One Hit KO

Unlimited Alakazam Chansey Pokemon Report

Ed April 6, 2010 5 Comments

I’m going to file this under “Tourney Report” even though it turned out to not be an actual tournament. It still felt like a tournament to me, even though it wasn’t official. Here’s the story.

My family and I went out to Rapid City over the Easter weekend. We arrived on Friday, and Grandma came home from skiing. We hadn’t told her that we were coming, so she was surprised and cried tears of joy to see her grandkids. Then, on Saturday morning, they took my kids skiing. Can you sense a theme here? Yeah, they dig the slopes.

I figured that Pokemon was cheaper than a lift ticket, so I’d go do my own thing for the day. The Rapid City “South Side Pokemon League” had a tournament scheduled for the day, so the timing was right. It was an Unlimited Constructed tournament with a catch. Cards that are currently Modified-legal were banned. I thought this was quite an interesting twist, and since I didn’t have much for cards in between very old and very new, I didn’t know what to expect.

I arrived at “First Chance Last Chance Games” (which, according to this legend, was once “First Chance Last Chance Saloon” 101 years ago) and there was a long wait. This is only the second time I’ve tried to attend a Pokemon event in Rapid City, and both have been on holiday weekends. The last time was the day after Christmas and the morning after a big snowstorm. I think there were only 3 local players that day. The day before Easter was slightly better. 6 people (which includes myself) showed up and had decks. A 7th person also showed without a deck. I figured that I could build him a deck real quick if it came to it, but we needed at least 8. That didn’t happen, so the tournament was officially called off. Unofficially, though, I figured people (like myself) had built interesting decks, so I still wanted to battle it out.

During what was now league time, I was able to duel 4 of the 5 players that built decks for the tournament. I didn’t really keep notes about individual games, since it wasn’t a tourney. I did take a couple pictures (that are now posted at the bottom of this article). I do recall that my first match was against Adam. His deck revolved around Dark/Rocket Pokemon. Many of them were EX, and after a long defensive battle, I was able to KO 3 of them to get my 6 prizes.

Then, I played against Chris. Chris was one of the guys that actually showed up the day after Christmas. On this day, though, Chris wasn’t feeling well. I didn’t see a whole lot of his deck, and I got the feeling that he was just going through the motions of playing just to humor me and my desire to play against people’s tournament decks.

After playing Chris, I played against a younger kid. I’m sorry, but I don’t remember his name. His deck was mostly Base Set fire Pokemon. He did get Charizard powered up and even did a Fire Spin. After he removed 2 of his own energy, and Chansey wasn’t even phased by the Fire Spin, he seemed to lose interest in Charizard. My Energy Removal combined with his own put him in a pretty bad spot against my damage removal.

My final match was against Becky. I recall thinking that her deck was rather interesting, but I don’t recall what all she played. I do remember the Delta Species Jolteon repeatedly doing Return Spark. After several of these attacks, some Damage Swapping and Pokemon Centers came out. Let’s just say that Becky wasn’t real happy with me. Energy Removal and damage removal combined to frustrate my opponents all day.

So, I went 4-0 in the non-tournament. I played tons of Energy Removal and other nastiness. I was very surprised that nobody played any Energy Removal, Gust of Wind, Professor Oak, Item Finder, CPU Search, etc. against me. At least I don’t recall any.

So, I had fun, and I hope that I wasn’t too annoying of an opponent for the South Siders. Now, let me get into the deck I played. I had 2 decks left around from the Base Set/Jungle/Fossil time-frame. One is a Haymaker deck, and the other was this Alakazam Damage Swap deck. I figured that the Haymaker would take too much modification, because it had cards like Bill, Plus Power, and Electabuzz that were all reprinted recently. The Alakazam deck had some things like Double Colorless Energy and Bill, but they weren’t as integral to the play of the deck.

Abdi lent me a few interesting trainers/supporters/energy, and on the 9 hour drive to Rapid City, I built my deck. I had one very interesting find while searching through some of the odd cards I picked up here and there along the way. Persian, from EX Delta Species, looked pretty darn cool. Its “Prowl” Poke-Power lets you search your deck for ANY 1 card and put it in your hand, and it’s “Snap Tail” attack can snipe for 30 damage. Both seemed good to me.

Once I arrived, I laid it out and took another look. The deck is almost entirely defense, and I was worried that an opponent might set up a quick attack and use Gusts to take out my wimps before I could do anything. To counter that, I decided to toss in 4 Energy Removal (the deck already had 2 Super Energy Removal). I figured that the removal could slow down an opponent long enough to get my damage swap/removal set up. It did.

Here’s the list I ran. At the bottom, I’ll give a quick run-down of how the deck works.

Pokemon: 14
4 Chansey (Base)
2 Mr. Mime (Jungle)
2 Abra (Base)
2 Kadabra (Base)
2 Alakazam (Base)
1 Meowth (Jungle)
1 Persian (Delta Species)

Trainers: 24
4 Energy Removal
2 Super Energy Removal
2 Scoop Up
3 Pokemon Center
2 Item Finder
2 Computer Search
2 Professor Oak
2 Gust of Wind
2 Master Ball
2 Dual Ball
1 Pokemon Retriever

Supporters: 8
2 Celio’s Network
2 Lanette’s Net Search
1 Wally’s Training
1 Mr. Stone’s Project
1 Forrest Guardian
1 Island Hermit

Energy: 14
7 Psy Energy
2 Recycle Energy
2 Full Heal Energy
3 Double Rainbow Energy

The idea is to start with Chansey. If you can use his Scrunch attack to slow down the opponent, that’s great. You can also use Scoop Up to clear damage off of him (or as an alternative to retreating). Energy Removal is a very nice way to add to this stall (and ruin your opponent’s chance of ever doing anything useful in some cases). While stalling with that wall, you need to build up Alakazam (and maybe Persian) on the bench.

Once Alakazam is set up, then you can start moving damage counters around. I would usually spread them out evenly among the benched Chanseys. That reduces the chance of a Gust KOing one. If you have a Scoop Up, you can put up to 110 damage on a Chansey (without energy on him) and Scoop him. If not, just wait until you start getting uncomfortable with all the counters, move them to any un-energied Pokemon you have, and play Pokemon Center. That’s a sure-fire way to annoy your opponent.

At some point, you will want to attack. If you’ve devastated your opponent enough, you can use Chansey’s Double Edge attack. It does 80 to the opponent, but it also does 80 to Chansey. To use this effectively, you need to be fairly certain that your opponent can’t do 40 damage to Chansey on his turn. If he can’t, then you can just swap the damage back to the bench, and do it all over again.

Persian’s sniping attack also turned out to be pretty good. It only does 30, but that worked well against some wimpy benched guys. The Double Rainbow Energy helps Persian but reduces the output to only 20. Kadabra can attack for 50, but usually you’d need to evolve him to Alakazam. In the original deck, Kadabra would be a main attacker. Here, it didn’t usually happen that way. Alakazam is a bit of a last-ditch attacker. He can confuse the opponent, but it doesn’t seem worth it usually.

Chris and Ben Waiting For the Tourney to Start

It still seems that the deck is VERY lacking in the offense department. The combination of massive defense and energy devastation proved to be too much for what my opponents had prepared for. I think that some well-timed Gust of Wind or a speedy attacker would have wrecked me. As it turned out, though, this was the right combination for the day’s metagame.

Becky Adam — Becky and Adam Getting Prepared for the Tourney

I’d like to say “Thanks!” to the players in Rapid City. You guys run a great league. I wish ours was run that well. It really helps when the league is run by actual players that are passionate about the game and bringing new people to it. I think that “Adam” and “Ben” are planning a trip to Colorado for regionals. If you happen to play ’em, say “Hi!” for me. As for me, I’m getting ready to go to Wisconsin for regionals.

Pokemon Art Website

Comments, New Artwork, and a Road Trip

Ed March 30, 2010 14 Comments

Ava created another piece of art for the website. This time, she has combined the forces of Vulpix and Uxie to create Vuluxie. I can’t say, for certain, why. I can’t pretend to understand the mind of an artist. I have no such talent, so these things are above my comprehension.

No, on to today’s news. Cheffords, who recently wrote about his experiences at the Michigan State tourney, contacted me to inform me that some of his comments were missing. Low and behold, he was right. I had wondered why we weren’t getting very many comments lately. Well, it seems that people were commenting all along. It was just that the automatic comment SPAM filter system was marking the vast majority of comments as SPAM. Indeed, there are a lot of comments that are SPAM. It’s a sad reality, but when your real comments get tossed in with that garbage, it becomes a huge problem. Of course, we’re trying to create an atmosphere where people can share ideas and comment on people’s experiences, decklists, questions, etc. That’s hard to do if those ideas and comments get automatically discarded.
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Deck Discussion

Deck Spotlight: Flyperior (Flygon and Rhyperior Lock and Mill)

Pikkdogs March 26, 2010 25 Comments

Hello to all members of Team Omar. My name is Pikkdogs, or Josh, and I am pleased to present you with my first post. I first started following Team Omar a few months ago when Omar referenced one of my articles from SixPrizes.com. From then on I have enjoyed reading some of the things included on this site. Now, I am proud to present my first article.

This article will be about the deck that I just took to the Michigan State Championships. I call it the Flyperior Lock and Mill deck. Usually Flygon is paired with either Machamp or Donphan Prime, my deck forsakes all those fighting Pokemon for another one, Rhyperior DP. The decks strategy is to use Flygon Lv.x RR and Rhyperior to lock in a weak opponent and then mill them, or discard cards from their deck.

The Basics

There are certain steps that allow the user to do this. The first step is to establish a Flygon Lv.x, with a Trapnich Sw underneath it, and a Memory Berry attached to it. With Memory Berry, Flygon can now use the attacks “Inviting Trap” and “Sand Tomb.” First the user would use “Inviting Trap” to select a weak Pokemon such as Claydol GE or Mr. Mime MT. Preferably the Pokemon you choose with this attack will have a high retreat cost and in ineffective attack. Then after you have the Pokemon you want in your opponent’s active position the user then uses the attack “Sand Tomb.” This attack does ten damage and does not allow the defending Pokemon to retreat next turn.

Once you have your trap set up, then the milling starts. With Flygon Lv.x’s Poke Body “Wind Erosion” you may discard the top card in your opponent’s deck between turns. Then, on the bench, the user can set up a Rhyperior DP. It’s Poke Power “Earth Fissure” lets the user discard the top three cards of the opponents deck. Then the user would make sure they have a Broken Time Space in play, and then use the card Super Scoop Up to pick up Rhyperior, and then lay the Pokemon back down and use “Earth Fissure” again. Then the user repeats this strategy until the opponent decks out.

My Decklist

This is the decklist that I used for states. It is not a perfect decklist, but it worked well for me. If anyone has any comments on it, I would love to hear them.

Pokemon

2-1 Palkia Lv.X – Used to bring up a benched Pokemon with his Poke Power “Restructure.” I use Platinum Palkia, but any Palkia can be used.

3-3 Claydol GE – A 3-3 Claydol line makes it easy to set up fast, it also helps feed Flygon’s “Power Swing” attack.

4 Trapinch SW – Believe it or not Trapinch has the attacks that the user will use most often. He is the back bone of this deck

2 Vibrava RR – A Blah Pokemon just used to evolve to Flygon can use the SW version if you want.

3 Flygon RR – He gives you the HP you need to make Trapinch’s attack works. His Poke Body rainbow float also lets you use Palkia Lv.x many times. His attack “Power Swing” can also be devastating.

1 Flygon Lv. X – Used because of “Wind Erosion.”

1-1-1 Rhyperior DP – Essential for the “Earth Fissure” Poke Power.

2 Unown G GE

1 Azelf LA

1 Relincanth SV – If your opponent starts getting smart and uses Unown g to negate Trapinch’s attacks, then use Relincanth to vanquish your opponent.

Trainers

2 Rare Candy

4 Bebes Search – Even though Claydol’s come easy to this deck, you still need lots of searching power for the Rhyperior Line.

3 Roseanne’s Research

1 Team Galactics Wager – Just a fun card.

3 Memory Berry – Three are essential

4 Super Scoop Up – Four are essential

1 Poke Radar – A staple of any deck I make.

2 Warp Point – Useful for getting a benched Palkia Lv.x

2 Broken Time Space

1 Luxury Ball

1 Night Maintenance

Energy

5 Fighting Energy

2 Water Energy – Just to give Palkia free retreat, he could also be used to attack if need be.

2 Double Colorless Energy – This is what you use if the trap situation is not working. This energy helps Flygon use the moves “Extreme Attack” and “Power Swing.”

Possible Techs

Rhyperior Sv-It is possible to extend the Rhyperior line and involve Rhyperior SV to finish off a Pokemon that you sand tombed, in order to mill more cards. The attack â€˜Deep Scrap” is pricey, but if you are able to power it up and combo it with sand tomb, you will hopefully mill some important cards.

Dugtrio Pt- This would cause you to change your strategy up a little. But Dugtrio’s Poke Body “Sink Hole” puts 2 damage counters on a Pokemon each time your opponent retreats them. If a user constantly attacked with inviting trap, you would force the opponent to either leave the Pokemon in the active position or put 2 damage counters on it.

Wobbufet promo- The new Wobbufet promo has a Poke Body named “Tenacious Bind.” This body would increase the retreat cost of your opponent’s Pokemon by 2. If for some reason the Flygon that your were trapping with has been knocked out, you can bring up Wobbufet and the defending Pokemon will still not be able to retreat because of the Poke Body. Allowing the user to buy time and set up another Flygon.

Pokemon Communication- This trainer is nice because it is like a Bebe’s search, it would help the user bring a Rhyperior out a turn or two earlier.

Flygon SW- Pokemon like dunsparce and Garchomp C can be an issue for this deck because of weakness. So if you run a Flygon SW (which is a fighting type) you will be able to set up a trap without running into a weakness problem. You can then put the level x on it when you are ready.

Match Ups

I have not tested this deck out against every deck out there, but I know a little bit about the match ups.

Gengar

Gengar is actually a pretty easy matchup for this deck. The Poke Body “Fainting Spell” won’t affect you because you will not be knocking out many Gengars. Just grab their Claydol and trap it. Eventually they probably will find a Gengar Lv.x. If they do, you must use “Extreme Attack” to get rid of it before “Level Down” affects the game too much.

SP Decks

I want to test more against SP’s, but it seems like most SP decks give this deck a run for its money. If the opposing player is running Mesprit or Claydol, just lock down that Pokemon. If not then wait till they use their Poke Turns up and then try to lock a Lucario GL, or Bronzong G. If that doesn’t work then hopefully use “Extreme Attack” to knock out Garchomp C. Lv.x and other Lv.x’s.

Rogue Decks

Rogue decks like Scizor/Cherrim, Arceus and others can pose a problem. They usually don’t run a Claydol, so the strategy is different. If possible find something to lock, for example I locked a Water Arceus in the recent States tournament. If locking doesn’t work then start using “Power Swing” and hopefully you can out power them.

Gyarados

I haven’t actually tested against Gyarados yet, but I will soon. I would imagine that Gyarados can be quite a problem here. But none the less, just bring up Regice and lock him up. And Hopefully they will roll tails enough times on their Super Scoop Up attempts.

Uxie/Shuppet/other Donk Deck

Donk Decks are a problem for this deck. Trapinch and Baltoy only have 50 HP, so if you don’t have a Palkia start, this could be a short game. But if the user is able to withstand the first couple turns and get a couple “Cosmic Power”s off, you should be in good shape. The opponent will use a lot of trainers to go through their deck very fast, this is in your advantage. Once they use a lot of cards, milling their deck is much easier. Make sure you have an active Flygon when they first attack with Uxie or Shuppet. They will probably retreat to Mr. Mime. Then you just need to lock Mr. Mime in his place. Then your opponent will flip for Super Scoop Up, if they aren’t able to hit a couple of heads, you will be able to mill most of their deck away.

Closing Thoughts

This is a nice fun deck. It will never be a super popular deck, but it can win (my top 8 at States proves that). Unfortunately it is a pretty expensive deck, so I wouldn’t recommend it for everyone. I thought of this deck when I heard a player ask if this game had any concept of mill. I said it didn’t but that didn’t mean that you can’t introduce it. I always liked Rhyperior DP and wanted a partner for him, and that partner was Flygon with Trapinch SW. Even though I came up with this deck idea by myself, I didn’t do it first. I learned that this combo was used before, but not to much success, and of course the Flygon trap strategy had been around for a long time I ever made this deck. If anyone has any suggestions to make the deck better, please let me know.

And thanks to Ed and Omar for letting me post on their site.

Peace.

State Championships Tourney Report

2010 Michigan State Pokemon Championship – Okemos Convention Center

Cheffords March 22, 2010 18 Comments

Hey there, Cheffords here. This is my first tournament report, and first post to TeamOmar.com. I hope you get something out of this, because I know I do when I read other people’s reports.

A little about myself: this is my second season playing the Pokemon card game. I got into the game when my daughter asked if she could start collecting the cards and I said yes but we had to learn the game too. Since then she and I have been going to league and tournaments together pretty regularly. My first season was a huge learning opportunity and it took me a long time to get enough knowledge of the cards and various strategies to feel like I was able to compete. Things changed this year during the very first City Championship when I ran a vanilla Shuppet deck and won first place. My daughter has been running Kingdra since Legends Awakened came out and she took third place at the same city’s.
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State Championships Tourney Report

Michael’s MN State Pokemon Championship report!

Michael March 21, 2010 5 Comments

Hey everyone, this is Michael making my first post on Team Omar. Anyways, for the past few weeks I had been testing and perfecting a Flyphan list, but on the Wednesday before states at the Misty Mountain weekly Pokemon Tournaments, Radu told me it was trash and instead wrote me up Jay H’s GG list. I couldn’t resist such a good list, so I quickly set out to gather up all the cards. I finished the list on that Friday, and went to testing. Through testing, I found the lock GG puts out is one of the funnest things to do. Lukas came over and stayed the night, and I beat him 4/5 times while he used SP. That Friday night, I also playtested against Thomas V’s Gyrados, and beat it 2/3 times. Unfortunately, I would not have that same luck the next day.

Now, my friend Sabrina will also be included in this report. Why? Well, before a few weeks ago, Sabrina would play the worst decks. They would be pyramid lines, like 3-2-1, with like 20 energy and like 10 trainers, a few of those trainers being like Marleys Request and Rival. I could not stand by any longer, so I built her a 3-2-3-1 Mchamp 2-1-2 Nidoqueen deck, so she could do good, and to show her that pyramid decks suck, and that real competitive decks win. Thats the small story behind her, and it showed.

Michael Playing at the Top Tables Surrounded By the Big Boys — Michael Playing at the Top Tables Surrounded By Sharks

Moving onto the tourney:

Michael playing: GG

My friend Sabrina playing: A Machamp Nidoqueen deck I built her.

Round 1: Michael S.(GG) VS Ryan Westgard(SP)

I start with a Ralts, he starts with Garchomp C. He has a godly hand, and I TGW(Team Galactics Wager) it away. He still manages to take three prizes, but then, I have the Gardevoir set up, and under the lock, SP could not do a thing. He keeps trying to play Uxie for 4 or 5, and I am like “No stupid, power lock”. He couldn’t do anything while I beat down everything he had.
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State Championships Tourney Report

Gyarados Rocks Minnesota State Championships

Ed March 20, 2010 6 Comments

After cities, I built an SP deck. You may have read about the LuxApe deck I was building. I had thought it would be a deck that I could play at States, but the more I played it, the less I was confident with it as a tourney choice. A few weeks ago, I decided on playing Gyarados, and I feel that, in retrospect, it was a smart choice. Ava was ready to go with her Scizor/Cherrim deck that she’s been practicing with.

We woke up, watched a couple episodes of Indigo League, and then headed out for Misty Mountain Games. It’s about a 45 minute drive from our house, and we arrived around 9:30. I had our decklists ready, so registration was smooth sailing.

The Team Omar contingent consisted of Omar, Abdi, Tre, Louis, Ava, and myself. I hope I get this right. Omar played LuxChomp. Abdi played Jumpluff. Tre played Flygon. Louis played Typhlosion. Hopefully, one or more of them will add their report sometime. I know that Michael (who also posts here) is on the hook for a report, but we’ll get to that later. Let’s get to the action from Ava’s and my perspectives.

Round 1: Traci W. (Feraligatr Prime, Gyarados G, and other water Pokemon)
When I sat down, she told me that all I had to do was let her take at least one prize. I must be a jerk, because I didn’t. I actually wanted her to take a prize, but she really couldn’t. She played a Rain Dance deck, but she only got about 2 energy the entire game. That’s not enough for Feraligatr and his pals. I got set up rather quickly. I think I started with Crobat G active, went second, played Collector, and Impersonated Felicity’s and was set up by turn 2. It went fairly quickly after that.

The interesting part was that Ava played Traci’s son, Chris, at the same time. This was Ava’s second tourney, and her first was winless. Ava pulled out an awesome sudden-death victory to start the day, so we knew that she wouldn’t be winless this time.
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State Championships

Pokemon State Tournament Tomorrow

Ed March 19, 2010 4 Comments

First of all, I need to apologize for the lack of posts lately. This last week or two, whenever I’ve had some Pokemon time, I’ve used it to prepare for the Pokemon TCG State Tourney. That means I’ve been pretty focused, and it obviously hasn’t been on the website.

My daughter Ava and I plan to go to tomorrow’s tourney together. There we will meet the rest of the Team Omar guys and play cards for fun and profit. Anyway, I hope we can achieve at least one of those goals. This will be Ava’s 2nd tournament. Last time she played Shuppet at Cities and didn’t win a match, so I am really hoping that this time will be an improvement for her. I think she has a good deck that she knows how to play well, but she kinda clams up a bit when she goes up against other people. She has a tendency to play slowly and decide not to make certain plays that she would otherwise see. She’s only 6, so she has a lot of growing to do still, but I still wish that she would get some wins to help her feel better about herself.

As for me, I feel pretty comfortable with the deck I’ve chosen. It has gone through a fair bit of testing, and I’ve decided to keep it simple. I kept trying to tech it for certain things and tune it to be more versatile, but I scrapped all that. I’m going for the straight-forward focused approach, and I feel much more at ease with it now. I really think that you need to play what you know and what you’re comfortable with. Stretching your horizons is great when you are practicing, and sometimes it leads to a new level of comfort with something you were previously at odds with. When it’s time to win, though, you have to evaluate not only what will win, but what you can win with. That’s where I’m at, now. I’m not sure that I can win every matchup, but if I played a deck that I feel would be stronger all around, I would be weaker playing it.

So, we will wake up tomorrow, eat some breakfast, maybe watch an episode of Indigo League, and then head out to the competition. Soon after, I plan to post a tournament report, and then I’ll let you know which decks we played and how we did. I hope to get some other people to post their reports, too.

If you have a report you’d like me to post, let me know. Also, the same goes for Deck Workshops or just about any sort of article you think would be suited for the site. If you ever want to contact me, just leave a comment on one of my posts and as me to email you.

Website

Zigzagoon and Team Omar

Ed March 11, 2010 2 Comments

According to Bulbapedia, “As Zigzagoon shows an interest in everything it happens to see, it always zigs and zags, even leaving distinguishable zigzag footprints.” We at Team Omar are also interested in many different things, so today, we will zig and zag leaving a footprint.

For a website, though, the footprint is a bit different. The trail left for you to follow us is at TeamOmar dot INFO. That’s our footprint. If you want to find the real Team Omar, though, you will now find us at TeamOmar dot COM. Don’t worry, though. Until the footprints are washed away, you will still find us the old way. Okay, let’s drop the Zigzagoon bit.

What I’m trying to tell you is that we used to be at a different web URL. I thought that the site deserved a real dot com address, so I switched from .info to .com. The old URLs should still work, but not forever. If you have ever linked to Team Omar on another website, please change your links to www.teamomar.com!

If you’ve told your friends to check the site out, please let them know of the URL change. As I said, the old links won’t work forever. At some point, they’ll stop redirecting to .com.

If you haven’t posted the Team Omar URL ( www.teamomar.com ) anywhere or told anyone about the site, maybe this is a good time to do it. More people will lead to much more interesting and enriching discussions.

Thanks trainers!

Deck Workshop

Tyranitar Deck Workshop

Ed March 9, 2010 23 Comments

I don’t even know how to properly set this article up. You see, it’s not my deck, and I’m not the one that wants help with it. The problem is that I can’t seem to teach Abdi how to log into these internets. I’ve been waiting for almost a week for him to post this article asking for help with his Tyranitar deck. Last time I saw him play it, he was whining about how it wasn’t working well enough and fast enough, and he wanted suggestions. I figured “Who would be better to help him than you guys?,” so I told him to post his plea for help here. Well, since then, that Noctowl article has sat there waiting to be bumped from top spot, and I feel like we need something new for people to read. I guess that means that I have to post Abdi’s help request for him, and maybe if I disparage him enough in the process, he’ll finally log in to defend himself. It seems like a long-shot.

The problem, though, is that I don’t know Abdi’s current decklist. Omar might, though, so hopefully we’ll get a reply from him. For now, I’m going to leave this rather simple. I’ll post a decklist that I got from a thread on PokeGym by “Burglar Matt,” and start editing that. I’ll edit this info when I get something better. I want this to be a placeholder to start discussing the deck. What needs to be in? What are popular misconceptions? What are things you’ve tried, and how did they work/fail?

Pokemon: 20
4 Tyranitar (SF)
2 Pupitar (SF)
4 Larvitar (SF)
4 Sableye (SF)
1 Pachirisu (GE)
1 Unown G (GE)
2 Claydol (GE)
2 Baltoy (GE)

Trainers: 11
1 Luxury Ball
4 Rare Candy
4 Super Scoop Up
2 Expert Belt

Supporters: 11
4 Roseanne’s Research
3 Felicity’s Drawing
3 Bebe’s Search
1 Team Galactic’s Wager

Stadium: 3
2 Moonlight Stadium
1 Broken Time Space

Energy: 15
4 Special Dark
11 Dark

Card Discussion

HGSS06 Noctowl Promo With Gengar

Ed February 22, 2010 7 Comments

I recently made a deal in which I received a bunch of HeartGold SoulSilver Promo Hoothoot and Promo Noctowl. These are numbered HGSS05 and HGSS06. I bring this up, because I want to know what they are worth (in various ways).

The simple “worth” is monetary worth, so I want to know if anyone is looking for these cards. We’re not running this site to help sell cards, but I feel no shame in using it to advertise some of my haves. I just figure it’s a side-benefit of running a site. You may have caught on that I am selling some of the cards I just obtained, so here is my eBay listing.

Thanks, I sold ’em all.

I quickly looked at other auctions, and I tried to price mine below them all. That’s my only sense of what they are worth at the moment. If you’re interested in them, please feel free to buy them from me on eBay. I promise, I won’t mind. If, however, you’d like to make some other sort of offer (like a trade, an offer to buy a bunch at a time, or whatever), leave a comment here, and I will be able to email you.

Now, let’s move on to the part that most people will be interested in. What is this card worth to a deckbuilder?

Hoothoot: On the face of it, HGSS05 isn’t that great. In my opinion, the best way to compare him is to his Diamond & Pearl and GS brethren. They all have the same HP, so that’s a wash. The DP and GS versions both have a Hypnosis attack for one colorless that puts the defender to sleep. The promo version’s single colorless attack does 10 with no sleepiness. The DP Hoothoot can do 30 for two, but it’s flippy. The GS can tackle for 20 with two. The real difference, I think, is in the weakness, because they are all -20 resistant to fighting and have a single retreat. The GS weaknesses, as you should know by now, are all X2, so the DP version wins here with only +10 to lightning. The only big difference left is that HGSS05 can not be asleep. Please comment if you have any good use for his Poke Body.

Noctowl: I’m not going to go into all the details comparing the brethren here, because I think that the main issue here are the Poke Powers. DP Noctowl doesn’t have a Poke Power, but the regular GS and promo GS versions both do. The regular one lets you draw a card each turn. It is good, but that’s not what we’re here to discuss. With Poke Powers, it’s not as much about which version is better, but how you can exploit each one for a specific situation or deck.

HGSS06 Promo Noctowl’s Poke Power is called “Night Scope.” It lets you look at your opponent’s hand once each turn. Well, it’s nice to see the opponent’s hand, but is it really worth running a Stage-1 and its basic just to do it? Generally, I’d say “NO!,” but, as is with many Powers/Bodies, it can be used in the right combos. I’ll suggest one, and I’d love to hear your comments about others that you might think useful.

Oh wait, I already told you in the title. There goes my surprise ending, Promo Noctowl + Gengar SF. Gengar’s Poltergeist attack does 30 times the number of trainer, supporter, and stadium cards in your opponent’s hand. On one hand, you can just do the attack, see the opponent’s hand, and do the damage. It’ll do the same whether or not you knew the total before-hand or not, but the advantage that Noctowl gives you is that you get to know ahead of time. That way you can decide if you even want to do Poltergeist or some other attack. Gengar’s Shadow Room is also a good attack, so Noctowl gives you all the data ahead of time so you can properly decide which to do. It also gives you the option of attacking with another Pokemon, if you don’t like what you see in the hand.

Of course, adding Noctowl to any deck has its costs. There’s deck space, bench space, and risk vs. reward costs to consider. You might even consider the monetary cost associated with obtaining the cards (as mentioned in the part where I shamelessly plugged my eBay auction). So, what’s it worth to you? Have you got some combo figured out that offsets Noctowl’s coats?

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