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Deck Discussion Tourney Report

TAndrewTourney: Spring Battle Roads 2012 (St. Louis Park, MN) with Klinklang EX

TAndrewT 44 Comments

Welcome, you OHKO’ers, to Battle Roads! As a Poképarent, and as an active member of the Twin Cities Pokémon TCG community, I have always felt there is a lot to love about the Battle Roads season. Battle Roads tournaments are worth very few Championship Points, and this gives them a more relaxed and informal feel than larger State or Regional Championship tournaments. Battle Roads tourneys are also a great place for new players to start their experience with Competitive Play. I should know, because a 2010 Fall Battle Roads at Dreamers Cards in St. Louis Park, MN, was the very first Pokémon tournament that my son Paul and I attended. I will never forget that, during round 3 of that Battle Roads, Andy Wieman played our entire match with his cards upside down, just so that I could read the text on each card more clearly. And other Minnesota-area opponents gave Paul and me tips on play during our games that not only helped us become better players in the long run, but even resulted in us winning a couple of matches in that very tournament. So I have always been excited to return to Dreamers for Battle Roads.

This season, though, I was even more eager to play because I feel the format has loosened up since Regionals. Just a month ago, it seemed like play had boiled down to a couple of dominant decks, with just one, ZekEels, winning all but one of North America’s eight Regional Championships. But the release of the Dark Explorers has created some brand new deck archetypes, and has also added some new tools to existing decks. In fact, I think that most top deck types now have more options than they have room for them, and this means that even mirror matches will involve a lot of different cards that aren’t shared by both opponents. Against this backdrop, Battle Roads is a great opportunity to test out new deck ideas. Or, as Pokémon players sometimes say, it’s a great time to try and “break the format”. And the more obscure the deck idea, the better to shock and awe your friends at the tournament while you break it.

I had thought about bringing the Groudon EX tank deck that I wrote up in my last OHKO article, but in testing, it always seemed as though QuadGroudon couldn’t keep up with opponents who played a lot of Tornadus or Mewtwo. Even though the deck was designed to heal away damage with cards like Potion and Moomoo Milk, the amount of damage that could be healed with those cards was just too low. Mewtwo piled on damage too fast, and Tornadus’ resistance to Fighting types was too just difficult to surmount. EX tanking, I thought, would work much better if multiple different EX’s could be used in the same deck to counteract resistance, could be switched at will, and could be healed more quickly and completely than I wrote about just two weeks ago.

As it turns out, one of these problems was solved by a new card in the Dark Explorers expansion, Darkrai EX. Darkrai EX has a hefty 180 HP, and a single, powerful attack: Night Spear does 90 damage to the opponent’s active Pokémon, and 30 more damage to a benched Pokémon of your choice. Darkrai is weak to Fighting Pokémon, which is a big liability. Terrakion, for example, can OHKO Darkrai EX immediately after a KO with Retaliate for just two energies. But Darkrai makes up for this with its incredible Dark Cloak ability, which grants free retreat to any Pokémon with a Darkness Energy attached. In principle, Groudon EX, Kyurem EX, and other hefty EX’s could all be switched for one another at no cost, as long as they had “Darkness Energy” attached. This includes not just Basic and Special Darkness Energy, but also Prism and Rainbow Energy as well. (Prism Energy must be attached to a Basic Pokémon for it to count as Dark.) And the great thing about these special energies is that they also count for the typed energy costs of the EX’s they are attached to.

But how can these EX’s be healed more efficiently? This other problem was solved by an older Black & White combo, Klinklang BLW and Max Potion (EPO). Max Potion heals all damage from the target Pokémon, but at the cost of discarding all attached energies. To avoid this, my Battle Roads deck ran Klinklang, a Stage 2 Pokémon that can move energies around the board at will with its Shift Gear ability. Again, this includes Rainbow and Prism energy, and so Klinklang works with the same special energy set that Darkrai does. Klingklang is durable, with 140 HP, and his effective HP can be increased by attaching Special Metal Energy. Klinklang is weak to Fire, a pretty unusual type right now, and resists Psychic, which makes him very difficult for Mewtwo to KO. A couple of players mentioned to me that I might try using Meganium Prime for this deck instead, which has 10 more HP and shifts Grass energy; this would also allow the deck to accelerate energy attachments with Celebi Prime. But Meganium can’t be searched out with Heavy Ball, so I didn’t go that route. In “Klinklang EX”, the strategy of the deck would be to tank with one or more EX’s, Shift Gear energy around the board as necessary, Max Potion away any damage that your opponent delivers, and always retreat for free.

The List

Keeping in mind that I’m not the most skilled deckbuilder, here’s what I brought to Dreamers:

Pokémon — 15
4 Klink DEX
1 Klang DEX
2 Klinklang BLW
1 Klinklang EPO
2 Darkrai EX DEX
1 Groudon EX DEX
1 Kyurem EX NXD
1 Mewtwo EX NXD
2 Smeargle UD

Trainers — 35
4 PONT
3 N
2 Pokémon Collector
1 Professor Juniper
1 Twins
4 Heavy Ball
4 Max Potion
4 Random Receiver
3 Junk Arm
3 Rare Candy
3 Eviolite
3 Pokémon Catcher

Energy — 10
3 Prism Energy
4 Rainbow Energy
3 Special Metal Energy

A couple of comments on some of my unusual choices:

4 Klink DEX. The Klink from Dark Explorers has a retreat cost of 3, which would normally be terrible, but in this deck it allows Klink to be searched out by Heavy Ball. In fact, this is true of all of the Pokémon in the deck except Smeargle, Darkrai and Mewtwo.

1 Klinklang EPO. This deck has real trouble with energy denial. If the opponent plays a couple Lost Remover, well, it might survive that. But if the opponent plays Crushing Hammer as well, and sends some special energy cards to the discard, the deck gets into trouble fast. Klinklang EPO’s first attack, Charge Beam, does 30 damage and rescues an energy card–any energy card–from the discard pile onto Klinklang, back into play. But I only used this guy once in the tournament, and he could easily be replaced with a third Klinklang BLW.

1 Mewtwo EX. One effective strategy against this deck is to load lots of energy onto a Mewtwo, and then repeatedly strike the active Pokémon for a lot of damage. Mewtwo EX is the only real counter to this strategy right now, so I included one. But you can really only use Mewtwo near the end of the game, because he is so easy for your opponent to KO. If your opponent forces you to use Mewtwo early, you may have already lost.

10 Energy: 3 Prism, 4 Rainbow, 3 Special Metal. As I mentioned, Prism and Rainbow count as both Dark and Metal, but only Rainbow can be Shift Geared onto and off of Klinklang. Meanwhile, Special Metal is key to raising the HP of Klinklang above what your opponent can deliver. Zoroark DEX usually hits for 140-150 (with Dark Claw and Special Dark Energy attached), and ZekEels players can easily double-PlusPower a Zekrom’s Bolt Strike for 140. Parking 1-2 Special Metals on Klingklang can foil this strategy.

2 Pokémon Collector. When I showed Ed Mandy the list for this deck a few days before the tourney, he suggested I switch entirely to Ball trainers for searching Pokémon, and I can understand why. But after some testing, I found myself unable to search for all of the guys I needed, and Pokémon Collector is great for searching out lots of Pokémon at once.

1 Juniper, 1 Twins. I don’t know. Other than Professor Oak’s New Theory and N, what other Supporters does this deck want to run? I included a copy of Twins because the deck is frequently behind in prizes, but Twins only nets you two cards, so I actually don’t even like it that much when I am behind. And there’s very little in this deck that I like to discard, but Juniper is powerful, so I included one.

My Battle Roads Report

As it turns out, there was some drama to the Dreamers tournament before it even started. On Sunday only, the MN Department of Transportation closed down Interstate 94–the major east-west freeway through the Twin Cities–but didn’t post a lot of information or detour signs about the closure. I-94 is one of very few access routes to St. Louis Park, mainly because of a chain of lakes to its east that cut off most surface streets. That meant that folks coming to the tournament from the east were dumped into downtown Minneapolis, with no labeled detour, along with thousands of other commuters in the same boat. Paul and I had left very early, and I knew how to detour the closure, so we made it to the tournament just at the end of registration. But ~10 others, including players driving from Wisconsin (such as NA top-50 players Mike Lesky and Andy Reynolds) were stuck longer, arrived to the tournament after the beginning of round 1, and received first-round losses. This meant that there were really only 21 Masters competing for top 4.

Round 1: Jason Crawford (Kyurem/Kyurem EX/Kyogre EX/Feraligatr Prime)

One of the crazy things about bringing a brand new deck idea to a tournament is that many of your matches will be ones you haven’t practiced before, and I sure as heck hadn’t practiced against Kyurem spread. Klinklang EX requires a lot of benched Pokémon, and so when Jason flipped over his active Kyurem, I was very worried. I became even more worried as my start was slow, and Jason was able to spread KO my Smeargle and a Klink. Eventually I was able to catcher up an energy-less Kyurem EX to stall, evolve a Klinklang, and start Gear Grinding his Ice Pokémon for weakness. Still, when time was called, Jason was up one prize, and about to take another prize with his active Kyurem EX. But during Jason’s turn 1 (of +3), he misplayed by piling energy onto a benched Kyogre EX that had Night Spear damage on it already. On turn 2, I Catchered up Kyogre, dropped a Mewtwo to the bench, retreated for it and Shift Geared every energy I had on the field to Mewtwo for the X-Ball KO to tie the game. Jason didn’t run his own Mewtwo, so he couldn’t return the KO, and I took another prize on turn 4 for the win.
1-0

Round 2: Michael Slutsky (CMT w/ Terrakion)

Mike is a very strong player, and I think he’s especially skilled at calculating KO’s and board positions as the game goes along. (To be honest, I think Klinklang EX would be a terrible match for his playstyle–it offers almost no flexibility, and Mike thrives on flexibility.) In this match, Mike knew that Terrakion would be key to KO’ing my Darkrais, but couldn’t use Mewtwo to its fullest potential because his lone Shaymin was prized. As a result, as he piled energy on his other Pokémon (like his Tornadus EX), he just couldn’t deliver the damage he needed to KO my guys before I healed them. He finally tried a Mewtwo gambit at the very end, but I managed to Night Spear it twice for my last two prizes.
2-0

Round 3: Mike Juhl (Donphan/Vileplume)

Vileplume prevents Klinklang EX from using Max Potion or Rare Candy, and I was pretty concerned about that. I became even more concerned when I did my first Heavy Ball search, and discovered that my single Stage 1 Klang was prized. Luckily, I managed to squeeze in a Rare Candy to Klinklang BLW before Mike established the lock. In testing, Klinklang EX had done terribly against status condition lock decks like Vileplume/Lilligant and Vileplume/Accelgor, because there was no way to retreat a damaged EX or heal it. I had considered including a Steelix line to deal with this (because Steelix Prime is immune to status conditions), but I knew that I wouldn’t be able to search for Steelix under lock, and Steelix falls pretty readily to Mewtwo, so I abandoned the idea. Fortunately, against Mike’s Donphan as the only threat, I simply cycled though active EX’s, retreating damaged ones to sit on the bench, while I KO’d his attackers.
3-0

Round 4: Ed Mandy (QuadTerrakion)

I had e-mailed Ed my list for advice a couple of days before the tournament, and I knew that Ed was running a very similar list to the one he had used at MN States, because he was once again borrowing many of the cards from me. So I think we both knew exactly how bad this match was going to go for me. Ed’s deck ran 3 copies of Lost Remover and 4 Junk Arm, meaning that he was going to be able to send 7 of my 10 special energy cards to the Lost Zone over the course of the game. My only chance was to start fast, getting energy on the board before he could remove it. But Ed was able to play a Lost Remover turn 1, and then Junk Arm for it multiple times over subsequent turns. By turn 6, I had just 2 energy cards on the board, and had managed to KO one Terrakion, while he had taken 2 prizes and was about to take a third. At that moment, Ed’s daughter Ava came over to say that she had finished in Juniors. Ed looked over at his other 5-year-old daughter Petra–who wasn’t playing, and had behaved so patiently throughout the tournament, but was clearly getting bored. Ed debated out loud, and then decided, that he would scoop and drop. Believe it or not, depending on whether Ed had any Junk Arms or Lost Removers prized, I still think I had a tiny shot at winning, but things were awfully grim for me. Ed’s drop gave me a win that the deck and I probably didn’t deserve.
4-0

Round 5: Soari Phomma (“Dark Rush”, Zoroark/Weavile/Darkrai)

This was a pretty quick loss for me, mainly because I didn’t pay attention to Zoroark DEX’s second attack, Dark Rush, that does 20 damage for each damage counter on Zoroark. That meant that Shift Gearing all of my board’s energy onto my only Klinklang, putting it active, and then Gear Grinding for 80, was probably not my smartest move. After Soari announced his 160-damage KO on Klinklang, I scooped. Soari set up great, so I’m not sure I could have won this one anyway, but my dramatic misplay really didn’t give me much of a chance.
4-1

Top 4: Soari Phomma (again); posted on YouTube by bullados

[youtube width=”320″ height=”259″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Zt5hwGcPPg[/youtube]

I really enjoy playing against Soari–he has a great time playing, and his enthusiasm for the game is totally infectious. We also frequently end up talking about our decks and our strategy during the game, which probably doesn’t make the best strategic sense, but makes our games a lot more fun. But through Top 4 Soari had a really bad headache, and I think the background noise at Dreamers–which is always super loud–made things worse for him. I’m sure that playing against a headache-inducing deck like Klinklang EX didn’t help either. But things looked promising for Soari right off the bat, as in Game 1 he Claw Snagged away my Pokémon Collector to leave me with a Kyurem EX active and nothing but Max Potions and Junk Arms in my hand. Okay sure, that meant Kyurem lasted a long time, but I didn’t draw into anything helpful, and Kyurem eventually fell for Soari’s win. In Game 2 I had a much stronger setup, and Soari struggled to put enough Basics on the field to score KO’s with Zoroark, so I won pretty decisively. In the final game, Soari switched strategy a bit, electing to go for multiple early Claw Snags–which didn’t work this time–and then focus entirely on KO’ing Klinklangs. In the end, he couldn’t stream the Zoroarks fast enough, and I took Game 3 after a truly long Top 4.

Top 2: Michael Slutsky (again); posted on YouTube by bullados

[youtube width=”320″ height=”259″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nt79It37nd4[/youtube]

Mike had clearly thought a lot about how to approach our Top 2 matchup, and had decided on early-game Catcher-KO’s with Tornadus EX, followed by a late game sweep with Mewtwo. In my pre-tourney testing, this was exactly the right strategy for CMT against Klinklang EX. But I had included Mewtwo in my deck to counter precisely this scenario, and after Mike’s deck setup stalled through an early energy drought, I figured I had a chance. My setup was also a bit slow, but soon enough we were both rolling, taking prizes, and waiting for the moment that Mike would load up and unleash Mewtwo. He took out my Darkrai, denying me free retreat because my other one was prized. And then he used Shaymin to Celebration Wind 7 energy to Mewtwo with 3 prizes to go, to KO an Eviolited Groudon with 3 energy attached. This put him in the lead 1-2. In my next turn, my best route to winning the game was to KO his active Mewtwo.

And I could have. I had Mewtwo in my hand. But I didn’t. If you watch the video, you’ll notice that I missed many energy drops throughout the game, mostly with energy in hand. I just wasn’t paying close enough attention, and misplayed repeatedly. And so, when Michael KO’d my Groudon, I calculated that I didn’t have enough energy on the board to both pay a retreat cost and attack with Mewtwo. But as judge Mark Janssen pointed out to me at the end of the match, I actually did have enough energy on the board; Kyurem’s retreat cost is normally 3, but I failed to calculate in the effect of Mike’s Skyarrow Bridge. That one extra energy, plus a Gear-able one on the bench, would have been enough to fuel Mewtwo’s X-Ball and win me the game. But I didn’t see it. And so Mike–definitely the more skilled player in this match–took a 40-minute Game 1.

At this point, I was hungry, and tired, and I think it was affecting my play. Even worse, I looked over at my son Paul, who hadn’t really eaten anything for many hours, and he looked practically comatose. Paul won (6-0) in Juniors, but that had finished hours before, and the excitement of being at Dreamers had worn off for him. Knowing that I wouldn’t have a great chance at winning a Sudden Death match even if I took Game 2, I decided to scoop. I think Mike would have won anyway. And I’m glad Paul and I were able to get some dinner and get home in time for bed.

Final Words

Alex Solomonson at Battle Roads. Not really related to the article, but fashionable nonetheless!

I’m not a skilled Pokémon player, and so I’m not sure my opinion on Klinklang’s ranking in the metagame counts for much. I do think it’s a deck to contend with, and I think there is room to improve the deck. So I hope that players with greater expertise than me can take this concept and improve upon it. Looking at the “What Won Battle Roads” thread on Pokegym, it looks like other players also came up with this idea–I didn’t know about them when I built this, but I can’t claim to be the only inventor of the deck. I do want to give some credit for the deck to John Roberts II of Missouri, who chatted with me about it on PlayTCG.me. When I built the deck, my very first game against a human opponent was, believe it or not, a mirror match with John on PlayTCG. (That was the only other time I had seen the deck played.) It was clear that both John and I had work to do on the deck; John convinced me to use the three-retreat Klinks, and I suggested that he use Kyurem EX instead of Kyogre EX as his Water tank. Thanks to him for his advice. And as always, thanks to Steve and Mark for judging, to Colleen and Jeff for organizing, and to MN players for maintaining a fun community for Paul and me to play in.

If you made it this far–best of luck to all of you as we approach Nationals!

Deck Discussion

Pikkdogs Reviews the Dark Deck

Pikkdogs 11 Comments

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  This is Pikkdogs here with a deck review for you.  I recently got a chance to get some testing time in with a dark deck, and I thought I would share my findings.  Before we get to sharing findings, I have a couple announcements for you.

The first is that the newest OnehitKO contest is coming to an end.  You can read everything about the contest here, but I am changing it a little.  I didn’t get a whole lot of responses to the contest, but still want to give away some tickets.  So if you want a pair of tickets, just email me at (pikkdogs@onehitko.com) and I will hook you up.  See you guys at the rock show!

The second is that we need to introduce my extra-dimensional sidekick Pedro.  Hey Pedro!

Hey Pikkdogs.  Shall we do the thing. 

Sure, but I want another this day in history.  Don’t worry if the date doesn’t make sense.

Okay.  On this day, May 14th, in 1998 the chairman of the board Frank Sinatra passed away.  Do you like the Frank Sinatra Pikkdogs?

Hate the Frank Sinatra.

What?  Sinatra is an American icon, everybody loves him.  You gotta love him.

Nope, don’t care for him.

Why not.

The man was a gangster.  At the very least he hung around people who were criminals and killed people whenever they felt like it.  Even though I like his singing, I just can’t look past the fact that he hung out with a bunch of murders.

Oh come on.  Everybody hangs around with a bad crowd.  Regis loved the Frank Sinatra, and if Regis loved somebody, he can’t be that bad. 

I guess, if Regis likes him, you just gotta like him.  Nobody can argue with Regis.

A scientific fact. 

Unless we’re talking about College Football.  Wolverines all the way baby!  The Irish suck.

Really, I’m a University of South Carolina fan.  Go Cocks!

Go Cocks indeed.

Goal of the Deck

The goal of this deck is to use the trainer cards released in the Dark Explorers set to deal damage efficiently with Dark type Pokemon.  Not many decks in Pokemon consist of only one type.  Besides Reshiphlosion and Reshiboar, not many decks have focused on one type like this one in recent history.  But, this deck primarily used Dark type Pokemon to take advantage of Dark Claw and Dark Patch.  Dark Claw is kinda like Expert Belt, it helps you do an extra 20 damage on each attack to the defending Pokemon.  Dark Patch is kind of like Eelektrik’s “Dynamotor” Ability, it lets you attack a dark energy to a dark Pokemon on your bench.  These cards make Dark Pokemon more powerful and consistent.

There are two Pokemon that are normally in this deck that can be considered the main attacker.  The first is Zoroark DE.  Zoroark has a swarming like attack that does 20 damage for each Dark Pokemon that you have in play.  That means that if you have 5 Dark Pokemon on your bench, you can do 120 damage.  This is increased to 140 with Dark Claw, and 160 with 2 Special Darkness Energies.  160 damage is nothing to sneeze at, it is really good, and it is better because it only costs CC.  There are some bad things about Zoroark though.  He has a fairly low HP, which means that your opponent will knock Zoroark out easily.  That means that you will need to put out 4 Zoroarks, and then have another attacker waiting in the wings.

In the wings is Darkrai EX.  Darkrai EX sports a great 180 HP, which means your opponent will probably need at least 2 hits to knock him out.  Darkrai has an attack that does 90 damage and snipes for 30.  With a Dark Claw and 2 Special Darkness Energies, that is increased to 130 damage to the active, and 30 for sniping.  130 may not be as good as 160, but it is still really good, especially for a Basic.  The 30 damage to the bench doesn’t really matter that much, the baby Pokemon are almost all gone, people will start playing the 40 HP Tynanmo, and almost all other low HP Pokemon will require 3 attacks for a knockout.  The bad thing about Darkrai is that you need 3 energies on him to attack.  I know that you can load energies on him faster with Dark Patch, but if you get a bad start, those Dark Patches may not be there.

Setup

Speaking of the setup,  it is  very important for this deck.  Since you have at least 2 attackers in this deck, your setup will determine the order in which you will use him.  Ideally you would want to attack first with Zoroark because all of those Dark Pokemon that fuel your attack may not be around later in the game, but it could be hard to do this since Zoroark is actually a little faster than Zoroark.  Setup is also important because this deck relies on at least 1 evolution line.  Since decks are very fast right now with Mewtwo EX dominating the format, you will need to evolve quickly before they can start controlling your field with Pokemon Catcher.

It is hard to give you a blueprint for a setup since the list is not very focused right now.  Hopefully you either start with Zorua or a benched Darkrai EX.  No matter who you start with, you should try to attack energies right away, get a Pokemon Collector, and try to get an energy in the discard pile for Dark Patch.  Your first job is to load energies on an attacker, and get ready to evolve into Zoroark and any other Stage 1 that you have.  If you are trying to attack with Zoroark you can consider using DCE to attack quickly, if you are attacking with Darkrai EX you should try to load him up with energies with Dark Patch.  You need Dark Patch with Darkrai EX because he is just too slow with his large energy requirement.  Hopefully by turn 2 you should be able to get enough energy on whatever it is you are using to attack, and you are also filling up your bench with big HP basics and evolved Pokemon.

After your setup you can just start bringing up one attacker after the other.  It doesn’t really matter which of your main attackers you are using,  just make sure you keep the damage coming.  I will give you one hint, try to use the sniping damage from Darkrai EX’s attack to setup a future OHKO instead of trying to chip away at a Pokemon that may or may not ever be active.

Tech Options

There is a consensus that this deck should have 4-4 Zoroark and 2 Darkrai EXs.  There is also a consensus that there should be at least 2 more Dark Pokemon in this deck.  The problem is answering the question, “who should take the last 2-6 spots?”.  Here are some of my favorite options

Tornadus EX and/or Tornadus

The first tech option will not help Zoroark’s attack, but they will still help the deck.  These Pokemon have fighting resistance and will help cover the weakness of the other Pokemon in this deck.  These Pokemon are almost your only line of defense against fighting decks.  Since fighting decks will be out there a lot, you will need to have a plan against them if you plan to play this deck in a tournament.  Tornadus EX sounds like a good play  in this deck.  If you expect to see a lot of fighting decks, than I would suggest running 2 EXs and 1 normal Tornadus.

Absol Prime

Absol Prime is one my current favorite dark tech in this deck.  I do not like this card because of the attack, a base damage of 70 isn’t bad for two energies, but I still don’t like the fact that you need to put a Pokmeon in the Lost Zone to attack.  In my deck I could Lost Zone 2 Tornadi, but once those are gone, this attack will interfere with Zoroarks attack.  It is also hard to get Pokemon in your hand at the right time without a good draw engine.  What Absol has going for it is that it is basic and can attack if needed.  It is really hard to evolve, so even though it is a fairly sucky card, Absol’s speed can make up for its pitfalls.

The Other Houndoom UD

There was one Houndoom Prime that was released in Undaunted, but there was another Houndoom in that set too.  The other Houndoom is not that great of  a card, but it does have an attack that could help in this deck.  For one Dark Energy, “Fire Counterattack” does 80 damage to a fighting Pokemon.  With a Special Darkness Energy and a Dark Claw you can do 110 damage,  which is enough to OHKO a Landorus.  It doesn’t help in most matchups, but with Tornadus it will all but guarantee you a win against fighting decks.  Although it does not help against decks that aren’t fighting, it is still a Dark Pokemon that can help fuel the attack of Zoroark.  Even though Houndoom could get pulled up with a Pokemon Catcher at the wrong time, you do not need to pay the retreat cost if he has an energy attached and Darkrai EX is in play.  There are bad things about Houndoom, but there are also some good things.  If you look at all the good things and bad things about the other Houndoom, I would say that he is a very good play if you are expecting a lot of fighting decks. 

Weavile UD

Probably the most popular tech in this deck is Weavile UD.  He has the “Claw Snag” Poke-Power that allows you to discard a card from your opponent’s hand upon Evolution.  This is an amazing Poke-Power, and it is really nice to have this card in your deck.  The problem is that this is not a disruption deck, it is one that tries to do a lot of damage.  And if there is one thing that Weavile does not have, that is a good attack.  In my opinion, playing Weavile UD is like putting snow tires on a Lamborghini.  Lambos are built for speed, and snow tires are for grip in bad conditions.  Although snow tires are great, it makes no sense to put them in a car that should not be driven in snowy areas in the winter.  So don’t play Weavile, it doesn’t make much sense.  The Power is nice, but you need to attack.  Absol is the play if you are going for speed and consistency, and Houndoom is the play if you are expecting fighting decks.

The Dark Bisharp

Like the other Houndoom, the Dark Bisharp was ignored until now, but it has a one energy attack that can do 80 base damage.  The catch with Bisharp is that you need at least 2 damage counters on the defending Pokemon to do the 80 damage.  If you plan ahead, you can make sure that Darkrai EX hits the right Pokemon on the bench for the 30 damage, and then you can finish that Pokemon off later with Bisharp.  It is a decent strategy if things go as planned, but in Pokemon you can never count on things going as planned.  If things do go as planned, Bisharp is probably the tech that offers the most upside, and it gives some kind of use for Darkrai’s sniping damage.  I have not tested out Bisharp yet, but it does have some good potential.

The List

Here is a list that I used to test with.  I will point out that it is not a great list of this deck because it is not yet focused.  There needs to be a better focus on what the deck does at what time, and the trainers need to be improved to make sure that happens.  But, for the sake of this article I will show you the list that I am using.

Pokemon-18

  • 4-Zorua DE
  • 4-Zoroark DE
  • 2-Tornadus EX
  • 2-Darkrai EX
  • 2-Houndoor UD
  • 2-Houndoom UD (non Prime)

Trainers

  • 3-Dark Claw
  • 4-Dark Patch
  • 4-Junk Arm
  • 3-Pokemon Catcher
  • 1-Super Rod
  • 3-Pokemon Communication
  • 4-Pokemon Collector
  • 4-Professor Oak’s New Theory
  • 4-Professor Juniper
  • 3-Sage’s Training
  • 1-Cheren

Energy-11

  • 5-Basic Dark Energy
  • 3-Special Dark Energy
  • 3-Double Colorless Energy

 

Concerns and Future of the Deck

     There are some big concerns with this deck.  It did work better than I thought it did, but my testing did show some holes in the deck.  The biggest hole in the deck is consistency.  Your first two turns almost never go the same way twice, and if you run into a supporter drought you have no way out.  If you want to make this deck really good, it has to be more focused than my build is.  You need to have the deck focused on one attacker at one time and have a strict strategy for who you use to attack.  Your deck needs to be really focused when it comes to trainers too.  You will need to try out different trainers and see what works.  Perhaps Engineer’s Adjustments or Ultra Ball would be better in this deck, you will need to try different combinations of trainers and see what works the best.

    Even though there are a lot of bad things about the deck, I do think that it has some promise.  If you can get the deck focused on one strategy, I do think that it can stand up on its own.  If you can focus the deck, it will be the only deck that does not have a glaring weakness.  With Tornadus and Houndoom in this deck, it will have no major weakness.  This could be a good deck for Spring Battle Roads and Nationals.

Matchups

     I did talk a little bit about matchups in my last paragraph, but here is a little more in depth talk.  In this section I will assume that we are talking about my list with the other Houndoom and Tornadus EX, and I will assume that the list is more polished than the one that I gave you.  So these matchups may be a little bit of wishful thinking, but it’s not too far off.

Zekrom

     I would say that this matchup is around even or slightly favoring Zekrom.  Zekrom is also a deck that has a lot of variants, so that makes it hard to get a good picture of a matchup. But, I think it should be a fairly even game.  Both decks should be about as fast as the other one, so there is no big difference there.  Zekrom can do a little more damage, but if Darkrai EX is used right, his high HP can even up the score.  Watch out for Zekrom, he can do a lot of damage to Zoroark.  In this matchup it might be nice to run Zoroark BW, but I don’t recommend running it unless you plan on running into Zekroms a lot.  Zekrom should have a very slight advantage here, but if you have a really focused deck you should be able to get some good wins against this deck.

CMT

     CMT is a very dangerous deck, it can flat out outspeed the Dark deck.  If CMT gets setup early, watchout because it can control the board with Pokemon Catcher.  But if it does not take control early, it will have to deal with the resistance of Darkness Pokemon.  The resistance on all of those Dark Pokemon do make a big difference in this matchup, just that 20 damage can make a huge difference.  If I would have to give someone an advantage, I would have to take the easy way out and call it even.  CMT can take an early advantage, but the Dark Deck can win a long game.  The game will come down to how fast you are able to rotate in attackers.  Mewtwo EX will get a lot of knock outs, so you are going to have to keep bringing in attackers that can do damage.  You don’t have anything that can OHKO Mewtwo EX, but if you keep on chipping away at the HP you should be able to get the job done.

Fighting Decks (Decks with some combination of Landorus, the Terrakions, and Groudon EX)

     If you tech against Fighting Decks like I did, you should actually have a good chance against them.  You should start out by using Tornadus to take a lot of hits and dish out some decent damage.  Then you can get the last couple knockouts with Houndoom.  If needed you can then bring in Darkrai to be your closer.  This matchup is not as easy as I may make it sound, but you should have a slight advantage in this game.  Although it may not seem that great to tech your deck so much and only get a slight advantage, you are still taking an autoloss and turning it into an advantage, and that is a great thing to do.  I do need to test this match-up a little more and polish my list, but if I can do that, this match-up shouldn’t be that bad.

Durant

     Durant may be losing a little bit of steam right now, but I don’t think it’s going to be going away anytime soon.  I know that some people think that Durant will be an amazing match-up for this Dark Deck, but I just don’t see it.  Darkrai and Tornandus just need too many energies to be effective.  So now we look at Zoroark.  Zoroark can do a lot with only one DCE, so he should be a good attacker to focus on.  Durant will try to take out your energies, but you will need to use Dark Patch to try to balance that out.  I would think that this match-up should be fairly even.  You will have a little trouble getting energies on the right Pokemon at the right time, and that will give Durant the opening that it needs.  Zoroark will need to lead the pack if you want to win this match-up, and hopefully you can keep energies on him.

Conclusion

I do like the Dark Deck now that I was able to test it a little bit, but the jury is still out on it.  There are still questions like focus and consistency that it will have to answer, but it just could be a tier 1 or 2 deck.  You just need to polish the list and make it more focused, than maybe you can answer the many questions of the Dark Deck.

Well Pedro, we are all done.  Why don’t you end this with a news story?

Alright, I’m ready.  In my, I mean our, last article I talked about the tanning mom who is accused of putting her child in a tanning machine.  Now we have another award winning mom.  There is a mom in New Jersey who was recently arrested for Prostitution.  The kicker is that she is a stripper and hooker by night, but a hot dog salesman by day. 

So you can visit her and she will handle your wiener, and then you can come back for a hot dog.  

Good one.  I do not really like this woman, but I do like the principle of combining food and sex. 

Kind of like George Costanza in that Seinfeld episode where he ate food in bed.  I always thought I was the George of our group.

Okay, you are George and I can be Kramer.  Who’s Jerry?

I guess we gotta give that to Ed, he is the creator of the site.

Then can we get an Elaine?

Of course not, this is a Pokemon site, there are no girls here.

Than why are we still here? 

Good point, I think it is time to get to where the  girls are.  Good night everybody.

Deck Discussion

TAndrewTesting: EX Tanking with QuadGroudon, and Her Cheaper, Easier Sister

TAndrewT 15 Comments
Carly Rae and Iz: Musicians I'd like to get wet with. Well okay, maybe one more than the other.

By now we’ve all attended pre-releases for Dark Explorers, the second set in the Black-and-White series to contain EX cards. I hope you all pulled what you hoped for! I can’t say that I was praying for two copies of Glaceon, or to have to run 5 Chanseys in my 40-card deck, or to not pull any Pokémon EX across two pre-releases, but I guess that’s what happens sometimes. (Fortunately for me, my son Paul did a little better.) The release of those Pokémon EX in the Next Destinies set definitely changed the metagame, and I have no doubt that the EX’s in Dark Explorers will change it again. I don’t know if you OHKO’ers have noticed, but these shiny new EX’s are freakin’ BIG. No, I don’t mean virally-famous, Carly-Rae-Jepsen-style big. I mean BIG. More like Iz Kamakawiwo’ole big. Sporting 170 or 180 HP—except for Shaymin EX—it almost seems like the new EX Pokémon would be impossible to knock out in one hit. Okay, many of the EX’s have weakness to commonly used types in the current format, like Tornadus EX’s weakness to Lightning, or Mewtwo EX’s weakness to…well, Mewtwo. Play these Pokémon, and you really do have to watch out for your opponent’s one-hit KO. But a few of the EX’s are weak to uncommon types, and you would expect that these big boys could hold their own in the active spot for quite a while, taking hit after hit without being knocked out. Putting one of these Pokémon EX active is sort of like driving a tank—not very nimble, but definitely powerful.

So, in PokéSpeak, “tanking” has come to mean focusing a deck’s strategy around one or two Pokémon with extremely high HP, and working hard to make sure that those Pokémon can stay in the active position, dealing damage, without getting knocked out by an opponent’s attacks. Tank decks are almost as old as the game itself (I’m told), but the most recent example of a successful tank was probably Ross Cawthon’s “Truth”, which Ross piloted to 2nd place at Worlds 2011. That deck used Donphan Prime HS Read More

Deck Discussion

Deck Analysis: Troll

Pikkdogs 10 Comments

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  This is Pikkdogs here with a deck analysis.  Today I will be talking about a deck that is called Troll.  Though the deck is really just an Anti-Format Toolbox deck that uses Tornadus, Terrakion, and Mewtwo EX.  Before we get into it more about the deck, we must say hello to my extra-dimensionary sidekick Pedro.  Hey Pedro, how are things going today?

Hola, estoy bien. 

Any reason why you are speaking in Spanish today?

Not really.  Me Gusta Espanol. 

Well, that’s fine,  but will you start this article off with a news story for us, in English.

Si.  Today is the anniversary of the arrest of Irish Play-write and author Oscar Wilde in 1895.  He was arrested for preforming Homosexual acts, and was sentenced to two years of hard labor.  Do you like the Oscar Wilde Pikkdogs?

Love the Oscar Wilde.  My favorite play is the Importance of Being Earnest.  Love that thing.  Also thought that “The Picture of Dorian Gray” was a genius idea for a story.

It would be nice if we could still arrest people for being gay, just for one day, so we could finally get rid of Barney Frank for a while. 

Also wouldn’t mind getting rid of “How I Met your Mother” for a couple years.  Seriously, how long can 4 people sit in a booth.  There on like 7 years of just sitting in a booth.

At least it doesn’t have Rob Schneider or Whitney Cummings in it.  Seriously, do they choose who gets a sitcom based on how annoying people are? 

I think so.  Well, enough about sitcoms, let’s go to the article.

Deck Descriptions

Troll is kind of a mix between Six Corners and Stage 1 Rush.  It does have the tool boxy feel of Six Corners, but it is much more controlled feeling like Stage 1 Rush.  It uses basic Pokemon like Six Corners does, and it uses some of the same exact Pokemon.  The main Pokemon are Terrakion NV, Tornadus EP, and Mewtwo EX.  Terrakion is here to return knockouts Boufallant style, and to counter all of the fighting weak Lighting Pokemon that are being played right now.  Just be careful to use him carefully.  If Terrakion gets pulled active with no energy, that could set you back a couple turns.  Tornadus is probably the main attacker here.  Although he is lightning weak, he can attack quickly and do a decent amount of damage.  He is really good against other Terrakion players.   Mewtwo EX is here to counter any other Mewtwo EX that your opponent will be playing.  It is important to use your Mewtwo wisely, since another deck will probably use Mewtwo better (with energy acceleration) he can be a free two prizes for your opponent.  Make sure that if you get into a Mewtwo war, you are not the one who starts it.  If you play Mewtwo down, you are going to want to lay it down and attack with it on the same turn.  Otherwise, it is just 2 free prizes for your opponent, and that will likely end any hopes you have of winning that game.

Most Troll decks also include Shaymin and Tyrogue.  Shaymin is used mid-game as an energy mover.  “Celebration Wind” lets you move energy around as you see fit, that means you can quickly recover after someone has just Catchered your Terrakion active.  You can also use it to move an energy back after a “Hurricane.”  It is a cool versatile card, just don’t star with it.  Tyrogue, on the other hand, you do want to start with.  He can attack for 30 without an energy.  This means that if your a bunch of Plus Powers and Junk Arms, you can get about 60 damage from Tyrogue on the first turn if things go your way.  This would take out all of the Tyanmos that your opponent runs, and if you get lucky, possibly even some Durants and Celebi Primes.  Though, it is not the most useful card once things get evolved on your opponent’s side.

How To Setup

The first thing you want to do with this deck is look for a donk.  If they start with Tyrogue, Tynamo, or Cleffa; than you gotta go and get your Tyrogue and see if you can get him active.  If you need more damage ouput, hopefully you can get a Juniper so you can have access to Plus Powers and Junk Arms.  Remember, you can Junk Arm a Plus Power that you just used.  Hopefully you will be able to get the donk and the easy win, but if not, than you are going to want to get out the appropriate counter.  If you are playing a Zekrom deck, than go get some Terrakions.  If they got anything else, than you should probably get some Tornadi going, and then you can whip out Mewtwo EX or Terrakion later.  The setup with this deck is not that complicated, or super important as it is to other decks.  Your main goal here is to first look for the donk, and your second look goes to countering whatever they have going.  Fairly simple, the only thing that will screw you up is a bad start.  If you start Terrakion and they ain’t using Electric Pokemon, you might want to look for your Super Scoop Up.

The List

I will give you a list that is similar to the one that I have been testing with.  It is not a great list and does need a lot of improvement.  So don’t complain that this list isn’t great, I already know that.  I just included it so people have an idea of what a Troll deck is.  Hopefully someone can take this list and polish it all up for Regionals.  Note, this list does not have  Tyrogue, but you should probably have him in this list.

Pokemon-11

  • 4-Tornadus
  • 3-Terrakion NV
  • 1-Landorus-his resistance comes in handy
  • 2-Mewtwo EX
  • 1-Shaymin Ul

Trainers-36

  • 3-Dual Ball
  • 2-Pokemon Collector
  • 4-Professor Juniper
  • 3-PONT
  • 3-Sage’s Training
  • 2-N
  • 4-Junk Arm
  • 4-Pokemon Catcher
  • 1-Super Rod
  • 2-Super Scoop Up
  • 4-EXP. Share
  • 1-Eviolite
  • 3-Plus Power

Energy-13

  • Double Colorless Energy-4
  • Fighting Energy-9

The Matchups

We know that a deck is as only as good as the matchups it has, so let’s take a closer look at them.  Since Troll is kind of a tool box deck, it is made to have good matchups against the most played decks.  But, that means if it meets a good deck that is not Meta, it could falter.  So just because it has good match-ups doesn’t mean that it is a sound deck.  But, we will look at them anyway. 

  1. CMT–Even-Like anything with CMT, it all depeneds on the first couple turns.  If CMT has a Celebi Prime start, it could easily get donked by Troll.  On the other hand, if Troll gets a Shaymin or Tyrogue start, it could easily go down to CMT.  If CMT gets a great start, it may not matter what Troll does.  CMT is that good of a deck that it can control a match-up from the start.  The one thing that Troll has going for it is that it can be the second man into the Mewtwo war, and that is always a big advantage.  If the CMT player has to start Mewtwo EX and gets a couple of energies on it, the Troll player can get a leg up on them by dropping their own Mewtwo with a DCE and get the two prize advantage early.  It all depends on how things go early.
  2. Zekrom–Favorable- Hopefully, you should be able to play this like a 4 Terrakion deck would.  Just rely on Terrakion and Landorus with EXP. Share.  Don’t crowd the playing field too much, just keep a steady stream of Terrakions coming.  If you can do that, you will win.  If the Zekrom player can use Pokemon Catcher to slow you down and then attack in the right circumstance, it could be a fairly even game. 
  3. Durant– Unfavorable- You do have a lot of attackers that can OHKO a Durant, but don’t sleep on the Durant deck here.  He will use Lost Remover and Crushing Hammer to his advantage as you will have a hard time getting three energies on your Pokemon.  The game will come down to Crushing Hammer flips, my money is on heads. 
  4. 4 Terrrakion– Favorable-This is a match-up of similar decks, but you have more variety, and that should give you the win.  Hopefully, attacking with Tornadus and a couple Terrrakions here and there will give you an eventual advantage.  It may not be easy, and you may lose a lot of energy, but hopefully you should beat out the Terrakion player in the end.
  5. Reshiphlosion–Even?- I admit that I didn’t get to test this match-up, but I want to try it because I find it interesting.  You do not do enough damage to make Reshiram BW concerned, and you can’t hit him for weakness.  You chance of winning will be using Pokemon Catchers and getting something that doesn’t have the “Outrage” attack active.  Hopefully you can eventually knockout the Typhlosion Primes and whatever else they have in their deck.  When you do have to attack a Reshiram, make sure that you have the Exp.Shares going so that you can return every K.O. 

Conclusion

So, that is what I have to say about the deck and about its match-ups.  It is a pretty good deck that takes advantage of basic Pokemon and the trainers we have avaliable to us.  I love Super Scoop Up in this format, it is just an evil card.  Exp. Share turns out to be a great card in this deck, and is always ready to help Terrakion return a KO.  This deck does not do a whole heck of a lot of damage, but it does counter the format pretty well.  Any of you guys who liked playing Six Corners will probably feel right at home with this deck. 

Okay, Pedro I am all done.  I think its time for you to put an end to this mediocre article.

Alright, I will do my best to salavage this thing.  Just try to have better jokes prepared than you did with Oscar Wilde.

Okay.

Today’s news comes from www.foxnews.com.  They are reporting that there is a new Facebook application is in development that will tell you how likely you are to get a Sexually Transmitted Disease.  Apparently, each of your friends will be able to input if they have a disease, and what people they are having coitis with.  This will tell you the likelyhood of catching a disease by just looking at who you are interacting with.  Do you want Facebook to know that you have herpes Pikkdogs?

I don’t have herpes.

Don’t you?

Well, I do, but its just cold sores and stuff.  I don’t get em down there.  I was born with them. 

That’s what they all say. 

I do kind of like the idea for this app.  They could call it……Chlamydia with Friends

Or maybe………….Angry Crabs. 

What about……….. Plants v.s. Genital Warts. 

Good one, but maybe Facebook and STDs shouldn’t mix. 

Yeah, just keep them to yourself and don’t tell anyone, that seems to work. 

That’s my plan.  Good night everybody!

Deck Discussion

Deck Discussion: Magnezone and Eelektrik

Pikkdogs 6 Comments

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  This is Pikkdogs here with my extra-dimensionary sidekick Pedro.  How are things going Pedro?

Going Well. 

What do you have for us today?

Well, today’s news comes from the world of American Football.  It seems like the Washington Redskins and the New Orleans Saints are under investigation for Bounty Hunting. 

Like Boba Fett?  Do they freeze quarterbacks in Carbonite?

Not exactly. 

So they are more like Samus from Metroid, when they fight  giant monsters.

Not quite that either. 

Oh, so they must be like real life bounty hunters like Dog the Bounty Hunter. Where they pick up people who are addicted to Crystal Meth.

Yes, that’s it.  The Redskins and the Saints are in trouble for picking up people on Crystal Meth.  Just start your article.  Read More

Deck Discussion

Deck Analysis: TMZ: Thundurus, Mewtwo EX, and the Zekroms. Also called Zekrom and Eels Deck.

Pikkdogs 15 Comments

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  This is Pikkdogs here with a deck analysis for you.  I am also joined by my extra-dimensionary sidekick Pedro.  How are you doing today Pedro?

Oh doing, well. 

Do you have a bit of news for us to talk about?

Sure.  We have a couple of bit of news from the entertainment world.  First, we have just learned that Lady Gaga will appear in the new Men in Black movie. Do you like the Men in Black movies Pikkdogs?

They were pretty good, kinda funny.  I would say that Lady Gaga is a pretty good hire for an Alien movie.

An Alien and Lady Gaga are two different things.  One is a disgusting looking creature that has tentacles all over………….and the other is an Alien. 

Good one, Pedro.  Now what’s the other news.

  Well, the other news is that ABC has announced who will be on the  new season of Dancing with the Stars.  The cast includes such people as actor Jaleel White, Packers receiver Donald Driver, the View host Sherri Sheppard, musical icon Gladys Knight, and Welsh singer Katherine Jenkins.  Any of those personalities interest you Pikkdogs?

Well I hate DWTS, I never watched and never will, but I do love me some Katherine Jenkins.  She was at once the best kept secret of hotness ever, I saw her on the BBC America, and I was smitten from the start.  She can actually sing to, like operatic singing, not just those whore songs you hear on the radio, she’s a real singer.  Who is your pick to win Pedro?

Well, assuming the “Urkel” ever becomes an official ballroom dance, I gotta go with Jaleel White. 

Smart Pick.  Let us do the samba on over to the article.

The Plan

I gotta thank Pokemon Personality Airhawk for the nudge to try this deck.  He had a cool 6P article the other week, you can read it here.  The idea is to meld the Cities deck Zekrom and Eelektrik, with Mewtwo EX and Zekrom EX.  What results is a lot of heavy hitting Pokemon that can come out swinging fairly quickly.   Zekrom EX is here as your big attacker that can knock out almost anybody except an EX with one hit.  He is really good against Magnezone Prime.  Mewtwo EX is here to be a quick versatile attacker that can do a lot of things.  The main reason he is here is to counter the use of other Mewtwo EXs, since they are weak to each other.  Zekrom BW is here as a good hard attacker that doesn’t give up 2 prizes when he goes. You can also run  Tornadus  here as another versatile attacker.  He is not needed, but if you ever have a deck with DCE, you might as well run Tornadus, he is that good.  The Eels are here of course to recycle energy.  You have a couple options as starters.  One is Thundurus, he can get energy out easily.  Or you can use Cleffa to get a good hand on turn 2 if you were dealt something bad.

Your setup is very important for this deck.  Even though this deck has Mewtwo EX, just like CMT, the setups are very different. CMT wants to get going turn 1 and own the board from here on out.  Things on the Zekrom side are a little more chill.  Zekrom needs to setup the Eels, so that is priority #1.  Then they can worry about what they want to attack with.  It would be nice if you started the game with your starter and setup within the first couple turns, but that doesn’t always happen.  Most of the time you are going to start with a random large HP basic, and then just go from there.  If you start with Zekrom, just go with Zekrom for a while.  You can dare them to hit you, and then “Outrage” back, or you can wait to build up a “Bolt Strike”.  If you have to start with one of the EXs, just try to make the most of it while you get Eelektrik going.

Once you get Eelektrik going you can start dumping some energies in the discard pile, and then attach them to your preferred attacker.  From then it seems like the rest of the game will be simple, but then it gets even more complicated.   This deck is nothing like a lot of the decks we have seen earlier this year, that are basically auto-pilot after you setup, this deck takes a lot of strategy after the setup.  Things are just getting going once you get those Eels out.  You have to constantly be making calculations about which attacker to use.  It is hard to explain about how you make these decisions, but once you get into the deck you will see what I mean.  It involves making decisions with Junk Arm and decisions with which attackers you should use.

The List

This is a list similar to the one I used for initial testing purposes.  It is not the same as my deck, but similar.  I would not suggest using this list for States, it needs a lot more polishing.  This deck needs to be very tight to work.  A deck like Six Corners can be good while having a loose list, but this deck needs to be very tight.  What I mean by this is that you need to be very focused on what Pokemon lines, and what trainers you use.  Although you can have some techs like Mewtwo EX, you cannot have a lot of techs in this deck.  It needs to be very focused on getting your job done, or else you will lose a lot of close games.  So I will stop pandering and give you a list.

Pokemon-14

  • 3-Thundurus- a good starter and decent attacker if you need him to be
  • 2-Zekrom- one of your main attackers.
  • 2-Zekrom EX- probably the main attacker
  • 1-Mewtwo EX- you can run 2, but I don’t see a reason
  • 3-Tyanmo- you can run 4, probably the 40 HP one is better.
  • 3-Eelektrik

Trainers-32

  • 3-Pokemon Collector
  • 2-Dual Ball
  • 2-Pokemon Communication
  • 4-Engineer’s Adjustments- to get energy in the discard pile
  • 4-Professor Oak’s New Theory
  • 4-Professor Juniper
  • 3-Eviolite
  • 4-Junk Arm
  • 4-Pokemon Catcher
  • 1-Super Rod

Energy-14

  • 4-Double Colorless Energy
  • 10-Lightning Energy

So that is something similar to what I have been playing.  To get it to be a good list you have to get it more focused to your play-style and to how you want to win matches.  This is going to take a lot of testing against decks you think you are going to play during States.  But I think a deck like this could be good, you just gotta make it good.

Techs

Here are some techs that you could and maybe should play.

  • Terrakion -Some people like him in this deck to easily return KOs.  He is also good against the mirror match and Magnezone Prime.  But, the drawback is that you need to sacrifice consistency by running Prism Energies.  It is only worth it if you know that there will be lots of Magnezone and Zekrom decks in your metagame.
  • Tornadus-You don’t need him in this deck, but anytime you run DCE you can run this guy.  He is a cool attacker that can always work.  I just don’t know if you need him here.  Although, he does work well against fighting types.
  • Shaymin– I don’t like using this card so it isn’t in my list, but he does have a place here.  You can use him to move energies from the bench to the active.  It is a good card and is usually ran in this list.
  • Plus Power– This card should be in the list, I just ran out of room.  If you can fit in 2 PPs, do it.
  • Switch– This also should be in the list, but again, there is just not a lot of room to spare.
  • Skyarrow Bridge-It helps you retreat so you can use “Dynamotor” on the Pokemon that you want to attack with this turn. If you can find room, than run it.
  • Zapdos– Zapdos is a lightning type but it is resistant to Fighting types.  If you expect to see a lot of fighting types at States, I would probably run one of these guys.
  • Zebstrika ND- Zebstrika is a Durant counter.  The idea here is to get an item lock on the Durant player until they run out of Durants.  Since the Durant player needs trainers to get the Durants from the discard pile, they will eventually need to use trainers.  The problem is that he takes up 2-4 card slots in a very tight list.  But, it is still a good thing to run if you expect a lot of Durants.

I think if we discuss match-ups we will learn more about the deck.

Matchups

Although I don’t want to say who would win in each matchup because it is just so close, I will give you what I think will be important in each matchup.

Reshiphlosion– You probably aren’t fast enough to totally disrupt their setup like CMT can, but you should be able to limit them to 1 or maybe 2 Typhlosion Primes.  You will want to catcher up the Typhlosion lines early.  If they can’t get two Typholosion Prime lines up, they lose.  If they do, they might be able to wreck your Eelektriks.  If both of you lose your energy recovers, then you might have a slight advantage because of Zekrom not needing to discard energy, but it is overall going to be a very close game.  You might have a slight advantage, but it won’t be easy unless you get a really good start. Pay attention to when you have an EX in play, if they knock that out, than they will be a lot closer to winning the game.

Mewtwo/Celebi– The CMT player will be a lot faster here.  If they can take out the Eels right away, than they have a solid chance to control the entire game.  If you are able to get 2 Eelektriks out, then you might have a slight advantage.  You will then be a more versatile deck than the CMT player.  Play with Zekrom and Zekrom Ex until the middle of the game, and then whip out the Mewtwo EX to catch them by surprise for an easy 2 prizes.  But be careful of how many energies you attach on the bench to an EX, because Mewtwo EX can bring them active with Pokemon Catcher and get an easy 2 prizes on you.  So this is a very tough match-up with a lot of variables to calculate.  The matchup is around even, but it could go either way very easily.

Durant– This is the one match-up that I have not tested.  Durant is very fast and will be able to out speed you, and will try to take away energies.  If you can get things going with Zekrom quickly, you might be able to win.  If you can get two Zekroms out and switch between them, you should be able to minimize the damage done by removing energies.  I would stick with attacking with Zekrom BLW.  You don’t need to discard energies, and you don’t mind losing a couple of these guys to the damage done by “Bolt Strike”, since they won’t try to win by taking prizes.  It should be a fairly even match-up depending on the start that each of you get.

Six Corners– This is an interesting matchup.  It can make use of your fighting weakness, but it is too inconsistent to do that every game.  If they have a hard time finding Landorus and Terrakion, you might be able to get a good lead before they get going.  If you play Zapdos, this is where he would come in handy.  Try to rely on attackers like Zekrom BLW and Thundurus, while only using the EXs when you need to.  Giving up the 2 prizes so easily could hurt you.

Magnezone– You will need to rely on Zekrom EX in this match-up.  He is the one that can OHKO Magnezone Prime.  However, Magnezone can get a 2 prize knock on Zekrom EX for 4 energies, so it will not be an easy fight.  If you can get attacking faster than they can, you can possibly limit the number of Magnezones that they get out, if you can then you can win easily.  If not, it will be a long tough match-up.  Both decks will try to knock out the Eels, but you probably rely on them more than they do.  It will be a fun even match-up.

Closing

As you can see from my match-ups section, this deck gets itself into a lot of cool matches.  They are very long and very hard to win.  This is why I said that you need a really focused list, without it you will be at the mercy of luck.  I think this is a really nice deck that will be fun to play.  No game will be very dull, it makes for some exciting matches.  If I can perfect my list, I might even run something like this at States, it really is a cool deck.  So if you have a deck like this, feel free to share your list in the comment section so we can talk about it.

Okay Pedro, we are done here.  What do you have for us to close out the article?

Well today, we have some health news.  According to Fox News, scientists who are studying a mummy that they think is 5,300 years old state that he had the earliest known case of Lyme’s disease.

Don’t believe it.

Why Not?

Well, because I believe that Lyme’s disease was a man made disease that was created  by a former Nazi scientist on an island out-side of New York.

Well aren’t we the little conspiracy theorist.  Anyway, back to the mummy.  They also state that he was lactose intolerant and predisposed to heart disease. 

Well he should probably take some blood pressure meds then, he should watch that.

Sure, except that he’s already been dead for a while.

Still, heart problems are nothing to fool with.

True. This mummy is named Otzi, do you think this is a good name for an iceman?

I could see it, though Oog is always a good choice.

I like Oog too.  Good night everybody. 

 

 

Deck Discussion

Deck Analysis: Mewtwo, Pikkdogs Tries the New CMT (Celebi Prime, Mewtwo EX, and Tornadus)

Pikkdogs 36 Comments

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there, this is Pikkdogs here with a deck analysis for you.  I finally got along to test a Mewtwo deck, I tried the new CMT version of the Mewtwo EX deck.  The old CMT deck was around in Battle Roads and it was like Stage 1 Rush, but it had Mew Prime in it.  This deck is nothing like it, but it does have Tornadus in it, just like the original CMT.  This deck also has Celebi Prime and Mewtwo EX. Before we get to the article, let us welcome my sidekick Pedro. What do you have for us today Pedro?

Well I have some news in the field of Biology.  Fox News is reporting the researchers who are studying a group of Blacktip Reef Sharks are reporting that the sharks make friends with other sharks. Researchers state that the Sharks form groups with similar sharks based on age and other factors. Kind of like a clique in high school.  They use the group for protection and to increase their chances at survival.  Are you surprised to hear that Sharks make friends Pikkdogs?

Well of course they make friends, how else would Nemo have been able to get home if all the marine life didn’t get together to help him?

I guess.

I’m just saying that they could have saved a lot of time and money, by just watching Finding Nemo. Let’s just move onto the article.

 

Introduction

I know that I have talked about this deck for a while, so I won’t talk about it too much, just give a little run down of the basics.  Celebi Prime is there for his “Forest Breath” Poke-Power.  When he is active, you can attach a Grass energy to any of your Pokemon.  You can use the card Sky Arrow Bridge to give Celebi free retreat.  Mewtwo EX is your main attacker.  His “X-Ball” attack does 20 damage times the number of energy on him and the defending Pokemon.  Your goal is just to use Celebi Prime to get a lot of energy on Mewtwo EX.  He should be able to attack for a lot and fairly quickly.  Tornadus is there to cover the weakness of Mewtwo EX.  Without Tornadus, Mewtwo EX would get overwhelmed by a card like Mew Prime, but Tornadus does have a good matchup against Mew.  Tornadus can also attack early is you really need him too.

Setup is very important for this deck, and what determines setup is your initial starting hand.  You could get a God Hand and be able to end the game very quickly.  A God hand would probably be Celebi Prime, Skyarrow Bridge, Mewtwo EX, a DCE, a grass, a Pokemon Catcher, and a Supporter.  If you get something like this you could probably use Pokemon Catchers to knock out basic Pokemon before they evolve and just control the board from there.  A bad start would be a start with Tornadus and a bunch of energy.  The deck usually does not run a lot of Pokemon search cards, so if you get really unlucky, your opponent might be able to take advantage.  You are going to need to get a Mewtwo EX out fairly quickly to be as fast and disruptive as you need to be.  Your starting hand is very important with this deck, so make sure to build your deck so you can get the best start possible.

A CMT deck player must always be vigilant of what is happening on the field.  Since what your opponent has active effects your damage output, you can’t afford to make a Brain Fart and miscalculate the damage.  It is easy to think that you are about to hit for 140, but instead hit for 120.  Just 20 damage could be the difference between a knockout on Reshiram, and 140 damage coming your way next turn. Another thing you have to watch is playing against the Non-EX versions of the Unova Dragons.  “Outrage” can put Mewtwo EX into range to be knocked out next turn, so you don’t want to mess around with that.  You always have to be vigilant of what energy is on the dragons and if they have an Eviolite on them, if they ever stray into the 140 damage range, than you gotta knock them out.  If not, it can be hard to take them out without fear of giving up two prizes yourself.  You have to think about sacrificing Tornadus in order to take down those guys.

While I admit that I haven’t played this deck a lot, I do think that this is a very good way to build this deck.  It is very fast and very disruptive.  If your opponent is playing an evolution deck and does not get a great start, you will have a great chance of controlling the game early and knocking things out before they evolve.  Yes it can be hard to get all of the pieces you need like Celebi and Skyarrow Bridge out early, but that’s why you just need a good polished list.  I also really do like Tornadus is in this list.  I think you need someone like Tornadus just so your opponent can’t start whipping you with something like Mew Prime.  Tornadus can also attack fast and bring out some pain early, though Mewtwo EX is preferable, Tornadus is still good.  I have heard about people playing Terrakion in their Mewtwo/Celebi deck, and while I do see a reason to put him in there, I see Tornadus as a preferable alternative.  I just don’t want to have to start with a Pokemon that has that kind of retreat cost.  You need a great start with this deck to be good, and I don’t want to put that in danger.  It is something to test out against the best decks in your area, but for a good vanilla build I would say just stick with Tornadus.

Decklist.

Here is what I put together for a decklist.  I will admit that I didn’t get to test this deck out that much, but I did test it out a little.  It is not a polished and teched out decklist, just a vanilla list. I hope you guys will test the list and make it better.  So here it is.

Pokemon-11

  • 4-Celebi Prime
  • 3-Mewtwo EX
  • 3-Tornadus EP
  • 1-Shaymin UD

Trainers-36

  • 3-Skyarrow Bridge
  • 3-Switch
  • 4-Dual Ball
  • 1-Poke Gear 3.0
  • 4-Junk Arm
  • 4-Pokemon Catcher
  • 4-Professor Oak’s New Theory
  • 4-Professor Juniper
  • 2-Sage’s Training
  • 2-N
  • 3-Eviolite
  • 2-Plus Power

Energy-13

  • 4-Double Colorless Energy
  • 9-Grass Energy-9 seems to be the number of grass energies that people use, it seems to be good.

 

Matchups

Like I said, I haven’t played this deck a heck of a lot of times, but I do know a little bit about the matchups.  So I can talk about the matchups a little.

  • Reshiphlosion– Favorable-If you get a good start you should be able to knock out a lot of Cyndaquils and Quilavas, and if they don’t have a lot of Typhlosion Primes out it can be a tough game for them.  As long as you don’t get a very slow start you should be having a good matchup here.
  • 6 Corners– Favorable-The bad thing about 6 Corners is that there is no big Pokemon that can hit Mewtwo for weakness.  Cobalion is a problem for Mewtwo EX, but you can probably knock it out once or twice, so it shouldn’t be a big deal.  Cobalion is a problem for Mewtwo, but you need to have about 3 or 4 of them in a deck to stop Mewtwo, you can’t just throw it in a deck and hope to win.
  • Magnazone Prime/Eelektriks– Favorable-Mewtwo EX should be able to control the Eels early on, and if the Eels don’t survive till late in the game, it will be hard for Magnezone to keep up with you.  If the Magnezone player is able to consistently attack you, than you can have problems, but you should be able to control the game by controlling the Eels or the basic and stage 1 forms of Magnezone.
  • The Truth– Favorable–  I have not tested this matchup, but I do imagine that they will have a hard time setting up with Mewtwo EX around being that fast and disruptive.  Both the Reuniclus and Vileplume lines have Psychic weaknesses, so if you are able to draw into some Pokemon Catchers you should be able to control the board easily.
  • Zekrom– Even?– I have not tested this matchup, and I am curious to find out what happens in it.  Zekrom can hit hard early on, and if you can take down 2 Mewtwo EX’s you have just about won the game.  If the other deck runs the Eels, you should be able to take care of them fairly easily.  Both decks will be fast and hard hitting.  So this would be a cool match-up.  I wish I could say more than that.

Well that’s all I got today.  What do you have for us to close things up Pedro?

Well today is the anniversary of the baptism of English Renaissance Playwright Chrsitopher Marlowe.  He is known as perhaps the 2nd best author of his time next to old Billy Shakespeare.  Do you like the Christopher Marlowe Pikkdogs?

Well, not really, but I do like his version of Dr. Faustus.  A man who sold his soul to the devil for lots of knowledge and worldly pleasures.  What worldly pleasure would you like Pedro?

A chance to renew my rivalry with Tom Bosley.  Back to Marlowe, Marlowe was also accused of being a spy. But before they could try and convict him,  he was killed in a bar fight after he refused to pay his tab.  I always thought that this was the way that you would go Pikkdogs.

No, not about a bar tab.  Possibly about my tab at Arbys. Beers not worth dying for, Roast Beef just might be.

 True,  especially with the Arby’s sauce and the cheese type stuff.  Anyway, have a good night everybody. 

 

Deck Discussion

One Ant to Rule Them All, One Ant to Find Them, One Ant to Bring Them in, and in the Darkness Mill Them.

Pikkdogs 16 Comments

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  This is Pikkdogs with kind of  a deck profile of Durant.  All of the Pokemon writers right now are concentrating on Mewtwo EX and all the other EXs that just came out last week in Next Destinies.  But, a comment on my last article made me think that we are doing all this wrong.  At the end of the Cities season there was one deck that dominated all other decks, and yet we are not talking about it.  So let’s talk about it, let’s talk about Durant.

History and Basics

Durant is a milling deck.  Milling is a term that comes from Magic the Gathering.  There used to be a card named Millstone, and Millstone made your opponent put two cards from their library, or deck, into their graveyard, or discard pile.  Ever since this card came out, the act of discarding cards from the top of your deck has been called “milling.”

Durant came out in the Noble Victories set.  At first not many people recognized how good it was.  They dismissed it as a deck that had a good premise, but they thought that it couldn’t mill enough cards quickly.  I had made an article on it, and a couple people have tried the deck, but it still didn’t catch on.  Then about halfway through Cities season, near the Chicago Marathons, a lot more people started playing the deck.  People realized that the deck could be very disruptive and could stand up and mill 30 cards before 6 prizes were taken. On the last couple weekends of Cities, Durant decks ruled the top tables.  It was very hard to beat a Durant deck later on in Cities season, and they began to take over almost all of the top spots in the Top Cut.

The decklist that was ran after the  Chicago Marathon was very disruptive and could adapt to any type of deck.  Unless Durant was going against a deck that had a really fast start or a quick fire deck, the deck could beat just about any deck.  It was also a very inexpensive deck, so a lot of people could make the deck.  It was very versatile and very disruptive, some people also thought it was very too good, and some called it a “mindless” deck.  A lot of Durant hate started going on, and anyone who played the deck in my area was shamed.  I’m not sure if all this hate was deserved or not, but a lot of anti-Durant feelings have been stirred up since later in the Cities season.

If you would like to see a Durant decklist, everybody’s favorite Reshiphlosion enthusiast, Airhawk, has written an article on it on Six Prizes, you can read it right here.

Durant v.s. Mewtwo EX

Durant is no doubt the hottest deck coming out of Cities Season, and it is poised to get into a head on collision with the most hyped deck from Next Destinies, Mewtwo.  A little about Mewtwo before we get going.

Mewtwo EX has made itself a fast deck with a lot of energy acceleration that can attack quickly.  It uses cards like Eviolite, Skyarrow Bridge, and Tornadus to help Mewtwo EX do its job.  Its attack, “X-Ball” does 20 damage times the amount of energy attached to it and the defending Pokemon.

All of these things makes Mewtwo EX a great matchup for Durant.  Here is a kind of neat list that notes the reason that Durant should have a good shot against Mewtwo

  1. It is resistant to Mewtwo EX.  Durant has the psychic resistance, which is very important in the Durant matchup.  To win, the Durant player is going to have to make the game a couple turns longer than it would be if your opponent got OHKOs all the time.  Using cards like Defender and Eviolite, Durant can thwart a couple KOs and be able to mill all of the cards that are left in the deck.  Now with Mewtwo EX being popular, Durant has a built in Eviolite with the resistance.  It will be very hard for Mewtwo to get a lot of KOs early on because of the resistance.
  2. Durant can remove energies.  Besides milling and playing defense, the next best thing that Durant does is remove energies.  It uses Lost Remover and Crushing Hammer very well to remove energies.  And since Mewtwo relies on a lot of energies to get an OHKO on Durant, Durant will always have a lot of targets in its energy removal.  Even if the Durant player gets some bad Crushing Hammer flips, they should be able to remove enough energies so that Mewtwo will not be able to do an ungodly amount of damage.
  3. Durant can attack with one energy.  Even though in the past it has been nice to load Durant up with Special Metal Energies, it can attack with just 1 energy.  Since Mewtwo does rely on the opponent to attach a couple energies to attack for a lot of damage, Durant will only attach one energy and hence, make Mewtwo not do as much damage as it could.
  4. Durant is disruptive, and will stop energy attachments.  Durant can mill 4 cards a turn, that might not sound like a lot, but it does add up very quickly.  Not only is every energy milled one card closer to a loss, but it is one card that you cannot attach to your active Mewtwo Ex.  As mentioned, the Mewtwo player is going to need a lot of energy on Mewtwo, maybe around 5 or 6, and if you don’t get those energies on Mewtwo, you will not be able to get the 6 prizes you need fast enough.

For that reason, I think that Durant has a good Mewtwo matchup.  Of course it is far from an auto-win, and the match-up is susceptible to those weird Durant starts, but I think Durant does have a small advantage.    Durant should be able to stop enough KOs that it can win this matchup most times.  So now that we know something about one of the most important matchups for States, let’s look at how this deck has changed since we last saw it at Cities. 

What it Gained from Next Destinies.

Durant did not gain a whole heck of a lot from ND.  I say that because the deck did not gain any more facets to its character.  It still is the same disruptive deck that it always was.  It did gain a little consistency with cards like Level Ball, but not really any change in the goal of the deck.  Some people say that it may have gotten a deck engine with Battle City, but if that does make its way onto the deck, it will be more for disruption rather than anything that will be a reliable engine.  Here are some of the things that are in ND that you might find in a Durant Deck. 

  1. Prism Energy-Prism Energy is kind of like Rainbow Energy but you don’t have the damage counter and it only works for Basic Pokemon.  Although Special Metal and regular Metal energies are best for this deck, some players like to include this card so they can use Rotom to attack.  I don’t really like the idea of having Rotom attack, but it is always nice to have the option.  Will this addition make the deck better?  Probably not.  Having an extra damage counter on Rotom wouldn’t be that bad, but Prism energy is no doubt better in this situation, even though it is not by that much. 
  2. Level Ball– Level Ball is in this deck because it is a better alternative to Dual Ball.  Most Durant decks played a couple Dual Balls just in case that they didn’t get a Pokemon Collector right away.  Level Ball is a lot better because it guarantees you one Pokemon, instead of maybe getting 1 or 2 Pokemon.  Level Ball also works because it gets every Pokemon that is normally ran in Durant, unless you run Cobalion.  It will not make a huge impact on the deck, but it will increase consistency by a little bit.  And it is always very good to increase consistency.
  3. Skyarrow Bridge-Some people have been talking about playing Skyarrow Bridge in Durant.  It will give Durant and Rotom free retreat.  This is very nice because a lot of people try to counter Durant by Pokemon Catchering a benched Durant or Rotom with no energy.  Skyarrow Bridge would stop this strategy cold.  It would give free retreat to all the Pokemon that you have, except maybe Cobalion if you run him.  Do I think that it will make a big difference?  Probably not that big of a deal.  Since Rotom and Durant only have a 1 energy retreat cost, it is not that big of a deal to burn an energy.  If you want to run this card than it will help you, if you don’t run this card it won’t hurt you that much.  You might also be able to use this card as long as your opponent runs it, like most Mewtwo EX decks do. 
  4. Battle City– This is a promo card that comes in the Mewtwo Ex Box.  Which is a good name for the box, because it does not contain a Mewtwo EX.  Thanks Nintendo!   Anyway, this card is like the old Lucky Stadium card from Neo Destiny.  It let’s you flip a coin and if heads, you can draw a card.  That makes it kind of like Speed Stadium from Diamond and Pearl, though it is different from that card.    Speed Stadium really didn’t have any use in the format, so let’s see if Durant can change the game with Battle City.  The Battle City supporters say that Durant can use this card for disruption.  If your opponent is using Skyarrow Bridge for energy acceleration, you can play this card and stop the free retreat of Celebi Prime.  Will this card work for disruption?  I guess theoretically it could work, but it will have to be proved in gameplay to make me a believer.  It just seems that you need so many things to happen before it works as disruption.  Is it nice as a stadium card to use?  Well, being able to draw another card is nice, but you could use the space in your decklist for other cards.  It is not a terrible card to run, but I don’t really like this card.  Instead of stadium disruption, you can probably use the room in your deck for more energy removal, defense, and consistency. 

Conclusion and Predictions for States 2012

So there is my take on Durant in the current format.  It was really hot coming out of Cities, and it doesn’t really lose any steam.  Mewtwo EX is so far the best deck that other people are talking about, and it should have a favorable matchup against it.  Reshiphlosion and Reshiboar will be played a lot, which is not good for Durant.  So there will be a lot of success and some challenges for Durant.  Overall, I think that Durant will be very successful at States.  I don’t think that it will win every State, Province, and Territory that there is, but I will go out on a limb and say it will be the most successful deck.

What do you guys think of Durant for States?

 

So long and thanks for all the fish

Deck Discussion

Deck Ideas from Next Destinies

Pikkdogs 6 Comments

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  This is Pikkdogs here with an article about decks from Next Destinies.  There is no question that Next Destinies will be an impactful set.  The set is chock full of cards that will make it into decks right away.   This article will kind of overview some of these decks and explain what they are all about.  Of course I can’t cover every deck, so this will be just the major changes.

New Deck(s)

Mewtwo

The card that has literally been the poster boy of Next Destinies is Mewtwo EX.  He is also probably the focal point of the only great new deck that will come out of Next Destinies.  There is no doubt that ND cards will be in a lot of decks, but the Mewtwo deck is the only one that is really new to the format.

Since you can only play 4 Mewtwo EX cards in one deck, that will leave you  with at most 56 cards to work with.  If you add in cards like Eviolite and DCE, that still gives you about 50 cards to work with.  If you add in the staples and some more energy, you still have about 25 cards to play with.  That leaves a lot of options.  Cards that have been mentioned are energy accelerators and manipulators like Pachirisu, Emboar, and Gardevoir.  But, the one deck idea that has been suggested the most has been Celebi Prime.

Celebi Prime has a Poke-Power, called “Forrest Breath”, that lets you attach an extra Grass Energy on the field when Celebi is active.  Many people have suggested that this deck add cards like Skyarrow Bridge to it.  This would give Celebi free retreat, and would give Mewtwo some energy acceleration while not giving up the ability to attack each turn.

Most of these deck variants also have a secondary attacker.  Tornadus, Terrakion NV, and Cobalion NV are the most talked about secondary attackers.  A secondary attacker is needed in this deck so that a good Mewtwo counter will not be able to take control of the game.  For example, Mew Prime will be able to dominate Mewtwo EX very easily, but if you only use your secondary attacker, Mew Prime will not be so dominate.

This deck sets up fairly quickly and easily.  You are going to want to start with Celebi Prime, though, a  Mewtwo start isn’t the end of the world.  If you do start with Celebi Prime, you are going to want to use Pokemon Collector or Pokemon Communication for Mewtwo EX.  You are going to then want to use Celebi’s Poke-Power to attach energy to Mewtwo.  You can attack on turn 1 possibly, if you want and have Skyarrow Bridge in play.  From then on it will be a matter of getting energy on the field, and trying to keep it there.  Here is a basic skeleton list, you can fill in the rest of the cards from there.

Pokemon- 12-16

  • 3-4 Celebi Prime
  • 3 Mewtwo Ex
  • 2-4 Secondary Attackers (like Tornadus, Terrakion NV, or Cobalion NV)

Trainers-28-32

  • 10- Draw or Hand Refresh Supporters
  • 4-Pokemon Collector
  • 3-4 Pokemon Catcher
  • 3-4 Junk Arm
  • 2-3 Switch
  • 3-4 Skyarrow Bridge
  • 3-Eviolite

Energy-15

  • 4-DCE
  • 8-11-Grass
  • 0-3 Rescue Energy or Prism Energy

That will give you about 5 spaces to work with.  So it’s a decent skeleton, just fill it in, mess around with it, change it up, and you might have a decent deck.

Current Decks that Will be Effected

Not only will there be new decks, but a lot of current decks will be radically changed by some new cards.  Here are some of those decks.

Chandelure

What’s being added– There is no debate on Chandelure ND, it is not a great card, and does not deserve a deck of its own.  However, since it is a Fire Pokemon, it will be of interest for Chandelure players to play 1 of the new Chandelure to get a type advantage on some decks.  Chandelure has always been too slow to counter Durant, plus, Durant had the type advantage.  So an easy to fit in fire Pokemon is really nice.  What will be added to this deck is basically 1 Chandelure ND, to give it more versatility.  I could also see this deck playing Cilans, since it now needs to run some different types of energies.

How it will change–  This deck can work with only 3 of the psychic Chandelures, since you probably will only want to setup 2 or 3 all game.  So, having to take out the 4th Chandelure for this fire one, will not hurt your consistency.  It will probably only give your deck better matchups.  The Cilan will also help this deck, making it a little quicker.  This deck always had a hard time finding energy at the right time, Cilan will help with that.  These changes will make the deck better, I am not sure if it will take it to another level, or even keep it from falling, but these changes will help the deck.

Reshiphlosion

What’s being added– The deck that won’t die away just got another big help.  Reshiram EX can now be played in your Reshiphlosion deck.  Although it only adds 30 more damage to your maximum damage output, that could be helpful in certain situations.  So, most decks will probably only add 1 or 2 copies of Reshiram EX, I do not see a lot of other new cards being added to this deck.  Although, 1 copy of Mewtwo EX may be added as a tech.

How it will change– These changes will probably not affect the deck too much.  The deck will continue to work the same as it always does, it will just have a bigger attacker when needed.  I think the ND set does more to hurt Reshphloson than it does to help it.  “Blue Flare”, maybe with a Plus Power or two,  used to be enough to take down most playable Pokemon.  Now, we have a bunch of very playable 180 HP and 170 HP Pokemon.  This means that you are going to have to use “Blue Flare” more times than you normally do.  This could put a lot of strain on your deck, and could hurt your consistency.

That being said, the deck still is a very consistent deck and can still do really well.  Even though a lot of other decks around Reshiphlosion got more than it did, the deck will still be played.

Reshiboar

What’s being added– The bacon is back.  Next Destinies brought us many things, one of those things is a return of your favorite fire-pig, Emboar.  Since it has been so long since we have seen this card, let’s get a little history lesson.  Reshiboar was the first Reshiram BLW deck that was played.  It was set to be a very good deck at U.S. Nationals last year, but Reshiphlosion came out of absolutely nowhere and became the fire deck to play.  Reshiboar kind of stayed afloat with the addition of Magnezone Prime into the deck.  The deck now was a merger of Reshiboar and Magneboar.  It saw a little play at Worlds last year, and continued to see a little play at Battle Roads and Cities.  But, for the most part Reshiphlosion was the favorite fire deck.

So, let’s go back and get on topic here.  What is being added to this deck is 1 or 2 copies of Reshiram EX.  Like in Reshiphlosion, this will give it more pop, but it will not be that great.  The major card that is added here is Cilan.  Being able to get 3 energies into your hand will be amazing for this deck.  This means that you can easily power-up your attackers on one turn.  This is something that Typhlosion Prime cannot even do.

How it will change– The war for the best fire deck is back on.  Reshiboar now has Magnezone Prime and it can say that it is faster and more consistent than Reshiphlosion.  There will be some problems with getting energy from the discard pile, but this could be a reason why Reshiram EX could be better.  Perhaps Victini will make an appearance in this deck to make sure that Reshiram EX does not end up damaging itself.  It is hard to say what will happen at states, but from what I see, I think that Reshiboar could overthrow Reshiphlosion as the best fire deck.  And, this is very important with Durant being so good.

Zekrom

What’s being added– At first, I was kind of cool on Zekrom EX, but now I am not sure.  I was not happy about being forced to discard 2 energies, this forced you to run both heavy Pachirisu and Shaymin lines, as well as Eelektrik lines.  Then, I noticed you could also discard the DCE.  This means that as long as you don’t rely on this attack too much, you won’t have to get too much back from the discard pile.

Of course, Zekrom EX will be added to this deck.  Probably somewhere around 2 copies of this card.  Zekrom BLW and Torandus will still be in this deck, but Zekrom EX will be a bigger attacker.  Another card that will be added is Cilan.  Cilan works perfectly with Pachirisu, and will make it a lot easier to more quickly load up your attackers.  Skyarrow Bridge will also be in this deck.  It will make it harder for your opponent to stall by Pokemon Catchering a benched Pokemon.  Since you only have basic  Pokemon with fairly low retreat costs, this card is a no brainer for this deck.

How it will change– Zekrom was hands down the best deck during Battle Roads.  But, it did run out of steam later in the Cities season.  Something that will make this deck hit harder with more consistency was desperately needed, and now it is here.  This deck should have what it takes to stand up to Mewtwo EX.  I really like this deck because Zekrom EX gets rid of 2 energy after he attacks, this means that there are 2 less energies to power-up Mewtwo EX’s attack.  Zekrom should be poised to make it to a lot of the top tables at states.  It is hard to say how good the deck will be, but it should be really good.

Ross Deck (the Truth)

What’s being added– Time for another history lesson.  The Ross Deck was coincidentally invented by a guy named Ross, what are the chances of that?  Ross Cawthon brought it to Worlds and went fairly deep into the top cut with a deck based around Donphan Prime, Vileplume, and Reuniclus BLW.  It was the talk of Nationals, and it caught on around the country for Battle Roads.  It did fairly well there, and it even saw a little play during Cities.  However, the novelty of the deck has worn off, and its play has dropped off.

Now the big EXs are here and they stand to reinvigorate Ross Deck.  Ross Deck was good because it could take a hit and then redistribute it among the bench.  Now not only do you have a couple 180 HP Pokemon to use to keep damage counters on, but you can use one of them to take a hit.   It will now be almost impossible to beat Ross Deck once it sets up.  It will still be a slow deck that is vulnerable to a bad start in an increasingly fast format, but the deck did get a lot better, and here is how.

The deck will get a lot of great 180 HP Pokemon, like Regigigas EX, Reshiram EX, Kyurem EX, and Zekrom EX.  I think the best Pokemon to use in this deck is Kyurem and Regigigas.  I think that instead of Donphan, Machamp, or Steelix; you can just use Kyurem.  Kyurem can sit there, hit for 120, and take a hit, while Ross deck does what it does best.  You also have Regigigas that can be used in the right situation for a knockout.  I can see a person running 3 Kyurem EXs and 1 Regiggas.  The stadium Pokemon Center is also a perfect fit for this deck.  This will make it even easier to get rid of damage.

How it will change– Sure Kyurem is slower than Donphan, but it requires less deck space and can hit a lot harder.  Unless you play a deck with Steelix Prime, Scizor Prime, or Conalion Nv you will probably never lose a Kyurem.  It is very hard to get rid of a Kyurem EX without using weakness.  The deck might get even a little slower, but it will also hit harder and become even more defensive.  The weak point of this deck has always been the setup, and this set does nothing to help that, but it does maximize the deck in a lot other areas.  I am not exactly sure if ND will make Ross Deck the best around, but it should make it appear on a couple of top tables around states time.  Players of this deck will need to address the Durant problem, but if they can handle that it should be smooth sailing for this deck.

Well that is all I got, good luck to you for all your state testings.

So Long and Thanks for all the fish!

Deck Discussion

Deck Analysis: Mew Prime, Unfezant, and Vanilluxe.

Pikkdogs 3 Comments

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  This is Pikkdogs here with a deck analysis for you.  My extra-dimensionary sidekick Pedro is also with me today.  What’s going on today Pedro?

This weeks bit of news comes from the field we are most qualified in, politics.  Well this past week in Iowa they held the Iowa Caucuses, to help determine the Republican candidate for the Presidential elections that will be held later this year.  And we have to talk about it just so I can say the word “Caucus”.

Who won the Caucus?

That was Mitt Romney.  You know Pikkdogs, I once won a Caucus?

Is “won a caucus” code for amorus homosexual activity?

Maybe.

I have a feeling we should just go onto the article.  Read More

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