Well, I don’t really think I was ever a “hero” but it sounded good in the title. Maybe a better title would have been “Riches to Rags,” but it’s already up there. My previous installment saw me winning the Minnesota state tourney, so that’s what I’m talking about with “Hero” or “Riches.” The “Zero” and “Rags” will be discussed below.
Hello everyone in Omar-Nation, this is Joel here with a fun deck idea to try out. I was originally going to write an article on Charizard, but with my new hectic work schedule, and a crazy idea on a Dusknoir deck, I decided to write about Dusknoir instead. I also would have had this article up sooner but as I said, my work schedule is hectic, and I don’t have as much free time as I used to have, now on with the deck!
I have always liked Dusknoir LV.X, and the Dusknoir from Stormfront. Dusknoir can allow you to draw 2 cards, and put 2 damage counters on it, however you have 7 or more cards in your hand; you have to discard cards until you have 6. Putting damage counters and discarding cards may seem like a pretty bad drawback, but Damage Even makes up for it. For a Psychic and a Colorless, you count the number of Damage counters on Dusknoir, and put that many damage counters on any one of your opponent’s Pokémon. And did I mention Dusknoir LV.X? With poke-power Ectoplasm, the level X card becomes a stadium that puts one damage counter on all of your opponent’s Pokémon between turns! Pretty sweet, isn’t it?
I got the idea to make a Dusknoir deck after seeing my friend Matt from Florida run one in a battle road. I also needed a fun deck to take to league since not everyone there can hold their own against Luxchomp. So I threw together a list with some interesting techs, took my deck to league and did pretty well with it. I tested the deck against my league’s more competitive players. I had a good matchup against my friend Austin with his Machamp/Mightyena build, and my friend Will had a hard time against the deck, and he was running Gyarados. I’ll share my list below and give you an idea on how I play it.
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This week, I’m analyzing a popular deck from the recent Battle Roads. Vileplume/Gengar locks trainers for the whole game and I’m analyzing what you need to do to play it. Read More
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: 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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I brought my/Ava’s Shuppet Donk deck to test with Team Omar last night. I know that some people just hate the idea of Spiritomb AR in a Shuppet deck, but I wanted to see if it could help against SP. I think I played 4 matches, and 3 of them were against different SP decks. If I recall correctly, I only won 1 game. Even that one was questionable, because (for testing purposes) we replayed an early risk I took that would have resulted in a loss for me.
The funny thing is that I found all my matchups to be fairly positive. I feel like Shuppet should get completely owned by SP, but with the right Spiritomb start, I can stall the opponent enough to get a few early KOs. If one of them happens to be a Dialga G, it might just win me the game. As it was, I only did well against the fighting-heavy SP mainly due to weakness. I did pretty well against Abdi’s SP deck, too, until he realized exactly how my deck worked. Then Dialga shut me down. I had a really close and odd match with Omar (who reminded me multiple times that he didn’t run Dialga G). I think I may have won it, too, if it wasn’t for a misplay Scooping Up the wrong pokemon. It helped a lot that he started with Azelf active, so he could never Time Walk.
Here’s my decklist. I really like playing the deck, but I just think it’s no fun to play against. That makes it almost worthless for league play. It’s a neat tourney deck, because many people aren’t prepared for it and are in awe when it starts rolling. It can win against anyone with the ability to double-donk on the first trainer turn, but it completely falls apart when facing Dialga’s deafen.
The inclusion of Spiritomb is a nifty trick, but I feel like I have to run 4 Roseanne’s (and Unown Q) to support the single Spiritomb. If you start with Spiritomb active, you have to Roseanne’s for an Unown Q (and probably Shuppet/Uxie) to start things rolling. You can’t afford to run a single Unown Q, because it might get prized (and it’s also useful for Mr. Mime). Ultimately this means that the single Spiritomb adds about 6 cards to trainer lock the opponent. When it works, it’s effective. When you start with Unown Q active (or even on the bench to prevent the donk), it can really hurt. I don’t know. The base deck is designed for blazing offense, and Spiritomb (and Mr. Mime to an extend) is quite a defensive move. I have yet to decide if the deck should be pure offense or if it should attempt these defensive measures.
Spiritomb Shuppet
1 Shuppet
2 Crobat G
4 Uxie
4 Unown R
1 Mr. Mime MT
2 Unown Q
1 Unown G
1 Spiritomb AR
4 Poke Turn
4 Super Scoop Up
4 Poke Blower+
4 Poke Drawer+
4 Pokedex
4 Plus Power
4 Quick Ball
3 Dusk Ball
1 Luxury Ball
2 Night Maintenance
2 Expert Belt
1 Pokemon Rescue
4 Roseanne's Research
3 Psy Energy
I’d like to use the new Spiritomb AoA to annoy opponents for fun and profit, but I really don’t want to play that Glistomb lock. It just seems mean. Omar recently supplied me with a Porygon deck, and I was wondering how Spiritomb might work with Porygon.
Porygon2 GE allows you to “play” an extra supporter each turn. While running such a deck, you’d use lots of supporters available to abuse this power. Of course, Spiritomb can rain on your own parade, because you’d also run trainers (like lots of TMs and VS Seekers). What I’m curious about, though, is if Spiritomb can stall the opponent enough so that, when you are ready to attack, the opponent isn’t sufficiently prepared.
To do this, you’d want to start with Spiritomb. This stops the opponent from playing trainers. It also stops you, but you can stick to supporters until you’re ready to retreat the Tomb. Having Tomb active really isn’t bad either, because his free Darkness Grace attack helps you evolve your benched Porygons. Ultimately, you’d want to play an early Roseanne’s to get a benched Porygon (and Baltoy, Unown Q/G, Energy, a second Porygon, Uxie, etc.) and then Darkness Grace in a Porygon2/Claydol. When you’re ready to rock, get yourself an Unown Q (or an energy) to allow you to easily retreat the Tomb, play all your trainers/TMs, and attack for big damage.
I’m also curious if Staraptor FB LvX would help this strategy by potentially getting extra supporters. The big drawback here is that it’d have to be active to level up. Porygon-Z’s free Learning attack can level it up on the bench, but once you have an active Porygon-Z, I think you’d want to be using the Overload attack instead. It is worth mentioning that Staraptor has a free retreat, so it’s not horrible if you can Warp Point him up, LvX him, and retreat him (or something like that).
All this being said, though, I’m still not convinced that this Porygon/Spiritomb combo can be really any better than Porygon without Tomb. I mean, you can always stall for a turn or two with Mr. Mime, but that doesn’t hinder the opponent from setting up. The question here is whether or not Spiritomb would sufficiently hinder your opponent while allowing you to set up, and (if it does) whether it makes the deck better, worse, or just different.
Ed 
Joel 
PokemanDan 
Michael