One Hit KO

Hello once again readers of OneHitKO, I’m back for my second article with an interesting experience for everyone to read about.  This previous weekend (9/14/13), I got the opportunity to play in a BW-on tournament that was single-game Swiss rounds.  The only different rule was, you couldn’t play any EX Pokemon!  I actually only found out I was going to this tournament about a week in advance, so I was limited on how much I could prepare.

At first I thought the Tool-Drop deck (Trubish/Sigilyph/Masqurain) would be the best choice, but it was very inconsistent and didn’t do as well against non-EX Pokemon.  Absol seemed strong, but was also easy to play around if that was the only focus of the deck.  Zoroark was promising, but just didn’t hold up to some of the stage 2 decks.  I wanted to play Gothitelle/Accelgor/Dusknoir but I no longer had any Gothitelle, so I decided to play Garchomp/Altaria.  It was consistent, had a good damage output (100-140) without too much effort, and was easy to play.  After testing a game or two and doing some theorizing, here is the list I came up with:

Continue reading "No EX tournament and My Outlook On the Upcoming Season!"

Continue reading "Pikkdogs: The Final Article"

I really thought that I would be writing a Battle Roads tourney report this week, but I just can’t. I need to tell you about my friend, Adam. It’s been weighing on my heart. I meant to write this months ago, but I’ve been putting it off. I could make excuses about being busy, but it’s just my fault. I keep thinking about this, though, so I feel the need to put it out here.

I first met Adam around Christmas of 2009 when this site was in its infancy. Since then, I have been going to the Rapid City “South Side Pokémon League” about twice per year. I’m usually there for the 4th of July and again at Christmas time. The problem there is that both of those are holiday weekends, and there aren’t usually many league members around when we show up.

When I knew I’d be in Rapid City, I would usually email Adam to see when/where the league was taking place. From what I understand, Adam started the league in June of 2006, and it has been held in several locations since then, including the library, Hobbytown USA, First Chance Last Chance Games, and Who’s Game House. I wanted to be sure I knew where and when to show up and find out if there were any interesting formats (like 2-on-1 unlimited or old minus current) being played.

On May 25th of this year, I wrote such an email the day before I drove out to Rapid City. I didn’t get a response from Adam, but it was short notice. I had plenty of other things to do while we were out there, and, without his reply to remind me, Pokemon got put on the back burner for that trip.

On June 24th, I wrote to Adam again, telling him that we’d be around for our normal 4th of July trip. Petra (my second daughter) was just starting to play, and I thought his league would be a good environment for her. Again I didn’t hear back, but this time Ava, Petra, and I made it a priority to attend league. Well, we didn’t make it the top priority, because we showed up about halfway through the scheduled league time.

When we arrived, there were no Pokemon players around, but the guy that runs the shop told me that I just missed everyone. They had left, because there weren’t any players (which is kinda typical on the holiday weekends). I mentioned that I had emailed Adam a couple times without hearing anything back, and he said it’s because Adam died. Wow, what a shock.

Continue reading "Adam Klynsma – Pokemon Master"

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

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

Today we have some news about your ancestoral homeland Pikkdogs.

Oooo, some Finnish news, love the Finnish news.  What is it today, another bleach …

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

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

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

Well, that’s because you’re a creepy fat middle aged …

I’m sure that some, if not most, Pokémon players have had an opponent try to cheat at some point. That happened to me a few weeks ago at a Battle Road I attended. I believe that cheating needs to be brought to the attention of the players, so I want to use this article to raise awareness. If more people know how to spot it, cheaters will be less likely to attempt to cheat for fear of being noticed.

There are several ways to cheat at even the slightest things. Cheaters can draw an extra card, manipulate the outcome of a die roll or coin flip, or even stack their deck. This article will expose every way I know how to catch cheaters.  The two largest Nationals are virtually upon us, and I hope this will let potential would-be cheaters know that it’s not okay by exposing their tricks.

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  This is Pikkdogs here, today we will be talking about the possible rotation that may happen in late August.  A rotation can be a scary thing, especially for newer players, but in this article we will analyze why it can be a good thing.  The rotation is something that is fairly complicated, so let’s talk about that later after we talk to my extra-dimensional sidekick Pedro. How’s Pedro doing today?

Oh doing well.  Enjoying the lovely spring/summer weather.  You probably want me to do a news story to kick things off.  Okay, today’s news comes from the world of literature.  Today is the anniversary of the release of Bram Stocker’s most famous work, “Dracula.”  Do you like the Dracula Pikkdogs?

Oh, love the Dracula quite a good book.
Continue reading "Should There Be a Rotation?"

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  This is Pikkdogs here with an opinion article for you.  I didn’t really have many ideas on what article to write for today, so I decided we should do another opinion article.  Before we start the bold statements, let’s introduce my extra dimensionary sidekick, Pedro.  How’s Pedro doing?

Doing well. 

What news have you today for us?

Well, in entertainment news Michael Bay has announced that he is making a new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, but he is making them aliens.  Which is weird because they are called “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”, which means they should be mutated adolescent kung-foo users, not aliens.  Do you like the TMNT?

Sure,  used to watch the cartoon series growing up, and I used to have the good Super Nintendo videogame.  I agree with you Pedro, the turtles shouldn’t be aliens.  To me, they are an extension of the awesomeness that was New York City in the 1980’s.  You had lots of crime and pizza, so to stop the crime and eat the pizza you needed the turtles and a large rat.  They also behaved like Teens, which made them part human, and making …

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  This is Pikkdogs here with a 3 pack of mini articles.  First, we have some old business to catch up on with, the award for best artwork in 2011.  Then, we have a new www.propokemon.com premium content article from Alex Fields, and I will bring you an exclusive look at that article. Finally, I have an idea for an article or two that I might want to do, I will run it past you guys, and we will see how it goes.  So, let’s get on to the article. 

Section 1: The Award for Best Overall Card Art.

If you have read the article about card art a couple weeks ago, you will remember that I did an award show type article that celebrated the best in card art.  I gave awards in many categories like: Best Full Art, Best Aerial Scene, and Cutest Card Art.  But, I let you guys pick your favorite overall card art.  Before we give away the last award, I just gotta say that I really liked doing the article this year.  This type of article is always very tough and labor intensive, it is not …

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  Last year I had an idea around awards-show time to give awards to the best card art in the format.  This year I decided to keep the tradition up, and name it after one of the best people I know, me.  Pikke (Pick-e) was my nickname in school, so I decided to call the awards the Pikkes.  No  matter what attractive chap the awards are named after, the Pikkes are all about greatness in card art.  And what a better time to have an award show, with the Oscars coming up around the corner.

A lot of Pokemon writers don’t mention card art, and only talk about playability.  But, card art is something that connects to the card collector and the serious player.  We all can appreciate a good piece of card art.  Not all of us can appreciate Mewtwo EX, but we all can appreciate how beautiful a Full Art card is.  I think its nice to take a step back from competitive play now and then and just appreciate something as simple as card art.   So let’s take a look at how we are going to give out the …