State Championships

Zekrom/Eelektrik (ZekEels): Calvin’s MN State Championship 2012

Trust me, the banana thing works.

Greetings OHKO!

I guess I’m going to start with a brief introduction. My name is Calvin Chang and I started playing Pokémon competitively halfway through the 2011-2012 season. I actually started playing Pokémon casually when I first investigated it for a high school composition class (yeah! long story). It was fun, the people were nice and I thoroughly enjoyed the game. Then I graduated from high school, moved onto the college campus at the University of Minnesota and took a hiatus from Pokémon since I had no car and no way to continue going to league. When January rolled around, some of the guys at Pokémon asked me if I wanted to compete at Midwest Regionals in the Dells. I figured it would be fun, grabbed a Magnerock deck from some friends and started playing competitively, all the way through Nationals. I wasn’t good but at least I went positive at all the events I played in and eventually finished 10th best player in Minnesota based off ELO points. Since then, I’ve been getting more and more into the competitive environment though still doing mediocre as always.

A week before Minnesota states, I went down to La Crosse with the other guys from league. I had no idea what I was going to play, as mid-terms just finished up and I didn’t have a chance to thoroughly test my options so Joey, Lukas, Michael, Curtis and I stayed up until about 1 in the morning so that I could figure out a deck to play. I didn’t. Read More

Mewchigan States Report

Choose deck at 4:00 am. Begin sleep at 4:30 am.  End sleep at 8:30 am. 

Apparently it’s been too long since SixPrizes published a “How to Prepare for Tournaments” article because I sure blew it this time. 

Here’s the (untested) list I decided to go with.

Pokemon – 16

4 Mew TM
2 Terrakion NV
1 Zorua BW
1 Zorua MCD
2 Zoroark BW
1 Tornadus EP
1 Mewtwo ND
1 Shaymin UL
1 Crobat UL
1 Chandelure ND
1 Jumpluff HS Read More

Quad Terrakion Deck – MN State Championship 2012

I really thought that I wasn’t going to make it to States this year. Part of me thought that I should make a strong effort to defend my title, and part of me thought that the effort would be wasted if I couldn’t attend anyway. I had it in the back of my mind that I might make it to the tourney, so all along I had been putting together a CMT deck. I really actually wanted to play a straight Celebi/Mewtwo deck (without Tornadus or any techs), but I didn’t want to go out of my way to buy a bunch of Mewtwo if I might not even use them.

I did end up scraping together all the pieces for a CMT minus the 2 Mewtwo EX. When I decided to try opening the OneHitKO Store, I bought 3 boxes of Next Destinies. I figured that if I did end up able to attend MN States, then I could just borrow a couple Mewtwo from the store for the day. Well, that idea fell apart rather quickly when I opened 3 boxes and saw a total of ZERO Mewtwo EX.

The weekend before the tournament, my wife went to the hospital 3 times with pregnancy issues, and I thought that each time we might have an extended stay there while delivering our new child. Nothing came of that, and on the Monday before States, I ended up emailing TAndrewT and talking about all of this. I told him essentially the same thing I just told you, still unsure that the pregnancy would last through the following weekend of MN States. I also added that I had considered Durant and straight 4-Terrakion deck.

I didn’t know if I even cared to build a deck at this point. Pokemon wasn’t a pressing issue, and I had barely played since Cities. Andy replied with, “Well, if you need Terrakions I have plenty for you to borrow.” and I thought that this sounded like the only plan I was going to come up with on late notice.

I netdecked a list, and I threw together the deck proxying the Terrakion (I had all the rest except for 1 old style Revive in place of the new one). There’s a guy here at work that I’ve been playing against over lunch sometimes. He has a Zekrom/Eelektrik deck (which I figured would be popular), so I challenged him to a match. Unfortunately, he didn’t have the deck with him, so he played an old Emboar/Reshiram deck of mine. The first game went very quickly as I lost due to not getting more than 1 Terrakion out. I think the deck wasn’t very shuffled yet, and 2 Terrakion were prized. The next game was a real match, and I think I ultimately won when he decked out. This one game turned out to be my only real tourney prep, though. Other than that, I never played the deck until the day of the tourney. At the tourney, a junior (another co-worker’s kid) challenged me to a game, and I ran though his Pokemon very quickly. Going into the tournament, I had only played one real and it was against a non-metagame deck.
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Pikkdogs States Report and Scizor’s LGD (Late Game Durant) Decklist.

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  This is Pikkdogs here with a tournament report.  This past Saturday I was lucky enough to get to go to Michigan States at Okemos, Mi (which is just outside of Lansing).

The Deck

Before I talk about the tournament I will give you the deck that I used.  As you can see with the title, I ran a really weird deck.  I knew that I wasn’t going to win with this deck, but I just wanted to have fun.  I planned on doing a lot of testing and bringing a deck that I thought could win, but I came down with a case of Bronchial Pneumonia.  This really screwed up my states testing, and I couldn’t come up with a good deck since I was too busy coughing up my lung.  So I decided to just make up a quick rogue deck and just try to have fun instead of winning.

I came up with the idea for this deck while I was reading a Six Prizes tournament report by my buddy Airhawk.  He had played a guy who had made an Ursraing Prime/Durant deck that tried to win by milling.  The problem is that the deck didn’t turn out too well, and it seemed like it was an Ursaring Prime deck that could drop 4 Durants out of nowhere at the end of the game and win the game by milling.  This gave me an idea to do the same thing.  So I started the deck by using Scizor Prime, he is nice because he scares people by making them not use special energy cards.  The plan is to just use Scizor Prime for a long time, and then when they aren’t looking to use Durant for the mill.  I also put in Terrakion for the Zekrom match-up, and Victini for the Durant match-up. Here is the list.
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Balasar’s Indiana State’s Report and Durant Decklist

Hello, OneHitKO readers! As this is my first article ever, I feel that I need introduce myself and show a little bit of what I can do. You may have seen me on 6p and PokeGym as Darkwing34, in person as Scott Creech, or in comments as Balasar. I have been collecting the cards for seven years, and have been playing for four. I have never made it to top cut, but I’ve gotten close in the past two tournaments. One of those tournaments was the Muncie City Championship, and the other being the Indiana State Championship. In the Muncie Cities, I placed third out of eight, and at Indiana States I placed fourteenth out of fifty-three. Without further ado, let’s get to the article.
What I Ran
I decided to play Durant just because being a Senior puts a budget on you. This meant no Mewtwo EX for me. Here is my personal list. Please feel free to use it; just don’t take credit for it.
Pokemon: 5
  • 4x Durant
  • 1x Rotom
T/S/S: 44
  • 3x PONT
  • 4x Collector
  • 2x N
  • 2x Twins
  • 1x Black Belt
  • 1x FSL
  • 2x Prof. Juniper
  • 1x Skyarrow Bridge (SAB)
  • 1x Battle City
  • 1x Alph Lithograph (FOUR)
  • 3x Lost Remover
  • 4x Crushing Hammer
  • 3x Level Ball
  • 2x Pokemon Catcher
  • 4x Revive
  • 4x Junk Arm
  • 3x Pokegear 3.0
  • 3x Eviolite
Energy: 11
  • 1x Prism
  • 1x Rescue
  • 4x Special Metal
  • 5x Basic Metal
The basic strategy is the same as any Durant deck. I found Black Belt needed in this deck over other cards just in case I needed to attack with Rotom. The tournament was smaller than I expected. We only had forty-some Juniors, fifty-three Seniors, and about 160 Masters. The tournament in general certainly was a little odd as far as what I saw play.
Round 1: Tristian V. (Terrakion/Electrode Prime/ Zekrom/Kyurem/Kyurem Ex/ etc.)
This was against a major binder deck. After setting up, he won the coin flip and started out with a lone Terrakion. He wasn’t able to get energy on it until T4 or T6. I had three Durant up until T5.  On my first turn, I was able to Devour his 1-1 Electrode Prime line, which was his only form of energy acceleration. I was able to discard all of his Pokemon with the exception of his lone Terrakion starter. This was quite the easy game.
(1-0)
Round 2: Asher K. (Samurott-Ability/KGL/Feraligatr)
This certainly was a fun match since Asher is from my league (GO SUMMIT CITY ELITE FOUR TRAINING!). Asher has been constantly trying to get Kyogre & Groudon LEGEND to work in a deck for a while now. This just happened to be one of his attempts. I won the coin flip and opened with a lone Durant against his lone Oshawott. I played Collector to get two Durant and my Rotom because my fourth Durant was prized. I wasn’t able to get it out of my prizes until T7. That didn’t matter as much as it should have because he wasn’t able to get his Oshawott evolved at all until T8. I think he only drew two prizes. This was also a relatively easy game.
(2-0)
Round 3: Kaitlin Y. (CMT-actually stands for Celebi/Mewtwo EX/Terrakion)
For those of you who don’t know, Kaitlin is, as of 6:36 PM March 17th, ranked sixtieth in Championship Points for Seniors. I knew that this would have been an uphill battle from the start. I went first, and at the time when we started, I realized what she was playing. She opened with a lone Smeargle against my lone Durant. I was able to get two of my other Durants out, but wasn’t able to get the fourth until T7. Kaitlin wound up taking all of the six prizes with one of her Terrakion. This was probably the hardest of my battles today.
(2-1)
Round 4: Alexandra K. (Mirror)
Alexandra’s form of shuffling showed me that her deck contained a Junk Arm, Collector, and Lost Remover. I recognized that she was also playing Durant before we even got set up. After the flip, I was able to get two more Durant and my Rotom in addition to my starting Durant. She was able to get all of here Durants out T2. At first, I thought about scooping because I know that in mirror matches, whoever gets four Durants out first, wins. I’m really glad that I didn’t because of a few misplays that my opponent made. First of all, she played a Juniper when she was getting low on cards. Second, she decided to PONT when she had fewer than six cards in her hand. She also only played one Pokemon Reversal instead of Catcher. I don’t mean to insult her or anything; it was just obvious that she didn’t have much experience with it. After the match, I asked her how long she had been playing Durant, and she said that today was her first day using it. I wound up never getting the fourth Durant, but still won due to her misplays. She certainly wasn’t a bad player because I had only one card left in my deck when I won, so luck just may have been on my side.
(3-1)
Round 5: Alder P. (Zekrom/Zekrom EX/Eels)
I had no clue who I actually was playing until the end of the game. I was able to pull of the T1 Durant set up, but that didn’t help a lot. What actually saved me was Lost Removing his DCEs. I was able to deck him down to seven cards, when he pulled out a Juniper to pull out his last DCE, attached it to his Zekrom EX, and Strong Volt for his final prize. After the game, he mentioned that I almost beat the Senior that is placed tenth in the country for Championship Points. If that wasn’t a confidence booster, I don’t know what is.
(3-2)
Round 6: Nicholas S. (Zekrom EX/Zebstrika/Eels)
By now, the other two guys from my league had also gotten a record of 3-2. This proved our consistency as a league. I recognized my opponent from previous tournaments, so I knew a little bit about him. This allowed me to crack a few light-hearted jokes here-and-there, which lightened the mood a lot. Once again, I went first and started with some extra draw power due to some Mulligans that my opponent had. I was able to start with two Durants in play and a Collector in hand. I got even better luck, and my other two Durants were in my deck. I was able to get the Devour engine going from T1. My opponent wasn’t able to get much energy out on the active because Dynamotor can only attach to the bench. He got one Zebstika loaded up with energy, but wasn’t able to retreat or Switch his active Zekrom EX. Let’s just say that this was a relatively easy game.
(4-2)
Conclusion
As stated above, I placed fourteenth out of fifty-three. I missed the top cut by six places though. There was one mantra in particular that I found helpful with Durant. That was “Deck out or die”. This was said by one of my fellow leaguers (and Durant players), Josiah. What this means is that with Durant, you should never attack, only mill. This definitively helped in some of my matches. I just want to take some time  to thank James H., Josiah K., Jesse K., Rob, Michael W, and my sister (Stephanie C.) from my league for lending me about one-third of my deck.

First Week of States Recap Plus Terrakion Decklist

A big hello to all you OHKoers out there.  This is Pikkdogs here with a short article about the first week of States.  The first week has come and gone.  Some things about States were very expected, while others were kind of a shock.  We will go through all of that, and hopefully you will be all ready for your second week of states. But, before we go to that, let us say hi to my inter-dimensionary sidekick Pedro.  How’s it going Pedro?

Going well, how is Pikkdogs?

Actually not doing that well.  I am sick, I got a cold or something, but, as we all know that doesn’t matter to Ed, he makes me work no matter what disease I have.

How did you get sick this time?  Did you catch something from all the Pokemon groupies that hang around you?

I think so.  One was kind of sneezing, so that could be.  In fact, that was the reason that I couldn’t go to States last weekend, lots of groupie sex.

Will you be doing more groupie sex this weekend, or can you go to States?

Well, I was going to States, but something came up.

So you are doing the groupie sex?

No, that’s not what I meant.  Hey Pedro, I heard there is a new box coming out in the spring, can ya tell us more about that?

Sure, I am very excited about this box, it is called the “Forces of Nature Collection”.  It retails of about 13 bucks, and it contains six things.  It has a Full Art Landorus,and two special promos of Tornadus and Thundurus from Emerging Powers.  The three other things are three booster packs.  Two Emerging Powers and one Call of Legends. 

That is pretty cool.  I love the full arts, and this one looks really cool.  The Thundurus and the Tornadus also look pretty cool, you can never have enough Tornadi, so its a good deal.  Hey Pedro, since we didn’t really have time for a joke today, can you do a real quick one?

Sure, really quick.  AOL’s Urlesque, their entertainment news program, recently featured a story where a full sized cat got stuck in one of those claw machines (the ones that have stuffed animals in them).  The story has a happy ending, the cat was eventually rescued by the fire department.  It is too bad that it took 17 dollars in quarters to get him out.

Okay, good enough.  Let’s get on to the article.

Overview of the First Week of S/P/T’s

Before we get in to what won, let us look at how the attendance went.  The numbers overall were not very impressive.  Most states got about 75 people in the Master’s division.  I think Alberta’s Province Championships had about 50.  But, Ohio States had their attendance numbers go through the roof! There were 220 Masters!  This kind of sucked for the people who were there.  Not only did it slow things down, but they still only had 8 rounds and a top of 16, when they should have had at least a top 32.  This made it really hard to stand out.  So, besides Ohio, most States were fairly average in attendance.  About 7 rounds with the customary top 16 is probably what you are looking at this coming weekend.  Unless you are going to Indiana, which will probably have about 250 people, if last week’s trend continues, you shouldn’t have too hard of a road.

What Won in the First Weekend of States/Province/and Territory Championships.

According to www.pokegym.net, this is the list of decks that won on the first weekend of states.

  1. Zekrom/Eelektrik-8
  2. CMT-6
  3. Durant-2
  4. Terrakion-1
  5. Reshphlosion-1 (This was in Italy, but I won’t really count this win because most of the Pokemon players got distracted that day by making Pizzas.

These are the decks that won the S/P/T’s.  For 2nd to 4th places, the trend seemed to continue. CMT and Zekrom/Eels were two top decks from 2nd-4th places.  Durant was 3rd and Terrakion was 4th.  It seems like the day was won by Zekrom/Eels and CMT.  These results were consistent with my predictions, so there are no surprises there.  Zekrom can hit really hard, and CMT is faster than Usain Bolt.  Durant did well and won a  few, that was also expected.  The surprise was when Terrakion did well.

Terrakion?

On Saturday night, in between all the groupie sex, I went to McDonalds and brought my laptop.  I had the Mushroom and Swiss burger, which was really good.  Anyway, on my laptop I saw that the guys from www.thetopcut.net were streaming coverage of States.  In Top 8 there was a match between a normal Zekrom deck and a weird deck with only 4 Terrakions in it.  The Top Cut personality, and former Onehitko.com guest writer, Kyle “Pooka” Sucevich nicknamed the deck 4 Terrakion. I really like that name.

This deck seems really simple, it just uses 4 Terrakion.   There are a lot of trainers and supporters in the deck.  This deck seemed to forgo the use of one of the best cards in the format, Eviolite, for Exp. Share.  That way the player could attack with Terrakion even if he had lost one last turn for just the one energy that you can attach on that turn.  I have also heard some people are using Landorus in this deck as well.  The use of Landorus won’t change the deck up too much.  Although Terrakion is the better attacker, Landorus gives you some more options.  It is nice because if you were to prize 2 Terrakions, your deck would not instantly fall apart.  Landorus is also resistant to lightning Pokemon, which makes it very good for the current format. This deck is different because it doesn’t use Mewtwo EX, which makes it a good choice for people who couldn’t find a couple Mewtwos.

Because the deck only runs a maximum of 8 Pokemon, it has a lot of room for energy removal cards.  Lost Removers and Crushing Hammers are great cards, but we usually can’t fit them into decklists.  These techs work really well against Mewtwo, and decks like Durant that don’t run a lot of energy cards.  This should give you a decent advantage against some of the other decks in the format.

I really like this deck for two reasons.  The first reason is that this deck is really simple.  We have a lot of good trainers in this format, so why should we not try to play a list that let’s us maximize the potential of each of the good Item cards we have?  The second reason is that Zekrom decks are being played a lot.  One ‘Retaliate” shot can knock out both Zekrom and Zekrom EX.  Those Pokemon are very very popular right now, and Terrakion is auto-win against it.  If you play this deck, you will probably get 3 to 4 wins very easily.

I do have a lot of questions about this deck.  The first question is, “how does it beat Durant.”  Although Durant will not outspeed this deck, it should be able to use Eviolite and Special Metal energies to make sure that the 90 base damage that Terrakion can do is not enough to consistently OHKO Durants.  The Terrakion player will try to remove energies, but will that be enough to stop a deck that relies on a 1 energy attack?  The second question is, “How does this deck beat CMT?”  Although this deck is fairly fast, it should give up KOs on “X-Ball” really easily.  This seems like a deck that CMT will have no problem with.  90 damage will only put it in 2HKO range, and the Eviolite will make it 3HKO.  So the Durant match-up seems iffy,  and the CMT match-up seems like an Auto-Loss.  The final question is, “does Seeker kill this deck.”  If the Terrakion player only has 2 Pokemon in play and his/her opponent plays a Seeker and gets a knockout, the game is over.  If people start playing more Seeker, the Terrakion player will need to play more Pokemon in their decks.

But, the deck did do well with very little play, so it must be a good deck.  It really was the surprise of the tournament.  I have not seen a list from one of the players last weekend, but I can come up with a sketch of what it might be like.  Again, I have not tested this list, this is just me sketching something up.  Hopefully in a week or so I will have time to test the deck. hopefully an article on it will be coming.

Pokemon-5

  • 4-Terrakion
  • 1-Landorus

Trainers-42

  • 14- Hand Refresh/Draw Supporters/Pokegear
  • 3-Lost Remover
  • 4-Crushing Hammer
  • 3-Plus Power
  • 4-Junk Arm
  • 4-Exp Share
  • 2-Revive
  • 4-Pokemon Catcher
  • 2-Defender

Energy-13

  •  10-Fighting Energy
  • 3-Rescue Energy

What to Look Out For on the Second Weekend

Well, I think that we can expect more of the same on the second weekend, with more Terrakion decks.  You can expect to see a lot of CMT, Zekrom, and Durant decks.  Those should be all around any States that you go to.  What will be interesting is to see how fast that Terrakion catches on.  Terrakion was not played a lot last weekend because not many people thought of the deck, it will be different this weekend.  Just how many people play it will have to be seen.  But, it will be around more than it was last weekend, so be cautious if you are playing Zekrom.  You might want to play some Zapdos and see if that will help you at all.  The deck choice that I think will the safest is CMT.  It has a decent Terrakion matchup, and is pretty good against everything else.  The rise of Terrakion should not stop the rise of CMT.  If you don’t have enough cards for CMT, Durant might be a safer deck than Zekrom, if you think that Terrakion is going to played a lot.

Conclusion

Well Pedro, I know that was a short article, but I’m sick and that’s all I can do.  Why don’t you close the article out.

Okay.  Foxnews.com is reporting that a New York Advertising Agency is trying to use homeless people as “walking Wi-Fi Hot Spots.”  The plan, before it was recently canceled, was to give equipment to these homeless people, and a user would pay the vagrant 2 bucks for every 15 minutes they spend online.  So Pikkdogs, would you follow  a homeless person around with your Ipad?

I already follow them around.

Okay, would you get Wi-Fi from them?

No.  Though it could have a catchy name, “Ho-Bo Hot Spots!”

That would be nice.  But is a Wi-Fi hot spot worth spending time with guys who are smelly and sometimes crazy? 

Sounds like dinner with my family.

True, if you use it at your families house, you might as well do it with the homeless.

That’s what I do.  Anyway, this sounds  a lot like Kramer’s idea of using the Homeless to power rickshaws in Seinfeld.  That didn’t work either, but it was a lot funner.  That’s enough,  good night everybody!

State’s Preview + Info On Your First States Trip.

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there.  This is Pikkdogs with an introduction to States/Province/Territory Championships 2012.  I will also add a bit about going to your first tournament at the end of the article.

An Introduction to States

Before we get to States, let’s take a look at how Cities ended.  I have already recapped Cities, so I won’t go too far into this.  But, we gotta cover it a little.  Cities started with strong performances by Zekrom and  some of the newer Noble Victories decks like Chandelure and Vanilluxe.  As Cities wore on, only Chandelure stayed on as a great deck.  We started seeing newer decks like Six Corners and CaKE.  While familiar decks like Donphan and Dragons and Reshiphlosion still saw some play.  The season ended with a domination by Durant.

We still expect some decks like Durant and Reshiphlosion to see some play, but the most talked about decks right now have cards from Next Destinies in them.  The most hyped card was of course Mewtwo EX, he is slated to be in almost every non-Durant deck that has a shot to win States.  Mewtwo is a fast card that can take over the game before most decks get off the ground.  But, that is not the only big card to come out of ND.  Zekrom EX and Reshiram EX also came out, and they are set to revitalize the existing Reshiram and Zekrom decks.  The other EX cards, Regigigas, Shaymin, and Kyurem, are also good, just don’t expect them to have as big of an impact.  You can also expect trainer cards like Skyarrow Bridge and Battle City to see some play.

What will Win at States.

Though I will admit that I don’t know exactly what will win at States, I can give you a guess.  Here are my top 5 decks.  These are just based on my feelings and may or may not be how things end up going.

1. CMT (Mewtwo EX)

The deck that will win the most States championships is CMT.  It can just outclass every other deck in the format.  It is fast enough to cripple any deck that will try to evolve, and it can  hit hard enough to OHKO an EX.  You will see this deck all over the top tables, just like Snooki is all over this plant in the picture to the right.  The only thing that might limit the number of CMT decks is the number of people who own the cards to make this deck.  It costs about $220 just for the C and M parts of this deck.

CMT works by attacking on the first and 2nd turns of the game and using Pokemon Collector to knock out anything you are trying to setup.  Mewtwo EX will single handily stop decks like Chandelure and Ross Deck.  Nothing that relies on evolutions can stand against Mewtwo if it has a good start.  If CMT doesn’t have a good start, than that is where the door might open.  If you get setup against CMT, all they can do is try to use your energies against you.  If that doesn’t work, there really isn’t a back up plan.  Tornadus is nice, but 80 damage can only go so far.  If you are playing against this deck, hopefully they will make a mistake and leave a Metwo EX or two vulnerable to a knockout.  If you can take out 2 Mewtwo’s, you should win.

Although this deck is beatable, it will be the most successful deck at States.

2.  Durant

From the the best deck at States to the deck that will get the most play.  Durant is the anti-Mewtwo EX.  The deck is cheap money wise and it is very hard to make mistakes with it.  While it is easy to leave your Mewtwo EX vulnerable to a knockout, it is very hard to screw up Durant.  You just gotta setup and say the word “Devour.”  If you can do that you can win with Durant.  It will be a deck that will get a lot of play because it is so cheap and easy to play, all the newer players will be playing it.

Durant should have a decent chance of winning some States.  It will no doubt get the most wins in the Swiss Rounds at States because of the crazy amount of players that will pick the deck up.  If you want to win like 4 games at States, just bring an Anti-Durant deck and you will probably get to .500.  It and its players will probably get out-classed in the Top Cut rounds, but it will win a couple States for sure.

In playing against this deck you are going to want to attack fast without burning through all of your deck.  You are going to need to do about 100 damage by turn 2 or 3, and keep that going for 6 more turns.  Just watch on how fast you burn your deck early, that is just going to play into the Durant players hand.  Try to not rely on cards like Professor Juniper, that will just make their job easier.  You also need to watch how they remove energy.  They will take away your energy, so don’t let that catch you by surprise.  Always have a couple more energies in your hand.  You can also forget about setting up techs like Reuniclus and Eelektrik, you will not need a lot of techs in this game, just straight forward attacking is all that needed.

3.  Zekrom (Zekrom, Zekrom EX, Mewtwo EX, Eelektrik)

These decks will be good and they are vary different.  You might see a Zekrom deck that is kind of like the Cities version of the ZPST decks, or you may see a Zekrom EX only deck.  These decks are kind of different, but are basically the same, so we can group them together. They will be successful at Cities, making it to a lot of the top tables.  They probably will even take a couple, if not more, States.

These decks are here for one reason, to hit hard.  They will be doing 120 damage, 150 damage, 150 damage, and more turn after turn.  Your Magnezone Prime is no longer safe after Zekrom EX hits the table.  Using Eelektrik, this deck can keep on hitting for 120 damage plus for an almost unlimited number of turns.  This deck will out hit all of those defense decks like Ross Deck. It is also good enough to have a good match-up against Durant.  It can also use its Mewtwo EX to hit CMT for weakness.  So it has a lot of good things going for it.

The downside of the deck is that it is not as fast as CMT.  If you are playing against it, you might be able to take it down before it gets going.  On your first turn, you should try to use Pokemon Catcher to get Tynamo active.  Just keep playing with Tyanamos and Eelektriks until you can knock them out.  And once they lose these guys, it will be hard for them to keep doing all that damage.  They will eventually run out of energy.  So keep targeting those Eelektriks, that is the weak point of this deck.  If you wait until they setup it will be too late, so target them early.

4. Magnezone

Magnezone and Eelektrik return from a decent Cities season and try to make a run at States.  Although Magenzone will see some action at the top tables and during Top Cut, it will not win a lot of States.  It will probably not win any.  It is a hard hitting deck, but it just is out classed by Mewtwo EX.  THe drop-off between numbers 1 and 3 on this list isn’t huge, but the drop off between numbers 3 and 4 is a big gap.  Don’t expect Magnezone Prime to do as well as CMT, Durant, or Zekrom. 

Magnezone Prime is all about the OHKO, and that’s why we like him we at www.onehitko.com.  The premise of this deck is very simple, get as much energy in play as possible, and then blast all the energy and the defending Pokemon away with the “Lost Burn” attack.  It is the most hard hitting deck in the format.  The deck will use Pachirisu and Eelektrik to get more energy on the field.  The deck is also the only deck that has a built in draw engine.  Magnezone does have the “Magnetic Draw” Poke-Power that will always make sure that you have a good hand.  Watch out for the card N, because it works well with Magnezone.  The draw power is nice because as long as you setup, the power will keep you in the game. Now with EXs out, Magnezone has a slight advantage because it can get 2 prizes for every knockout.  What I mean by this is instead of getting rid of 6 energies by knocking out 2 Zekrom BW’s, you can Lost Zone 4 energies by knocking out 1 Zekrom EX.  That means you save 2 energies, that is very important in this deck.

There are a couple weaknesses to this deck.  The main weakness is that it relies on Evolutions, and as we all know, Mewtwo EX feeds on evolutions.  If CMT gets a good start, this game is over before it even starts.  Another weakness is that this deck is famous for running out of energy when time is called.  Since you have to send energies to the Lost Zone you will always be running out of energies.  You have to be careful that you don’t waste energies.  Make sure to use Pokemon Catcher so you can cut down on the wasting of energy.

If you are playing against this deck remember to hit it hard early.  If you have a fast deck, you should be able to knock out Magnemites and Tynamos before they evolve.  Also, remember to keep low HP Pokmeon out of play.  Make them waste energies by taking out the big HP attackers instead of the small one.  If you play down Thundurus instead instead of Cleffa, you are making your opponent waste 2 more energies.

5.  Reshiphlosion

This is the deck that won’t die, but it isn’t very far away from death right now.  It first entered the scene by coming out of nowhere at U.S. Nationals 2011.  It did well during Battle Roads, and then did okay at Cities.  It is still the same basic deck that was played during the summer, just with a couple different cards.  It will do decent by feeding on all of the Durant players, but won’t be able to out-play CMT or Zekrom decks.  It should have a decent States season, and might even make some Top Cuts, but it won’t win any States.

The deck is based on attacking for 120 damage with Reshiram’s “Blue Flare”, and using Typhlosion Prime to keep the energies on him.  If you are able to get a couple Typhlosion Primes out, you will be able to out hit almost any deck.  This deck is also a little better with the inclusion of Reshiram-EX.  This card won’t change the deck, but might help it a little bit.  It also usually has a decent draw engine in Ninetales HGSS.

If you are playing against this deck, the key to beating the deck is in the first 3-4 turns.  You need to limit the number of Typhlosion Primes they have.  Keep on using Pokemon Catcher to get them active and chip away at the HP.  If you limit them to less than 2 Typhlosions, they don’t really have a decent shot of winning the match.  They need 2 or 3 out, and if don’t get it they can’t keep the 120 and 150 damage up.  Aside from the setup, try to take advantage of the Reshiram EX.  If they play it down, you can get 2 prizes with a knockout.  That might be able to be be enough to turn the tide of the game.

Conclusion

This states look like it is all about 3 decks.  Durant, CMT, and Zekrom.  These decks are the only decks that have a shot at winning, so be on the look out for those decks.  Also, be on the look-out for a surprise.  There is always some deck that comes along and surprises us.  There will be a deck that comes out of nowhere to be good, so don’t get too cocky because you think you know it all.  Now let’s go to the 2nd part of the article.

Tips for Your First States

Now we come to the part of the article where we talk about being at your first states.  I know there are a lot of people who have started the game since worlds.  That means there are a lot of players who have never played in a big tournament.  Playing in a big tournament is different than a smaller one, so it is helpful to know some helpful hints.  Here are some good tips for your first State Tournament.

  1.  Prepare For the Whole Day.  If you think that you even have a small chance at making it to the Top Cut, than you should prepare like you will be there for a long time.  Depending on the number of players, how organized the staff is, and how long the matches go; the winner of States could be at the event until early in the morning.  So prepare for being there late.  If you can it will be nice to get a motel in the area if you don’t live near the venue.  If you can’t afford a motel, you can still do other things to prepare.  Make sure you either bring enough food or enough money for Lunch, a snack, and dinner.  Sometimes the venue will have a snack bar on site, so its always nice to have a little money for a  small snack in-between rounds.  Also, make sure to bring plenty of fluids.  If your stomach is empty all day you will not have the concentration to focus on your game.  Your mind will wander and you will start to make stupid mis-plays.  So make sure you have enough food and fluids for the day.
  2. Get Your Preparations Done the Week Before.  The importance of practicing cannot be under-estimated.  Make sure to get together with people from your area and test your decks out against each other.  You might be tipping your hand a little, but the experience you gain will be more than worth it.  Along with getting your testing it, you should get some decent amount of sleep in.  I know that States start really early and you will probably be travelling a long way to go there, so recommending 8 hours of sleep will probably not do a lot of good.  But, at least try to get enough so you are not sleep-walking the whole day.  If possible, try to catch up on your sleep on Thursday and Friday, so even if you only get a couple hours on Saturday you should still be able to get enough sleep to maintain your concentration during your matches.  You don’t need 10 hours of sleep, just get enough so you are at your normal level, this will greatly enhance your odds of winning later in the day.
  3. Make Your Deck Consistent.  At Battle Roads or Cities it was to your advantage to play a risky deck that could win 5-7 games.  You knew you were not going to see every deck that day, so you didn’t tech against everything.  You could hope you would get lucky and still have a decent chance of winning.  States is a whole nother animal.  To win you will have to play around 11-13 matches, that means you can’t just hope for good luck or tech against just 1 matchup.  You have to plan for consistency.  There may have been a chance that you could get lucky 6 times, but its not going to happen 12 times, so you need to build an even deck that can win against any other deck.  Make sure to build a deck that has good all around match-ups, because you will see a lot of different decks.  So, you should try to have a deck that works a majority of the time, and one that doesn’t have a lot of bad match-ups.
  4. Keep Focused.  In the same vein as the last tip, this tip has to do with the length of States.  To use some metaphors, Battle Roads and Cities are like sprints.  You have to be at your best for the entire race because it doesn’t last very long, one slip up and you could be done.  States is a lot different, it is more like a marathon.  People come from hundreds of miles around to go to States, so you can be sure that you will have a lot more rounds than you played before this year.  Just because you  may have started 0-2 does not mean anything, you just have to stay positive and be focused on winning.  It is easy to psych yourself out and eliminate yourself before you are really out of it.  During States, you can probably lose 3 games and still have a shot at making it.  The chances are that you will probably drop a game, but don’t let that get to you.  States are a marathon, no matter how you start the day it will be about how you finish the day.  So don’t pay attention to your record until at least round 5, just try to win each game no matter what your record is.

 

Those are the four major points that you should think about leading up to States.  Also, make sure you come prepared with something to keep you occupied.  You could be waiting for some time, so make sure you bring your DS or something.  It is also important to arrive in a timely fashion and prepared.  Make sure your deck is ready before the registration starts, so you don’t have to wonder if you are going to be able to register in time.  This season I have become famous for arriving late and still trying to fix my deck, that is not a good thing.  I also understand that a limited amount of players will receive States Dice, so make sure that you aren’t running late.

 

So, that’s all I got for ya.  I hope you guys have a good States tourney, and I wish you guys luck.

 

So Long and Thanks for all the Fish!

A Three Pack of Mini Articles: Your Favorite Card Art of 2011, How EXs Effect States, and Ask Pikkdogs?

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 an easy article to do.  It also is not easy to pick a winner out of a pool of some really good art.  But, at the end I really enjoyed doing the article and hearing your responses.  I really think that card art is something that connects the casual 7 year-old player to the competitive 24 year-old player.  It brings everybody together because everybody can appreciate card art. 

Okay, so without any more ramblings on, let’s crown your winner for best overall card art.  In tallying the votes, I was not happy with how many overall votes we recieved.  But, that could have been because the comment section of our website crashed for the first couple days this article was up, so that was not a good thing.  But, all that aside we do have a winner, and it is………………….

That’s right, the first ever overall Favorite Card Art award goes to Full Art Victini from Noble Victories.  It won even though it was a write-in choice. 

Nobody cared to tell us why they liked it, so I will just guess.  First, Victini is a very popular Pokemon.  It is the star of two Pokemon movies.  Also, this Pokemon is very cute.  Victini does succedde in rivaling Pikachu in the cuteness department.  Just being cute will land you a lot of fans, I should know.  Next, we can look at the card art itself and we see a very nice closeup of Victini’s entire body.  He seems to be in the middle of a fight or something and he has his fangs peeking out of his cute little mouth.  His body appears to be summoning the power of some kind of fire.  Finally, what really stands out here are his baby blue eyes.  They really grab you and get your attention.  Victini does have the eyes to rival old blue eyes himself, Frank Sinatra.  But, Victini is better than Frank Sinatra because he doesn’t have any ties to the Mob, not so far anyway.  Add all these things together and you get a really cool piece of card art that is really cute. 

Thanks to you all that read the article and voted for your favorite card art. 

Section 2: www.propokemon.com Premium Article by Alex Fields, “How the Return of EXs will Effect the State Championships.

Our friends at www.propokemon.com have a new premium article out.  As always we will give you an exclusive sneak peek at the article that you can only find here, for free.  If you want to be ready for states, just follow this link, and you will have an oppurtunity to read the whole article and get yourself up to date on your Pokemon knowledge.

This article is all about EXs and how they will influence play at States.  The author takes the time to look at every EX individually and discusses decks where they will see play.  It just isn’t a rehash of the stuff you hear on this site and others, it does bring new stuff to the discussion.  It really is a pretty cool article.  It gives a pretty good decklist and it gets your mind in gear for play in the new format. 

Here is a sneak peek at the article. In this part of the article, Alex is giving you tips for States.

– Be prepared to play against a lot of decks that manipulate energy, whether through Eelektrik, Typhlosion, Emboar, or Celebi. Echo what I said above about what to do if your deck can’t beat them. Energy manipulation is a key part of this format, and most of the successful decks running Evolutions at this point are in this category.

– Be prepared for N. The presence of EXs makes this card potentially more disruptive early on, and it remains, as always, the ultimate comeback card.

– Durant is not only still a very solid deck, it is practically the go-to deck for a.) casual players and b.) players who don’t have access to Mewtwo and/or other expensive EXs/Primes/etc.. When I say this, I am not being derogatory toward either group a. or b.—I’m just giving an honest observation. It is favored by a lot of casual and limited-resource players because of how cheap it is to build, and how simple it is to run (playing the deck masterfully isn’t that easy, but you know what I mean—it isn’t hard to grasp the “Devour all game” strategy). Be prepared for it as well.

Those are just a fraction of some of the tips, there are others in the article, and also a lot of other good info.  To get your hands on the full article, just click here.  

Section 3: Ask Pikkdogs

I know that I am just asking for trouble here, but I will go against my better judgements and again ask for your help in an article.  I know that we have a lot of very attractive readers, but your participation rate has always been fairly low.  Well, I’m hoping that we can buck that trend and that will have good participation in this new article idea. 

The new article will be called, “Ask Pikkdogs.”  As the name suggessts, this article will be all about the benefits of adding chicken to a pizza.  Well, actually it won’t at all.  It will actaully be about me answering questions from you guys.  You will leave your questions in the comment box, and I will try to answer them. 

You can ask my opinion on anything.  Some good sample questions could be:

  • What deck should I play at states?
  • What decks can I play if I don’t have a lot of cash to throw around?
  • Do you follow the theories of Karl Jung, over the theories of Sigmund Freud?
  • What is the best way to start collecting cards from each set?
  • What type of fuel should I put in my 2002 Ford Taurus?
  • What is your favorite Wagner Opera?
  • Here is my decklist, can you help me make it better?

Those are just a sample of some good questions to ask.  As you can see I am up to talking about anything, even something silly, it’s always fun to let yourself hang a little loose and not to take yourself too seriously.  Personal  questions and questions about things like Pedro are also encouraged.  As I mentioned, you can post your question in the comment box of this article, you can also always email me questions at pikkdogs@yahoo.com, try to put something like “Ask Pikkdogs” in the subject.   I know I am not as much of an expert on the game as some people are, but I think it would be cool to answer some questions that people have.  Also, since I’m hoping that half of the questions include stuff about people like Geoffery Chaucer, it may not go too deep into Pokemon.  Hopefully we can get a lot of user particpation to make this a fun article. 

So that’s, 1…..2……and 3.  Three things completed in one article, I’m all done.  Hopefully we can get some cool questions for “Ask Pikkdogs,” so please don’t be shy, “Ask Pikkdogs” today!

Recap of States 2011, and Your First Regionals 2011 Preview

Well State/Province/Territory championships are all over, and its time to see what we have learned from it.  This article well recap what happened at states, and try to give you a little view of what will come up next month at Regionals.

Overview

Well, things at States were fairly predictable this year.  Luxchomp again won most tournaments, while a couple other popular decks got a couple wins.  According to Pokegym.net this is the list of winners of States.

16 Luxchomp (1 w/Honchkrow)
4 Vileplume/Gengar
4 Gyarados
3 DialgaChomp
3 Sablelock (1 w/ Luxray SP)
2 Lostgar w/Vileplume
2 Machamp (1 w/ vileplume)
2 Chenlock
1 Arceus
1 Steelix
1 Scizor Prime
1 Vilegar / Dusknoir
1 Magnezone

From this list, we can see a couple cool rogue decks winning here; like Steelix, Scizor, Mangezone, and Arceus.  And, some second tier decks took some states as well,  with help from the good players that champion them.  We also see 6 Vilegar variants winning and 5 Sablelock variants winning.  This somewhat surprising showing by these decks show that they are strong contenders for the title of 2nd best deck.        

How Did the Rogues Do?

The rogue decks were out at full force at States.  However, we did not see a great showing by any true rogue deck.  We also did not see much of any “secret decks” doing well.  About 2 months ago I heard a lot about people making “secret deck” for States, but not wanting to share them, at states we didn’t see any of these decks doing anything.

One deck that saw a lot of play was Magnezone.  Magnezone saw almost no play until the Europeon Challenge Cup, just before States started.  Magnezone got paired up with Regirock La, for energy acceleration.  Magnezone did get 1 win at States, but with the amount of play it got, just 1 win isn’t all that impressive.  My impression of the deck is that it is just too slow to live in a world with Luxchomp running around. Perhaps after the rotation it will get better, maybe players can use Floatzel Ul instead of Regirock.

I am also pleasantly surprised with the showing of some other decks like Arceus, Steelix, and Scizor.  Arceus seems to be a deck that a few weird people can get to work on a lucky day.  When it works it can be a great deck, but it seems that Arceus is not reliable.  It wasn’t just the one win it had, at Michigan and Indiana states I saw that this deck did fairly well.  Steelix is a deck that I think is very good, especially with the drop in play that Blaziken FB has received.  I think that it can do very well if some decent players decide to play it.  Scizor Prime is one of those crazy cards, it doesn’t seem like it will be that good of a card, but yet people can get it to work.  To me it just seems like it can be easily played around, but when its played right on a good day it can have great results.  If you can get 3 Metal Energies on a Scizor, it is almost unstoppable against a Luxchomp deck.

Can Anything Stop Luxchomp?    

Well the short answer is no, but we have learned some bad news for Luxchomp.  Decks like Machamp, Vilegar, and Sablelock have had some good showing against the deck.  Before states I thought Machamp was going to get ran out of the format, but Machamp made a big comeback at States.  Vilegar and its many variants cemented its place in the format after Cities, after States it has shown that it is kicking butt and taking names.  It even won Michigan States, which had some of the better Luxchomp players around.  It is now one of the best decks in the format.  Sablelock has chosen this States to tell us all that it has not gone away.  For some reason Sablelock seems to disappear at small tournaments.  But, it did not dissapear at States.  The great Sableock players like Jwittz were out with it and did very well.  They proved that in the hands of a great player, Sablelock can be almost as good as a Luxchomp deck.

That being said, Luxchomp still dominates the format.  Nothing is faster or more versatile than Luxchomp.  It can kill almost every deck before the opponent gets going.   Even-though Vilegar and Sablelock have shown that they are great decks, Luxchomp still won the most tournaments by far.  I don’t see anything but a rotation stopping Luxchomp.

A Look Towards Regionals

I did mention the rotation, if we do get a mid-season rotation it will not be until after Regionals.  That means that I expect more of the same for Regionals.  We may still see some people get more familar with rogue decks, and give them a try.  But, for the most part since Regionals is only like 3 weeks away I don’t expect to see a big change.  Expect to see Luxchomp dominating with some tier 2 and 3 decks vying for some tournaments.  It could be different, but for the most part I think you can use States as a barometer for what will be at Regionals.

So long and thanks for all the fish!

Pikkdogs’ 2011 Indiana State Championship Report

Hey everyone in Omar-Nation, this is Pikkdogs here with a tournament report for Indiana’s states.  I again decided to run Uxie, after briefly flirting with an Umbreon/Scizor Prime deck.   

I woke up a little after 5:30, and got on the road before 6:30.  This was very early for me, but it was cool to go outside and see a huge full moon hanging in the sky before sunrise.  I then took the 3 hour drive to Fort Wayne, Indiana.  When I got there I met my friend James in the parking lot.  James, who is a testing buddy of mine, tried really hard to get me to come today and I’m glad I capitulated to his requests. Before the tournament started I made some trades with some players, borrowed some cards, said hello to a lot of my Pokemon friends, and received a cool deck box from James.  The format again was very Luxchomp heavy.  It was a little more diverse than last week, but Luxchomp was by far the most popular deck.

The tournament was held at a neat venue, a minor league baseball stadium.  Just past right field is a long narrow room where we had the tournament.  The venue was pretty sweet, though there was a noticeable lack of comfy chairs.  There was a lot of people there on that day.  I think there was 114 masters with people from Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio attending.  This meant a lot of good competition and a tough day for anyone hoping to top cut.   

My goal that day was simple, to grab the gold medal from Indiana and take it back to Michigan.   The winner of last week’s Michigan State’s was from Indiana, so nothing would feel better than to take one from them.  After turning in my decklist I was ready to get going.

Round 1- Kingdra.

He starts first with 2 Unown R’s benched, and a Horsea active.  I start with Crobat G and Unown R and get going on  my strategy.  I am able to “Flash Bite” an R to death, I seeker up the other, then “Psychic Restore” the Horsea for the win.

1-0. A good start to the day, this is what is supposed to happen.

Round 2- Matt Kish with Vilegar.

Matt was the gentleman who took 2nd last week in Michigam, for that reason and because I am auto-loss to trainerlock; I was shaking in my boots.  But, I was lucky and he has a bad start.  He starts first with Uxie and Gloom, while I start with Uxie and I am able to play the turn out until I get the Seeker+knockout.

2-0, Sorry Matt you just got a bad start.           

Round 3-Brandon with Luxchomp.

This was the rubber game for me and Brandon, and what a game it was.  We first met in the first round of a Michigan cities, he ended up winning that game and the tournament.  We also met last week in Lansing, when I had donked his two Magnemites.  This game ended up being one of the best of the season.

The game starts off really bad for me.  Even though I go 2nd, he starts with a Call energy and has a large bench when I start.  I try to knock out the Garchomp C with the energy with “Flash Bites” but am unable to do so, and I am forced to let it stay on the field.  I am not able to finish it because I got 9 tails on my first 10 dice rolls.  I also make a dumb misplay and Expert Belt an Uxie, which he can easily Dragon Rush.  I do however get one knockout on my 2nd turn.

He comes back and sets up fast getting a Cyrus chain.  However, he can only get 1 Level X on the field.  Since I went through my deck on the first turn, I can just use Uxie to draw all of the cards I need and then use Cyclone Energy to bring up a weak Pokemon for the knock out.  This pattern goes back and forth until time is called.

One funny thing about this game is that Brandon tried 3 times to spray my “Setup” but I fought it off all three times.  The first time I had a 2nd Uxie, so I just dropped the other one to draw the cards I need.  I then drew  a Pokemon Rescue for a prize. The 2nd time he again Sprayed an Uxie, and I used “Seeker” to do it again.  Then on the last turn he used his last spray, but I used the Pokemon Rescue to get another Uxie.  Brandon thought he had me there, but I planned ahead well enough to fight him off.      

On turn 2 of plus 3 prizes are even.  He has just run out of ways to draw DCE, and he has no Luxray in sight.  He has to “Claw Swipe” for 3o.  I go next and can win with a prize.  I attach a Cyclone Energy to Uxie, and he brings up Honchkrow Sv.  Honchkrow has 90 HP, one away from what Uxie can do.  But, I am able to play the last card in my hand, a Crobat G, for the win.

3-0. What an amazing game.  Brandon is a really good player and he put me through a great match.

Round 4-Andrew C. with Luxchomp

Not much to say here. I go first with a Unown R, and he has an Ambipom G, an energy gain, and a Cyrus; so I scoop.

3-1.  Getting donked sucks, but it happens.

Round 5-  Dan Machamp

This is another one of my great matchups.  Dan ended up getting 4th at the end of the day.  This game would have gone by very quickly if I would have started 2nd, but I had to start 1st.  It also would have gone quicker if the opponent didn’t run Mespirt, but he ran 2.

I start with an Unown Q active and a Crobat G on the bench.  I go first, drop an Uxie and an energy to do “Hidden Power” for 30.  He then plays a Pokemon Collector for two Mesprits, and sends out a Machoke.  I am able to take advantage of the damage counters on Machoke when  I bring up Uxie and “Psychic Restore” for the KO.  Even though he psychic binded me this turn I still was able to get a knockout.

We go back and forth trading knockouts.  He is unable to establish a second Machamp until later in the game, so I am able to get a knockout on most turns.  My big misplay came when I used Seeker, and he picked up  Mesprit, to just “Psychic Bind” me again.  Throughout the game he used VS Seeker 3-4 times for great results.

We are tied up at prizes at the end, and I have 2 Pokemon left.  He uses a VS seeker to get Seeker back and then uses it to get me down to 1 Pokemon and then uses “Take Out” on the last guy.

3-2.  I started out the day great, but then fell face first.  This was a great game, but I just couldn’t pull it out.  I knew that I needed to win out and have luck to be able to top cut.

Round 6- SP

I don’t quite know who my opponent was but I know he’s a nice guy.  He goes first and uses Call Energy to get 4 basics.

I make a bad move during this game.  My opponent left an Unown Q on the bench, and I knocked it out with “Flash Bites.”  But, I forgot to take  a prize.  Fast forward 15 minutes later when I’m still on my same turn,  but have ran out of Uxies.  My opponent has a damaged Weaville G, but I have to use Seeker to pick up an Uxie, so he picks up Weaville.  When I do that I remember,”hey I should have taken the Uxie with my prize, oh crap I didn’t take my prize.”  I call a judge over and a humorous moment occurs.

The judge asks me what cards I played after I knocked out the Q, and I handed him my discard pile full of like 45 cards.  After having a good laugh we go through the deck and find out that I didn’t play a card that would force me to put my hand in my deck, so I was okay with just taking the prize.  I did get a caution, but thats nothing more than a slap on the hand.

The game went well for me after that.  My opponent just couldn’t draw a supporter so I was able to take 5 prizes, and I win on time.

4-2. I still have a chance at making top cut, but I am feeling the pain right now.  I have a back ache and am feeling really tired.  That last game took a lot out of me.

Round 7- Andrew with Gyarados.                       

Andrew is the cool chap who wrote a Regigas article for this site a couple months ago.  But, for some reason he switched to Gyarados.

Andrew knew what was coming because he sat by me for one game.  But, he also told me that he ran Mesprits, so I also knew what was coming.

He starts with  a Registeel and a Magikarp and goes 1st.  I start Crobat G and am ready to go to town.  Andrew draws and slowly reveals a Psychic Pokemon, but I can see the yellow tail of an Uxie, instead of Mesprit.  He lays down Uxie and prays that he can survive.

I quickly knock out the Magikarp and Seeker the Uxie.  Registeel has a Psychic resistance, so this makes the game more interesting.  I am able to get 3 “Flash Bites” on the active, but do not have many Plus Powers.  I actually make a couple misplays and am unable to cycle though the deck.  But, at the end I only need 2 Plus Powers to win.  I can’t “Setup” again, but have 1 Pokedrawer + in my hand.  I use a Pokedex to reveal another Pokedrawer +, thats game!

5-2. For a second week in a row I am on the bubble and am waiting to see if I top cut.  I order my deck and talk to my buddy Robert Hall to pass the time.  The standings are finally announced and I am placed at #18, not good enough for top cut.

Props

  • The judges always do a great job, thanks to them
  • All  my opponents for being nice.
  • James for buying me lunch.
  • My Pokemon friends for being cool.
  • The nice location for the tourney.  Ft. Wayne is a cool city, and one I could see myself moving to.  It was really cool to play at a ball park too.
  • Lots of restaurants around the ball park.

Slops

  • the early 3 hour drive.
  • Not top cutting at any States.
  • A lot of my Michigan buddies not being there.
  • Having 17 people go 5-2.
  • No comfy chairs.
  • Mesprit.
I feel that I did pretty well with Uxie during States.  I went a combined 9-5 and made my rating a lot better.  But, since I didn’t top cut at all, I have to call this States season a disappointment, but not by too much.  It is really hard to do well in Michigan right now, and just having a 64% ain’t too bad.