One Hit KO

What’s up everyone!

First off, I’d like to thank everyone who took the time to read my debut article from last week. I’m sure this much is obvious by now, but I am very passionate about Pokemon and writing alike, so it means a lot to me that people would stop what they are doing to read what I have to say. Hopefully in time, as more articles are posted, more and more people will discover this website and what we have to offer to the community. Of course, you can help with that too; if you read our articles and dig what you see, don’t hesitate to tell your friends about us! Word of mouth really does go a long way, and every single person who shares us helps us out a tremendous amount.

(In case you didn’t catch my last article, you can view it via the link directly below.)

http://www.onehitko.com/2013/08/30/thoughts-on-the-early-days-of-the-new-format

While I am pretty confident with my predictions in last week’s article, only time will tell what archetypes truly prove themselves to be the cream of the crop. Trying to qualify for Worlds having not played in over two years is going to be a major challenge for me, and if I want to succeed, I have to make sure to make the right meta calls from the very first event. When determining what deck is an optimal play in the early days of a format, there are always a few factors I like to consider, the first of which being that since there are little-to-no results for us to analyze and learn from, everyone who turns in their deck registration sheet at that very first event is going off of theory, raw testing results and not much else.

Because of this, we can deduce that the decks that will perform the best throughout the early stages of a season are generally going to be more proactive than reactive, meaning they are more concerned with ‘asking a question’ than ‘providing an answer’; without an adequate amount of tournament results to go by, the reactive decks simply don’t know what questions they need to answer (or how to best address them, for that matter). Proactive decks, however, don’t need to know all the right answers, because, well, they are the question! This logic also applies to techs somewhat; there is nothing wrong with adding a card or two to counter what you predict you will be facing, but a fully teched-out deck is generally going to be less favored in a beginning-of-the-format tournament when compared to a consistent, streamlined one.

Take TDK for example- what is probably the biggest ‘question deck’ of this new format. The question TDK asks its opponent is this: ‘How are you going to deal with a consistent flurry of Kyurem backed by Team Plasma support?’. As we all know good and well, this is not an easy question to answer effectively, which is what makes TDK the consensus strongest strategy right now. See, TDK isn’t worried about attacking specific strategies it may or may not face; regardless of what you’re playing, TDK just wants to Blizzard Burn for obscene amounts of damage as early as possible until all six prizes are taken. This is what it means to be a proactive strategy.

Continue reading "Unveiling B-Side Plasma"

Hello everyone!

I don’t believe I’ve ever met any of you, so allow me a brief moment to introduce myself. My name is Tyler Lindsey (for those of you who didn’t catch that already). I’m a 21 year old lifelong gamer, hailing from the humid plains of southeast Alabama. Currently, I am making a return to the Pokemon TCG community after playing Magic: the Gathering competitively for two years. Magic was both fun and rewarding, but it was also very time consuming, and the nostalgia vibes given off by my favorite childhood game always keep me coming back! My primary goal for this season is to successfully reach the 400CP required to compete in Worlds 2014 in Washington DC, while writing resourceful and insightful strategy articles along the way. Hopefully I can deliver in both aspects!

Of course, if one wants to have a truly successful season, they must hit the ground running from day one, and I intend to do just that. The weeks after Worlds, where old season transfers into new, is definitely one of the best times to get reacquainted with the game; there is ample time to playtest, and everyone is starting with a clean slate as far as deck building goes. Fortunately, I have used this moment’s reprieve in competitive play to my advantage, and as a result, I feel I have a very good grip on what the format will shape up to in the months to come. In this article, I will delve into the five ‘main’ strategies I feel are the most noteworthy going into this new terrain, so allow me to share some of my findings with you.

(Bear in mind these archetypes are in no particular order.)

1.) TDK (and other similar flavors of Plasma)

So let’s get right to it and start with the obvious: TDK is still public enemy number one. It lost little to nothing from rotation (if you could even call it a rotation), and even gained a new toy from Plasma Blast in the form of Silver Bangle. Kyurem (PLF) continues to be one of the most efficient attackers in the format, and is still backed by all of the powerful support cards Team Plasma boasts. While Lugia-centered Plasma builds also stand to become a powerful force in the metagame, make no mistake- Kyurem is the undisputed king that all decks must answer to if they wish to excel post-rotation.

Continue reading "Thoughts on the Early Days of the New Format"

Hey OneHitKO people, it’s me, coolestman22 again, here with another article to try to help keep the site going. I said in my last article that I would try to write about the techs Ditto brings to the table, and I decided to do just that.

Anyway, Esa wrote a neat article about how good Ditto is on his blog (Which I recommend reading if you haven’t), but

he didn’t go over the usefulness of the techs you could set up via Ditto. He mentioned a few, and he did a bit of reviewing them, but he didn’t go that much in detail.

So without further ado, I guess I should start the article. Please do note that these are not ranked, they’re just there in the order they came to my head in.

Dusknoir BoC

Dusknoir is probably going to be the most popular Ditto tech. The Ability is just so powerful that if you manage to get a Dusknoir out, it will probably lead to a few prizes by itself. You could also use it to take out your opponent’s all-important Stage Two Energy accelerator, or use the damage from the EX they retreated to kill their active …

Hey OneHitKO, it’s me, coolestman22 again. After a fairly good Regionals run (I posted a report on the SixPrizes forums, if you want to check that out), I felt like I needed to write another article. Since I wanted to test the Boundaries Crossed metagame before I write an article about any of those decks, I may as well do an article similar to my first ever OneHitKO article, but for Boundaries Crossed.

One thing I want to say before I start this article is that I am very, very disappointed in TPCi for cutting Bike, Ether, and

Escape Rope from Boundaries Crossed. Virbank isn’t so important to me, as the only decks that would play it would be Tier 3 stuff like Scolipede/Celebi EX and Amoongus NXD decks. Escape Rope I wasn’t expecting to see too much play either, mostly because a lot of decks liked to Catcher-stall and it would force you to play your Escape Rope before your Catcher for plays to KO a bench-sitter. There would be some decks that played it, but most of the time it would take a back seat to Catcher. I was only testing it in one deck, and that deck …

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  This is Pikkdogs here with an article about some of the cards I like.  I was going to do a stupid deck idea, but I decided to do an article about cards that I like because I’m feeling a little egotistical today.  But before we get to cards that I like, I think my extra-dimensional sidekick Pedro has a news article for us.

Hey Pikkdogs, yep.  Today we have news of a literal witch-hunt conducted by the folks at eBay.  In the past, Ebay has allowed witches and other supernatural related beings to sell things like spells and potions on Ebay.  According to Fox News.com, there are currently 41,000 spells avaliable on eBay for purchase.  But, starting in September it will be illegal to buy or sell spells, potions, psychic readings, curses, hexes, prayers, and healing sesssions.  One such person who sells spells on eBay has said that this is unfair discrimination against her and those like her.  They say that since Holy Water is still okay to sell eBay is conducting a “Witch Hunt”.  You don’t believe this witch non-sense do you Pikkdogs?

I don’t know.  I like to think …

Hello to all One Hit KO people who may be reading this article. It’s me, coolestman22, with another article, a rather short one in fact, this time it’s going to be the start of a new series I’m going to do called Is It Playable?, kind of like how Pikkdogs has his Pikks Three articles. What I’m going to do is review an upcoming card and talk about whether I think it will be playable or not.

I’m going to review First Ticket (or Fast Ticket, as Bulbapedia translates it), which is a card that’s sparked discussion on Pokemon TCG forums everywhere, some are big believers in the card, and some don’t think it’s going to be very good.

To start, First Ticket is a card that may or may not be in Dragons Exalted.  Because it was in the mini-set, Dragon Selection, it will probably be in our next set but we don’t know for sure. What it does is you can play it when you start the game if it’s in your opening hand, and if you do, you go first. If your
Continue reading "First Ticket – Is It Playable?"

Introduction

Hey, it’s me, coolestman22, with another article, this time it’s about a card that I feel is underrated. As you may have guessed from the title, it is Rocky Helmet. I played 2 copies of the card in my Zekkels list at Regionals because it was such an awesome tech. It came in really handy for me, I can say that. What I am going to do is rant about why Rocky Helmet is awesome in Zekeels, ReshiPhlosion, or any deck that doesn’t rely on EXP. Share or Dark Claw, really, except for Magnezone decks that already OHKO everything.

But first, if you don’t know what Rocky Helmet does, you should probably look at the pretty picture of Rocky Helmet on your right.

Now that you know what it does, I shall begin ranting:

1-120 damage, 130 HP
Rocky Helmet is awesome for the Zekeels matchup, because if they have a Zekrom BW with Eviolite, and they Bolt Strike, that puts them at 20, and you can hit them for 100, needing a PlusPower to complete the KO.

But with Rocky Helmet, that damage is already given to you, so you can use your Junk Arms on Catchers, Level …

Introduction

I guess I’ll do the Pikkdogs intro by saying “A big hello to all you OHKOers out there”. It’s me, coolestman22, with a review of the cards that might be in Dark Explorers that are receiving some sort of hype, or I just personally feel that are cool cards. Not all of these will be in meta decks, but not all cool cards from other sets are either. I’ll explain these cards so everyone knows what they do, but most of these cards you should know about by now. If you have any questions, please tell me in the comment section, I’m open to any feedback.

Kyogre-EX

Kyogre-EX is a water-type basic from Hail Blizzard that never got released in Next Destinies, but it wasn’t that good anyway so it wasn’t too big a deal. It will get a shot at play now, so let’s see what it does.

Kyogre-EX is a water-type with 170 HP, which is good but mediocre for an EX, an awful x2 weakness to lightning, no resistance, and a hefty but Heavy Ball searchable four retreat cost, and of course the EX rule. For WC it does 30 and you have the option of switching it with one of your benched Pokemon. This is OK, but it’s not something you should be basing a deck around.

The other attack is Dual Splash, which for WWC does 50 to 2 of your opponent’s benched Pokemon. This doesn’t sound good at first, but when you think about it it’s actually a decent attack, because you can kill 2 Tynamos with it early game, if it’s set up early enough. This means to set up 2 Eelektriks you either have to go first and evolve them all or bench four Tynamo and have 2 killed, then get your 2 Eelektriks out.

The question is “is it worth it to set up a T2 Kyogre with whatever just to have it killed by a Zekrom later?

Continue reading "Review of Dark EXplorers and the cards that could be in it."

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  This is Pikkdogs here with an article about decks that can come from the Noble Victories set.  I also have my extra-dimensionary sidekick Pedro here with me.  Sorry for this article coming out late.  Again the server crashed on me when the article was almost finished.  So that pushed the article back a day or so.  But let’s move on, What’s on your mind tonight Pedro?

Well I got no news to report or anything like that.  I can remind our readers that if they leave right now they can avoid reading another article on this site, there is still time. 

Pedro, I’m trying to draw people to the site.  I don’t want to drive them away, no matter how beneficial it will be to them.  Sure we aren’t as good as a normal website with a sponsor, paid writers, and servers that don’t crash every half an hour; but I still do my best to put out sub par articles with lots of spelling errors.

Well if you wanna torture these good people, I guess you can continue on.  Let’s look at possible decks from the cards from Noble Victories. …

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there, this is Pikkdogs  here.  We are now proud to bring you my quarterly review of the new set that is coming into the format.  Before each set I usually write an article that highlights 10 cards that I think will make the most impact on this format and the future ones.  Noble Victories is no different, here is the article.

Noble Victories was quite a mysterious set.  We thought it might be a lot of the cards from the Red Collection that was released in Japan, but we weren’t sure.  Now we can be be sure, it is mostly made up of Red Collection cards and some cards from Theme decks.  The mystery of this set has obscured a lot of the hype that usually surronds these sets.  The only card that was getting some hype was Victini.  Now we know exactly what is in the set, we can give it a fuller review.

Before I talk about the set, let’s get one thing straight, these cards will not be legal for fall Regionals.  So even though a lot of people have the Victini card now, you still can’t play it …