One Hit KO

Hey OneHitKO people, it’s been more than a month since this site had an article, so I figure I should get something out before Regionals. I’m sorry for not getting something out sooner, it completely slipped my mind. This article is mostly about what decks you should consider based on playstyle and what types of decks you have the most experience

playing.

First of all, I want to start by saying that these are pretty much just things to try out, they are by no means official guidelines for you. I’m just throwing ideas out for you if you’re completely unsure of what to play, like I am.

I also want to do a little Cities recap and mention what I think the Tier system looks like right now. These are just my opinions, so you shouldn’t base any big decisions off these, I just wanted to give a bit of a guideline for you so that you have a guideline for your own opinions.

The BDIF

Blastoise/Keldeo. I think it’s pretty self-explanatory, actually, Blastoise is a deck that has both a good early game and a good late-game. Blastoise has the ability to go off on Turn Two …

Continue reading "What Should You Play For Regionals – A Metagame Analysis Article"

Hey OHKO people, it’s me, coolestman22 again. I wanted to get something out before Regionals, so I thought I’d do something like the Battle Roads preview I did back in May or something like that. I think what I’ll do is review the dominant decks from Autumn Battle Roads and then give you guys lists or something like that, so, without further ado, let’s get started.

Before I review any decks, I’ll post some results of Battle Roads. The results of the Battle Roads that The Top Cut has followed are the following (To save time I’m only doing the decks I’m covering):

Eels: 25 wins, 21 2nd, 45 3rd-4th.

Hydreigon: 24 wins, 26 2nd, 34 3rd-4th.

Ho-oh: 7 wins, 6 2nd, 4 3rd-4th.

Hydreigon

In my opinion, Hydreigon has proven itself to be the BDIF of this format. Why I never got the deck to work is beyond me, Darkrai must just not like me. Even though the numbers show Eels as the top deck, Eels also has two different variants, and Hydreigon has only one.

The basic strategy of the deck is to use Darkrai EX to attack and use Hydreigon DRX 97 to move energy from one …

Continue reading "Regionals Preview"

Before my Spring Regionals report, a confession: I wasn’t originally planning to go to Regionals. One of the things I like most about Pokémon TCG is its unpredictability—that with so many cards in format, you never know what combinations you’ll see in a tournament. I really enjoyed the City Championships (HS-NVI) format, where there were a lot of viable decks, and the metagame continued to evolve over the course of the winter. I think that some competitive players felt exactly the opposite about that time—that a Cities format with so many decks became a game of rock-paper-scissors-lizard-Spock, where it was difficult or impossible to practice a strategy that would win the most games. But the metagame had narrowed a lot by the State Championship series, partly because of the release of Mewtwo EX, and partly because of the steadily increasing advantage that Basic Pokémon now have. Going into Regionals, it seemed like almost everyone was either playing Zekrom/Mewtwo/Eels or Celebi/Mewtwo/Tornadus. And I didn’t like that one bit. So I didn’t play in any of the States events (though I did serve as a judge at MN States). And I resolved to stay in the Twin Cities last weekend, and …

Continue reading "TAndrewTourney: Midwest Regionals 2012 in Madison, WI"

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.

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"

Hey guys. This will be a quick post. Check out this YouTube video. It’s an interview I did with Steven Reich of the Poke Press this last weekend right after I got eliminated from the regional tournament. Steven seems like an interesting fellow. I guess he’s been covering Pokemon events for around 10 years, and he runs a league, too. If you want to see more of his videos, check out the Poke Press YouTube channel.

In addition, I am finally posting the pictures that I took at the tournament. They are nothing special, but I figured that I ought to include them somewhere. Those are just after the video.

Continue reading "Interview and Pictures From WI Regional"

Following my good showing at the Michigan State Championship (we won’t mention my meltdown in top-cut), I knew for sure that I would be taking the same deck to Regionals. The problem I had was I wanted to do a little tweaking but wasn’t able to do any play testing at my local league. Fortunately I have a group of friends at work that like to play during our lunch. I built Pikkdog’s Flyperior deck and a typical CurseGar to play against. I figured out a nice tactic against the Flyperior deck, but wasn’t realy consistant in winning. Testing against CurseGar was really tough on me (I don’t think I won a single game) and it taught me a lot about how that deck works.

Based on my testing, I decided on the following tweaks to my deck:

-2 great ball
-1 pokedex
+1 Copycat
+1 Unown G
+1 Cyclone energy

I didn’t get to test these tweaks, but I printed my deck list, packed my bags, and hoped for the best in the morning. We live in Michigan and the event was held in Indiana, this meant we were in for a drive that Google Maps says is 2 hours long. This of course didn’t count the construction underway on our route, so make it 2 hours and 30 minutes.

We arrive, get registered and wait for the day to get underway. Age division rosters get posted and masters has 146 players, 8 rounds of swiss parings with a top cut of 32. I planned on taking notes throughout the day and did pretty well, but as the day wore on I got more and more disctracted so the details of my later matches aren’t as strong as my earlier ones. Here’s how my day played out:

Continue reading "Pokemon Regional Championship, Angola, Indiana"

“Austino’s Gyarados” No, it’s not a new gym leader’s Pokemon, but maybe it should be. After all, Austino rode Gyarados to 3 top cuts in States/Regionals ultimately grabbing second place in the CO regionals earning him a 2 round bye at nationals and a $1000 scholarship. All it got me was 5th (after Swiss) in MN states and 17th in the WI regionals.

Let’s take a look at the deck that helped Austino and I get all those match wins, but first I should provide a little background on why I am posting about Austino’s deck in the first place. Leading up to states, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to play. For a while, I had been thinking SP, but whenever I played it, it just didn’t feel right to me. I’m not saying that I didn’t have fun playing it or that I couldn’t play it well. It’s just not my style, I think. I could have worked it out, but I wanted something that felt more natural to me. I researched a lot, and I came to the conclusion that Gyarados would be a good fit for me. I started building the deck, but I got stuck on what techs to run in it. Lots of people were running Luxray. I tried that. Omar built a version with Blissey, but I wasn’t sold on it. I was really worried about the SP matchup and a bit worried about things like Mime and Spiritomb. I tried tossing in things like Combee, Promocroak, Relicanth, etc. I still wasn’t getting the feel that I was searching for.

Continue reading "Austino’s Gyarados Decklist"

Going in to regionals, I felt a bit ill prepared. I had wanted to run Jumpluff, because playing it pleases me. I didn’t get much play with the deck, and when I tested it with Omar about a week and a half before regionals, he handed me like 5 consecutive losses. After that, I felt much more comfortable with the Gyarados I played in MN states. I decided to use the same deck, which put me at ease.

Most Gyarados builds would have a pretty similar core. Some people tech in Blissey, Luxray, and maybe even Donphan. I didn’t. Enough about my deck, though. If you want to read about that, see this article about Austino’s Gyarados. Let’s get to the regionals action.

Continue reading "Riding the Bubble in Wisconsin Dells"

Tomorrow, we’re heading out to Wisconsin Dells, WI. We will head to the hotel, and wake up Saturday morning ready for the Midwest Regional Championship Tourney. My daughter, Ava, and my wife will be making the trip with me. All three of us plan to participate in the tournament.

Our front-man, Omar, has some real-life event to attend to, and Abdi is staying back to support him. Lesser known/mentioned teammates Meghan and Charlie will also be staying in MN. I think means that we will be the only “Team Omar” representatives there, but there’s a chance that Tre and Louis might try to catch a ride, too. I don’t know if they’ll be able to make it with us, and I’m not sure where they’ll sleep. If you’re heading from Minneapolis to the Dells and have some room, leave a comment. I know it’s late, but it might work out.

Ava will be the cute 6-year-old girl. I’m assuming that nobody here really cares much about Juniors, though. My wife would probably rather be left anonymous.

As for me, I will try to wear something that says “Team Omar” or “www.TeamOmar.com” on it. I wanted to have some shirts …

Continue reading "Pokemon Midwest Regional Championship Wisconsin Dells"