One Hit KO

Carly Rae and Iz: Musicians I'd like to get wet with. Well okay, maybe one more than the other.

By now we’ve all attended pre-releases for Dark Explorers, the second set in the Black-and-White series to contain EX cards. I hope you all pulled what you hoped for! I can’t say that I was praying for two copies of Glaceon, or to have to run 5 Chanseys in my 40-card deck, or to not pull any Pokémon EX across two pre-releases, but I guess that’s what happens sometimes. (Fortunately for me, my son Paul did a little better.) The release of those Pokémon EX in the Next Destinies set definitely changed the metagame, and I have no doubt that the EX’s in Dark Explorers will change it again. I don’t know if you OHKO’ers have noticed, but these shiny new EX’s are freakin’ BIG. No, I don’t mean virally-famous, Carly-Rae-Jepsen-style big. I mean BIG. More like Iz Kamakawiwo’ole big. Sporting 170 or 180 HP—except for Shaymin EX—it almost seems like the new EX Pokémon would be impossible to knock out in one hit. Okay, many of the EX’s have weakness to commonly used types in the current format, like Tornadus EX’s weakness to Lightning, or Mewtwo EX’s weakness to…well, Mewtwo. Play these Pokémon, and you really do have to watch out for your opponent’s one-hit KO. But a few of the EX’s are weak to uncommon types, and you would expect that these big boys could hold their own in the active spot for quite a while, taking hit after hit without being knocked out. Putting one of these Pokémon EX active is sort of like driving a tank—not very nimble, but definitely powerful.

So, in PokéSpeak, “tanking” has come to mean focusing a deck’s strategy around one or two Pokémon with extremely high HP, and working hard to make sure that those Pokémon can stay in the active position, dealing damage, without getting knocked out by an opponent’s attacks. Tank decks are almost as old as the game itself (I’m told), but the most recent example of a successful tank was probably Ross Cawthon’s “Truth”, which Ross piloted to 2nd place at Worlds 2011. That deck used Donphan Prime HS
Continue reading "TAndrewTesting: EX Tanking with QuadGroudon, and Her Cheaper, Easier Sister"

Hey Everyone.  This is Pikkdogs here to talk about Tanks in the Pokemon TCG.  In military terms, a tank refers to a heavily armored, slow moving, and hard hitting vehicle.  In reference to the Pokemon TCG, a tank is a Pokemon card that has high HP, is usually slow to setup, and can deal a lot of damage.  This article is all about tanking Pokemon. 

Tanking Pokemon are pretty cool.  They can absorb a lot of damage and deal it right back to your opponent.  The problem is the fact that they are fairly slow and hard to evolve.

So what are some of the strategies that you can use with tanks?  Well, each tanking card is different, but for the most part you would want to get the tank out as fast as possible and then heal the tank.  Healing can be done with cards like Pokehealer +, MooMoo Milk, and Blissey Pt.

Currently in the game there are a lot of Pokemon who can be considered tanks.  Here is a profile of some of the more interesting ones.

Tank #1- Dialga G Lv. X

Description– Dialga G Lv. X is possibly the smallest yet most played tank.  …