One Hit KO

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 nice of you.

Yeah, I thought I better try to brighten up your day after you finished yet another Pokemon season with a  losing record. 

Thanks for the thought.

Your welcome.  As most of you know, it is now officially the start of summer.  Do you plan to take a summer vacation Pikkdogs?

Not really. Once I get back from the Indy city for Nationals, I think I have to spend the rest of my summer trying to find any loose change under couch cushions, three nights in a hotel are very expensive.

True dat.  No plans to go to the beach and play with the beach balls?

Play with balls, yes.  Go to the beach………..ahh I might try to hit up Lake Superior but you know how cold the lake  is.

How cold is it?

It’s so cold that even the Kardashians wouldn’t go into it even if there was a camera around.

Not bad. 

Its so cold that if Kate Upton went into the water she would be, ahh who am I kidding she will always be hot. 

True, can we get a picture of Kate Upton, sure, but later. 

It’s so cold that even Michael Fasbender’s  junk might shrink in it.

That’s pretty good.  Please don’t show a picture of Fassbender’s penis. 

No problem there.  It’s so cold that swimmers have been known to drive to the beach in hummers just to accelerate Global Warming.

Now your jokes are getting a little weak, let’s just skip to the article before you start putting up pictures of Michael Fassbender.

Just one.

And one of Kate Upton, for males and anyone who can see really. 

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…… yeah she’s so hot she could melt any lake.  At least Fasbender’s pic wasn’t a XXX picture of him.  I can live with that, now get on to your article. 

What Won

The first step in reviewing Battle Roads is to find out what won.  Here are the numbers that are being circulated on www.pokegym.net.  Of course they are never going to be 100% accurate, but this what they gathered for what decks won in Masters:

”

46 Dark Deck (Mostly Darkrai EX./Tornadus EX)
15 Zeel
8 CMT (2 w/Terrakion)
6 Fighting (mostly Quad Terrakion)
4 Klingklang/ex
4 Tornadus/Terakion/Mewtwo (1w/areo 1w/sawk)
2 Entei

”

As you can see, Dark Decks have won about twice as often as almost all other decks.   The most successful Dark Deck was Darkrai EX/Tornadus EX.  It has proven to be a hard hitting and disruptive deck. What seems to have given Darkrai an advantage that people did not expect has been the combo of Crushing Hammer and Sableye. Even though Junk Arm does give you a trainer back in your hand, there now is just way too many trainers for Junk Arm to be sufficient.  If you can find another way of replacing trainers, like with Sableye, you will be a lot better off.  So, Sabelye came and gave a lot of disruption that people did not expect.  Combine that with Tornadus EX and how good he is covering the weakness of Darkrai, and you get a real powerful, consistent, and disruptive deck that surprised a lot of people at Battle Roads this year.  It should be a deck to watch out for going into Nationals.

Zekrom did not take as many wins as I thought it would.  Although the deck got a ton of play, I guess it got left out in the mix of Terrakions and Dark Decks.  It still is a really good deck, and it could be the most played deck at Nationals.  Terrakion also fell short of winning a lot of games.  I guess it was kind of shocked because of the energy removal of the Dark Deck and the resistance of Tornadus EX.  I think that during the break before Nationals Terrakion players will retool their decks to include more energy, more cards to get energy back from the discard pile, and the Ruins of Alph needed to get their advantage back.

CMT and Troll continued to be two decks that are really good, but just can’t get over the hump.  If you get a good player playing CMT or Troll, they have a really good chance at doing well at Nationals.  But the number of these decks won’t be as great as the other three decks I already discussed.  Just watch out for them, they are far from dead and could easily win U.S. Nats.

Klingklang came from absolutely nowhere to do well in Spring Battle Roads.  It is a great rogue deck that uses Klingklang and a bunch of EXs to take advantage of different Abilities and weaknesses.  It is a solid deck that is just a little bit slower than some of the other decks.  During the pre-Nationals break, there just might be enough time for players to improve Klingklang enough that this deck becomes a contender for the crown.  Players just have to worry about the lack of speed early game, and energy removal.

I did see some cool rogue and non tier 1/2 stuff at BRs.  Make sure to watch out for those decks.  Don’t sleep on decks like Quad Entei or Quad Kyurem EX, they can take some wins here and there against good decks.  There will be a lot of diversity at Nats, these rogue decks probably won’t win because of the lack of numbers, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t lose to one of these guys.

Trends for Nats

From looking at how Spring Battle Roads went, here are some good things to keep in mind for Nationals.

Energy Removal

Watch out because they are coming to take your energies!   With the success of the Darkrai EX/Tornadus EX/ Sabelye deck, we will see a lot of energy removal at Nationals.  Make sure to throw in an extra energy or two in your deck.  You might also want to think about adding a 2nd Super Rod or an Energy Retrieval.  Also, try to run as little Special Energy as possible because they are much easier to remove than basic energies.

Look Out for Rogues

Just because Dark Decks, Fighting Decks, and CMT are going to be very popular doesn’t mean that those are going to be the only decks out there.  U.S. Nationals is the biggest tournament of the year, and we know that the bigger a tournament is, the greater chance you have of playing weird decks.  Especially because the Swiss rounds will be at least 9 rounds long, you will see a lot of things that aren’t tier 1.  So just don’t prepare to counter 1 deck, make sure you play a deck that is a good sound deck that can do well against almost any deck you play against.

Choose Familiar Decks with Consistency

Piggybacking  on the last point, Nationals is a very long tournament.  At Battleroads you could get away with a risky deck that only sets up sometimes because you only needed it to work about 7 times.  Now at Nats you are going to need your deck to work about 15 times to go really deep into top cut at Nationals.  So don’t count on being lucky, count on being consistent.  Also, make sure to play something you are comfortable with.  If you choose a deck that your are familiar with, you could have a bad record at Nationals.  Just stick with something you know and you should be okay.

Weaknesses are Going to be Big

A lot of the current decks right now have weakness to each other.  The big weaknesses to exploit are electric, fighting, and psychic. If you can come up with a deck that can exploit those weaknesses you should have a good shot at doing well.  Perhaps the troll deck could be a good choice for this tournament.  It seems to be a very consistent deck that can exploit weaknesses.  Just don’t expect to rely on weaknesses because you are going to have to have a deck that can win against almost any deck, but if you can exploit weaknesses you will be better off.

Watch your Opponent’s Energy

Energy Manipulation is very important in this format.  Not only is removal important, but your opponent will be trying to use energy acceleration and recovery a lot.  Celebi Prime will be loading up Mewtwo EX quickly, and Eelektrik will be keeping almost all of your opponent’s energy out of the discard pile back into play.  You really must watch out for energies coming into play from no where.  Perhaps energy removal cards could help you control your opponent’s energy.

 Conclusion

Well, that is all I know about how Spring BRs went.  Why don’t you end things with a news story Pedro.

Okay.  Well apparently this is a very adult article today.  In the start of this article we talked about Michael Fasbender and his famous full frontal nudity in a recent movie, now we have a news story about John Travolta.  Travolta has been accused of sexual harassment by three different male masseuses.  This kind of weird, it is very common to hear of hanky panky with a masseuse, but this time it is not the operation of an illegal movie for sex operation, but it is the customer who is going after the masseuse.  Do you like the John Travolta Pikkdogs?

Of course.  I kind of doubt that Travolta could do those things.  The man played Vinny Barborino in Welcome Back Cotter.  Barborino was the coolest kid around.  He was cool enough to get a date with Rosalie “Hotsty” Totsy, and he was nice enough to be friends with Horshack.

That’s a ridiculous argument.  Just because someone played a good character on tv does not make him a good person in real life.  You are just as crazy as those Michael Jackson fans who stood with the Gloved One even when he was accused of touching kids inappropriately. 

I guess, those wack jobs were just crazy.  But, look at his wife, how can he be gay?  Can we see a picture of his wife?

I guess you got a good point there.  But, he still might be gay, can we see a picture of John Travolta’s album? 

Ok he might be gay.

Good night everybody. 

 

 

 

Category: Tourney Report | Tags: Spring Battle Roads 2012