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Double Cities Report with Hydreigon plus Hydreigon Deck Analysis

coolestman22 16 Comments

Hey OneHitKO people, it’s getting to be time where you guys need to see another article, so I thought I may as well do a tournament report like Pikkdogs used to do (Except these will be somewhat successful reports) even though I usually don’t write reports (Although the purpose of the reports are more to show you more about playing the deck), and then so you have something interesting to read about I’ll do a deck analysis of the deck I believe is the BDIF of this format, Hydreigon/Darkrai. Anyway, I feel like getting this started, so here are the reports:

Saturday, November 17th: Cameron Park, CA

I wake up early, make my decklist, and wait for the people who I promised a ride to to show up. Once they both get here, we start the two hour drive to Cameron Park.

When we get there we are greeted by cabd from the SixPrizes forums, and I play some fun games with the people I came with. It turns out that 15 Seniors show up, 1 short of a Top 4. I wait a bit for pairings and I am already paired against someone I’d rather not play early.

Round 1 vs. Emily w/Blastoise

I start Sableye to her Kyurem and she goes first. I have a dead hand, and when she plays a Juniper my hopes sink, but then she plays her Tropical Beach and I’m happy. I play a few cards and Beach, drawing into a Supporter and a Dieno. The next turn I opt to Confuse Ray as I still don’t have Items that would be worth Junk Hunting for, and I get a heads. A Confusion Tails and a Candy to Hydreigon later I Night Spear to KO her Kyurem. I then proceed to take out her Blastoise, and although she manages to get a new one out I still steamroll.

1-0

Round 2 vs. Griffin w/Hydreigon

I start Ditto to his Dark Deino, and I see relief in his eyes when I Transform into a Sableye. I bench a couple Deino and a Darkrai and Junk Hunt for stuff that would net me a Hydreigon next turn. He Ns me, but I still manage to get the Candy-Hydreigon. When he manages to get his Hydreigon out I Dragonblast it. He makes a crucial misplay late game by Max Potioning his Darkrai before retreating, meaning that he no longer can KO my Hydreigon because he has a Darkrai stuck active, and I manage to win from there.

2-0

At this point everyone I had come with was 2-0, while five of the other good Seniors had taken a loss already (including Griffin and Emily). The only other 2-0 at this point is playing a Tornadus Donk deck and we all feel confident. We joke about how height is an advantage in Pokemon (The shortest of us is 5’10), and eat lunch. Lunch then proceeds to end and I get my Round 3 pairing.

Round 3 vs. Blake w/Hydreigon

Blake is the other guy I came with, and I’m 3-1 against him at Premier Events, so I know that at least I’m not facing a donk deck. However, I’m not confident here because I know that he’d been playing Hydreigon a lot longer than me, but I had also been playing it long enough that the Hydreigon mirror is usually determined by who set 2 Hydreigon up and who didn’t. Knowing that, I kind of felt afraid because I had been having some consistency issues recently, but I had cut my 1-0-1 Serperior tech recently as well, hoping that it would help.

However, I start Deino to his Sableye and he gets a T2 Night Spear to kill my only Dieno in play. I make a game out of it for a bit, but when time is called I have no way to take prizes without giving some up.

2-1.

At this point I know I need extremely good resistance to cut, but I feel like I should try to get points out of this at least.

Round 4 vs. Conner w/Mewtwo/Rayquaza/Eels

I start Sableye to his Rayquaza EX and he Celestial Roars, and I’m surprised when he flips over a Double Colorless Lol.Energy. I read the text on Celestial Roar and I laugh a bit when it says that you have to attach the energy, meaning the Rayquaza would have a useless energy attached until it was knocked out. He gets a couple Eels set up, but I Catcher-kill them and he has none left. He can’t power anything up, and I kill a Ray with Dragonblast and a Mewtwo with Cresselia for game.

3-1.

I think it’s the middle of that game when I hear chatter from the next game over about the Fliptini someone teched into their Hydreigon deck for Deino paralysis. Griffin says “Victini is strange. Like a three-legged donkey”. Honestly I don’t know what that has to do with the article, but I thought it was a funny thing for someone to say.

Blake lost against the other guy I came with, Paulo, but I find out that my tough games in the first two rounds paid off as both were 3-1. My tiebreakers consist of 3 3-1s and a 2-2, and Blake’s consist of a 4-0, 3-1, and 2 2-2s, meaning we’re both at 11-5, but because he doesn’t have the 4-0 in his Opponent’s Opponents I sneak into cut. This would have been so much simpler if another Senior had shown up.

Top 2 vs. Paulo w/Klinklang

Game One: We both start with dead hands, but my Sableye start plus Skyla topdeck nets me a Computer Search that I Junk Hunted for about 5 times to get a slow but certain setup. He is finally forced to Juniper 2 Rare Candy and 2 Klinklang away and he draws crap off of it. From there I put Eviolites on board and steamroll.

Game Two: He is unable to evolve his Klinks early game and I kill 3 in two turns. Afterwards I kill his EX’s with Night Spear, and when he Max Potions his active Darkrai when I have two prizes left I Catcher-Dragonblast the other for game.

So I end the day with a win, and while the only good thing I pull is a Ditto, I still get a cool-looking trophy and 50 points (or so I think). Turns out I made a mistake on my POP ID meaning that I don’t get the points from it. Oh well.

In the end, the results looked like this:
1st: Theo S w/Hydreigon
2nd: Paulo A w/Klinklang
3rd: Blake U w/Hydreigon
4th: Emily C w/Blastoise

Friday, November 23rd: Modesto, CA

After my win in Cameron Park I decide I like Hydreigon enough to play it again. I make no changes to my list except that I cut a Catcher for a Golden Catcher I had traded for at league two days before. I meet up with Benjamin, the Junior who I’m giving the ride to today, and we start the hour-and-a-half drive to Modesto.

I meet up with some of the guys from the Sacramento area including Griffin, Connor, and Zachary, and we see that once again only 15 Seniors had shown up. We complain about that until pairings are posted, and I’m paired against Griffin for the second Cities in a row.

Round 1 vs. Griffin w/Hydreigon

This game is fairly uneventful. I get a T2 Night Spear and his Deinos don’t survive very long. When he drops his Mewtwo I have Catcher-Cresselia for my final two prizes.

1-0.

Round 2 vs. Will w/Blastoise

This was one of the most nerve-wrecking games I’d ever played. I get a quick start but he manages to load up a Keldeo with enough energy to one-shot an Eviolited Darkrai. Thankfully I Juniper into the Blend I need to score a KO on the Keldeo as it had been hit with the 30 Night Spear damage, and after that I N him to one to lock his energy and Junk Hunt for the Catcher I need to win. He whiffs both the N and the Energies he needs and I Catcher out his Mewtwo and use Cresselia. It’s safe to say that if I don’t draw that Blend he takes the win.

2-0

Round 3 vs. I don’t remember w/Hydreigon

I get my second T2 Night Spear of the day and kill all his Deinos, and he scoops.

3-0

Round 4 vs. Zachary w/Darkrai/Landorus/Terrakion

I remember actually having an early lead (possibly thanks to another T2 Night Spear maybe), but when he uses Terrakion to take four prizes he’s down to one left to my three. However, I take a prize somewhere (I think on a Sableye), and then time is called. He attacks with Landorus during his turn, and his field consists of the following: A damaged Darkrai with two energy attached, a Keldeo with a Darkness, and an active Landorus with a Fighting. I N him to one and Junk Hunt for the Catcher he needs for the win, and he whiffs the Energy or Energy Switch.

I actually feel bad for him because he whiffs cut on resistance, but I guess it’s what you have to do to guarantee safety. Yay!

Top 2 vs. Will w/Blastoise

I’m surprised to see my Round 2 opponent, but I guess his deck worked against other decks. Anyway, we talk a bit, and then things start.

Game One: I get a quick Hydreigon and I start hitting Keldeos for 90 and 30, after hitting a clutch Tool Scrapper to get rid of both his Eviolites, and his early game pressure doesn’t work as well as 3 EX kills in four turns.

Game Two: This game goes pretty much the same as Game One except that I kill his Blastoise. Sorry man, but that’s the way things work out sometimes.

Hydreigon Deck Analysis

Remember in my Regionals article where I said I had tried and tried to get Hydreigon to work, but I never had? Well, I have. It’s won me two Cities so far, and it’s probably going to be my play for the next few.

My current Hydreigon list is:

3 Hydreigon
1 Zweilous (Draw In)
2 Dragon Deino (Deep Growl)
1 Darkness Deino
4 Sableye DEX
3 Darkrai EX
1 Cresselia EX
-15

4 Pokemon Catcher
4 Max Potion
3 Dark Patch
3 Rare Candy
2 Ultra Ball
2 Random Receiver
2 Eviolite
2 Tool Scrapper
1 Heavy Ball
1 Computer Search
-24

4 N
4 Professor Juniper
2 Skyla
1 Bianca
-11

7 Darkness Energy
3 Blend GRPD
-10

Some of the odd things about this list is the fourth Catcher, fourth Max Potion, and fourth Sableyeas well as the Heavy Ball instead of a third Ultra Ball and the second Tool Scrapper.

The four-of Catcher and Max Potion are mostly so that you have four to use over the course of the game. Getting the game-winning Catcher in a crucial spot where you’ve used 3 already is clutch, and Catchers are great against Eel decks and they are also necessary against Blastoise decks so that you can KO the damaged EX with Hydreigon. Catchers are also your most valuable tool in the mirror (I’ll explain below).

The fourth Sableye is there because Sableye is my ideal starter, and I want to increase the chance of that happening. With the fourth Sableye you have it in your opening hand 40% of the time and if you include mulligans you start Sableye a good amount (I’m bad at math, so I’m not even going to try). I like having it there because starting Sableye is the key to a quick Hydreigon and it also allows you to get back the clutch Catchers and Max Potions you discard with Ultra Ball and Juniper early game assuming you have extra space for Junk Hunting.

The Heavy Ball is so that I can pretty much Skyla for a Hydreigon as well as thinning my deck a bit. I’d prefer to do this without Ultra Ball as most of the time I don’t want to discard anything (I’ll get to this later in the article).

The second Tool Scrapper is there for the mirror. It forces your opponent to retreat their active Darkrai for a new one, and if you’re the player with Hydreigons remaining at the end of the game this can be really clutch. Even if you don’t, you’re a Catcher away from two prizes without having to Dragonblast, an action that can be risky in the mirror.

Matchups

The Mirror – 50/50

When I first started playing Hydreigon (Right after Regionals), I asked my friend who had been playing the deck for three months now “How do you play the mirror?”.

His response was simple: “You win the Hydreigon war”.

After that, I had to ask “What’s the Hydreigon war?”.

His response was “It’s like the Mewtwo war, but a lot more fun”.

Anyway, back to what makes sense: This matchup will come down to one of two things: Either who gets the first Night Spear or who gets the most Hydreigon out. If you can get an early Night Spear plus a clutch Catcher on the Deino or Zweilous your opponent is waiting to evolve, or if both players have Hydreigons out then it results in yes, a Hydreigon war (Which is, if you ask, more fun than a mindless Mewtwo war).

The Hydreigon war is, unlike the Mewtwo war, commonly won by the player who starts it. Why is this? Because the player who starts the Hydreigon war will have the first kill on a Hydreigon, and if both players get the same number of Hydreigon out either before or during the Hydreigon war the player who starts it will commonly win.

Another clutch factor during the Hydreigon war is energy. For each Hydreigon that goes down you lose 4 energy (with the exception of the first Hydreigon that dies, that one will commonly have none), so you need to have some extra energy on the field at your disposal or have enough Dark Patches to get another Dragonblast off next turn.

One thing I would advise during the Hydreigon war is taking a turn without using a Hydreigon to attack. While this can be a risky play, getting a Night Spear off while you get extra energy into play or Junk Hunting for two Dark Patches to get more energy in play (This will usually net you 1-2 energy unless you get N’d). Unless your opponent has a Catcher you will probably be able to buy a turn (Although it is important not to put ANY energy on your remaining Hydreigon, not necessarily just then but any time you aren’t attacking with it). Doing this buys you a turn to get extra energy on the field. Of course, if you have enough energy to Dragonblast already this is not necessary.

Another thing to note about the mirror is that it is about 70% luck. There is no skill involved in getting a T2 Night Spear and there is little in getting multiple Hydreigons out. The little skill in this matchup is probably the Night Spear damage, knowing whether to Max Potion Hydreigon or Darkrai (Almost always Hydreigon unless you have multiple out) and knowing when to Junk Hunt (Which is fine mid-game in my opinion).

I haven’t played a Hydreigon mirror in a while where both players had Hydreigons out at the end of the game, and I haven’t played in a Hydreigon mirror ever where a player won without Hydreigons (Not that it isn’t possible). The one thing I don’t like about Hydreigon is the luck-based and common mirrors.

Some cards you should include if Hydreigon is popular in your area are:

Zweilous DRX 95

I usually end with the weird techs, but I don’t feel like it today. Zweilous is good in the mirror because it can OHKO an opposing Hydreigon with its second attack for only three Energy and it’s also possible to discard important Blend Energies with a Crunch flip. While it isn’t the best tech, if Hydreigon is common in your area you might consider dropping the Draw In or NVI Zweilous for this.

A Fourth Dark Patch

Dark Patches are really good in the Hydreigon mirror because A: You’ll be discarding energy with Hydreigon’s attack that is incredibly important in the mirror, and because if you’re the player that loses your Hydreigons you still have a separate engine, although you’re still definitely not in a good position.

Blastoise – 75/25 in your favor (If no healing) or 50/50 (If healing)

Keldeo ain’t got nuthin on me.

Unlike the mirror, playing against Blastoise is more about leading Darkrai and finishing Hydreigon than leading Hydreigon and finishing Darkrai. Your best bet is to put Night Spear damage on Keldeos, Tool Scrap Eviolites, and knock out their Blastoise. I believe that in the report I discussed how early game pressure is no match for knockouts on EX’s.

If they manage to load up a Keldeo with enough energy to OHKO anything on your field, do two things: First, knock that Keldeo out as soon as possible, and N them to a low hand. Unless they hit a draw Supporter or a Cilan they will likely energy drought until they topdeck something useful. And since their energy acceleration is from hand and not from field or discard like Hydreigon or Eelektrik, they will likely not have enough energy to attack for the rest of the game, and you can continue to KO three EX’s to win the game.

If they play Super Scoop Up or Max Potions, things could get interesting, however. If they can heal the damage done by Night Spear to any of their Pokemon, you can no longer take three EX kills in four turns. However, most lists I’ve seen that use healing only play 3 Super Scoop Ups or 3 Max Potions, so your goal in the early game should be to do what you can to make them use up the healing. Your win will only be delayed a couple turns barring them hitting heads or Energy Retrievals a lot more frequently than you’d like. If they take a few early prizes, Ning them could be great.

Some players will try to go early game Kyurem against you. Have none of it, Dragonblast that Kyurem right away. If there’s an Eviolite attached, Tool Scrapper is your friend. Max Potion the Darkrais that got hit and then Junk Hunt the Max Potions back. While this does use up a turn and give up a prize, unless you somehow go down four prizes before you start your “3 EX kills in four turns” strategy you usually win from that alone.

Unlike some people, I see no need to tech for this matchup unless your area has a whole lot of it. Seeing as how in 10 matches I played against it 3 times (1 of which was the same player), and how I’ve won all four games I played against it, I see no need to tech a card that, in fun games with my friend, makes him instantly scoop when I start it (about 1 in 10 games, imagine starting Shaymin Round One), and it’s only really been the difference in the game (meaning he won because of it) a couple times. I see no need to tech for a matchup that is 60/40 in your favor at the worst.

I will admit Shaymin has other uses, but I really just don’t like it. If your area is 75% or more Blastoise (The only time I’d tech for it), I’d play Virizion EPO instead. It goes through Eviolite and doesn’t require the opponent to take prizes before you. This is just my opinion, I know some people love Shaymin, but I honestly don’t like it.

RayEels – 60/40 in your favor

RayEels is the BDIF from Cities results so far (although I still say Hydreigon is), so a decent matchup is in order. RayEels is usually based on whether you hit clutch Catchers and whether you set 2 Hydreigon up. Their strategy will to be to use the Shiny Ray to kill Hydreigons and go through Eviolite on Darkrai. Your best bet is to try to hit the Ray with Night Spear damage early game and Catcher-KO their Eels to prevent them from using Rayquaza EX to run through you.

If they drop a Ray EX, use Hydreigon to knock it out. Even if they do kill your Hydreigon, you will have taken two prizes to their one off of that, and you will be able to take more prizes with Darkrai in a turn or two. If you have enough of a prize lead from killing the Eels you should be able to win at the end if they drop a Ray. If you use 3+ Catcher killing Eels you should try to get a Junk Hunt off to get them back, as you will need a game winning Catcher in a lot of games with this deck.

If RayEels is popular enough in your area you could tech Giratina and Giant Cape (Although I wouldn’t recommend it). Giratina OHKOes any Dragon-weak Pokemon and the Giant Cape will prevent mini-Ray from OHKOing it right back.

I honestly don’t know much else about this matchup as RayEels isn’t too popular in my area. There are probably other articles that describe this matchup in more detail, so check those out if you have extra time.

Landorus Decks – 50/50

Dragon Deino is mainly there for the Landorus matchup. It could also be useful in combination with the three legged donkey (If you don’t get that go back and read the article), but I don’t think I would play that. Landorus applies a lot of early game pressure to you, although two Night Spears and a Dragonblast result in two Landorus kills for you if you manage to get a Hydreigon out. One thing to watch for is them using Land’s Judgement, but if you get enough energy in play this shouldn’t matter, and if they can for sure next turn you can always use Cresselia (Sure, you might lose a Darkrai, but you won’t lose the Energy).

If they use Garchomp as a secondary attacker, be sure not to keep Blends on your active as Mach Cut will be bad for you and your ability to Dragonblast.

There aren’t any techs against Landorus that I can think of, but playing more Dark Patch can certainly help because they will probably get a Land’s Judgement off on your Darkrai once or twice a game (Although if it’s twice you’re in trouble), and you need to keep your energy in play.

A Couple Tips and Tricks

A couple things I’ve found while playing Hydreigon are that if you start with Sableye and another Pokemon, it’s often best not to start that Pokemon on your bench. If you go second and your opponent has a Catcher, you will be less likely to have a T1 Junk Hunt, and it’s definitely better to T1 Junk Hunt for sure than a possibility that the Darkrai or Deino you’re holding will be your active Pokemon. Even if they do N, you will be likely to get a Deino playing 2 Ultra Ball, 1 Computer Search, 2 Skyla, 3 Deino, and 11 outs to Supporters that aren’t previously listed.

Another thing is that you don’t want to discard too much energy for Dark Patch early game. Remember that you only have 3 Dark Patch (if you go off of my list), and some of those you’ll want to use to recover from discarding energy because you used Dragonblast. You want to rely more on manual energy drops and less on Dark Patch with Hydreigon because Dark Patch isn’t all that critical to your strategy.

Sometimes leaving Energy on your active so that you can then Max Potion and discard the Darkness so that you can Dark Patch it back is good so that you can play a Dark Patch and make yourself less vulnerable to a late-game N or so that you can draw an extra card with Bianca. This is a pretty rare scenario, but it can be a good play at times. If you don’t have a Dark Patch, however, definitely don’t do that because it’s better to have the energy in play for sure.

One more thing I want to say is that a mid-game Junk Hunt is not always a bad thing. Of course if you need to kill something that turn it’s not the best play, but giving up a turn and a prize for two Trainers you need late game isn’t always the worst possible play. In the late game I oftenly find myself looking for that last Catcher to win the game, so I see no reason not to turn your 1-2 outs to a Catcher into 2-4. In the mirror this is a bit less viable because it gives your opponent another turn to look for the Max Potion, but if you time it right there won’t be damage for your opponent to remove.

What do you guys think about Hydreigon for Cities? I like it right now because it has access to Sableye and you have to OHKO to take prizes most of the time. I also like the favorable Blastoise matchup and favorable Eels matchup. If you guys have questions or comments, feel free to comment below, and I’ll try to get an article out about a deck I played against recently that I found to be fairly interesting. Thanks for reading, and I bid you farewell.

Deck Discussion

Why You No Run Rayquaza?

SGT Pokedad MD 14 Comments

Hello it’s me, Prof. SGT Pokedad MD again.  Like I mentioned in my very first article, I’m not the best writer, but thought that this might be an interesting topic to discuss.  Also in my first article, I made it VERY clear that I am not a very good deck builder or player so bear with me on this.  In this article, I’d like to share with you a deck that I am running right now that I really like.  I will share my deck list, why I chose the cards I did, and then share my thoughts on why I am not running a particular card that quite a few people say I should.

I started the year playing the Darkrai-Hydreigon deck list from Japan.  I liked that deck, but it didn’t quite suite my play-style.  I played Zekrom-Eelektrik last year.  My son played the Darkrai deck and loved it, so I traded him the vast majority of my Darkrai deck and decided to move back to Eelektrik.  Starting with the Zekrom-Eelectrik pieces, I looked at the available cards and read through the forums.  It appeared that many were looking to play Rayquaza EX, Rayquaza and a litany of other Pokemon. I researched the other available Pokemon and came up with the list Read More

Deck Discussion Regional Championships

Regionals Preview

coolestman22 9 Comments

Hey OHKO people, it’s me, coolestman22 again. I wanted to get something out before Regionals, so I thought I’d do something like the Battle Roads preview I did back in May or something like that. I think what I’ll do is review the dominant decks from Autumn Battle Roads and then give you guys lists or something like that, so, without further ado, let’s get started.

Before I review any decks, I’ll post some results of Battle Roads. The results of the Battle Roads that The Top Cut has followed are the following (To save time I’m only doing the decks I’m covering):

Eels: 25 wins, 21 2nd, 45 3rd-4th.

Hydreigon: 24 wins, 26 2nd, 34 3rd-4th.

Ho-oh: 7 wins, 6 2nd, 4 3rd-4th.

Hydreigon

In my opinion, Hydreigon has proven itself to be the BDIF of this format. Why I never got the deck to work is beyond me, Darkrai must just not like me. Even though the numbers show Eels as the top deck, Eels also has two different variants, and Hydreigon has only one.

The basic strategy of the deck is to use Darkrai EX to attack and use Hydreigon DRX 97 to move energy from one Darkrai to another, or to do 140 with Hydreigon’s attack. With Dark Trance, not only can you free retreat everything for no cost, you can also abuse max Potion and attack with anything without having to attach an energy. You can use Dark Patch to get energy flowing around, and you can use techs so long as they comply with Blend Energy GRPD, such as Siglyph or Shaymin EX.

In short, the deck functions a lot like the Klinklang BW deck that won U.S. Nationals. I always liked that deck, and I was happy when I heard it had won. I’m glad Hydreigon has proven to be good even though I didn’t get it to work.

Here is a skeleton list for Hydreigon decks:

Pokemon – 12
2 Hydreigon DRX 97
1 Zwelious (Either NVI or DRX 96)
3 Deino NVI
3 Darkrai EX
3 Sableye DEXT/S/S – 32
4 Professor Juniper
4 N
3 Bianca/Cheren
3 Random Receiver
4 Max Potion
3 Dark Patch
3 Rare Candy
3 Pokemon Catcher
3 Ultra Ball
2 Eviolite
1 Super Rod
1 Tool ScrapperEnergy – 11
7 Darkness Energy
4 Blend Energy GRPDTotal Cards – 57
Open Space – 3

Techs

Shaymin EX

To be honest, I’m not a big fan of Shaymin EX. My reasoning behind this is that for every game Shaymin is a big help and you wouldn’t have won without it, you’ll start with it. You’ll probably start with it a bit less, which means that yes, it would win you games to have the Shaymin.

However, it might win you more games to not have the Shaymin and to play another tech or Supporter or Dark Patch instead. If you opt to play a Supporter over the Shaymin and you just happen to have that Supporter and no other Supporter, then having that Supporter might be the difference between winning and losing.

However, I did say that I haven’t tested the deck, and I know people who do play it and say they like Shaymin a lot. If you want to play the deck I would suggest trying Shaymin out and seeing if it’s worth the deck spot and occasional lone Shaymin start.

Siglyph DRX

Of all the techs I’m going to mention, Siglyph is probably the one I like the most. It’s the only tech I play in the build I have online that I use to test against (Which honestly isn’t that good). Without Siglyph, a Mewtwo with a lot of energy will run you over, and you need a response to that. the only time I beat a Hydreigon deck with an Eels build all BR’s long was the time I played against a build without Siglyph, that I knew beforehand had no Siglyph.

However, earlier in the tournament that player played against a Hydreigon build that used two Siglyph, and won. It may be that he got lucky, or, more likely, the two consistency spots he had that his opponent had devoted to Siglyph, which was a relatively useless card in the matchup to my knowledge, might have been the difference between a win and a loss.

I think it definitely is worth playing Siglyph in a Hydreigon build if you don’t have a different response to Mewtwo, but if your area has more Hydreigon than Eels it might be wise not to play it, and instead play a Mewtwo counter that helps in the Hydreigon matchup more, such as, I don’t know. You’ll have to think this up yourself.

Giratina EX

Giratina EX is an interesting tech option in a Hydreigon deck. The place where I bvelieve it would help the most is against a Terrakion deck or any deck involving Terrakion, but honestly I don’t know what it’s for. All I know is that there are people who play Giratina EX in their Hydreigon build.

Reshiram EX

Reshiram is another one of those techs that doesn’t make sense to me. I know it would be helpful in the Hydreigon mirror match, and honestly that’s all I know. What you could do is, out of nowhere, drop your Reshiram, Dark Trance to it, move it up because all of your Pokemon have free retreat with the combination of Dark Trance and Dark Cloak, Catcher your opponent’s Hydreigon, and take a prize. However, if you don’t manage to get an Eviolite on your Reshiram and flip tails for the self damage, you could get one-shot right back and lose 2 prizes, 2 Blend, and 2 Dark if your opponent was able to either get another Hydreigon out or use a Giratina or Shaymin EX to get a knockout. Honestly though I don’t think it’s too likely you’ll be OHKOed unless you whiff on the Catcher and attack anyway.

Hydreigon NVI

The last tech I want to review is the Hydreigon from Noble Victories. While it isn’t too likely you’ll set it up, it is a good card and when you do set it up its attack is pretty good, but it’s also fairly situational.

I remember reading somewhere about the combination between Night Spear and Dragon Blast (Or whatever Hydreigon’s attack is called). Basically what you can do is if your opponent drops an EX with 160 or 170 HP, you can Night Spear and put the bonus damage on that. Then, you can Catcher that EX up and hit it for 140 and the knockout, and essentially draw two prizes with one attack (Especially if you drew a prize with the 90 from Night Spear). Well, with the NVI Hydreigon you can essentially use the same combination on any non-Eviolited EX. You can also snipe something else, either that has low HP, 130 and you want it to be within Night Spear range, or another EX to Dragonblast later.

If you can get an early Hydreigon NVI, that also helps big, because you can snipe two Swablu or Tynamo or other low HP basics of support Pokemon. If you don’t draw a prize with it off the basic, it puts pressure on them to evolve it next turn or have it knocked out. This might force them to play a Juniper over an N, discarding some key resources and thinning out the deck. If they don’t hit it, they will have wasted the resources and they won’t be able to get their support Pokemon out.

To learn more about Hydreigon decks, as i don’t know all about Hydreigon, here is a link to a very well-written article about Hydreigon.

Eelektrik

Eel decks are decks that I am much more comfortable with. I played Eels for all four of my Battle Roads and I escaped with 25 Championship Points, so I can definitely provide more insight on Eels than any other deck.

Right now, there are three different ways to play an Eel deck: Zekeels with Mewtwo, which is the box version, Rayquaza/Eels, and TerraEels. I have played all three variations and the one I like the best right now is the Terrakion version. Here is a basic list you can use, and then you can build on to it which variation you like the best:

This is what a Shiny Eel would look like.
Pokemon – 13
4 Eelektrik NVI
4 Tynamo Split (NVI 38, NVI 39, DEX 45)
2 Zekrom BW
1 Raikou EX
2 Emolga DRXT/S/S – 31
4 Professor Juniper
4 N
3 Cheren/Bianca
3 Random Receiver
4 Ultra Ball
3 Switch
3 Pokemon Catcher
2 Tools (Eviolite, Rocky Helmet, etc.)
2 Tool Scrapper
2 Level Ball
1 Super RodEnergy – 12
8 Lightning Energy
4 Tech Energy (Depending on your variant)Total – 56
Open Space – 4

To make it a straight Zekeels variant, you would add 2 Mewtwo EX and then either more consistency cards or a few techs, and make the tech Energy Double Colorless. To make it RayEels you would add two Rayquaza EX and 2 Shiny Rayquaza. For the Terrakion variant, you would add 2 Terrakion, a single Mewtwo, and something else.

Techs

Thundurus EPO

Thundurus was considered necessary in an Eel deck during the HS-NXD format, but I played without it to success. In this format it is a good idea, though, because of the format’s dependence on basics that turn into Stage Ones and Stage Twos. if you get a T1 Charge off and hit both of your manual energy attachments you can, on Turn Two, Catcher-KO a Deino, Tynamo, Swablu, Shelmet, Gible, Piplup, or whatever. It allows you to take an early lead, as well, which could help you out a lot in the prize race later on. It also discards energy for Dynamotor later on.

The problem with Thundurus is that it doesn’t have quite high enough of a damage output to be good in the late game. Unless your opponent is playing Quad Tornadus Thundurus just doesn’t get the OHKOes you need to win games later on. So to play Thundurus effectively, I have found you need to run enough to consistently start with it. You also need to use Call For Family on Turn One a lot, meaning that a T1 Charge can be, well, a bad idea sometimes.

Zapdos NXD

Zapdos is another one of those early-game cards, but there are a few things that separate Zapdos from Thundurus.

The first is that Zapdos requires a Double Colorless Energy to attack on Turn Two without support from Eels, whereas Thundurus doesn’t. This means that your energy attachments aren’t going to be as easy as they are on Thundurus.

The second is that Zapdos doesn’t require a Pokemon Catcher to attack what you want to attack (Unless you want to hit for Weakness or get around Resistance). In a format without Junk Arm this is a big deal, because you only get to use 4 a game. Not using them in the early game will not only mean that you have them later, but you also have a larger number of them later, meaning you are more likely to draw the Catcher to get the Shaymin EX or Eelektrik active to KO it and win the game. Conserving resources is important in this format, especially in a deck like this without access to Sableye DEX.

The third is that Thundurus puts your energy in the discard pile, while Zapdos doesn’t. While this does seem like a positive at first (And it mostly is), keep in mind that also means you’ll need to hit your manual energy attachment next turn and use it on Thundurus. This is mostly good, though, as discarding energy in this format is extremely hard without Junk Arm.

The fourth is that Thundurus has a higher damage output than Zapdos does. The 30 more means that Thundurus OHKOes the Deinos, Gibles, Shelmets, Archens, etc. that Zapdos doesn’t without some sort of damage support such as PlusPower.

Tornadus EX

Tornadus EX is mainly used in Eel decks as a counter to Fighting. if your meta has a lot of Terrakion EX decks or Terrakion decks, Tornadus EX is a good option. Otherwise, it’s bad in the mirror and you should steer clear.

Zekrom EX

Zekrom EX is another tech I don’t like. I was big on it last format, but this one it just isn’t as useful. The only Stage Two deck you’re likely to have troubles with is Hydreigon, and they will usually Catcher-kill your Eels and make it so that you can’t use Zekrom EX effectively, and Rocky Helmet (I played this last season in Eels) will just get Tool Scrapped, making it no longer very good against Mewtwo for these sort of situations.. If your meta is full of Garchomp, though, it’s a decent idea.

Energy Switch

Energy Switch isn’t a card I’ve experimented with yet, but it could be good in some situations. It’s good for getting the energy attached to your Emolga somewhere more useful. You can also pull some good plays with Mewtwo with it, and move the third energy from Zekrom BW after retreating it.

To learn more about Eel decks with a more in-depth article, I found a pretty good Eel deck article here. This article definitely isn’t as good as the Hydreigon one, but it provides you with wwhat you need to know. I do think 4-4 Eels is necessary in BW-on, however, and that’s the one part of the article I disagree with. (Do note that the article was written before Dragons Exalted came out, however).

Ho-oh EX

Ho-oh EX is a really cool deck. It has built-in energy acceleration, can hit for 180 with some effort, and is fast with the right list.

I haven’t been able to get the deck to work properly, but I am able to provide some sort of list:

Phoenix? More like Scottsdale.
Pokemon – 10-11
3 Ho-oh EX
3 Sableye DEX
4-5 Tech AttackersT/S/S – 32
4 Professor Juniper
4 N
3 Bianca
3 Random Receiver
4 Ultra Ball
4 Pokemon Catcher
4 Energy Switch
3 Switch
2 Tool Scrapper
1 Super RodEnergy – 17
4 Double Colorless Energy
3 Darkness Energy
10 other Basic Energy (At least one of each)Total – 59-60
Free Space – 0-1

Techs

Mewtwo EX

Mewtwo EX is probably the best tech to put in here. It can get a T1 donk, and it helps a lot against Mewtwo coming in and OHKOing Ho-oh. Mewtwo is Mewtwo, and it’s pretty necessary in a deck like this.

Tornadus EX

Tornadus EX is a tech that a lot of people like, but I don’t see a reason for. Ho-oh already has a Fighting Resistance, and it just gets zapped by Eel decks for 2 prizes. It is good with Stadiums for a T1 60, but unless you choose to run SAB you don’t run any Stadiums.

Darkrai EX

Since you’re already running all those darks for Sableye, why not give all your Pokemon free retreat? It seems logical enough. If you have space for a Darkrai, I’d suggest playing one.

Sigilyph DRX

Sigilyph would serve two purposes in the deck: countering EX’s, and countering Sigilyph. If you play a Sigilyph you can stall for a bit, especially against Eel variants that are a bit teched out. They would be forced to use Eelektrik’s attack, which is a 2HKO on Sigilyph, and in the process possibly lose an Eel.

Terrakion NVI                                                                                                                

Ah, Fighting, the meta’s weakness, and Terrakion does the best job of capitalizing on that of anything in the modified format. With a Tool Scrapper it can OHKO any Fighting-weak EX with an Eviolite attached, and it does so for only two energy assuming your opponent got an OHKO the following turn. If they don’t KO it back, you can attach another Fighting and OHKO another EX (With the help of a Tool Scrapper or Catcher in most scenarios). If that happens, which is pretty likely, you will have taken four prizes while only giving up one. Terrakion is just that good.

There are so many techs I could talk about, but since I need to get this article published before Regionals, I’m just going to link you to another article that talks about them. There weren’t many Ho-oh articles to choose from, but I feel the Skittles part of this 6P article did a good job:

I would love to cover some more decks, but I started this article way too late and I need to get it published now, so I’m going to hold off on them. Those are the three main decks of the format and if I wanted to win a tournament I would play one of those three, so I feel like that’s enough.

Anyway, as always, leave a comment below if you have a comment, I’m open to any feedback, discussion, or whatever else. And, of course, good luck at Regionals!

Deck Discussion Tourney Report

Okemos 1st Place Battle Road Report and Ho-oh EX Deck Analysis

Jared 4 Comments

Hello everyone at OneHitKO! Today I’ve got a tournament report for you with none other than Ho-oh EX, which has been seeing some success at this season’s Battle Roads and is a very fun deck to play.

That’s me, Jared, with the “Michigan Pokemon” shirt.
Before that, my name is Jared Weiss and I play out of Michigan. I started playing last summer, after a friend and I jokingly picked up a theme deck. I learned about the big mid-season rotation that had happened the previous season, so I was glad to start fresh into the HGSS-on format. I’d like to thank Josh, as he was one of the first people I met playing the game, so it’s sad that he won’t be around much anymore, but I’m glad to be writing for the site. Besides Pokémon though, I’m a college student and competitive figure skater which I’ve been doing for 10 years, and have been a national competitor among many other accomplishments in the sport.

Anyways last season I had started out playing Reshiram/Typhlosion, a great beginner’s deck, and netted me my first top cut. From there, I proceeded to play strictly Tier 1 decks that I knew were doing well like ZPST, CMT, and a Darkrai/Terrakion variant through nationals, which gave me a 6-3 record at nationals (after going 6-1 and then having to face some brutal trainer lock decks).

However, since this would be my second season, I wanted to branch out a bit more and be more creative with deck choice. Of course that went right on the afterburner when I started testing Darkrai/Hydreigon at the rotation to BW-on, and instantly loved it. It’s what I would end playing for my first couple BR’s of season, having a 4-1 bubble at the first, and then 4-2 for a top 8 and championship points finish at the second. Even though I still loved the deck, but I was very curious to try Ho-oh EX after some friend’s success and losing to it in the last round of the previous BR’s. So I threw it together and tested it a bit with fellow OHKO writer Joel the week of, and had a blast playing it (I mean, how can’t you with a deck that has every single energy type)! Here’s the list I took to the tournament:
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Deck Discussion

Who is Eelektrik’s Best Friend?

Pikkdogs 7 Comments

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  This is Pikkdogs with an article that is kind of a deck review, but kind of a card review.  Today we will be talking about the Eelektrik card and which cards work best with it.

Before we get to the article I have an announcement to make.  Next weekend I will publish my final article on this website.  After a long deliberation, I have made the decision to leave the game and the article writing business for the time being.  This has been a tough decision since I love the game enjoy writing so much, but I am excited to go on to other things.  I will explain more in my final article, but I thought I would give you a one week heads up.  Make sure to show up for my final article, it will be something.

 

Eelektrik- The Basics

                Eelektrik is the best energy accelerator in the format.  He is a stage 1 that allows you to attach an electric energy from the discard pile to the bench with the “Dynamotor” Ability.  This works great with cards like Ultra Ball and Professor Juniper.  You just need to have energy in the discard pile, and you can power-up most Pokemon in just one or two turns.

The one draw-back to Eelektrik is the retreat cost.  The 2 retreat cost can be a killer, and it necessitates the running of DCE or cards like Switch.  Eelektrik also doesn’t have much of an attack, and there aren’t any good Eelektrosses to evolve into.

The good things about Eelektrik do outweigh the bad things.  However, you do need a partner or two for any Eelektrik based deck to work.  There are so many good Pokemon to pair with Eelektrik that you could hurt your deck even if you do choose to play some good cards.  It takes more than just a passing glance to choose the best friend for Eelektrik.  It takes an analysis of the format and your local metagame to choose the best variant of an Eel deck.  Here is a close look at some of the most popular pairings with Eelektrik.

The Most Popular Pairings

Here are a couple of the standard options for an Eelektrik deck

Zekrom–  Zekrom was the first pairing with Eelektrik, it’s the best, and it’s the most popular one today.  For three energies it can do 120 damage, that is pretty darn good.  It also has the great “Outrage’ attack that is good in a lot of different situations.  It can be hard to keep using the “Bolt Strike” attack with Zekrom’s retreat cost, and the fighting weakness is very annoying.  But since it is a good card that is not an EX, it should be in every Eelektrik deck.

Zekrom EX– Zekrom EX is a little more clunkier than Zekrom.  It is not as versatile and it does give up 2 prizes when it gets knocked out, and it still carries that annoying fighting weakness.  But, it is the heaviest hitter in this list.  150 damage in just one attack is enough to take out anything that is not an EX.  It also has a cool three energy attack that works with DCE that isn’t terrible.  It doesn’t need to be in every deck, but if your deck runs DCE, than you should run one copy of Zekrom EX.  It is just a good option to have in a tool boxy deck like Eelektrik.

Mewtwo EX– Before we even get going here, run 2 copies of this card in every deck.  It is just a great versatile card that is great against everything.  Yes, it might suck to start with this card, but it’s not the worst start ever.  Most other people will  be running at least one copy of this card, so since you have energy acceleration you can load up this card in one turn even if you don’t run DCE.  You should have an easy time with a lot of the rogue decks out there if you concentrate on loading energies one Mewtwo EX if you have an Eviolite on him.  It is so good and versatile that without question, you should add two in every deck.

Thundurus– Thundurus does not have the power that the Zekroms have, but he is a good starting Pokemon.  His “Charge” attack lets you attach an energy to Thundurus from your deck.  That means that he should be ready to do 80 damage and put an energy in the discard pile on turn 2.  It’s a win-win-win.  You not only get energy on the field, you get energy in the discard pile, and you get to do 80 damage.  Thundurus is kind of useless late-game because of the lack of pop in his attack, and he only adds to the frustrating fighting weakness of this deck.  Even though the list for this deck is very tight and it is hard to waste a couple spots on a starter, I do think that you should at least try this guy in every deck. I find that 2-3 copies of this card are really good for an Eelektrik deck to have. 

Rayquaza EX– Rayquaza EX is a card that is not standard in a regular Eelektrik deck, but is kind of thought of as a deck of its own.  It is still does contain Eelektrik, so it does belong in this list.  Rayquaza EX is a dragon type Pokemon that does 40 damage times the number of energies that you discard from an attack that costs PL.  Of course this deck doesn’t mind discarding energy since each Eelektrik can get one back per turn.  So if you have 3 Eelektriks in play and you discard 3 lightning energies a turn, than you end up being even.  You just need Switches to move Rayquaza EX on the bench.  The first weekend of Battle Roads was not super kind to Rayquaza EX, so this may not be a great deck right now, but it is worth a try.  One thing I should make clear is that Rayquaza is not something you can throw into any Eelektrik deck.  If you want to have Rayquaza EX in your deck, you need to make an effort to build it around only him.

Rogue Pairings

Here are some pairings that are known, but not really standard.

Terrakion– Terrakion/Eelektrik was a deck that was popular during Cities/States/Spring Regionals last year.  It is another variant of an Eelektrik deck that usually doesn’t contain a lot of the other cards and has a special purpose.  The purpose of this deck is to be able to use Eelektrik and Zekrom BLW while hitting other Eelektrik decks for weakness with Terrakion.  Terrakion does make this deck a little less consistent, but it adds a cool new ripple into this deck by helping you out in the mirror a lot.  I don’t know if this variant is still viable in the new year, but maybe it could be something to look out for.  If you think you might see this deck, take a look at our next card on the list.

Zapdos– Zapdos is one of those few legendary Pokemon that has a decent non-EX card.  It is not good in most decks, but Zapdos does work well in an Eelektrik deck.  The reason why Zapdos works is that he has an attack that is not terrible, and a fighting resistance.  If your opponent is just running over you with fighting Pokemon, you can bring Zapdos out and he will stop the onslaught.  If you expect to see some fighting Pokemon, I would run at least 1 of this card.  It may not have a lot of pop in its attack and may not be the shiniest Pokemon, but if you want something to counter fighting Pokemon, than Zapdos is your man!. Or weird bird thing. 

Tornadus– Another Pokemon that is great in this deck for going against fighting Pokemon is Tornadus.  Of course if you play Tornadus you will need to play DCE.  But if you are okay with playing DCE, than Tornadus is a good option.  I usually favored Zapdos over Tornadus, I don’t know why, but it just feels right.  Tornadus also is weak to lightning Pokemon, so it can be a liability in a mirror matchup.  But, it is a little better of an attacker, so if you don’t expect a lot of the mirror, Tornadus could be a better fighting counter.

Raikou EX– Raikou EX is a card that I really like.  His attack does 100 damage to anyone of your opponent’s Pokemon and forces you to discard three energies.  This is not a terrible thing since if you have at least two Eelektriks out you can just attach three energies to a benched Raikou, retreat one Raikou for another, and attack for 100 again.  Than you just rinse and repeat until you win the game.  I really like this card, but during testing I found out that 100 damage is a little weak with Eviolite and so many EXs in the format.  It feels like most of the time you are just attacking the defending Pokemon, so you might as well just run Zekrom EX and do 50 more damage.  I hope someone proves me wrong, but I don’t think Raikou is a great card in this format.

 

Obscure Pairings

Finally, here are some pairings that are a little off the wall.

Bouffalant DRX or BW– There are two Bouffalant’s that wouldn’t be bad in this deck.  The BW Bouffalant is a lot like Terrakion.  If you do run DCE, than Bouffalant wouldn’t be a terrible play if you want to play this guy.  The Dragons Exalted Bouffalant is a counter against EX Pokemon.  If you feel that you are always going up against EX Pokemon, than Bouffalant wouldn’t be a terrible play.  If you first attack with someone like Thundurus, than Bouffalant could come in and finish off the KO next turn.  It is not a card that will be the greatest thing ever in this deck, but if you run a more tool boxy version of this deck, than this card could help you out a little.  It could be worth testing depending on your metagame. 

Siglyph DRX–  We have another EX counter from DRX, Siglyph.  Siglyph does necessitate the running of some psychic or Blend Energies, but if you really need this card it is worth it.  It also works well with the Rayquaza EX variant, since both cards need psychic energies.  Though it would be kind of weird to run this card seeing that it is a Mewtwo EX counter.  You should already be running Mewtwo EX, and since you have an energy accelerator you should have a good advantage in the Mewtwo EX war.  But, maybe a wall like Siglyph could work against a more diverse base of EXs.  It could be something worth testing.

So, Who is Eelektrik’s Best Friend?

                Now it is time to answer the question, who fits the best with Eelektrik?  Here is my list.

  1. The best pairing is with Zekrom, you need to play Zekrom.
  2. Mewtwo EX is a standard in every deck.  You also need to play Mewtwo EX.
  3. Zapdos is needed in the match-up with fighting Pokemon, you probably should play him.
  4. I really like Thundurus, put Thundurus in your deck and only take him out if needed.

 

Those are my top 4.  You can add to your list from the rest of the Pokemon I talked about, but they are my top 4.  If you have other additions to either of my lists, please leave them in the comment section.

Well, that is all I have to say, make sure to show up next week for my fare-well article.  So long and thanks for all the fish.

 

Deck Discussion

Deck Analysis: Hyrdreigon and Worlds Wrap-Up.

Pikkdogs 6 Comments

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  This is Pikkdogs here with a deck analysis for you.   A lot of people will be banking on the new Hyrdreigon deck to do well in the

Igor is bringing the Golden Pikachu Cup back home to Bella……I mean Portugal.

next format.  Hydreigon is a new deck, but it actually comes into the format with some momentum.  Klingklang BW does a similar thing that Hydreigon DRX does and it won the Format. Darkai, who is in this deck, has a ton of momentum coming from a Worlds win.  So this deck has a lot of hype and a lot of expectations to live up to.  Before we talk about the deck more, let me go through some news.

This past weekend was the Worlds championship.  While I don’t usually provide news or anything like that, most of us do know that Worlds was held last weekend.  In the masters end, two Speed Darkrai decks made it to the finals.   The finals was a match-up of American Harrison Levin and four time, four time, four time, four time Portuguese National Champion Igor Costa.  If you think Igor looks familar, he seems to be the vampire from Twilight.  The Top Cut consisted of the top 16 players from the Swiss rounds.  A lot of the top 16 players were very familiar.  Sami Sekkoum, the perennial UK champ made it to the quarter finals.  Yuta Kamatsuda from Japan and The Top Cut’s Michael Pramawat also made it to the Quarters.  In the semi-finals was a friend of Onehitko.com and one of the U.S.’s greatest players, Jay Hornung.  Jay is the greatest thing to come out of the state of Iowa since corn and John Wayne.

The finals was a thrilling three game final between two Darkrai decks.  Igor did end up winning, but the game was very close.  The weekend was not very good for American players.  The U.S. sent one player to the finals in each three divisions, and they all lost.  We even had three of the top 4 Master’s players, but we still couldn’t stop Edward, I mean Igor.  The bad news for the U.S. continued when it was announced that for the first time ever, Worlds will not be held in the U.S.  Worlds 2013 will be held in Vancouver, Canada.  But, Vancouver is basically a border town, so unless you don’t have a passport this news shouldn’t bother you.

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Deck Discussion

Deck Analysis: Reshiboar BW-On

Pikkdogs 2 Comments

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  This is Pikkdogs here with a deck article for you.  This is my first deck analysis for the Black and White on format, so this should be different.  This article will be about Reshiboar, yes Reshiboar.  This deck was first played in the HGSS-on format at Nationals 2011.  It kind of won Worlds that year (if you wanna argue about whether that deck was a Reshiboar or a Magneboar, you should probably get a life), but then it kind of fizzled out in a format with Pokemon Catcher.  But now it could be back, to check for sure , let us look at the deck more in-depth.  I will also give a little of my insight about the new format at the end. Before we get into the article, let us say hi to Pedro.  Hey Pedro do you have a news article for us?

Hey Pikkdogs.  Today’s news article is about the Olympics.  Do you have the Olympic favor Pikkdogs?

Oh I got the Olympic favor.  All the symptoms are there; inactivity, loss of productivity at work, and the belief that archery can be interesting.

Yeah that sounds like it.  As everybody knows the Olympic games started this past Friday with the opening ceremonies, that were kind of weird.  Did you think they were weird Pikkdogs?

Nope, I think that nurses dancing, kids jumping on beds, and Mr. Bean leading an orchestra sounds pretty normal to me.

Okay, I guess.  Now the Olympics are in  full swing with all the weird sports that we kind of know and love. 

The sports might be weird but I love the Olympics.  It is the one time that the world comes together and bonds over their love of sports.  If every day could be like the Olympics there would be no war and famine, we would all live together in harmony and peace.

That sounds nice. 

Plus, it is cool that I can watch rhythmic gymnastics, synchronized diving, and the triple jump and not be called gay.

No, I wouldn’t call you gay for that.  Maybe for that pink shirt you always wear, and for your incessant singing of “Call Me Maybe”. 

Fair enough, let’s just start the article.

Reshiboar- the Basics

Reshiboar is a very simple deck that has been around for a year.  Emboar BW has an Ability called “Inferno Fandango” that lets you attach as many fire energies as you want.  Reshiram BW has the “Blue Flare” attacks that costs RRC, and does 120 damage with a discard of two.  So as long as Emboar is out you can keep feeding energies on Reshiram and keep doing 120 damage.  Reshiram is also not an EX, so you don’t need to worry about giving up two prizes.  The deck works very simply, just keep feeding energies to Reshiram, and you should be good.

Here are some good and bad things about the deck.  The deck is good because it is simple and easy to use.  Almost anybody can play this deck and tech it out how they want it.  Reshiram hits hard enough to 2HKO any EX in the format, Eviolited or not.  It will also take out just about any Stage 1, and most Stage 2’s in one hit.  It is also simple enough to be set up fairly easily.   One bad thing about this deck is that Emboar has a large retreat cost.  If your opponent keeps on Catchering up your Emboar, this might be enough to stifle your strategy.  Another bad thing is that this deck needs a stage 2 Pokemon, that means it is a little less consistent and has only a little room in the skeleton list.

The setup of this deck is very simple.  In my decklist I run Emolga DRE as a starter.  He would be the one that you would want to start with.  If you don’t run Emolga, you can hope that you start with at least 1 Tepig, or with a card that can search him out.  Hopefully by turn 2 or 3 you can get your first Emboar, and then find Reshiram to start your attacking.  Things are fairly uncomplicated from there.

The Decklist

Here is the current decklist that I am using.  Of course it is still early in my testing and this decklist is not perfect.  When I first make a deck I usually make it very simple and bland, so you can tech it out and improve it from the list that I post here.

Pokemon-14

  • 3- Tepig- I can’t tell you how badly I want to go to 4.
  • 1-Pignite
  • 2-Emboar- It would be nice to find room for a 3rd.
  • 4-Reshiram
  • 1-Entei EX- A great card lategame when you are running out of energy.  More of a secondary attacker than something you want to rely on.
  • 2-Emolga DRE- if you can fit in one more, that would great.  If you can find a list that works without it, that’s great too.
  • 1-Mewtwo EX- A good tech that can be used against just about anybody.  You will never know when you will need this card.  You can run 1 more copy if you want.

Trainers-33

  • 3-Energy Retrieval
  • 4-Pokemon Catcher
  • 3-Switch
  • 1-Super Rod
  • 2-Communication
  • 3-Ultra Ball
  • 2-Heavy Ball
  • 3-Rare Candy
  • 2-Random Reciever
  • 4-Professor Juniper
  • 3-N
  • 3-Bianca

Energy-13

  • Fire-13

Tech Options

There are a lot of techs to consider in this deck.

  • Badboar– This is the other Emboar from Black and White.  It does not really help this deck out too much, but it can do 150 damage.  So if you need something that can do 150 damage, this is a good option.  You might need to run the 4th Tepig if you do choose this option.
  • Reshiram EX– This card is pretty much like Badboar, it can do 150 damage for a bunch of energies.  But, it does have sometimes damage itself which can lead your opponent to an easy two prizes.  Badboar might better for a big attacker, if you want one, but it is a judgement call.
  • Rayquaza EX– Rayquaza seems to fit fairly easily into this deck.  You will need to put electric energies into your deck, but it wouldn’t be a huge hassle.  You just need to ascertain that he will help your deck in your local metagame, if that happens then you should change the deck around to accommodate this guy.
  • Bouffalant– He can do 120 damage for CCC to an EX, so why not play this guy.  I don’t know if you need this card, but it doesn’t hurt.

Match-Ups

I don’t want to do a full on Match-Ups section, but I can talk a little about what this deck is good against.

This deck is generally a good all around deck and doesn’t have much that it is terrible or great against.  Most Pokemon in this deck are of course weak to water.  So if you go up against Empoleon or something like Kyurem EX, you can be screwed.  Also, if your opponent can max out their Pokemon Catcher potential (maybe something like Sableye), you also can lose easily.

On the good side, this deck is actually a pretty good match-up against a lot of the decks that are supposed to be good.  Mewtwo EX will be in all decks out there, and since Reshiram discards two energies after it attacks, Mewtwo will have a tough time OHKOing Reshiram.  The fighting Pokemon like Terrakion can’t really OHKO Reshiram, so you should have a good match-up there,  Tornadus is not really much of a threat either.  Zekrom decks can use a Plus Power to get an OHKO on you, but you can do the same.  So that match-up should be fairly even.

My Thoughts About Black and White-On

Okay, now that we are done with Reshiboar for a while, let us talk a little about the new format.  I am not saying that I have tested everything, but I think I have learned a little.  The format so far seems fairly even.  There doesn’t seem to be one card or one deck that can beat up everything.  Mewtwo EX is still the BDIF.  Even though Mewtwo EX doesn’t really have a deck anymore, it fits well into most decks out there, and can do a lot of things against almost all decks out there.  Mewtwo EX is a very versatile card that will be in every deck.

Stage 2’s are once again playable, but the format does still benefit the BBP (Big Basic Pokemon).  Without Celebi Prime, Mewtwo can no longer tear through every evolution line before it starts.  But there are still cards like Eviolite that favor these BBP.  The EX Pokemon are now in full force and they have more HP and hit harder than Stage 2’s.  But, the Quad decks no longer work as well without Junk Arm, so you are going to have to kind of adjust the current BBP decks.  To recap, Stage 2’s are still at a disadvantage, but at least they are a little more playable.

To speak about Supporters, they still will be used in the same way.  You can no longer use PONT, but decks can be changed so Bianca works as well.  I like to use a high count of Ultra Ball in my decks so that Bianca will be even more effective after I discard stuff with Ultra Ball.  Cheren can also come in to supplement things, but it’s not a crazy good card.  N will be a very popular card in the next format.  I know that some people hate this card, me included, but be prepared to shuffle your deck a lot.  Even someone like me who hates N, will be forced to play three copies of this card.  This means that if you have basic Pokemon in your opening hand that you want to play soon, you will want to play it down before the game starts because an N will normally come down on the first turn of the game.  The basic supporter line that I use is 4-Juniper, 3-N, 3-Bianca, and 2 Random Receiver.  This gives us 12 supporters and it seems to work fairly well.  If you don’t use discarding cards like Ultra Ball, you can use Cheren instead of Bianca.

Searching cards have also changed in the new format.  As I said before I tend to favor Ultra Ball because it works well with Bianca.  Heavy Ball and Level Ball work good in decks that have Pokemon that can be searched out by those cards.  I also still like Pokemon Communication.  If you are running a deck that has between 15-20 Pokemon, you should play Communication.  You should be able to almost always have a Pokemon in your hand, so you can play this card to get the Pokemon you want.  We do not have Dual Ball or Collector any more, but these cards along with Emolga seem to do the job well enough.

Here are a couple other random tidbits.  I do not like running two Super Rod’s.

Is this a comment about your feelings on gay marriage?

No.  Anyway- I feel that most decks can still run just one Super Rod.  Call me old fashioned, but one rod seems to work for me.  If you run two you are sure to always have one in your hand early game, and they seem to taunt you, they seem to say that you should have ran more consistency cards instead of this darn discard pile card.  Another tidbit is that I still can’t see anybody playing the Cilan card.  There seems to be room enough for a bunch of energies in today’s decks, so you shouldn’t need Cilan.  I also still like the Eel decks in this format, they work just as well as they always did.  The same goes for the Tornadi in the format.  I’m not sure if I like the fighting Pokemon, but I am not sure.

If anybody has anything to add, please do so in the comment section.

Conclusion

From my testing with the new format, I think that Reshiboar should be a good deck right away.  It may not be Tier 1, but it should be around Tier 2.  If you can get a good consistent list that has a lot of Switches in it, you should have a chance to do well at a tournament.  I think we can safely say that Reshiboar is back!

I am ready to leave, why don’t you wrap things up Pedro?

Okay, since we had an Olympics news article at the start, why don’t we do an Olympics themed “This Day in History’?  On this day in 1976 Bruce Jenner won the Decatholon for the U.S.  This win was monumental for the Americans as Jenner became a national hero.  His life has unfortunately been in a downward spiral ever since, as he is now relegated to the job of Kardashian babysitter and poster child of what can happen when you get your Botox at the 99 cent store.

It is really sad what happened to the guy, he was once a role model for every young boy, and now he is a cautionary tale for every man out there.

Let this be a lesson to every man out there, just say no the Kardashians and the world will become a much brighter place, until that happy day comes in which there are no more Kardashians to prey on single men. 

Well, said 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!

 

Deck Discussion National Championships Stupid Deck Idea

EelZone: The Thunderrated Nats Deck

coolestman22 2 Comments
I think I’ve lost my spot in Tier One.

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

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

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

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

The problem is that Magnezone is a Stage Two, and it’s hard to set up. Mewtwo Read More

Deck Discussion Tourney Report

Toledo, Oh Battle Roads Report and Kyurem EX Tank List

Pikkdogs 6 Comments

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  This is Pikkdogs here with a tournament report. This past Saturday I was able to go to my first Battle Roads.  This one was in Toledo, although it is not currently in Michigan,  Toledo is actually the closest venue for me, so I had to be there to defend my turf.  I wasn’t looking forward to this event because Toledo events are usually held in the smallest game room ever, so it gets really hot and really stinky in there.  Although it is not  a fun place to play in, I still had to come and defend my back yard.

I have been trying to find a deck in this format that I like for a long time.  I don’t really like Zekrom, its just too robot like for me.  I would like to play CMT, but I am very poor and can’t afford the deck right now.  And I am not convinced about the other decks in the format, so I went with a rogue deck.

For about a month now I have been thinking about a tanking deck with either Groudon EX or Kyurem EX.  Onehitko writer TAndrewT convinced me to actually make the deck when he wrote an article about two tanking decks featuring both Pokemon.  I made the deck and was pleasantly surprised that it seemed to hold its own fairly well.  It did not really have an autowin, but it didn’t really have an auto-loss either.  It seemed to give me a situation that was winable almost every time, though the situation was also very losable, it just depended on who had the most luck.

This deck idea is very simple, get Kyurem EX out there and have him attack.  When he gets damaged, use trainer cards to heal him.  Cards like Potion, MooMoo Milk, and Life Herb have been known as crap cards in the past couple years, but they actually worked in my testing.  I did try this deck with some of those trainers and then Blissy DX, but the deck was more consistent with a bunch of trainers.

Smeragle is also in this deck to speed things up.  He is actually a vital card in this deck, and he makes this deck fast and consistent enough to work.

Kyurem is a very under appreciated card.  He may not be the EX that hits the hardest, but he has a weakness that is very hard to exploit.  Plus, he can do things like discard Special Energies while still attacking.  The goal of this deck is not to discard energies, but if you can it is always a good thing.  Kyurem can hit for 120 damage, the downside is that he is unable to use the same attack the next turn.  But, this deck does run 4 Switches and Smeargles with Skyarrow Bridge, so doing 120 damage twice is not a huge problem.

Here is the list.  It is not a perfect list, it of course can be imporved.  But, I did play this deck to see if I like it enough to play it for Nationals, and if the deck could stand up to the format.  If you guys have any ideas on improvements, just let me know in the comment section.

Pokemon-7

  • 4-Kyurem EX
  • 3-Smeargle

Trainers-42

  • 3-Potion
  • 4- MooMoo Milk
  • 4-Life Herb
  • 4-Junk Arm
  • 4-Switch
  • 3-Pokemon Catcher
  • 1-Super Rod
  • 2- Skyarrow Bridge
  • 2-Dual Ball
  • 3-Eviolite
  • 4-Professor Oak’s New Theory
  • 4-Professor Juniper
  • 2-N
  • 2-Sage’s Training

 

Energy-11

  • Double Colorless Energy-4
  • Water Energy-7

The Tournament

I wake up at about quarter to 9, which is very early for me, but still a decent night’s sleep.  I make some oatmeal and sit down to watch a rerun of the Graham Norton show, man that gay Irish guy isn’t that bad in the funny department.  After waking up for a while I pack my car up and make the 40 minute drive to Toledo.

I get to the tournament early because I had to re-sleeve my deck, so I did that and turned my list in.  Then I noticed that I had somehow got some kind of dirt on the front side of my shorts, so I walk across the street to the Family Dollar and pick up a cheap pair of shorts.  Then I drive over to Little Caesars to get some lunch, and then head back to the venue to wait for the start of the tourney.

Round 1 vs John and Dark Deck

My first game is against a guy from Michigan named John.  I think I might have played him earlier in the year, but I don’t really know the guy too well.  I started the game with Kyurem EX and I have all the energies needed to get Kyurem going.  I think I might have the donk on the next turn because he started with a lone Zorua, but on his turn he plays a collector and does “Ascension.”  Once John started going with his attackers, he did well.  I flip 1/8 on my first flips with Moomoo Milk and Dual Ball, and lose a Kyurem because of the bad flipping.  But, my luck would soon turn around.  I get another Kyurem EX and start discarding his Special Energy and knocking out Zoroarks whenever I am allowed to use my big attack.  John pulls out all the stops once he loses his 4th Zoroark, and starts to use Darkrai EX to attack.  This time however, luck was with me.  I start doing well on my flips with Moomoo Milk and Life Herb, and use Potion to fill in the gaps.  He ends up doing a lot of damage with Darkrai, but I am able to wipe away the energy.  The game ends one turn before I can take my last prize, when he decks out.

1-0   –  The day starts off well.  I didn’t think I could keep it going, but its always good to get a win right away.

Round 2 vs Mike with Zekrom (eels with Pachi/Shaymin)

Mike is a Pokedad from Cleveland who’s family I met during the Cities season.  They seem like a real nice family, they are a credit to the Pokemon Community.

I start with a Smeargle to his Tynamo.  I got first and bench another Smeargle,  I then use two N’s in a row thanks to Portrait, but I still can’t get a Kyurem.  On his next turn he uses collector to get 2 Tynamos and a Zekrom.  He then passes, and I use another Supporter, but I still can’t find a Kyurem.  I do attach a DCE to Smeargle and use his attack to knockout a Tynamo.  But, on his next turn he gets 3 energies on Mewtwo EX, uses a Pokegear 3.0 to get a Seeker, and then uses it to get the Seeker win,.

1-1  Not mad here.  I knew that my deck did not play a lot of Pokemon at the same time, so it was vulnerable to a Seeker win.  It just sucks that I am play the only guy who still plays Seeker.

Round 3 vs Frank S. with  Zekrom

Frank is a good buddy from Michigan, so it should be fun to play him.

I start double Smeargle, and he starts with  a Tynamo.  I use a Dual Ball, and two Switches to use 4 Supporters on the first turn, but am still on able to find a Kyurem again.  But, I have the chance at the donk, so I attach a DCE to Smeargle and miss both flips on his attack.  So Frank lives for another day.  He gets a lot of Pokemon in play, but runs into an energy drought.  I do end up getting the first knockout on a Tornadus after I finally find a Kyurem.  I then get another KO on something, I don’t know what, but here is where I make my misplay.  I see a Mewtwo EX on the bench with DCE, and instead of attacking it and getting rid of the DCE, I knock something else out.  I do get a 3 prize lead, but Frank loads up Mewtwo EX and is able to OHKO everything I have.  Misplays suck, I don’t know if that would really have made a difference, but it couldn’t have hurt.  ]

 1-2-  Any hope of doing good is just about gone, but I thought I must solider on and keep on playing to see what I can learn about the deck and the format.

Round 4 vs Eric Richard  with Zekrom/Terrakion

Another guy from Michigan, that’s three in a row.  Of course Papa Richard is playing a Terrakion variant, I think he did in every tournament this season.  This game goes weird, as our games normally do.

I start with Smeargle again, and he has a Terrakion.  I do find a Kyurem on the first turn, but I cannot find an energy.  I use a bunch of “Portraits”, but none of those help.  The only things I seemed able to draw were healing trainers.  Those helped delay the inevitable, but I need energy to attack.  It took me several turns, but I was able to get some energies.  The only thing was to keep Kyurem alive, I had to Junk Arm 2 Kyurems.  I later learned that my Super Rod was prized, so I was kinda screwed.

I finally start attacking and I make Eric work with how many attacks he had to do just to get one knock out.  I am able to heal off a lot of damage counters, but I eventually run out of healing trainers after using them as  a crutch for the first 6-7 turns.  Once he knocked out 2 Kyurems it was over because I had no Super Rod.

1-3–  I wonder what would have happened if I didn’t hit an energy drought.  Would have been a good match

Round 5 v.s. Lauren with Mew Lock (kind of)

Round 5 officially went in the books as a no show win for me since my opponent never showed up, but after I saw that my friend Lauren finished her game I asked her for a fun game.

I start with Smeargle and Kyurem and I get a good feel for the game going.  I start setting the pace with some good supporters and some early knockouts on Mews.  I take 4 prizes before she puts the lock on, but the lock eventually does come on.  There was nothing I could do to stop the lock, I just had to wait for her to roll bad.  She eventually knocks out a Kyurem with “Double Freeze” and decides to not use “Victory Star” to take the KO back.  This allows me to get my last prize, and just as pairings are put up, she misses a “Fly” flip, and I end the game with a W.

2-3-  Pretty easy match-up, I just gotta hope that eventually they roll bad, which they usually do.  Thanks for the game Lauren, I really appreciate it.  It made a deck report that would been horrible, to be just very bad.    

Round 6 vs James H. with C.M.T. –T

This was a very pivotal game for my deck.  If I win this game, I think this deck still has hope.  If I lose, it is a crappy deck.  And look who I am playing, my buddy and fellow OHKO writer James.

James and I play this game in a very laid back fashion since we all expected to do a little better.  I again start with a Smeargle and Kyurem, and get a few Supporters the first couple turns to get going.  I am able to get energies on Kyurem and am able to get a couple KOs on Mewtwos, but those things just kept on coming.  I might have had a chance to win, but I was forced to  burn some healing trainers on a Juniper early in the game, and then I didn’t have them when I needed them later.  I should have been able to outlast the Mewtwos, but those healing trainers eluded me and James got the W.

2-4–  The search for a Nationals deck continues as Kyurem EX kind of failed me this day.  It is not a bad deck, I did do well in almost all of my games, but it just didn’t have that one or two cards that can put it over the top. I really need something to put a little kick in the deck.  Maybe you guys have an idea, or maybe it is just a bad deck.  I still need to look for a Nats deck, and that really sucks.

About the Deck

I did not do great with this deck, so it is no longer a front runner to be my nationals deck, but it is still a cool deck.  It is also a deck that would be good for kids or people that are under a budget.  This is a deck that you should be able to build for about 40 bucks, which is almost unheard of in this format.  So I can recommend this to other players and hopefully they can do a better job with it then I did.  I might try  to run this deck with Groudon EX and see if that’s any better.  Though, it is not a great deck, so don’t get the wrong idea about this deck.  It won’t win Nationals, but its still pretty cool.

Well, that’s all I got.  Thanks to the judges and T.O. in Ohio.  And thanks to the Card Shop owner, I especially appreciated him when he took a big stick and hit the bar on the backdoor so we could open the door and get some air circulation in that sardine can.  Thanks to all my opponents, you guys were all professionals.  Have a good night, everybody.

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