One Hit KO

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  This is Pikkdogs with a U.S. Nationals report. I will try to paint the picture of the whole event, instead of just giving you a basic report.  On a personal level I did not do a lot of testing for Nationals, so I was not expecting to do well.   I just wanted to go along for the ride and take pictures and stuff to pass on to you guys.  So without further adieu, let us take a look at my report.

An Overview of Nats.

The Convention Center

The Indiana Convention Center in Indianapolis was again the site of U.S. Nationals.  If you were at Nats last year, you pretty much know what the decor is.  All of the decorations that we saw last year were back this year.  Maybe a couple of the banners were different, but for the most part the convention center was laid out and decorated the same.  If you don’t know how it was, I will give you a little description.  Most of the events of Nationals happened in  a large ball room type thing.  Small rooms were also rented out across the hall from …

I’m sure that some, if not most, Pokémon players have had an opponent try to cheat at some point. That happened to me a few weeks ago at a Battle Road I attended. I believe that cheating needs to be brought to the attention of the players, so I want to use this article to raise awareness. If more people know how to spot it, cheaters will be less likely to attempt to cheat for fear of being noticed.

There are several ways to cheat at even the slightest things. Cheaters can draw an extra card, manipulate the outcome of a die roll or coin flip, or even stack their deck. This article will expose every way I know how to catch cheaters.  The two largest Nationals are virtually upon us, and I hope this will let potential would-be cheaters know that it’s not okay by exposing their tricks.

Hey everybody at OneHitKO, apologies for this one being a tad late, but should be perfect for those of you already in Indianapolis, testing franticly for Friday’s action. For those of you starting Nationals on Saturday, this episode should be perfect for ironing out any problems in your decks and will help you to test against the field of decks that are already taking over National Championships all over the world!

[youtube width=”640″ height=”360″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHGCRInN6pU[/youtube]

Continue reading "Preparing for Nationals 2012 – PokeClass Episode 76"

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  You may call me Pikkdogs, or Miss

the design for the 2012 onehitko Nationals shirt

Jackson if you’re nasty.  Today I am here with an article for you.  This article will be about two decks that could be very impactful at U.S. Nationals.  I’m not exactly sure how this article will go, but we’ll just have to see. 

Before we start the article, I got a couple things to go through.  First, this will be my last article before Nationals.  I will be attending Nationals, so if you are going, make sure you stop the fat guy with the onehitko shirt and say hi to him.  Ed just informed me that I will be selling Onehitko shirts for 5 bucks (which is the cost of the shirt, again Pikkdogs doesn’t make any money), and I will be handing out business cards.  Which is ridiculous because if we are a “business”. then Oscar Meyer Hot Dogs are made out of “Pork”, Pamela Anderson’s boobs are “natural,” and Ryan Seacrest has a “girl friend”.  But anyway I guess I have some cards to hand out, for some reason. 

 If you are not going, I will try to keep you guys informed about what is going on.  To keep updated you can follow me on Twitter and check the site each night for my daily report.  Last year I did have some problems with getting Twitter to work inside the convention center.  But, I do have a better phone now and I will try to tweet more, so follow me on Twitter, my username is “pikkdogs”.   Me and my buddy James might try to get some video going, but there is a lot going so don’t hold your breath if it doesn’t get posted right away.
Continue reading "The Rise of Itemlock at U.S. Nationals?"

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  It may be hard to believe, but we are just days away from U.S. Nationals 2012.  This is the big one folks.  No, it may not be the most important tournament of the year, but it is sure the biggest one.  So as you guys are packing your swimming suit, underwear, and extra pounds of bacon (or is that just me?) make sure to take a quick second to look at my article at the top 10 decks to watch out for at Nats.  Yes I am just a fat guy who never wins anything, but maybe I’ll surprise even myself and tells you something that might help you at Nats.  But first, let us welcome my extra-dimensional sidekick Pedro.  Hey Pedro!

Hey Pikkdogs. 

                For your news article today Pedro, since it is the anniversary of the death of one of my heros, will you please talk about him.

Okay, no problem.  Today is the anniversary of the death of one of Pikkdog’s heroes.  Liberace was a very gifted pianist-

-No, Not Liberace.

Well, I thought …

Hey everybody at OneHitKO, it’s been a while!

Some of you may remember me and I am back posting on OHKO.com with my video series PokeClass, which is designed to help players new and old alike in developing their skills as a Pokemon TCG Player. This week is all about analysing the huge amount of results we have obtained from Spring Battle Roads from across the world and seeing what came out on top, what made an unexpected appearance and what this means for upcoming National Championships. I hope you enjoy and next week will be your one-stop guide for preparing for Nationals!

[youtube width=”640″ height=”360″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-02WaT_dpoM[/youtube]

Continue reading "Spring Battle Roads 2012 Roundup – PokeClass Episode 75"

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  This is Pikkdogs here with a Spring Battle Roads wrap-up for you.  Spring Battle Roads is kind of a weird time.  People are not half as excited for Spring BRs as they are for the Fall BRs and the Cities, even though the structure of these tournaments are very similar.  Maybe it’s the fact that people associate Pokemon more with the Fall, or that people have other things to do during the spring (graduation parties, cookouts, sexy parties).  Whatever the reason, some people are not high on Spring Battle Roads.  However, there are people who are.  A lot of people think of this season as the warm-ups for Nationals and are very excited to find out what the format will be like.  So not only were Victory Cups and Championships Points on the line, but advantages for Nationals were also up for grabs.  So let’s see what we learned about the format for Nationals.

But, before we do that there is a certain extra-dimensional sidekick that we must say “hi” to.  Hey Pedro!

Hey Pikkdogs, I would like to be nice today and wish you a happy summer.

That is quite …

I think I’ve lost my spot in Tier One.

Hey, it’s me, coolestman22 again. I’m trying to get a couple deck analysis articles in before Nats, so those of you who are going can see more options than just Darkrai/Tornadus and Zekeels.

As you guessed from the title, the deck I’m going to be reviewing is EelZone, a deck that I feel is extremely underrated.

EelZone’s history is that it was the BDIF during Cities. It had the most wins of any deck, and had good matchups against everything not Donphan.

EelZone was hyped to be good against EX’s. If you Lost Burned 4 energy you drew 2 prizes, so if you did that three times, you would win only using  Magnezone instead of having to attack with other Pokemon.

The problem is that Magnezone is a Stage Two, and it’s hard to set up. Mewtwo
Continue reading "EelZone: The Thunderrated Nats Deck"

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  This is Pikkdogs here with a two part article for you.  The first part of the article will be about traveling for Pokemon, and the second part will have some tips for U.S. Nationals.  I know it’s a weird combination, but I am a weird person, so it all works out.  Before we get going, let’s throw it over to my sidekick Pedro for some news.  How you doing Pedro?

 Oh doing well.

What do you got us today?

Well today is the anniversary of the resignation of the office of Secretary of State in 1915 by William Jennings Bryant.  He resigned because he thought that President Woodrow Wilson was leading the nation into the war that we would come to know as World War I.  Do you like the William Jennings Bryant Pikkdogs?

Oh yeah, love the William Jennigns Bryant.  He isn’t my favorite politician, but he is up there.  He was cool because he fought for democratic principles and he was against war.  He seemed like he really cared about people.  In fact his nickname was the Great Commoner.

That’s outrageous, a politician who cares about people?  …

Hey, it’s coolestman22 again. I’ve been meaning to write another article for a while, but no good ideas for an article had really came to me in a while. I finally had an idea, so here is an article on how to tech for your matchups and what cards to tech in to your deck to make your matchup against X deck better.

First of all, by using any of these techs against one deck, I want people to understand that it might make other matchups worse for them. If you devote three spots of your deck to play against X deck, you’ll have less room for techs against Y deck, or less room for more consistency cards to help seal the matchup against Z deck.

Let’s start with the deck that’s won 30 Battle Roads in Masters alone already, Darkrai variants, and why not put the deck that shares a weakness with it alongside.

Darkrai/Zekeels

First off, Darkrai and most cards in Zekeels has a fighting weakness, so we can group them together into one category, and it’s also something we can exploit with a handful of cards, such as:

Terrakion NVI

Terrakion NVI is the most popular …