One Hit KO

After a very disappointing run at states (6-1 then losing in Top 8 at MN States, then going 3-3 in NV) I was sure of two things: 1) I would be playing LuxChomp again and 2) I was going to fit Dialga in my list.  Dialga was only a 1-1 tech, but it helped with a tremendous number of matchups.  Some of the matchups that I want Dialga in against are: Mewperior, Donphan, Uxie/Shuppet donk, Charizard, Machamp/Vileplume and Vilegar.  Add all of these plus the fact that I refused to scoop to Mewtwo (as I did in round 6 of MN States to Radu) and Dialga was going to make the cut.  I was debating a few other spots in the deck, but never questioned the deck itself.  I also had one spot built in because I had determined I wasn’t going to run Weavile G (something I would later regret).  The Lostgar threat turned out to be non-existent and I felt Dialga helped the Vilegar matchup more.  The other change to the deck since states that I LOVED was the inclusion of Twins.  It can tilt the mirror single handedly, and is an all around great card.

That's Andy To the Right (next to Mike and across from Pooka and Nick)

The week before the event, I had my list settled except for three slots.  I was questioning my Energy Gain/Power Spray/Junk Arm count.  I currently had it at 4/2/1.  If felt the extra energy gain helped a lot in the mirror, and the Sprays would be less than optimal against Spiritomb and Vileplume decks.  I later switched it to 3/3/1 and felt that the more well-rounded approach would be better, but I would later regret this change.  I was also debating my Bebe’s/Communication count; I was currently at 2/0.  Jay Hornung advocated Communication, but I felt that the chance of prizing the single Bebe’s that I needed to get Dialga G Lvl. X against trainer lock was too much, so I decided to stick with 2/0.  My last question was whether I would cut my 3-1 Uxie line down to fit 1 Chatot.  I felt that the 3rd Uxie helped so much against the possible wave of Machamp that I needed to leave it in.

I get to the tournament a half hour before registration ends, turn in my final list (I switched the Gain/Spray count that morning) and wait a LONG time before the event gets under way.

Continue reading "Topping Midwest Regionals with Andy Wieman"

Hello everyone in Omar Nation! This is Joel here with a report on the Michigan State Championships that took place over the weekend in Lansing, Michigan.

Before I go on any further with my report, I’d like to thank Pikkdogs and the rest of the Team Omar staff for inviting me to write for you guys. Here is a little bit about myself, I have been playing since the Base Set, took a hiatus when the first e-reader set came out, then got back into the game around Diamond and Pearl. But enough about me, let’s go on with the article!

I decided to run Luxchomp for this event because that was the deck I felt most comfortable with. Luxchomp has an excellent track record and hasn’t really disappointed me. I’ll post my deck list at the end of the article. For this event, there were 76 Masters, with 7 rounds and a top 16 cut.

Round 1 vs Marvin P with Luxchomp

My first round match was a mirror. I have never met Marvin before but our pre-game talks give off the impression that he is a really nice guy. The game starts and I go first. I start with an Ambipom G and a Bronzong G on my bench, with a Double Colorless Energy, Energy Gain, and Cyrus in my hand. He has a Garchomp C active, Luxray GL and Dialga G on his bench. I go first and get a quick knockout first turn with Ambipom’s “Snap Attack”. He goes, benches a Crobat G, and uses Flash Bite to drop a damage counter on my Bronzong G, then passes. I draw, and get a Pokemon Collector. I get Uxie, Luxray GL and Crobat G. I drop Crobat, Flash bite his Crobat, attach a lightning energy to Luxray, then Snap Attack his active Luxray for 60. He goes, draws, and attaches to his active Luxray and passes. It seems he didn’t have anything playable in his hand, which is odd because there is usually something playable. I Poke-turn my Ambipom and Crobat, I flash bite his Bronzong, and promote Luxray to Bright Look his Crobat. I bite to get a 2 prize lead. It was after this turn that the game started to go downhill for me. He finally draws a Cyrus which allows him to catch up. I made my terrible misplay here as I played Professor Oak’s New Theory over Cyrus, and end up getting a terrible hand followed by terrible draws. He finally catches up and gets a prize lead over me. As soon as he gets his prize lead, time is called. After realizing that there isn’t much I can do in the next 3 turns, I scoop and get a terrible case of the first round jitters. It was a good game though.
0-1

Continue reading "Another Michigan State Championships Report!"

Hey all members of Omar-Nation, Pikkdogs here with a little bit of a strategy article.  This site hasn’t had a Luxchomp article posted here for quite sometime, and I am pretty proud of it.  But alas, we can’t ignore it forever, so here is an article about Luxchomp.                       

We all know that since it became popular, Luxchomp has been the winning-est deck in the format.  It is a great deck that is lightning quick and features a lot of elements of disruption.  Of course it features the Pokemon Luxray Gl and Garchomp C, which gives the deck a lot of advantages.  But to give it even more advantages, Luxchomp players have teched out their decks with a lot of different cards.  There are too many cards to include them all in every deck.  So to make things easier, this article will tell you a little more about the techs, and you can include the techs that fit your metagame the best.

The Staples– Before we talk about techs, lets first look at staples.  I consider that Luxchomp …

Hey Everyone, this is Pikkdogs and Ed here to give you a dual article about the Cities we attended this weekend.  We’re going to see how merging the two reports works.  Pikkdogs played on Jan 8th, and Ed played both the 8th and 9th.  Pikkdog’s matches will be in blue and Ed’s in red.  The article intro is by Pikkdogs, and the wrapup is by Ed.

Jan 8th Misty Mountain Games in Burnsville

I was able to attend a tournament in Minnesota this weekend.  I normally play in Michigan, but I spend my time away from school in Minnesota so I was able to attend the tournament on Saturday in Burnsville, MN.  I was really excited to go to this tournament, because it was slated to be the reunion of Team Omar.  This is because both me and Omar will be in town, so the team will be able to get together for one more tournament.  I have fond memories of this past summer, when Omar won 3 cities so I was excited to see if we can take another victory medal.

I always like to play in Minnesota because the Metgame is much more relaxed.  It is a …

It was the best of times… and then the next day it was the best of times again.  Ugh, what a start.  Sorry about that

Ed asked me to write a tournament report about my weekend at the Source and Dreamers.  I usually tweet updates as the tournaments go on (www.twitter.com/wiem0014) so those notes helped a lot in writing this report.  Sorry if I don’t remember names or all of the details.

The previous weekend Emmanuel, Lukas, Nick and I traveled to Madison and LaCrosse for the first weekend of Cities.  I performed extremely sub-par that weekend, mostly due to bad luck, but also due to a costly misplay on Saturday.  I ended up 2-3 Saturday (after starting 0-3) with Luxchomp  This was the deck I was most comfortable with, winning States with it last year, and testing it heavily for Regionals and Nats.  It was the right deck in a field of Gyarados, but I started against two Machamp decks and couldn’t recover.  I finished 3-2 on Sunday while playing a Machamp deck focused on the Prime more than most.  Jay Hornung (from IA) ended up winning both days with Luxchomp and going 13-1 on the weekend.…

Greetings everyone.  This is Pikkdogs, here to give you a rundown of the results of the Fall Battle Roads.

This is of course the first tournament season of the new format.  There was a little amount of uncertainty coming into the season about how the loss of Claydol would effect decks.  There was also the big SP question.  Would it rule the format?  Or would trainer lock decks or Machamp decks run all over them? To answer these and other questions I will give you a list of things we learned from the Battle Road season.

Not that much has changed: SP still ruling

Based on statistics provided by Pokegym; Luxchomp decks have won 34 BR’s, and Dialgachomp decks have won 26 times.  These decks, which work similarly, have won many more times then any other deck.  The next closest deck is Gengar Viletomb with 15 wins.

Time and time again Luxchomp decks have proved to be the most consistent decks out there.  They mix in the best combination of speed and disruption to run the table.

The format has changed to make life a little tougher for SP players, so lets talk a little about that.

Continue reading "What we learned from 2010 Fall Battle Roads"