guess, it will focus on Dark Pokemon. It will also have EXs and Full Art EXs of Raikou, Entei, Darkrai, Tornadus, Kyorge, and Groudon. Look for more news to come on this set in the coming weeks. This past weekend was the weekend of the Academy Awards, did you have an Oscar Party Pikkdogs?

Well as a matter of fact I did have an Oscar party. It didn’t have anything to do with the awards though, I just had some beers with the grouchy guy who lives in my dumpster.

Sounds like fun.

It was. But getting a little serious here, the awards were kind of hijacked by some red carpet manuvers. JLo got attention for maybe having a nipple slip, and Ryan Seacrest made headlines for getting “ashes” thrown in his face by “the Dictator.”

JLo and Ryan Seacrest are two very different people of course, one is known for being a extravagant diva that is always rumored to be going out with a hot guy…………..and the other is JLo.

I see what you did there. Nice, but let’s get onto the article

Reading Your Opponent

Here is a cool strategy tidbit that I want to talk about. One of the things we always hear about in Poker is the art of reading your opponent. Poker and Pokemon are not so different if you think about it. In each game cards are dealt out, and what your opponent has effects what you do. If reading your opponent is good in Poker, it must be a skill that you can use in Pokemon. And in fact, it is very helpful to know how to read your opponent. It is one of the things that separates a good player from a great player. In this article, I will start by telling you my history with reading my opponent, give you tips on reading your opponent, and then wrap it up with how this effects thing in the current format.

My History

I have played this game for over 3 years now, and I have encountered a lot of times where I wish I would have known what was in my opponent’s hand. I have learned from some of the best of how to read and decode your own responses.

The time where it was most useful to decode your bodily responses to your hand was during the reign of SP. There was a card legal during that era called Power Spray, and given the right conditions, you could play this card during your opponent’s turn to cancel the effect of a Poke-Power. It was mainly used for stopping the main draw-engine of the time, Uxie, and his Poke-Power “Setup”. If you knew that your opponent had Power Spray in their hand, you could save yourself some bench space by not putting down Uxie, and instead waiting for a better time to play Uxie down. A lot of games were lost because players could not get their draw engine going because of Power-Spray. And Power-Spray just wasn’t for canceling Uxie, it was for canceling all of the other Poke-Powers. A lot of games were ruined because of Power-Spray. It was very important to know how to read your opponent to know if they have Power-Spray.

I can honestly say that I was schooled on this topic many times. . I remember one time when I was playing with a Scizor/Cherrim deck against a Blazeray deck. Scizor/Cherrim could not use the popular engines of the time, Uxie and Claydol, because they have Poke-Powers, and if you have Poke-Powers on the field Scizor doesn’t do as much damage. So, I instead decided to put the speed engine in this deck (a combination of Unown R, Pokemon Rescue, and Night Maintenance). This engine worked because you could discard Unown R with his Poke-Power,”Retire”, and the draw a card, you could use the other cards to get Unown R back and then use the power again. The only problem was that if “Retire” was Power-Sprayed, Unown R stayed on the field for the whole turn and that screwed up the number of damage that I could do. So, it was important to read my opponent before I use the power to know if he/she was going to spray me. Anyway, back to the Blazeray game. It was getting late in the game, I had a chance to win if I got the right cards, but I had to know if she had the Power-Spray or not. She was looking kind of uninterested and fazed out, so I thought she didn’t have the card. When most people had Power-Spray, they would separate it from the rest of their hand and listen closely so that if a power was called, they could spray it before the power was used. But in this situation, she did not seem like she was paying close attention, so I tried the power, and it was sprayed. She was bluffing. In other matches with this same player she would act very interested and make it look like she had a spray, when she didn’t. She was one of the best at bluffing, and it showed how good of a player she was. This was a good lesson in reading people, now let’s see how we can read people better than I did in these examples.

How to Read your Opponent

Although there is no sure fire way to read every opponent in every situation, here are some things that I have learned and heard about reading your opponent.

Start Early– Don’t wait until the final hand to start reading your opponent, do it once you sit down at the table. See how your opponent reacts to his opening hand. What kind of facial expressions he uses, and what he says. Than, once you see him play his hand out, you will know what kind of hand he started out with. If he had a bad hand to start with and he is making the same expressions later on in the game, you might have found out that his bad luck has continued. It is impossible to read everyone because everyone is different, but if you have something to work on from before, you will know exactly what he has in his hand when the game is near the end. On a related note to this principle, pay attention to what he is saying. A lot of players talk to their opponents during the round and say stuff like, “Man that was a bad hand.” If he is telling the truth about it being a bad hand early on in the game, there is a good chance that come late game his tells will give him away, and you will know they aren’t bluffs.
Find Out if Your Opponent is Experienced– If your opponent is a Pokemon pro, there is a good chance that he/she will try to bluff you. If your opponent is a newbie just trying to learn the rules of the game, don’t expect to get played. Depending on where you are and your past, you may automatically know if a player is a pro or not. If you don’t, you can know by how the player puts down his/her prizes or where he/she keeps the discard pile. If they are in strange places in a messy fashion, there is a good chance this guy is a newbie.
Pick Up on Your Basic Poker Tells– If you play poker you know some tips to picking up tells. If your opponent looks excited they probably have a good hand and think they can control the pace of the game. There are other ways of showing excitement that are hard to mask, like rapid breath. Nervous tendencies also usually indicate a strong hand. If they do things like sigh or look straight at you for a while, than they probably think they are not in a position to control the game.
Talk to the Opponent– Talking to your opponent will sometimes get them to divulge some secret information. It doesn’t hurt to try, so get them talking in hopes they will let something slip.
Play the Odds– If you want to know if your opponent has that 4th Junk Arm in his/her discard pile, you don’t always have to rely only on reading tells, you can also find out the odds. Of course everything starts with the 60 card deck, then ask to see their discard pile, try to estimate how many cards are there, than see how many Junk Arms are there. Next, look over at your opponent’s prize stack and hand size. If they have a large hand size and only 1 prize left, there is a better chance that they do have that final Junk Arm. Finally, try to remember what were the last couple supporters that he/she played. If he/she burned through a lot of supporters trying to find the last Junk Arm, you know that he/she has probably not been hiding it for the last couple turns. If you play the odds like that, you will be in a better spot to find out their tells.
haha I noozled you guys again!

Bring it All Back to Pokemon

So what do poker tells, odds calculation, and Power Sprays have to do with the current format? Well, they all can be extrapolated to be used no matter what the format is. I will admit that reading players now is not as important as it was with Power-Spray, but it is still important. Now-a-days, it is most useful later in games to tell you if you should be overly aggressive because your opponent has a good hand, or if you should be conservative because your opponent can’t do anything either. It will always be important to read your opponent, but I think with Mewtwo EX it will start to become more important.

We are getting set for a States season that will be all about the Mewtwo EX mirror matchup. Unless you play Durant, Mirror Matchups are always a nail biting event. Although the luck of the draw is important, the most important things in winning a mirror match are experience and skill. So during States, knowing what your opponent is thinking will become more important than it did since the SP Pokemon dominated the format. So make sure that you know how to read your opponent before you bring your Mewtwo deck to states.

Pokemon players as a whole are fairly easy to read. Most of them are very nice and friendly. If they have a bad hand you usually don’t need to read it, they will probably tell you themselves. Most players are fairly open and you can read them easily. What makes it hard is reading the really great players. These players have been around for a long time and usually can hide their emotions very well. They usually don’t talk very much, and they never talk about their hand. These are the guys who are going to bluff you. You are going to need everything to read them, because they are used to decoding their emotional responses to what is happening in the game. This is truly what separates a guy with a good deck between a good player. Make sure to use all of your background knowledge about that person to judge whether they are bluffing or not.

So how can a good player hide their tells and become a better player? I would say that the best thing that a player can do to hide their own tells is to be more silent during a game. Yes you do still have to announce what you are doing, but try to be less open and more focused on the game. Doing things like this might make you look like a douche, but that doesn’t mean that after the game you can’t go back to being friendly. You can see that a lot of Poker players wear sunglasses to hide their emotions, that might help a little, but probably not enough that I would reccomend it. Doing that would just make you look more like a douche. So just try to be more focused on the game and less talkative with the opponent. But, only do this when you are in serious running for Top Cut, doing it at the loser table would make you a douche.

If you have any stories or tips on this topic, please put them in the comment section. Well that’s all I got to say about that.

Those are some good hints for people to use. They could do well by learning all of that…………..or just play Mr. Mime. Lot easier.

Just go on and wrap up the article already.

Okay, today we have a piece of news from www.foxnews.com. It seems that someone has installed a hot tub on the roof of a University of Michigan building in Ann Arbor. The same people removed it just two days later. The police and campus authorities are still struggling to identify who would do such a thing. Say, Pikkdogs how far do you live from Ann Arbor?

About 30 miles or so.

Did you perhaps have a hankering for a hot tub last week?

I do kind of enjoy hot tubs. But insinuating that I would have the plumbing skills necessary to install a hot tub is just ludicrous. I can’t even fix a running toilet.

That’s true you do have the handyman skills of a pregnant badger. It couldn’t have been you. Maybe we won’t solve the mystery, but we should just go anyway. Goodnight Everybody!

Deck Discussion

Deck Analysis: Mewtwo, Pikkdogs Tries the New CMT (Celebi Prime, Mewtwo EX, and Tornadus)

Pikkdogs February 26, 2012 36 Comments

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there, this is Pikkdogs here with a deck analysis for you. I finally got along to test a Mewtwo deck, I tried the new CMT version of the Mewtwo EX deck. The old CMT deck was around in Battle Roads and it was like Stage 1 Rush, but it had Mew Prime in it. This deck is nothing like it, but it does have Tornadus in it, just like the original CMT. This deck also has Celebi Prime and Mewtwo EX. Before we get to the article, let us welcome my sidekick Pedro. What do you have for us today Pedro?

Well I have some news in the field of Biology. Fox News is reporting the researchers who are studying a group of Blacktip Reef Sharks are reporting that the sharks make friends with other sharks. Researchers state that the Sharks form groups with similar sharks based on age and other factors. Kind of like a clique in high school. They use the group for protection and to increase their chances at survival. Are you surprised to hear that Sharks make friends Pikkdogs?

Well of course they make friends, how else would Nemo have been able to get home if all the marine life didn’t get together to help him?

I guess.

I’m just saying that they could have saved a lot of time and money, by just watching Finding Nemo. Let’s just move onto the article.

Introduction

I know that I have talked about this deck for a while, so I won’t talk about it too much, just give a little run down of the basics. Celebi Prime is there for his “Forest Breath” Poke-Power. When he is active, you can attach a Grass energy to any of your Pokemon. You can use the card Sky Arrow Bridge to give Celebi free retreat. Mewtwo EX is your main attacker. His “X-Ball” attack does 20 damage times the number of energy on him and the defending Pokemon. Your goal is just to use Celebi Prime to get a lot of energy on Mewtwo EX. He should be able to attack for a lot and fairly quickly. Tornadus is there to cover the weakness of Mewtwo EX. Without Tornadus, Mewtwo EX would get overwhelmed by a card like Mew Prime, but Tornadus does have a good matchup against Mew. Tornadus can also attack early is you really need him too.

Setup is very important for this deck, and what determines setup is your initial starting hand. You could get a God Hand and be able to end the game very quickly. A God hand would probably be Celebi Prime, Skyarrow Bridge, Mewtwo EX, a DCE, a grass, a Pokemon Catcher, and a Supporter. If you get something like this you could probably use Pokemon Catchers to knock out basic Pokemon before they evolve and just control the board from there. A bad start would be a start with Tornadus and a bunch of energy. The deck usually does not run a lot of Pokemon search cards, so if you get really unlucky, your opponent might be able to take advantage. You are going to need to get a Mewtwo EX out fairly quickly to be as fast and disruptive as you need to be. Your starting hand is very important with this deck, so make sure to build your deck so you can get the best start possible.

A CMT deck player must always be vigilant of what is happening on the field. Since what your opponent has active effects your damage output, you can’t afford to make a Brain Fart and miscalculate the damage. It is easy to think that you are about to hit for 140, but instead hit for 120. Just 20 damage could be the difference between a knockout on Reshiram, and 140 damage coming your way next turn. Another thing you have to watch is playing against the Non-EX versions of the Unova Dragons. “Outrage” can put Mewtwo EX into range to be knocked out next turn, so you don’t want to mess around with that. You always have to be vigilant of what energy is on the dragons and if they have an Eviolite on them, if they ever stray into the 140 damage range, than you gotta knock them out. If not, it can be hard to take them out without fear of giving up two prizes yourself. You have to think about sacrificing Tornadus in order to take down those guys.

While I admit that I haven’t played this deck a lot, I do think that this is a very good way to build this deck. It is very fast and very disruptive. If your opponent is playing an evolution deck and does not get a great start, you will have a great chance of controlling the game early and knocking things out before they evolve. Yes it can be hard to get all of the pieces you need like Celebi and Skyarrow Bridge out early, but that’s why you just need a good polished list. I also really do like Tornadus is in this list. I think you need someone like Tornadus just so your opponent can’t start whipping you with something like Mew Prime. Tornadus can also attack fast and bring out some pain early, though Mewtwo EX is preferable, Tornadus is still good. I have heard about people playing Terrakion in their Mewtwo/Celebi deck, and while I do see a reason to put him in there, I see Tornadus as a preferable alternative. I just don’t want to have to start with a Pokemon that has that kind of retreat cost. You need a great start with this deck to be good, and I don’t want to put that in danger. It is something to test out against the best decks in your area, but for a good vanilla build I would say just stick with Tornadus.

Decklist.

Here is what I put together for a decklist. I will admit that I didn’t get to test this deck out that much, but I did test it out a little. It is not a polished and teched out decklist, just a vanilla list. I hope you guys will test the list and make it better. So here it is.

Pokemon-11

4-Celebi Prime
3-Mewtwo EX
3-Tornadus EP
1-Shaymin UD

Trainers-36

3-Skyarrow Bridge
3-Switch
4-Dual Ball
1-Poke Gear 3.0
4-Junk Arm
4-Pokemon Catcher
4-Professor Oak’s New Theory
4-Professor Juniper
2-Sage’s Training
2-N
3-Eviolite
2-Plus Power

Energy-13

4-Double Colorless Energy
9-Grass Energy-9 seems to be the number of grass energies that people use, it seems to be good.

Matchups

Like I said, I haven’t played this deck a heck of a lot of times, but I do know a little bit about the matchups. So I can talk about the matchups a little.

Reshiphlosion– Favorable-If you get a good start you should be able to knock out a lot of Cyndaquils and Quilavas, and if they don’t have a lot of Typhlosion Primes out it can be a tough game for them. As long as you don’t get a very slow start you should be having a good matchup here.
6 Corners– Favorable-The bad thing about 6 Corners is that there is no big Pokemon that can hit Mewtwo for weakness. Cobalion is a problem for Mewtwo EX, but you can probably knock it out once or twice, so it shouldn’t be a big deal. Cobalion is a problem for Mewtwo, but you need to have about 3 or 4 of them in a deck to stop Mewtwo, you can’t just throw it in a deck and hope to win.
Magnazone Prime/Eelektriks– Favorable-Mewtwo EX should be able to control the Eels early on, and if the Eels don’t survive till late in the game, it will be hard for Magnezone to keep up with you. If the Magnezone player is able to consistently attack you, than you can have problems, but you should be able to control the game by controlling the Eels or the basic and stage 1 forms of Magnezone.
The Truth– Favorable– I have not tested this matchup, but I do imagine that they will have a hard time setting up with Mewtwo EX around being that fast and disruptive. Both the Reuniclus and Vileplume lines have Psychic weaknesses, so if you are able to draw into some Pokemon Catchers you should be able to control the board easily.
Zekrom– Even?– I have not tested this matchup, and I am curious to find out what happens in it. Zekrom can hit hard early on, and if you can take down 2 Mewtwo EX’s you have just about won the game. If the other deck runs the Eels, you should be able to take care of them fairly easily. Both decks will be fast and hard hitting. So this would be a cool match-up. I wish I could say more than that.

Well that’s all I got today. What do you have for us to close things up Pedro?

Well today is the anniversary of the baptism of English Renaissance Playwright Chrsitopher Marlowe. He is known as perhaps the 2nd best author of his time next to old Billy Shakespeare. Do you like the Christopher Marlowe Pikkdogs?

Well, not really, but I do like his version of Dr. Faustus. A man who sold his soul to the devil for lots of knowledge and worldly pleasures. What worldly pleasure would you like Pedro?

A chance to renew my rivalry with Tom Bosley. Back to Marlowe, Marlowe was also accused of being a spy. But before they could try and convict him, he was killed in a bar fight after he refused to pay his tab. I always thought that this was the way that you would go Pikkdogs.

No, not about a bar tab. Possibly about my tab at Arbys. Beers not worth dying for, Roast Beef just might be.

True, especially with the Arby’s sauce and the cheese type stuff. Anyway, have a good night everybody.

Uncategorized

The Dragons are Coming!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Pikkdogs February 20, 2012 4 Comments

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there. This is an article that is kind of about a set profile and card reviews. You might understand it later, hopefully. The article will mostly cover the Japanese Dragon Selection Mini-Set. The scans of it were released a couple weeks ago, but I am just getting to it now because all of the NV hoopla. Since their are currently no English scans of the Dragon Selection Mini-Set that we are talking about, I will instead show you pictures of a tv show that I liked when I was 4…. Noozles. Now I know it doesn’t make sense, but only good websites bring you things that make sense, we don’t want you to have your standards too high.

If you have been listening to any Pokemon news from Japan, you will have heard a while ago that we will be getting a new type of Pokemon. It will be the Dragon Type and it will consist of the Dragon Pokemon that have previously been scattered into other types. The Next Japanese Set will probably contain more Dragon Pokemon, since the sets will be called Dragon Blade and Dragon Blast, but for right now the only Dragon Pokemon in Japan have came from the Dragon Selection Mini-Set. This is another one of those small sets that gets released in Japan between sets. The set itself is very “mini,” only 20 cards were in this set. Most of the cards haven’t been that earth shattering, but there still might be a couple gems in it. Read More

Stupid Deck Idea

Stupid Deck Idea: How Bout a “Round” of Applause? Seismitoad + Wigglytuff Deck

Pikkdogs February 18, 2012 18 Comments

Jiggilly Pufff. Jiggilly………….Puff………Jiggillly Puff..Jiggilllleeeeeeeeee.

Oh sorry, A big hello to all you OHKOers out there. This is Pikkdogs here with a Stupid Deck Idea. The Stupid Deck Idea is a type of article that we do when we have an idea for a deck that either isn’t that great, or that we haven’t tested enough.

The deck in question today is Seismitoad and Wigglytuff. It may seem like a weird deck to make, but it actually is a pretty simple idea. So let’s take a closer look at this deck and see if it is any good.

The Basics

Before we go into how the deck works, let’s look at the decks three main attackers; Wigglytuff, Seismitoad, and Palpitoad.

Wigglytuff is a 90 HP Pokemon with a fighting weakness and a 2 retreat cost. The first attack, “Round”, does 20 damage times the number of your Pokemon in play that have an attack that is named “Round.” The second attack, “Hypnoblast”, does 60 damage and lets you flip a coin, if heads you put the defending Pokemon to sleep. Of course, we don’t really care about “Hypnoblast,” I don’t see anyone really using this attack. “Round” could be a good attack in the right deck. The HP is fairly terrible, and the weakness is not good. So this is not a great card, but it does have what we are looking for in this deck, the “Round” attack.

Our next, and main attacker is Seismitoad. Seismitoad is a 140 HP Water Pokemon with a grass weakness and a 3 retreat cost. He has two attacks. The “Round” attack does 30 damage for each of your Pokemon with the Round attack, and it costs CC. It also has the “Hyper Voice” attack that does 70 damage for WWC. Seismitoad is the best attacker you have, you would like to have him active at all times. The 140 HP is good, despite the fact that there are people hitting for 150 damage right now. The weakness is good, and the retreat can be worked around. Seismitoad can hit for a maximum damage of the magic number of 180. This means it is possible for you to OHKO even the biggest EX in the format. Sure, it will not be easy to get this to happen, but it is certainly not too much to ask for to think that you could do it a couple times during the day at a tournament.

Your final “Round” guy is Paliptoad. He is the stage 1 of Seismitoad, and he also has the “Round” attack. He is an 80 HP Water Pokemon with a grass weakness and a 2 retreat cost. As I mentioned, he does have the “Round” attack. It is too bad that this “Round” attack costs CCC and only does 20 damage for each “Round” attacker. So you do not want to be attacking with him, since he takes an extra energy for an attack, and does not do as much damage as Seismitoad. But he is good as a bench sitter, and he can evolve into Seismitoad. You want this guy as a bench sitter, but hopefully you don’t have to attack with him.

So, the idea of this deck is fairly obvious. You will want to get as many “Round” attackers out as possible, and hopefully you get a Seismitoad active. This will allow you to hit up to 180 damage for just 1 energy card! This deck is a little heavier on Pokemon than normal, but it makes up for it by being lighter on energy. This deck is kind of like your basic swarm type deck. If you have been in the game for a while, you will remember a similar deck that featured Beedrill from Great Encounters. It is a simple deck, you just need to keep on getting Pokemon out on the field. It may not be the best deck ever, but it is something different than what everybody else is playing right now. It does help to break the Mewtwo monotony.

Setup with this deck is fairly easy. It might take a little while to get a Seismitoad out, so you might either want to use a starter or try to get a Wigglytuff out. Jigglypuff is a decent start because he can slow your opponent by putting the active to sleep, however, it might be better to put a starter like Cleffa in the deck to get setup faster. You are going to want to use a lot of draw/hand refresh Supporters to get all these evolutions out. It is very hard to get 6 evolutions out at one time, so make sure to add a lot of consistency cards in this deck. The deck will not be very techy, it will have to rely on consistency. One tech that could work well in this deck is Mewtwo EX. It would counter Mewtwo EX very well, but it may not be realistic to expect a 75 buck card to be in a fun deck.

List

Just a note to you guys, I didn’t actually build this deck yet, it is just a deck list for you to look at and understand what the deck is all about. You can make and test the deck, if you do, let me know how you like it. So here is the list, just one more disclaimer, I am not saying this is a good list, it is just a “Stupid Deck Idea.”

Pokemon-21

4-Jigglypuff ND
4-Wigglytuff ND
4-Tympole
3-Papitode
4-Seismitoad
1-Cleffa
1-Mewtwo EX

Trainers-29

4-Pokemon Collector
4-Pokemon Communication
4-Professor Oak’s New Theory
4-Professor Juniper
3-Sage’s Training
1-Cheren
4-Pokemon Catcher
3-Junk Arm
2-Level Ball

Energy-10

Double Colorless Energy-4
Water Energy-2
Rescue Energy-4-Go heavier on the Water and less on the Rescue if you are afraid of Lost Remover.

Note About Matchups

I think this is more of a fun deck, so instead of looking at every matchup, we will look at matchups on a general basis. Analyzing matchups for this deck is kind of easy, because it is a simple strategy. All you do no matter who you are playing against is set up a swarm of “Round” attackers. It doesn’t matter if you are playing a Ross Deck or a Durant, just setup a bunch of “Round” attackers, and go from there.

Your matchup against the Black and White Unova Dragons should be fairly difficult. You will need 5 “Round” attackers to get an OHKO with Seismitoad, and if you don’t get an OHKO you are in deep trouble. This trouble is lessened against Reshiram BLW because of the weakness. You could also lessen the trouble against the others by squeezing in some Plus Powers into the deck. That would mean you would only need 4 “Round” attackers, that is fairly manageable.

Mewtwo EX is not a favorable matchup for you. They will probably be faster and be able to control how many “Round” attackers are on the field. If you tech in a Mewtwo EX of your own, you will nearly make the matchup even, but it will still be a tough matchup either way.

Other decks like 6 Corners, CaKe, and Magnezone should be fairly even. 6 Corners is the only deck that has a type advantage on you, but they have it on everybody, so that’s nothing new. CaKE should be a tough matchup, make sure to include some Switches so you will be able to get out of Cobalion locks. The Magnezone player should have a slight advantage here with the awesome damage output of Zekrom and Magnezone. But, who knows, if you get a lot of “Round” attackers out first you could turn the tables around.

Durant should be an interesting matc-hup. They will be successful in taking away your DCEs, so hopefully your deck has enough Water energies to make up for it. If you get setup fairly fast, you should be able to easily OHKO Durants, but if not, they will probably mill all of your important “Round” attackers.

Conclusion and Prediction for this Deck

So is this a great deck that you will see at States? Probably not, it seems like more of a fun deck. Though, who am I to say what a deck can be. We will just have to see, but I do not think that this will be a great deck. It will be a good fun deck, and a decent rogue deck, but nothing that should see time at the top tables. It is cool to use an old school mechanic like Swarming, you can make believe you are 2009 Nats Champion Stephen S. with his Beedrill deck. It is a cool game mechanic, and it is something the format has been missing for a while. Maybe this deck won’t win it all, but if you wanna give your buddy a cool deck for states that will help him learn the game, this may not be a bad deck to try. Sure it won’t be as good as Durant, but it is just as cheap, and will probably teach beginners how to play the game better than Durant.

Well, that’s all I got for ya today. As always I leave you with the phrase-

So Long and Thanks for all the Fish.

Opinion State Championships

A Three Pack of Mini Articles: Your Favorite Card Art of 2011, How EXs Effect States, and Ask Pikkdogs?

Pikkdogs February 16, 2012 11 Comments

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there. This is Pikkdogs here with a 3 pack of mini articles. First, we have some old business to catch up on with, the award for best artwork in 2011. Then, we have a new www.propokemon.com premium content article from Alex Fields, and I will bring you an exclusive look at that article. Finally, I have an idea for an article or two that I might want to do, I will run it past you guys, and we will see how it goes. So, let’s get on to the article.

Section 1: The Award for Best Overall Card Art.

If you have read the article about card art a couple weeks ago, you will remember that I did an award show type article that celebrated the best in card art. I gave awards in many categories like: Best Full Art, Best Aerial Scene, and Cutest Card Art. But, I let you guys pick your favorite overall card art. Before we give away the last award, I just gotta say that I really liked doing the article this year. This type of article is always very tough and labor intensive, it is not an easy article to do. It also is not easy to pick a winner out of a pool of some really good art. But, at the end I really enjoyed doing the article and hearing your responses. I really think that card art is something that connects the casual 7 year-old player to the competitive 24 year-old player. It brings everybody together because everybody can appreciate card art.

Okay, so without any more ramblings on, let’s crown your winner for best overall card art. In tallying the votes, I was not happy with how many overall votes we recieved. But, that could have been because the comment section of our website crashed for the first couple days this article was up, so that was not a good thing. But, all that aside we do have a winner, and it is………………….

That’s right, the first ever overall Favorite Card Art award goes to Full Art Victini from Noble Victories. It won even though it was a write-in choice.

Nobody cared to tell us why they liked it, so I will just guess. First, Victini is a very popular Pokemon. It is the star of two Pokemon movies. Also, this Pokemon is very cute. Victini does succedde in rivaling Pikachu in the cuteness department. Just being cute will land you a lot of fans, I should know. Next, we can look at the card art itself and we see a very nice closeup of Victini’s entire body. He seems to be in the middle of a fight or something and he has his fangs peeking out of his cute little mouth. His body appears to be summoning the power of some kind of fire. Finally, what really stands out here are his baby blue eyes. They really grab you and get your attention. Victini does have the eyes to rival old blue eyes himself, Frank Sinatra. But, Victini is better than Frank Sinatra because he doesn’t have any ties to the Mob, not so far anyway. Add all these things together and you get a really cool piece of card art that is really cute.

Thanks to you all that read the article and voted for your favorite card art.

Section 2: www.propokemon.com Premium Article by Alex Fields, “How the Return of EXs will Effect the State Championships.

Our friends at www.propokemon.com have a new premium article out. As always we will give you an exclusive sneak peek at the article that you can only find here, for free. If you want to be ready for states, just follow this link, and you will have an oppurtunity to read the whole article and get yourself up to date on your Pokemon knowledge.

This article is all about EXs and how they will influence play at States. The author takes the time to look at every EX individually and discusses decks where they will see play. It just isn’t a rehash of the stuff you hear on this site and others, it does bring new stuff to the discussion. It really is a pretty cool article. It gives a pretty good decklist and it gets your mind in gear for play in the new format.

Here is a sneak peek at the article. In this part of the article, Alex is giving you tips for States.

”

– Be prepared to play against a lot of decks that manipulate energy, whether through Eelektrik, Typhlosion, Emboar, or Celebi. Echo what I said above about what to do if your deck can’t beat them. Energy manipulation is a key part of this format, and most of the successful decks running Evolutions at this point are in this category.

– Be prepared for N. The presence of EXs makes this card potentially more disruptive early on, and it remains, as always, the ultimate comeback card.

– Durant is not only still a very solid deck, it is practically the go-to deck for a.) casual players and b.) players who don’t have access to Mewtwo and/or other expensive EXs/Primes/etc.. When I say this, I am not being derogatory toward either group a. or b.â€”I’m just giving an honest observation. It is favored by a lot of casual and limited-resource players because of how cheap it is to build, and how simple it is to run (playing the deck masterfully isn’t that easy, but you know what I meanâ€”it isn’t hard to grasp the “Devour all game” strategy). Be prepared for it as well.

”

Those are just a fraction of some of the tips, there are others in the article, and also a lot of other good info. To get your hands on the full article, just click here.

Section 3: Ask Pikkdogs

I know that I am just asking for trouble here, but I will go against my better judgements and again ask for your help in an article. I know that we have a lot of very attractive readers, but your participation rate has always been fairly low. Well, I’m hoping that we can buck that trend and that will have good participation in this new article idea.

The new article will be called, “Ask Pikkdogs.” As the name suggessts, this article will be all about the benefits of adding chicken to a pizza. Well, actually it won’t at all. It will actaully be about me answering questions from you guys. You will leave your questions in the comment box, and I will try to answer them.

You can ask my opinion on anything. Some good sample questions could be:

What deck should I play at states?
What decks can I play if I don’t have a lot of cash to throw around?
Do you follow the theories of Karl Jung, over the theories of Sigmund Freud?
What is the best way to start collecting cards from each set?
What type of fuel should I put in my 2002 Ford Taurus?
What is your favorite Wagner Opera?
Here is my decklist, can you help me make it better?

Those are just a sample of some good questions to ask. As you can see I am up to talking about anything, even something silly, it’s always fun to let yourself hang a little loose and not to take yourself too seriously. Personal questions and questions about things like Pedro are also encouraged. As I mentioned, you can post your question in the comment box of this article, you can also always email me questions at pikkdogs@yahoo.com, try to put something like “Ask Pikkdogs” in the subject. I know I am not as much of an expert on the game as some people are, but I think it would be cool to answer some questions that people have. Also, since I’m hoping that half of the questions include stuff about people like Geoffery Chaucer, it may not go too deep into Pokemon. Hopefully we can get a lot of user particpation to make this a fun article.

So that’s, 1…..2……and 3. Three things completed in one article, I’m all done. Hopefully we can get some cool questions for “Ask Pikkdogs,” so please don’t be shy, “Ask Pikkdogs” today!

Deck Discussion

One Ant to Rule Them All, One Ant to Find Them, One Ant to Bring Them in, and in the Darkness Mill Them.

Pikkdogs February 14, 2012 16 Comments

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there. This is Pikkdogs with kind of a deck profile of Durant. All of the Pokemon writers right now are concentrating on Mewtwo EX and all the other EXs that just came out last week in Next Destinies. But, a comment on my last article made me think that we are doing all this wrong. At the end of the Cities season there was one deck that dominated all other decks, and yet we are not talking about it. So let’s talk about it, let’s talk about Durant.

History and Basics

Durant is a milling deck. Milling is a term that comes from Magic the Gathering. There used to be a card named Millstone, and Millstone made your opponent put two cards from their library, or deck, into their graveyard, or discard pile. Ever since this card came out, the act of discarding cards from the top of your deck has been called “milling.”

Durant came out in the Noble Victories set. At first not many people recognized how good it was. They dismissed it as a deck that had a good premise, but they thought that it couldn’t mill enough cards quickly. I had made an article on it, and a couple people have tried the deck, but it still didn’t catch on. Then about halfway through Cities season, near the Chicago Marathons, a lot more people started playing the deck. People realized that the deck could be very disruptive and could stand up and mill 30 cards before 6 prizes were taken. On the last couple weekends of Cities, Durant decks ruled the top tables. It was very hard to beat a Durant deck later on in Cities season, and they began to take over almost all of the top spots in the Top Cut.

The decklist that was ran after the Chicago Marathon was very disruptive and could adapt to any type of deck. Unless Durant was going against a deck that had a really fast start or a quick fire deck, the deck could beat just about any deck. It was also a very inexpensive deck, so a lot of people could make the deck. It was very versatile and very disruptive, some people also thought it was very too good, and some called it a “mindless” deck. A lot of Durant hate started going on, and anyone who played the deck in my area was shamed. I’m not sure if all this hate was deserved or not, but a lot of anti-Durant feelings have been stirred up since later in the Cities season.

If you would like to see a Durant decklist, everybody’s favorite Reshiphlosion enthusiast, Airhawk, has written an article on it on Six Prizes, you can read it right here.

Durant v.s. Mewtwo EX

Durant is no doubt the hottest deck coming out of Cities Season, and it is poised to get into a head on collision with the most hyped deck from Next Destinies, Mewtwo. A little about Mewtwo before we get going.

Mewtwo EX has made itself a fast deck with a lot of energy acceleration that can attack quickly. It uses cards like Eviolite, Skyarrow Bridge, and Tornadus to help Mewtwo EX do its job. Its attack, “X-Ball” does 20 damage times the amount of energy attached to it and the defending Pokemon.

All of these things makes Mewtwo EX a great matchup for Durant. Here is a kind of neat list that notes the reason that Durant should have a good shot against Mewtwo

It is resistant to Mewtwo EX. Durant has the psychic resistance, which is very important in the Durant matchup. To win, the Durant player is going to have to make the game a couple turns longer than it would be if your opponent got OHKOs all the time. Using cards like Defender and Eviolite, Durant can thwart a couple KOs and be able to mill all of the cards that are left in the deck. Now with Mewtwo EX being popular, Durant has a built in Eviolite with the resistance. It will be very hard for Mewtwo to get a lot of KOs early on because of the resistance.
Durant can remove energies. Besides milling and playing defense, the next best thing that Durant does is remove energies. It uses Lost Remover and Crushing Hammer very well to remove energies. And since Mewtwo relies on a lot of energies to get an OHKO on Durant, Durant will always have a lot of targets in its energy removal. Even if the Durant player gets some bad Crushing Hammer flips, they should be able to remove enough energies so that Mewtwo will not be able to do an ungodly amount of damage.
Durant can attack with one energy. Even though in the past it has been nice to load Durant up with Special Metal Energies, it can attack with just 1 energy. Since Mewtwo does rely on the opponent to attach a couple energies to attack for a lot of damage, Durant will only attach one energy and hence, make Mewtwo not do as much damage as it could.
Durant is disruptive, and will stop energy attachments. Durant can mill 4 cards a turn, that might not sound like a lot, but it does add up very quickly. Not only is every energy milled one card closer to a loss, but it is one card that you cannot attach to your active Mewtwo Ex. As mentioned, the Mewtwo player is going to need a lot of energy on Mewtwo, maybe around 5 or 6, and if you don’t get those energies on Mewtwo, you will not be able to get the 6 prizes you need fast enough.

For that reason, I think that Durant has a good Mewtwo matchup. Of course it is far from an auto-win, and the match-up is susceptible to those weird Durant starts, but I think Durant does have a small advantage. Durant should be able to stop enough KOs that it can win this matchup most times. So now that we know something about one of the most important matchups for States, let’s look at how this deck has changed since we last saw it at Cities.

What it Gained from Next Destinies.

Durant did not gain a whole heck of a lot from ND. I say that because the deck did not gain any more facets to its character. It still is the same disruptive deck that it always was. It did gain a little consistency with cards like Level Ball, but not really any change in the goal of the deck. Some people say that it may have gotten a deck engine with Battle City, but if that does make its way onto the deck, it will be more for disruption rather than anything that will be a reliable engine. Here are some of the things that are in ND that you might find in a Durant Deck.

Prism Energy-Prism Energy is kind of like Rainbow Energy but you don’t have the damage counter and it only works for Basic Pokemon. Although Special Metal and regular Metal energies are best for this deck, some players like to include this card so they can use Rotom to attack. I don’t really like the idea of having Rotom attack, but it is always nice to have the option. Will this addition make the deck better? Probably not. Having an extra damage counter on Rotom wouldn’t be that bad, but Prism energy is no doubt better in this situation, even though it is not by that much.
Level Ball– Level Ball is in this deck because it is a better alternative to Dual Ball. Most Durant decks played a couple Dual Balls just in case that they didn’t get a Pokemon Collector right away. Level Ball is a lot better because it guarantees you one Pokemon, instead of maybe getting 1 or 2 Pokemon. Level Ball also works because it gets every Pokemon that is normally ran in Durant, unless you run Cobalion. It will not make a huge impact on the deck, but it will increase consistency by a little bit. And it is always very good to increase consistency.
Skyarrow Bridge-Some people have been talking about playing Skyarrow Bridge in Durant. It will give Durant and Rotom free retreat. This is very nice because a lot of people try to counter Durant by Pokemon Catchering a benched Durant or Rotom with no energy. Skyarrow Bridge would stop this strategy cold. It would give free retreat to all the Pokemon that you have, except maybe Cobalion if you run him. Do I think that it will make a big difference? Probably not that big of a deal. Since Rotom and Durant only have a 1 energy retreat cost, it is not that big of a deal to burn an energy. If you want to run this card than it will help you, if you don’t run this card it won’t hurt you that much. You might also be able to use this card as long as your opponent runs it, like most Mewtwo EX decks do.
Battle City– This is a promo card that comes in the Mewtwo Ex Box. Which is a good name for the box, because it does not contain a Mewtwo EX. Thanks Nintendo! Anyway, this card is like the old Lucky Stadium card from Neo Destiny. It let’s you flip a coin and if heads, you can draw a card. That makes it kind of like Speed Stadium from Diamond and Pearl, though it is different from that card. Speed Stadium really didn’t have any use in the format, so let’s see if Durant can change the game with Battle City. The Battle City supporters say that Durant can use this card for disruption. If your opponent is using Skyarrow Bridge for energy acceleration, you can play this card and stop the free retreat of Celebi Prime. Will this card work for disruption? I guess theoretically it could work, but it will have to be proved in gameplay to make me a believer. It just seems that you need so many things to happen before it works as disruption. Is it nice as a stadium card to use? Well, being able to draw another card is nice, but you could use the space in your decklist for other cards. It is not a terrible card to run, but I don’t really like this card. Instead of stadium disruption, you can probably use the room in your deck for more energy removal, defense, and consistency.

Conclusion and Predictions for States 2012

So there is my take on Durant in the current format. It was really hot coming out of Cities, and it doesn’t really lose any steam. Mewtwo EX is so far the best deck that other people are talking about, and it should have a favorable matchup against it. Reshiphlosion and Reshiboar will be played a lot, which is not good for Durant. So there will be a lot of success and some challenges for Durant. Overall, I think that Durant will be very successful at States. I don’t think that it will win every State, Province, and Territory that there is, but I will go out on a limb and say it will be the most successful deck.

What do you guys think of Durant for States?

So long and thanks for all the fish

Deck Discussion

Deck Ideas from Next Destinies

Pikkdogs February 11, 2012 6 Comments

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there. This is Pikkdogs here with an article about decks from Next Destinies. There is no question that Next Destinies will be an impactful set. The set is chock full of cards that will make it into decks right away. This article will kind of overview some of these decks and explain what they are all about. Of course I can’t cover every deck, so this will be just the major changes.

New Deck(s)

Mewtwo

The card that has literally been the poster boy of Next Destinies is Mewtwo EX. He is also probably the focal point of the only great new deck that will come out of Next Destinies. There is no doubt that ND cards will be in a lot of decks, but the Mewtwo deck is the only one that is really new to the format.

Since you can only play 4 Mewtwo EX cards in one deck, that will leave you with at most 56 cards to work with. If you add in cards like Eviolite and DCE, that still gives you about 50 cards to work with. If you add in the staples and some more energy, you still have about 25 cards to play with. That leaves a lot of options. Cards that have been mentioned are energy accelerators and manipulators like Pachirisu, Emboar, and Gardevoir. But, the one deck idea that has been suggested the most has been Celebi Prime.

Celebi Prime has a Poke-Power, called “Forrest Breath”, that lets you attach an extra Grass Energy on the field when Celebi is active. Many people have suggested that this deck add cards like Skyarrow Bridge to it. This would give Celebi free retreat, and would give Mewtwo some energy acceleration while not giving up the ability to attack each turn.

Most of these deck variants also have a secondary attacker. Tornadus, Terrakion NV, and Cobalion NV are the most talked about secondary attackers. A secondary attacker is needed in this deck so that a good Mewtwo counter will not be able to take control of the game. For example, Mew Prime will be able to dominate Mewtwo EX very easily, but if you only use your secondary attacker, Mew Prime will not be so dominate.

This deck sets up fairly quickly and easily. You are going to want to start with Celebi Prime, though, a Mewtwo start isn’t the end of the world. If you do start with Celebi Prime, you are going to want to use Pokemon Collector or Pokemon Communication for Mewtwo EX. You are going to then want to use Celebi’s Poke-Power to attach energy to Mewtwo. You can attack on turn 1 possibly, if you want and have Skyarrow Bridge in play. From then on it will be a matter of getting energy on the field, and trying to keep it there. Here is a basic skeleton list, you can fill in the rest of the cards from there.

Pokemon- 12-16

3-4 Celebi Prime
3 Mewtwo Ex
2-4 Secondary Attackers (like Tornadus, Terrakion NV, or Cobalion NV)

Trainers-28-32

10- Draw or Hand Refresh Supporters
4-Pokemon Collector
3-4 Pokemon Catcher
3-4 Junk Arm
2-3 Switch
3-4 Skyarrow Bridge
3-Eviolite

Energy-15

4-DCE
8-11-Grass
0-3 Rescue Energy or Prism Energy

That will give you about 5 spaces to work with. So it’s a decent skeleton, just fill it in, mess around with it, change it up, and you might have a decent deck.

Current Decks that Will be Effected

Not only will there be new decks, but a lot of current decks will be radically changed by some new cards. Here are some of those decks.

Chandelure

What’s being added– There is no debate on Chandelure ND, it is not a great card, and does not deserve a deck of its own. However, since it is a Fire Pokemon, it will be of interest for Chandelure players to play 1 of the new Chandelure to get a type advantage on some decks. Chandelure has always been too slow to counter Durant, plus, Durant had the type advantage. So an easy to fit in fire Pokemon is really nice. What will be added to this deck is basically 1 Chandelure ND, to give it more versatility. I could also see this deck playing Cilans, since it now needs to run some different types of energies.

How it will change– This deck can work with only 3 of the psychic Chandelures, since you probably will only want to setup 2 or 3 all game. So, having to take out the 4^th Chandelure for this fire one, will not hurt your consistency. It will probably only give your deck better matchups. The Cilan will also help this deck, making it a little quicker. This deck always had a hard time finding energy at the right time, Cilan will help with that. These changes will make the deck better, I am not sure if it will take it to another level, or even keep it from falling, but these changes will help the deck.

Reshiphlosion

What’s being added– The deck that won’t die away just got another big help. Reshiram EX can now be played in your Reshiphlosion deck. Although it only adds 30 more damage to your maximum damage output, that could be helpful in certain situations. So, most decks will probably only add 1 or 2 copies of Reshiram EX, I do not see a lot of other new cards being added to this deck. Although, 1 copy of Mewtwo EX may be added as a tech.

How it will change– These changes will probably not affect the deck too much. The deck will continue to work the same as it always does, it will just have a bigger attacker when needed. I think the ND set does more to hurt Reshphloson than it does to help it. “Blue Flare”, maybe with a Plus Power or two, used to be enough to take down most playable Pokemon. Now, we have a bunch of very playable 180 HP and 170 HP Pokemon. This means that you are going to have to use “Blue Flare” more times than you normally do. This could put a lot of strain on your deck, and could hurt your consistency.

That being said, the deck still is a very consistent deck and can still do really well. Even though a lot of other decks around Reshiphlosion got more than it did, the deck will still be played.

Reshiboar

What’s being added– The bacon is back. Next Destinies brought us many things, one of those things is a return of your favorite fire-pig, Emboar. Since it has been so long since we have seen this card, let’s get a little history lesson. Reshiboar was the first Reshiram BLW deck that was played. It was set to be a very good deck at U.S. Nationals last year, but Reshiphlosion came out of absolutely nowhere and became the fire deck to play. Reshiboar kind of stayed afloat with the addition of Magnezone Prime into the deck. The deck now was a merger of Reshiboar and Magneboar. It saw a little play at Worlds last year, and continued to see a little play at Battle Roads and Cities. But, for the most part Reshiphlosion was the favorite fire deck.

So, let’s go back and get on topic here. What is being added to this deck is 1 or 2 copies of Reshiram EX. Like in Reshiphlosion, this will give it more pop, but it will not be that great. The major card that is added here is Cilan. Being able to get 3 energies into your hand will be amazing for this deck. This means that you can easily power-up your attackers on one turn. This is something that Typhlosion Prime cannot even do.

How it will change– The war for the best fire deck is back on. Reshiboar now has Magnezone Prime and it can say that it is faster and more consistent than Reshiphlosion. There will be some problems with getting energy from the discard pile, but this could be a reason why Reshiram EX could be better. Perhaps Victini will make an appearance in this deck to make sure that Reshiram EX does not end up damaging itself. It is hard to say what will happen at states, but from what I see, I think that Reshiboar could overthrow Reshiphlosion as the best fire deck. And, this is very important with Durant being so good.

Zekrom

What’s being added– At first, I was kind of cool on Zekrom EX, but now I am not sure. I was not happy about being forced to discard 2 energies, this forced you to run both heavy Pachirisu and Shaymin lines, as well as Eelektrik lines. Then, I noticed you could also discard the DCE. This means that as long as you don’t rely on this attack too much, you won’t have to get too much back from the discard pile.

Of course, Zekrom EX will be added to this deck. Probably somewhere around 2 copies of this card. Zekrom BLW and Torandus will still be in this deck, but Zekrom EX will be a bigger attacker. Another card that will be added is Cilan. Cilan works perfectly with Pachirisu, and will make it a lot easier to more quickly load up your attackers. Skyarrow Bridge will also be in this deck. It will make it harder for your opponent to stall by Pokemon Catchering a benched Pokemon. Since you only have basic Pokemon with fairly low retreat costs, this card is a no brainer for this deck.

How it will change– Zekrom was hands down the best deck during Battle Roads. But, it did run out of steam later in the Cities season. Something that will make this deck hit harder with more consistency was desperately needed, and now it is here. This deck should have what it takes to stand up to Mewtwo EX. I really like this deck because Zekrom EX gets rid of 2 energy after he attacks, this means that there are 2 less energies to power-up Mewtwo EX’s attack. Zekrom should be poised to make it to a lot of the top tables at states. It is hard to say how good the deck will be, but it should be really good.

Ross Deck (the Truth)

What’s being added– Time for another history lesson. The Ross Deck was coincidentally invented by a guy named Ross, what are the chances of that? Ross Cawthon brought it to Worlds and went fairly deep into the top cut with a deck based around Donphan Prime, Vileplume, and Reuniclus BLW. It was the talk of Nationals, and it caught on around the country for Battle Roads. It did fairly well there, and it even saw a little play during Cities. However, the novelty of the deck has worn off, and its play has dropped off.

Now the big EXs are here and they stand to reinvigorate Ross Deck. Ross Deck was good because it could take a hit and then redistribute it among the bench. Now not only do you have a couple 180 HP Pokemon to use to keep damage counters on, but you can use one of them to take a hit. It will now be almost impossible to beat Ross Deck once it sets up. It will still be a slow deck that is vulnerable to a bad start in an increasingly fast format, but the deck did get a lot better, and here is how.

The deck will get a lot of great 180 HP Pokemon, like Regigigas EX, Reshiram EX, Kyurem EX, and Zekrom EX. I think the best Pokemon to use in this deck is Kyurem and Regigigas. I think that instead of Donphan, Machamp, or Steelix; you can just use Kyurem. Kyurem can sit there, hit for 120, and take a hit, while Ross deck does what it does best. You also have Regigigas that can be used in the right situation for a knockout. I can see a person running 3 Kyurem EXs and 1 Regiggas. The stadium Pokemon Center is also a perfect fit for this deck. This will make it even easier to get rid of damage.

How it will change– Sure Kyurem is slower than Donphan, but it requires less deck space and can hit a lot harder. Unless you play a deck with Steelix Prime, Scizor Prime, or Conalion Nv you will probably never lose a Kyurem. It is very hard to get rid of a Kyurem EX without using weakness. The deck might get even a little slower, but it will also hit harder and become even more defensive. The weak point of this deck has always been the setup, and this set does nothing to help that, but it does maximize the deck in a lot other areas. I am not exactly sure if ND will make Ross Deck the best around, but it should make it appear on a couple of top tables around states time. Players of this deck will need to address the Durant problem, but if they can handle that it should be smooth sailing for this deck.

Well that is all I got, good luck to you for all your state testings.

So Long and Thanks for all the fish!

Stupid Deck Idea

Stupid Deck Idea: Amoongus and Leafeon

Pikkdogs February 8, 2012 4 Comments

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there, this is Pikkdogs here with a Stupid Deck Idea. I must admit that I haven’t tested many new cards right now, but one rogue idea has inspired me. That is the idea of pairing Amoongus and Leafeon. I know its not a good deck, but it is a fun deck. So we are going to be talking about that soon.

First, I just want to make an announcement. I feel that my articles are becoming a little stale and that I should change things up, so I think that I am going to give Pedro a break. Maybe Pedro will come back after a while. Maybe I will find a different format and change things up, but right now I shall go it alone. Chances are that Pedro will just take a week or so off, but we will see.

Amoongus and Leafeon

The Basics

There was rogue deck going on in the Battle Roads season that featured Roserade and Leafeon. The decks aim was to do damage for one energy with Leafeon while Roserade sits on the bench. If you attach an energy to Roserade you can give a special condition to the defending Pokemon. Amoongus is pretty much like Roserade except for a couple things. 1. It can only gives special conditions upon evolution. 2. You don’t need to attach energies to Amoongus. And 3. Amoongus always casts 2 special conditions.

Let’s take a closer look at these cards. Amoongus has the “Sporprise” ability, it confuses and poisons the defending Pokemon upon evolution. Leafeon has the “Miasma Wind” attack, which does 50 damage for each special condition on the defending Pokemon. If you are able to do a Sporprise on each turn, you can then do 100 damage for 1 energy and inflict 2 special conditions. Since Poison and Confusion do not heal themselves between turns, they will still be there next turn if you do not get the OHKO. There are some Pokemon that can help these two Pokemon be a good deck.

One of these Pokemon is Sunflora. His Poke-Power, “Sunshine Grace” will let you take a Grass Pokemon from your deck and put it into your hand. This is really handy with all the grass Pokemon that we got in the format. The second Pokemon that will help Amoongus and Leafeon is Vileplume. Vileplume will take away items from both players, this is nice because it will stop your opponent from healing special conditions by using a card like Switch. The third Pokemon that I will talk about is Espeon Prime. Espeon has the “Evolution Memories” Poke-Body. This Poke-Body will let Espeon use any attack of an Eeveelution that you have in play. So if your opponent has Mewtwo EX active with 2 special conditions, you have Espeon Prime active with Leafeon on the bench, you can use “Miasma Wind” for 200 damage and the OHKO.

These Pokemon all come together to form a cool deck: Leafeon and Amoongus pack a punch, Sunflora helps you set up, Vileplume provides a lock, and Espoen is a good tech. It may not be a great deck, but it could be a fun rogue. Let’s look at it a little closer to see how good the deck can be.

Decklist

Just another note before I share the list. I did not test this list, this is just a thing I came up with quickly. You can use it to test, but by sharing it I am not saying that it is any good.

Pokemon-26

4- Foonfus
3-Amoongus
4-Eevee
3-Leafeon
1-Espeon Prime
3-Oddish
1-Gloom
2-Vileplume
2-Sunkern
2-Sunflora
1-Magby

Trainers-25

4-Pokemon Collector
2-Level Ball
3-Rare Candy
4-Professor Oak’s New Theory
4-Seeker
3-Twins
3-Juniper
1-Flowershop Lady
2-Pokemon Communication or Elms.

Energy-8

4-Rescue Energy
4-Double Colorless Energy

Shortcomings

Since this is more of a fun deck, let’s take a look at why it is not a great deck. One thing is bench space avaliable. You are going to want to have about 2-3 spaces avaliable for Amoongus, because you are going to need to evolve him 4-6 times a game at least. You are going to want at least 1 space for a backup attacker, Leafeon of course. You also need at least 1 space for Sunflora, and probably around 2 for Vileplume. That means, that at best you will be short at least 1 bench space. So benching is a problem here, Seeker is your best friend here, but its not going to be a cure-all. Another shortcoming is the damage output. 100 damage and special conditions actually is pretty good in this format, but it will be hard to keep that up for 6 times in one game. The final shortcoming that I will talk about is the HP. Leafeon only has 90 HP, Espeon Prime can bump that up to 100, but that is nothing in a format where people are doing 150 damage. You are going to have to rely on Confusion to stop a lot of their attacks, or you are going to need to be great in recovery.

Future Help

Could this deck get a big help from somebody with ties to Luxray Gl Lv.X? In a word, yes. There was just a new Ninetales that was unveiled in Japan. That Ninetales had an attack very similar to Leafeon’s, and it has Luxray Gl Lv. X’s “Bright Look” ability. So will the release of this card make the deck better? Well it will have many effects on this deck. It will replace Leafeon and Espeon, this could mean that you can get rid of Sunflora, since you don’t run as many grass Pokemon. This will help with the bench space problem. Plus, it gives the deck a Pokemon Catcher effect while under a trainer lock. This is really nice and will make the deck better. Will it make it playable? Probably not, but it could help.

Is the Deck Playable?

So does this thing have any kind of chance of working? I don’t know cause I haven’t tried it, but I would say it is much more closer to a fun deck than a real deck. The odds are that I would never take this to a tournament, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t still a cool rogue deck. It might be better than I think it is, that is up for the people who actually go and play this to decide.

A Little About Matchups

This deck probably isn’t good enough to list all the matchups out, but let’s look at matchups as a whole. The Black and White Dragons would be a fairly bad matchup, you would need them to get a couple bad Confusion flips for it to work. The EXs of course would be a tough matchup, but there are a lot of good reasons why special conditions would help screw with the EXs. Of course it would be a tough matchup, but it is not a terrible matchup. You should have a pretty good matchup against Chandelure. You should be faster than them, and you might be able to control the game with a couple early prizes.

Conclusion

So, its not a great deck, just a fun rogue deck. Make it if you have some time it should be pretty fun!

Opinion

The Second Annual Pikkes- Awards to Celebrate Pokemon Card Art

Pikkdogs February 5, 2012 10 Comments

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there. Last year I had an idea around awards-show time to give awards to the best card art in the format. This year I decided to keep the tradition up, and name it after one of the best people I know, me. Pikke (Pick-e) was my nickname in school, so I decided to call the awards the Pikkes. No matter what attractive chap the awards are named after, the Pikkes are all about greatness in card art. And what a better time to have an award show, with the Oscars coming up around the corner.

A lot of Pokemon writers don’t mention card art, and only talk about playability. But, card art is something that connects to the card collector and the serious player. We all can appreciate a good piece of card art. Not all of us can appreciate Mewtwo EX, but we all can appreciate how beautiful a Full Art card is. I think its nice to take a step back from competitive play now and then and just appreciate something as simple as card art. So let’s take a look at how we are going to give out the Pikkes.

I will choose most of the award winners in a variety of categories. Cards that are eligible to win awards have been released since the last award show, that means Black and White and up. Categories include things like: Cutest Art, Scariest Art, Best Full Art, best Aerial Scene, best Nauctical scene, Best Supporting Actor in Card Art, and best Trainer. There will be a new wrinkle in the way things are judge this year. This is because there will be a best card art category. In this category I will nominate 5 cards, and you guys can vote on the one you like the best. All you have to do to vote is just put it in a comment, the winner will then be crowned in a later article. It would be nice if you could also share some of your feelings on the card art that came out this year, and maybe we can work that into the next article.

So we have nothing else to do but start handing out the awards. I must confess before I do this that I know nothing about art. I didn’t take an art class in school, and don’t have any classical knowledge about art. But, the nice thing about Pokemon is you don’t need any of that stuff. You can just appreciate it the way you are, so that’s what I will try to do.

Cutest Art

One thing that Pokemon is being known for is for being cute. Pikachu has always been a spokesman for the brand because he is cute. Not every piece of Pokemon Art has to do with cuteness, but it is what Pokemon is probably best known for. A lot of people call Pokemon a game for kids, whether it is or not is irrelevant, and the card art sure does lend itself to that assumption. So, let us go and take a look at the best of Cuteness for this past year.

The Nominees for Cutest Art are:

Tropical Beach: You gotta love the art of this Worlds Promo. Most people talked about this card because it was good and had a high price tag, but the cuteness of this card was not all lost. There is nothing that is not cute about this card; the Snivy sun bathing, Tepig caught in the lifesaver, Psyduck floating in the water, and Oshawott have a seizure, or whatever he is doing.
Gold Victory Cup: The next nominee is another promo. This card went to the winner of Battle Roads. This art features the three starters jumping up and down in celebration among confetti, while Reshiram and Zekrom lurk in the background, and Victini is sitting in a loving cup. It is a really cute card with a lot of nice flashy colors.
Darumaka Promo: What’s with the promo’s so far? I guess the promotional cards are just the cutest cards of all. This Darumaka card came with a mini binder. This art shows Darumaka balancing on one foot with a platter full of fruit on his head. There is some delicious looking grapes and pears falling off the platter, it all looks really cool and really tasty.

The winner is………………………………………

You can’t go wrong with Tropical Beach. The other two cards are both very cute, but this is like 2 packages of cuteness packed into a one cute container. There are so many Pokemon here that you can point at for being cute. The colors here are very vibrant and you can almost feel the sun shining. It all contributes to a bright, cool, and cute card.

Scariest Art

Unlike being cute, being scary is something you don’t normally associate with Pokemon. But, there are a lot of different Pokemon out there. Some are spooky ghosts, towering dragons, and others are creepy carnivores. Most people out there find that being scared is a pleasant experience, just look at how much money slasher movies make. Since Pokemon card art does include the scary variety, let’s take a look at the scariest art of this year.

Hyrdreigon Nd– If there is anything scarier than a three headed dragon, it is a three headed dragon that is colored green. In this card art it seems that you have a mad three headed dragon coming after you. It is very frightening, and not an experience that I would like to be in. The card art is very cool with the green dragon and the colors popping out of space. You just gotta love this art, it is beautiful……………and scary.
Terrakion Full Art NV– When I first made this article, I was sure that Terrakion was going to win, but now I’m not so sure. It is not for the fault of Terrakion. This Full Art has some very awesome artwork. The art shows a close up picture of Terrakion, and he looks very mad. I’m not sure how to describe his eyes, haunting maybe might work. It is hard to put into words the deep fear that this card compels you to feel. Terrakion is not a Pokemon you fool with, he seems very strong and ready to strike.
Zoroark Promo #19– I was about to give the last nomination away to the Zekrom that came with the Zekrom box, but another Promo caught my eye. Proving that Nintendo sometimes saves the best art for the promo cards, Zoroark looks as ferocious as ever. Zoroark looks very angry, he has his mouth open with his sharp teeth pointing out. Then we gotta talk about the background, he seems to be standing in-front of some kind of vortex or black hole type thing. It all contributes to a very cool looking card.

The winner of this very tough category is………………………………………………….

It was very hard not to give this award to Terrakion FA, it is a shame that it will not win this category. But, when I saw this card I just knew that it had to win best scary art. The colors and everything work so well together, and that green dragon is very scary. Hydreigon is the giant killer, for a regular card to take down a full art it has to be really good, and that’s what this card is.

Best Full Art

There is no doubt that this has been one of the best years for art, and that is because of the Full Arts. The Full Art cards have all been amazingly good looking, the artists really have outdone themselves on these cards. To crown a best Full Art is really a shame, they all are good enough to get a prize. But, only one will win, and only 3 will even get nominated. At this time, let us all look at the nominees.

Terrakion NV– Terrakion didn’t win scariest art, but its day is not over. It is no doubt one of the best looking Full Arts in the set, and as scary as heck. When I look at this card, all I can think about is fear. Terrakkion looks like it is angry and is about to stick it to somebody. It is just a really cool and scary card.
Regigigas ND- Regigigas is known as the Colossal Pokemon, but he could be known as the rainbow warrior. This card art just pops with a lot of colors, it looks like a big wall of candy is moving towards you. Gigas is also quite intimidating, you gotta be afraid this mammoth Pokemon walking towards you. The card art really is intimidating, and is everything you could really want from card art.
Mewtwo ND– Everybody has been talking about this card for a while, but when I first saw it all I thought was, “awww that’s purrtty.” If you like the color purple, not the Oprah movie, you will love this card. So many shades of purple are popping out at you with this card. Mewtwo seems to be conjuring some kind of psychic power, and all of this summoning is causing a beautiful blue and purple swirling background. It is not really scary, but comes off as super saccharine and colorful.

And the Pikke goes to………………………………….

This was again a hard one to award. It could have gone to either Terrakion or Mewtwo, but since Terrakion got shafted in the last category I thought I would give it the tie breaker. It just is a really scary card and a beautiful one. Big props to whoever drew this card.

Best Aerial Scene

Last year this category went to Latios, we will now see who dominates the skies this year. Man has always dreamed of flying, so there is no doubt that we need a category for Pokemon that capture the dream every day. While I can’t fly, I can still take pleasure in seeing Zapdos fly over a power plant. What is critical about a flying scene is the background. I am looking for a great background that shows off the beautiful sky and a downward look of the world. So, Let’s look at the best in aviation this year.

Manibuzz BW– The Bone Vulture Pokemon is the first nominee for this award. This card could have easily been in the “Scariest Card Art” category. While not as scary as a three headed dragon, this vulture is pretty scary as it has its wings extended in flight. The card easily shows off the impressive body of Mandibuzz. It has some very sharp looking spikes around its waist, and it has a bone in its hair. It is a beast that is not to be messed with. In the background are the peaks of some mountain along with the clouds covering up a blue sky. It feels as if the clouds are blocking some pretty strong rays of the sun. The sun and cloud effects of this card art are very cool.
Braviary– Braviary itself is quite a cool Pokemon. It has a lot of colors that seem to pop right out of the card. Its who body is a beautiful dark blue, and it has red, yellow, and light blue on the feathers. The feathers by its face seem to come together to make a star. The talons of this Pokemon are spread out in a fearful gesture. The background of this art is just as good as that of the bird. The background depicts a sea of trees that a cloudy blue sky. Light is not used quite as well as it is on the other card, but the view of the earth sure is breathtaking.
Moltres ND– Moltres, one of the first legendary Pokemon, is back in the Black and White era, and has come with some cool art. This card art shows Moltres at flight, and the fire in this art is treated very well. You gotta admire how his body seems to be engulfed in the fire, and the body seems to be the fire. It is also cool how the fire seems to waft off of him as he fly’s by. The background is not that great in this card, but for the depiction of Moltres himself, you gotta put this card as one of the best of the year.

And the winner is………………………..

We did not have a lot of good aerial card this year, but that doesn’t take anything away from the winner. The effect of contrasting colors is done early well in this card, and it works well with the aerial scenery.

Best Nautical scene

Golduck won this category last year, but there is no Golduck card left to win the title, so there will be a new winner this year. Nautical and Aquatic scenes are very cool things to depict in art. A good aquatic scene has a lot of bubbles and waves, while showing the sun and light from the sky. There are many ferocious sea creatures in the Pokemon world, so let’s see who wins this year.

Jellicent NV– I could have easily chosen Jillicent ND for this spot, but I thought I would go for card art that goes deep underwater. This card art depicts two Jellicent swimming at the bottom of the ocean. In the background there are marine plants, cool bubbles and waves, and the depiction of the sun. It is cool to look at the sun through that view, because most of us don’t get that far under the water too often. The Jellicent also look cool in this card, one is right near the picture and seems to be staring at you. Just a really cool aquatic scene.
Beartic ND– I don’t really think of Beartic as a water Pokemon, although he is one in the TCG, in the VG he is more of an Ice Pokemon. This card depicts him as going fully underwater. He seems to be on the hunt, or maybe taking a bath. The paws and claws of Beartic are up close in this art, and it is kind of a scary feeling. It is cool to see the waves and bubbles in the water. But, the best thing about this card is the fur. The fur on Beartic is depicted as being long and it just looks very wet. That may seem like a weird thing to say, but if you look at the art, you will see that the artist does an amazing job of drawing the fur in the water.
Lapras ND #25– Lapras has always been one of my favorite Pokemon, and he has some great card art in ND. In this art, Lapras is swimming under a bridge. He seems to be smiling at people as he moves along the body of water. The water is drawn really well here. I love the waves, and there seems to be a mist coming off the water. I also love the sun shining through the clouds. It seems like a very happy scene, and it is a cool card.

The Pikke for Best Nautical Art goes to…………………………………

I can’t imagine how difficult it would be to draw this card. It is very hard to draw a Pokemon in the water, but it is harder to draw the water when a bear is moving through it. The artist really outdid himself on this one. You can see every movement, and not to mention how the hair looks.

Best Supporting Actor in Card Art

This category rewards people or Pokemon that have snuck onto a card. For example, Piplup had a great cameo on the art for Super Scoop Up in Majestic Dawn. The winner of this category should have a Pokemon or Person that doesn’t really belong in the art, but seems to steal away all the attention from the thing that should have been the center of the card. Let’s look at the nominees.

Psyduck in Tropical Beach– Tropical Beach has already won 1 Pikke tonight and it just might take home one or two more. In this category we are looking at Psyduck. The art depicts the three Unova starters on the beach, but the scene is stolen by Psyduck floating by on a life saver. It looks like Psyduck is waving to us and the three starters on the beach. It all makes for a really cool and cute scene. Psyduck is a real scene stealer in this one.
Victini in the Silver Victory Cup– It seems like the Unova starters can’t get a break. They are again in a card art together, this time they are hovering around a 2nd place trophy. But, Victini steals the scene again. This time Victini seems to have fallen in the trophy and is waving at you with one hand, while it hangs on by the other. The card art is cool in itself with a spotlight shining and confetti flying in the air.
The Red Stripped Basculin in Basculin ND– This is supposed to be a card about the Blue Striped Basculin, everybody’s favorite “Super Bass”, but a school of Red Stripped Basculin have came into the shot. It looks like the Red ones might gang up on the blue one. Maybe both colors of Basculin are out doing some hunting, who knows, but the red ones are sure looking hungry. Overall, the card art is really cool. With a lot of cool water and wave effects, and the light that shines through the water is drawn very well.

And the winner is……………………………………………..

For my buddies in Team Victini in Ann Arbor, the winner is Victini in 2nd place Victory Cup. I love how he seems to be falling into the cup, and how he awkwardly waves. Just a really cool card to be given out as a prize for a BR, I think that it was a great idea to give out a card like Victory Cup to the winner. I know that a lot of people didn’t like this decision, but I thought it was pretty cool.

Best Trainer

The last category that I will award is the Best Trainer. As a whole, trainer cards have sucked art work wise in Black and White. What has happened to the cool artwork in the Super Scoop Ups, Poketurns, and Bubble Coats of the past sets? The modern art works are really simple and don’t have a lot of flavor to them. That being said, there are still some cool art out there, just not as cool as the past. What I usually look for in a trainer card art is a good profile of whatever the trainer is, and then a cool and funny scene in the background. Pokemon acting a fool is always fun to see in art like this. So, let’s look at what modern trainer artwork is like.

Cilan– This is one of my favorite pieces of art on a trainer this year. Cilan seems to be standing in front of some hotel or something, and it has big gold Pokeball Statues next to it. The hotel thing really works with Cilan, since he always seems to dress like a waiter. The card art is nothing special, but I do like the architecture in the Hotel building.
N – This is a really cool picture of the man they call Natural Harmonia Gropius. He is standing against a forest backdrop, and he seems to have his arms wide open like he is about to hug somebody. His jewelry and accessories are highlighted, as are his hat and his long flowing green hair. All this contributes to some great card art, however, the thing that steals the show is the Ferris Wheel in the background. The seats seem to be made to resemble Pokeballs. The forest and the Ferris Wheel come together to make a very cool backdrop, and really cool card art. Certainly it is nothing you are used to seeing about the bad guy of the video games.
Full Art N– It has been a while since a trainer has gotten the Ultra Rare treatment, but it happened again this year. Full Arts have really been awesome for Pokemon artwork, and this card is no different. Just the fact that this is a full art makes it award worthy. This Full Art was one of the most coveted card in the NV set. Just to be the guy who has a full art trainer makes you pretty cool. The art itself is a lot different than the regular N. This is a closeup of Natural and he seems to be Tebowing or something like that.

And the Pikke goes to ………………………………………………………..

Even though the Full Art N is cooler than the regular N, the regular N has better art. The art on the full art N is cool, but it seems to be kind of messed up. The regular N has one of the coolest backgrounds, and Natural Harmonia Gropius seems to be happy. I think N is a very cool character, and it is nice to see this side of N. N seems to be a character that has more than just 1 side, and is certainly not the cookie cutter characters that Team Rocket are. This card art shows off a different side of N, and when a card adds to a character’s personality, well that is just awesome.

So that is all the Pikkes that I am going to give away, however there is one more left.

Best Overall Art

This category is all up to you guys. So while you guys comment and tell me how I got all the other awards wrong, and please do so, don’t forget to leave a comment and vote for the best overall art of the year. All you have to do is type the name of a nominee you want to vote for (or vote for a write-in candidate) in the comment box. I will nominate 5 cards, but you can vote for any card that came out in the last year, just indicate that it is a write-in choice. Here are the nominees. When you vote, don’t forget to tell us why you like the card. Also, make sure to give your opinions on the other award winners, its always nice to talk about this stuff. Here are the nominees.

So long and thanks for all the fish!

February 2012

Strategy Article: Reading Your Opponent

Deck Analysis: Mewtwo, Pikkdogs Tries the New CMT (Celebi Prime, Mewtwo EX, and Tornadus)

The Dragons are Coming!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Stupid Deck Idea: How Bout a “Round” of Applause? Seismitoad + Wigglytuff Deck

A Three Pack of Mini Articles: Your Favorite Card Art of 2011, How EXs Effect States, and Ask Pikkdogs?

One Ant to Rule Them All, One Ant to Find Them, One Ant to Bring Them in, and in the Darkness Mill Them.

Deck Ideas from Next Destinies

Stupid Deck Idea: Amoongus and Leafeon

The Second Annual Pikkes- Awards to Celebrate Pokemon Card Art

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