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Pikkdogs Pikks Three: Dragons Exalted Preview Part 2: Registeel EX, Emolga, and Ninetales.

Pikkdogs 2 Comments

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  We are dangerously close to knowing what our Battle Roads format will be, but we are not quite there yet.  So before I go testing decks out and sharing what I learned with you guys, we will look at one more preview article.  This is a special Pikk Three article that will have three card reviews that will all be from the Dragons Exalted Set (one card is not yet confirmed, but he should be in it).  Before we get started, we should say “hello” to my extra-dimensional sidekick Pedro.  Hey Pedro, do you have some kind of news piece to get us started?

Hey Pikkdogs, yes I do.  We will not be doing a news piece, but we do have a this day in history.  Today is the fifth anniversary of the release of the last Harry Potter book.   Do you like the Harry Potter Pikkdogs?

Oh, love the Harry Potter.  A good retelling of the classic story of the young hero who rises to defeat evil.  Plus the Saturday Night Live version of the book gave us a look at Lindsy Lohan in a very tight shirt. Show the picture.

 Why is everything about boobs with you? You don’t even like SNL.

I know, I hate SNL, but if it has to do with Lindsy Lohan’s boobs, I suddenly like it.

We were talking about Harry Potter here, not boobs.  A beloved Young Adult novel series about fighting evil, let’s talk about that. 

Okay, what I really like about Harry Potter is when Harry sticks his wand in the cauldron.

I give up, let’s go to the article. 

Card #1 Registeel EX

Description– Registeel is a 180 HP basic Metal Pokemon with a weakness to fire, a resistance to psychic, and a 4 retreat cost.  It has two attacks, the first one, Triple Laser”, will do 30 damage to three Pokemon for CCC.  The second attack, “Protect Charge”, will do 80 damage for MMCC and will reduce the damage done to Registeel next turn by 20.

Analysis– Registeel is one of the Pokemon that I have been waiting on for a long time.  I first was looking at this card around Spring Battle Roads, I thought it could work well with the healing trainers that were in the format at that time, plus there were still Special Metal Energy in the format.  This is the first metal Pokemon to be playable without Special Metal Energy, so this is something to look out for.  Registeel is cool because he is a nice tank that can snipe for some serious damage, he also can use colorless energies to attack, so that can make him even more playable.  I can’t wait to learn more about this guy.

So far there hasn’t been a whole lot of hype about this card.  Some people have been talking about using him to go against those 30 HP Tynamos that people still use.  But, I don’t know if people are thinking of using Registeel just as a tech, or if they are thinking of using him as a tech in any deck with energy acceleration or DCE.

Let us look at the stats here.  180 HP seems to be where you want to be with an EX.  The fire weakness could be problematic if Emboar is playable like people think he might be.  The psychic resistance will no doubt be a good thing, no matter what happens we do know that Mewtwo EX will still be a great card in the next format.  The retreat cost is of course not good, but we have come to expect bad retreat costs for EX Pokemon.  The first attack is good, and it is what most people are looking at.  For just CCC you can do 30 damage for three Pokemon.  If Registeel can attack 2 or 3 times, you should be able to get a couple KOs from this attack if you play a deck that runs evolutions.  We don’t know if evolutions will be big enough to justify using this attack, but I guess only time will tell.  The second attack is nice.  80 damage is not great, but it is fairly good.  I’m thinking that most people will probably only play it for the first attack, but if tanking comes back people could start using the second attack.

As mentioned before, Registeel EX can be used two ways.  It can be used as a tech against Eel decks, and it can be used on its own as a tanking deck.  I could see people teching in Registeel EX in a deck with DCE just like people teched in Tornadus EP in the last format.  I don’t see it running as a tanking deck right now.  The rotation will take out some of the healing trainers and Special Metal energy, and the loss of those cards will hurt the playability of tanking decks.  So that leaves us with the tech option.  I could see him going into almost every deck that runs energy acceleration or DCE energy.  If you can get him going early you should be able to get some damage spreading early, and that could take out some basic Pokemon before they can be evolved.  There is also a third way to play Registeel, in a spreading deck.  Registeel is not the only Pokemon that can spread, the non-EX Kyurem can also spread thirty damage around.  Since Kyurem is also a water type, he can cover Registeel’s weakness.  With these two guys you should be able to spread a lot of damage around, put these two guys in a deck with Exp. Share, and you should have a decent shot of doing well.  I could also see the new Dusknoir going in this deck.  Although it is not out yet, the newly announced Dusknoir can move damage counters around on your opponent’s side of the field.  This Ability works very well with Kyurem and Registeel EX, and it might make a cool fun deck that might actually work.

Now we shall look at the good and bad things about this card.  The good includes the stats of Registeel, the diverse attacks, and the variety of cards in the format that can compliment this card.  The bad parts of this card include the retreat cost, the lack of tanking in the format in regards to the second attack, and the weakness.  Taking all of these into consideration, I do like this card.  I do not know that this card will be playable since we don’t know everything about the new format, hedging your bets on it will be risky.  But, it is a deck that can do a lot of things well and can fit into almost every deck.  You have to love this diversity, I am looking forward to using this card.

Final Rating– 8/10– No guarantees here, but if I were a betting man I would bet on this card.  It seems like something that should see play in a lot of ways.  I like this card.

Card #2 Emolga (maybe) DRE

Description–  Emolga is a 70 HP basic lightning Pokemon with a lighting weakness, a fighting weakness, and a free retreat cost.  It has two attacks, the first one is what people are hyping, the second one is pretty useless.  The useless one is called “Static Shock”, and will do 20 damage for one electric energy.  The good one is called “Call for Family”, it lets you search your deck for two basic Pokemon and put them onto your bench.  Since there is not really any trainer card that lets you search for basic Pokemon, this could be an important card.

Analysis– I heard this hype last year with Stantler, it was basically the same card and it was supposed to be good, but it was never playable.  You aren’t going to fool me again, but then again maybe you are.  The last format did have both Dual Ball and Pokemon Collector, which took away from Stantler.  Since there are no equivalents of Collector or Dual Ball, perhaps Emolga will be playable in this format.  Let us take a closer look to see if we can learn any more as to the playability of the card.

The stats of this card are not terrible.  This is only a basic non legendary Pokemon, we are not expecting 180 HP here.  We only expect something around 60.  So, the fact that we get 70 is pretty good.  It is good enough to avoid a donk by Tornadus EX and Mewtwo EX, so that is about all you can ask for.  The weakness to lighting isn’t usually a good thing, but lightning attackers usually don’t attack for any amount of damage that won’t KO Emolga without the weakness anyway.  Zekrom does 120, Zekrom EX does 150, and Thundurus does 80.  The only thing you will have to worry about is Zekrom EX, he does have a smaller attack that can be used for a KO.  The resistance will probably be really good because we expect that Landorus, Terrakion, and Terrakion EX will be around in the format.  The resistance doesn’t really matter for the Terrakions, but Landorus can’t OHKO Emolga without a Plus Power.  I do love the retreat cost, that means you can do your job in getting basic Pokemon, and then retreat out of it without having to waste an energy on retreating.  Also, it is always good to promote a free retreating Pokemon and then retreat when you know which Pokemon you want to attack with, so free retreat is always a good thing.

There has been a lot of hype about Emolga.  People have been talking about using up to 4 copies of this card in almost every deck.  The interest really comes from decks that have evolutions in it.  If you just are running about 6 basic Pokemon, you don’t really need Emolga.  But, if you are playing an evolution deck you might need Emolga.  If you can only search for one basic a turn, and it is sniped or made active with Pokemon Catcher, you are going to need to start again.  This could mean that evolutions may not work without Emolga.  Some decks are also using Emolga as a one of tech in some other decks.  It is of course always great to have a free retreat Pokemon.

Final Rating– 5.5/10– I am not sold on the playability of Emolga.  Even though Emolga is a very cute Pokemon and it is one of my favorite, I have been burned with these “Call” Pokemon before.  They haven’t been playable so far, so I am not sure that they will be playable this year.  Perhaps the game will slow down enough for Emolga to be useful, but I don’t think so.  If it hasn’t been good yet, I don’t see a reason that things will change.  I could be wrong like I usually am, but this is just my opinion.  I doubt people will be talking about this card after the first weekend or two of BR’s, but what do I know.  It could be a cool consistency card, or it could be a card that just holds you back.

Card #3 Ninetales DRE

Description– Ninetales is a 90 HP stage 1 fire Pokemon with a water weakness and a 1 retreat cost.  It has the famous “Bright Look” Ability.  This lets you switch one of your opponent’s benched Pokemon with his active when you first evolve Ninetales.  It only has one attack.  That attack is called “Cursed Flame” and costs one Fire energy.  The attack does 20 damage plus 50 more damage for every special condition on the defending Pokemon.

Analysis– Finally “Bright Look” is back in the format!  But, time has not been well to “Bright Look”.  The last time we saw this Ability it was on Luxray Gl Lv.X, and it dominated the format.  Ninetales will not dominate the format, but it could be playable.  We must look into it more to see if it will stay in you binder, be a good rogue card, or if it will be a great card.

There has been some hype with this card.  Of course the big thing about using Ninetales is getting special conditions on the defending.  The easiest way to do that is pairing Ninetales with Amoongus.  Amoongus will confuse and poison the defending Pokemon when you evolve it, so that means that you can do 120 damage with “Cursed Flame.”  The 120 damage doesn’t stop there, you must add 10 for the poison, and add a possible 40 damage if they attack and lose the confusion flip.  All that damage adds up to 170 damage with the confusion flip.  If you add one Plus Power, that will mean that you can OHKO just about any EX Pokemon in the format.  But, that is banking on the fact that they will attack with that Pokemon next turn and then loss the flip.  There are also more Pokemon that can add special conditions to the defending from the bench that you can throw in, but Amoongus is the guy to watch.

Even though there is just about a completed list of this deck ready to go, that doesn’t mean that this deck will work.  I know that even if you run a 4-4 line of Amoongus, you can only expect to get those two special conditions on the Pokemon 4 times.  Seeker would have been good in the deck, but it is now gone.  You still can use Super Scoop Up, but it is not as effective.  If you can find a way to use Amoongus’s Ability 6 times you might win, but it is hard to do this.  I think you are going to find another way to get Special Conditions on the defending in order for this deck to work.  Even though I did outline a way to OHKO almost every Pokemon in the format, it is going to be really hard to hit for that much on a consistent basis.  I think you just need too many things to happen right at the same time for this deck to work, but that doesn’t mean much.  I won’t write the history of Ninetales, only competitive play can do that.

As of now I don’t really see any other combo’s for this card, but it is a good card that may even be used as a tech for the “Bright Look” Ability.  I don’t know if it will be worth it just to get 1 more Pokemon Catcher type thing, but I could maybe see somebody teching a 1-1 or 2-2 line and some Switches.  Without Junk Arm, a late game “Bright Look” could be the difference between a win and a loss.  It may seem like a large thing to devote for just a small reward like another Catcher, but just remember how often you saw lying down a Junk Arm, two other cards, and then saying “Good Game”.  I could see this card being a rogue tech.

Final Rating– 6.25/10- I am not a big believer in this card, but then again I am known to be wrong.  I am the guy who poo-poo-ed Eelektrik, so I am routinely wrong.  I just don’t think the deck is consistent enough to work.  And I don’t know if it is good enough to be a tech.  Only time will tell if this card will be good or not.

Well, that is all I have to talk about.  What do you have to end the article Pedro?

Today we are celebrating the release of the new Batman movie.  You are a big Batman fan right?

Oh, big Batman fan.  Love the Batman.  Love the fact that it is a very psychological character, and the bad guys of Batman are no doubt the best.

Who is your favorite Batman villan Pikkdogs?

I love the Mr. Freeze, because he is a tragic villain who just wants to save the life of his true love.  He seems like a very believable villain, and then Arnold Schwarzenegger had to come and ruin things.

 Even someone who didn’t like Mr. Freeze had to be cringing at that performance, he actually sang the Snow Miser song.

When I heard that his marriage had collapsed and he lost a lot from all of the scandal, I kind of felt happy, does that make me a bad person?

No, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t one.  You probably aren’t one because you make a lot of penis jokes on a website about a kids game. 

I can see that.  Good night everybody.

Opinion

Opinion: U.S. Nationals 2012: What Was Done Right, How It Can be Improved, and My Take on the Loss of Top Cut.

Pikkdogs 5 Comments

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there, this is Pikkdogs here with an opinion article.  We are still in a down time here in the Pokemon world, since I don’t have much to talk about, I thought I would go over some thoughts about Nationals.  In a couple weeks we will have a new set and a new format to talk about, but right now we don’t know much about our format and the only people still playing in the older format are, as Team Warp Point likes to say, keeping things “close to the chest.”  So let’s have a discussion about how to make Nats better, than I will look at the breaking news about Battle Roads that we receieved yesterday.

Before we get into the discussion, let us invite my extra-dimensional sidekick Pedro in to do a news article for us, maybe he will tell us a funny story to save this sorry article from being the crap we all know it will be.  Pedro, what do you have for us today.

Today we have some news about your ancestoral homeland Pikkdogs.

Oooo, some Finnish news, love the Finnish news.  What is it today, another bleach blonde rock band have a fight or something?

No, no rockband, this time it is aliens.  It seems that divers have found a large unidentifiable object off of the coast of Finland.  It is believed to have been down there since the last Ice Age.  While some people think it is just a rock, others state that it does not look like just any old rock.  For some reason silt from the water does not stick to it like it would a rock, there are also evidence of some kind of workmanship on the object, such as straight lines and designs.  While the object is not made of metal, a researcher states that its disc like design could make it appear to be like a typical UFO regardless of the fact that it is not made of metal.  There is no law that states that space craft must be made of metal, not yet anyway.  What do you think about this Pikkdogs?  Do ya think this could be aliens? 

Who knows, possibly.  Maybe its just a weird rock that ancient beings carved things into.  The thing could have been covered up by a flood years ago for all we know.

True, but it kind of seems like a space craft.  But then again why would aliens want to go to Finland, not much there other than fish and saunas. 

Hey, that’s my ancestoral homeland you are talking bout there.

Sorry, well I guess Finland is near Sweden, maybe the aliens were looking for some ancient Swedish blondes. 

Seems like a sound theory.  Well, I guess we didn’t find any aliens today, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t out there.

True, they could be out there helping a fat blogger write an article. 

Could be.

Changes to Nationals 2012: What Worked

There were some great things about Nationals 2012 compared to the 2011 version.  The most obvious thing was that we did not have that awful re-pairing that we saw in 2011.

For those that were lucky enough not to be there in 2011, I will explain to you what happened.  We were called to the player’s meeting much as we were this year.  The wait after the meeting was a little longer than expected, but it wasn’t that bad.  Than they released us to look at our round 1 pairings and we sat down.  That is where the trouble started.

A lot of people were paired against opponents that never showed up.  There were way too many to just ignore, I want to say the number was about 75 but I could be wrong, so they decided to re-pair a lot of the matches.  This was not a 5 minute re-pair, it took a long time for the judges to figure things out.  I don’t remember the exact time it took to get the round going, but I would say it was probably around 45 minutes if not more.  To add up all the wasted time would give you at least an hour, probably much more, of wasted time while we waited for round 1 to start.  Needless to say, this did not go over to well for the players.

In 2012 the first day went very very smoothly.  We hardly waited at all between rounds, and there was almost no wait between the players meeting and the first round.  I was very happy with the efficiency of the judges and the staff, they worked together like a well oiled machine.  So the smoothness of day 1 was no doubt a plus for 2012 Nats.

Another great thing at Nats was the registration process.  In 2011 we just walked up to a table and wrote down our name and pop id number during registration.  This changed for 2012.  This year the judges had a list of players, and you were to go alphabetically arranged tables to get checked off (on) the list.  This made it possible for the staff to easily tell if people were qualified to play or not.  Although the tables were not well marked, there were staff around to guide us to the right tables, so that was good.  While this was great for the main tournament, it was excellent for the Professor Cup.  Last year we had the controversy of the winner of the Professor Cup not being qualified to enter, this year they actually checked if you were qualified before they let you in.  Last year was a disaster, professors felt cheated that the general public was being allowed to enter something that should honor them.  These changes in registration stopped these hurt feelings and made the event run much smoother.

The next great thing relates to the first one, the fact that T-Shirts were given out on the second day.  The T-shirts are nothing special and didn’t come in my size, but they were still pretty cool, and you can’t get mad at something free.  Anyway, this year the T-shirts were given out after the last round in day 1.  This may or may not have been a good thing, if it was a good thing it sure did the job.  The judges in 2011 blamed the long round 1 delay on the fact that people just wanted the t-shirts, and then decided to drop.  I don’t know who would take time out of their day just to get a cheap ass shirt, but apparently the judges thought that this was what was going to happen.  I don’t know exactly why, but round 1 did go by very quickly, it may not have had anything to do with the shirts getting handed out on day 1, but since things went smoothly, it just might have.

I don’t want to talk about the other things that I liked about the tournament too much, but I do want to touch on them a little.  The 64 man pod tournaments after the end of day 2 did turn out very well, even though they almost fell victim to the infamous lunch break that didn’t really happen (more on that later).  League play and the side tournaments seemed to do well, they weren’t perfect, but I can’t think of a way to improve them.  I have heard some people suggest that they add another table for people giving out prizes, this would speed up that infamously slow line.  Although, it may just cause people to take prizes without actually playing a game since the lines would be much faster.  If the lines were only 5 minutes long you could go through two lines and get 2 prizes as easily as you could if there were only one line.  Maybe a slow line is what we need for that area.  I did also like the shops that were at the convention center.  Although the prices were too high, I still enjoyed looking through stuff even though I am too poor to actually buy anything.

What Needs to Be Improved

Here are some improvments that I think they could make for next year.

The first things I want to complain about are the long delays on day two. The delays even forced some people to miss their lunch break on day 2, and that means a lot considering the lunch break was scheduled to be a lot later than it was the previous day.  It was safe to say that everybody was hungry after the first couple rounds.  I know that these delays were not the fault of the judges like they were in 2011, but they were the fault of players taking way too long to finish their games.  I don’t wanna point any fingers but, cough Pooka cough (j/k Pooka, love ya).  I know that the +3 format is doing well in keeping games going quickly, but certain decks can make turns go by very slowly.  This not really anything that the management should change just to make one tournament go faster, but maybe they should have slightly rules for Nationals.  Perhaps at Nationals the judges should be able to institute timed turns, or something to make sure that turns go by very quickly after a certain pre-determined time.  I know doing weird rules like this could end up angering people, but perhaps the speed of Nationals for 1000 people should supercede that of 2 people that are taking their sweet time.  Another possible solution is splitting the tournament into more flights, and letting the flights run independent schedules.  This could confuse people, but it would let people keep on playing as long as they aren’t in a group with a slow moving game.  Even if they don’t make more flights, they could do the same thing with the two flights they do have now.

On a related note, I think that it is time to text us our pairings.  There is just too many people playing now for all of us to go up to a couple boards and look for our names.  Almost all of us have phones, and the ones that don’t can still go to a board to look for a pairing.  I don’t know for sure, but it seems like it shouldn’t be too hard to link our phone number to our POP ID, and to have a text automatically sent once the pairings are up.  They would have to test it out and I know the system wouldn’t be perfect or needed for every tournamnet, but I think it is something that is needed for Nats.

On a related note to the last topic, the game is growing really fast.  Even though there were restrictions on who could attend Nationals this year, we still had the biggest attendance at any tournament ever!  We were just a couple dozen people away from getting a top 256.  Unless the game takes a nose dive for some reason, or the credentials for getting into the tourney are raised, we will have two top 128s next year.  I don’t know if the staff is ready for that.  We will need to probably take the top 64 in to day 3, which would be different.  There are also other time related questions to answer for next year.  This year the professor cup was held at night on days 1 and 2 (maybe three, I don’t know), this left a long day for the professors and the Juniors (who judge the event).  They were already held back until past 10 P.M. each day, we don’t need to make the day longer than it already is.  Perhaps the Professor Cup needs to go back to Sunday, or possibly start it on Thursday night.

Speaking about Thursday night, maybe something should happen on Thursday.  Even though the main tourney doesn’t need to start right away, perhaps they can bring back the draft on Thursday night.  It would give us something to do after 5 P.M.  Someone should try to do something on Thursday night even if it is just a little thing, it is better than what we have now.

Another place where a lot of people think that we can improve Nationals is in the streaming matches area.  The boys from The Top Cut tried to tape some matches, but they were only allowed to do it on a couple top cut matches, and were locked out of the finals.  I think it is time for Nintendo to step up and do some streaming themselves, we shouldn’t have to have a third party come in and do the coverage.  This way it could be professionally done and streamed to people all over the world.  Even if the Top Cut is the only plan they have to stream matches, they should work with them ahead of time to make sure that games from each round are streamed.  This is something that can be fixed easily, so it should be done.

The End of Top Cut?

I am done with talking about Nats, but this is not a super long article and a news piece was just announced that fits an opinion article very well.  During my favorite season of the year, Fall Battle Roads, there will no longer be any top cut rounds.  Meaning that the winner will be crowned by how well you do in Swiss rounds, and how your tie breaking percentages end up.  This was quite a shocking announcement, and I was pretty mad when I first heard the news, but now I have returned to sanity and am able to weigh both sides of the issue.  So here is my opinion on the elimination of Top Cut.  We will start by looking at the advantages of getting rid of Top Cut, than we will look at why it might be a bad choice, next we will look at how this might effect your deck and card choices, and finally I will give you my honest opinon on this issue.

There are good things about getting rid of the Top Cut rounds.  One good thing is that the Fall Battle Roads will be just like the current college football system, without the bowl games.  This means that every game is very important, you will no longer be able to have a bad game and still have a hope at winning it all.  You must now be on your game at all times, this means that games will be more intense because until you lose, every game will be very very important.  I guess you can say that every game is an elimination game now.    This should make for some very exciting games.  Another good thing is that this decision will save us a lot of time.  If the tournament is 5 rounds and you lose round 3 or 4, you may not want to waste any more time and be able to drop a couple hours earlier than you would if there was a top cut.  It also saves time for judges because they no longer have to wait for the top cut rounds to end.  I do understand that less people will be in the hunt for the win now, but it does speed things up considerably in a tournament where winning is not that important, and not too many Championship Points are up for grabs.   Another good thing about not being able to win with a loss now is that it forces people to play more consistent decks.  This could lead to more fun, balanced match-ups instead of a lot of donks.

Of course, there are also bad things about getting rid of Top Cut.  One bad thing is that just one string of bad luck can ruin your whole day, even if you know your deck is better than your opponent’s.  Just one donk now is good enough to stop you from winning your tournmanet.  Another bad thing is that the tournamnet as a whole will be less exciting.  Sure there will be a couple games each round that are very exciting, but the majority of the players will not be very excited because they know they will never be able to win.  Most people like having a chance to win, even though they know it is a long shot.  The final bad thing that I will be talking about is the fact that attendance could go down for these tournmanets.  Even though people usally don’t travel far for Battle Roads, sometimes people do drive a couple hours.  It is very possible that people will now not travel as far if they know that their chances of winning could be foiled by just 1 string of bad luck.  With the previous format people can think that they can use their skills to undo any bad luck that they might encounter, now just 1 aspect of bad luck will kill your day.  I think people will not travel as far if they think that they have a lower chance of winning.

Before I talk about my opinion of this news, I will talk about how this effects deck building.  Now that you can’t afford any bad luck, consistency is more important than ever.  I think that I will play less techs in my decks now, and I will play more consistency cards.  I don’t know what these consistency cards will be, but they could be more drawing supporters and cards like Emolga DRE (that allows you to search for two basics for a one energy attack).  Pokemon that let you draw cards with an attack or Ability will also be very very good in case you run into some bad luck.  Another tip is to not play decks with low HP basics.  I think that if I am worried about the donk, I wouldn’t play anything under 70 HP.  Tornadus EX can hit for 60 on the first turn without too much luck, so you want to have at least 70 HP to avoid him.  There is also a chance that possibly Darkrai EX might be attacking for 90 very quickly, so maybe having decks that only run BBP (Big Basic Pokemon) might be safer.  I might also want to run more copies of basic Pokemon and more Pokemon search cards, so you don’t lose after an early knock out.  It seems that because of the enw rules, Fall Battle Roads will emphasize the need of consistent decks that are bad luck proof.

I think that elminating the Top Cut rounds for Battle Roads is a decent thing for Pokemon to try.  There is no doubt that there are bad things about it, and that doing this is a huge risk, but its nice to see that Pokemon has enough huevos to take a chance.  Running with this format might encourage less attendance and more drops, but it will still be exciting.  Even if you lost a game, the day is not over, you can still pick up championship points and prizes for getting in the top 4 or 8.   The decision to cut top cut rounds will actually not impact the majority of players, it will only effect around 4 players, while the other 30 some players will encounter the same situations that they would before.  If we can shorten your day without screwing up things for the majority, that is a really good thing.  This also makes things easier for the judges, which is a nice thing.  This decision will also help make every game very interesting, so we are ready to see some games that mean a lot.  These close games will be great to experience and watch.  So what if the last round is not as exciting for 10 people, each game will now be very exciting for most people.  The same people will still be vying for some prizes, they just won’t be able to win 1st prize if they do get one of the top spots.  Even though I think that Pokemon should have waited till Spring Battle Roads to try this experiment, I do think that this could be a positive thing.  But, I am not gaga over it, and this decision may end up hurting the game.  Only time will tell.

Conclusion

Well, that’s all I got for you guys. Pedro why don’t you give us another science related news article before we leave.

Okay, another news piece from the world of science is given to us from the Christian Science Monitor.  NOAA, the Nationals Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, recently released a news report denying the exsistence of mermaids.  Some people recently began believing that the fabled creatures could exsist after some scientists have backed an “Aquatic Ape Theory”, stating that humans could have had a human like ancestor that was aquatic.  Do you believe that humans have a relative that lives in the sea?

No, that would be preposterous.  We all know from watching Dr. Who that our ancestors live underground near the core of the earth and look like dinosaur type things.

I refute the scientific validity of Dr. Who, if they are right than almost every interesting thing in human history leads back to London, don’t you think sometimes they would be somewhere else? 

Okay, so maybe they aren’t exactly accurate.  But they always have cute girls on there, that should count for something.

Oh, I think this is another excuse to show a racy picture. 

Excelent idea.

Good Night Everybody!

Pikks Three

Pikkdogs Pikks Three Future Card Edition: Mew EX, Terrakion EX, and Garchomp

Pikkdogs 1 Comment

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  This is Pikkdogs here with a special Pikk three article for you.  This Pikk Three article is not special because it has to take classes in school away from the rest of the class, it is special because it is all about cards that are coming out in the Dragons Exalted set.  This set will come out early in August, but the pre-releases start in just a couple weeks.  We do not know for sure what cards will be coming out in the set, but we do have some that are confirmed. Luckily for us the ones that are confirmed are pretty good.  So let’s take a look at three of the better cards coming out in Dragons Exalted.  I regret to inform you that Pedro will not be joining me on this article.  Pedro is on vacation this week, so he will be off for a while.  I also will probably not be making articles regularly, so bare with us during our vacations. Because this article is about cards that don’t always have official English scans, I will put in pictures of things I ate from my summer vacation.  I know it doesn’t make sense, but if you have ever seen this site before you will know that things rarely make sense.

Card #1 Mew EX

Description– Mew EX is a 120 HP Psychic EX basic Pokemon with a psychic weakness and a 1 retreat cost.  It has an Ability that is translated as “Versatile”, this let’s Mew EX use the attacks of all the Pokemon in play.  It also has one attack that is translated as “Replace”, for one energy this attack let’s you move energy on your side of the field any way you want.

Analysis–  Mew EX is a very interesting card.  It has one of the lowest HP of any EX Pokemon, but people are still excited for the card.  I haven’t heard many people making decks for it yet, but I have heard people saying that they wanted to put it in existing decks.  It is a card that people are wanting to play with, so I think it should have a bright future.

Let’s take a look at the basic stats.  120 HP is very poor for an EX.  The 1 retreat cost is very good, but the weakness is bad.  For right now the career of Mew EX will be measured by how it can do against Mewtwo EX.  Since Mewtwo EX is one of the best Pokemon out right now and it is psychic weak, Mew will have to deal with Mewtwo EX first.  His attack is cool but not really something that would cause anybody to play him more.  Sure Shaymin UL made a career of doing the exact same thing, but doing it as a Poke-Power is different than doing it as an attack.  What everybody is talking about is the Ability.  Having the ability to use either your opponent’s attack or one of your attacks and hit Mewtwo and Gothitelle for weakness will be a huge thing in the next format.  It is something that you will need to plan for, you can’t just splash it into any deck, but if used right, Mew EX could be a great tool for you.

The big question now is, “what is the best situation for Mew EX.”  If used wrong, Mew EX will just be an easy 2 prize for your opponent so you must use it carefully.  He won’t be a good starter, so don’t plan to use a lot of copies of this card.  I could see this card being used in something like an Emboar deck.  If you are using Emboar to put energies on Reshiram and Entei EX, than you can easily fit in Mew EX to use one of your fire Pokemon’s attacks to hit Mewtwo EX for weakness.  It would also be a cool thing to copy Tornadus EX’s attack to get an easy attack off.

There are going to be good uses for Mew EX, but I think that it also has a lot of bad things about it.  The low HP means that a lot of good Pokemon can OHKO it easily.  The retreat cost also gets me, if it has such a low HP you think they would at least give ya free retreat.  The attack also does not really get you out of trouble if you are in any.  Also, the fact that Mewtwo EX can also be used to counter other Mewtwo EXs also might hurt Mew EX.

All things considered, I think that Mew EX will see a lot of play.  It is much more versatile than Mewtwo EX, and in an era where Pokemon Techs will be key, Mew EX will be one of the better ones.  It is almost always going to be helpful to you if you play it, I really like the card.

Final Rating–8/10– It is hard to give a rating to a card that has not came out yet in a format that is not yet finalized, but this is a good guess. I think there will be room for Mew in this format, and that the use of this guy will be handy for a lot of decks out there.  It seems like one of those cards that gives you a lot of options that a lot of the good players will use.

Card #2 Terrakion EX

Description– Terrakion EX is a 180 HP basic fighting type EX Pokemon with a 3 retreat cost and a weakness to grass.  It’s first attack is called “Rock Tumble” and it does 50 damage for FC.  This damage is not effected by resistance, this is a great effect to have with Tornadus and Tornadus EX still running around.  The second attack is called “Pump Smash”, and if Pedro were here he might tell you that “Pump Smash” was the name of a movie he just saw.  Anyway, this attack does 90 damaged and lets you attach 2 basic energies from your hand to any of your Pokemon.

Analysis– There has been some hype about this Pokemon.  With Eelektrik decks still popular a lot of people are wanting to make better fighting decks, and Terrakion EX can sure make these decks better.  As long as lightning decks don’t fall off of the face of the planet Terrakion EX should see a lot of play initially.  The second attack on Terrakion EX makes me think a lot, but I guess we can talk more about that later.

Let us look at the basic stats.  180 HP seems to be the normal for big guy EXs, so that is good.  The retreat cost could be better, but it is expected in a Terrakion card, so nothing new there.  The grass weakness right now is really good, that could change but right now it looks good.  The attacks are pretty good and can be used in a couple different ways.  Overall the stats look very good on this guy and the playability looks good for the near future.

Initially I was just going to say that I think that this is a good card for fighting decks to do a lot of damage to counter lightning decks.  It would be a big tank that could do a lot of damage and take hits.  But, I think with the effect of the second attack this card has the potential to be something much different.  Not many cards can deal a lot of damage and then attach 2 energy cards.  This can open a lot of different opportunities for decks with Terrakion EX in it.  I am much too dumb of a player to suggest a good Pokemon to run with Terrakion, but I think that there has to be another good Pokemon that you can combine Terrakion EX with, besides the normal fighting Pokemon.  Even if there is not a big combo out there with Terrakion EX, I am sure that he will still be a great card.

Final Rating– 8.5/10– I see great things in the future for Terrakion EX.  I am not sure exactly how it will play out, but I do think that this card will see a lot of play.  Not only in mono-fighting decks, but in some different decks.  I can see this card being in some tool boxey like deck, kind of like the Troll deck was last season.  I could see Terrakion EX being a good starter in a deck that features a lot of different Pokemon.  The ability to attach two energies from your hand after you do your big attack is just an amazing ability that opens up so many options for you.  I don’t quite know what is in the future for this guy, but I know that it is all good things.

Card #3 Garchomp

Description– Garchomp is a 140 HP stage 2 Dragon Pokemon with a dragon weakness and a 1 retreat cost.  It has two attacks.  The first attack is called “Mach Cut”, this does 60 damage for F and lets you discard a special energy card attached to the defending Pokemon.  The second attack is called “Dragonblade”, and does 100 damage for FW and forces you to mill two cards.

Analysis– The stats of this card get me excited.  The 140 HP might not sound great in the BBP era, but it is good for a stage 2.  The 1 retreat cost is very good for a non bird 140 HP Pokemon.  So those things are very positive.  It does have a dragon weakness, I am not sure how good or bad that will be since that is  a new frontier for all of us.  It sounds like with Rayquaza EX and this Garchomp running loose it could be a bad weakness, but we never know.  I like both attacks.  The first attack does 60 damage for one energy and discards an energy from the defending Pokemon, this is not a game changing attack, but it is good.  The second attack does 100 damage for two energies and a mill of 2.  The two energy attack is good, 100 damage is good because with 2 Plus Powers you should be able to 2HKO any Eviolited EX.  I do not like the mill of two however, if you do it a couple times a game you should be okay, but if you are thinking of using this attack over 3 times a game you will be discarding a lot of good resources, and that will eventually hurt you.  All of these attacks could get a lot better with the new Altaria (if it comes out in the next set), because he will increase the attacks by 20 damage.  This should get you doing serious damage for 1 energy and an assured 2HKO on an EX for your two energy attack.

I like this Pokemon.  With some good attacks that only cost one and two energies, you should have a pretty efficient deck.  There has been some hype with this card.  I have not heard a whole heck of a lot about this card in terms of exact plans, but I know that some people have been hyping Garchomp/Altaria.  It should be a cool deck and a good card.  Like I said before, it is really hard to forecast how good new cards will be in a new format, but I do think that this should be a good card.

I am kind of hesitant about this card though.  It is a stage 2.  As a rule of thumb for the last format you should stay away from stage 2s.  The BBP do get a little better in the new format, but then again the format does get a little slower, so maybe Stage 2s will be a little playable.  But, just make sure that your deck is fast and consistent if you are putting a stage 2 and some stage 1s in it.  The jury is still out in evolutions in the BW-on format, but if any non-drawing deck can work, it could be this one.

As mentioned, the prevailing wisdom with this card is that it should be paired with Altaria from this set. Altaria is a stage 1 Pokemon that adds 20 damage to each attack by your Dragon type Pokmeon, this extra 20 damage could be stackable (we are still waiting on an official translation).  With 3 Altaria’s in play you can do 120 damage for just 1 energy with Garchomp, and you can still discard a special energy attached to the defending!  If you can get this deck setup and going on any regular basis you should be really good.

Final Rating– 8.25/10– I do like this card, but I am not quite sure about it.  It should be a good card and deck, but I am not ready to step out and say that it will be.  A lot of good players that I have talked to our anxious to test this card and get it going, so that should be a good thing for this card.  Garchomp also seems to be fairly versatile, so it does not just have to be in a deck with Altaria.  I think it could be in a cool tool box like deck if you worked it right.  The future of this card is all in front of it, it should be a bright future.  Just be careful about relying on Garchomp as your main attacker, those 2 cards you discard will eventually end up costing your resources if you keep on using the 2nd attack.

Well, that’s all I got to say

So long and thanks for all the fish!

Opinion

The Top 20 Rotated Cards of 2012

Pikkdogs 14 Comments

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there this is Pikkdogs here.  At rotation time last year I decided to write an article covering the 20 most successful cards that were getting rotated.  Since I am still on vacation and won’t be building any decks anytime soon, I figured that now is a good time to look at doing this article.  Before we get started we should get Pedro in here to give us a news article. Whats in the news today Pedro?

Hey Pikkdogs.  In the news today is Wendee Long, a Texas Middleschool Principle.  She is in the news because she put a camera in her daughter’s locker to catch inappropriate behavior by the school’s basketball coach.  When the word got out that this happened the authorities charged her with crimes that could put her in jail for up to 20 years.  What do you think about this Pikkdogs.

I say we lock her up and throw away the key.  Because that is what would happen if I put a camera in a girls locker room.  If I did that I probably would get burned at the stake.

Well, that’s because you’re a creepy fat middle aged guy.  The principle wasn’t doing it to get a thrill, she was trying to monitor her employees. 

I say that a crime is a crime.  If  you catch teenage girls in their underwear on camera, it doesn’t matter if you are a creepy guy or a concerned parent.

You do have a point there. 

And if I don’t and this lady is proven not-guilty, you can expect me to be dressing in drag and going by the name Pikkarita.

There you go, this website just got even more creepier.  Just get onto the article. 

#20 Celebi Prime

Celebi Prime was ignored for most of its life.  It was known as a “bad” prime and mostly useless.  Around Fall Battle Roads last year I did here of some people using it in a lock deck, but it never really saw a lot of play.  Then Mewtwo came out and all of a sudden Celebi was a great card.  It became one of the most used energy acceleration cards and it elevated the Mewtwo EX to one of the BDIFs.  Celebi instantly became a staple in one of the best decks around, and it had lots of success during States, Spring Regionals, and Nationals.  CMT never really dominated the format like some people forecasted, but it was a always a really good deck.  Celebi Prime was a really good card late in its life and had a great spot in metagame.  For those reasons Celebi Prime is one of the better cards that will be rotated at the end of the season.

#19  Jumpluff

Jumpluff is just about the opposite of Celebi Prime.  Although they each suffer from low HP and times of low and no play, Jumpluff was very successful when it was released.  Jumpluff immediately became a great card when it was released because it was good in a fast deck with both Uxie and Claydoll.  Jumpluff was almost tier 1, or at least tier 2, when the deck was at its peak.  However, after Claydol left the format Jumpluff lost all the chances it had for competitive play.  It did pop up again in  Vileplume decks and some Mew Prime decks, but it never really made its way back into the top tiers.  But, it did have a great run early in its life and some play in the middle, so it deserves a spot in the top 20.

#18  Entei/Raikou Legend and Rayquaza/Deoxys Legend

ERL and RDL are one of the few legends that actually was playable for a while.  I know they are separate cards and should not be combined in one spot, but I’m the boss here and I can do whatever I want.  ERL was a good card early in its life.  It was really good when Uxie, Crobat G, and Claydol were out there, it could OHKO all of them for  lots of prizes.  Everybody has heard horror stories of that card coming into play and taking 6 prizes out of nowhere.  Once Black and White came out ERL lost its play because Poke-Powers began to be fazed out.  RDL on the other-hand was a very good card, but it was kind of like a one weekend wonder.  It was only really good during Nationals 2011.  RDL was put into most Magneboar decks for Nationals and did a good job in one of the most played decks there.  RDL did see some play a little before and a little after nats, but it mostly was only good during Nationals 2011.  These cards did not stay into competitive play for long, but they were good when they were out.  So good that I think they are one of the better cards that are getting rotated out.

#17  Mew Prime

Mew Prime is a card that has been used a long time, but it never really took the format by storm.  It saw a lot of play in different tool boxy like variations that mainly featured Vileplume.  These decks did well, but they never quite made it to the top tier.  Mew decks featured a lot of different attackers including Jumpluff, Crobat Prime, Vanilluxe, Unfezant BW, and some others.  They were always fun decks to play because they were unorthodox in their strategies and they could adapt to a lot of different decks.  Mew did not really have many uses outside of its own deck, although it did get some use in a Stage 1 Rush variant earlier in the season.  But for its ability to always be good, it deserves a place on this list.

#16 Kingdra Prime

Kingdra is another card like Jumpluff, when it first came out it was a good card, but then it stopped being good.  Nobody in their right mind would play it these days, but it was not a terrible play when it came out.  When it first  was printed Kingdra LA was still a good Pokemon to base a deck around.  The release of Kingdra Prime kind of reinvigorated the Kingdra deck and it helped Kingdra stay playable for months after its release.  Kingdra never really picked up after last year’s rotation, and the card has been kind of dead ever since.  Even though the card hasn’t been playable for a while, Kingdra was once a very scary weapon that used “Spray Splash” very effectively to make some really good decks that were very difficult to play and play against.  It was once a good card and good deck, even though newbies would never have known it, that is why it deserves to be on the countdown.

#15  Pachirisu

Pachirisu is an energy acceleration card that came out in the Call of Legends set.  Pachi was just about the only good new card to come out in that set.  Pachirisu was first considered as a card in a rogue Raichu Prime deck, but then Black and White came out.  Zekrom from Black and White was a great card because it was basic and it could hit just about as hard as a stage 2.  Pachirisu just made the Zekrom deck not only hard hitting, but very fast.  For a time ZPST was the best deck in the game, but it was eventually replaced by Zekrom and Eelektrik.  Pachirisu did see some play after Eelektrik came out in faster versions of Zekrom, but for the most part Pachi’s days of dominance was over.  Pachirisu also did play a big part in another deck, Magnezone/Yanmega.  Magnezone/Yanmega was a good deck in its day, and Pachirisu was a card that could hit the field and add a lot more power to the deck.  Pachirisu was a very good card for most of this season that helped a couple decks do very well, for this reason Pachirisu deserves to be on this list.

#14 Judge

We now hit a spot on the countdown with a bunch of trainers.  The first trainer we will look at is the Supporter we called Judge.  Judge at first was a good card because we could yell “Judge!” and a bunch of judges would come scrambling to our table for no reason.  Besides messing with Judges, Judge was a great card because it could even your hand with your opponent’s hand.  This was very important when playing with one of the more popular cards of late last season and early this season, Yanmega Prime.  Yanmega was a very popular card and it could do a lot of good for you with no energy, you just had to even hands before you attacked.  Judge was the most popular way to even hand size because it did three great things for you.  The first thing was that it disrupted whatever your opponent was going to do, the second thing was that it let you draw a new hand, and the third was that it let you attack for free with Yanmega.  So, Judge was very good with Yanmega but it was also good on its own early in its life.  Judge was a card that was put into decks to counter decks like Uxie and Shuppet donk that put a lot of resources into your opponent’s hand to be used next turn.  At one time Judge was a very versatile card that was used for draw and disruption, that is why it belongs on this countdown.  Judge was eventually replaced because Yanmega became a liability in a format with Zekrom BW and supporter draw of at least 6 cards became necessary after the rotation of Uxie.   But, it was once one of the  best cards in the format.

#13  Pokegear 3.0

Pokegear was once a card that came out in HGSS and was thought of as a junk card.  Supporters at that time were more used for searching and supplemental draw, so there was not as great a need for supporters as there is today.  But once Uxie was rotated out, supporters became very very important, and Pokegear was a Junk-Armable card that could get you a supporter almost every time you used it.  Pokegear also let you choose which supporter you want, which gives it an advantage over a card like Random Receiever.  Even though Pokegear never actually guaranteed you a supporter, a lot of people like to use it because it lets you choose what supporter you want to grab from your deck.  Random Receiver came into the format in DEX and kind of replaced Pokegear after Pokemon Collector fell out of favor with most players.  Even after Random Receiver hit the format some people still preferred to use Pokegear.  The fact that you could use the card with Junk Arm meant that you could use Pokegear to get a supporter whenever you need it, that was very important for those games that are close late-game.  For being a great way to get your supporter engine going for a long time this card deserves to be recognized as one of the better cards in the format.

#12 Dual Ball

Dual Ball is a very important card in today’s format.  Today it is used as the most efficient way to grab basic Pokemon from your deck.  Right now we need to use our supporters to draw cards and not search, Dual Ball let’s you search with an item card and leaves you free your supporter usage for drawing.  The format currently does not have a lot of evolutions in it so you need less Pokemon.  That is where Dual Ball comes in, it may not get you a lot of Pokemon but most of the times it will get you enough of the Big Basic Pokemon that you need to get your deck going.  Dual Ball originally was used as a 1 of or 2 of card that some people would use to supplement Pokemon Collector.  It was also used in Uxie Donk decks to search out Pokemon without having to use up your supporter for the turn.  The card was not super popular at first, but it got more and more popular each month until it became a staple in most decks.  It is now a very heavily used card.  Some people do not like to use this card because it relies on flips and they really hate getting double tails with this card, but a lot of people do like the card because the odds favor you getting at least 1 Pokemon most times with the use of Junk Arm.  It was a heavily played card that ended its play on a high note, sounds like a top 20 card to me.

#11  Sage’s Training

Sage’s Training is Ed’s least favorite card, but most people do like it.  It started off as a very rogue card that was not played very much.  But after the 2011 rotation people starting using Sage’s Training as a staple drawing card.  It did make you discard 3 card from your deck, but that was good in some decks like Eelektrik based ones.  In most decks you could just pick the 2 cards you want, and discard the 3 cards that wouldn’t really help in that particular match-up.  This fact made it more useful in decks early in the season when Stage 1 rush decks were popular.  These decks had a lot of techs, so if you had to discard techs that you didn’t want to use, you really didn’t care.  Now decks are a lot more focused on one goal instead of having a lot of different tech cards.  You can’t really afford to discard cards in quad decks right now, so that is why Sage’s fell out of favor.  But, it still was a very good card throughout this season, and good drawing supporters are hard to come by, so this card was very coveted earlier this year.  It may not have had a lot of play early or late in its career, but it still was a great card at some time.  Even though Ed doesn’t like the card, it still is one of the better cards in the format.

#10  Shaymin

To start the top 10 we have Shaymin from Unleashed.  When it was first released, Shaymin was used in rogue decks to move energy, but it did not really take off until Zekrom BW came into the fold.  It was first used in a large scale to move energies attached to Pachirisu to Zekrom.  After ZPST went away, Shaymin still saw a lot of play in decks like Troll.  Moving energies is something that you can’t really do many other ways. and Shaymin is a really cheap and quick way to move the energies around.  It allowed a lot of different options for a player to utilize, and this versatility makes a very good card.  It seems like the best players always played Shaymin because it allowed them different options and more control as to whether they would succeed or fail.  Even though Nationals this year was not the most popular time for Shaymin, it still saw a lot of play in some really good decks.  One thing about Shaymin is that you rarely see it in bad decks anymore, for being a good choice and a popular card I think this card needs to be on the list.

#9  Cleffa

Cleffa is the card that drove everybody wild at U.S. Nationals 2011.  He was a good card because he allowed you to refresh your hand as an attack without any energy attached and allowed free retreat, but the fact that he put himself to sleep made things very flippy.  Combine that with the fact that people played Pokemon Reversal, things at the 2011 Nationals got really flippy.  A lot of people were mad that they had to rely on luck so often, but they all made the decisions to run Cleffa.  Anyway, Cleffa was huge during Nationals 2011 and did still stay playable for the next couple months after.  The ability to get a brand new hand after playing down your cards earlier in your turn and then with a chance to be unhittable next turn was very good about a year ago.  Now we have Pokemon Catcher to get around a Pokemon that can’t be attacked, but Pokemon Catcher was not always in the format.  Cleffa was once a very big wall, it had very good defensive capabilities as well as being something that helps you setup.  It was a really good card that could help your slow deck setup.  Decks right now are a little faster and can’t really use Cleffa as well, but it was perfect for the format about a year ago.  Cleffa saw play in just about every deck, so it was almost a staple.  For being a good wall, a good Pokemon that helps you setup, and a consistency/recovery Pokemon; Cleffa does deserve to be on this list, it was quite a good card about a year ago.

#8  Donphan Prime

Perhaps no attacking Pokemon on this list has had more success than Donphan Prime.  Donphan Prime has had success throughout its life.  When it first came out it was used, than it got really popular, and at the very end it got rogue status.  Donphan was originally used with Machamp SF, then it was used in some other various decks including one with Dunsparce, then this year it saw some action with Machamp Prime and then with Reshiram and Zekrom BW.  Donphan was almost always used as a main attacker throughout its life, there was not really a time where it was not played.  This is very different from a lot of cards on this list.  Donphan was a cool card by itself, it was a stage 1 that had 120 HP and had a Poke-Body that stops 20 damage from each attack.  These stats were very good for the time when it came out, now we have basics doing 150 damage, but Donphan used to be an impenetrable tank.  Being that powerful as a Stage 1 hadn’t been seen in that format yet, so it was a very strong card when it came out.  It never really won a huge tournament, but it did do very well in tournaments for a long time.  So I could see this card being higher on this list, but it no doubt deserves to be high on the list.

#7  Typhlosion Prime

The next Pokemon our list is Typhlosion Prime.  Like Donphan Prime, it came out in the HGSS set as one of the first primes.  Unlike Donphan, Typhlosion Prime was not used right away.  Its use went through the roof during Nationals 2011.  The release of Reshiram BW cried out for some kind of energy acceleration. People usually ran Emboar to put energies on Reshiram, but somehow people thought to use the long lost Typhlosion Prime as an acceleration tool.  He worked better than Emboar because he could attach from the discard pile and did not require the use of trainer cards to get energies back.  He also put damage counters on Pokemon, that usually is not a good thing, but it is for Reshiram BW because he has the “Outrage” attack.  He and Reshiram seemed to work really well together, this partnership took the deck to decent playability throughout most of this season.  It was always a good reliable deck that kind of set the standards for consistency in the format.  It was a good deck to use on beginners because it taught people how to play the game with a deck that took some genius to play but not too much. If or one am happy to see this card go because it is a very hard name to type,  I hope Pokemon like “Ditto” get popular soon.  Anyways,  the deck did very well and that alone set Typhlosion Prime as one of the better cards that we are going to lose in the rotation.

#6 Magnezone Prime

The final Pokemon before we get to the top 5 is Magnezone Prime.  The final Prime in our 3 Prime series is Magnezone Prime, one of the hardest hitting Pokemon in the format.  In fact, Magnezone could do 200 damage  a turn without much of a fuss.  Kind of like Donpahn Prime, Magnezone Prime has had success throughout its career.  It first hit its success after being used in a tournament in Europe a couple seasons ago.  It was combined with Regirock LA to make a consistent deck in an SP dominated format.  After Regirock was rotated it was combined with Emboar BW and RDL to make a very hard-hitting deck that we called Magneboar.  This deck was very good during Nationals 2011, and had a little success after.  When Magneboar finally died, it was replaced with Magnezone/Yanmega which had success through the first half of this year.  This was a deck that a lot of the good players seemed to run.  But, after Zekrom screwed up Yanmega decks Magnezone did drop in play.  It did see some play in a deck with Eelektrik later this year, but that deck never really caught on too much in popularity.  Magnezone was a really cool card because it could always get an OHKO on any Pokemon with enough energy.  It could stop things like Eviolite and resistance with just an extra energy card.  It was really intimidating to play against Magnezone because you never knew when your opponent could pull out an OHKO.  Magnezone was also a cool card because it had built in draw power, it is always good when you can draw more cards each turn.  Magnezone no doubt deserves to be on this list for being a hard hitter and a consistent Pokemon with draw power.

#5  Professor Oak’s New Theory

We start the top 5 with everybody’s favorite draw/hand refresh supporter, Professor Oak’s New Theory.  PONT did see some play throughout its life.  Originally it was used just to supplement Uxie and Claydol in decks.  Most decks would run a couple copies of this card.  PONT became much more valuable once Uxie rotated from the format.  Now PONT and other similar supporters were being asked to carry the bulk of your drawing needs.  It wasn’t long before 4 copies of this card was a staple in each deck.  Some people like me prefer the use of Professor Juniper in their decks instead of PONT, but there is room for both.  There are also decks where PONT works better than Juniper, such as decks that run lots of evolutions.  To put it simply, everybody loves PONT as a card.  Everybody runs 4 of it in every deck and nobody is mad when they get a PONT from a Random Receiver.  It may not be a perfect card, but it is safe to say that it is one of the most useful and well liked cards in the format.

#4 Pokemon Collector

I know what you are saying, “How can you put Collector over PONT?”  While Collector over PONT is a judgement call, I do think that Collector is better than Dual Ball more-so than PONT is better than Juniper.  I also think that Collector has been a staple longer than PONT has.  But enough talk about PONT, we are here to talk about Collector.  Collector came out in HGSS and came out just in time to replace Roseanne’s Research.  Collector was preferred more than Roseanne’s in the name that they overlapped in the format, and that is a lot to say knowing that Roseanne’s was the staple of all staples.  Being able to grab 3 basics from your deck was great because it let you setup any evolution line without the fear that all of your basics will get sniped before they can evolve.  Evolution lines will suffer now with the loss of Collector.  The format may have outgrew Collector, but that doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be considered a great card after being a staple for 2 years.  In fact, I bet most of the people who play today have never played in a format without Pokemon Collector.  It is a great card and it will be weird to play without it.

#3 Yanmega Prime

The last attacking Pokemon on this list is Yanmega Prime.  Yanmega Prime has had an up and down career.  At first it was considered a largely unplayable rogue card because of its lightning weakness and the popularity of Luxray GL.  But once the SP cards were rotated last year, Yanmega took their place as the most dominating and calculating deck.  Yanmega almost ruled the format from Nationals 2011 to the start of Cities 2012.  Its lightning weakness again got the best of him as it left the format thanks to Zekrom BW, but that did not take away how dominant the card was for a good amount of time.  It was very good in different Stage 1 decks with Pokemon like Donphan Prime and Cincinno BW.  It was also very good in a deck with Magnezone Prime.  It seemed like a lot of the best players liked to play Yanmega because it was a very versatile Pokemon that could do a lot of different things.  The ability to snipe for 40 was really good in a format that had a lot of 30 HP baby Pokemon.  It could also do 70 damage to the active, which was not bad in an era with lots of 110 HP stage 1 Pokemon.  The fact that Yanmega could preform all of those attacks for free was an amazing Poke-Body to have, and really set this card apart for a long time.  After Black and White came out Yanmega lost all of its playability, but we all still remember when this Pokmeon dominated the format.

#2 Junk ArmJunk Arm - TR

It is hard not to put Junk Arm at the #1 spot.  No Junk Arm did not dominate throughout its career, but it was the best card of the past year.  The reason I did not put Junk Arm at #1 is that it was not a staple until about a year ago.  Junk Arm was once only a card that was a 1 of option during the SP dominated formats.  It was used just in case you needed to use a 5th Poke-Turn or Power Spray. But Junk Arm started to become a 4 copy staple once the SPs were rotated and great items like Pokemon Catcher and Eviolite were released.  Junk Arm was an amazing card in this past format, it gave you quick access to almost all the good cards in your discard pile with just a two card discard.  Junk Arm ended up deciding games a lot of the times, just an extra Plus Power or Pokemon Catcher was enough to win the game for you or your opponent.  Junk Arm was not just a great card, it was the card of the format.  It effected deck building in every way, all of those Quad decks would never have worked without Junk Arm.  A lot of the decks out now would not work without Junk Arm, it is the card that has shaped the format.  There is no doubt that it deserves to be at the top of this list.

#1 Vileplume

This was a very hard decision.  I know that Junk Arm changed the format and that PONT was everybody’s favorite card, but Vileplume deserves a little boost because it is a Pokemon.  Unlike Yanmega Prime, Vileplume has been a great card throughout its life.  When it first came out it was used with Gengar SF to try to counter the SP decks.  It next got paired with Gengar Prime to try to make a Lost World deck.  Then it got paired with Mew Prime for a myriad of decks and variations of those decks.  It then went into the Ross deck at Worlds 2011, which was the talk of the format for months and months to come.  Then finally it showed itself in Nationals 2012 in a couple decks that screwed up the format.  It was combined with Accelgor, Mismagius, and sometimes Cincinno EP to make some powerful and disruptive decks.  Vileplume had a lot of hype before it came out, and man did it ever live up to the hype.  Vileplume is known as one of the most hated cards in the format, nobody ever wants to see the card in their opponent’s deck because all it does is try to screw your deck up.  It is a very hard card to play against because it takes away all trainers, which are very important in the present and in the SP dominated past.  For those reasons I am crowing Vileplume as the best card that will be rotated in 2012.  It might not have been the slayer of SPs that we all wanted, but it just was a great disruptive card that did a whole lot of good in its time in the format.

 

Well, that is all I have to say about that topic.  I hope you guys liked the article, thought I’m sure you guys would probably put the top 10 in different orders.  And I’m also sure that I missed a couple cards, so if you have comments on the article please leave them in the comment box.  Before we go we need to let Pedro lead us out with a news story.  What do you have for us today Pedro?

Today we are celebrating the birthday of Joe Schuster.

Oh, the book publisher?

No, not the book publisher.  This is the comic book artist who helped to create Superman.  Do you like the Superman Pikkdogs?

Kind of.  I liked Golden Age Superman, but since then he has been way too powerful.  You need a hero with some weaknesses.  If I am going for a DC hero I like me some Batman.

Who do you think would win in a fight between Superman and Batman?

That’s easy, Batman.  Batman has kryptonite.

Okay, sounds reasonable.   Who do you think would win in a fight between Wonderwoman and Catwoman?

Everybody.

Agreed. Goodnight everybody!

Deck Discussion

The Rotation: How it Will Effect Deckbuilding.

Pikkdogs 13 Comments

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  This is Pikkdogs with a deck building article for you.  Now that we are all back from Indianapolis and we have lots of aloe on our sunburns, we can start looking towards the next format.  The next format of course will not include any HGSS sets, so we must start thinking of how to build decks with only BW cards.  Before we get going we should say hi to my extra-dimensional sidekick Pedro. How was the Nationals tournament in your dimension Pedro?

Oh pretty good, I looked at your article and mine seemed pretty similar to yours. 

So it was pretty much the same in your dimension?

Well, I guess things were a lot different,  the Pikkdogs in my dimension got a winning record.

Nice, another joke about my record.  Just get going on your news article.

Okay,  well all of us at Onehitko would like to wish everybody a happy belated 4th of July, and a happy Canada Day for those north of the border.  If we don’t get articles out right away these days it is because I am on vacation and I may be not writing as much.  From that news we go over to a news story about sperm.  A woman in California recently sued the FDA because she wants to use a sperm donor that she knows to conceive a child without following the FDA’s policies and going through a sperm donor. 

If only there were a way to get pregnant by a person you know without going through the FDA?

I agree Pikkdogs.  Just having sex with someone seems to be a lot less complicated than suing the government. 

A lot more fun too.  Someone should tell her she can get pregnant by just having sex.

Okay, well we got that case solved.  Let’s move onto the article now. 

How Decks Will Be Different.

The debate about what sort of rotation we should have is over.  Now we should go and see how decks will change with the loss of the HGSS cards.  We will get into how we can replace some of the cards later, but now let’s just talk about how decks are changing on a broader sense.

Decks will change a lot because of the cards that we lost.  The biggest change is that decks will be less trainer focused.  Because we have lost Junk Arm, we can no longer count on having almost any trainer that we need at any time.  That doesn’t mean that Pokemon Catcher will no longer be played, but it does mean that your decks will not be able to rely on trainers anymore.

It is for this reason that I am predicting the end of quad decks.  No more will you be able to have a deck with 40 trainer cards in it, you will need to have a balanced Pokemon line because you can no longer use item cards as efficiently.  We will see the rise of Pokemon techs.  We will again see Pokemon lines going into the 20s instead of about 4.  We will also see more playable Stage 2 lines.  Even though some stage 2 decks were playable this season, the game should slow down enough that most decent stage 2 Pokemon will be playable.

We will not only have to adjust our decks because of the loss of Junk Arm, we will have to adjust them to replace the draw cards that we lost in the rotation. This season we used supporters for our draw power.  PONT and Juniper were the main draw engines for our decks, but with the loss of PONT we can not always rely on supporter draw.  We still will have cards like Juniper, Cheren, and Bianca to draw cards, but those cards may or may not be enough.  Cheren is a nice card and all, but he is no Professor Oak.  You might need to turn to Pokemon based draw like Empoleon DEX to keep your deck fairly fast.  I predict that overall decks will be a little slower, but Pokemon based draw will be more important than it is now.  Perhaps cards like “Double Draw” Virizion will make a comeback.

The vast majority of Pokemon that were popular during U.S. Nationals will still be in the format.  No use replacing Mewtwo EX, Darkrai EX, or Zekrom because they will all be still legal.  But, that doesn’t mean that all types of decks will be the same.  Terrakion decks will have to change and become more versatile.  Vileplume decks will be gone all together, so item locks will not be that important in the new format.  With new ways to get setup and draw, we are bound to see some new Pokemon pop up into competitive play.  Cards like Empoleon, Emboar, and Chandelure are being talked about being possible top tier decks. But, just because Stage 2 decks will see more play does not mean that the era of BBP (Big Basic Pokemon) is over.  Basic Pokemon and Pokemon EX will still be out there and will still do well.

How To Replace Cards

We will be losing some staple cards when the rotation takes place.  This part of the article will focus on how to replace cards that we will lose in August.

Pokemon Collector/Dual Ball

One of the things about the rotation that will hurt us the most is the loss of Basic search.  We can no longer use Dual Ball or Pokemon Collector, so how can we get basics?  The only ways to get basics right now is to use Level Ball, Heavy Ball, or Pokemon Communication/Ultra Ball.  All four of these cards can only grab you one card, and two of them can only grab certain types of Pokemon.  This means it will be harder to get basic Pokemon out, that means getting  a Catcher Kill on a basic will be very important.  Make sure to use Level Ball and Heavy Ball to your advantage.  For example, if you use Klingklang, you might want to run the copies of Kling and Klang that have a three retreat cost so you can search both cards with both Level Ball and Heavy Ball.  This loss of basic search could force you to run either more decks that have basic attackers, or decks that have space to run large Pokemon lines.

PONT/Sage’s

As mentioned earlier, right now people use hand refresh/drawing supporters as their main draw engine.  PONT and Sage’s are two of the most used supporters right now, and they will soon be leaving the format.  So how do we replace them?  You could replace them by using Pokemon based draw with Empoleon.  You could try to splash Empoleon into other decks, or try to revive this years Empoleon/Terrakion deck.  I think Empoleon will be a tier 2 or 3 deck in the coming year.  Just having draw ability in a deck is very great and will set it apart from other decks.  Empoleon based decks may not be tier 1 next year, but they will be more popular than they were at the end of this year.  If you don’t want to go to Pokemon based draw, you can try to just use N and Juniper.  N is not a great draw card late-game, but maybe you could also play Cheren or Bianca to try to make up for the loss of PONT.  Supporter cards will not be as good in the draw department this coming year, so decks will slow down a  little bit.  We just need to test things to see what combination of supporters will get your deck pretty fast, or if Empoleon or another drawing Pokemon will be the answer.

Rainbow Energy

Rainbow Energy is now dead.  It has been in the format for a long time.  Rainbow seems like a staple in the game.  It seems to have been in the format forever.  It is kind of like radio, we know that it has not always been here, but nobody can seem to remember a time without it.  Rainbow is gone and it is not coming back.  Instead of having a Rainbow Energy, we are having two different energy cards called Blend Energy.  One card will provide Lightning, Metal, Water, and fighting; while the other will provide grass, dark, psychic and fire.  It is in an easy transition, this could hurt some decks that have some specific combos, but for the most part it shouldn’t be a huge difference.  It may be harder to run Darkrai EX with Zekrom, but those are just wrinkles that we should be able to iron out.  This is an easy transition, losing PONT is harder for us, but we should be able to replace Rainbow with Blend easier.

Those are a couple cards that we might be able to replace.  We will lose some cards like Shaymin and Special Dark that we cannot replace, but that will happen with any rotation.  However, we will always need to have a draw engine and how to search Pokemon, those are the two things that we will need to figure out how to do in this new format.

Conclusion

Well, that is about all I have to say about this topic.  I hope you guys have good luck in finding a way to make your post rotation deck.  Now before we go we should let Pedro lead us out with a news story.

Alright, today’s news story is about the city of Paris.  Today it celebrates its 2,050th birthday.  So happy birthday Paris.  Have you been to Paris Pikkdogs? 

Can’t say I have.  Though I think it would be a lot like New York but with more baguettes instead of pizzas.

Did you know Pikkdogs that Paris was named after the Gaulish tribe Parisii?

Nope, I did not.

Well, it was.  It was a proud tribe in the late Roman Empire period who was known for their large numbers of mimes that like to smoke and surrender large tracts of land. 

I think you are just making things up now.

Yeah probably, but that’s all I got.  Happy birthday Paris!

 

Pikks Three

Pikkdogs Pikks Three: Double Colorless Energy, Ruins of Alph, and Boufallant Dragons Exalted

Pikkdogs 5 Comments

Editors Note:  This article was supposed to be published about a week or two before Nationals, but it was delayed.  Because of the fact that I am too lazy to update it, I will just publish it in the original form.  So if it seems like it was written 3 weeks ago, its because it was.

 

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  This is Pikkdogs here with a Pikk three article for you.  In case this is your first time at the rodeo, a Pikk Three article is like a big card review article.  I will review three cards for you, one card is a commonly used card in the format while another is a card that I feel is under-rated, and the final is a card that is from a new or yet unreleased set.  Before we get going I should introduce my extra-dimensional sidekick Pedro.  Hey Pedro.

How’s it going Pikkdogs?

Going well.  Hey Pikkdogs do you have a news article for us today?

Well, not so fast.  Listen, I have been your “sidekick” for about a year now.  I think it’s time that I get my own sidekick.

How would you get your own sidekick?  You don’t even write your own articles normally.  You are my sidekick and that is it.

How do you get a sidekick?  You suck.  You haven’t did well in a tournament in a long time.  In fact, the last time you top cut Kim Kardashian was still married.

That wasn’t bad, do you have some more of those?

The last time you top cut!!!!!Larry King was only 20 years old.  The last time you top cut the pregame show of a basketball game on TNT was understandable.  The last time you top cut the History Channel actually had shows about history on it. 

Well, since I do appreciate the joke about the TNT pregame, I guess I can let you try out a sidekick for one article.  I still don’t know how that’s gonna work, but maybe you will surprise me.  Look for the Pedro Sidekick article in the future!!!!I guess.  No after that foolishness, let’s just get to the article.

Card #1 The Staple- Double Colorless Energy

Double Colorless Energy
Yeah, it’s from Base Set, and if you can get 4 First Editions in play, you automatically win.

Description– I usually don’t review energies, especially one as common as DCE, but I think it would be cool to take a closer look at it.  The effect of this special energy card is that it provides two units of colorless energy.

Analysis– DCE has been a very popular card ever since we heard it was coming out in Heart Gold Soul Silver.  It was first used to revive the Gardevoir and Gallade deck that was popular back in the old ex days.  This is kind of the bridge card between the ex and the EX era.  DCE never succeeded in bringing back Gardevoir and Gallade, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t successful.  It went on to  fuel the SP age with its work with Garchomp C.  The SP age is now over and DCE is still used in a myriad of different decks.

As mentioned, DCE is a very popular card today.  It is used with Pokemon like Zoroark, both the regular and EX versions of the Unova dragons, Mewtwo EX, and both the regular and EX versions of Tornadus.  I don’t really have to mention how successful Mewtwo EX and Tornadus have been, their success and their futures speak for themselves.

Not only is DCE instrumental in attacking, but it is very instrumental in retreating.  Eelektrik would not have been as near as successful as it has been if the Eelektrik player didn’t have DCE at his/her disposal to retreat the stage 1 Eel.  This makes DCE  very versatile, and if there is one thing that I like it is salted meats.  But, if there were two things that I like they would be salted meats and versatility.

It is hard to think of bad things about DCE.  The one that pops up into my head is that you can only run 4.  If you could run 7 or 8 I probably would.  Another bad thing is that it is a special energy that can be taken away with either Lost Remover or Enhanced Hammer.  People will be targeting your DCE with these removing cards, but that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t play the card, you just need to be careful and see the play coming.

Final Rating– 9.5/10– I love DCE, and I don’t think many people will disagree with me.  It is just a great versatile card.  No DCE is not perfect for every deck, but it works great with a lot of cards, and the cards that it does work with are great just because of DCE.  The format would be very different without it.  The SP age would never have been without it, and Mewtwo EX will not be as successful without it.

Card #2- The Underdog-Ruins of Alph

Description– Ruins of Alph is a simple card.  It is a stadium card.  The effect of this stadium card is that all resistances are ignored.

Analysis– Ruins of Alph was a joke card when it came out.  Nobody thought of using it and people laughed at the notion of using it.  As the format changed there was a little use for the card at some times.  I even played this card in my Donphan/Samurott deck last year at Nationals.  Since then it kind of dropped off the table, until now.  Now people are using it in a fighting deck to lessen the impact of a card like Tornadus EX.  Tornadus EX has a resistance that makes it hard to knock out, so fighting decks don’t have a fighting chance against Tornadus without Ruins of Alph.

As mentioned, today this card is mostly used in fighting decks.  With Ruins of Alph, Fighting Decks will have a great chance of beating almost any deck out there.  I don’t know why more people don’t use this card, without it Tornadus EX can beat the pants off of Terrakion and Groudon EX.  A lot of people who play fighting decks don’t use it, but they probably should think about this card.  If more people use this card Fighting decks would have a better chance against Dark and Electric decks, because they normally play Tornadus and Tornadus EX.

There are not many bad things about this card.  There are not really  any resistances on Terrakion and Groudon EX that will get you into trouble, so there is no drawback to playing this card.  You do sacrifice the amount of energy removal cards that you can run, but it is almost always better to do more damage than to remove energy.

Final Rating– 8/10–  This card is no longer a laughing matter, people should take this thing seriously.  I don’t think that I would play a fighting deck right now without Ruins of Alph, it is a needed card right now.

 

Card #3- The Young Gun- Boufallant Dragons Exalted

Description– One of the highly anticipated cards that will probably come out in our next set, Dragons Exalted, is Boufallant.  I don’t know where Pokemon gets their names from.  Most of the BW sets sounds like titles of Porn movies, this one kind of sounds like a rank in the Klu Klux Klan.

Anyway, let’s look at the Bouffalant.  It has 100 HP, is a basic, a 2 retreat cost, and has a fighting weakness.  The Ability is called “Afro Guard”, which sounds like the name of a militant terrorist group in the 1970s.  Although the name is terrible, it is a good Ability.  It is basically like a built in Eviolite, it reduces any attack by 20.  It has one attack called “Golden Break,” which costs CCC and does 60 damage.  The cool thing about this attack is that if the defending Pokemon is an EX, “Golden Break” does 120 damage instead of 60.

Analysis–  This is one of the most interesting cards that I have heard about in a while.  Although there is currently no hype about this card, that doesn’t mean that the good players aren’t waiting for this thing to come out.

Let’s start by looking at the basics.  100 HP isn’t that great, but its okay.  The 2 retreat cost is not that good, and the fighting weakness is terrible.  Those things don’t sound good, but the rest of the card is good.  “Afro Guard” is like a built in Eviolite, which is great, but the best thing is that you can also attach an Eviolite and stop 40 damage from each attack.  The fact that you can stop 40 damage each turn would make this un-OHKO-able except with Weakness and Zekrom EX/Reshiram EX.  The attack is also very interesting.  Almost every deck runs Double Colorless Energy, so Bouffalant will be able to get powered up in just 2 turns.  If you run energy acceleration like Eelektrik you can get it going in one turn without too much luck.  Doing 60 damage for 3 energies is not good, but doing 120 damage to an EX is good.  Even with an Eviolite, no EX can survive 2 “Golden  Break” attacks.  It is a great tech in case you run up against a non-fighting EX.

I think this card will get some play when it is released.  It is good against a ton of EXs like Darkrai, Tornadus, Entei, Mewtwo, Kyurem, Zekrom, and others.  It would be very good in a CMT or Zekrom deck as a tech against rogue EX decks.  It may not be a card that jumps out at you, but if you do play it at a tournament you will find a lot of use for it.

The bad thing about this card is the fighting weakness.  Cards like Terrakion, Terrakion EX, and Groudon EX will make quick work of Boufallant before it can get a knockout.  So if you plan to struggle against fighting decks, don’t rely on Bouffalant.  But, if you have a good match-up against fighting decks already, Boufallant will not be a huge liability for you.

Final Rating– 7.75/10– Right now it is just a rogue tech, but if the format changes so that fighting decks aren’t played as much, it would be a very very very good card.  Right now it is just a good tech choice.

                                     

Well, that is all I have to say, do you want to end the article with a news story?  Or are you going to insult me again?

Both are pretty enticing, but I will go with the news story.  Foxnews.com is reporting that archeologists believe they have excavated an English Renaissance theater that they believe is The Curtain, the theater that Shakespeare first used before he used The Globe.  This is a great find because Shakespeare wrote plays that are the basis for a lot of the crap movies that Hollywood produces these days. 

Of course.   There are few movies crappier than  Romeo Must Die and Shakespeare in Love.  Where would Hollywood find all the inspiration for this crap if it wasn’t for Shakespeare?

I’m sure that they would find ways to screw other movies up, they seem to like to make Spiderman movies with redheads playing Gwen Stacey and blondes playing Mary Jane Watson. 

I wonder what the qualification is for adapting works of writing into movies?  Probably a second grade reading level and a love of tv shows like Sex and the City,

Sounds right.  Have a good night everybody. 

 

 

National Championships

Pikkdogs Day 2 Nationals Report

Pikkdogs 7 Comments

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  This is Pikkdogs here with a review of the second day of Nationals.  I’m sorry that this was so late, but I was ill the 2nd day and I didn’t feel up to writing another report.

Day 2 Report

I had a tough nights sleep the night before, so I was very tired going into this day.  I started the day with another plate full of waffles, which is a good thing.

Round 6 vs Darkrai/Tornadus/Mewtwo

My opponent goes first again and flips over a Mewtwo EX.  Yay, I get to play another one of my bad match-ups.  He doesn’t get an energy drop, so I think I might have a chance.  I use an N on my turn, but my hand afterwards is very bad.  This makes me lose an energy drop myself, I also don’t have another supporter or things like Eviolite.  On his next turn he gets a DCE on Mewtwo and attacks with “X-Ball”.  I am able to take away the damage on my next turn, and I use Pokemon Catcher to stall and bring up Darkrai EX.  This goes on for a while where I am able to keep my Entei up and stall with Pokemon Catcher.  But, he eventually gets energy on Darkrai and is able to get a second DCE on Mewtwo.  I still have a supporter drought on my side of the field, and I have to scoop once he has a third DCE on Mewtwo.

 

2-4– I wanted to get a 500 record for the tourney, so going behind 2 games is not something I wanted to do.  But there were still 3 more rounds where I could still get a winning record.

Round 7 vs Accelgor

I’m sorry that I don’t remember much for this round because I forgot to take notes, but I know it didn’t go well.  I had never played this deck before, but I did here one good strategy when I was reading some random article.  I read that a good strategy was to only attack Accelgors so that your opponent will fill up their bench and not be able to get an Accelgor chain.  I might have been able to use Pokemon Catcher to kill the Vileplumes, but I tried to do the bench thing.  On cue my opponent started first with Sunkern and began to fill the bench.  He only had one Accelgor line going, so I thought I could lock him.

This made the game very long, but he had the upperhand later in the game.  I eventually decided that I needed to take away his free retreat Tyrogue, but these couple prizes didn’t really help.  He still was able to get a lot of special conditions, and he kept the lock on for the most of the game.

2-5– Not happy after getting paired against a trainer lock deck.  I didn’t really have any experience against this deck, so I probably made some misplays.  If i would have been aggressive on the Vileplume I might have been able to win.

Round 8 vs Kim with Klingklang

This is my first game against a Klingklang deck, so I am excited to see how it goes.  Kim was a very nice person from Virginia, it was fun to play against her.  She starts first with a Cobalion, she attaches and then passes.  I get a good start and get a steady chain of supporters which allow me to get everything I needed except Eviolite.  Fortunately I didn’t really need any Eviolite.  I was able to use Pokemon Catcher and her weakness to my advantage.  Because she had prized her Kyurem EX she really didn’t have a chance.  It took me a little while to KO all of her EXs, but after I took away all the Klingklangs she didn’t have much of a chance.  I end up with a 6 prize win.

3-5 – My chance to get to 4-5 just got a little better.  One more game to give me an okay record.

Round 9 vs CMT I think

I don’t really remember much about this game and I didn’t take notes again.  If I remember what happened I will update this report.  All I know is that I did win.  It might have been against a CMT.

4-5– Well that is not a great record, but its not terrible either.  It is about what I thought I would get.  But, I thought I would get a little better match-ups then I did.  Oh well.

Conclusion and 64 Man Pod

Nationals even brought out a bug catcher.

 

After the main event wrapped up we went to lunch.  I had some good Chinese food and some root beer and cheese curds from A&W.  Up next was a big side-event, the 64 man Pods.  This was more of a fun event that had packs as prizes for winning either 3 or 4 games of a 4 round Swiss event.  I wasn’t feeling to excited since I didn’t do well at the main event.  I started the four round tournament with a bye since my opponent did not show up after lunch.  In the next round I played an Eels/Raikou deck.  Since he could only do about 100 damage, he really couldn’t do much to me.  My deck worked fine as I got to 2-0.  In my third round I played one of the best games I had played in a long time.  This was against a CMT deck.  The opponent should have beat me, but I used Pokemon Catcher to attack the Mewtwos before they were Eviolited.  I was able to get a good 3 prize lead when time was called.  Even though I had just 1 prize card left, I almost lost because I was one turn away from decking out.  But I was lucky enough to win after turn 3 because I was fortunate that time wasn’t called on my next turn.  So I go to 3-0 and am guaranteed some packs, but I can win with some luck.   In the 4th game I play against Jesus from Florida.  He was a nice guy who informed me that he and his wife just welcomed their first girl, congrats Jesus!  This game was against an Eel deck that had 3 Mewtwo in it.  Jesus was not able to get a lot of energies on the field because I kept on knocking out his Eels.  The ending of the game was almost like the opposite of my previous game.  I am able to get a prize lead and Jesus is about to deckout, but I am not able to find another Entei EX when I really needed it, and Jesus ends up winning.  I do still get 5 packs for winning 3 games, but I don’t pull anything good.

After the tournament me and the crew went back to the motel because I wasn’t feeling well.  I immediately went back to the bed and fell asleep.  My buddy James later showed up with some food for me and I started feeling better.  Big thanks to James for that.

So that wraps up my Nationals for this year.  I had a really fun time, especially on the first day.  The concert combined with Day 1 was very fun.  Big thanks to Good Luck Varisty for organizing the concert.  Also big thanks to the judges.  The tournament ran a lot smoother this year than last.  There were a lot of delays on the second day, but that was more due to players playing late into time than anything else.   It kind of sucks that I did poorly in the main event, but did well in the side evemt, but that’s how it goes sometimes.  I finally have my pictures together, I fused them all together in a Youtube movie which you can see below, enjoy.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDrtpUGnWxg&feature=youtube_gdata[/youtube]

So long and thanks for all the fish.

National Championships

Pikkdogs Day 1 U.S. Nationals Report

Pikkdogs 3 Comments

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 the Ball Room.  There are a couple rooms dedicated to casual play, and a couple rooms where Troll and Toad and Collector’s Cache have set up stores.  The hallway is where a lot of people hang out, and where some registration lines are.  The ball room is very big. When you first walk in you see the Video Game competition on your right, and then the Junior TCG players on the left.  The left side continues to hold all the TCG players.  On the right side the VGC players give way to an information desk and a couple computers where you can play the game online.  After that is the league area where you can get some trading done, play in league matches, or play in the side events.  Scattered across the ballroom are things like Reshiram Statues, Tepigs in costumes, and different kinds of Pokemon banners.

Overall, the convention center is  a really cool place for an event like this.   It is very big and has a lot of places to grab lunch right next to it.  Its central location in the U.S. also helps draw in a lot of players.  There were about 1500 players in this event, that is the most ever!  Gotta love that.

About Indiana and Other Stuff

Even though the location for Nationals was pretty cool overall, the weather was not.  The official high for Thursday was 104, and it was pretty much the same for the rest of the weekend.  This made it difficult to go anywhere that was not air conditioned.

Things were hot outside, but even hotter were the judges and all the staff.  Big ups to everybody who had a hand in making the tournament run as well as it did.  I got a little flack last year for calling the judges and staff out for the very long delays that we had.  The delays last year were terrible, first we had a repairing during 1st round that cost us about an hour.  Then we had multiple very long waits between rounds.  While there were longer than expected waits between rounds, they were not even near as long as last year.  There were also no re-pairings or hold-ups after pairings were announced.  A big thanks should go to the judges because they did so well.

Decks Being Played

It is very hard to see what is doing well and what everyone is playing, but so far it seems that a lot of people are playing Metadecks.  There are a ton of Darkrai decks, some Terrakion, and some Mew Lock.  Darkrai seemed to be the most popular Pokemon of the day.  There were a lot of variants, but I would say that the most popular variants were ones with Tornadus EX and not a lot of energy removers.  Trainerlock was also a big thing on day 1.  I didn’t play any personally, but there sure were more than I would have thought a couple months ago.  Most of these decks were just Mewlock Variants, so nothing special.

Overall, deck selection at Nationals was fairly boring.  There were a lot of Eel decks, Darkrai, Mewtwo, and Terrakion.  Basically all of the decks that have been meta for the last couple months, so nothing really exciting in that front so far.  Maybe on days 2 and 3 we will see some more exciting decks doing well.

I was kind of disappointed by this because last year we had Reshiphlosion come out of nowhere and be a very very popular deck.  We didn’t see anything really close to this in 2012 so far.  So far, all is going as expected.

My Nationals

Day 0

My nationals trip started out at Noon on Thursday.  I had to work a couple hours in the morning, but then I was able to take 5 hours off and get an early start  to my summer vacation.  One very bad thing about my 5 hour drive down to Indy was that my A/C ran out of juice about an hour into the trip.  This meant that I had to spend the next 4 hours roasting in the car, that was no fun.  But, once I got to Indy things started getting better.  I got into the convention center at about 5:30 and got registered early.  Then I went over to the Troll and Toad shop to sell some old commons for a little bit of cash.  After making my hotel-mates James and Frank wait for like a half an hour, I finally got my money and was able to go to the hotel.  We had a cheap hotel by the airport, but it was actually one of the best cheap hotels I ever have stayed in.  I expected filth and broken things, but this place felt like a moderately good hotel.   I know that I have spent 30 bucks more on hotel rooms than this and still didn’t get a room this nice, so big ups to La Quinta.  After we checked in James and Frank wanted to head back to Indy to get some more play testing done.  I should have gone with them to improve my deck, but I was really tired so I went over to Hardees and got a burger before turning in early.

Day 1

I woke up feeling very nice since I just had a good sleep.  Once I got woken up I went down stairs and found some waffles and bagels for breakfast.  Really good breakfast, it wasn’t the biscuits and gravy of last year’s nationals, but it was pretty close.  After eating lots of food Frank and I traveled downtown to get ready for round 1.  I got to see a lot of cool people before round 1, and was happy to get to chat with a lot of people during the day.  Talking with Adam from Sixprizes was a highlight of the day, I love you man.  I also got to see the war dance of Team Warp Point and Team Hovercats.  I have included the video of this below.  After a short players meeting and a short wait after, we were ready for round 1.  I played Quad Entei, if you wanna see my list, you can look at a very very similar one here.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HIxf_Fr2Gs[/youtube]

Round 1 vs Dallon F. with CMT (Maybe)

Dallon was a cool guy that I had never met before, he seemed like a real nice guy.  I start the game by mulliganing three times and starting 2nd, giving your opponent 3 extra cards never helps.  He starts first and flips over a Mewtwo, which is one of the cards that can kill my deck.  He uses a Smeargle for an N and a supporter and ends up attacking the 40.  I N us again and I have more than enough energy and supporters, but I never see an Eviolite.  I also never see a Professor Juniper, PONT is great but if you never see a Juniper losing that extra card each time will eventually catch up with you.  That is what happens in this match-up, I started good but not having the Eviolite, a Juniper, or heads on my Life Herb flips eventually did me in.  The game ends when I can’t get rid of damage counters on my active and he uses a Seeker to end the game.

0-1 – Not mad, Dallon was a cool guy and I didn’t expect to win.  So congrats Dallon, hope you will continue to do well the rest of the weekend.

Round 2 vs CMT vs Rob from New Jersey with Dakrai/Tornadus


This round was against another guy that was very nice.  Before our match he offered me some candy and a Squirtle sticker, which I gave to my buddy James to finish off his collection.  Anybody who gives me candy is good in my book.  This game was a pretty good one.

He starts and flips a Darkrai, which is a good match-up for me.  He ends up using Dual Ball for two Smeargles and ends up using my N like 3-4 times in the first 2 turns.  After our Ning was done, we started trading shots.  He had energy on Darkrai EX and started hitting and spreading.  I was able to heal most of the damage and I am able to get at least one good hit on everything on his field.  The problem was that I wasted my Pokemon Catchers early and did not have the ability to bring them up and actually take prizes.  Right when time is about to be called my opponent has finally ran out of bench space and has to give up prizes.  So, he decides to scoop and I get my first win

 

1-1-  Good game, thanks man. Time for lunch.  I walked over to the mall and hit the food court.  I saw a Chick-Fil-A so I decided to go there and have my first go at this fast food restaurant.  It had some pretty good chicken, but I couldn’t stay there for too long since pairings would soon be up.

Round 3 vs Jackson I. from Ohio and Darkrai/Tornadus/Mewtwo

What’s with my opponent’s and the double thumbs up?

I go all this way to play Jack, who lives about 40 miles from me!  It kind of hurt to play Jack in round 3.  On one hand of course I wanted to win, but on the other I knew that Jack had a much better chance to Top then I did.  I almost thought of scooping, but then I decided to play it out.

Jack starts first with Shaymin and is not able to do much on the first turn.  I had a pretty bad start.  I didn’t have the energies I needed, and I had to use Juniper with a lot of valuable healing trainers in my hand.  I was forced to burn resources for no reason, and that hurt me later.  Jack decides to try Mewtwo EX against me and gets two of them and uses Eviolite on both of them.  This makes it very hard for me to OHKO them.  He doesn’t do a lot of damage, but I run into trouble when I get two tails on Life Herb flips.  No matter how many Junipers I used and resources I burned I could not find a second Entei to keep me in the game, so Jack takes care of my Entei and wins.

1-2– No shame in losing to a great player like Jack.  I just wished that I could have given him  a better game with a better hand.

Round 4 vs guy from Milwaukee with CMT

This is another CMT, man this sucks.  We start the game by talking about weird mascots, and it turns out that he has been to my hometown area  a couple times.  But, the talking time is over and the playing time is here.  I finally get to start first and get a good string of supporters going which gives me everything I need.  He is forced to Juniper a lot of resources away early to keep up with my speed.  He did make up some time when I was forced to use a Max Potion before I was ready, he used Pokemon Catcher well to slow me down.  I get the first Knockout with a Catcher Kill on a Celebi Prime, this lack of energy acceleration ends up hurting him later.  Without energy acceleration and enough Eviolite early enough, his Mewtwos were not able to control the board like they normally do.  He is forced to use Tornadus EX, which is never good against my deck.  I do have a hard time getting 6 prizes and ending up winning the game 3-6 on prizes after turn 3 was over.

2-2 Is not bad.  I was only hoping for about a 500 record, so no matter what happens, I should be almost on my way.

Round 5 vs guy from Chicago with Darkrai/Tornadus/Mewtwo EX

My round 5 opponent

I forgot to take notes on this match so my report for this game will not be very detailed.  This was another game that showed off how good Mewtwo is, and how okay the other two Pokemon are.  We start the game trading damage, I would be okay but I miss a ton of flips on Life Herb and have to give up an Entei.  I am able to recover, but he hits a crucial heads on burn to keep his Darkrai up for a long time.  I keep on holding my own against Darkrais, but he finally draws into a Mewtwo and a Shaymin.  After several Dark Patches he was able to get one boat load of energies on Mewtwo, and I just scoop.

2-3 – Not a great record, but it is what I expected.  I was just happy to be there and enjoy the day. Below is a video of my pictures from both day 1 and day 2.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDrtpUGnWxg&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

The Afterparty

After a quick trip back to the hotel to get started on this article, the time I have been waiting for had finally arrived, the 2012 After Party.  This is the Good Luck Varsity concert that I had been talking about for a long time.  I got there when things were still setting up and I got to talk more with my buddy Adam from 6P.  It was funny, at one moment we were talking about Ed and my nipple started shaking.  Now my nipple normally shakes when I’m taking to Adam, but this time it was shaking because my phone in my shirt pocket was ringing, and it was Ed calling me.  That was a good coincidence.

Wasim on drums with PK Fire with the Onehitko shirt on.

PK fire was first on stage.  They did a good job considering they were missing some of their band members.  Good Luck Varsity drummer Wasim B.  joined them onstage wearing a Onehitko T-shirt!  They did a fine job and led the way for the next act, Rival Summers.  They did a little more artsy take on Rock and Roll and started to bring the tempo up.  Then all hell started to turn loose when GLV hit the stage and sang their newest single “Lakes”.  The moshing started and didn’t stop for about 45 minutes.  At one time my buddy Frank had lost his trademark stuffed Snake that he wears as a scarf, I tried to get it but was promptly elbowed in the ribs by someone, oh well.  GLV absolutely killed it, I never yelled so hard before without making so little sound, man it was loud.  When they closed the show with “Liars and Thieves” I think the world seemed to stand still.  Awesome show guys,  if the show goes on again next year, I expect to see a lot more people there.

Conclusion

I had a great day on day one.  I will try to do a day 2 report too, so come back tomorrow for that.  This day was great because it was full of Pokemon, music, and friends.  There were so many cool people that I talked to today, so thanks everyone and sorry that I can’t mention all of them.   I had a great time and I am looking for a good day 2 as well.

National Championships

The Rise of Itemlock at U.S. Nationals?

Pikkdogs 10 Comments

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. Read More

National Championships

Top Ten Decks for Nationals

Pikkdogs 22 Comments

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 because of the way you dress you might be a Liberace fan. 

No I’m not a Liberace fan.  Try again.

Okay, I think I got it this time.  Today we mourn the death of Emperor Caligula.  Caligula was the Roman Emperor who was known for participating in wild orgies-

No,  Caligula is not my hero either.

I thought you are one that would appreciate a crazy emperor who is drunk with power that regularly throws orgies. 

No.

Well, I would talk about Cher, Richard Simmons, and Elton John; but they aren’t dead yet. 

None of those people are my heroes, and stop with the gay jokes.  I was talking about Smedly Butler.

Oh of course.  Wait, whose Smedly Butler?

He was a marine-

And you said stop with the gay jokes.

I don’t  like him just because he was a man in uniform.

So you do like a man in uniform. I always thought all those pictures of girls with nice boobs were just cases of over compensation. 

Not what I was trying to say.    Smedly Butler was a marine who served during the early part of the 20th century.  He served in the Phillipines and in France during the First World War.  For his service he became the most highly decorated soldier of his time.  After the wars he began serving in what would today be known as the CIA.  There, he did things like assassinate foreign leaders for the benefit of the U.S. government  and U.S. businesses.  He was also offered the job as a figure head leader of the United States in the Business Plot, which was a coup attempt to make the U.S. a Facist government in the 1930s.  But, Butler decided to change his life and reported the Coup attempt to the media, and then became a speaker against U.S. imperialism and a peace advocate.

So he was a crazy guy that thought that someone was going to overthrow the president.  I would think that Liberace would be a better hero for you. 

Well that was a disaster.  Let’s please just move on and go to the article.

Ten Decks to Watch Out For at U.S. Nationals

                10.    Triple V/Mew Lock

Mewlock is the oldest deck in this list, but it could be perhaps the fastest rising deck of them all.  Kyle “Pooka” Sucevich ran this deck in a Battle Roads a couple weeks ago, and that started a fair amount of buzz for this deck.  That momentum should carry into Nationals.  You might also see this deck without Mew, and the actual Vanilluxe.  But, the idea is the same.

What to Watch Out For– Mew Lock is a slow moving deck that can easily come back from 5 prizes down to win, it is the comeback kid.  It works by Lost Zoning Vanilluxe and Unfezant BW, and then using Mew Prime to use their attacks.  The player first uses “Double Freeze” to paralyze the defending Pokemon and slowly chipping away at HP.  Then you use “Fly” to knockout the defending Pokemon and prevent an attack for next turn.  Vileplume is also in this deck to make sure that you can’t heal paralysis.

How to Beat it–  The deck is the most vulnerable early.  If you start the game fast and use Pokemon Catcher to take out Oddishes, you should be able to stop the deck before it starts.  If you do not take out the Vileplume line before your opponent sets up, you will basically be trapped until your opponent misses some coin flips.

Link to List– Here is the link to my Mewlock Deck from Cities.  There are some changes I would make to update it.  Most decks would not run Relicanth or the other fire Victini.  Most decks just run Mew to put people in the Lost Zone.

9.  Quad EX Decks

No two Quad EX decks are the same, so it is hard to stick them all into one category, but they are not all that different.  You may see Quad Groudon EX, Quad Entei EX, or Quad Kyurem EX.  Those are probably just the most popular Quad decks, you could see even more variants.  These decks are very simple and use trainers to get the most out of EX Pokemon.  They are also fairly quick and fast recovering.

What to Watch Out For–  These guys will take three turns to setup, but then they will do consistent damage of 90-120.  Usually these decks include Eviolite, Potion, and the combo of Max Potion and Energy Switch to keep their Pokemon alive for a longer period of time.  Once you do finally get a knock-out they will use Exp. Share to transition from one attacker to another.

How to Beat it–  Trainerlock and energy removal are good things to use against these decks.  As an attacker, you should Eviolite an EX that can do a lot of damage.  Most quad decks are ok at getting 2HKOs, but 3HKOs might give you an advantage.  If you play along with these decks and keep them in the game, you could very well lose a very close game in the end.

Link to List– Here is the link to my Entei EX list I ran at my last Battle Roads.

8.  Zoroark Decks

While I like to take all dark decks and group them together-

-Does that make you a racist?

I’m not sure, but to be sure I will split them up in this article.  Zoroark decks are known as more budget forms of the Darkrai EX decks that did so well at Spring Battle Roads.  But, they are fast decks that can do a lot of damage, so they are serious decks that you need to take!!!!well!!!seriously.

What to Watch Out For– Zoroark decks contain a lot of Darkness Pokemon and want to use Zoroarks swarm like attack to do a lot of damage.  These decks also use trainers like Dark Patch and Dark Claw to do a lot of damage fast.  These decks are not fancy, they  will just be doing a lot of damage to the active quickly.

How to Beat it– These decks don’t have the energy removal that Darkrai/Tornadus decks do, so if you just rush them with fighting Pokemon you should be okay.  If you don’t play and fighting Pokemon make sure to use Pokemon Catcher to get a knockout each turn.  Even if you don’t take out a Zoroark each turn, just taking out a Darkness Pokemon is good enough to limit the damage potential of the deck.   If you can use Pokemon Catcher effectively you should have a good shot at taking the win.

Link to List– Here is the link to Ed’s budget Zoroark deck.  If you wanna run it just put in Pokemon Catchers and stuff like that.

7.  Durant

I feel safe in predicting that almost nobody will play Heatmor DE in their nationals decks.  So, anybody who plays Durant will not be making a bad choice.  This deck did very well during Cities season, and should have fairly similar match-ups during Nationals.  Durant may not have as much player support as it did several months ago, but that doesn’t mean Durant decks shouldn’t have an okay go at Nationals.

What to Watch Out For– Of course Durant is a very fast deck that will be milling 4 cards per turn starting turn 1.  This will make it very hard for you to setup any kind of complicated deck, because your opponent will be discarding your resources.  Your only hope is that you can start OHKOing Durants very quickly, or you can get setup quickly.  Also, watch out for energy removal, Durant decks will try to take out your energy.  If you need three energies to attack you could be in trouble.

How to Beat it–  Hit it for weakness or find a way to consistently hit it for about 100 damage with an attack that only costs 1-2 energies.  Make sure to use basic energies instead of special energies, much harder to remove.  Also, using 2 Super Rods or something like that will help you refresh your resources after they are discarded.  Also, don’t put down more than 1 Pokemon if you don’t need to.  Durant decks rarely do damage, and if they do you will see it coming.  If you put down other Pokemon they will be Catchered up in an attempt to stall you.

Link to List– Here is a link to our buddy Airhawk’s Durant deck on www.sixprizes.com.

6.  Klingklang EX

Klingklang EX is a deck that was popularized by Onehitko.com’s own TAndrewT.  It uses Klingklang BW to move energy between a bunch of EX Pokemon.  It is a deck that can take advantage of almost any weakness, and a deck that is hard to disrupt since almost any Pokemon can retreat for free because of Darkrai EX.  It is a little slow but it is a deck that is very hard to beat once it is setup.

What to Watch Out For–                The Klingklang player can hit almost any Pokemon for weakness, which makes it hard to beat.  So, watch out for Pokemon that can OHKO you, it could happen quickly with energy switching.  It is also important to OHKO your opponent, since it is easy to use Max Potion in a Klingklang deck.

How to Beat it–  Trainerlock can hurt it early, but you don’t need trainerlock to beat it.  It is most vulnerable early on, so make sure to target the Klingklang line so that they can’t setup.  Also, make sure to include some Lost Removers so you can get rid of the Rainbow and Prism energies, those make things a lot easier for the Klingklang player.  You can also take advantage of weakness, if your opponent drops anything that you can hit for weakness, use your Pokemon Catchers to get it active.   A fire deck will do well against Klingklang, because it is fire weak.

Link to List– Here is the article in which TAndrewT unveiled the Klingklang EX deck.

5.  Quad Terrakion

Quad Terrakion has evolved from a counter deck that was used at States, to a deck that is well rounded enough to become an actual deck.  Give It three turns and it should be able to use cards like Exp. Share to keep the 90 damage coming turn after turn.  It also can hit almost all lightning and dark Pokemon for weakness, that means that it can OHKO some of the best Pokemon around.  This deck may not be the most impressive on paper, but if it is sitting across from you, watch out it is a serious deck.

What to Watch Out For– Plan on it doing 90 damage each turn, so don’t think that you might be able to take it slow just because you can get a KO this turn.   Look out for energy removal, these decks do have those energy disruption cards in here, so take it easy with the special energies.  Finally, look for Ruins of Alph, just because you have Tornadus EX in your deck doesn’t mean that you can hide behind your resistance.

How to Beat it–  Becareful who you knockout and use Pokemon Catcher to bring up low energy Terrakions.  Make sure to manage the amount of energy on the field, if you can take energy off the field you will start to starve the Terrakions.  And, remember to never KO a Pokemon if you are not ready for the 90 HP next turn.  Another good strategy is to use Crushing Hammer to remove energies, energies are very important to this deck, if you take them away they will be trapped in a corner.

Link to List– Here is an article that has a fighting/Terrakion list in it.  Its at the bottom of the article.

4.  CMT

                With the success of Darkrai over Zekrom, CMT is now starting to crawl back into the championship picture.  CMT has been successful since States, and it is simply the fastest most disruptive deck out there.

What to Watch Out For– Mewtwo EX can take out any evolution line easily in the first few turns, so you will need luck to beat it with an evolution deck.  Mewtwo EX can also hit those Quad decks for a lot of damage if it gets a lot of DCE on it.  Don’t forget about Celebi Prime, it can not only provide energy acceleration early, but it can help add an extra energy late game if needed.

How to Beat it–  The best way to beat CMT decks is to tech a couple of your own Mewtwo EXs in to your decks and return “X-Ball” KOs with an “X-Ball”  of your own.  Using Lost Remover on those DCEs is almost important in keeping the damage down from Mewtwo.

Link to List– Here is the CMT list I tried for testing.

          3.  Troll

                Troll, a deck that consists of Terrakion, Tornadus, and Mewtwo EX, is my pick to win it all this year.  It can hit for weakness on a lot of decks, and is just really consistent.  I don’t usually like decks that are made to counter popular decks, but this one just seems to work.  I love the fact that this deck usually uses Super Scoop Up when it gets into dangerous situations, love that card.  Troll is just a very well balanced deck that gets a good advantage over most of the decks in the format.

What to Watch Out For– Troll can hit a lot of decks for weakness, so if you can hide weak Pokemon do so.  This deck likes to start Tornadus and then get energy spread apart on the field.  This makes the deck very versatile, so watch out for attacks out of nowhere.  Troll players are usually really good and very calculating, if you play Troll you might have to match wits with a very good player.  Also, if you play CMT look out for the Mewtwo EX drops out of nowhere.

How to Beat it–  It is very hard to beat Troll because it is a very diverse deck.  If you play a lightning deck, they will never drop down the lightning weak Tornadus, but will try to make you beat all of the Terrakions.  So it will be very hard to hit for weakness, you just have to put on your thinking caps and try to out think the Troll player.  Just try to make your deck run the best way possible without playing into the Troll players hand.

Link to List– Here is my try at a Troll deck.

 2.  Zekrom and Eels/ Eel Box

                Zek/Eels was once the #1 deck, but Darkrai proved that it could win the most decks during Spring Battle Road season.  Does that mean that Zekrom is inferior to Darkrai?  No, Spring Battle Roads will be nothing like Nationals.  I will not be the least surprised if Darkrai decks do poorly and Eel decks take the top spots.

One note here, I am grouping the Zekrom deck and the Eel Box deck together.  This means that this category includes everything from Zekrom to Terrakion, as long as the deck has an Eelektrik in it.

What to Watch Out For– Zekrom decks are most aggressive offensive decks out there.  They can easily hit for 150 damage without much thought.  They are also very high on recovery, those lightning energies are like boomerangs, they just keep coming back onto the field of play.  If you want to beat this deck you need to dodge attacks that can hit for weakness and Pokemon that can hide behind their own resistance.  Eelektrik is  a major part of decks that have really good Pokemon in them, those decks are hard hitting and very consistent.

How to Beat it–  Eel decks are susceptible early game.  If you can do 40 damage on turn one you do have a good chance of donking a Tynamo.  If you can’t get the donk, you can always use Pokemon Catcher to knock out a Tynamo or Eelektrik before its owner gets full use out of it.  As long as your opponent cannot attack you right away, you should be able to knock out those Eels before they really do what they are supposed to do.  Fighting Pokemon are also hard for this deck to beat, you might see Zapdos or Tornadus EX to fight against the fighting Pokemon.  You should be able to outclass the Zapdos, and make sure to include Ruins of Alph to make Tornadus beatable.

Link to List– Here is the decklist I use for testing.

  1. Darkrai/Tornadus EX

Darkrai/ Tornadus EX is the hottest deck out right now.  It is the deck that everybody is talking about.  It won a lot more Battle Roads than almost any other deck.  It is a fairly quick deck that can attack quick and do a lot of disruption to you.  Look out for energy removal cards and Weavile UD, these cards could screw up any strategy that you have going.

What to Watch Out For– Look out for energy disruption, make sure you have a reliable way to get energy back from the discard because you will need it.  Also, watch out for Darkrai sniping your bench for 30, they could be setting you up for an OHKO next turn.  You may want to not drop a Pokemon until you absolutely need it.  Most decks like this also run Sableye, so watch out for them getting their trainer cards back.  Finally, watch out for trainers like Dark Claw and Dark Patch, these make the deck harder hitting and easy recovering.

How to Beat it– There are some things you can do to beat Darkrai decks.  One, they do not really like trainerlock, so that is an idea.  Make sure to run plenty of Ns, you don’t want your opponent to use those item cards they just got back with Sableye.    This deck does not do a whole heck of a lot of damage, so if you have a hard hitting deck you should be able to go toe to toe with it and win if you can avoid the disruption.  And finally, watch out for Weavile Ud.  You should be able to use Pokemon Catcher on Sneasel to avoid having to discard an important card.

Link to List– Here is a link to the deck that won Nationals in the great Country of Finland. Thanks go to our brothers from www.thedeckout.com for that one.

 

Conclusion

Well, that’s all I got to say.  Just to let you know, I know that I will be wrong on some of these choices.  There will probably be some popular deck choices that I didn’t talk about, but these should be some of the most popular ones.  Also, make sure to watch out for rogue decks, I have a feeling that a Mismagius deck could hit the scene and do some damage.  Make sure you are ready for anything, not just the ten decks that some jerk like me comes up with.

Pedro, it is now time for you to wrap this thing up.  Since I did a top 10 article, why don’t you carry on the tradition of doing a David Letterman style top 10 list?

Okay.  Today’s Top Ten List is the Top Ten Reasons That you will be late for U.S. Nationals

Number  10.  You stayed in your car too late because you were jamming out to “Call Me Maybe” by Carly Rae Jepsen. 

No shame there.  She is one cute Canadian.

Number  9.  You stayed in your motel too late because you were making out with your girlfriend, wait nevermind you’re a Pokémon player. 

He’s offensive, but not wrong.

Number  8.  Your hotel offered free Biscuits and Gravy. 

That was me last year.

Number  7.  You waited too long to get screwed in the Troll and Toad selling line.

Too be fair, they do have overhead.

Overhead? That sounds like something that happens in an orgy (by the way, this is the third use of the word “orgy” in this article.  I have a feeling this article will soon get censored).  Number 6.   You got lost in the Convention Center trying to find out where they sell those little balls of ice cream. 

Those are some amazing little balls.

That’s what she said.  Number 5.  You overslept because your roommate stayed up late watching “Weird Sex” on tv. 

Did you see that one where that guy makes out with his car?  That was quite the episode. 

The number 4 reason you will be late for U.S. Nationals is that your car broke down  because you thought that it could run on Double Colorless Energy after you ran out of gas. 

It seems like a sound principle.

Number 3.  You were late because you bought a Dark Explorers box from Troll and Toad and had to pull all 5 of your Kyorgre EXs. 

That’s me.

Number 2.  You spent the entire night rocking out to Good Luck Varsity,Rival Summers , and PK Fire at the 2012 Unofficial Pokémon Nationals Afterparty. 

Party on Wayne.

Party on Garth.  And the Number 1 Reason you are going to be late for 2012 US Nationals is!!!!!!..  f***ing road construction. 

Nice Job.  Good night everybody.

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