Mew Prime

Pedro’s Corner: A Review of the Lost Zone

Pedro October 14, 2011 10 Comments

Hey all you earthlings, this is Pedro here. Pikkdogs receieved a one article suspension for his cussing last week. And because the show must go on, Ed asked me to fill in for him. While I don’t know much about this game, I should be able to do better than a fat kid that doesn’t know his grammar rules.

Before we get into the article, we should take care of these italics. Even though my normal langauge translates into italics, it would be hard to read an article full of italics, so I bought an italics converter. If I just pop it into my inter-dimensionary porthole like so, that should do it. Okay lets get to the article.

Obviously I am an extra-dimensionary being, so I don’t know that much about Pokemon, but one thing that interests me is the Lost Zone. Since I have to travel through an inter-dimensionary porthole, a portal to the Lost Zone feels very familiar. So I will start talking about Lost Zone cards and Lost Zone decks.

The Most Versatile Lost Zone Card- Lost Remover
Read More

Pikks Three

Pikkdogs Pikks Three: Battle Road Edition: Mew Prime, Lost Remover, and Tornadus

Pikkdogs September 22, 2011 4 Comments

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there. This is Pikkdogs here with his sidekick Pedro, and we are bringing you a Pikk Three article.

Hey Pedro, I couldn’t help but notice that you were absent in my last article.

Yes I was.

The word on the street was that Ed had suspended you for one article, is that true?

Absolutely not. I was actually traveling in a different dimension that day.

Really, what dimension were you in?

Well, one pretty much similar to this one, except that you were a good Pokemon player.

Okay, let’s just go on to the article. If you haven’t seen a Pikk Three article before-

count yourself lucky-

As I was saying, if you haven’t seena Pikk Three article, it is basially a big card of the day article. It reviews three cards; one card that is popular, one that I feel is under-played. and one that is from a new or un-released set.

Card #1 The Staple-Mew Prime

ï»¿Description– Mew is a 60 HP Psychic Pokemon with a weakness to Psychic and a free retreat cost. His Poke Body “Lost Link” lets you use the attacks from any Pokemon in the Lost Zone (either yours or your opponent’s). He only has one attack, “See Off”, which for one psychic energy lets you put one Pokemon from your deck to your Lost Zone.

Mew has seen some play since its release in Triumphant. It was first used to assist Gengar Prime in putting Pokemon in the Lost Zone. However, that deck wasn’t all that good. Its meager HP prevented it from seeing serious play until this season. It is now good in a deck that uses Mew and Vileplume to lock your opponent. It is also the best Gothitelle counter. You just need to “See Off” something like Cincinno or Jumpluff, and you will be able to OHKO Gothitelle very easily.

Analysis– Well, the 60 HP is never good. Donphan Prime and Yanmega Prime can easily knock it out. But, you do have 6 prizes to work with. If you can lock down an opponent or knock out a very important Pokemon, you will gladly sacrifice one Pokemon. Another problem with Mew Prime is that if you do not “See Off” early in the game, it can be hard to setup.

The good part about Mew is that he is very versatile. You can use Mew Prime to trap, mill, Lost Zone, or attack. The Mew lock deck that is out right now is really good, it may not be the BDIF, but it is awfully good. Attacking with Mew might take a while, but when you get a good setup you can attack with any Pokemon in the format from a basic Pokemon.

In this Battle Road season you will have to watch out for Mew. The lock deck will easily beat almost any deck in the format with a little luck. And even if you don’t play against that deck, you will see Mew in other decks, so you will need to know how Mew is used.

One good way to counter Mew is to play Mew yourself. If your opponent tries to “See Off” anything, you will be able to use the attack first on your opponent. You can use Muk’s “Sludge Drag” attack to bring up your opponent’s Vileplume, or you can use Jumpluff’s attack to knock out any active Mew.

Final Rating– 8/10– It is not a perfect card and has a lot of drawbacks, but it is a very useful card in this format. It also is a very fun card.

Card #2- The Underdog-Lost Remover

ï»¿Description– Lost Remover is a very simple item card. It lets you put one special energy card attached to your opponent’s Pokemon, and put it in their Lost Zone. The card has never really seen that much play. Last year it did see a little play in a Dialgachomp deck, but it was more of a rogue choice.

Rogue Choice, isn’t that the name of a Bruce Springsteen Album?

I don’t think so.

Analysis– I think that Lost Remover is a good card in this format. Right now almost every deck is playing some kind of Special Energy, mostly either DCE or Rainbow Energy. Cincinno is the card that has possibly the fastest growing play rate of any card in the format, and Cincinno almost exclusively uses Double Colorless Energy to attack. There are a lot of other attackers that use DCE like Zoroark, Beartic, and Zekrom/Reshiram. It can be very disruptive to take away a DCE because it is very hard to get a DCE when you need it.

The major problem with Lost Remover is that it is hard to fit into a decklist. A lot of Pokemon that use DCE are easy to knock out, so it doesn’t seem right to waste a card on taking out a card that will just get knocked out this turn anyway. And since it is very hard to get DCE back from the discard pile, putting the card in the discard pile is almost as good as putting it in the Lost Zone.

I do think that this card is as useful as ever and that it could have a great impact on Battle Roads if it gets some play. One good play is to Lost Remove an active Poekmon’s Special Energy, and then catcher up something on the bench that they were going to use next turn. This would leave them without an option to attack.

Final Rating– 7.75/10– This card is really under-played right now and I think it could make a good impact on Battle Roads if it gets some play.

Card #3 The Young Gun-Tornadus

ï»¿Description– Tornadus is a basic Pokemon with 110 HP, a 1 retreat cost, a weakness to lightning, and a resistance to fighting, He has two attacks. The first one, “Energy Wheel”, just lets you move one energy from a benched Pokmeon to Tornadus. The second attack, “Hurricane”, does 80 damage for CCC, and you move 1 basic energy from Tornadus to a benched Pokemon.

Tornadus is fairly new and has not seen a lot of play so far. It has mostly seen play in a deck with Zekrom, to be a Donphan counter. It is also used in the upstart Mew/Cincinno deck, also as a Donpha counter.

Analysis– I think Tornadus is fairly cool card. One way of getting around the
energy moving effect of “Hurricane” is to only attach special energy cards. If you only have a DCE and a Rescue Energy, there will be no basic energy to move to the bench.

People mostly talk about it as a Donphan Prime counter. The rationale is that Donphan Prime can only hit it for 40, while Tornadus can hit it back for 60.

The problem with that is that a lot of people are playing Zekrom with their Donphan. So in order to OHKO a Tornadus, all the Donphan player will have to do is to use “Earth Quake” 4 times (or attach Rainbow Energies), and they wll be able to “Outrage” for the needed 120 damage for a knock out.

Another problem is that if you want to try to knock out Donphan Prime with Tornadus, you will basically need to have only Toranduses in play. If you have anything else, the Donphan Player will use Pokemon Catcher to bring it active, and by pass the whole Tornadus thing.

Final Rating–7/10-In some situations Tornadus does work, but I feel that most times Tornadus will not work the way we think it will. Yes it is still a good card that deserves some play, but I think it has receieved a little too much hype.

So, Pedro…………That’s all I got for today. Why don’t you tell the good people how there voice can be heard.

Sure thing. If you would like to correct all the errors Pikkdogs made, just leave your thoughts about these cards in the comment box.

So Pedro, how do we normally end things here.

Well, we normally dance to Bruce Springsteen’s song, “Rogue Choice.”

No we never dance here, and that’s not even a song.

Well, can we show a picture of him dancing?

Sure

Card Discussion

Techs That You Will See at Fall Battle Roads 2011

Pikkdogs September 14, 2011 5 Comments

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there. This is Pikkdogs and his sidekick Pedro here with a strategy article of sorts.

Before we get into the article I would like to thank my buddy Mark for writing the last article on the website, the one about Lilligant. I hope this begins a long friendship with Mark and ONEHITKO.com. Oh, before we get off the subject, I got a story for you, Pedro, you’ll like this one.

I doubt it, but go ahead.

Well when Mark and I were talking about the article, he hinted that we might not want to publish the article. As if we had some kind of quality control or something.

Yeah that is funny. You gotta have quality before you have quality control.

Haha, Like we have an Editor or something. We just drive around down-town Detroit and ask the homeless to write articles for us in exchange for the promise of chicken. But there’s never any chicken. We publish whatever they give us, and hope it makes sense.

Of course we do. And nope, there’s never any chicken. But, if you wanna check out Mark’s article, click here. And thanks again Mark, we’re happy to have you around.

When talking about decks this year, the big word to use is variant. With few exceptions (Reshiphlosion, mainly), most decks have a lot of room to be used to cater to your own play-style and your local metagame. No two Stage 1 Rush, Gothitelle, or Mew deck is the same because there is a lot of room to work with. Adding different cards makes the deck your own, and can give you an advantage in a Battle Road. Picking the right tech is every important. While it is impossible to talk about every tech that is out there right now, Pedro and I will do our best to talk about the most important techs out there.

Actually you will do that, and probably fail. While I will stand back and make fun of you.

Isn’t that what I said? Anyway, let’s go and talk about techs.

Starting Pokemon (Cleffa, Pichu, Manaphy, etc …)

The first techs we will look at are Pokemon that are usually looked upon as starters. A lot of decks run Cleffa as a starter, but if you have another starter or usually don’t need a starter, you could think of Cleffa as a tech in your deck for a better start or for hand refreshing to improve consistency.

Used For– I kind of already wrote about what it’s used for.

Yeah, good job ya jerk.

Thanks, Pedro. Anyway, you could use a starter like Cleffa as a tech to improve consistency or for a “just in case” card. If your deck is behaving normally and you draw into a Juniper, you might think that everything is fine. But if you get a really weird draw on your Juniper, you might need a starter like Cleffa to come in mid-game to help you recover from that weird draw you just got. Cleffa, Pichu, and Manaphy are good early game and mid game to improve consistency. If your deck does not already use a starter like this, you might want to consider teching in one just in case.

Used In– Decks like Mew that already have a different starter, or your deck that usually doesn’t use a starter.

Why it may be a good choice– It could be a good choice to run 1 of a starter just so you do not get screwed on the off chance that you get a weird draw. Also, it is always good to have at least 1 Pokemon with free retreat. It is also not a big investment, taking only 1 card slot in your 60 card deck is not a bad trade off for consistency.

Why there may be better choices– I usually play Battle Roads in a “balls to the walls” manner. I like to play risky decks and then go to a lot of tournaments and hope I get really lucky at one and win it all. Having more consistency is really important in a 9 round tournament like Nationals, but it may not be that important for a 4-5 round tournament like Battle Roads.

Tropical Beach

After Worlds everyone was talking about the promo card that was given away. Tropical Beach is a stadium card that lets you draw until you have 7 cards in your hand, and then your turn is over. The down side is your opponent can use it too.

Used For– Again, we have another consistency or setup card. Tropical Beach is a card that is mostly used to help you improve consistency. Since there is not a lot of draw power in the format, draw power, even if it is from a stadium, is valued. There are times when you run out of options mid game, and would gladly sacrifice an attacker for some draw power.

Used In– Could fit in all decks, but has mostly been talked about in Ross Dot Deck and Gothitelle.

Why it may be a good choice– A Bianca like card that nets you one extra card and is always in play is always nice. It improves consistency a lot.

Why there may be better choices– Tropical Beach is very expensive. If you are lucky you can get one for 50 bucks, but that still is out of the price range for a lot of players. Another strike against this card is that your opponent can also use it. Meaning that you could play a card that will help your opponent more than it will help you, which is never good. The final downside about Tropical Beach is that it is not searchable. This means that if you really want to use Tropical Beach and it is not in play, then you are out of luck. You will have to draw into it to use it.

Basculin Emerging Powers #24

Wait do you hear something Pedro

Ahhh I get it. Are you talking about the sound of my heart beat running away, beating like a drum and its coming your way, can’t your hear that boom badoom boom badoom, bass, he is that super Bass(culin)

Quick thinking Pedro.

Used For– Basculin is a Donphan destroyer. He has the “Flail” attack which lets you do 10 times the number of damage counters on Basculin. If you have a Vileplume on the bench it will be very hard for your opponent to get Donphan out of the active spot, and if you have Basculin active that has taken an “Earthquake” last turn, you will be able to OHKO Donphan. There is no way for the Donphan player to get out of this situation, if they would attack Basculin they know they would get knocked out last turn. But if they do not attack the game would end, and if they have not taken more prize cards than you, they will lose.

Used In– Mewlock

Why it may be a good choice– Very good Donphan counter in a deck with Vileplume.

Why there may be better choices– There are a lot of other ways to deal with Donphan Prime that do not involve Basculin. Like just using the Yanmega to snipe around Donphan, and then use Ambipom or Smoochum to move the energy off of Donphan. And if the Donphan player is winning, that super bass will be of no help because the opponent will just pass until either the game is over or your break your Basculin lock.

Mew Prime

Used For– Mew Prime is a very versatile tech. It can help in a lot of different matchups. It can be used to counter Gothitelle, or to counter other Mew decks. If you “See Off” your main attacker to the Lost Zone, you can then Mew next turn to attack Gothitelle for weakness. You could also use Mew to use the Mew player’s Muk, and then use “Sludge Drag” to bring up their Vileplume so you can knock it out next turn.

Used In– Almost any deck.

Why it may be a good choice– If you have a lot of item locking decks in your metagame, I think you should give Mew and Rainbow energies a very good look.

Why there may be better choices– If item lock is not prevalent in your area, Mew is probably not needed. You also don’t need it if you already have an answer to the trainer lock decks.

Solrock and Lunatone

Used For– Solrock and Lunatone are tech cards that are used to counter Gothitelle and Ross Dot Deck decks. Both Gothitelle and Ross Dot Deck decks like to pile up damage counters and then heal them with cards like Blissey Prime and Max Potion. Solrock has a Poke-Body that does not allow healing, so Solrock can be used to cunter these decks. If these decks are allowed to pile up damage and then heal, you will never be able to pile up enough damage. If Solrock and Luntone are in play, the damage counters will pile up fast.

Used In– A meta game that is heavy with item lock.

Why it may be a good choice– It only takes up 2 deck spaces and really gives you an advantage against Gothitelle.

Why there may be better choices– A lot of decks take up most of their bench spaces already, so using 2 more spaces is not feasable in some decks.

Ditto Triumphant

Used For– As mentioned earlier, bench spaces are at a premium in this format. A lot of decks use bench sitters like Vileplume and Reuniclus, and can clog up their bench really fast. If you play Ditto down your opponent will have to discard one of their Pokemon, if they have 5 on the bench. They will also not be able to play another one down until Ditto is taken out of play. This can be a very disruptive card, especially when people tend to put a lot of extra basics on the bench to make up for the Pokemon Catcher threat.

Used In– Can be used in any deck.

Why it may be a good choice– It is a very versatile tech that can be very disruptive against a lot of decks.

Why there may be better choices– You never know when Ditto will be needed, so it is hard to recommend using it. Also, the meager 40 HP is sniping bait for Yanmega Prime.

Tornadus

Used For– It is a Donphan Counter. It has an attack that can utilize DCE, and can knock out Donphan Prime in two hits. It also can only get 3HKOed by Donphan and his “Earthquake” attack. It is a card that has revolutionized the Zekrom deck and can be used in any deck with a bad Donphan matchup.

Used In– Zekrom and basically any other deck that uses DCE.

Why it may be a good choice– It is a great Donphan counter that is easy to fit in to a lot of decks. Not a lot of cards can be you quite as good of a shot against Donphan Prime, but Tornadus can pull it off fairly easily.

Why there may be better choices– You may have another anti-Donphan tech in mind, but overall Tornadus is the best.

Smoochum/Aipom.

I can track the use of Aipom back to Worlds 2011. Jason K. used it in a Mew lock deck to move the energy off the active onto the bench. A very handsome guy named Joshua Pikka-

Ahh, I don’t think he’s that handsome. I think he’s a fat guy who sits all day writing articles on a poor quality Pokemon website that nobody reads.

well I prefer handsome. Anyway, I can only track the use of Smoochum to my use in a mew lock deck in early September of 2011. I used it as a substiute for Aipom. Aipom is not a bad play, but Smoochum does what he does for free and retreats for free, although it is a lot tougher to donk Aipom.

Used For– Stalling, moving energy off of the active to a benched player. A lot of the Stage 1 Rush decks out there only play about 6 fighting energies. Imagine that you have 1 of those fighting energies prizes, 1 in the discard pile, 1 on the active, and 3 left in a 40 card deck. If the energy in play was moved onto the active, it could be pretty hard to get that energy back onto a Pokemon such as Donphan.

Used In– Mewlock, but anything with Vileplume.

Why it may be a good choice– If you cannot match each player’s hand size for Yanmega Prime, Donphan Prime will be a difficult change for a Mew deck. But, if you can move the energy off of Donphan, that player may not be able to attack next turn. This card could change the shape of a lot of different matchups.

Where there may be better choices– It is kind of hard to know if your opponent has another energy in his/her hand. To change the odds you can tech in Mr. Mime Cl, but that would take another valueable bench space. You might think that it could be better to just run that super bass, Basculin.

boom badoom, boom, boom, badoom.

Indeed. Well, Pedro we are finally done with this article.

You mean you are done speculating about cards that probably w on’t be played at all.

Yeah, that’s pretty much it.

Okay, then can I end the article?

I guess so, how are you going to end the article tonight.

How we always do it, just like the Teletubbies do. Bye bye Tinky Winky, bye bye Dipsy, bye bye Lala, bye bye Po. The sun is setting in sky, Teletubbies say good bye.

Wow, that was great Pedro, even though I don’t think that is how we usually end the articles, you had everything except that creepy baby in the sun.

I know, that baby was pretty creepy. You know I like these articles, we don’t pretend to know anything, we just sit here and talk about the Teletubbies.

Exactly, cause I know I don’t know anything. And you aren’t even human, you of course are a extra dimensional being without a body, so you can’t even play Pokemon.

True, but it is time to end the article, Teletubbie Bye Bye.

Deck Discussion

Mew Lock Deck Update and Testing Results

Pikkdogs September 8, 2011 13 Comments

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there. This is Pikkdogs here with his sidekick Pedro, here to give you an update on my Mew Prime deck.

The first post-catcher decklist I gave you was a Mew Prime deck. It relied on Vileplume to lock trainers, Pidgeot to stall, and Jumpluff to attack (through Mew Prime of course). Pedro, tell the nice people how to view the previous article.

If you were lucky enough to miss the last article about Mew Prime, and you for soe reason want to change your luck, you can view it here.

Thank You Pedro. Since the last article my mind has changed about Mew Prime a couple times. When I first tested it I thought it was one of the best decks in the post catcher era. Than I did more testing, built other decks, and played matches against other people. The final straw with my Mew deck was when Ed’s deck took apart my Mew deck.

If Ed beats you that bad, it indeed is a bad sign.

I agree Pedro. So after that match I decided to try to find a different deck. I tried a couple decks but nothing seemed to fit with me. I know that for Battle Roads I needed something with Vileplume, I thought Pokemon Catcher made Pokemon to complicated. After failing with a Beartic deck my mind kept on going back to the Mew deck. I had watched on thetopcut.net’s youtube channel that Jason K. had made a similar deck. His deck featured Sunflora HGSS and Aipom as tech cards.

At first I had no confidence in a bad tech for a bad Jumpluff deck and a random common like Aipom. I just didn’t see how that would work in a deck like Mew. It was partly my ego, and partly my previous experience with Sunflora. But eventually I was desperate enough to try the deck out. Even I was shocked at the results.

Who would have guessed, Jason.K knows more about Pokemon then you. You won a pre-release and he only won at a little tournament called worlds.

I know weird right?

Anyway, I studied the videos on thetopcut.net’s youtube site and was able to come up with a rough decklist of what Jason was running. I made some adjustments for my own playstyle, tweaked a few things, and changed a couple tires. What I came up with was a deck that was very disruptive and very fast. It does struggle in certain situations, but I think this version of the deck was one of the best versions that I have tested. I hope to keep testing the deck and maybe take it to a Battle Roads.

I won’t talk about how this deck works too much because I talked about it in the last article.

Thanks for sparing us.

Your welcome Pedro. But I must talk about how Sunflora changes the deck. Sunflora makes the deck a lot faster by letting you search out Vileplume and Yanmega parts from your deck. It is very important to get a turn 2 Sunflora. The odds of getting a turn 2 Vileplume goes up by a lot if you get a turn 2 Sunflora.

Never tell me the odds.

Okay Han Solo. At first I thought that running Sunflora would slow the deck down a little, but I have always been able to get the Sunflora out fast, and the Sunflora always gets Vileplume out faster. And getting the Vileplume out faster is what will give you success at Battle Roads.

Here is a version of my list that I am working with. I am probably planning on playing this deck for Battle Roads, but the list is not yet tournament worthy. It is still just my testing deck so there are some tweaks to be made before a tournament. It is a decent list to start, but I admit that it is far from perfect.

Pokemon-26

4-Mew Prime
3-Yanma
3-Yanmega Prime
2-Muk Ud
1-Jumpluff HGSS
1-Cleffa HGSS
1-Smoochum HGSS-The idea here is to use Smoochum to deny energies to active Pokemon. It works against low energy Donphan decks and cards that use more than 1 energy to attack. It works a lot better than I thought it would.
3-Oddish
1-Gloom
2-Vileplume
1-Jirachi-The idea here is to spread damage with Yanmega and use Jirachi to de-evolve Pokemon for an easy knock-out.
2-Sunkern
2-Sunflora-This card speeds up the deck a lot.

Trainers-22

4-Pokemon Collector
4-Judge
4-Juniper
3-Rare Candy
3-Pokemon Communication
1-Flower Shop Lady
2-Professor Elm’s Training Method
1-Copy Cat

Energy-12

Psychic-6
Grass-2
Rainbow-4

One change from Jason K.’s deck to my version is the substitution of Aipom for Smoochum.

What a coincidence, I used to dance under the name Smoochums.

Really, I used to dance under the name “Spray Splash”. Anyway, back to Smoochum. As I mentioned he is used to stall the game by moving energy around on your opponent’s side of the field. I chose to use Smoochum instead of Aipom because they do a similar thing, but Smoochum attacks and retreats for free. The bad things about Smoochum is that he only has a donkable 30 HP, and has the ability to stay asleep while on your turn. Using either Aipom or Smoochum would be a good play, which card you play is more of a personal preference.

Testing Results

I didn’t get a lot of testing done with this deck before I went to the Pokebarn to test the deck against Michigan’s finest, but my initial testing was very good. I thought it was worthwhile to head to the Poekbarn to test against the Team Warp Point guys to see if my version of the Mew Deck is Battle Roads worthy. I will not be giving names out or explaining rogue decks because I respect the privacy of the players at the barn. I don’t wanna give anything away because I know we have a lot of readers who live and play in Michigan.

Since when do we have “A lot of readers” anywhere?

Okay, so maybe be have 1 or 2 people who live and play in Michigan, I still don’t wanna spoil any secrets for BRs. If this report needs clarification please tell me so in the comment box and I will see what I can do.

Game 1– This game was against a Reshiphlosion player, and it was actually just a fun game played before the tournament started. The game started very well for me. I started first, and a turn 2 Sunflora led to a turn 2 Vileplume. Once I setup a Vileplume, all I needed to do was keep on “Sludge Draging” a benched Reshiram, and then snipe around it with Yanmega. This game was pretty much over from the beginning. 1-0.

Game 2– I don’t remember the first game of the actual tournament very well. I think it was against a Stage 1 Rush deck. Again I was able to get a turn 2 or 3 Vileplume and bring up a heavy retreater like Donphan. I then was able to snipe around it, and eventually knock it out for the game. 2-0

Game 3– This was a really cool game for me. Again a turn 2 Sunflora led to a turn 2 Vileplume. The minute I evolved my opponent decided to throw in the towel.

Which is of course the most useful object in the universe

Right you are. That brought me to 3-0. This just shows how terrifying an item lock can be.

Game 4– This was no doubt the match of the night. It was against a stage 1 Rush deck. He got an early Donphan, and I got a turn 3 Vileplume. I ran into an energy drought early, so I used Smoochum to move the energy to the bench a couple times. Then I sniped around with Yanmega Prime for 6 turns until he was able to kill 2 of them. I then got a 3rd Yanmega out before time was called. By that time we were tied on prizes with 2 left for each of us. I was able to take a prize on turn 1, and he scooped when he was unable to return the favor on turn 2. 4-0

Game 5– I don’t wanna talk too much about this game to protect some secrets. I will say that I got a terrible start, and he got a great one. He was able to knock out 3 Oddishes with 2 Pokemon Catchers and a Junk Arm. I was unable to do too much since my Jumpluff was prized, so the game was pretty lopsided. 4-1. After the game we decided to play a fun game, as time was called we each had taken 2 or 3 prizes. I really hope I can play this guy at a Battle Road.

Game 6-This game was for Top Cut. I honestly can’t remember what deck this was against, but I think it was against a Stage 1 Rush. I was unable to get a decent setup, I think I had a turn 3 or 4 Vileplume. He was able to put 2 energies on Donphan, so I was unable to Smoochum the energies off him.

You were unable to Smoochum him? Is that the kind of thing that usually goes on at the barn?

Oh yeah we are all a bunch of big Smoochum guys. Anyway, It can be hard to beat a stage 1 Rush if they get a lot of energies quickly and don’t put up anything to trap. So I ended up at 4-2 including the practice match. Even though this was an informal tournament, it was still a good testing session. I learned that the deck is pretty good and faster than I thought it would be. I also learned that some matchups can be very hard to win, a lot of luck goes into winning.

Just a little bit about matchups. It seems that against Reshiphlosion and Stage 1 Rush decks I should have a slight advantage. Although the match can turn the other way fairly quickly. I haven’t played this deck against a Beartic or Gothitelle deck, but I assume that they would be fairly favorable matchups. However, anything that can attack fast and is hard to trap, will be tough for this deck to play against.

Here are a few tips for playing against this deck. It can be fruitful to put in 1 Mew Prime and some Rainbow Energies. Then you can use the other player’s Muk to “Sludge Drag” up the Vileplume, in hopes of either stalling or knocking it out. This should be a pretty easy solution against this deck if the deck is played a lot in your meta game (though I don’t anticipate it to be). It is also very helpful to not put down anything that can be trapped. As long as each Pokemon can attack for 60 fairly easily, you should be okay.

Well that’s all we got for today. I hope you enjoyed the article, feel free to leave your comments and questions in the comment box. So uhhhhhh we’re all done here, Pedro, how do we usually end articles here.

We usually say goodnight to all of our regular writers like they do in the Waltons.

No, I don’t think we do.

No, we do.

Well alright. Good Night Ed. Good Night Joel. Good Night Misnos. Good Night PokemanDan. Good Night Renaecollects. Good Night Andrew. Good Night people who haven’t written in a long time. Good Night Writers that came for Guest Writers week who I hope will come back to write again.

Goodnight John Boy

Good one Pedro, I’m sure a lot of Pokemon players love the Waltons. Thats the way to hit the big 18-24 demographic. Bring up something popular with the kids, like the Waltons.

Goodnight Pedro

Deck Discussion

Mew/Muk/Jumpluff/Vileplume: The Mistakes I Made With My Nationals List

TheRadu August 9, 2011 17 Comments

At this year’s nationals, I had my best nationals finish. I made Top 64, but it was bittersweet. While I had done fairly well, I still made the same mistakes in deck building and deck choice which had led to my poor results in previous years. I played a build of a deck which was largely untested and that I was fairly unfamiliar with. While the list I played was by no means bad, it did suffer from being teched improperly. In addition, there were logical flaws with the trainer engine and how it synched with the rest of the deck.

This article has two main points. First, it will provide some insight into the Mew/Muk Jumpluff/Vileplume archetype. Second, it will showcase some of my thoughts about the deckbuiling process highlighting what I did wrong with this deck. Right now. I’m going to share the list I played and explain my reasoning behind my choices. Also, let me state that this list is not just my own. Emmanuel Divens is also a co-creator of this build and a lot of the ideas behind this list can be attributed to him.

25 Pokemon	23 Trainers/Supporters	12 Energy
4 Mew 3-3 Yanmega 3-1-2 Vileplume 2 Bouffalant 2 Muk 2 Jumpluff 1 Spinarak 1 Tyrouge 1 Cleffa	4 Judge 4 Collector 4 Copyct 3 Twins 1 PETM 4 Communication 3 Rare Candy	4 PSY 2 Grass 4 Rainbow 2 DCE

Card Discussion Deck Discussion

Post-Pokemon Catcher impressions and a Mew Prime/Yanmega Decklist

Pikkdogs July 25, 2011 7 Comments

A big hello to all you OHKOers out there, this is Pikkdogs here with another article for you guys. For the top 40 players in North America and the players in Southern California all eyes are on World Championships. All these people are thinking about is either countering the format or making a deck that will be consistent enough to grind into the main event. But, for the rest of us, we have our eyes on Battle Roads and the new season. And the new season means dealing with Pokemon Catcher.

Pokemon Catcher is a trainer card that lets you pick a Pokemon on your opponent’s bench and switch it with the active. The last time this card was released, as a card named Gust of Wind, it was the best card in the format. It ushered in an era of dominance for a very fast deck with all basic Pokemon. The question was will Pokemon Catcher have the same format changing effect as Gust of Wind did? To answer these questions I decided to test multiple decks in the PC (Post Catcher) format. The testing yielded some surprising results. To start this article off I will begin by running a “Mythbusters” type list about statements people made about Pokemon Catcher.

Mythbusters- Pokemon Catcher

1. Myth-Kenny Wisdom in his Sixprizes article said that some decks will be unplayable because they get destroyed by Pokemon Catcher. It would make sense that decks that rely on bench sitters would no longer be playable.

Verdict–Plausible. I have not tested a deck with a bench sitter like Reuniclus and Vileplume, but I would assume that it will be hard to setup 2 bench sitting stage 2s. But, if you need a bench sitter, it would be best to have either Gothitelle active or Vileplume on the bench.

2. Myth: On the SixPrizes forum, a user named Johnny Blaze wrote that all Stage 2 decks will be horrible because you can just catcher up the basic first.

Verdict– Busted. Stage 2 decks are still very playable. In fact one stage 2 Pokemon named Vileplume could become one of the most important cards in the format. Since everyone will be playing trainer heavy decks, the ability to take away the trainers will be amazing. Also, decks with 4 Pokemon Catcher don’t always get one when they need it, and they can’t always knock out a basic or stage 1 if they do find a Catcher. I think what is worse off than Stage 2’s are bench sitting stage 1’s like Weavile. If you don’t also have Vileplume in play, those quick stage 1’s become a problem because anytime the opponent draws a Catcher, they can then stall by bringing up a bench sitting stage 1. But when it comes to stage 2’s, it will be harder to get them out, but I would say they are still very viable.

3. Myth: Pokegym User Mew723 wrote that Emboar will be unplayable in the next format. If you think about it, catchering up a Tepig or Pignite would be hard to deal with.

Verdict– Busted. I have tested an Emboar deck, and while it is no longer quite as consistent as it once was. it is not unplayable. The same principle works in the PC era as it did in the BC (before catcher) era. You might have to alter the decklist a little, but for the most part you can still run a Reshiboar deck about as good as you could before.

4. Myth: This myth will address some of the comments made on my Pokemon Catcher article. The comments are: Cincinno will be big, Zekrom is good, babies won’t be as effective.

Verdict– Plausible. Cincinno is now a much more effective Pokemon than he was before. He can attack fast and is almost on par with Donphan and Yanmega in some respects. Zekrom was always good, he might be a little better now thanks to Yanmega being that good. Babies will not be as popular as they once were. Its just really easy to Catcher them up when you need, or to Catcher around them when they are asleep. But, a lot of decks will run at least 1 Cleffa to help as a hand refresher.

Pokemon Catcher does change the format, but you know what they say about change. The more things change the more they stay the same. While some decks will be gone because of Pokmeon Catcher, the format will still come down to Donphan, Yanmega, Reshiram, Zekrom and other Pokemon that are currently popular. Decks that run benched Pokemon can still win, players just need to change their decklist a little to adjust. From my testing, it looks like all of those who say that Pokemon Catcher will ruin the format will be wrong. So thats all for the Mythbusters episode, lets go to the list I promised you.

Mew/Yanmega: The Other Prime Time.

I gotta give the credit for this deck idea to Radu C. from Minnesota. I heard Radu was running this crazy good deck during Nats. It had Mew Prime, Yanmega Prime, Spinorak, Muk, and Jumpluff. The deck was like a tool box, it could lock, snipe, stall, or do lots of damage; it was a really cool deck. After I had my rest after Nationals, I came home and made my own version of the deck. It was not a polished list that was even near where Radu’s actual deck was, it was just a rough version of the deck. My deck did okay, but nothing special.

Then I updated the deck to deal with Pokemon Catcher. I took out Muk, because Pokemon Catcher does what he does, and I added Pidgeot instead. Pidgeot is great for stalling against Pokemon like Reshiram, Zekrom, and Donphan. Its “Headwind” attack adds an extra CC to each attack cost on the defending Pokemon. If you first were able to Catcher up the Typhlosion or Emboar, Reshiram will be stuck active for a long time.

Goal of the Deck

The goal of this deck is to attack with Jumpluff’s attack or Yanmega while setting up a Trainerlock. What you want to do first is to get Mew Prime active with a Psychic energy attached, and have him put Jumpluff and Pidgeot in the Lost Zone. While doing this, get Oddish on the bench and try to evolve him to Vileplume. If they catcher up an Oddish, wait until you have stalled with “Headwind” and then try a second time to get Vileplume up. If they are able to catcher up 2 Oddishes, don’t worry. This deck works better with Vileplume but it does not need it. Sometimes getting the opponent to look at Oddish when your setting up Yanmega and Mew will be worth the loss of Trainerlock. You should also try to get Yanmega going. Once Yanmega is evolved and you have 2 Pokemon in the Lost Zone, you just need to judge what attack is best to use.

Good Things About the Deck:

It is so versatile that it can work against almost any deck, so far it has been the deck that has worked the best in my testing.
It is disruptive. The ability to lock trainers is HUGE since almost all decks will be trainer based. Judges also work well in this deck.

Bad things about the deck:

If you don’t get an early Mew Prime you will be behind the Eight Ball all game.
This deck does not feature Stantler, which means it can be hard to setup Vileplume. The deck is not as good without Vileplume, but it is possible to get it evolved later in the game after a Judge.

The List.

Okay here is the list. This is still a very early list, so don’t beat me up on this list. I don’t think its polished at all, I am only posting it so that you can copy it and start testing.

Pokemon-17

2-Oddish
1-Gloom
2-Vileplume
4-Mew Prime-Your starter and main attacker, can use Pidgeot or Jumpluffs attack.
2-Pidgeot CL or TM
2-Jumpluff HGSS- Has the attack that you will use the most.
2-Yanma
2-Yanmega Prime-Great for Sniping and a backup attacker incase you can’t get Pokemon in the Lost Zone.
Mew as seen by Ava

Trainers-30

2-Professor Juniper-The best Supporter in the format.
3-Copy Cat-A supporter that works with Yanmega
4-Judge- Disruption and working with Yanmega
3-Professor Elms Training Method- If you trainerlock yourself, here is how you get Yanmega, or this is how you get a Vileplume setup.
4-Collector
1-Flower Shop Lady
1-Seeker- Can Seeker up Vileplume, use trainers, then Rare Candy on a 2nd Oddish to get the lock setup again.
3-Rare Candy
3-Communication
3-Pokemon Catcher
1-Dual Ball
2-Junk Arm

Energy-13

4-Rainbow
4-Psychic- needed for an early “See Off”
3-DCE-For Pidgeot’s attack and works well if your run Bouffallant
2-Grass

I admit this is a weird list, but its just something to test around and fix yourself. It is weird to have so many trainers in a trainerlock deck, but this is the one trainerlock deck that is not really reliant on the trainerlock deck. It doesn’t matter if your opponent either uses his/her resources to knock out an Oddish or 2 while you setup with Mew, or they get trainer locked; either way you have an advantage. Whether you lock them up, or you lure them into a false sense of security, it does not matter. This deck can work with or without trainerlock.

Techs

Here are some possible cards to fit into your list.

A hand refresher: Something like Cleffa or Manaphy, either one helps consistency.
Boufallant: If you are thinking people will still play RDL, then you will need Boufallant. Though, Pidgeot’s attack will pretty much stop RDL from attacking anytime soon.
1-1 Yanmega: I originally built this deck with 3-3 Yanmega and I felt it a little overkill. If you like Yanmega and know how to use it well, 3-3 might be the better play.
1 Oddish– If you want a better chance to evolve into Vileplume early, here is a better shot.
1 Spinorak– The list originally had a Spinorak in it. The idea is to trap a starter, with it’s “Spider Web” attack, until the end of the game when you can retreat for Yanmega and kill that starter. I’m just not that good at that strategy.
2-2 Cincinno: This deck si great for Yanmega, but if just cannot afford Yanmega’s, Cincinno may be able to appropriately replace Yanmega.

So that’s all I gotta say about this deck. Expect more PC decklists coming soon. Feel free to tell us all what you think about this decklist by leaving your thoughts in the comment box.

So long and thanks for all the fish!

Deck Discussion

Lost World Deck HGSS-On- Mew Prime, Mime Jr. and Gengar Prime.

Pikkdogs May 18, 2011 8 Comments

As you can see I got really creative with the name of this deck.

Hello all you OHKOers out there. This is Pikkdogs here with a deck idea for the HGSS-on format. I spent most of last weekend working on some HGSS-on decks. I tried a lot of good decks, one deck that was unexpectedly good was my lost world deck.

Before we talk about the deck, we have to mention that Battle Roads start this weekend! This is the time where you can go and prove that the Md-BW format is pretty terrible. Although most people are not excited about the format, it could be just the time for you to go and steal a Victory Medal. So go and have fun with your Pokemon friends, and hopefully you can pull down a medal.

How the Deck Works

Anyway, lets go back to the deck. Like all Lost World decks, this decks only purpose is to get 6 of your opponent’s Pokemon in the Lost Zone. Unlike the popular Lostgar deck, this deck has no way to grab 6 prizes if needed, but thats not really something you need to do.

The main way you will get Pokemon in the Lost Zone is by using Gengar Prime’s “Hurl Into Darkness” attack. But you will never have an active Gengar Prime, instead, you will throw Gengar Prime into your Lost Zone and then make Mew Prime use “Hurl”. Mew Prime can use any attack of any Pokemon in the Lost Zone thanks to his “Lost Link” Poke-Body”. You put Gengar in the Lost Zone either with Mew Prime or with Relincanth Cl. You will also put your opponent’s Pokemon in the Lost Zone with Mime Jr. Cl.

Mime Jr. is a very useful card in this deck. His attack “Sleepy Lost” sends the top card of your opponent’s deck into the Lost Zone. To make sure you will send a Pokemon to the Lost Zone with this attack, this deck uses Slowking Cl to arrange your opponent’s deck. His Poke-Power “Second Sight” lets you arrange the top 3 card of either of the decks. This power can be used to either help you setup, try to give your opponent a bad draw, or to setup “Sleepy Lost.” When I first made this deck, I thought I would only use Slowking to help with “Sleepy Lost.” But, I soon found out that if you can get Slowking setup before your opponent sets up, you can delay their setup for a long time.

How Do You Setup?

This deck has an abundant amount of good starting Pokemon. This deck runs 4 Mew Prime, 2 Relincanth Cl, and 2 Slowpoke (Rambunctious Party). Either would be decent to start with. Ideally you would want to start with Mew Prime or Relincanth and Gengar Prime in your hand, and you would be able to get Gengar Prime in the Lost Zone on the first turn. If not you should be able to setup with Slowpoke or draw cards with Relincanth.

After you have tried to get Gengar Prime in the Lost Zone, your next job is to setup a Slowking. Hopefully you started with a Pokemon Collector or some Dual Balls. After you use these cards you should have at least 1 Slowpoke, Mew Prime, and Mime Jr. Eventually try to get multiple copies of each card in your hand, and a Mr. Mime. Next, use a Pokemon Communication to snag a Slowking.

Once you got your Slowking, you need to decide which attacker is the best to use. First use Mr. Mime’s “Trick Reveal” to see if the opponent has any Pokemon in their hand. Next use “Second Sight” to see what is at the top of their deck. If you can take 2 Pokemon with Mew, than do it. But if you can only take 1 and you have Pokemon both at the top of the deck and in the hand, then you can choose which one you will want to put in the Lost Zone. Ideally you would want to put the most important one in the Lost Zone, but most of the time any Pokemon will do.

Now that you got your first Pokemon in there just keep on using “Second Sight” and “Sleepy Lost”, as well as Seeker with “Hurl Into Darkness”. You should know within the first few turns if you can win the game. If you can put 2 in the Lost Zone before they can take a prize, you should have an easy win. If they setup as fast as you did, your probably not going to win. This is why an early Slowking is important. If you can use Slowking to slow down the opponent for even a turn than you have a better chance at winning.

Matchups

Of course a deck is only as good as its matchups, so lets see if this format will be kind to this deck.

Reshiboar–70/30 Reshiboar is probably the best deck in the format, but it has a hard time attacking if you can limit the amount of energy it receives. Because Reshiram requires a discard, if you can use “Second Sight” to keep the Fishermen and energy out of their hands, you should be faster than them. Good players will probably try to attack with Emboar, to get around the discard, but a lot of people will not know to do that.
Stage 1 decks (Cincinno, Donphan Prime etc….)- 50/50– It all depends on if you setup first. This is a fast deck, so it is a 50/50 chance that you will setup first. If you can get that early Slowking, you should be good.
Zekrom- 40/60-I haven’t tested this matchup, but this should be a tough matchup for this deck. Since Zekrom is really fast it has a decent chance of out speeding the Lost World Deck.
Stage 2 Decks– 60/40– Even though this category is very broad, Stage 2 decks take at least 3 turns to setup. Hopefully, you should be lost zoning by turn 2. So if you see an Oshawott and a Totodile on the first turn, take a big sigh of relief.

The List

This is just my list of the deck. I only made it a couple days ago, so it is far from perfect. So feel free to experiment with it and make it better.

Pokemon-17

3- Mime Jr.
1- Mr. Mime cl
4- Mew Prime
2- Slowpoke(Rambunctious Party)
2- Slowking CL
2- Gengar Prime
2- Relincanth Cl
1- Spiritiomb Tm- For forcing my opponent to refresh his/her hand.

Trainers- 32

4- Seeker- A sure-fire way to get a Pokemon with “Hurl into Darkness”
4- Professor Juniper- the best hand refresh for a deck that doesn’t evolve a lot
4- Twins- You will never take a prize, so you will be able to use Twins a lot
4- Pokemon Collector- You have so many basics that you can’t afford not to run this card.
2- PONT
1- Flowershop Lady- This card has quietly become a staple in any deck.
3- Revive- an easy way to get Mime Jr. and Mew back without wasting your supporter for the turn. Helpful mid to late game.
3- Dual Ball- a way to get basics without using a supporter
4- Communication- you need this to get an early Slowking
3- Lost World- You can run 2, some might run 4.

Energy-11

Psychic-11-You might wanna add another energy or two, because you could burn some on Relincanth or Slowpoke. But, I only run 11 because Twins makes it easy to get energy when you need it.

Closing Remarks

Well there is the list. Its not the best list but it is a good place to start if you wanna test this deck. You could possibly take away some Dual Balls and a revive or two for another Slowking line or some Lost Removers.

When I tested this deck I realized that it can really work, but I still can’t help but think that this deck is just a turn too slow to work. It will depend on the Metagame, but I think this could be a good deck.

So long and thanks for all the fish!

Mew Prime

Pedro’s Corner: A Review of the Lost Zone

Pikkdogs Pikks Three: Battle Road Edition: Mew Prime, Lost Remover, and Tornadus

Techs That You Will See at Fall Battle Roads 2011

Mew Lock Deck Update and Testing Results

Mew/Muk/Jumpluff/Vileplume: The Mistakes I Made With My Nationals List

Post-Pokemon Catcher impressions and a Mew Prime/Yanmega Decklist

Lost World Deck HGSS-On- Mew Prime, Mime Jr. and Gengar Prime.

You Missed

New Handheld Retro Video Game System For You Pokemon Fans

iOS/Android Collectible Card Game, Trouble With Robots

New Card Game – Trouble With Robots – iOS/Android

OHKO Budget Challenge: Round Two (Fight!)